Board of Education, Academic Workshop and Budget Presentations

1. 0:02order and ask everybody please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Uh Leslie, roll call, please. Uh Mark De Pace. Here. I don't have my list in front of me, sorry. Amanda Groebler. Here. Uh Kirsten Gustafson. Here. Diana Howard. >> Here. Matt Mackler. Here. Maureen Sheridan. Here. And Mike Sibella. Did I get everybody? Okay, we have um We got uh audio in the mics. Try to speak loudly, but Hello. Testing.
2. 1:09Maiden voyage. I got you. Hello. We'll speak loudly. Okay. Yeah, this is an intimate group. Um okay, so uh for accepted agenda, we're here to um for a special meeting academic workshop talk about uh um talk about academic performance in our buildings and in our district. But before we do that, we will have um a few budget presentations, which are also equally important. Um but we'll try to move through those, get to uh the meat of the uh meeting as quickly as we can. Um so make a motion to accept the agenda as presented. Second. All in favor? That brings us to our budget workshop. Okay. In the continuation
3. 2:29of the budget season, we wanted to move forward and share with you the aspects of food service, transportation, and athletics this evening, and a quick review of our reserves and where we think we are in our expenditures so far this year. And you actually you may put some faces to names tonight of folks that you've heard of that maybe not have seen in front of the camera or at meetings in this way before, but welcome Lisa, Bill, Shawn, and Justin tonight. So, we're going to begin with Lisa. If you'd like to come up and join us and walk us through your slides. Hi. Hi. I think I know everyone, but maybe don't know me. I'm Lisa McGovern and um I run the food service for the district. I work for BOCES shared food service division at out of Capital Region BOCES, and this is my third year
4. 3:31at Hudson. Um our school lunch finance, our C fund runs separate and apart from the general fund, so it is a self-sustaining entity. We spend what we make. And uh we are administered through the NYSED. I get audited through nice said every 3 years which I'm up for an audit next year actually. And our I don't know if you know this but the fund balance is capped at 6 months. So if we go over the fund balance allowance then we need to spend that in upgrading the food service facilities or food. This is right now our meals served per month breakfast and lunch district wide. So you can see we serve
5. 4:35probably about um I mean over 10,000 meals a month for lunch. Right this year's focus has been the farm to school. We're trying to increase our scratch cooking, use as much local produce, locally produced items as possible so that we can try to qualify for the New York State 30% initiative which would give us back an additional reimbursement for every lunch that we serve this year and that would be paid out next year in next year's finance. So right now we've been serving some I don't want to take too much of your time cuz I'm sure everybody's hungry and nobody wants to look at pictures of food but local carrots, local purple potatoes from home farm and some local cucumbers and tomatoes and red onions and that sort of thing. I've been buying also fish from Hudson Fisheries right here in Hudson, New York. Some local Napa cabbage, purple Napa
6. 5:38cabbage and that's the Hudson farm steelhead trout. Kids never saw steelhead trout before they saw it in the they all thought it was salmon. It's really beautiful. They do a great job over there if you ever have an opportunity to visit. But we've been trying to I've been trying to reach out to a lot more local farms like very local so I can try and keep as much money within your district as possible to help the community itself and also help the kids eat better food. Fresher food is always better and better for you and hopefully it can help them raise their grades and focus and feel better and all of that. This is an example of one of our local foods that we've been doing this year which we created. It is using a 100% New York State items. It's the One Mighty Mill pizza crust which is
7. 6:40made with stone ground whole wheat flour which is grown I didn't know this but New York State grows a ton of wheat. So interesting fun fact and um also the Casa Visca kids pizza sauce which has no sugar. It has carrots instead of sugar. And then we use the Polly-O mozzarella cheese melt made under the Bella Goscio line and that has no emulsifiers, no colors, no preservatives. Just all good clean ingredients. So kids not loving the pizza this year. But I'm hoping that they'll get a little more used to it because they were used to the ones that they were getting that had a lot of sugar, artificial ingredients, colors and emulsifiers in it. So I'm hoping that they'll get used to it but we are going to you know maybe change some things up try to offer a a other alternatives on that pizza day that they
8. 7:43might like better. And um my staffing right now, I have myself as the food service director. I'm paid through um paid through Capital Region BOCES. I have two head cooks. I have two cooks and 14 food service staff, two of which are actually BOCES um Capital Region BOCES employees. And um we're try as we try to increase this scratch cooking program, I feel it's been more engaging for the employees. They're learning more culinary skills. They're getting more experience in that world, and I feel like it's making them own their own their little spot in the world a little more, be more proud of what they're serving the kids, see the you know, see the fresh ingredients, see the kids' faces when they come through and say, "Never I never saw a purple potato before." And you know, it's exciting. So, I feel like that's helping us retain our employees, engage our employees,
9. 8:45have people be more involved in the process, feel more creative, and hopefully stay longer, be happier, come to work happy, have smiles on their faces, all of that good stuff. So, we have some upcoming plans to collaborate with the agriculture classes. Right now, um they're growing some dill and some lettuce and some Swiss chard and some rainbow chard for us that we've been serving in the classroom. And I would like to um do more with the community, local farms, and um just be more involved with that classroom and community connection. So, that's just like a little bit more about what what our upcoming plans are. We're trying to do some um some more with the garden. We're going to have the greenhouse, hopefully soon, and grow more food. Hopefully, the kids can get that connection of where their food comes
10. 9:47from, seeing it go from seed to plate. We're also doing an expansion of our walk-in cooler and freezer at MC Smith. Hoping to begin that at the end of the school year, and that will give us more room to store more amazing fruits and veggies. Any questions? Any concerns? I have a couple. Yes. Uh, I was looking at your charts here. It seems like the 25 26 numbers are down. Yes. A little bit. Is there any reason you might know why? Yes. Is it because you're not putting a good sauce on the pizza or Actually, that's part of it, for sure. Like, it is a process getting the kids used to not having as much sugar. There is laws going into effect, um, a new regulation going into effect next year, but we've really kind of been slow rolling it out, where we're reducing sugar. So, it's going to be 25 g of sugar per day is the limit for added sugar. So, we're reducing sugar in breakfast. Um, we're
11. 10:50not serving as much processed food, packaged foods. So, it is it's going to be a little bit of a process getting the kids to participate more. And as I was walking around the cafeteria looking at what the kids were bringing from home today at from, um, MC Smith, cuz I'm just kind of like, "Oh, why are they not taking lunch, right?" So, I'm walking around. I'm looking at what the kids are bringing from home. Giant bags of Cheetos and cookies and snacks. And I would love to just put an appeal out to the parents. Like, please, give your kids the snacks. Give your kid to, uh, cookies or whatever, but ask them to grab a sandwich in the line and we can accommodate whatever needs that they may have and feel free to email me, call me, whatever. And do you ever break your numbers down per school or is it just Yeah, um a lot of the loss is um at MC Smith. Um their their
12. 11:53um enrollment is down a little bit this year over last year. And then I'm having challenges as well at the high school. We had a lot of staffing challenges at the beginning of the year. We're not able to monitor the lunch um serving area as much as we were in the past. So kids were coming in and kind of like taking a slice of pizza and walking back out the door and not putting their number in, so it wasn't registering as a meal served. So I'm really um working on that right now, but I am just one person, unfortunately, so I can only stand at one of the doors and we have two of them, so you know, I'm I'm like kind of appealing to some for some help a little bit. And the last question I had for you. Um do you ever work with BOCES with our students that are going over there for food services to try to entice them to come back to work for the district? >> Yes, we actually have a BOCES graduate that works for us at MC Smith. Her and
13. 12:58she is amazing. And um I can't say enough about the BOCES program. They're really great. We do an internship program at um MC Smith and at the high school. We also have some Coarc employees that work for us and they're amazing as well and we've had such great success with both of those programs. And the Coarc employees, we actually have one that is working for We have an employee that's working for us right now in the high school that is just been so successful. She has win after win after win every week learning new equipment, learning how to, you know, do things she's never done before and really overcoming the fears that she's had in the past. So, I feel like maybe those, you know, those numbers don't look so great, but there's so many others super awesome successes that we have had this year that aren't necessarily going to translate to dollars. Okay, thank you. Thank you for the question. I appreciate it.
14. 14:00Any other questions or concerns? Yes. Uh Mike sort of hit it with the my question. Uh I just wanted to know, do you feel like you have enough staff down there or do you are you short staffed? Um in both both of the schools. Yeah, sometimes I'm short staffed when people call out, but we kind of rearrange. Um >> So, you cover for each other? Is that Yeah. Yep, I have uh some the cook came up and actually covered yesterday and I was in there cooking. I had my hat on. Are there subs? No, we don't have any subs right now, but um I am looking to add a couple subs that we would be able to train and get in here on a regular basis because I do have people that are saying that they want to retire after next year. So, I really want to start, you know, training gaining that bench that we have people ready to go that want to stay that want to like jump in and work, you know. I think it's that's always the challenge in any food service establishment is just maintaining the staffing level because the turnaround is high in food service, but it's been great here. I
15. 15:05have not had a ton of turnaround, but um I think the beginning of the year was challenging. We're kind of staffed up at this point and we're looking at next year. Couple people possibly retiring and hopefully getting some people in to train. Anything else? I just like to ask about what education you're doing with the students to help them understand the changes that you make. I ask this because I have a sixth grader who came home and said, "The pizza tastes funny." And I said, "Well, I bet it's a whole wheat crust." And she's actually started eating the pizza now that she knows why it tastes funny. So, I wonder what you're doing in that capacity. Um Lots of posters. >> We did Yeah, we did I definitely do a lot of posters. We do a lot of signage. We do a lot of talking to them. We did a tasting last year with the pizza crop You know, with the pizza so that we kind of got votes like whether they liked it, didn't like it, and they overwhelmingly loved it at the time. So Kids changed their minds. But um
16. 16:09We'll see. I mean, we'll see if if we stick with this specific crust. Like maybe we go move to something different if somebody if another producer comes out with something that's um you know, tastes better or looks different. I mean, personally, I would love to bake our own crust, but I think I'm I'm I'm pushing them a lot already. So, I don't want to get into the baking quite yet. Well, I just want to say thank you for the the >> listening. work and effort that you've put into the local purchasing and the thought process that's gone into creating these meals. I think it's really impressive. Thank you. And I think And I give all of the props to my employees. They have done so much this year, come so far. They're just such troopers and have learned a lot and just done everything that they could to make it amazing for the kids, and we just hope that they like it. Thank you. Um I I appreciate Sorry. the uh the general fund hasn't had to pay
17. 17:13anything to the school lunch fund. Um both our status as a school is driving that, I think, a lot. Um If numbers are down for meals, are we looking at whether we're going to hit our revenue target for this school year and whether that's going to affect the budget next year? Um, I do not think that we will be needing any money from the general fund because of the um additional money that we'll be getting for that New York 30% program for every meal served throughout the year. So, um even though um our revenue will be down, um we'll make up for it. We also had a great summer program that we started this year that was um called a non-congregate um program where we brought the truck down to downtown Hudson and we distributed five days worth of breakfast and lunches for the students. For actually, it was for anyone that was under 18. They could sign up for it and we I got a local farm box and then we put together breakfast
18. 18:16and lunches that they could make at home and we got New York milk for them in by the court and um brought that truck downtown and I sat there in 100° at the back of the truck, but we had tons of fun and uh would love to do that again this year and that helped us um increase our revenue over the summer as well. So, I think just adding more programs as much as I can, getting food out to as many kids as want it in the summer would be super helpful for us and for them. And then um trying to gain more par- participation by partnering with the classroom so we can get that education out to them as to like why the pizza tastes different or why they should, you know, come through and get a meal. And hopefully the parents as well. I do have like a little parent group that has a WhatsApp um group and I like to just I just send them like little match it messages every
19. 19:19now and then. We're doing this or we're doing that. I send them pictures and then they put that out to the WhatsApp group so that the parents that are really concerned about health, wellness, and nutrition, that they get that message and hopefully that gets across to the kids as well. Any other questions or comments? >> Linda, you good? No, I'm good. Okay. I just had one more I just thought about. >> Yes. The way fuel prices are going right now, how do you adjust when your costs go up? Are we raising the price of the product for the students or are we going to just eat the cost of Um pro- all lunches breakfasts and lunches are free for all the students. >> Oh, okay. And um our prices are locked in because we're on a bid. So um Capital Region BOCES does our bid. So we have bid pricing for all the food that we serve and we also got commodity food from um the USDA as well that we put into either direct diversion, what they call brown box, or um uh DOD produce.
20. 20:20Okay, but the prices are locked in for the school year? Yes. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. Um and let's just let's try and get back to the practice we just do one question and pass it down the line. Let's keep circling around. I'm good. Thank you. That's all right. I think we did that though. Uh Lisa truly does exemplify the thing that she described They're all great questions. outside of her office door and outside of all the cafeterias and along the lines uh there's signage that's not just about hey, we're having eggplant for lunch today, but it's it's about eating healthy. It's about local farming. It's about where the fruit or the milk came from. There's pictures of the cows outside your office and and around the buildings. Um but it really um you know, for all of the places uh, that I've been, at, intention has always been to try and draw a direct correlation to how important we pay attention to our farmers that are providing all of us, you know, this essential thing. Uh, but to see it really come true has been it's been
21. 21:23really meaningful. I'm very grateful for Lisa Anders' staff for the work that they're doing. So, uh, easy one, transportation. Oh, yeah, right. Good evening, everyone. Thanks for having me. Um, So, as you know, um, we own one vehicle that transports students. And it's a van. It's a minivan. And everything else that happens happens at the behest of contracts with uh, local companies. And it is extremely complex. Uh, Bill and uh, Morellus or Arellus, sorry. Uh, every day are having 15 conversations at least around how to problem solve something that got dropped from the universe into their hands. So, if Bill's standing here at all, this is a testament to his fortitude. Thank you, sir. Um, so, we kept this right short because any questions if you have
22. 22:26them, hopefully I can answer them all. But we have um, too many contractors, but it's the way it is and uh, my biggest challenge here November 24th, 25th, I was going to be here for 2 months. Uh, and I had to look at the contracts, the invoices, the purchase orders, uh, and the contract numbers. A lot of the numbers were fictitious, they didn't exist. There were contract numbers that weren't renewed from 2022. What that means is we don't get money back from the state. We have a contract, but and they're happy, the contractor's getting paid. We're paying them, but we're not getting the 45, 50, 56% back from the state. Uh you you you've You've probably You probably have seen a lot of contracts come in front of you. Uh just recently eight others that we just bid so that we have a that was from back from 2022, 23. So, we have a real contract. Uh we're in compliance and we will get
23. 23:30money back from those. And in the in April, May, probably May or June, I'll be bidding even more contracts because I think the numbers are a little high cuz there was no competition. Not sure how that happened, but we're on it. So, we're we're plugging away on it and uh in addition to I just want to show you this one here, Germantown Central School. They have five vans, I believe. We had a student going to a uh special ed school. Um and they have one going. We did not need an aide. It was on their way. So, we fell into an intermunicipal contract at $46 a day, not 500 or 600 a day. So, I'm always looking for those, cooperative, intermunicipal, etc., where you don't have to bid them. Uh there's also A+ Medi is not on this, but they are two contracts we have. And uh also a parent contract we're falling into right now with a McKinney-Vento where a family is living in Albany
24. 24:33and instead of bidding it, I offered the parent a contract so she'll be the transporter. The contract will be with her. And that's about a four or five hundred dollar savings a day, a day. So, that's where we are with It's It's a lot. As And but we like I said, the PO, the invoice, and their billing all matches now. The contract number all matches via along with the state approved contract. This here? Yep. Uh, so these are some other things besides the daily every day there's it's just constant but uh pre-K bus orientate orientation up at the elementary school which is awesome. We get those little guys on the bus to get them acclimated to the bus so the first day of school they're not afraid of it. On that day we'll probably have two or three crying then we do it again in the summer and usually there's nobody crying and by the first day of school they're they're not
25. 25:35afraid of a big yellow bus pulling up in front. So I really that's actually one of my favorite things to do here. Operation safe stop we're going to be doing that in a couple months. Uh, that's where I marry with the sheriff, state troopers, local police and give them locations where buses are being passed frequently. They'll follow the bus. So awareness and you'll you you know, we put that all out to the public so they're not wondering why all these police officers behind the bus. Uh, spring bus drill that'll be coming up we're in compliance on that. Uh, and prepping for 26 27 routing. Um, and summer this summer. So instead of going through this now do you guys would you want Yeah, why don't you go through that and if they have questions I'll be happy to answer. Some of the some of the main points I want to talk about tonight in terms of our transportation budget um, is we are um, projecting uh, an increase again in
26. 26:40terms of our um, contract transportation. So that's just based on regular um, increase and also um, as we're looking through um, the past couple years, we haven't budgeted enough for transportation, and there were just um large groups of transportation efforts that were not budgeted or under budgeted. And for example, um sports um for 24-25, the final expenditures was 171, but the budget was only 90,000. And so, I'm projecting we should be around 200 um by the end of the next season. And so, that's also contributing to the increase in transportation costs. The other thing is that um we love having Bill with us, but we would love to also have a um transportation um director that is on staff here at Hudson. And so, there's just a little bit of movement in terms of our non-instructional salaries,
27. 27:43which would cover not only um the transportation um manager supervisor, and also um part of the um trans uh transportation secretary 0.5 transportation secretary's salary as well. So, that's also where you're seeing some some movement in terms of funding. There's also been an adjustment to field trips. And so, um as you can see, 24-25 final expenditures was around 37,000. Um there was a budget of 60 for this year. However, looking at what the schools are actually utilizing, um we separated it by school, and it's really a better kind of alignment of actual expenditures. And so, although um the funding looks like it decreased, it's really actually what our our our schools are actually doing. Um the elementary school in particular uses a lot of grants and funding like that for their field trips, so it's just not
28. 28:44needed in that area. Any questions? W- Oh, sorry. Yeah. I have one for Bill. Yes, sir. So, on I just want to let you know though on that last slide, uh budget time is say here and the consumer price CPI comes out after. It's supposed to be uh at the end of May. A lot of times it doesn't come till June. So, we're using 3.9%. Uh we're in a war now. That could go up. It could go down depending on the economy, but that's kind of our basis for getting an a better idea. And this was not used in the past. So, I'm sorry. Go ahead. So, you said we have a minivan that we use for transportation stuff. Would it be worth getting a 15-20 passenger van for the smaller sports teams like the bowling or the swim team or golf team as opposed to contracting it out with a bus company? No. Okay. Be Well, I'll answer it. The
29. 29:48minivan is it has to be under seven passengers. You don't need a CDL, etc. Then you would need Then we're Then we're owning our own vehicles. Okay. If we owned our own vehicles, absolutely. Um give an example real quick. Germantown four or five vans, which I'm taking advantage of without us owning one. Um you you you have to hire somebody. You have workmen's comp. You What do you do during the day with them? Uh they call in sick. They You know, there's so many other It's a whole 'nother animal. Um but you do not need a CDL if it's I believe seven passengers. Okay. And under. Not counting the driver would be eight eight. Can I just ask for clarification? Are you talking about buying one or are you talking about contracting? No, getting one for the school district. >> to buy one for the school district. Rather than contracting out with >> just would it would not make sense in Germantown buying having four or five and there's grants out there. And now I did speak with Tyler and I'm not done with that. Every We're still looking We're looking at it to have There's a lot of laws and rules and
30. 30:49regulations with that. If I drove that van, uh say 14 straight days in a row, that's a problem. You It has to be sporadic. Uh it can't be It There's it's it's worth looking at another van because if this van is being utilized 100% and it could be used 150%. So, that's a conversation I'm having with uh Tyler. Okay. Thank you. Couldn't somebody get a CDL to drive the larger van? And now, we have another employee for transportation. And during So, they're done >> an administrator got a CDL for Then the administrator would drive the sports team? Well, the director could. I don't want to throw him under the bus or anything. If he had a CDL, it would be the district's benefit. >> something to look at, but again, there would be uh certainly there's a lot of different layers to that. Um insurance, uh uh our the union uh the you know, I don't I There's a lot of different
31. 31:52layers that we would have to look at with that. I know sometimes, say tennis has four kids or uh chess club has five, I know they use it for that sometimes. When it's under that seven. So, it's utilized to how much I and a again, I don't want to just go out and get another van and have it sit there. >> you're open to having with somebody that might be interested in It is, and it would be if they're interested in it and uh it would it would have to be, you know, they have a a contract, a union contract, and there won't be anything about driving a van, I would assume. So, you know, these are There's a lot of layers in that. >> stop that. We should go on. Okay. Yeah. I just had a question about the spreadsheet on the preceding slide. I was curious it said uh uh field trips and then it had field trips separately broken out for um MCS, the junior high and the high school.
