Stephen Walker

as a board, obviously, we celebrated one of the the hallmarks of any school year. And certainly in the educational field, there's nothing like the energy and excitement of the first day of school. As we were also reflecting today, there's nothing lik…

One of the things that we'll be talking about and sharing more information about this year is the opportunity for parents to come in on a much more regular basis and be in our classrooms. Right? Those we would call them learning walks. PVC has been d…

It's a social construct, right, and that classrooms and schools should reflect that, and that for too long in too many places, including too often here, technology and screens was getting in the way of and became an impediment to that social construc…

It's a privilege and an honor, once again, get a chance to be a part of this tremendous team. And on Tuesday morning, as we shared with the staff this week, the staff of this district do an incredible and special thing. Right? We open the doors of al…

The clerical team, the administrative team, the a team, everyone who's involved in all of this work during the summer, truly spectacular, spectacular job. So we can't wait for Tuesday. That is, aside from graduation, one certainly the the highlight o…

So it was a jam packed whirlwind two days for them and took a bus tour of the community. But they're ready. And they're excited, and they're ready to add to an already amazing faculty here. So it's relative of our our new times. On Tuesday of this we…

So I'm gonna go through. Thank you. And I'm gonna go first on behalf of the administrative team to Madeline, to Nikki, welcome. And thank you for your leadership on behalf of the student body. To Betsy and to Jake, welcome, and and thank you for your…

So thank you and congratulations to everyone who's involved in those. Also wanna make mention that over the past year or so, there's been a great deal of discussion in our community about how we engage with our broader community, how we communicate a…

Yes. Thank you again, Anamika. So as we know, this was a point of discussion. This is a high quality discussion among families and and faculty CET specifically. So we thought as we begin the summer, it was an opportune time to take a look at some his…

Sure. So these are folks who are not part of any of the collective bargaining units within the district. And so we then try to look at how we can maintain consistency across our various bargaining units continue to incentivize folks to do work that's…

In her role as athletic director, but really Trainer. I'm sorry. Yeah. But that's really there's nothing in benefits that's been provided to her that's really about beyond what she has to teach her. No.

Yeah. Right.

So, I want to thank athletic director Christine Drago, Carla, and the entire athletics team as well as the booster club, Joe Verilo and Lorie Zelman, everyone who's a part of making Tiger athletics such a wonderful experience for so many of our stude…

So um starting with an overview of the technology committee obviously uh for a number of reasons we're very pleased that we u made sure that this was a a priority committee for the year given um that the technology conversation is certainly having an…

>> Yeah, if I could. Um, it's my genuine pleasure to recommend Nicole for tenure as assistant principal at PBC. Over the past four years, Nicole's demonstrated a true care and devotion to the students of our district, for their families, for the team…

>> Yeah, we've talked before as a team about the value in coming to a shared vision around, for example, succession planning and and what that could look like, should look like. Where it's your point where that lives, is it operational, is it policy,…

>> Yes, so uh Laura Dubak and I had the opportunity to meet with the SHEF board uh probably a month ago to talk through not only this specific grant, but just broadly how we want the process uh to work going forward. Uh and I want to thank Ricky and …

>> Uh we're going to have some conversations about where that can come from from the district budget as well as we need to make any modifications to how the implementation of that looks like from a classroom perspective. We can look at that, too.

Thanks, Ana. Good evening, We will recognize Marissa and some other folks in a moment, but I just want to say a couple of things by way of introduction. Tonight is a special night for our school district community when we have the opportunity to come…

Whether receiving tenure, counting twenty years of contributions to our district, celebrating retirement, or having achieved national board certification, every one of these staff members has become a part of the fabric of our school district communi…

We would also like to express our deepest appreciation and congratulations to some of our district's retirees who were not able to be here tonight. Congratulations and thank you to everything. Thank you for everything to Mohammed Aggoub, Manuel Beltr…

Brad, I would just add, I think one of the interesting conversations that needs to occur after tonight's lecture tonight are taking a look at this data with the faculty. And I'll admit from a place of kind of institutional humility that these numbers…

It's a process, and part of the process is being vulnerable enough to say, here's where we are. Right? Here's the state of of of play, the state of affairs, and then let's figure out, does this reflect what's actually happening in the classrooms? To …

And that's what we're talking about here is, like, we have to sort of figure out how these decisions about technology are integrated into the bigger picture. You can't just be looking at it as like we bought a thing. Right? It has to be part of the c…

A parent of a kindergartner spoke regarding what her daughter has been watching in school every single day -- videos of books read by celebrities, low-quality, high stimulation videos, not educational tools. Corporate TV show is being used as math cu…

Liaison Reports:  Board Trustee Neal Haber did not get to attend the latest Student Faculty Congress but will attend the next one.  Board Trustee Sarah Carrier noted that WPSBA is sending out budget related materials and the last EdLaw lunch of the y…

