CHUFSD Board of Education Regular Meeting 9/3/26

Thank you. Good evening everybody. I'd like to call to order the September 3rd, 2026 business meeting of the Croin Harmon Free School District's Board of Education. We will open with item 1.2, the Pledge of Allegiance. United States of America to the republic which stands one nation under indivisible liberty and justice for all. America >> item 1.3 the approval of the agenda. Be it resolved that the board of education hereby approves the agenda as presented. uh on the question. All in favor? >> I opposed abstain. The motion carries moving into the next portion of our agenda. Item 2.1, the president's report begin now. You got me. You want to switch me? All right. Well, good evening everybody and happy new school year. Welcome to the members of our community in the audience watching the live stream and of course listening at a later date. And welcome back to our students, faculty, staff, and everyone here. The entire

board of education joins me in wishing you all a wonderful school year. We'd also like to thank every member of the district who worked tirelessly this summer to make sure our doors are ready to open on Tuesday. And we'd like to extend a special thank you to Croin PD and our crossing guards for ensuring the safety of our walkers, bikers, rollers, and student drivers this fall. You will see that I am wearing my slowdown protein badge today as a reminder to our entire community that school is back in session. Stopping for school buses, stopping for pedestrians at crosswalks is not just important, it's the law. Thank you to everyone who shared feedback on last week's improved live stream quality. I hope I'm coming through loud and clear. We're very glad to hear that you're hearing a difference. And again, we wanted to thank Dr. Ellen Moscowitz and Mr. Greg Cavaleri for their work in making these

changes. A reminder to everyone around the board table this evening. As I said earlier, please be sure to position your mic directly in front of you when speaking. And a reminder for me, check that it is on before you start speaking. Um, I'll begin tonight with a preview of some key agenda items. In addition to our monthly hearing of the public, the board will hear from our student trustees with their first reports of this new school year. We will also be hearing from members of our ad hoc committee on technology who will share the findings of this summer's community survey and listening sessions in support of the recommendations that they'll be making to the full board. We'll follow that with a discussion of district goals for the 2627 school year, some of which will be multi-year goals before moving into personnel recommendations and our consent agenda. I'd also like to take a moment to

highlight the robust and productive discussion we held at last week's meeting regarding Croenharman School's technology reset. First, on behalf of the entire board, I'd like to thank the district's administrative team, our building leaders, and our faculty for engaging in the thoughtful, deliberate work that has put this district at the forefront of school systems nationwide, addressing the role of technology in instruction, learning, and student well-being. As a board and as a community, we have a lot to be proud of, particularly our sustained advocacy over the last year on behalf of our district students. I am grateful for the collaboration between our educational leaders, our schoolboard trustees, and our families and community because all of that led us here. And I want us all to remember that the work to improve our students educational experience is ongoing and never done. Just last week,

like many of you, I'm sure, I read the New York Times article titled, "How big tech captured America's schools." The subhead of that article was really telling. It stated, "Companies like Google and Microsoft have used their money, their might, and their massive reach to influence nearly every step of the education supply chain." The implication being, not surprisingly, that these corporations see K- through2 students as their customers. The article went on to highlight workshops for teachers and students that were funded or led by corporate giants like Amazon, Apple, Meta, etc., and compared them to seminars for doctors organized by pharmaceutical companies that aimed to get physicians to prescribe the latest brandame drugs. The article continued, "Many parents would likely object if, say, Exxon Mobile wrote their children's environmental science curriculum or if Purdue Pharma trained their children's

biology teachers. Yet over the last decade, the entire educational system actually has often embraced the technology industry in similar ways without with very few questions asked. I am proud of our community, our board of education, and our school district for asking those questions and even more important for proposing new courses of inquiry for reviewing practices and metrics and for committing to improving student outcomes and experiences as you'll hear more about tonight. Thank you. Moving into um the next item on our agenda, 2.2, the hearing of the public. Um a little preamble just to remind everyone, we believe that effective dialogue can occur only in an atmosphere of mutual respect. Therefore, it's our policy to conduct our business at meetings and in all communications in a manner that models respect and civility. We invite members of the public to share this commitment with us. And we invite

you now to step up to the podium and uh deliver your comments or remarks for three minutes. Thank you. >> Hello, I'm Marissa A. I have a third grader who is at CT and I just wanted to say thank you so much for everyone's really hard work and thoughtfulness on the tech reset. Uh it was very exciting to hear of all these changes. I know our work is not done but um I'm so appreciative of everyone spending time on this and it's awesome that Croin can be a leader in this space. So thank you