32. 32:54What is the general field trips line? So, sometimes there's other field trips that come up that may not necessarily or it's also a place where if someone will go over their potential their budget, they have something else that they planned. This is supposed to be for planned items that are that we do every year that we already know about, but there's those things that come up and so it's it's a placeholder for those type of things. What would the other if it doesn't I mean I understand going over or surprise, but you said the other uh um you know, if it's not building So, the 00 code is a um so, if we're looking at 55 40 400 00 FTS, so that's a district wide code and the other codes are specific to buildings. Does that answer? No, but I think it's okay. Okay, thank you. Um I had a question about the non-instructional Here you go first, we'll go in order. Uh that was just following up on on Mike's question. Uh my question for you Bill was you mentioned a parent contract
33. 33:56that you have. Um does that contract you have with them cover us against any liability if anything should happen to Yes, it's I get their registration uh driver's license Oh, sorry. I get their uh regis- I treat them just like they're a contractor. And it has to be that person all the time. It can't be uh uh uh uh the the husband or a boyfriend. It has to always be that individual driving. And I make sure that DOT, their vehicle, uh their driver's license, registration, all of that is in line. Um I I love falling into those because it's a huge savings. It I treat it just like a uh you know McKinney-Vento uh where where instead of bidding it out you're doing an intermunicipal with another district. And that district saves a little bit of money and we save a ton of money. It's a win-win. Um if you can go back to the slide that had the budget. Um you mentioned right so non-instructional salaries has this hundred thousand give or take increase right to put a you said
34. 35:01a full-time transportation person plus a half-time secretary in. Where does Bill's salary where is his salary removed within this or are we looking at a hundred thousand extra dollars in? No, so right now he's in the contractual line. So that also was not budgeted this year. So if you see the final expenditures for 24-25 it was 91,324 that was not all his salary that was also the secretary salary as well that went in there. So it we do not have that currently in the budget. So we are talking about a hundred thousand dollars difference then because we didn't budget for it this year. >> Correct. But it's more of accurate picture of actually our expenditures. Yeah, totally. >> Yes. But a hundred thousand dollars we have to accurately budget for it next year. >> Correct. So I'm going to I'm going to combine my question two questions into this one now so for that line you're somebody's been doing that work that half FTE secretary position you described. So it's being moved here as opposed to somewhere else.
35. 36:05Yes. It was in it was in a different place absolutely. So it's not exactly a total. Yes. The special ed summer was that somewhere else? The 260 at the bottom. No. Okay. So that is something that we expend that has not been in the budget. >> We were spending it is just Yes. Yes. >> Where was how were we spending money on transportation for summer school in the past? Or is that just a mystery? Yeah, there none none of the summer schools or any of the transportation were placed in this year's budget. That includes extended school year program, the junior high and the high school regions prep and you know, six week credit recovery program. None of it was budgeted. So, you will see it now and what one of the last slides is where we project our expenditures to potentially be as of today as we're actually including the things that we've been spending money on all this year uh to the best of our knowledge. So, yes and and when I get to the end that $262 is one of those things I'm
36. 37:09going to identify as to why the overall budget is again approaching 5% increase. Who who but for forensically have we gone back and looked at like 2023, 2022? Was it in those budgets? I don't know. Yeah. It's my understanding last year we were a million dollars short in terms of what we um ended up in the last year. So, no. Mike And I have mentioned before when you roll over a budget that was inaccurate to begin with, you're not capturing the things that were missing, right? And that that's just that be true for all of us. Like if you had a car payment you forgot to include it in your household budgeting, it's still missing when you roll over, you know, the prior year's estimation of those things. So, it's been a lot it's been a uh a lot of discovery and trying to be much more conscientious around identifying it and I I said over and over again this will make next year easier and the following year easier just because there's a place now and you're asking all the right questions like where was this before? It wasn't
37. 38:12anywhere, but now it is somewhere so at least we can prepare So, if it wasn't budgeted, where were they getting paid from? Just uh general fund a general fund? And if you any of those that were on the board last year know the hundreds of transfers that happened at the end of the year, that was this. Trying to correct this because the money had to be expended out of these lines in order to get any kind of aid. Or if it was a salary, you know, we had to move it into salary line. So, um and there's been a lot fewer of those um moves this year, but there'll there will still be some. So, primarily general fund or taking it from somewhere else where there happened to be some money left over. So, did it affect our aid? Well, that's one of the things that Bill's been doing. He's been frantically going back not just uh to 24-25, but to 23-24. That's actually I think where the story started. It's like 2 months, right? That's where I found it, and then I had to go back even further, and that's why you got where I went as far back as 22, and last year I gave you guys a good
38. 39:15uh I gave you a good picture of where we were and and and why we why they did not budget that other million, I don't know. This there was maybe window dressing on it, I don't know. This is true numbers. No window dressing, this is where we are. Um and and it was a lot of work getting there. But, it's it's true, you know. Um I have two more questions. Um So, in the past we didn't have anybody doing transportation full-time. Um it was a stipend to um the business official, uh which obviously is not wasn't a realistic approach. Is it fair to say that by investing this money in a full-time person, we should be recuperating the same amount if not more in state aid just by being more on top of our contracts and paperwork?
39. 40:16>> 20 times more. Right. Okay. My salary compared to what we're saving and capturing, yes, easily. Right. Okay. And and I would recommend at the end game when I finally you know, we will we will I would bring someone on once everything is in line, set, complete, all contracts are approved, it it'll be handing them a nice or her a nice plate and it needs to be maintained and managed. So, yeah, it's we're we're you'll see the difference in about another in in about another year I'll be able to prove all that and show you. Right now we could. Right. Um, and looking at this big $6 million line at the bottom, is there is there a a benchmark or a threshold for um, districts of our size in similar situations that don't have their own transportation fleet for, you know, saying this is how much money you should be spending per student? Yes,
40. 41:18I think that's high and I think it's going to be going a lot lower including with the CPI because by doing these contracts, getting everything together, now we can focus on which ones are high, which ones are low, which ones need to be bid. Uh, remember enrollments are going down not up. I would imagine, I haven't looked, but most districts the enrollment is going down. Um, it's going down from at least 10 years ago. Mhm. These are the same routes. So, I see us being able to be more efficient and consolidate routes. The other thing I'll say, uh, Bill mentioned McKinney-Vento a few times. That is the act that protects students who become homeless during the school year. Um, if they're in the district, we can usually create efficiencies and use bus routes that are already in place, but when uh, a student is in Catskill or Albany, we we have to transport up to 50 miles. Um they could be out past Hunter, they could be anywhere. We must transport them. Um and
41. 42:21you heard him quoting some of the prices for bus runs. It is $50 to $70,000 for a bus run that we have no way to predict and we have to do it. It just appears from nowhere. So, when um and and our next presentation, we'll try and identify some of those outlying things that is unique or they are unique to Hudson, to to maybe some of our neighbor neighboring districts, uh that are a large financial burden that is regulatory and required. It's not a choice. We're not choosing to I want to transport someone to Hunter. Um we don't choose to uh send students to specialized Well, we do choose, but you know, uh students that have to go to specialized school schools because of disabilities, those are things that we're obligated to do. It's the best thing for our students, but they are uh sometimes very, very expensive and some of our neighboring districts do not have the same level of of that responsibility. The other piece that's in here is bussing students to the
42. 43:24nearby private schools, right? Under the like just as an awareness of one other piece of this that is also expensive. Correct. Yes. Um and we do a lot. Yeah, and and there's things you catch with this number being like this, there are other numbers involved that went down. An example, when I got here, we were transporting to uh the Catskill Montessori, Hawthorne Valley, and uh the uh other non-public school of Columbia Cath- We don't do that in the summer. We don't have to. I stopped that immediately. So, that was a savings. There's a bunch of little savings that why we were doing that for some every summer, I'm not sure why. But, we are no longer doing that. The other thing that we will be looking at is the parameters for private and parochial is 25 miles the boundary or is it 15? It's 50 as well. 15 15 And uh but different pickup spots locations. Okay. So, they would the parents will get them. You'll I'll notice on the way in the work bunch of
43. 44:27parents will bring their kids to a a spot on Warren Street the bus will come through, grab them, and then shoot them up to Hawthorne or Hawthorne or Mount Greylock >> Yeah. Yeah. It used to be door-to-door. Okay. Everybody good? Thank you. Yeah, thank you very much. Thank you. All right. Gentlemen. Hello everybody. Hello. Um So, just kind of a quick overview of uh some of the sports that we offer. In the fall we have football two levels, boys and girls soccer, uh we have two levels of that as well varsity and modified. We we offer golf, girls volleyball is all three levels so modified JV and varsity.
44. 45:29Uh we have boys and girls cross country which is modified and varsity. Girls tennis is varsity only. And then football cheer is varsity only as well. Um so, in the fall out of all of the sports we could have offered um the only the only thing we did not was we did not were not able to field a boys and girls JV soccer team. Um everything else we were able to uh oh and JV football which is something we haven't had in in quite a while. Um we were close to being able to do it this year. Just we were a few kids short. Um, in the winter for boys and girls basketball, we fielded all three levels. Uh, bowling varsity is the only thing that's offered. That's a sectional thing, not just like our school. We have varsity boys and girls swimming. For boys volleyball, we do modified and varsity and then basketball cheers varsity as well. Um, in the spring for baseball, this year we're actually uh looking at three levels again, which is
45. 46:31something we haven't had in a few years. Um, but the numbers look pretty good after the for we're in day two of the spring season. It looks pretty healthy for us to be able to have three levels. Softball, um, we are not offering varsity again this year, which is the same from last year and just doing modified and JV trying to build up from the bottom um and get that program back um up on its feet with three programs. Uh, boys and girls uh track and field we have modified and varsity for that, which is the same for for all schools. Uh, we have recently added flag football, so thank you for that. Um, we had about 35 girls, I believe, yesterday at tryouts. Um, so it's a big hit at the moment. And and boys tennis we brought back last year. We're still trying to find a few kids to hopefully be able to field a team for boys tennis this year as well. That's also only a uh varsity sport. Um, so here's just some numbers. These are this year's numbers. Um, so in the fall we had 188 uh student athletes with 19 coaches.
46. 47:34Winter, we were at 117 student athletes with 14 coaches. Um, we'll have 12 coaches in the spring. Numbers aren't finalized yet for that, as I said, it just started yesterday. Um, but that number will definitely be up from last year because we've added flag football and um it looks like we'll have three levels of baseball. So, those numbers should participation numbers should be up um for uh for the spring enrollment. And then in terms of budget um in terms of me being able to touch base on these, the two budget lines that we control, myself and and Justin, are the 400 and the 450 line, so contractual line. That is mainly our officials um and other contracts that we have in terms of like our golf team playing at Columbia, money comes from out of that account to pay Columbia for the use of the golf course. Um anytime we'll send cross country teams to invitationals, uh track and field we'll send to
47. 48:35invitationals, so anytime there is a entry fee for those things, that comes out of that line. And then our materials and supplies, um that is everything from sports equipment to um uniforms. Um we do our best to um stay within those parameters. And uh you know, obviously not exceed those expenses. Do a pretty good job with having, you know, some funds left over at the end of the year in case there are some like wish wish list items from coaches. Um in the materials and supplies, uniforms are budgeted. We we have our uniforms on a rotational basis, so we don't need like extra lines for those. There are some schools who from year to year will have an extra uh fund for uniforms, but we uh we take it right out of there and kind of have a good process going on right now in terms of how many uniforms we go through renew each year. Um we they we usually try to keep them for 5 years and then rotate them. Um So yeah, so if you have any questions
48. 49:37feel free. I'll do my best to answer them. Good. Congratulations. >> Oh, thank you. Congratulations to all the boys. Thank you. Uh I I do I I have one little tidbit aside from the whole CDL thing. Um so for athletics, has there been any thoughts or ideas behind having some um something like wrestling or jujitsu or some sort of a self-defense classes um that kids could get an athletic credit for because I know sometimes in high school there's a um participation issue. So, in terms of getting like a there's no athletic credit that ends that kids get like in terms of passing a passing gym class for Right. So, like in order to pass PE class, you have to be taught by certified PE teacher, which aren't all of our coaches. So, like you wouldn't get a PE credit if we had a self-defense class unless that self-defense defense class became part
49. 50:39of like the PE curriculum. It wouldn't be part of athletics. Anything athletics is extracurricular. If you're on a basketball team, you don't get any PE credit for being on the basketball team, the soccer team, or anything like that. To my knowledge. I'm speaking, you know, to the best of my knowledge in terms of athletics. Um there hasn't been um in terms of wrestling, I mean we haven't necessarily looked at adding a wrestling team. Um I do know there would be a large cost to doing that. Um only because of all the mats that are needed, the storage for the mats. They get raised up into the gym ceiling, so you got to buy obviously the equipment that raises them up and down to store them. Um not saying that it's not something we could look at to see if our if we had enough students here who would be interested. Um but I do know it would definitely be much more um it wouldn't be as cost-effective as us adding flag football, which was essentially a couple of coaches and a new set of uniforms. Um football or wrestling is definitely um would be a lot more cost
50. 51:44cumbersome to the uh to the budget if if we were to add that. Um it looks like there's one line in this budget that's projected to go up for the '26-'27 that's causing a 15% increase overall. Can someone speak to like why we're anticipating that 15% increase? Yeah, you mean this up here? Yeah. That's because uh the contract speaks to every coaching position in the district and that's what this number is. If we were to hire and pay every coach cuz we are obligated by contract to potentially fill those jobs. We don't we we haven't filled all of them right now. Um but um we could. We could. We could have all three levels of the fall sports. We could have all three levels of the winter. So, this number represents what our reality could be if we hired everyone that's in here. >> Again, last year we didn't budget for that. No. Okay. So, I know that uh immediately post-COVID we saw a decline in enrollment in sports and knowing that
51. 52:48we have a decline in overall enrollment in the school, do you feel like a larger percentage of students is participating in sports? Are we starting to see a comeback? Um I I think our numbers this year were around the same if not maybe a little bit more than last year. Um I I didn't put a comparison up here. I was more thinking of like this year and I should have done that. Um but I could certainly get that information cuz I did come to present to you guys last year and and and pulled all of the numbers. Um just thinking of how large our teams were this year in the in the fall, I would say we were if not the same if not more, we were definitely about the same. I don't think we were much like drastically less. Um the winter, I would say we were more this year than we were last year only because last year we filled that all the same teams we did this year, but our girls basketball numbers were higher, um and everything else was about the uh swimming numbers were a little bit higher as well. And then everything else was about the same. Um and in the spring, our numbers are
52. 53:50going to be better than last year just because we added flag football, um and we're back to three levels of of baseball. I think they'll probably be close to with the three teams, we'll probably be close to 40 kids in the baseball program, where last year we were probably you know, at high 20s between the two teams. Um so I would say our numbers are going to be a little bit better this year. Um we're constantly trying to um you know, get more kids involved. I know for myself personally and the other high school PE teachers and the junior high teachers, we're constantly, you know, talking to the kids about athletics and trying to join teams, and I've been begging and pleading with kids for the last 3 weeks to try to get them to play tennis so we can have a team again. Um so we're we're constantly trying to get more. I think we're definitely better than we were, you know, three or four years ago. Um obviously we're not where we want to be cuz we'd have obviously love to field all of the teams that we offer. Um you know, we're pretty close right now, but I don't think we're far off from a
53. 54:51lot of the other schools around us. There's just I think there is a decline in in all the schools around us in a lot of the sports we don't have JV in. It tends to be the same for the other schools in our in our league that we compete against, where they don't There's four or five schools that don't have that particular level for that sport. Yeah, if if possible, I'd love to see it as a percentage of the student body who are enrolled in sports, not just the flat number. Okay. And yeah, I would have to dig a little deeper than I did for this. Um these are not unique students, obviously. Right. Um so to find out the percentage of students who play a sport, I would have to just dig a little bit deeper. Not Not Not I will do that for you. I did It'll take me a little bit of time Yeah. because obviously we do have a lot of athletes who are multi-sport athletes who play three, you know, all three seasons. Um but I could try to get I can work on getting that unique number and then compare it to obviously the number of students we have grade 7 through through 12.
54. 55:54Yeah, if you could do some sort of sample, that would be great. Okay. Um given the uh increase in the salary line, uh the can we take a look at uh lines two and three and just see if we can't trim those. It looks like we're not necessarily spending those entirely, so we as a whole we might be able to, you know, have that increase a little less. Uh what is the non-instructional salaries line for? Well, it's my understanding those are for our chaperones. Got you. Okay. Can we So I can I'll just I can't speak to obviously the the number cuz again I said we don't myself and Justin we don't see that number or I obviously approve the chaperones that they've worked. Um so just for reference so you guys understand at every sporting event we have here whether it is a modified game, whether it is a basketball game which is highly attended or maybe a tennis match that is less attended, we do have a chaperone at least one at every sporting
55. 56:58event just in case something were to happen, there's a district employee there. You know, we go over and they know what expectations are from them from me. They all have my number in case obviously something did happen that I need to be notified about, you know, with their parent or players or things like that. So we do have a chaperone. Um they are primarily our um TAs and aides that do that for me, but there is one at at all of our athletic events regardless of size. Obviously there are more chaperones if we're at a football game cuz there are a lot more spectators here. Um but we do we do have one at at all of our events. We have timekeepers, too. Would it be possible to pull like what that actual expenditure has been this year so far and use that to then try to Right. Like if if 24-25 was $13,000, maybe we don't need to budget 50 this year, right? Like we know that we're trying to balance a pretty tight budget this year. You got timekeepers, too. For Yeah, we have time The only thing we have timekeepers for that are paid are for basketball. We still got that.
