Anamika

Thank you. Good evening, everybody. I'd like to call to order the 09/03/2026 business meeting of the Croton-Harmon Union Free School District's Board of Education. We will open with item 1.2, the pledge of allegiance. Item 1.3, the approval of the ag…

We actually have a very strong relationship, Putnam Northern Westchester BOCES through which a lot of our students receive technical and career education. And part of our, annual initiative is actually to discuss and present the work of students who …

Good evening. I'd like to call to order the 08/27/2026 work session of the Croton-Harmon board of Croton-Harmon Union Free School District's Board of Education to order. Starting with item 1.2, the approval of the agenda. Be it resolved that the Boar…

On the question? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Abstain? Motion carries. Moving into our first order of business, item 1.3, the president's report. So good evening, and welcome to the members of our community in the audience, not so many tonight. Hopefu…

With our students returning to school next Tuesday, September 1, this has been a busy week for the district, and you'll be hearing more about those preparations from superintendent Walker during his report. For my part, I had the honor of representin…

President's report is gonna be is gonna cover a few areas that needs to complete reports on in the update on your future. I'm gonna open with a preview of some key items on the agenda for tonight's business meeting. In addition to our monthly hearing…

Any additional comment from the public? Alright. Then I'll go to before we have sort of, like, our discussion, go to item 3.3, adjourning the public hearing on the the American management plan. Do you resolve that the Board of Education hereby adjour…

But it also important to make sure that there's equitable access and opportunity to go to things like this. I think we also have to think about it in terms of the larger picture of, like, what our professional development plans are for ourselves, not…

To me, that makes sense because I think the function has been a little bit less on, like, professional development because all of us take part in that in our own ways and a little bit more on things like onboarding, bringing, you know, our student tr…

The ad hoc committee on technology has a charge to complete a certain portion of the scope of its work by the end of this summer. So it is a committee where there will need to be regular communication sort of immediately. The delivery date of a repor…

The same actually applies for the use of AI note taking tools, which are built into software now to automatically do that. And if as an individual, you're not comfortable or, like, it's actually, in some cases, bad policy to be having that confidenti…

So moved.

Second.

Second.

>> I think this connects back to uh what Allison was talking about with regard to the the technology committee and the and the like who's in it, how it's selected. But just I guess in a broader way saying that because we're setting up these ad hoc co…

I think they are just you know from my observation it is true that that that the majority of people who are at at common lunch are actually interacting with each other and so what we think about is like what are the ways that we can support that in t…

>> I love the idea of collaborating with parents and educating them in terms of how they can shut the phones down and take away internet access remotely. But you know what also I was thinking about is like it also is requiring like that shift and I I…

>> I will just add on that because it was you know, like we I so I said to one of the teachers that I talked to after that event was like there's certain things that you go into the building and you sort of like have goosebumps because it's like it w…

>> Um Yeah definitely and um I guess like I've done a lot of work with design thinking so this is kind of like the process you need you know speak to multiple stakeholders you got to like secondary primary research and then from that you figure out u…

>> Yeah, exactly. >> That's a better word for it. Taking on too much. If if the scope is say like the seri- like three listening sessions, does that if we write up charge that way, it that prevent the ad hoc committee from doing some of this backgrou…

And I don't know if I'm on speaker because it's an amazing part of that. I guess it was. So just just so that we have an understanding of what we're approving, there's a resolution on on the agenda to approve data policy agreements through sorry. I d…

It's okay. So the so the question is just on our consent agenda. And you've spoken about this before. So it it's not a it's this is within the scope of questions that you often answer for us. We have a resolution for the data policy agreement with th…

As as the boards liaison to the Village Bicycle Pedestrian Committee, I was very pleased to be able to participate this weekend in CET's bike rodeo, which was an incredible community event organized by Suzanne Leslie, our CET physical education teach…

I don't think there's a one size fits all solution or a one size fits all answer in terms of the appropriate use of technology, but I think the research shows right now that most of the technology that we're using in our schools is not additive or re…

Sorry, that is a long question. I think that to just to continue the conversation that we've begun in recent years about academic rigor, we do have to continue to look at, the performance of our students across a wide variety of metrics. Test scores …

Okay. Sorry. I think somehow I heard it as setting the goals, so setting the priorities for the district. In terms of, in terms of establishing priorities for the district, I think we have to be listening to our community and we have to be observing …