from Trishell Drive. Um, I'd like to thank the board for the uh work they've done on this technology in the classroom. Um, it has its place, but it not just a fraction of the percent of where it's been. Um, and it was a subject of the last election. And rather than pushing it aside, you jump right on it. Um, I wish people had jumped on phones 20 years ago the way you jumped on this, but um, you've done a good job and I've heard a lot of good things. So, I'd like to congratulate you for that. like to commend the school district. The other schools look the same and uh in my family we have a football history and every one of them gave the district a A+ on the fields and the sports complex which you spent money on and uh it's come to fruition. Um, but back to the most important thing, um, which is the education of our children. So, um, what I've heard from other parents is that you're on track and that the

district is serious about educational reforms. And in the litany that the president of the board just went through, I'd also like to remind you that one of those big tech companies was owned by the Chinese Communist Party and the and the stuff they sent to the United States branch was totally unh wholesome compared to what they do in the home country. And that's one of these bad guys on the list of uh addictive characters and corporations. Uh, I'd like to mention one other thing in terms of big tech's influence over education. You remember that back about 2010 when the state of New York was short about 5 to 10 billion dollars that agreed with Mr. Gates, the head of Microsoft, who sents his kids to non technological, you know, not schools that don't have technology. That's where he sent his kids. And for his $10 million, the state of New York introduced, you know, I think it was, you know, the uh reform number 385,

Common Core, which from personal experience was a paperwork disaster in the school that I was affiliated, we we had the finest teachers and to load them down with the paperwork, the ownorous paperwork burden that the common core provided. when these teachers were produc a A+ we had an A+ school was a disgrace just for the money and that was Mr. at Microsoft. So, thank you. >> Anyone else for the public? Okay, we'll move into item 2.3, the superintendent report. Over to you. >> Thank you, Anamaga. Good evening, everyone who's here in person and all those who are watching at home. uh in the week since we were last together uh as a board obviously we uh celebrated one of the the hallmarks of any school year uh and certainly in the educational field uh there's nothing like the energy and excitement of the first day of school. Uh as we were also reflecting today there's nothing like the fatigue

of the end of the first couple days of school. So, I would just want to take a moment to thank, as we heard earlier, every member of the staff, of the board, every member of our parent community who was a part of uh making the first three days of school so successful for all of our students. We hope everyone gets some rest this weekend because we've got a lot of work to do uh this year. But I wanted to highlight just a couple of of some of the events from uh this busy first three days of school. Uh beginning with our kindergarten welcome event where we had a chance to see a couple of our board members there wearing a different hat. Uh but it's uh always thrilling to get a chance to to welcome the newest students to our system. Um and particularly this year, I think the level of excitement around the classrooms and the experiences that they're walking into u is really heightened. So uh I thank Carrie and

Craig and certainly the entire staff and faculty at CCT for uh for putting together such a wonderful first couple of days for our incoming kindergarten students. U and look forward to continuing that. Actually, one of the things that we learned was uh because of the weather, as Carrie mentioned, the opportunity for parents to walk their their kids into the classroom and have that that moment and that memory both for the parents and the kids felt like a really special one. So, that's one that we'll we'll replicate in years uh to follow. Also wanted to mention that we had a chance, Laura and I, to attend the PBC principles coffee yesterday. I want to thank Meian and Nicole and all the parents who were a part of that. some really great discussion around building goals, district goals, board goals, uh the technology reset, uh and everything that's going to make this year a really unique and special one at PVC. And so I

thank them uh for their participation in their leadership in that. Speaking of leadership, I want to thank our student leaders at the high school, our big buddies who are part of the annual tradition of welcoming the newest uh members of the high school student body uh in such a robust and and um respectful and and developmentally appropriate way. So, thank you uh to all of those team members who were part of welcoming the class of I guess 2031 uh from the high school. Uh and also wanted to mention and this came up yesterday briefly at the PVC principles coffee and we'll mention it later during um district goals. 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 we call them learning walks. Uh PVC has been doing these for the past three years. Um had a

chance to to hear some parent feedback to Meen and Nicole who have been a part of those at the principal call be all overwhelmingly positive. Uh and so we've expanded that now with the support of our faculty to all three buildings. So you'll be hearing more about that uh in the next few days. But we look forward to those moments and thank our faculty for for being vulnerable enough to say welcome. Come on in. Uh see the greatness that's happening in our classrooms. See what our kids are doing. uh there's opportunity in that and some great conversations that certainly will stem from it. So wanted to to just put that on on everyone's radar as we start the year. Uh more excellence to come on that front. Also just wanted to briefly address something that's become obviously a a hot topic of conversation over the certainly over the course of the past months but particularly over the past few days was the the launch the