56. 58:01We still got that budget. But I'm looking at like it only cost 13,000 2 years ago, which means maybe even fully funding all those positions, we don't need all of that money right now. >> all of these sports that year, though? Did we have all the kids showing up for all those teams? Yeah, I think that's why pulling this year's number would just be curious to see. Like I'm not proposing cutting it without seeing that, but I think just like getting a sense of where we are to date would help us then cuz we are going to have to make, you know, realistically across our whole budget, we're going to have to make some tough decisions. Mhm. Mike. Uh there's been some talk about possibly adding pickleball courts to the existing courts, wherever that lays. Would the school be buying equipment for that activity? I don't know much about it, so I don't know. >> Um so I have um spoken with Tyler a little bit about it. Um and I've been trying to get some information from other surrounding schools on the kind of what they have on their tennis courts in terms of cuz there's a couple different options for pickleball. You can have them right on the court, use the tennis net. You can
57. 59:03have them behind it, kind of off to the side where someone has to bring their own net. Um we're kind of in limbo of what that would look like, but we wouldn't I mean, I'm not planning on it from the athletic department's standpoint in purchasing any equipment. It would just be they would be there just like the tennis courts are. Um the nets you'd bring your own paddles and ball and and play. Has there been any interest from students that are pushing for it? >> Pickleball is probably the most favorite unit we do. We just finished it actually. We do a tournament at lunchtime and all of the kids love it. What is it? So, I've never heard So, basically it's a small it's a smaller tennis court, smaller than the tennis court. The net actually is 2 in lower than a tennis net, so that's why you can play it on a tennis court. It's not perfect. Um you play mainly you play two on two short-handed paddle. Um some are made out of wood. Most of them if you have a good paddle they're more out of like carbon. Uh and it's
58. 1:00:07Wiffle ball basically the size of Wiffle ball multiple holes in it though. Uh and you play similar to tennis. You serve diagonally, hit it back and forth till someone gets a point. >> It's a lot like ping pong I would say. Yeah, it's a kind of a combination but our kids our kids love it. I mean we have kids constantly wanting to come down if you know, they want to play all day. They want to leave the nets up. They if we played it for a month they probably would be fine with that. And most units they're ready to be done within a week, so. Pickleball and badminton are are the two fan favorites. Interesting, okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Anybody else? >> Anything else? Yeah, I had a few Do all sports have paid coaches and assistant coaches or is it just So almost all of our varsity sports have a paid assistant. Okay. Um JV and modified do not. They get they just have one paid head coach. It is mainly all of our team sports. Like our individual more of our individual sports tennis does not, golf does not,
59. 1:01:09swimming does not. Um bowling Uh but like bat boys and girls basketball does. The only team sport currently that does not have a paid assistant, and this is this predates me, is volleyball. Um I don't know their rationale when they created these assistants because when I was here playing there were no paid assistants other than I believe for track and football. And then at some point that changed and we started adding some. Um Cheer does not. The tennis teams, cross country does not, track and field has an assistant coach, football gets football varsity gets two assistants. Um so basically all of our team sports do, uh which is a huge advantage in my opinion coming from a coach. Um I would be lost if I didn't have an assistant coach at the varsity level. Um so I appreciate the fact that we do because a lot of schools around us do not. Um but I think it's definitely a huge advantage to our student athletes
60. 1:02:14uh to have, you know, two coaches for for those higher level teams. Um and we do from time to time get some volunteers that, you know, come in and assist and help. Um but yeah. For the most part we have paid assistants for all of our varsity coaches or varsity sports. And then um where where would things like if we wanted to invest in a weight room program or uh something like academic tutoring, would that be in this budget or in physical education budget or So um we actually have uh we actually piloted um a workout program this year. I think I believe I actually uh may have spoke about it last year cuz I think we were just get getting ready to potentially look at purchasing it. Uh so uh we did a we had a weight program for we did we picked two sports that knew we were going to use it. Uh so football and I currently am using it with my basketball team. Um so we're going to look at, you know, is it was it
61. 1:03:16worth it for this year for us to look at increasing that to they make they have a school school-wide program um which then could be utilized also by our PE department if they have bring their kids students in cuz it's a app-based but also you can pull it up on the TV in the in the weight room and touch screen shows you how to do the exercises videos with it. It's a great program. We've been in the weight room since November two times a week with my basketball guys and I think it's fantastic and something that myself and Justin have wanted to do for a while getting some sort of work out for our athletes. Um so right now we we did that we paid for that out of that that came from our contractual line. Um and like I said we just piloted it with a couple programs cuz it you have to pay per user unless you do a school-wide program. Um so that's what we're doing right now in terms of a weight program that we're potentially will look at to see what the feasibility of us doing it school-wide might be like just for 9th through 12th. Um but that's definitely a possibility
62. 1:04:19and the second part was Uh ac- uh athletic tutoring. Yes, so with the change in administration over the summer it kind of just didn't happen. We had it the previous two years. I don't know where that budget line that came from. I would love to see that back in there where I could get some academic tutors after school for our athletes or just students in general doesn't have to just be for my athletes but um that's what I'm here speaking on. So because I think it is helpful for our kids if they do fall behind academically not that they can't stay with the teacher from time to time um but this was something where they had a room to go to they knew there was going to be an adult in that room and they could stay there for 45 minutes get some work done and then either go to practice cuz their practice was late or miss some practice and then go to practice late and you know I would I would love to be able to look at potentially adding that back for this year. If at all possible, even if it's not as many days of the week. Last When we did it last year, it was 4 days
63. 1:05:22a week. Even if it was two, I think it would be definitely helpful. Um, you know, obviously we're always talking about academics here and and things like that. So, I think it would definitely help our athletes and any other students want to utilize it. Awesome. Thank you very much. All right. Thank you, guys. So, that would be included in the instructional salaries. Also, that's $20,000. Maybe it is. Uh, so I mentioned uh looking at initial expenditure estimates. Um, we're currently this year 58 and a half million dollars. This is 3 million dollars more. Here's why. This is just short list I did while I was standing there. You saw $260,000 for the extended school year transportation that was not in the budget this year. Plus the money for the program, the staff that we paid to run that program, another 70 to 100,000. Uh, we have staff members in the Stronger Connections grant that's ending this year. There will need be no renewal for it. That's four certified staff members and two non-certified for another half
64. 1:06:24million dollars. The high school uh summer program last year, which was 6 weeks of instruction and Regents review and then the assessments, another $400,000 including transportation. The sports runs um that um were estimated to be at 60,000 in the budget for 60,000 this year. The actual expense last year was $200,000 for athletic bus runs. And of course, the exponential growth in insurance costs. Just that little bit that I thought of just right here is about 1.5 million. Um, and actually if I were to call it insurance costs, that itself could be a million dollars. It's hard to say. And and the discussion with all the superintendents today, we went up for a regionalized transportation meeting. Bill, Christie and I. And I was talking to four superintendents in the parking lot. They're all within 25 miles of here. And they said basically, in 10 years, I'm going to be able to offer insurance and that's it. It's going to be the only program we offer. So, we need to get that under control,
65. 1:07:27obviously. So, here's a quick reminder of reserves. So, we're not coming to a conclusion today. I just want you to know the hill that we are looking at. And you ask great questions and saying like, where can we trim? We know we have to trim in some places. The reserves that were presented to you last time, uh total reserves right here because we used some of them this year. And then unassigned fund balance of 6.1 for a total of 12.959. And really, this is what it comes down to. And it's important to mention now, we with the EPC project, we have debt coming on this year. So, it's this is a And and maybe could have explained more clearly. I'm still playing catch-up, but the we had to initiate that in order to begin the EPC project, which is a little over $8 million. We pay on that debt we pay on that debt um once the money's been borrowed. And there's an expectation we'll have some debt this year, about 420,000. They're offering us the opportunity to
66. 1:08:30split that debt between this year and next fiscal year, which would actually take this number that Christie presented last time. The reason why this is so high is because of that debt. Um that would this would lower this down to in the mid-five range. So, if we chose to push off paying $200,000 out of general fund or reserves or whatever, it would lower this by by paying 200 plus this year and 200 plus next year to about five and a half. Um our state aid is fixed at this juncture. Um this number, this 3.772 represents this number minus the 4% maximum that we're allowed to have. The reason why we believe that preserving that money is very important is we have been held harmless. In other words, the foundation aid formula has allowed us to continue to generate the same revenue in foundation aid
67. 1:09:32even though we've had declining enrollment for 10 years. If at some juncture they decide to immediately right-size, it will immediately be a financial deficit to the district. These reserves are very very very important. They are also for unexpected insurance costs, unexpected transportation, mechanical so you know, special ed placements, so So again, this number is that larger number keeping 4% in the back. So you have you the board in the next few weeks and months can decide to go all the way up to this if we don't uh split the expenses for the EPC. And you can go all the way up to this while preserving 4% in our bank account. Just to give you a sense of how much money that is gen- generating. And we have the some other revenue as well. Um an increase in this calculation all of this and all of this is only this much. And you saw the number I showed you, which is 61.5 million.
68. 1:10:36So we have some work to do. We have some work to do to right-size. And we're not proposing 7.33 in this. That's not a number the board will likely end on, so we have a lot of work to do in this to be responsible for our taxpayers and to do what's best for kids, finding the balance in there. So I mean, just saying this to the who might not be able to see this who are watching online, right? We're talking about those numbers right now means right off the bat, even if we went to those maxes, we're trying to take a million dollars out of other places in our budget to not go to that cap and use that much on We're talking multiple millions of dollars that we need to trim from our budget just to say it bluntly. Yes. Um and I've been told I mean I've been told by a lot of people that for years we've been being told that we don't have any money. Um kind of true. We only have what's been budgeted and that's all we should be should have been expending. But we've consistently gone over what we had budgeted in in various ways, which
69. 1:11:39you know all those um those um budget transfers. The idea is and and the principles, the things that they built through the presentation you're going to hear around our instructional program and this, those sheets that you saw with the budget lines in them, is going to be what builds a steady foundation for everything that comes after. And and you could, you know, we make decisions here where we say we make a hard choice now and we right-size now or we say here's our two to five-year plan and this is how we're going to do it with hopefully a sense of what the unexpected expenses might be. Uh but um this foundation is going to be very very good um for the district if I was gone tomorrow and Christie was gone tomorrow, you have this. Uh you know what should be there and then the next person that comes in will be able to say, "Ah, uh athletic transportation, where's the line, how's it being paid, how's the academic tutoring for athletics being paid?"
70. 1:12:41Uh this will be very very helpful rather than just um looking at the line by line of 60 pages of oh my gosh, right? Uh any questions? So, we're going to do instructional talk about um outcomes right now, but um for March 17th instructional program, so that'll mean our personnel right? And programs that we're running, special education, total expenditures, we'll have a more accurate picture, and present it as the initial three-part budget um which is the pie chart that you see on every budget newsletter since the dawn of time. Um that'll include uh administrative costs and uh board the board line and board costs. You okay? Um this is a little thing, but can we get the presentations that were presented tonight uploaded to BoardDocs just cuz they're newer than the versions we currently have? Yep, we'll do. Uh to do
71. 1:13:43Uh other one. This one? The principals first, yeah. This one? Yeah. You want them to go first and then you? I don't care. Yeah, that works. I mean, I can go first. I thought you'd be a nice frame. >> Sure. Um I'm trying to connect. I'll reload, see what happens. Uh would the leaders like to come and join us at the table? Um so yeah, I wanted to put together uh we have a lot of data to look at and also just wanted to put together a little bit more macro data that tells a little bit of a bigger story that we're going to talk about here. I think it's helpful for uh everybody on the board to um you know, understand where we're at. Mike has asked the question a few times, how did we get here? Um and we're going into a moment where we're looking for a new superintendent, so I think we need to have as big of a picture as possible to really figure out um you know, where it is that we we to go. Um and also just
72. 1:14:47wanted to you know, put some things out there so that we have, you know, as productive a conversation as possible um, with all of our principals. Um, and, you know, so that that is the main goal is, you know, we want this to be a conversation, you know, we want you guys to be sitting here with us, um, you know, coming up with ideas together. You know, obviously the top priority is to, you know, change our academic outcomes over the remainder of, uh, this school year. Uh, we want everybody at this table, their voice to be heard, um, including Dr. Bailey. Um, and, you know, we're here to come up with ideas and solutions, not to, you know, place blame on on anybody. Um, and, you know, I think just some statements about the general landscape, you know, we all know that state test scores are not the full picture of our students and what they are able to do, not an indication of, you know, all of our amazing and administrators and staff. Um, you know, we know everybody is there trying their
73. 1:15:50hardest, going above and beyond. Um, but we also do know that our academic performance needs to improve. We need to get off of these ATSI and TSI lists, that is a priority for all of us. Um, so yeah, we really want everybody to just think critically, find ways to create positive change, and here's just some, again, really top-level data, um, that all comes from NYSED looking at things back from 2012 until, uh, 2025. Um, and, you know, our state scores rose, uh, from 2012 to, uh, 2018, generally following the trend of New York state scores. Um, there was an uptick in 2022, uh, which is mostly because of, uh, low student, uh, participation, shortened tests. Um, 2022, only 60 something percent of our students participated. The following year, it was 89% um, and then since then it's, you know, sort of stayed relatively stagnant or at
74. 1:16:53least followed the same trends um, across New York State. Um, so yeah, that's sort of uh, what we kept there. For math, um, again mostly followed state trends in 2013 through through 2018. Again, we're sort of following trends in uh, 22 through 25, mostly staying at similar levels uh, with a dip in 2022. You can see New York State also went down um, and we went up in 2024 to our highest levels along with um, New York State. Um, didn't want to totally discount science, but we all know that's been a little bit wonky the past few years as they've changed a lot of the formats um, and traditionally our science scores have been significantly higher than um, math and ELA um, and uh, I don't know if I'm wrong, but does that really doesn't factor into ATSI or TSI designations that much, right? No. Yeah, so. Um, it's very important, but again, uh, not the
75. 1:17:56um, that big of a picture. Um, and then graduation rates, so 2013 through 2022, our graduation rates stayed consistently in line with uh, trends across the state. Um, usually anywhere from 1% to 8% below New York State average um, and then, you know, we've seen a decline over the next last 3 years um, which, you know, is is should also be a priority of ours and is disconcerting to see um, and especially looking at all the different ways that New York State has provided new pathways and more opportunities for students to graduate. Um, we do have the D set plans in in place and I know you guys have talked about that a bit in the past. So, you know, really want to know, you know, which elements of the plan are being executed on, what are we having trouble fulfilling. Uh one of the policies that we've taken with um uh Dr. Bailey is is uh um you know, radical truth. Um you know, we don't we
76. 1:18:59don't need anything sugar coated. If something's not working, uh we don't want to know why and and we want you guys to uh to tell us. Um and, you know, want to just be also honest about the barriers to success that um exist. Um we can all know all know that uh you know, inconsistent leadership has obviously been a factor, you know, uh we have to face that. We're going to have another change coming up soon. So, um you know, it's something that we all uh need to be comfortable with and work together to overcome. Um chronic absenteeism we've talked about a lot, but you know, otherwise, you know, we want to know what else you guys are seeing and uh you know, what else is out there so that we can help um as we get into the next school year and, you know, provide you guys with what you guys need to be successful over the remainder of this school year. Um really just be aware, have as big of a picture as possible and also make sure that we um are choosing uh a leader who can help us address those concerns uh moving
77. 1:20:03forward. No. Up to you guys. Thank you. And that's why I wanted Mark to go first. I can't think of a better summary of You you have to look longitudinally. You know, very few things in schools happen in a heartbeat or in a drop. And uh it's very powerful to see ELA and math scores uh going back 10 years or more and seeing we're actually almost at the highest we've ever been. That doesn't mean that other schools aren't outpacing us. And there were a whole slew of things that I promised them that I would say before they began their presentations and then I left my piece of paper in my office. I'll take this over here. Um so I'll say this um as a overview for for everything that you're going to hear from them. As you watch the state scores outpace us
78. 1:21:06in many ways, uh there's in some important things to acknowledge and it's not an excuse. Um I don't there's no reason for us to have excuses for who we are or what we're trying to do here. And actually quite frankly in my whole life outside of city school districts, I admired city school districts that tried to tackle these very significant problems head-on and practice radical candor. Um everything that you see and hear in context of the state scores and and how others uh in the NWEA or in the state tests have been able to outpace us. And and we did not do any exact like Hudson schools. We just did New York State. It is important to recognize that schools that are like Hudson struggled just like us in the ways that we're going to talk about. They have some of the same successes and they absolutely have some of the same struggles. And we are simply just not a Suburban Council school.
79. 1:22:08We are not uh a small school of 400 in the North Country where everybody looks the same, speaks the same language, and has the same cultural background. We are Hudson. And it's a I have loved my 7 months because I finally feel as though I'm experiencing this is what the real world is like and with the real world challenges. So, that's the most important thing. When you're looking at this, remember that we are unique. We're not like everyone else. Uh you'll hear score abbreviations for the classifications of our schools or designations. Uh the ATSI uh which is on the very first slide, the additional uh targets is additional uh targeted uh supports and improvement and TSI Thank you very And um they come with them the DCIP, which is district-wide, the CEP plans, which are the continue are the uh the uh comprehensive education plans at the building level, and the state um expects that within 2 years we move
80. 1:23:13where we're supposed to move. In other words, we outpace other districts like us for the subgroups that we've been identified for. And local um really local monitoring is it's the work that we basically almost always do in schools. Uh when we're talk about chronic absenteeism, we're talking about students missing 10% 10% of days. So, uh if there's 20 days in a month, they miss 2 days, that's chronic absenteeism. Am I doing that right? Yeah, so if their benchmark is February 28th, that means that students have had 6 months. That means if they've been absent 12 days, they are chronically absent. So, they're benchmarking throughout the year. So, as we're fond of saying, students can actually get off the chronic absenteeism list if they just stop being absent. So, they'll talk about that from uh a designation perspective uh for the grades 3 through 8 tests, we have 1 2 3 and 4. Um uh one is significantly below
81. 1:24:15um below standards. Two is below standards, three is proficient, and four is above proficiency. And at the Regents level, it still goes by Common Core 1 to 5. Three is proficient. So, anything that's three, four, and five is considered to be on proficiency. So, when you hear Derek talk about secondary at the high school Regents exams, it's on a scale of five. Um you're going to hear the word PLC quite frequently because they have professional learning communities in their buildings, which means that you've got practitioners working in small groups talking about these real-world problems. And I think that was all. Did I get them all? I think so. All right. And and please do stop us and ask questions because in the midst of all the data, there are a lot of acronyms and some things that we may not have covered. Um so, please just ask us to pause when we get there. Thank you. So, what I'm going to start um
82. 1:25:17I may at some point get up when I get to my first slides and point to some of the things just to point out because I think once we get going, you'll probably the questions will be less because the data will be more understandable. But I think as we begin, I just want to make sure that everyone understands what a 40th percentile means and what that means a median 40th percentile and some of those terms that I just want to make sure that I'm I'm clear on. Um feel free to interrupt, you know, pause me at any point. I'm going to go kind of at the pace that I think we want to go and you know, um I'm going to go through I think slides and then take questions. I don't think we want to go slide by slide with questions. I'll go through and I'll present like the NWEA math and then we can do questions at that point and then we can go through and do ELA. Um So, we talk about testing participation subgroup. You know, and I I I had said I was kind of surprised, you know, as we looked at these cuz at the elementary level, I think last year we had five kids across the whole school who didn't
83. 1:26:20take tests. Math, ELA, science. We have not seen the same number of students being opted out. Um you know, we had a student who took part one and then went to you left the country for a couple months. So, you know, some of those that's just not controllable. Um but you do have a big window for New York State testing. Um you know, our students with disabilities um is our lowest area which would be SWD. Um but I'm not clear whether or not some of the nice kids don't um because we might be over the threshold lead to that number being lower. Our students who are alternatively assessed. Yeah. Um so, when we look at the New York State test data for um MC Smith in ELA, we did see, I feel, some some good gains across the board. Um I attribute some of that to consistency and um staff's um comfort level with some of the instructional materials that they have. We're about 5 years into adopting uh CKLA as materials, and I think staff has a
84. 1:27:22greater understanding of the utilization of that, which does allow them to know, I can skip this piece, I can I can move beyond this, I know I need to teach this with more depth, I need to supplement writing here. Those are, I think, some of the things that I would attribute that to. Um you know, and then we look at our math participation. And and it's it's similar, you know, it's not dramatically different. It was a little lower, and I don't know, you know, Kenny can talk about his opt out. I think he had a little more opting out, and I think sometimes in my recollection, math, there was a little more opting out of kids because we take the ELA first, and then the the bandwagon grows because they heard their friend got to sit in the, you know, auditorium and and do whatever. So, they asked their parents, and I think it as kids get older, there's more prevalence of of saying, you know, yeah, if you want to make that choice. So, just to be clear, those took me a second to realize that those slides are both elementary and junior high. So, >> The just the 3-3-8 pieces, yes. Yep. Just just the participation. Doesn't
85. 1:28:24really break it out easily anywhere in New York. Some of the things are not as easy to break out in New York State. To get an aggregate number, you can take the percentage, but then you can't just average the percentages because there might be 102 kids here, 127 there, and if you try to do that, New York State doesn't actually give you the raw numbers unless you unless you do digging into the reports at a more granular level. And I I don't know that, you know, for you as a board, whether it was 91% or 89% has a dramatic impact on what it looks like. >> And completion rates aren't really where we're Right. Yeah, no, I I hear you. >> is tonight anyways. Yeah. >> Um so, then we look at the New York State math um scores. Um you know, we did see improvement in our um you know, our third and fifth grade, we did not see the improvement in fourth grade. I I would have predicted that, but I expected our fifth grade to do somewhat better. Um we are in the third year of a new math program, and I think as we are growing that, I think we will continue to see growth in math.