It was also noteworthy for me as a not a a theater expert to it was noteworthy how much better some of the technical aspects of these shows were with the new auditorium. So thank you again to our community for their terrific support there. Congratula…

Through that process, we're able to to lean the the group down to five of the most promising promising folks at that point, we called them semi finalists and brought them to PVC for about three hours of experience Friday, several Fridays ago to meet …

If I could. Again, just to follow-up on the comments I made just a minute ago. It's a rare event for someone, particularly in a leadership process, to be so impressive the entire arc of the process. From the first moment that, mainly, we had a chance…

It's a hard act to follow, but I'm ready to talk a little bit. So, here we go. Um, so, as you may be aware, um, we were recognized recently by Helper Helper. Um, that's the app that we use to track community service, uh, for reaching a milestone. Um,…

Um, so that lengthens each of those sessions a little bit. Um, we're also going to lengthen morning classes just a little bit on Tiger Tuesday. So, that's kind of how that extra time is spread out. to come. But that's, you know, kind of a minor chang…

Um, we we did some looking into how does this affect our students as they leave the system. So um we looking at college applications um we've seen a 16% increase in the number of college applications per student. Um that's with this year's class. Um …

Thank you again, Anamika. Good evening again, everybody. three topics from me this evening. let's start with technology. as the community is hopefully aware, we've been engaged in systemwide thinking about the role of technology in our schools for ov…

Through the expectation that appropriate funding is forthcoming from the state for next year, we've let the interested community- based organizations know that they will need to provide space themselves and both providers are prepared to do so. But i…

Thank you again, Anamika. as we I want to be brief so we can get to to Ellen and and Christine. but just wanted to mention again as I I do every time we talk about the budget and in particular this this budget. I think we all recognize that this is a…

Athletic Director Christine Drago will be monitoring this and they also discussed ways to keep athletes safe, healthy, and active. 2. Work Session Presentation: 2.1 2026-2027 Budget Presentation Assistant Superintendent for Business Denise Harring…

Thank you, Ana. And good evening everyone and congratulations again to Jeremy and to Maya. when we think about and Maya as products of not only their hard work and their family's hard work and their faculty's hard work, but the systems work over the …

Thank you again, Ana. Good evening again, everybody. for the past three business meetings, we've shared there we are. Good evening. for the past three business meetings, our principles have joined us to share student achievement data across a a wide …

Also want to make mention of a couple of upcoming events. Our annual Tiger Sports Showcase for the spring is coming up on Tuesday the 3rd. This is evolved into a really impactful event for our athletics community. This is a chance for especially youn…

Thank you, Ana. Good evening, everyone. I wanted to just say by way of a brief introduction for the past three business meetings, November, December, and this month, the board and community have heard from our building leaders with regard to some out…

Sure. Yeah. as part of our commitment to on an ongoing basis keeping our community up to date with regard to a university pre kindergarten and u the district's work to continue to administer this program in a robust way. we saw some potentially signi…

We will also be pushing back the submission deadline until early in February to allow for the potential providers to consider their proposals. Additionally, we've previously shared publicly that as part of a good faith effort to make the state's fund…

e Black History Month Collaboration: Vanessa will follow up with Rachel from the family resource center to discuss collaboration and potential involvement of STAR. e ESL Classes: Faith will continue to pursue the conversation with Stephen Walker reg…

e Guest speakers such as Police explaining ICE policy, and other topics of interest to the attendees. Police explaining police centric phrases such. Traffic stop information. An immigration attorney attend a class. e Chief Nikitopoulos will discuss …

Thank you and thanks again Laura for being here and for your leadership. Shifting gears if we could to let's talk about technology for a little bit. So one of the other ongoing conversations in the district for the better part of a year or so now has…

Thank you, Neal. I just again wanted to thank the board, the thoughtful way that this has been administered by the leadership and by the faculty at the high school derives from a board's policy committee and a full board that approached this from a a…

This is something that we agree on and that is urgent and that is important. All right, there is no intent from anyone who's seated at this table to allow UPK to flounder, to fail, or to be paused in the system. That simply will not happen. We will n…

Superintendent Stephen Walker introduced the work session topic. The Power of Partnership: How ENL and ICT Create Equitable Learning Experiences Presenters: Rachel DePaul, Assistant Superintendent for Pupil Personnel Services Danielle Van Tassel …

Assistant Superintendent for PPS, Rachel DePaul added:  4/30: UPK drawing held, 81 entries, 56 seats to fill, 25 students are on the wait list currently, families have until 5/14 for final decisions. Report: 4.2 Hearing of the Public Mr. Ed Riely s…

Board Development:  Board Development Committee Chair Anamika Bhatnagar reported that they have not met since the last discussion.  Board President Ana Teague will fill the group in on Superintendent Evaluation.  Superintendent Stephen Walker submitt…