introduction then launching this week of of the tech reset. And so I think all of us came and continue to come at that conversation from the the shared belief that learning is a social function. 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 construct. Um, and it was really it's been um it's always one thing to to say you have a vision for something and then it's another more beautiful thing to see it in action. And so to be in all of our classrooms over the past three days and Betsy and I had a chance to walk through many classrooms at the high school and and PBC today to see it in action and to see it in our K2 classrooms at CCT. um the genuine enthusiasm and joy that's always been a part of our system, but to see it

unimpeded by technology. To see our faculty having pivoted so seamlessly to an environment that I think we all agree is a healthier one for our students in every way u has been heartwarming. I'm incredibly appreciative to our community, to our faculty, to our staff. And so now the conversation shifts to other folks in the region saying, "Okay, how did you accomplish that?" And I want to give uh great credit to our faculty again, to Laura, to Ellen, uh to other members of our team who helped to operationalize this and certainly to our board and community who um have been such stalwart supporters and and motivators in terms of moving this forward. Uh this is I think unquestionably a point of pride for our community as we begin the year and we look forward to uh seeing this continue to evolve as we go forward. And just one final mention in terms of what's next. Uh we have of course the the great

opportunities at the beginning of each year for our families to come in and spend time in our buildings with our faculty through our back to school nights uh and our curriculum nights. So I wanted to share those dates and times uh with you. All of these will be on our website, our homepage as a popup starting tomorrow morning. Uh and so we look forward to welcoming all of our families of all of our students uh as we get into later into September so that you get a chance to get to hear firsthand from our faculty about the curriculum, what it is that that your students are learning, how they're learning it, and what their experience is like here on a daily basis. So we thank you in advance for um scheduling. We know outside of your your incredibly busy schedules, anytime you can devote to spending in our classrooms makes us better. So thank you for that. Thank you. Thank you, Superintendent Walker. I am

pleased to turn it over now to our student trustees, Exeicio. Our students, Nikki Mukerjee and Maline Kramer, joined the school board earlier this summer at the uh in the middle of July, and this is their first meeting after the start of school. So, you'll be seeing them come back to our meetings regularly with reports on various happenings um in both CHHS and across the school district and representing the student perspective. So, I'll turn it over to you both now. Uh, so hi everyone. I'm very excited to be giving my first student report as student trustee this year. Um, to start, the first day of school went really well and from what I've heard, our freshmen had a great transition into high school. I'm looking forward to hearing more about how the rest of the year goes for them and the rest of our students. Since I don't have any new school issues or concerns that have been brought to me um

in the last two days I've been here, I'd like to just use this report to highlight a few topics I'm personally excited to learn more about and discuss with you all throughout this year. Uh as I am a graduating senior, there are two key areas I'm especially interested in. And those are changes being made within our schools and the reasoning behind them and how those changes ultimately affect students and their academic opportunities. This includes everything from new courses and programs to everyday policies and rules. I'd like to better understand the process behind implementing these changes and how they are communicated to students and families and how their impact is evaluated in our schools. One area I'm particularly interested in is our interdisciplinary courses. I myself am a massive fan of these interdisciplinary courses and learning and I think that there is so much good that can be done

with these classes. As these courses continue to develop, I have several questions I'd like to explore with you all this year. Some of those include how are counselors communicating the purpose, academic value, and pathways of these interdisciplinary courses to students and families throughout our colleges and admissions officers being made aware of why these courses are being offered and how they fit into our curriculum and how they might help students in their transition into high school and university. Since course rigor is an important part of college admissions, how do these interdisciplinary courses allow students to diversify their schedules while still demonstrating that they are challenging themselves academically? Are there are there opportunities within these courses to increase academic rigor such as honor honors level expectations, additional projects, independent work, extra credit, or even connections with

outside organizations and professionals. Last two, I promise. how these courses prepare students for higher level classes, including AP courses and other advanced coursework in college or even in high school if they choose to take it. And more broadly, how do we evaluate whether these new courses are achieving their intended goals and benefiting students? Now, speaking on the new technology updates in the school, I of course have heard mixed feelings among the high schoolers. On one hand, many students are excited about putting their phones away as they won't be inclined to check them in class and ultimately get distracted. Of course, there are some that are upset at the fact that they won't be able to use their phone or electronic device in any school area during the school day. With that being said, I'm truly excited and interested if opinions change throughout the year, how students will adjust, and how it