86. 1:29:27I think >> It's strange that the same cohort that did so well in '23-'24 did the poorest in '24-'25. Yep. Did you mention, Mark, that fourth grade is the grade without kindergarten? No, I mean, it's actually it's fourth grade, you know, we talked about it a little. They're the grade that missed kindergarten as we talk about interrupted instruction. Um you know, so you know, we're you know. Wouldn't be fifth grade. >> It's fifth grade now. My kiddo. Oh, fourth grade for Fourth grade here. Yeah. Yes. In '24-'25, it would be the fourth grade students there who were at 32%. >> had 44% in math. Oh, no, that was 2 years ago. Never mind. >> Correct. We saw growth in them. They went from 27 to 32. But that's I mean realistically standing here as the principal, that's our probably our biggest challenging grade for some of those students who missed some of those core skills that you learn, you know, in kindergarten and even first grade. You can think about the interruptions for anybody who had kids of that age, the quarantine and all the craziness. I try not to use COVID as an excuse and it
87. 1:30:32it's just it's so that we know that that's a reality with that grade level. Um you know, we talk about indicators at MC Smith. This is from one to four and you can look at the weighted average that New York State There we There we are. >> There you go. Sorry. Kenny's Kenny's driving cuz otherwise I wouldn't be able to do both. Um and you know, those numbers are that that's where we are. We certainly want to improve our growth um across the board. I mean, as as we look at it. And it's it's surprising to me as we look at our growth and you know, let's say ELA um that we didn't see any of our you know, our numbers are all one in growth and we're we're trying to do some we're we're doing some data analysis to determine where that you know, why our growth is not impacting where you know, our scores would be. Do you know what the threshold is that New York State's looking for? I mean, it's it's a formula. I mean, I can share the formula with it's like it's the number of students subtracted and multiplied and you know, there's just by the you know, threes count once, fours
88. 1:31:35count twice and you know, so there is a formula that goes around that. But it just it didn't make sense to me why they're all why they're all ones, honestly, in what we've received. And every year we're not just being compared against ourselves, we're being compared against all schools, all all students. So if other students outpace in growth then our growth was and our growth was slower then we'd still be stuck in one even if kids were growing. >> Yeah, it's relative to the state average. Yeah. And we're going to show some of that growth in your in uh NWEA. It will show the the growth that students are showing in comparison to all the students in the country. So, when we get there, um we will talk about that piece. Um our Sorry, can we just go back to the indicators for 1 sec? I believe that last year we were we had ones in attendance. Does that mean that we have improved the attendance in the year-over-year on the indicators? The year-over-year in attendance improved. >> was ones last year. >> Yep. Note that. Thank you. So, as we look at um the MC Smith
89. 1:32:40priorities, we're looking at increasing attendance by 5%. Um you know, that's approximately 30 35 students. We're looking at increasing New York State in math proficiency um levels by 5% each. And we've talked a lot about aligning our instruction to focus on the standards using data. We um you know, one of one of the great things that we've been able to do as we've had a little more stability this year is um to a have a tracking methodology for what's going on in our professional learning communities and in our school leadership team. And Mrs. Hanley does a wonderful job in our building of tracking that. Part of that is through Stronger Connections grant. But um you know, we've really been able to say this is what we're doing in our meetings and and have better quantification to determine, you know, in in the end it's we want to know if what we're doing is making an impact. Right? Like there's a lot of hard work happening. People are spending a lot of time working on a lot of things. Are we Is it an impactful? Are we getting the best, you know, return on intervention as I would call it? Like And And that's one of the
90. 1:33:43things that we look at um a lot in our building um to make determinations. Um We were doing really great until December hit. Um when I looked at these, we were in the low 20s, like 22% chronic, and then December hit, and um we had 10 days of over 100 students. If people don't know, we average around 58 students. We almost hit 200. We hit 200 one day, and I said to What? Yes. Oh, yeah, and I I said to Dr. Bailey, I said, "I'm You know, we're not there, but I mean, if this trend continues, we have to consider what we're going to do." Because it was right leading up to vacation. Um I mean, what about virtual? Some schools, New York City, does virtual and counts it as a day of attendance. You mean like for snow day, or for >> No, I mean for Well, for a snow day, but but for kids who are sick. If we can in somehow At the elementary, they don't have their Chromebooks with them at Right. I mean, the the kids that we had, like I those poor nurses, like I was
91. 1:34:46just saying that month, it was a lot of stomach aches. Like, I don't see how many people would be getting on. But I mean, it's certainly something that exploring is certainly something as long as it's useful to learning. You know, what I don't want to do is, you know, I mean, screens have a valuable place, but there's also a place for that that teacher in there, and you know, I mean, I think we all know I seem to recall the teachers finding the hybrid teaching exceptionally challenging, as well. Teaching to a screen and to students in the classroom. We we definitely got used to it. Right? Wouldn't you agree? But Oh, you So So So, we that's where we are on chronic right now with our attendance. Um I I think I I do predict that we're going to come out in a better place. I think the other thing last year, and it just is what happened, thank goodness for snow, because we aren't going to have like a full week off, which led to a lot of before and after was um we were we
92. 1:35:50struggled to have kids come to school, because spring, whatever you want to call it, summer fever hit harder. We're hoping that's that's our, you know, in looking at the data and looking at where we were, you know, we were chugging along last year and I came here and told you I think three months beforehand we are on pace to be 12% above or something along those lines and I think when I came we were like a percent above what we were the year before because that that put a dent in our I was just going to say that maybe note to self that the calendar, whenever we approve the calendar, that maybe we would want to make sure that we're not putting those buyback days or in that May break. It's not I mean, I I remember last year I felt the same way. Right. Tough one into that April break or whatever. Yeah. And the high school teachers struggle with that too because of Regents right after, especially with every year there's a new Regents exam in the beginning of June. So, our attendance in the high school goes down once June hits anyway, so Yeah. It's definitely something to think
93. 1:36:52about. Mhm. Yeah. Um so, as we continue to look at attendance we pulled year over year. Um you can see I don't see a dramatic difference in this. Um you know, you can see the cohorts that have stronger attendance um had stronger attendance generally year over year. But um you know, I mean, we're within you know, I I pulled this yesterday and today we went up I think it was almost exactly even today because it does fluctuate pretty easily. Um so, I this is where I'm going to stand for a minute cuz I just want to I'm going to talk a lot about NWA. NWA is the new like what we've used as our benchmarking. In the past we used Fast Bridge and I just want to give some clarity to the board because I think last year that data was presented to the board um and said that, you know, it's going to predict what New York State scores are going to look like. One of the things that FastBridge has is it has what's called an A reading and then there's an
94. 1:37:55auto reading and then there's CBM, right? A reading is like reading comprehension. Auto reading has some more of that conven- convention piece in it, vocabulary and some of the other pieces, and then CBM is going to be the fluency. None of those measure None of those measures from FastBridge really translate over to as high a predictive value as NWEA, which is one of the reasons that we went there. Long ago, for those who've been around with me for a while, um when we did this long ago and Dr. Sutmyer was as the assistant supe, we wanted to go with NWEA, but it was about triple the cost and as a district we made the decision that we started with FastBridge. I think FastBridge is much better as a monitoring tool than as a benchmarking tool if you want reflective data. Now, one of the things that I I'm sa- sorry to report is that there's been a glitch in NWEA the last 2 days to give you proficiency summaries. So, I am going to they pro- I I spent a lot of time the last 2 days on chat and on the
95. 1:38:58phone with NWEA. They said it's going to be fixed tomorrow morning. Everything the fix happens at like 2:00 a.m. and then it's there. So, when I have those, I will send them to Dr. Bailey to share with the board. Um so And what's that supposed to do? It's supposed to be an on-grade level predictor whether how they might perform on the state test. That's what it means by proficiency. So, every one of these slides that you're going to see is going to have this growth right percentile. So, this is how they did compared to all the students in the nation or all the schools. So, if you had 100 schools, we were better than 37 and there were 62 that did better than us on growth. And then you have achievement for the fall and you're going to have achievement for the winter. There's also going to be your your delineation of red, which is the 20th percentile and below. Orange. You guys can read that from here, right? I don't need to Okay. Orange is 21 to 40, yellow is 41 to 60, 61 to 80 for
96. 1:40:01green, and blue is 80th percentile and above. Think Does anyone want to Percentiles were good with how that is? It's median percentile. So, that means the kid that falls right in the middle, right? Okay. Um so, this is our overall building for math. Um and you know, I'm I'm just going to I'm going to just go through each grade level. I broke down each grade level for you. So, is and some of the subsets. So, as we go here, you can see this is kindergarten and first grade. Um we are looking at our kindergarten. We have We do see a a large swath of our students who are in the 20th percentile. Looking at our instruction, looking at, you know, the progress monitoring they're doing, the intervention that we're doing in the classroom, you know, we are looking at at where that is and where we're going with that. Um First grade, we have seen, you know, they are our grade that has shown the the best growth. You know, you're going to see that their that their achievement has
97. 1:41:03improved um and that their growth is, you know, I think 56 here and I think it's 62nd when we get to ELA. Is is the growth measure relative between the two dates here or is it Yeah. The growth is based on Yeah, the growth is based on those. It's a similar It's a a similar test that pulls from 10,000 questions or whatever, right? And so, you know, as you do better, it's really designed so you're going to get half of the questions right. And it's really trying to center in and it's 41 questions basically up to 43 that allow you to determine where you fall in that number. And you get what's called a RIT score, which I'll show a little bit at the end. And then we go on to second and third. Um you know, we we saw a little dip in the math in second grade. Um and you know, in in third grade we saw a lower achievement, but we we stayed in in a similar place. Test over test.
98. 1:42:06And that as we go into fourth and fifth grade, um you know, our median growth we're we're looking at once again, we're trying to determine why are we not making more growth um comparatively, but you know, with fourth grade that 47th percentile, you know, we're we're we feel I don't know what to say. Let Let's say that we've we've done some I think some good work with those kids to get to increase math skills over time when you look year over year as their performance levels have been. And And then that fifth grade group, um I think is our most challenging group. Um now I'm going to do two subgroups and then I'll take questions on that and I can rewind. Good? Okay. Um these are my my multiracial students. Um so we broke that down and we're we're as a school leadership team, um as well as grade levels, we use something called Branching Minds, which allows us to look at their performance and filter by um subset or you know, um ethnicity to get a better idea of how students are doing.
99. 1:43:09Um and then this is a little different cuz it wouldn't filter it through NWEA for whatever reason, so I had to do this through Branching Minds. I think everyone can It's very similar, you know, that low, low average average, high average, and high. It's the same breakdowns. The white on the end are students who didn't take the test. And so because that subgroup is in the 60s or so, it you know, five kids can make the numbers When I say 60s, I mean the number of kids who are who identify as Hispanic. That can look bigger, you know, and and that's probably I think it was like 12 kids who didn't take the first one and and a few more in the other. And some of those um a segment of those are alternate assessment kids who don't take um that test. So that's that's math in a nutshell to kind of So as Dr. Bailey said, you just I'm just going to put it out on the table and you know, um And and after just to give a a preview, like we're going to go through the data
100. 1:44:12and then I'm going to talk about what we're doing in our PLCs, what we're doing in our school leadership team, like what interventions and other pieces we're taking to address where we feel like we need to make more growth or, you know, how we're looking at the utilization of our interventions, the AS staff, um you know, those pieces where behavior fit in, where does engagement, and how do we really build that, you know, holistic child. I can go to ELA, but we can Wait. Any questions about math? W- are we Have we fully made the um switch to Eureka Math? Yeah. Eureka Squared. Eureka Squared. Yep. We're This is year three. Okay. Okay. So I think, you know, any new program it takes some it takes time for teachers to get comfortable with and I think that that helps to increase their ability to know that what standard they can pull from what lesson. And I think when we first start, there's more of, you know, um
101. 1:45:15more that people are searching for that information and so it leads more to people teaching 2.1 and 2.2 and 2.3. Whereas now a lot of what we're doing in PLCs, a lot of what we're doing in other places is talking about how are we meeting this standard. Oh, we're going to pull from here. What's a pretest skill that currently lies at the end because I think what I don't know everyone understands is curriculum is generally nationalized and the curriculum companies change it a little bit here and there. So, we have to look at what we look at as Hudson as our teaching sequence and where standards should lie as well as New York State to make sure that we are meeting the needs of the students. And so, as we go forward, it it as much as teachers have expertise and you know, the teachers really are working hard and know, they also have to get used to that new curriculum that's going to have some new methodology in It's it's a pretty I mean, it can be a steep learning curve. Remember the modules? Yeah, the modules. Yes.
102. 1:46:16And I liked I liked that and that was that's, you know, the math modules were very similar to um the Eureka math. But, I know they adopted the Eureka math at the junior high school, but I mean, I I tried. My last, you know, couple of months or whatever to integrate. It's a lot. It's a lot. Do you have any just like initial thoughts on um and I start by saying like, it's hard to move this data, right? Like, this is what else I do during the day and my data, you know, has the red, too. But, when I look across third, fourth, and fifth, so when we're looking specifically at our testing grades, it looks like the kids that are in that 0 to 20th percentile increased a little bit from fall to winter. Um so, do you I know you're going to talk more about strategy later, but do you have any sort of initial thoughts on like, okay, we saw that and here's what we're moving on. So, yeah, I mean, we saw a lot, right? So, like, one of the things that we also utilize is we do some deeper digs into
103. 1:47:19like the reading and the science of reading to look at what the kids are doing. And I think one of the big pieces that came out of our data meetings was making sure we're very intentional on what we're doing in our tier three and tier two groups, focusing on skills that will have an impact on performance. Because, you know, we need to make sure that we're aligning that, you know, where we have a reality that kids are going to be expected to perform, but we're also needing to teach those reading groups. So, I I don't have any specific honestly, like I can't say to you that it was, you know, this piece of reading comprehension, that vocabulary was the number one piece. But, we did find that, I mean, the reading groups, you know, a lot of what we did um focused around our look at students' fluency and those underlying skills. So, cuz this is the like So, just to like tie it together, right? Like, we know that the math test has reading on it. So, you're saying like continuing to work on those foundational reading skills >> yes. >> is what you're saying hopefully will
104. 1:48:20move those the red to the yellow. >> And we had a lot of intentional conversations about the classroom teacher with those tier two when the kids are going out for tier three interventions during our MTSS period, multi-tier system of supports. I know I throw out a lot of acronyms, but we have a period every day where we regroup, much like for some of you had kids come through the building, we called it RTI at one point. You know, that's when a lot of those things are happening as well, and the teachers are pulling small groups. They'll pull, you know, five kids for 15 minutes, and then they'll pull the other eight kids to do that as well as a lot of small group work once the the mini lesson is taught for 15 minutes, we have a lot of teachers who are pulling small groups and trying to give that um you know, structured instruction to provide higher levels of scaffolding to some groups, and make sure that our higher kids are still getting the push. Thanks. Um I was curious um I saw in your attendance chart you included UPK, but UPK is not included in
105. 1:49:25any of the measurements. Is is there any curriculum for math there that we can measure and can we tell the students that go to and receive early >> yes, we are working towards that. We have circle which we're implementing in pre-K which we're starting to get there. Yes, we have math math curriculum that we use. We have ELA, we still use CKLA in pre-K and we have math that is utilized. Yes, I don't know. The teachers do assessments, but we don't necessarily quantify them in the same way. It's a lot more checklist. Yeah. It's like can you what what number's right here? And they're checking off that they knew the five. So, quantifying that isn't something that we have done, but that's one of the things that circle I believe should lead us to. Okay. And can you see kids who go to UPK and when they enter into kindergarten are they performing better than their peers or more prepared? Is there In the past, yes, they they did. Um, you know, we used to we had a software we used
106. 1:50:28before that we tagged them and that allowed us to be able to see every kid that was pre-K as they went through, but um we we don't have them currently tagged in the move to branching minds, but it's something that we want to do. So, that the same I mean, we believe so, but you know, it's one of those educated beliefs with some data behind it. At this point, I couldn't give you hard data. And UPK enrollment has generally it continues to go up. Do you >> Well, since we I mean, we have three we've had three classrooms for quite a while, but at one point it was TPK and we've gone to you know, across the board three UPKs which you know, we generally are enrolled at 18 in each or so. Mhm. Fluctuates, you know, we might get down to 16 if a couple kids leave or whatever. All right. Ready for ELA? Okay. So, ELA we saw ourselves at the 46th um percentile of medium growth. Um you know, we did see a small drop in that achievement, but I mean it
107. 1:51:31was you know, it we weren't completely displeased, right? We we saw that we stayed close to where we were. Um we we saw that same piece in kindergarten. Um you know, we are seeing kindergarteners with a lot of emotional needs this year. And that is one of those things. I mean, that's you know, once again, one of those things when you read if you read much, there's a lot of there was a lot of press at the beginning of the year about the emotional needs of kindergarten and coming into school. And you know, I mean, I I will tell you between Mrs. Hamley and I, we spent um first 2 months of school probably 2 or 3 hours a day with a few of our kindergarteners. And what do they attribute in the article or the the articles you've read or read? I mean, a lot of it's contributed to kids not having that exposure to peers when they were young. You got a lot of parents who had young kids who Yeah, COVID who like, you know, even when COVID was kind of going, they weren't they didn't want their 1 and 1/2 year old or 2 year old being around another child cuz, you know, they were worried they're going to get sick. So,
108. 1:52:33they didn't have that same. So, now you have where, you know, Kenny takes my pen and I'm punching him because I haven't really had that interaction or that that piece. So, we we've done a lot of ruler, a lot of the SEL piece in kindergarten. We've had to do a lot of that emotional work with those kids. Um you know, it's gotten I I will say those teachers and you know, Mrs. Hamley and our counselors have done you youomans work. Like there is a lot less in kindergarten of, you know, we need we need an administrator now or we need a counselor. But, you know, in the beginning of the year there there was a lot in kindergarten. Um in the first grade, once again, we saw the 60th percentile in growth. So, you know, that first grade group of teachers and the students, I mean, we're we're doing great there. Um Can I uh Just ask? >> Yeah. Quick question on that was so this first grade chart is a great example of statistics that we're seeing. So, we we're in the 60th percentile in
109. 1:53:35growth. Uh the the bottom one we're going from 46th to 49th. Mhm. Um So, I think and it look I mean, it looks great. It looks like a big improvement. It it didn't necessarily move a lot in percentile. Um so, that's implying there was growth among the other schools relative to to us. Yep. Even though we had growth. Yep. Like we it looks like our students grew 13%. >> were in red. I mean, that's a, you know, We just got beat by others, basically, is the story of that chart. Yep. Okay. But, we did move. If you look at that chart, right? Look at the like the 31% in the red to 18%, right? That's a big improvement in the kids that were like well below in their reading. Yeah. It looks like most most sections had kids, you know, advancing or succeeding at a higher level. So, as we go into second and third grade, um you know, we we're seeing that
110. 1:54:39achievement in second grade is, you know, 47th and 45th, and we're, you know, we're we're we're looking at why we're having a little bit of a dip there. We're seeing that growth in third grade. We didn't start as high as we would like, but we are seeing, you know, we went from the 26th percentile to the to the 33rd percentile. That that second grade group we've seen as a cohort that has a lot of needs um over the years when we when we looked at the data they're they're a group that we've given given a lot to. We make sure that we have you know the full entourage of services available for them when we have our MTSS or two-tier times we make sure that all the reading specialists and all the math specialists and that those kids are getting the access to counseling services and such cuz they're you know they're a group that just came in that had had those needs. Yes. Do you redo the tier two grouping based on this? So like is it a safe assumption that the 42% of kids that are like well below for reading are all getting reading intervention right now?