Right, but what is a direct to candidate violation? Like, what does that mean? And and if this is, like, sort of outside your scope, then I guess the question is is why is the high school administrative team not here for this meeting to engage in thi…

No. Just I think just just to go back. Did you have something else to add? Oh, I did. You did. Okay. So in terms of, like, the next level of work also, I mean, it's like I don't I don't know if it's useful for us to give you all of our points right n…

You're right. So I I the reason I think, Neal, that we brought this, if I can, since I have sort of been, you know, assigned this policy to help shepherd through. I think where we are is this. The reason we wanted to bring it, you know, I talked abou…

Thanks for the question. So EdTech has been I think the conversation has has risen to the forefront very, very recently, but I'll speak from my own experience of having had a having had kids starting in the schools as far back as 2014. I was really s…

Okay. That's a big question. I think it's really hard to narrow. I it's it's we've talked about so much tonight. I think it's hard to sort of narrow it down to one single thing. I think you can see that this is a group that's generally in agreement t…

I'm concerned about this outcome that I'm not seeing for my student. I'm concerned about x, y, or z, whatever it is. What are they doing? They are advocating for a human student that is in their family. That's the person that they're representing. An…

The Board development committee has not met since the since the, well, since the last time we reported, but there are some things that are sort of upcoming because we're now approaching the time of year where we're heading to the finish line. So one …

it it's so it's currently not on the calendar. But I'll tell you. One second. I'm sorry. And the reason I'm mentioning it here is because I assert this committee not to build a bicycle pedestrian committee and that is they are actually going to be co…

I think you've done a good job explaining. I was shifting through these papers because I remember Joe Bernardi came in and I was trying to find the dates of February 26 because of course this is our culminating budget meeting but I think Joe gave lik…

>> that and I forgot >> based off of sort of like our experience at our last meeting where I think we we asked some questions that we weren't able to answer in the room where we landed for example with that conversation was to say we think we need to…

>> Sure. Thank Thank you. And I'll also keep it brief but also remind sort of like the group that when we do have things on the agenda for first reading, it's actually it is like the it's like the first opportunity and sometimes the only opportunity …

>> Yes, for this one 0000 would necessarily have one, right? We have we we haven't I mean we can certainly look to see if there is a boilerplate policy under that specific number or educational philosophy that the the genesis of our discussion in ter…

so so again just thinking ahead to the fact that we'll be hearing from our building administrators we definitely want to make sure we have time this evening to hear from Ellen and from Christine but just to close it up in terms of this conversation I…

The quilt also highlights the work of our transportation department and the district in general in bringing electric buses as well as believe it or not it also features our commitment to heat pumps. These are all illustrated on this quilt in quilt st…

This was an exhibition that brought together artwork created by students both at Croin Hart High School and PBC Middle School. There was a performance element and the artists whose artwork is was on display actually delivered their artist statements …

We have identified and we've heard from the community in the last several years that the community wants us to have as a board and as a district a renewed focus on curriculum on achievement and on outcomes. And I have to say based off of my conversat…

I also think it just offers another opportunity for student voice, right? like they keep talking about having students come to our meetings. They're always able to come to our meetings. They're always able to report back on those things. But to have …

And is that not the secretary though? No, it's Spencer. It's standing for SFC. Right. Right. So, so we're talking we're talking those five positions and then if we're if if SFC's recommendation is that that individual grade level positions not be inc…

Yeah. just going back to what you were saying before, Nichole, about the the the question about being different sort of being like a challenge because you said that I don't know I don't know if I heard it correctly that that that phrase is sort of li…

thanks for that and thanks for all the great work on all of this. I I guess my question and we we've talked a little bit about it is with regard to just the the the survey instruments in particular and I was heartening to see that you're you're tryin…

But to the point like from some of the like to me that in terms of like a cultural of of continuous improvement like so it seems like if we do have like these baselines of like okay we're hitting these like we're doing well compared to national stand…

This is really like a very helpful overview. this is more like thinking to the future. so like looking at slide two in terms of the budget development timeline. it seems like at this point we're hearing the revenues but like everybody's already think…

I have one question. I'm sorry. It's okay. just because we've come up against this and I I like I missed it so I wanted to make sure I didn't miss it on the previous one, but donations should be should be directed to people who are current students, …

I think I think here I'm I just want to make sure it's like because I think we have gotten into this habit, but even in the preamble, it there's no requirement, right? That Oh, no, it does. So, it's like So, the preamble actually then has to be broug…