will affect our learning as a high schooler myself. I'm excited to learn more about these questions throughout the year and make sure that as our school continues to evolve, student perspectives remain part of the conversation. And I'm excited to work with you all. Um, so the first few days back have been very eventful, very busy. Um, I like Nikki don't have many uh new feed much new feedback that I've heard from students in these past few days. Um, I think the tech reset has so far been successful. Um, Nikki covered I think a lot of you [snorts] know what's been going on. I don't need to uh discuss that much further, but I have three main uh pieces of feedback that I've heard from students um that I think they felt last year and are expecting to continue through the 2627 school year. So, the first one in the high school is the rolling grade book. Uh the second one is the art department and the school uh

fall and spring productions. Uh and the third uh that I'm very curious about is algebra for all in the middle school. So to start with the rolling grade book, I've heard two main pieces of feedback from students. The first one being that they really liked the rolling grade book because they started with good grades in their classes and then were able to kind of coast on the work that they had already built up. their grade didn't fluctuate so much um after they had had this good grade throughout the year. Um students who didn't like it didn't like it because they started the year off so not so great but they weren't able to improve their score no matter how hard they worked throughout the year. Um, I should say the rolling grade book is uh different from last year and previous years where in the high school the grading has been on a quarterly basis where you kind of have a fresh start at the beginning of each quarter and then

at the end of the year everything gets averaged together um for the students final grades. So with this system uh there weren't any sort of fresh starts. Um I think this was a problem specifically in the math department. Um, a lot of kids that didn't start the year off so well were unable to improve their grades and specifically in algebra 2 trigonometry. Uh, the coursework gets a lot harder as you progress through the year. So, I think the teachers saw this and they really wanted to help the students uh, bring up their grades and so they decided to weight the grades at the end of the year heavier. Um, so there are a few checkpoints and those each have tests. So, uh, as you went throughout the year, the tests were weighted heavier. Um, the issue was that with that was if you didn't do so well on those tests, they were ra uh weighted heavier and so your grade just went down. Um, so, you know, that was a

solution that was tried but didn't go so well. Um so I think the main the main point is that uh students felt their grades were a misrepresentation of the work they were putting in. The students who did well at the start of the year didn't have to try so hard towards the end of the year and the students who didn't do so well at the start of the year and maybe tried to do better weren't able to improve their grades so much. So my second topic of the art department and the musical. Um we have a very strong art department and uh lots of very passionate art students in this community. I think um some students feel like they have a hard time uh like promoting themselves. I know the sports department has their athletic director which help them promote events uh and games. Um we don't have that sort of uh position for the arts. Um we have students who are doing well on their NISMA tests and are getting into

prestigious uh orchestras such as all county. Um and students in the art department who are submitting to Scholastics and are achieving great things. Um, with the the fall productions, uh, the attendance has been pretty low and we're me and Nikki, I should say, are both very involved in this. Um, so the ticket sales that we get from those productions um, really are we're reliant upon for uh, sets, costumes, uh, all of the production elements. Um and so when we get less ticket sales, we have less um profits to put towards those things. Um in addition, the attendance we do get comes mostly from uh student the cast members families. So we're almost indirect indirectly funding our own productions. Um, a lot of sports teams, you know, we don't ask them to pay for students to pay for their own uniforms and so it feels a little bit unfair to ask students to pay for their costumes. Um, lastly, uh, I'll keep this one a little

bit shorter. Um, algebra for all. I don't know much about this topic because I'm in the high school. Uh, but I'm very interested in learning further about it. Uh I know a lot of students in 8th grade who took algebra 1 and felt they were strong math students and well equipped for this class and still struggled a lot uh in this class. So I'm curious what supports we're providing for students who maybe math isn't their strongest subject um and are taking this hard level class uh what supports we're providing them currently in 8th grade and then in freshman year when they're pushed into geometry. So uh that's it. Thank you. Great. Thank you both very much. I want to um I just want to be able like an overview of um what your sort of um student advocacy portfolios are going to be for this year. I know that that was a that was an important distinction that you both made in terms of your approach to being student trustees this

year is to actually focus in on a couple of important issues that are not important just to you but also to the larger high school and even beyond the entire school community. And I appreciate how well I think you articulated all that. The great news in terms of some of the questions you've asked is that many of these are topics that we as a board and administrative team have actually already agreed to discuss this year. Um things including our interdisciplinary courses and the impact of those, how we're able to sort of boost our arts program. Um specific things like examining the rolling grade book through actually instructional practices and looking at outcomes. And then um delving in actually a little bit more specifically to algebra for all. I will at some point I'm sure the um admin team I don't know if you would like to chime in now to talk about what we're going to be talking about this year.