111. 1:55:40Um most of them. I mean I yes it's a fairly safe assumption but sometimes there's outliers like we were just you know we've talked about a kid who you know shows to be in the red but their ORF or reading fluency is over 100. So then we're trying to figure out why they're not performing and we might not have them as in as intensive group. So there's dynamics that lead to not all but the majority of those kids are getting it. But we have to look with depth in the data balancing you know the science of reading and those core reading skills as well as predictive measures of New York State testing and look at what we need to do to provide the best supports. Um and you know as we go into fourth grade we saw great growth with our fourth grade to 55th percentile um state you know Matt as you said like we stayed solid 48 49 and very very similar achievement um because other schools are making that achievement um
112. 1:56:42and you know we were I was happy with the fifth grade growth cuz I saw it at the 47th percentile but I was surprised that we we dropped six points in achievement you know six percentile. I just you know I figured with that growth being close to the 50th percentile, we would we would maintain that. But, um you know, the fifth grade team and I talk a lot, you know, I run that's one of the PLCs that I run, and and we talk a lot about um engagement, the work completion piece, you know, and how we instill those those in kids. Um and that's that's I think our challenge that we run into with fifth grade a lot is that we spend a lot of that conversational piece on to to get them, you know, to be com- doing what they need to do. >> Mhm. So, then as we look our multiracial students, um you know, our growth was in the 46th percentile, so you know, I we we were in a in a place where we were not unsatisfied. We We always want to do better. Um but, you know, we're still
113. 1:57:45looking at our our students in the red. Um and then as we look at our Hispanic students, um we stayed close to the same as you can see, but we lost some out of that high range. That's ELA in a nutshell. Um I included these and I get it So, it talks about the grow- projected growth um for grade level norms. It talks about the observed growth. It's something that I just want to put in here kind of for you to dissect as a board and to put out there. Um You know, the triangles at the bottom would show where grade level norm projected growth is. You can see first, second, third, we we feel like we're in a good place. Um when we this is math. I don't know if everyone can see in the top corner, it's math. Um you know, we're continuing to have the conversations at K 4 and 5 in math to to how are we gaining that growth. And then the next slide is the ELA.
114. 1:58:48Um you know, we we see closer to those grade level norms across the board except for kindergarten. In in this data set, fifth grade is the missed kindergarten grade. >> Correct. Yeah. Yep. So, any questions on that piece? I'm going to then go into like our instructional decision-making, our professional learning communities, and the conversations and a little bit more granular of what we've done at each grade level. To to give an outline, every um every other week, every grade level or subs subsection of groups meet. So, like third grade meets and and fourth grade meets every other week to have a professional learning community. Our AIS um reading and math teachers have a professional learning community time as well as our self-contained. So, we have that, you know, kind of we have it broken up and Mrs. Hamley and I have broken that up and and we meet with them and, you know, we we have some general guidelines on what we want to
115. 1:59:51talk about, growth or instruction or attendance or those things, but it's really teacher-driven in in where it's coming from cuz they're living it every day. Um so, we we've talked about that in aligning our instructional priorities. And our teachers, we really we've had a focus on utilizing that MTSS instructional time to do apply interventions to look at growth. We spend a lot of time looking in Branching Minds, which is how we monitor um progress monitoring, to look at return on intervention. Like to make sure if something isn't working after a month or, you know, a four data points, we should be looking at how are we modifying that instruction. Like doing the same thing over and over and not getting any different results doesn't make any sense, right? Like however you want to put that. So, we keep a close eye to make sure that that progress monitoring is moving forward, we're getting the return on instruction or if we're not, what intervention will we put in place? How are we modifying what we're doing?
116. 2:00:53Teachers utilize, you know, NWEA data, FastBridge data, Lexia data, classroom assessments in those small group to create their small groups and implement targeted instruction. Um, we are in the process, next board meeting you're going to approve extended learning time, I hope, so that we are going to add some more after-school instruction for groups of kids. Um, we have the groups ready to go, we have them targeted, it's on the agenda at the next meeting. Um, so we certainly want to target those kids twice a week for the for a for a portion prior to some of the testing and even just to give them those opportunities to build their skills over the next, I think, eight weeks or whatever that timetable is. Is there coordination now or, I guess, the opportunity to coordinate with MHA regarding like the ASP program and and getting more integrating any of this with with them? They've already got, you know, so >> We'll take We'll have kids come from them, yes. Yep. And we are we have busing for kids that aren't and we've been working I've been working
117. 2:01:55closely with the Boys & Girls Club. They're actually going to be implementing the same program. I was on an email today with Calvin and they're going to start their own tutoring program there. Looking at We're looking at groups of about five kids and they're looking to utilize hopefully we'll have a teacher who's interested so that we can get more opportunities. Promise is looking at a similar type of thing so that we can get those extra not just homework help, not just instructional opportunities for kids to be learning. When you're thinking about the kids that you're prioritizing for the extended learning time, are you thinking about specifically like the groups of kids that are the subgroups that are identified here as well? Like is Yes, we're we're targeting what I would call bubble kids, kids who are on the cusp of of moving from a to a two or a two to three and who are our targeted areas. So, so the bubble, yeah, our cusp kids and also the multi-racial, right? And the like the kids that are specifically here as the ones. >> Yep. Awesome. Yep. And And is that something that parents have to opt into or Okay.
118. 2:02:58>> the mess- We're um we we're finalizing everything and then hopefully Thursday we'll be sending out the messages to parents for for permission and starting next Thursday 18th. Phone calls and all that jazz. But we do it all through Parent Square now. Got you. So the parent can just approve their permission slips and all those pieces through Parent Square. Okay. Yeah, be curious to know how many of the parents that we go out to, how many of them opt into it and if they >> tell you. Yeah, cuz Parent Square gives us quick, easy data. Um and uh And we looked at that New York the New York State testing data in third through fifth grade to really hone our instruction and second grade. We just finished our last grade level meeting. Tomorrow we'll have our next, but um K- K through six meets with um a K1 team, a 2-3 team this time of year every year to talk about what's working, what is the what are those essential skills that kids need when they get to second grade or when they get to first grade. And so we also work with the junior high, which
119. 2:04:00I think is helpful every year. We use a a note-taking strategy that then we review it with each grade level and it's reviewed at the grade level meeting to ensure that everyone has that understanding of, you know, what you would call my power the power skill that they need to know for the next year or what has to be taught to mastery so we have a better understanding of what students need and can meet those needs. Um dur- during those PLCs we're constantly analyzing the data. I'm constantly pulling up different things, the tier movement that we can see. Um you You moving around lessons saying, you know, gosh, we need to we need to hit this. The kids grasp this. And I think this has probably been the best year of that organic conversation for me at my professional learning communities to hear teachers talking about instruction. It really, you know, a lot of times um we would get together and and and some years past and it took some time to get here. We had some growing pains to understand that it really should be their their time their working time. I'm
120. 2:05:03just there to facilitate and type into the computer. The teachers are really there to, you know, talk and talk about what's going to help them instructionally and help to meet the students' needs. Um we've created right writing rubrics across those grade levels. One of the really important things with writing rubrics is so the kids know what it means to write a proficient paragraph. And so one of the things that we emphasize is showing examples and non-examples. What does it What does a four look like in second grade? Let's put it up there and let's talk about it as a class to talk about what a second grader write second grader's writing or fifth grader. It's really important for kids to know the expectation because what we expect kids will generally rise to. But if they don't know and and we're not giving them that information. So we felt it was really important to have that in place and to give more opportunities for students to write. One of the things that we've known since we adopted CKLA is that we lacked writing opportunities for students. We've known we needed to enhance what students are able to write.
121. 2:06:05Our data is clear that students struggle on those longer answer parts of New York State testing. Um they do better on the multiple choice. So we're looking to embed more of that in what we do. Um you know, and we're also looking at motivational incentives to have kids reading more at home. And we're, you know, like next week we'll be rolling out and we're going to do like 20 minutes of everyone in the whole school is going to stop and just do independent reading to try to encourage kids cuz that's a really important skill that kids need. >> are. Right. Yep. The kids need Kids need to read and you know, we're more apt for kids to be doing other things than reading, watching YouTube videos, or or other things when they're leaving school and we want to partner with, you know, we'd like partner with the community, the board, and everyone and just, you know, make sure that we get back to a place where we have more reading. We know we've had uh promise and we've been working with Boys and Girls Club to implement those pieces at their programs as well, as well as working with our 21st Century program. Um
122. 2:07:06you know, this is that pre-K piece. We already talked about that a little. You know, we're going to use circles next year to progress monitor. We do screen kids um at the beginning of the year to get an idea of where our pre-K kids Um this is just some actual what happened in a PLC, right? So that you know, and um you know, kindergarten teachers aligned their science curriculum in New York State standards cuz sometimes it's hard to get to that science piece when you're feeling like I'm not getting through what I need to for the reading. So we've looked at to integrate. Um first and second grade teachers worked really hard on the writing rubrics and saying, "These are the writing pieces that we want our kids to do." Um second grade teachers were really looking at their math progression and how they could add scaffolding because they saw that some of they were missing some of the skills that they felt were essential for the lessons. But we can't not keep progressing forward. We can't stop keep Stop teaching content or we have the Matthew effect, right? The poor get poorer. They didn't learn this before, so we slow down and we don't teach all
123. 2:08:08of what should be taught at the end of second grade, then they're going to have those struggles in third grade and it becomes a self-fulfilling piece. So we need to make sure that the kids are getting all of the content that we need and we need to say, "Hey, we can shave this piece off cuz that's really not essential. That's an exposure piece." Sometimes in math we just need to expose kids to something and if we have to choose something, we'd rather them have mastery going to that next grade level when that mastery is essential for their performance at the next grade level. Um third grade teachers, we mapped curriculum, um organized lessons. They were pulling, you know, some of the actual books to get in kids' hands and aligning that with CKLA and talking about what activities, how we'd get the writing in place. Um our fourth grade teachers, you know, they they completely redesigned CKLA how they wanted it to be to align with what they're doing and for it to match up with some of the science investigations as well, as well as the social studies um piece. When I talk about science
124. 2:09:09investigations, do you Do people know that there are five science investigations across 3 through 5 that they have to do and then they're kept in a folder? And so, they have to be made up if they if they haven't done them. Yeah, the junior high has it for 6 through 8. So, you know, that that gets kind of And the kids can use that as a resource before they take the test. They can look over that material. Um and you know, one of the things like fifth grade that we discussed and and we made some decisions and we we made some changes in the middle of the year that all the fifth grades with the needs, we decided to go away from dyads and everyone is teaching all subjects in their class because we felt that it was something that just this these these kids this group of kids needed. The transitions were Yep. Yep. I mean, I I've been doing this for a while and I will tell you that I the data would indicate that every time you add another teacher, you double the number of disruptive instances. So, if with one teacher you had 20 disruptive instances, if you had two teachers, you're going to have 40. If you have three teachers, you're going to have 80.
125. 2:10:11It just adds to that because it's hard for the kids to readjust. Now, that doesn't make it easier on Kenny at the junior high, per se, but we don't know that that actually had a dramatic impact because things are different and you know, we want we we felt really strongly that we needed to do that this year to make sure kids were getting what they needed. Um I hear in this like really comprehensive ELA plans. Can you talk for a minute about those testing grades like 3-5 math specific? What Cuz I think we saw right there like map data stronger in ELA the state test scores were stronger in ELA last year. So when we're thinking about like 6 weeks or what did someone tell me today like 34 days till the math exam something like that like like what are we thinking we can do to move the needle? So we've we've talked about those. I mean I we just tried to grab some pieces and try to keep them in line. Um like we've talked about what are the core skills that they're missing um you know when in moving post test things using Think Tech which is um a program that the students can go on that allows them to
126. 2:11:13experience what a test question is going to look like in math and utilize those tools so that the first time they get there that's not the first time they're using what a in in search the tool, right? Um we've also talked about how we can um change our instructional groupings to present skills and fourth grade we had a large conversation also about how to make sure that we're continuing to push that top group cuz there's a segment of each class that we want to make sure that those kids are going to perform at a four. Cuz they have that ability. Um so I mean that's a piece of what we've done with math but all of the PLC's has has a balance between math, ELA, writing, science, social studies that we try to bring to it to make sure. So you know the the math piece once again like we are having direct we're having that conversations we pull apart NWEA and saying this was a skill that they're missing. What are we going to do to make sure one of the grade levels decided that everyone was going to cover a piece of
127. 2:12:15it even though they're departmentalized. They're going to make sure that they're you know, hitting those vocabulary things cuz sometimes, you know, that vocabulary can trip them trip them up because we call it one thing in Eureka Squared and New York State has a glossary of vocabulary that there's a variety of different ways they can refer to even division, right? And so, the kids they call it something different and the kids like freeze. So, we want to make sure that we're giving that exposure to give them the greatest understanding and the greatest opportunity to show what they know. I had kids yesterday have a question that said, "What is the difference between 67 and 46?" And they're like, "Well, one of them has an odd number and one of them is two even numbers." I'm like, "Just subtraction, guys. >> Right. It's just subtraction." >> Correct. Correct. Right. I mean, right. Very creative, but yeah, vocab matters. Um so, we've talked just a piece of like the conversation of targeting our Hispanic population. A lot of focus on vocabulary. We find that that can have a dramatic impact on our Hispanic population and comprehension strategies.
128. 2:13:18Making sure that, you know, even those kids who are having pull out um for other things are getting the independent writing and reading. Um we do focus on our SEL as well. We have ruler activities every day for those who are parents that should be coming home after um soon, the 31st is going to be a ruler night. We have parents come in and they'll with their kids and they'll make a charter. We have a charter for the school that talks about how do you want to feel at school? It's going to talk about how does your family want to feel at home and we're hoping to get a lot of families out there for that. Um you know, we try to also integrate the community. The board comes to our, you know, our next um report our conference tonight. I think it's 25th, if I remember correctly. You know, but we have a lot of community agencies and we do try to, you know, integrate community into what we do because we as a district need to, you know, have everyone working together um in what we're doing. Um you know, we make sure we have translators. Um and just one other I I know I've already did attendance, but just talk about one of the other things that we're
129. 2:14:20piloting right now as a district across all the buildings is we're working with Promise Neighborhood and DSS to target three families in each building to try to see what we can do to impact attendance. Just to track three families and then try to build that um forward. Jill's going to lose her budget on uh blue raspberry Jolly Ranchers, but the one kid that's uh that's a piece of what's really, you know, helped. We've seen two real successes of and we're working on the third and in increased in my building. So, that's one of those other community pieces that we've That's great. When it comes to the designations that we hear all the gibberish, sometimes it feels like. Uh how many students are we talking about? Like, what does it take to move I think I think you told us this last year, but remind me like I mean, it would probably take moving between depending, they have to be, you know, whether you're talking sweet spot or in general, between 10 and 40. Yeah. Really, I mean, you could move 10 kids
130. 2:15:24and and move out of the designation. Yeah. More often it's a it's about 40 kids and it's not only some of the kids you need to move you can move kids out of ones and get them into twos and that will have an impact. Okay. Across all school designation. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right, not per grade. Yeah. So, you're talking like I mean, when you're talking 60 Hispanic students, you know, you're talking about you you might move five Hispanic students and that might impact your overall. Um what support are you getting from um state ed? For the For to help with the discipline Well, so I I want to say it diplomatically. I don't know that prior to this year I always got all the information that I should have gotten. But now, like tomorrow, we're on a call about the new like what the state is offering, the new forms, new everything, right? Like I will tell you that last year I went into in August into write my CEP and no one could even give me the plan or any of
131. 2:16:27the stuff and we just did it. So, I think I think I'm going to find that out tomorrow. Like that's when we have the meeting. It's at I think it's at 3:00 tomorrow. Um and so, from there, I'm sure we'll have that information and I'm guessing that um you know, Dr. Bailey or someone at the next board could probably talk a little bit about that, but you know, um a lot of what we get from New York State is monetary support um Mhm. to put some programs in place, but I I have not had a lot um of conversation from New York State. You know, I mean, my experience with that is the last time I ever got feedback from New York State on a plan, it was in July for the previous year that they told me what I should modify in the school plan. I have a question that'll bounce off of Maureen's. I'm interested to know if you have all your players in place that you need to do all the interventions. Are you short any EAs? Are you short any teachers? Are you short any monitors? Is there anything that you need in order to
132. 2:17:29get all of this work done? I mean, I Of course. >> that, but I want to know if you have them. >> right? I mean, I know in the fiscal place. I I think that, you know, >> the players in order to get the the the the chess pieces to move. Yep. Um you know, I I think for us what one of those pieces that can be a struggle sometimes administratively is to be able to do the curricular work. And I'm I'm looking forward to as we have someone more permanently in place as a um assistant superintendent for curriculum to be able to give some more supports. Um I think that we're getting to a place where our hiring process is um picking up pace. And so I think that we have a lot of those things that we need, honestly, Diana. Um but I think that sometimes some of them have gone unfilled, but I think that we've gotten to a place where where we've been able to fill them um in a faster manner. Um you know, I just you know, as as we look at what we need, what what I think is needed is we need to have a lot of When
133. 2:18:32we look at our professional development needs days, we need to choose carefully. We need to provide the right uh training there. And we might need to buck up um as a district and say, "We're going to teach the science of reading to all the teachers." And have small, you know, them going through. And I think the teachers would love that and gobble it up. I think the teachers are incredibly knowledgeable. Please don't take it from that place, but I think that that review piece, I mean, I know, you know, I'm 30 25 years out of college and you know, the only thing that I ever was taught was about reading was one class and it was like five articles. You know, we didn't really, you know, most of that was self self-taught. So, I think that just helping people have those instructional, whether it be review or new strategies, I think that's important. Um I think that's a really important piece as we go into the next year. Just um just to piggyback on that and um what supports have you been getting from from the two people that are that are
134. 2:19:34temporarily interim um So, I think they I mean, everything I've ever asked from you know, both Lynn and Alyssa, they've been great. They get right back to me like, "Absolutely." I I think as people know when you're in a district where you know that there's going to be change, I think some of it is kind of in a holding. You don't want to I don't want to throw all weight behind the new thing and have the person, you know, our new administration or central office come in and say like this is what I want to do and this is the direction and then have to pivot because, you know, we want to have an intention in what we do, right? Our instructional intention is one of the great levers that we have in instruction. Um so we want to make sure we're being intentional in what we do. So I would say I felt very supportive in in that support supported and that's helped to write it, but I think those that the PD opportunities and some of those things are going to be really essential as we go into the next year and over the summer some curriculum writing pieces. I don't know if I don't know if this is
135. 2:20:37right stop for this question or not, but looking at your numbers, fifth grade seems to be the trouble issue. Are you confident for them to be moving on to junior high? And what are they going to do when they get to junior high? Cuz now they're going to be the problem numbers there or what how are we going to start trying to move them forward once they make that huge leap from fifth to sixth? I mean I I think at our level we're trying to, you know, we're we're putting those interventions in place. We're we're putting as much rigor in what we do and as much emotional support, right? Retention at that level at the fifth grade level generally is more predictive of dropping out than it is of, you know, those pieces. What I think is going to be important is that, you know, we continue to look at something like our our boost up maybe enhancing what Mr. Bear does at his level with that to do a full week of bringing the sixth grade in and acclimating them as opposed to, you know, three days or what whatever that
136. 2:21:40is. I I think adding more to that can certainly help to acclimate them stu- those students and hopefully um you you assist them in that. As I said, a lot a lot of what we see with that group is that social and engagement piece. It's not It's not It's not necessarily um their ability to learn, but they they have There are some disruptive pieces that I think have impacted that. And are you ready for them? Well, Um well, what I was going to add to be uh later on, but we can speak to it now. One of the things my team and I have been working on as well is going to be helping with the transition from fifth grade to sixth grade. Because there is some data in you know, in regards to the state test scores, and we've received some feedback from numerous members of the community that, you know, the students are struggling moving from fifth to sixth grade for for numerous reasons, right? Like the fact that they move from a system to where they're staying in the classroom now, and then they're going to come to junior high next year in sixth
137. 2:22:42grade, and they're going to be moving freely about the building. It you know, sometimes some of the kids struggle to adapt to that. Have you considered just keeping them in that same model in the sixth grade? It's really not feasible at the junior high. Due to due to numerous logistical issues. We'd have to have, you know, there'd be a lot of a lot of things to consider. So, again, we're just going to look to transition, you know, have the our school counselors go down to the MC Smith and and speak with the students over an extended period over the summer, have the students come in and and adapt. And it's really something our kids have to adjust to, right? Just like our eighth graders need to adjust when they go up to middle school and then to high school. It's it's a process, um but I think it's one we're willing to take on. I think it's one we'll we'll be okay with eventually as long as we show the students the processes at place. And we do spend a a good couple hours going through all the students when they're going. Like we know, we make we make pretty long
138. 2:23:45notes. Like this kid needs a go-to person and you know, watch this, you know, whatever they need. We want to We want to make sure that we're giving as much knowledge as we can of the students as they go forward. And I think over time junior high is, you know, been very receptive to get that information to to support the students as we go. >> Hopefully with a new environment it may change. Yep. Yeah. And you found that with some cohorts over time. Um for our English language learners and Hispanic students, are there still um is there still a bilingual class? Are they uh self-contained? How are they integrated with the rest of the the students? So, there's no self-contained. They're integrated. There's pull-out ENL services um that students would have depending like a newcomer would get pull-out and then it would be dependent on the nice slots scores. So, there's that as well as we have after-school set aside from one of the titles that allows those students to get extra services
139. 2:24:47When when Max started there was one class that was bilingual I believe. Is that something we I think that that teacher is bilingual and they we sometimes place some his some some students who speak Spanish in there, but I it we don't have a bilingual class. If I remember correctly from last year as well, right? Like the the subgroup that's the Hispanic population is not necessarily the English language learners also, right? I think it's around a third. Third of our Hispanic students are actually English language The other two-thirds is not. Yeah. Um and then in addition to the the extra learning time after school, are you are there other opportunities during the day for students to receive extra um extra support? Like I know we do Hudson Reads, but like can we pull students out of lunch to work with teachers during that time or is it I think that becomes a complexity. I mean I think we could but I think the kids also want to go to recess and run around and we have an expectation of
140. 2:25:50what they're doing and um you know I don't ever want instruction to seem as a punishment. I mean we certainly you know we used to do before school instruction which we which we utilize but I mean that like anything that comes with the cost. Did you find it effective? For the kids that got off the bus at 7:30 yes we could target you know we'd have like a teacher or grade level and we'd target about 30 kids and and we could get them on the regular basis until about April mid-April when it gets warm and they knew that they could then play outside as well. They were happy to be in during the wintertime. Um but I mean that's certainly something as we look at next year as I just I haven't thought about that in a few years. COVID kind of killed that but I mean that's certainly another avenue we can look at. Is that a stipend uh a Yeah yeah they're whatever that whatever the fee is about 20 about $25 a day is what's happening. Okay. Any other questions for Sweeny? I one more which is just been a
141. 2:26:54personal observation where um and this is probably a larger conversation um but the grades that students receive from their teachers I guess per trimester don't really seem to correspond with the way they perform necessarily on standardized testing. Is there any thinking or notion to try and have those align more closely? I'm sure Amanda's got experience with that but >> Go ahead. Yes. Um we we had a whole faculty meeting on that and I was told to cease and desist by the previous superintendent. >> Got you. To stop the conversation immediately. Interesting. I mean I think it's >> yes so it's something we want to do. And it's complicated, right? We look at our data right now and we see that 42% of our kids are reading well below grade level. We don't want to send I think there's ways to accurately report information home to families that's different than the grade, right? Like Yeah. Those 42% of kids shouldn't necessarily get a
142. 2:27:55F for their English grade, but I think more I know I asked recently for the my kids math scores to come home and that was really helpful to see. So, I think like more transparent communication of like this grading covers effort and habits and but here's your kids reading level and here's what you need to do about it. I think would be really helpful. Everyone will get their map scores at the report card conferences. I think you should have gotten them at the first report card conference. I did. Yeah, I I just asked for them in No, I hear you, but we we do try to get that out there. We do we do do both, but I mean when I say like the grading piece, you know, there's a lot of research out there. There's a lot of work that people have done and we had, you know, as a group in reading some of the articles and books and we've started to introduce articles at faculty meetings and start to have that conversation because it has to be something that not only the faculty is comfortable with the community and the board as we look at how we're grading. So, you know, it's a process. It takes a year or two years of really a lot of but like Douglas Reeves is a is someone who writes a lot about it and there's a lot of
143. 2:28:57>> And listen, from a special ed um perspective, I just feel like there's some kids that are never going to be you know, proficient. Mhm. And what a terrible message to send to them. You know what I mean? To to have New York State tests are just are one measure of one Mhm. piece of Yeah. the whole child. Well, even just going from a numerical system to something that is uh uh not based >> We we at one point did and I think it was more parents found it more confusing when they got one through fours in like five different areas in math than five different areas in ELA. Like we found that the parents found it easier to understand like when it was a 82 in the in math as opposed to, you know, a one through four in five areas. Yeah. I mean, it's a huge shift, but like moving towards a standard based grading model does give you more Yeah. targeted data. Yeah.
144. 2:30:00Yeah. Cool. Thank you. Okay. Cool. All right. Thank you, Mark. Yeah. Thank you. All right. Good evening, everyone. Thank you, Mr. Brennan, because I think you I'm hoping you did a lot of legwork for me in regards to lot of statistics. Um So, before we begin, as you all are aware, we have been uh recognized as a targeted school in need of improvement uh due to, you know, the performance of our Hispanic population. All this this uh data was shared with you uh at my previous presentation. We're going to jump right into the state test scores and data. Uh once again, all all this has been shared with you previously. Um if you take a look at the sixth grade data in 2023-2024 compared to 2024-2025, the thing that stands out to me the most is while, you know, there was a 1% uh
145. 2:31:0129% in 2023-2024, 30% grade in 2024-2025. This tells me that we are in need of stronger transitional supports from fifth grade to sixth grade. Because there's not much of a difference. They're coming in with a lot of the same skill sets. Um but they the students need help transitioning. Uh grade seven, if you take a look, 2023-2024, 30%. Uh seventh grade, 2024-2025, 28% a drop off of 2%. Grade eight, 35% in 2023-2024, 2029% in 2024-2025. All right, if you take a look at the math, I'm happy to report if you think you look at sixth grade in 2023-2024, we formed a 25% proficiency. That same group in 2024-2025 in grade seven increased 5% to 30%. So, we we did
146. 2:32:07show some improvement there. Our Regents eight scores in 2023-2024 were 78% of our students were proficient. 76% of our uh students were proficient in 2024-2025 Regents scores. What do you think happened with the combined six? With sixth grade? >> Yeah. Just uh you know, it could have been a a drop-off in in skill set. It could go back to what Mar- what Marva was mentioning earlier, that fifth grade class could have struggled coming into sixth grade. What does combined six mean versus grade seven? So, I don't know why combi- combined six showed up on there because we don't sixth grade we we don't have combined. At one point, we had a combined eight. But, I don't know. I didn't post that data, so I don't know where it came from. Combined six people. All right. And do the eighth graders not take the eighth grade state Great. That's what I was going to ask. Eighth grade, we do have a uh a group who take the the state test. Yeah. But, we also have
147. 2:33:09a group who take the Regents eight scores. But, you don't have the data for the eighth grade test. Do you have the data for that test? You We the You only have the Regents. I can get that. >> Okay, so my my question was going to be why is it 30% all along and then 78 for Regents, but it's only a subset of two. Got it. Yeah. The other thing I will say, having taught high school all levels, that there is something to be said about having a finite tactile, you know exactly what is going to be assessed. It is a little less nuanced than trying to teach fourth grade all four subjects plus health and SEL. So, that is sometimes helpful to So, we had both a cohort and you'll see uh you know, it shines through in the scores that Derek shows as well because our students do really fairly They do pretty well on Regents exams after having struggled
148. 2:34:11in so many other grades. It's just the target. I can see it. It's right there. I know what the content is going to look like. I know what the questions are going to look like. Not that there aren't examples from three through eight tests, but it's a little bit of a whole buffet that has to be taught to kiddos and they may never ask half of the questions that you're teaching to. Do Do our eighth graders who take the eighth grade algebra Regents also take the New York State test or do they only take one or the other? >> take one or the other. Um Brian, I'm glad that you brought that up because um so the state test proficiency is supposed to be an indicator that the kids are on track to graduate, but there's a disconnect with the How is it the elementary is identified, you know, and these percentages the the the gap between New York State scores and and our scores, and then that kind of that gap is like this when you get up to the high school and the graduation
149. 2:35:14rates. There is a disconnect. >> as well. So, what are we doing? Like, how do we How do we connect those pieces? Well, although our success I I think overall success in the regions is good. If you look closely at it, you know, we have a lot of proficiency at a three and fewer fours and fives. Whereas, if we were doing better at the lower grades, we would see more um What's that What's above proficient? There's another word. Sorry. Yeah, the fives >> exemplary Yeah, you'd be a four and a five. We'd see more fours and fives. >> Mhm. Um And our graduation rate was 69% last year, right? So, I think there's Yeah, there's Wait, but compared but the the the gap isn't that large. You know, like I looked at the the gap between our scores you know, um and New York State and they were math and ELA consistently, you
150. 2:36:17know, I think it was average like 16% gap, right? And it's only like 4%. Yeah. for graduation rates. Yes. Mhm. Um Does that make sense? I mean, to me I don't know. I just thought that was really interesting and uh It is. Um Well, just just we have last year the uh grade eight 51 students took it and only three were proficient. So, it was 4%. That's for the the math Yeah, math. Yeah. And here if you take a look, this is just the participation for science by subgroup. 80% of our students participated in that. Interesting. Do we Do we know from either NWEA data or grade data right? Like the students who are opting out,
151. 2:37:21are they Do we know where in the spectrum they land? I mean we we would have to to do it you know a deep deep dive into that. I mean we would literally have to do it individual by individual. And I mean this is the first year that we obviously we're using the NWEA. So that is something that could be you know looked at like over the summer for summer work but we can definitely definitely take a a dive in that. Combined math refers to the fact that in sixth grade it merges various mathematical domains such as ratios proportions and number system expressions equations and geometry into a single assessment. Mhm. Yeah, what what >> of the test not the name of the group of kids. Perfect. Yeah. Well and then just just to Matt's point when you look at the grade eight um math uh we had 75 students in math across the district that opted out of the test and 51 of them were on the grade eight test. So it might it might it might take the count the ones who took the Regents but
152. 2:38:25that's only 21 so it's still 30 which is by far the largest largest cohort. They've changed They've changed the metric a few times um where they would count They're getting smarter. It used to be the students who took the eighth uh ninth grade assessment in eighth grade and didn't take the eighth grade one would be counted as an opt-out or a whatever did not finish whatever you want to call it. So they're getting smarter around how they do that. I know it's a state thing but why do they allow kids to opt out of it? What was the the reasoning behind that? Well I'm using the wrong word. The state does not allow students to opt out. Oh. It's test refusal is what it is. It's not a it but we know that Why It's a family practice. >> It's a parent right. Yeah. Okay. Under New York State law. >> But why though? I think that is a much longer conversation than right now and we should stay focused on this data. >> I refuse to perjure myself. Okay. What I am happy to report is that I remember standing in front of everyone last year and I don't know the exact,
153. 2:39:28you know, exact numbers but last year we reduced the number of opt-outs by something like 70% um my first year here I believe I want to say 60 kids opted out between 7th and 8th grade. I We knocked it down to 12 last year. So and that just came with putting systems in place, you know, making sure we had a added note from a parent or guardian 2 weeks prior so we could then check in with the parent um if the note was legit and the parent agreed to it we would then just try and have a conversation and explain the benefits um you know, everything outweighed the negatives. So um I'm hoping we will do the exact same thing this year and decrease the number even more. And um obviously we decreased the number now we have to try to make sure our students are putting forth their maximum effort, right? Like it's very hard to get that student to be motivated intrinsically. So they have to want it. So it's really up to us to to try and stress the importance
154. 2:40:29of performing well at that level. Take a look at here state test data grades 5 and 8 science 23-24 62% of our students performed passing the Regents. 61% 2024-25 41% in 23-24 were combined proficient between the Regents and the state test. 24-25 that number did decrease to 31%. So, similar to uh Mark's goals, one of our goals was to decrease or is to decrease chronic absenteeism by 17 students, which is 5% of our population. Uh my first year we reduced chronic absenteeism from 32% to I believe 27%. This year we are currently I'll go back to that. This year we're
155. 2:41:31currently at 26 26.42% and I'll literally explain why. Mark, can you go to the next slide? So, 24 25 at this same type of point in time we were at 24.42, which is equivalent to missing 11 class days. If we go to the next slide, I'm just going to ask everyone to take a look at that right now. This is exactly what Mr. Brunerman described earlier. So, we have been about two to three percentage points above where we were where we were last year. December hit and we plummeted. We went from I think it was 90% to 84%. Now we're back up and we're trending we're trending higher. So, we hope to be you know, we we hope to hit that uh but again, December took us for a ride and we're still coming back from that. Um I'm going to ask what maybe an easier
156. 2:42:34or hard question. Yeah. Is a chronically absent student likely to perform well on any of these assessments? I'm sorry? Is a chronically absent student likely to perform well on any of these assessments? I I mean, realistically probably not. You know, it's I I mean, if they're a highly successful student, if but you You uh they're missing 10 days. You know, they're missing 10 days. >> that's I mean, I see I see students in the high school that are right at that 11, 12, 13 that are doing fine academically. Some can. Some can't. >> Sometimes they just go on vacation. Their families have a regular vacation and Right. It It does unfortunately, it does not take a lot to hit that number. You know, um we in our weekly meetings, we see kids who in December, right? They missed a 5-day stretch. Five So, if you couple that with missing a day in September, a day in January, a day in February, you're almost on that chronically absent list already. So, it doesn't take much.
157. 2:43:36Um So, that's why it's really important what we've the work that we have been doing. You know, we have weekly attendance meeting with support staff. That staff consists of, you know, our attendance officer, Mr. Collins, school counselors, school social workers, outside organizations. Um Mr. Bruneman holds a monthly district attendance task force meeting with all the building leaders, counselors, outside community members. Mr. Collins visits families. He reaches out to community organizations uh we support students in coming to school. There's a lot of legwork that goes into it. Can you go into some more detail about I'm just curious cuz I mean, these are all things that have been happening. So, what what happens at those meetings or what comes out of that and what are you what are you putting into place to do differently or It It's really It's It's a lot of discussion around We will every meeting we will have parameters of of what who we're looking to discuss. For example, the
158. 2:44:39last meeting we discussed students who literally were on the bubble. Students who may have missed between eight to 10 days already. Um with the purpose of like that which was was earlier, we want a lot of our students to be below that line by a good four to five absences because in June, when June comes, a lot of students just start checking out at the at the end, you know, whether it's from Memorial Day on. Um yeah, especially after the junior high after the state test, right? Like it is hard to keep our students engaged. So, what are we doing? Well, one, we're also doing that. We're trying to come up with ways Wait, what ways what things have you come What we're trying to come up with Right, and we're trying to come up with ideas for June to to get our students to come to school, but right now in this last meeting, what we discussed was we looked at all the students from 8 to 10. We discussed them individually. Um you know, just if we knew what was going on, we checked their Was there an increase in their attendance? You know,
159. 2:45:42did they miss any days from the previous Friday? Um it's really just individually looking into each each student. Um there's only so much we can do in regards to attendance, right? Like we are working with the outside organizations. We are contacting parents on a weekly basis. Um when a student hits a particular number, I will send home a Parent Square message to the to the family, and that seems like it draws the most attention. Um when I do send that out, I For For example, in January, I sent one out. I think I sent it out to 22 families. I spoke to seven families within a matter of 45 minutes. Yeah. Um we have, you know, we'll do a beginning-of-the-year assembly. We'll do a mid-year assembly. Um it's really anything Oh, we also celebrate perfect attendance. And we are now working on um having an assembly for not only perfect attendance, but improved
160. 2:46:44attendance. So, that's one of the things we look at in the in the meetings as well, but unfortunately comes with that a lot more legwork, right? Like so we're taking the kids kids who missed maybe 7 days in January and seeing if they improve their attendance by 20% in February. We will then celebrate them in the morning. So, it's not just about perfect attendance, it's about improving attendance. Follow up on that one. Somebody, and I don't remember who it was, asked about the period by period attendance. Yeah. Are we looking at the period by period attendance as well as >> Classroom attendance. >> Laura Bender asked about it. I think at the last board meeting was who asked. We we do we do look at period by period attendance. I mean right now, you know, we what we go off of though is the the daily attendance. So, because that's what the the chronic absenteeism rate is based off of. But ultimately, the attendance we want it to lead to academic >> Oh, absolutely.
161. 2:47:46>> the classroom attendance is equally as important because that's where the >> It is. And and that's something also that we look into at the you know, at our MTSS meetings. Right? Like if if a student is there, you know, if we're discussing a student or we're looking at their their attendance period by period, are they missing ELA more than they're missing math? Is that's what is that what's leading them to Is it is it Is it like crawling before you walk? So, they can't get their classroom attendance if they're not making it to school in the first place? No. Not necessarily. Right? But I mean no no no. I Is it that simply making it to school needs to be addressed before and as we as we improve our chronic absenteeism >> the same. No, but I I understand. >> are kids that come every day to school. Every day, but they're not in class. >> Oh, yeah, I have one of those. It It has improved greatly. >> I I get it. It has improved greatly at the junior
162. 2:48:48high. Um we have we do have a lot of of staff helping out with their supervisory doing hallway duties now instead of study halls. Um we have Mr. Walker helping out with the in the restorative piece. So, again, it is the main focus, obviously, right, was getting our students into the building first and foremost. And we still are working on getting our students where they need to be each and every period. But we've like I said, we we've gone from 32% to 27% of getting in them in the building. We will keep We will keep performing the work of getting them to class. When a student is a chronic absentee, Yes. do you dig into it a little deeper to find out Oh, absolutely. Absolutely, yeah. And that's what, you know, that's what a lot of those meetings consist of. Um We we we we survey everyone, right? Like Okay. We might have a case worker we'll speak to in regards to that. We might have the social worker. The school counselor always offers in, you know, insight. Um Mr. Collins knows a lot of the families,
163. 2:49:51so like I said, he reaches out to them. Uh we we will have, you know, maybe Department of Social Services. Any outside organizations that can offer assistance. Sometimes it's because students are struggling to get to school. We've had uh instances where outside organizations have gone and picked up that student and dropped them off on a daily basis. So, it it's really case by case. Okay. And if there's a situation where it's a medical or something like that, are they allowed to do their work from home? We do offer homebound services and medical tutors. I mean, cuz now everyone has the computers, I mean. Well, we don't offer virtual instruction. >> Oh, you don't? Okay, that's what I was Okay. Well, we we There have been instances where we have provided, you know, medical medical tutors. Are they still considered absent at that point? >> I believe for that they're more they're present, correct? For a tutor? If it's 2 hours of instruction Is Okay. But that's different than you couldn't stay home sick Right. and do your assignments online that your teacher
164. 2:50:54posted to Google Classroom and count that as a school day. Right. That does not >> No, it's it's a doctor's note if they recommend a home tutor for an extended period of time until like a follow-up appointment. And I think it's also important to know that out, too, and this is I send the parents square message messages home on this. Even if a student is excused absence, that still counts towards the chronic absenteeism. >> Okay. So, like and sometimes that's what would happen, right? Like I'd get a phone call, "What do you mean you're sending a message home? He My student was sick for 7 days." I understand, but just because you sent a medical note in, a doctor's note, doesn't mean that they're not counted as absent. They're excused, but they're still absent from school. >> Okay. Mark, do Sure. Where do you want to go? Uh we're going to go to number two. Okay. All right, so NWEA um Goal two, grow student proficiency in
165. 2:51:56each subject on the 6th through through 8th grade annual state test by 5%. For this, we're going to just really take a look at the NWEA data. So, this chart is going to look you know, a little different than what Mark shared with everyone. Um You want to stand and walk them through it? >> Sure. Just the first one is fine. >> Yeah. So, here on the left, you can just see it says percentage percentage of students. So, the blue here is the fall and winter. And each bar is for the fall and winter. It's all sixth grade. Is our all all students all students are Asian population subgroup, a black subgroup, multiracial, and our white. So, in the fall for sixth grade, 59% of the students scored in the average range or above.
166. 2:52:59I this is the 41st percentile or higher. So, it's a it's a that's a really good solid foundation. Does anybody have questions about the scale? Cuz it took me to hear the explanation twice before I understood it. >> Yeah, I'm kind of confused here. So, the Yeah, it's very small print also. Yeah, that's true also. So, all students are on the left and um the students that are grouped on the left are the lowest performing and the ones that are grouped on the right in each of the stacks are the higher performing. >> Right. They're color coded. >> a different shade. There's a different shade blue, which means low fall, low winter. Different shade yellow, which means dark yellow is Um low average fall, brighter yellow is low average winter. So, it's comparing the two uh um administrations. Okay. So, if I'm reading that correctly, holistically we declined our sixth grade reading scores from fall to winter, right? Because we have more kids in the low
167. 2:54:02and less kids in the other categories. Is that a double negative? We declined the Sorry. We our reading scores from fall to winter, we have more kids in the low. Right? We went that dark blue moved to the light blue, right? And then >> I see where you're going. Yes. >> Right. And then our our like top performers are green stayed about the same. But we took a little bit off of all these other categories and put them into the blue. Yeah. Which is which is common unfortunately to from the fall to the winter. To decrease a little bit. But nearly still one in one in three students remained in the average. Grade Grade seven. Grade seven showed meaningful growth from fall to winter. Um percentage of all students in the lowest band dropped from 27% to 23%. So positive
168. 2:55:05trend heading into spring. I'm trying to find a way to see if I can get to the point where I can have it show on the screen. No, cuz it's white. All right, so grade eight has the highest percentage of highest concentration of students in the upper percentiles. 40% of all students in the fall scored in the higher average or high range. How does that compare to winter for eighth though? Cuz it looks like that also slid back a little bit. What's that? In eighth. I'll just go back >> You said in the fall 40% were in the high average. What was that number at by winter? You're looking at that light blue line again. Right? I am. I'm looking at it in this grade also we like decrease proficiency in those top bands and increase. Which again like I know this
169. 2:56:07is hard work, but just in thinking about kind of like where we are where we're seeing growth and where we're Well, also also it looks like students fell out of the low average and they either went to low or average. Yeah. And some of Yeah. And um Oh, never mind. I can go. And just like within marks, this isn't um it is not just student to student, fall to winter. It is student to every other student in the country to against student in the winter. So, they may have So, the the bar moved as they moved to winter. Yeah. Right? So, that level of proficiency changed a little bit as the as it went went to the winter. Which it should. Right. Okay. All right. So, we're looking at the math. Uh the percentage of all grade six
170. 2:57:09students in the lowest band for math dropped from 35% to 31%. Um so, that's a that's a good mid-year improvement. So, we would be still obviously have a lot of have a lot of work to do in regards to math. And you know, again, we're hoping to see improvement next year along with uh helping with the transition. We are focusing our PLCs to tailoring it to help support our our students in ELA and math. You go to the next one. All right. Grade seven held steady from the fall to the winter. Um our multi-racial subgroup jumped 10% jumped from 10% in the fall to 39% in the winter in in the winter. Awesome. So, that that's a that's an extremely good start. Um Go to the next one.
171. 2:58:13Can Can you have a question about the seventh grade? So, I was looking at the D set um it says for the junior high that would have tier two and tier three student improvement on the NWEA. I'm sorry. Say that again. That you would you would have data on the tier two and three students improvement on the NWEA. I know you have it you have it broken down by the different racial groups, right? >> In this document right here we're saying? The D set. Um just I just saw that it was there. I mean you don't you don't you don't have it but I also wanted to ask about the extra math block. That was another thing that was Yes, that so that was incorporated into our seventh grade um Yeah. And that you know that we did
172. 2:59:16um an extra ELA and math to to instead of electives to students who where we can fit that into our into their schedules. Okay, so was it all was it >> not all students. >> wasn't tier two or tier three. >> tier it was mostly tier two. Okay. >> Um There at some point in time there may have been a tier one student in there which we tried to remove it eventually. Um so we tried to really focus just on tier two and our tier three students receive a IAS. Um so we I believe it was we had two extra math classes there and two I think at one point it was three extra ELA classes in the in the fall Okay. >> which we reduced it to >> So did it did you see a difference in the NWEA for that? >> we did see it we saw a difference in some students. We did see an increase in scores. Um but again we there was some increases some decreases. Um I don't know if, you know, we needed to go for a full year in regards to that,
173. 3:00:19but we definitely did see some improvements in some students. So, and you're So, you are still doing it. We are We are still doing it. It's a period though, right? Not Not a block. No, it's a period, correct. Yeah. It does say block in the D set, but Okay. Yeah, no, it's a It's you know, it's a period, so they might have it They They might They might have it third period. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So. And it It is It's >> Who's given the instruction? The AIS teacher math teacher or who? It's It's considered an AIS class for Yeah, it's tier two students. >> So, it's the math It's math and ELA. Okay. So, are they calling it AIS? We are calling it AIS, yeah. Cuz AIS does not have to be just for tier three students. So, then it's it's not anything more than what we've always been doing. It's not really an an extra math period. >> Well, it is because they're still receiving They're They're receiving you know, They're receiving education in math. It's just We had to We had to name it that in regards to It's an extra
174. 3:01:22block. It's not a new initiative. It's just a Yeah, right. But like for for example, the AIS math consists of 12 students. >> It made it seem like that was a new intervention, that it was something new that Well, it it is But it really is new because we're we're hitting a higher target of students. So, right? Like in the past, we've never offered AIS in seventh grade to a 12 to 12 students at one time. So, it's always been maybe three to five. So, this was This was being put out there to any other any math student who was in tier two who we could fit into their schedule. All right. So, what this data showed us and this is just for the ELA, um 39% of our sixth-grade students, 51% of our seventh-grade, and 41% of our eighth-grade grade students have shown growth from beginning beginning of the year to the middle of the year. We are still working on analyzing all this data
175. 3:02:25for the math. So So, we have seen some improvement from our students, right? Like we you know, full transparency, we still have you know, many of our students are still below grade level, but they are showing improvement along the way. So, once again, it goes back to, you know, we have to be able to walk before we can run. We need to get those students up to where they need to be, and then really start focusing on showing more growth. Priority three, improving school climate and culture. Uh 5% decrease in referrals for uncooperative behaviors, which is disrespect, insubordination, and class disruption. Um how we're going to do We're going to try to go about this. Every faculty meeting, Miss Patch leads uh with an aspect of the RULER SEL program. We are making sure all staff uh have have mood meters in their classroom, and are learning how to help our students with that. We're working on training more staff on restorative practices. Um obviously, with with that comes, you
176. 3:03:27know, more need for funds. Can I ask is Alyssa helping with that, or who's doing the training on that SEL? Uh well, Miss Patch and a few other people few other staff went to RULER training in October. Oh, for RULER. >> Yeah. But not not restorative practices. No. No, not restorative practices. >> Okay. And do we think we're going to hit that 5% decrease in referrals? Where Why is the slide I There should be another slide. I'll fix it. I don't know why it didn't upload. So, I had it on had it the number of Let me see if it's online. We are at right now we're at a 0.5% increase. Oh, yeah, it's on That's weird. It's on this one. Um so, right now where where we stand we're at 251 class disruptions,
177. 3:04:31121 26 disrespect, and 166 insubordination, which is an increase of 0.5% from the same time last year. You know, we obviously want to be lower in regards to that. Now, there could be a few few things that are playing into that. Um this is the first year where we've had a consistent principal and assistant principal in place. But, we definitely want it from a restorative piece. We want to to get through to our students. I don't want to go the punitive route if need be. We you know, once we get our students the processes in place more, um we are hoping again to to see the decrease in the referrals, but it it is
178. 3:05:35a it is a process. It's not something unfortunately we're going to snap our fingers, but I am still hopeful by the end of this school year that we can we can hit that goal. All right, so where do we go from here? Still working on fine-tuning all the processes. You know, we leading up to this year we didn't have MTSS in place. You know, we just started working on a a set plan and our professional learning communities again have have just started taking shape. So, we are in the buildings the building block stages of putting all these in. Um we have been using the our PLC time. We meet twice a month. We've been using a lot of that time to really help drive the MTSS process. Our staff have been filling out forms, providing insight into our students who are struggling in class. Why are they struggling? Is it lack of skill set, knowledge, background knowledge, uh work refusal because, you know, they don't understand the work. Is
179. 3:06:37it work refusal because they're just, you know, uh they just don't want to do it and is that an is that another um another issue we need to work with. We've been holding staffing meetings with all families of students who are failing two or more classes. Um we're also analyzing disaggregated assessment data by subject grade level to look to identify skill gaps. Um this so this is work that's going to keep keep continuing. So, a lot of this is going to be done over the summer with Miss Patch, myself, the SEPT team. With our referral data, we need to disaggregate disaggregate it monthly by location, time of day, teacher, student demographics. I have access to a lot of this on our eSchool guru. Um so, it does tell me, you know, who has written the most referrals, what time of the most referrals occurred, are they occurring more after lunch, are they occurring in the second floor west uh wing of classes.
180. 3:07:41So, that is going to allow us to whether we need to provide more supervision in certain areas. Do we need to have check-in check-out status for repeat uh students. And then in regards to attendance, we're looking to establish an early warning and outreach system by the 10th absence. A designated staff member, which would be could be a counselor, school social worker, or administrator, contact the family directly. Really to to start engaging everyone in a dialogue. To, you know, identify why are is the student having the struggle at school? And then basically co-create an attendance improvement plan. And that's all. Any other questions? Um So, I think when we think about like March till the end of the year this year, and we think about academics, what are the like three to four moves where you're like, "This is what we're doing that we think is going to move the needle this year." Like I understand there's a lot of stuff you're like getting in the water, there's a lot of
181. 3:08:42new systems, like what are a couple initiatives for this year that you feel like are being successful or that you're you're like starting to implement? >> Well, again, like you know, for example, today in our our PLCs, we discussed how can we implement past state test questions into uh daily classroom discussion to really helps help our students understand what is going to be expected of them on the state test, right? Like we discussed it earlier, whether it's if it in our math, our students still struggle to read a lot of the questions. So, do we have to implement more vocabulary from a a daily basis into our lessons to help drive instruction. Um we also just began to implement item analysis. Marlena pulled a lot of data for us taking a look at all of our students who performed at low levels on state test last year. What questions were they missing? What standards were they struggling at? So, we're really hoping that that that that
182. 3:09:44uh PLC time can help move the needle. We also, similar to what Mark is going to be offering, I submitted um for next board meeting a list of 10 people to provide academic tutoring for after school. So, we're going to be providing academic tutoring uh starting uh I believe the 18th from Monday through Thursday. So, we're going to be contacting parents through Parent Square through Parent Square um and getting kids in from 2:45 to 3:45 to help basically get an extra hour of instruction. And are you targeting kids similarly like you're using the CASPER the bubble kids >> Yes. Yeah. Yeah. That's And again, we will never we will never turn anyone away. Right. Like we're going to offer it to everyone. That is why I brought on more. The initial um posting was for seven. I had 10 people apply, which is great. Um so, we are going to start developing a plan. We have tutors in next grade levels. Um but yes, we're looking at the kids on
183. 3:10:46the CASPER the bubble. Um and anyone else who wants to participate. Mr. Howard. I have just one question. It's the same question that I asked, but can we get this slideshow presentation into uh BoardDocs cuz it's different than the one that's in the email and it's And it's so little. I can't read that at all. So, I mean I just I gave up. Yeah. Uh but my question for you is do you have all your players in place? Are you short any teachers or aides or I'm glad to hear that we have tutoring because I think I've asked about that for the last I don't know three or four meetings. But do you have any players that you still need to put in place? Hall monitors, bathroom people, whatever to make sure that things are moving in the right direction. Positions. Like you might think maybe that you do, but consider what gaps there are. Do you have all aides in the room so or teachers so that you can do your tier one and tier two interventions? Is Is there anything that
184. 3:11:48you need to help get the players on the chessboard? We are we are currently short, I believe, two TAs. Um we have had postings. Um we also are short right now one teacher uh in special ed due to the her resignation. Um and we we still could use a few hallway aides. And it's legitimate. It's not You're not saying that you just want, you know, a bow on the package. These are >> No. No. >> That's that's a high need building. I will say what I also will say, the staff has been phenomenal in regards to that and I'm going to work on creating the master schedule better for next year in regards to for the first semester I'll um we had many staff who offered to do hallway duty instead instead of in lieu of their study hall or supervisory, which was put in their contract this year. Um that that played out phenomenal. That That was great. Um
185. 3:12:51I'm going to work it out next year to where it's not so heavy in the fall compared to the spring. Like maybe split it up to where if they do blue and gold days for the whole year if that if that's possible and that can be worked on. Um so things like that. But I'm I'm really starting to learn now, you know, we have to kind of just we obviously we have to all work together and figure out ways, you know, if we're short if we're short anyone for us all to come together to support the students. But yeah, that's where we're at, two two TAs and and one one teacher. Two TAs and one teacher? Um just one other thing, too. Um going into the wayback machine, kids would come and have lunch in my classroom because it's a little chaotic. Or they don't feel comfortable or for whatever reason, I was always open to kids bringing their lunch into my room and I hear now it's different. Kids can't take their lunch out of the cafeteria. And we don't need to get into all that, but I just want to say that it
186. 3:13:53was a safe space for kids to come so that they're not uncomfortable or in a situation that makes them feel that they're not able to enjoy their their lunch. >> Yeah. Absolutely absolutely and I understand that and we all for right now we've asked is just that food doesn't leave the cafeteria. So that was just even if it's 5 minutes and then and then go you know somewhere else. But because we're you know we're there was an issue with food leaving and Well, it's the same with the bathrooms being locked and you can't I mean let's find like Mike would say and I'm sure he'll say now what's where did that come from? Let's look at why it's happening and and take care of that instead of um depriving the kids of something that they makes them feel happy to be in school and socialize with their friends or I need to go to the bathroom. I got to wait 20 minutes for somebody to come, you know, let me go to the bathroom. And I will report all the bathrooms are open everywhere. And we actually did a really cool PSA video student council um that was shared with everyone. So we're we're working on that.
187. 3:14:55So we are hearing what all the students have to say. We're really trying to support everyone, but we're also trying to make sure everyone is is safe. Um I'm glad you brought up the the study halls. Um would it be effective to have I know that the teachers there can't give instruction, but while they're in that period is there an option for students to have extra academic help? Like maybe that would be more effective than having students stay afterwards. So many many many of our staff do offer extra assistance in study halls. They go above and beyond. Um but we cannot, unfortunately, rely on that. Right? Like, we can't I can't direct anyone. If if a staff member is willing to do that, which many of them are, that's awesome. But But also, the kid might need help in one subject, and that teacher has a class, and they're not free during that kid's study hall. >> lot of a lot of teachers do do um will call, find out if a kid has a study hall, and if they have a prep, they'll
188. 3:15:56call the study hall. Like, when I had study halls, I would let kids go to Mrs. Antonelli for science. She needed to have them make up a lab and that kind of thing. But I feel like we should get back to the budget part of it. Thank you, buddy. But if we need these people, we need these people. High school? Yes, please. Thank you. So, high school and we're going to talk about Regents exams over the last 2 years. Um you're going to see percentage of students scoring from level 1 to 5 in proficiency compared to New York State. And then I'll I'm going to go into you'll see the indicators um spreadsheet that Mark and Kenny showed you earlier and then go over the high school goals for this year and where we currently stand at reaching them. So, first quick with the You're going to see a number of slides like this for a number of Regents exams. As Dr. Bailey said, level 1 is the
189. 3:17:00lowest, level 5 is where we want all of our students to reach. They're considered proficient for level 3, 4, and 5. And I automatically, when I look at these, go to look at see where we stand compared to rest of the state. Um so, this is algebra. As as you can see we've a lot If we are proficient, it's at level 3, not many at 4 or 5. Um So, in going through these, going to also talk about like what we're doing in the high school and try to address that. One of the things, the way the high school has always been, there hasn't been a lot of AIS support for for like tier three students. So, I have half of a math AIS teacher, half of a reading teacher. Um So, I I've tried to within the schedule make some more sections of AIS math available for for our high school. And then for foundations of algebra, and then they take that for a year, and then they would take algebra. The other piece in looking at this, it's not as easy to
190. 3:18:04look at as the three through eighth grade because it's not like the student goes from third grade to fourth grade. So, there's multiple different pathways in the high school. Like a every student isn't going to go from algebra to geometry. Okay? And the same thing with science, there's multiple different pathways they can go, so it's hard to just look and say, "Well, last year this test was at this proficiency, and the following year it it's it doesn't equate that way." Okay, so with Earth Science, if you look at the Earth Science 23-24, the proficient levels, um and then 24-25, it went from 63 to 27. Um you might be saying, "Well, what happened there?" So, so last year was the first year that the Earth and Space Science Regents was given in the beginning of June. Okay? So, the only all of our first-time Earth and Space or Earth Science students took that Earth
191. 3:19:07and Space. The students that took this 24-25 were ones that previously failed the old Earth Science Regents and then were able to retake it. So, so the number there is a lot smaller. Okay. Okay? Um This is the new Earth science and we were higher than the state >> Yes. Woohoo! Congratulations. Obviously there we'd want to get more level four and five, but as Diana could tell you with with the science background a lot of these new science testing for the fifth and eighth grade has turned to more, "Okay, here's the problem, figure out how you come up with the solution." It's not memorizing and and things like that anymore. >> Um, so that's the Earth. Yes. Global pretty much lowest in proficiency. The level threes level level fours went down a little bit. Fives are about the same.
192. 3:20:11US history US history did well. Three fours Proficiency close. The ELA was right there this last year. That's going to be a new Regents come June. So with the Regents stuff, so like what the high school does consistently is teachers after any exam will do an item analysis. They're going to identify high frequency standards tested, model how to break down constructed or or extended response, and then just familiarize students with what the test is like and how it's administered. So without like those AIS things, we do have I've created more the AIS math sections. We have push-in support in ELA.
193. 3:21:14Some of our special ed classes, if they're co-teach, we utilize AI AIS reading teacher to push in a few classes cuz that's all we have her for. Our ENL students, we have some pullout sections based on like what Mark said earlier, their levels. There's a number of co-taught um ENL sections for for various courses, science, social studies. We have a math certified new ENL teacher like halfway through last year. So, because she's certified math teacher, too, we have pullout sections just for math with those students. That's awesome. Which is definitely something they struggle with and have over the years. So, that that's helpful. Any questions with the Regents? Well, I guess just I think I think Mike or Maureen mentioned it before, but do you have Why do we see more success here than we do in the younger grades on on ELA and
194. 3:22:18math assessments? Do you have a uh The high school teachers do a great great job with I'm not saying there's no success at all at all, They're very different tests. >> I was going to say they have different approaches. They know what time most of these tests. So, I know a little bit has changed with the with the newer tests. Not that they're teaching to the test, but a lot of teachers that are teaching to these Regents courses have taught them for several several years. They know they know what their writing level needs to be at if it's a social studies or English test. They teach very well to the the essays for the English Regents. Um And the tests are, like you said, very very different. For a long time I I thought like the EL the English eighth state test was harder than the English 11 Regents. Yeah. Yes. It still might be. I think it is. Well, what happens when you get the COVID kids? Hm? What happens when you get the COVID kids? Well, when we get to graduation, we can
195. 3:23:23They're They're all And I hate saying that word, but we'll talk about I think the the co- There's so many different group of kids were impacted by COVID in different Well, I was I was saying I was saying that that the fifth the fifth grade But I That's what I meant by that. Like similarly, like sixth grade missed first grade. Like so many different grades that were impacted Yeah. Yeah. As you get to the older kids with with those type the tougher thing is to get them back into like school setting and structure and get back into like school. Um like the younger kids, the parents are are getting in there, but as they get older, it it can get tougher. Um Actually, graduation is not not yet. A couple, but it it's going to touch on those types of things. Um so, this is where LSI So, we did like you saw the the DCIPs and the SEPs. The high school had one 2
196. 3:24:27years ago. Um they told me last year I wasn't required to do one, so I didn't. It's not a requirement for an LSI school. Um the plan is that we're all doing them this year. Um which I think is a good process because talk together, we work together, we're discussing pre-K to 12th grade. Um so, from the high school end, it's graduation rate for black and Hispanic. Um and the CCR is like um CTE type of stuff or or seals. How How is that Sorry. >> know how they cal- calculate it. That like Mark said before it's some type of formula. Maybe 5 years ago they went to a point system for all graduates. They get between 0 and 2. And it's in half point increments. So for instance like a 0.5 student would be a student who gets a C dots diploma. Meaning they they did work related stuff.
197. 3:25:28Uh a 1 might be a local diploma combined with a C dots. A 1.5 is advanced Regents diploma or 2 is um IB or AP. So everybody has a value. Every student has a value. We were talking about like even if this child maybe doesn't graduate with a Regents diploma or advanced Regents diploma, anything we get anything we can get that counts toward that credit will help the district and the student obviously. And and um as we've gone to New York Inspire as we move to New York Inspire, there will be lots of other measures thrown into the mix too. CTE, um career and financial management, all these required things that they want students to have as foundational so they can be prepared for careers through the workplace. Which we have so many to teach now. The career financial management with the business teacher. And these ones for graduation rate are new this year, correct? I don't believe that we had any high school indicators
198. 3:26:30that were ones last year. Just in Okay, so these were the goals when we came in in the fall. Um Chronic absenteeism and graduation rate, academic performance, Regents scores, and restorative. Um we talked a lot about chronic absenteeism tonight between the three buildings and that percentage for the high school is to reduce it 5%. So we were at 35 last year it's a bringing it down to 30 currently we're at 33 and a half point two worries me a bit because typically June isn't great in the time of year so we had sickness in December as well we do all the same things and I would say from last year to Mark started overseeing like a district attendance thing last year and the consistency
199. 3:27:32between the three buildings has never been better in terms of what we're doing related to attendance um we we use the same spreadsheets we're pulling the same data we're having the same conversations and now we're like focusing on okay let's look at our 9 10 11 and 12s pick 20 and see if we can pull them off the list so the the three of us are doing that the only other difference than what they maybe they just forgot to say it something new we found out this year is we could recommend students to Cartwheel which is like virtual counseling we had it at the elementary so so we've started to do that the other is that the high school we're trying to think of different ways to try to get kids here and in the classes so we came up with this two-month like class by period by period we looked at attendance data competition so every class could qualify we give them a weekly update every day and whatever
200. 3:28:36class qualifies Mr. Walker Mr. Collins and myself are doing like this barbecue after April break awesome we're invited to that >> yes you'll be invited only if your attendance is good okay so this is a daily rate it's gone down a little bit from from last year. Um something we try and improve every day. So, graduation rate. So, it was a 5% increase um from 67%. Things that haven't been done, I guess, previous to this year that I found in the high school is we've we've had a number of students over the years that like the failed English 9 um and just stay in English 9 when now we've looked at using this credit recovery license, um having them sign up for that and then
201. 3:29:39take English 10 in conjunction. Yeah. Um we've done a little with the lower grades. It's going to be more of a conversation with department heads and the teachers to keep them in the loop and involved and and recommend what what students would be successful. This year we looked at some of our the cohort graduation students that were really in jeopardy of hitting the 22 credits. So, we did some risky kids with with the with the recovery trying to get them there. Some of it has worked out for, some it hasn't. Um and then also with this I have a an I probably talked about a beginning of the year, this huge master spreadsheet, color-coded, number of credits, where they are, um what regions if they need to pass regions. Um and it's color-coded. So, red is really not good, yellow is um at risk and at risk would mean they're they're they're close to the 22 or not meeting the 22 or they need one or more regions exams and then the green
202. 3:30:41is they're on on track. Constant uh parent communication if if students are in jeopardy, um which we do. This was this past year last year's the graduation rate broken out not just ethnic groups, but also ENLs, students with disabilities, economically disadvantaged. Um And when they're seniors, like we we look at every kid individually. So, like this Yeah, it's nice to see where they fall, but we're looking at each student individually what they need and trying to put a plan in place for for each of them. Um Questions with that? Okay. And this is like the next one is where the graduation rate is 21-22 to 24-25. High school by self-rated teachers
203. 3:31:43certainly aren't happy with it at 67%. Um like Dr. Bailey said earlier on like you can look at neighboring districts and it's it's different. It's not it's not the same in terms socioeconomic diversity. Um I hate using the COVID word. Some of it is when looking at this 21 to 22 and 22 to 23, there was a waiver for the Regents exams. Um January 24th is when that waiver was gone and it was back to a 65 and then um 24-25, it says 67. Current rate right now and looking at the cohort is 76. If everything goes perfect um there's 10 right now in that cohort that are yellow, so meaning they need one or more Regentses or are are close to that 22. Um So, that's where we are with the senior class. Um and I would say the biggest thing
204. 3:32:45that high school wise we are struggling with is getting ninth graders out of ninth grade. Um if you look at our enrollment, you're going to see ninth grade is bigger than any other grade. Um maybe that means we need to try like a ninth grade academy and section them off in a certain part of the building and be more focused with our ninth graders. Can Can I ask a question about um so you share a counselor you share a guidance counselor and a social worker, right? For to help with that transition. Do you Is it Is it worth it to do it that way? Is it working? Is it We're I'm talking to to Mr. Payne about it. Yeah. We're having that conversation. >> Yeah. And I I mean some of it is there's been a lot of turnover in junior high, too. Yeah. And kids since COVID have literally come to the high school and they Yeah.
205. 3:33:46>> failed core class after core class for 3 years. And I'm not like pointing fingers at the two buildings below me and Yeah. >> it was the free pass with COVID and when you you have older students um that might not have all the background knowledge >> Right. going to class could be a struggle or they don't want to be embarrassed or they're afraid to admit like they need help. Um and as many conversation that as we have with them and the parents and the counselors, sometimes it just doesn't work. Yeah. With this the like 70 anticipated 76% is definitely promising. Do you have that broken down by subgroups to know if we expect to like make some gains specifically with the black and Hispanic student graduation rates that were I can get that to you. >> flagged. Um Yeah. Fingers crossed. So in terms in terms of the stats on there, is the
206. 3:34:48So, 16% dropped out. That's the reason they didn't graduate. Or is that a result of or you know, how does that interplay? No, they dropped out. Okay. Prior to their 4-year graduation. >> Yeah. And and they could have done that They could have done that at 17. Okay. Is is the um the GED partnership with the Greater Promise still going? Does that >> Has that affected these numbers at all? Like do we see more students sort of moving into that program? >> we if we had the conversation with Greater Promise for someone with a GED, they were not going to be graduating with a diploma. I I guess Yeah, it wouldn't change this number. Do we know Well, it could change the drop out number. It could change the drop out number. It's not going to change the graduation. It won't change that, but it would add context to students gaining some level of civic, you know,
207. 3:35:52It the GED doesn't help us. Doesn't help the >> help the state, but it helps us understand our students, I think, is is why I'm asking. And the 16% still enrolled, do we know how many of them are on track for a 5-year graduation rate? I could tell you. I mean, you know, I don't expect you to have to pull that off the top of your head, but like are we getting kids through in 5 years if we're not getting them through in 4? How common is I I I feel like there were statistics on that in the past that that's a pretty common thing that we do get kids through fifth year. Um but that doesn't count for our grade or whatever, but Yeah. It's better than not at all. >> that we're somehow serving them. >> Yeah. Yeah. They will they'll actually retroactively update our graduation numbers if a student graduates in 5 or 6 years. Oh, they do that? Well, okay. I think I mean I don't know what how it's accounted for for special ed students who can stay until they're 22. Um well, some do graduate at the at 18,
208. 3:36:58but they stay anyway. Right. Um But that's alternate assessment kids that I'm talking about kids that are that are on track. They take Regents exams. They're on track to to get a Regents diploma, but they're allowed to to be in school. Right. They can I mean it's a becomes a district decision, but uh the way the the law is written, the student could legitimately cross the stage every year four years if they so chose. Because uh your your combination of an IEP is the conclusion of a program, but so is graduation through Regents local advanced Regents diploma. So, I mean I've had a few that walked a few times. Yeah. I mean usually those are the the alternate assessment kids that Not always. >> No. How? I've never heard of that before. Okay. >> School can be a very safe, comforting, wonderful place. >> Yeah. And you know, with transition services >> So, they they completed the passed the
209. 3:38:02Regents, did everything, but just stayed in school. Cuz you're allowed to. Yeah. Interesting. Part of the transition. Yeah. Absolutely. Okay, so the other was to improve academic performance and test scores. So, to increase pass scores by 5%. So, from second quarter to second quarter we're up 2.7% this year from last. And then the Regents uh increased those passing rates by 10% and what's listed there under it is targeted Regents reviews. So we're going to It's going to be starting in April. That's what's going to qualify students to be eligible. We're going to notify parents, keep attendance, meet with the teachers. They'll keep track of like skill mastery and where they're at. Can anybody go to the Yeah.
210. 3:39:04Yeah. Doesn't have to be Correct. Do you know if your January Regents were higher than last year in terms of hitting that goal? So we we actually had three seniors that needed some Regents pass them. January Regents are always tough because typically they they're repeating a Regents. >> Um so the like the the percentage rate isn't always always great. >> Yeah. So really anybody that we get past them, it it it's good. Um I mean I can get I can get Dr. Bailey a breakdown if you want to see how all the That's all right. Just curious if that's helping us get closer to that 10%. Well it's helping us get to the graduation number. >> Yeah. Too. Just one thing on that. Where do you see the most of the kids dropping out? Is it between 11th and 12th? Is it halfway through their senior year where they say, "Hey,
211. 3:40:05I'm not going to pass. I might as well there's no I mean you'll see It's the 9th 9th 10th 9th 10th graders. >> You have kids dropping out in 9th grade? Yeah, there's some >> Is that by age by age? Oh my. So the their grade level is just strictly based on credit, not Okay. >> not age. So it's you need to have five and a half credits to be considered a sophomore, 10 and a half to be a junior, 15 and 1/2 to to to be a senior. Does it tend to be I mean, dropping out, does it tend to be a they came last week and they're not coming this week, or does it tend to be like, ah, they're coming less. Ah, they're coming less. So, is it even a an obvious like, hey, there's a cutoff date, this kid dropped out. You don't get a lot of those. It I don't >> They just stop coming one day. They Well, some stop coming. And then it's a 20 days if they're like >> Oh, okay. >> old, 17 years old, but it's still from our end a conversation and and trying to to talk to the parent or guardian and and see what's going on and why we can't get them into the building and move
212. 3:41:08forward. >> So, there's a spectrum of time that dropping out takes. It's not a It's not a one-day event. You get some that are in their senior year that as much as you talk to them and their parents, they just get senioritis and just don't finish it off. Wow. >> Which is crushing. Yeah. Um we've had some um you know, just drop out. There's been like ice situations, work situations, for the for some of the older kids. But, the majority I would I would say it's they're low on credits, high on age, and it's not working. So, this is the other things that Targeted Reach is going to be working on. And then, the last goal we had was to strengthen restorative school culture.
213. 3:42:12And to be honest, we're a little behind in this goal. We wanted to do two community circles, which we haven't gotten to yet, and and four circles with students, which we've done one. We have an outside person paid through a grant that meets with us for restorative practices. So, she'll meet with me and Larry Walker once a month and then with the team after school. Um She was sick one month and then we had a snow day another day. So, we're a couple months behind in that. So, plan is to definitely get back on track. Um What actually is that? Circles, it's a restorative restorative practices. So, try to We've used it in the high school and we've shown it to to to to staff to have them utilize it in building relationships with students. >> Oh, okay. And members of our team like volunteer and we've used faculty meetings to demonstrate it, but we also like if a teacher wants to try one in their classroom, people on the team would go to help facilitate it with the teacher. >> Okay.
214. 3:43:14So, we're we're having students run through that process to get comfortable with it, too. Um and hopefully build more interest on that end with them, as well. Questions? I'll ask the same one that I asked the other guys. When you mentioned your 9 and 1/2, you know, the extra 9th grade, and I think that's an innovative idea. What is there anything else that you wanted to Couple TAs we haven't been able to hire an ISS teacher, I think, for 2 and 1/2 years. Why is that? No applicants. Really? And then >> you have to be to be an ISS teacher? >> room for credit recovery that when Mr. Gregory went to um Blue Hawk. We haven't been able to fill that. We had a sped teacher go to the junior high that we're using six assignments to
215. 3:44:17cover her right now. Couple hall aids. So, two TAs and two hall aids. And no ISS teacher. And they're all posted. It's just that there aren't applicants. Are they posted? They have been. Are they still posted? No, I mean, can Are they posted Is it an active Closed. And we have to reopen them. We have to reopen them. Is there a way to refresh it? You know, cuz like You can just change the Well, I you know, I think I think we're in the process as we're going through the budget, seeing what what's in the budget, what's not in the budget, things have been posted that correspond to actual lines and, you know, making sure that it all all matches.
216. 3:45:22But that would be communicated to to them so that they're not sitting around waiting, right? Right? You know what I mean? You're not expecting to get if if they're if it wasn't budgeted for and they don't plan on hiring somebody, I would assume that they would let you know. If it wasn't budgeted for. Right? Is that what you're saying? I'm I'm saying I assume that that is what's happening. Yeah. And I don't know the answer to that, but we're going to That's That's what we're in the process of figuring out now. Um what about uh is there any Regents tutoring going on right now? Not right this second. April. April. Got you. And that'll be after school as well? Late bus. Students sign up. Transportation's not an issue. I target list from the teachers. Send out parent notification. Um we don't get them showing up for attendance phone calls. And that'll be open up to anybody. Yeah.
217. 3:46:29Um curious this is sort of a side bit what percentage of students are taking SATs these days? It's less and less every year. >> Yeah, that's what I right. Okay. Is that just us or is that state-wide or nation-wide? >> State-wide. State-wide is? I think probably nation-wide. >> of colleges it's not necessarily anymore for for many of them. I Um I just had with the D- D-SEP Um there was something about Sorry. Um about teacher turnover. 2022 teacher turnover rate was 15% overall and 17% for less than 5 years in the district. I was just wondering if we have a current percentage on that. So the D-SEP goes back to 2022 but then it was it was
218. 3:47:32revised, right? Yeah. Um Yeah. Just curious on because teacher morale is connected to academic achievement. So if you're fully staffed and teachers are happy and we want people to stay, right? Then kids are going to do do better. So I was just wondering if that's in all those surveys that we are floating around if that's It's a good question, Maureen. I think it's it's a number that a lot of people wait to see what the state does or says, right? But, um we um exit interview almost every staff member that leaves. So, we have a clear sense of who is who has left Yeah. over the course of the year. Um everywhere. And they may say one thing cuz they don't want to
219. 3:48:34cuz you know, I know I know that a lot of people say, "Oh, well, I got a job closer." But, there were other underlying reasons that contributed to it, at least. Yeah. So. True. I misspoke, Maureen. A student who achieves a CDOS credential can stay in school until 22, but if they receive a local or Regents diploma, that ends their special education services. >> Right. That's That's what I thought. Yeah. Okay. Um okay. Well, yeah. And uh correct me if I'm wrong, but next week when we have our budget presentation, we're going to look more at um both academic uh programming and staffing staffing. So, we can have further conversation about, you know, some of these uh positions and hopefully get to the bottom of what's what's in there or what's been in there, what hasn't been in there, and what we want to do moving forward. Any other presentations we like to a lot of the non-instructional positions, food
220. 3:49:37service employees, the O&M staff, transportation. Um and then this will give us an opportunity to hone in on the rest of the program that we're offering to kids in the district. And this will get revised through Say it again. The DSEP will get revised based on this new data, right? Yeah. This is this year's DSEP. Yes. And this year's D-SIP process, this previous like the community stakeholders at least I can remember that my name is on this um and then we met once and then Mhm. Yeah, so I think we can >> So the enhance this process the next time around. Yeah, Lynn has already started. That's what Derek was referring to um and uh and the other thing that happened quite frankly is after the one time or two times that the community and even some of the staff had an opportunity to see it it was apparent quickly apparent that what we had said we were going to do was
221. 3:50:39not either able to do because the people that were in there weren't here or we didn't have a program like that. It had to be adjusted with the state in order to comply. Yeah. So even if you went to every meeting Yeah. There All to say I think we have an opportunity to like tailor this more to like meet everything you all said tonight and really target that improvement. I agree. Yeah, I mean I I think um overall we're behind in the process. Like I think the goal would be next year we're having this conversation in January, not March and you know been at least for me very informative to hear more from you guys and I certainly learned a lot and I think as we plan um moving forward just be more prepared to have more of these proactive conversations and and be proactive. Maybe that's everything else. The only thing I got is uh as far as uh budget presentations any
222. 3:51:41information would be appreciated a couple days before the meeting. This has been Because we need to look at it and not get that day and say So I'd like to have that ahead of time. Yeah. Everything's a little behind. Uh well, thank you all guys. This was was really really helpful. Thank you. Appreciate the time and for staying here so late and um you know, best of luck and we're here to support you and all the teachers and all of our staff members as we push towards uh the end of the school year. Yeah. And like one of you said, right? When we look at these numbers and it looks like a big jump. When you're like, that's actually 30 kids. It's like, oh yeah. Yeah. We can do that. Yeah. Okay. Um Do we have Are there important dates or no? Okay. Make a motion to adjourn the meeting at 9:24. All in favor. All right. Get home safe everybody.

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