These aren't things that we're going to be able to answer today, but I think the fact that you've sort of articulated these as student concerns gives even more urgency to the fact that we want to be having these conversations for for the benefit of the board and for the community and also for the entire team to sort of learn from what your experiences are. Uh would you like to add anything? >> Um so you're actually going to hear in just a couple of minutes as part of our district goals a goal specifically around math that I think might answer some of the initial questions you have. Um and at some point we can even I can even show you offline. We actually did a really nice data analysis this summer at our um administrative and board of education retreat where we looked at the first year of the algebra for all data which you guys might be interested in. Um before kind of jump down the inquiry

path of your own just as a starting point. >> Um the other thing I'll chime in on just and uh Allison I know you're going to be the don't mind my just saying I had a have had some conversations this summer with um the um the leadership team of our new performing arts booster organization. and um I know that they are very eager to connect with folks at the high school because their efforts to um serve as boosters for the arts. It's it's all the way from K through 12. So I think um that might be one of the first things we do for you all is to get you connected to them so that we can also start figuring out ways that um that everyone can be working together. Before we move on to our next item, do we have any other questions from the board on our student reports or any comments? Yep. >> Hi. Uh, just wanted to reiterate what Anamica said, thanking you guys for taking time out of your busy schedules

to spend it with us and and provide this feedback. I just just quickly, Nikki, not to put you on the spot, but what did you like about the in >> I really liked how they were able to sort of weave in a bunch of different um, studies and topics. Um, and like I know in some of the other ones they were able to incorporate English with the social studies and I know those sort of do go hand inand naturally, but I think really and putting an emphasis on that and showing students how exactly they can learn both English and uh English, nope, that's not it. History and English um in one class. Uh, I thought that was really interesting. And I think um as someone again I'm going to bring this up always but as someone who's graduating colleges are increasing their interdisciplinary learning and they are trying to give students more of a way to learn differently than your traditional science, math, history, English. And so

I think this is a great way to prepare our students for the uh future because again it's always going to get more competitive. It's always going to get harder to um exceed. And so if we're preparing our students for those challenges, then they will be ready to face them head-on when they ultimately have to. And so for me, those interdiciplinary courses really do help provide um students a new way of looking at learning and I guess learning each subject. Yeah. My freshman year I was in the maps, connections, and timelines course. So while I assume there has been up there have been updates to the curriculum and such I might be able to answer some questions you have. Um I also think when uh inter disciplinary courses are uh have a really strong curriculum. It allows students to like deepen their understandings of these two different subjects that maybe they didn't see the connection of how they work together.

But ultimately uh in the career field in in college uh many subjects are not on their own. They're very woven together. So I think this is a a good step towards that. >> Any other questions from the board? Okay. Thank you both. We're looking forward to hearing from you throughout the year, but this was a really great start. So thanks for setting the bar very high for yourselves actually [laughter] going forward. We'll turn it over now to board reports. Um, starting with a question I know the answer to, but I'll ask again. Audit >> January. [laughter] >> Thank you. Well, at a certain point, I I'll remember that and I'll stop asking. Um, board governance, we gave an extensive report last week, so there's nothing new to report. This is the the nice thing about having meetings two Thursdays in a row is we haven't had so much time to do do uh committee work. On behalf of the policy committee, um,

Trustee Anna Tig is unable to be at tonight's meeting, but she asked me to share that the policy committee will be scheduling its next meeting. Um, we'll be sharing a timeline for the board to review the, um, NISBA business meeting resolutions. And I believe Allison, if you'd like to share, you you're attending the Westchester Putinham School Board Association's advocacy meeting. Anything you want to say specifically about that? these mics [laughter] mine on. >> They're great when they work, but there's always um so yes, I I I will be the representative. I will organize some information for board colleagues on the resolutions. Um I did want to give a quick um note that from that I neglected to mention last week from the Westput meeting that I think is uh actually particularly interesting for the district overall. Um, apparently some of of the other neighboring districts are getting anundated by foil requests by an

organization called I think data branch. Um, and you've heard about this. Yeah. So, I mean it's just for the community as well. It's like it's causing some districts like hours and hours of work and expense. And it's basically a firm it's it's going to like an organization if you Google it that sounds like it's it's compiling foilable information so that to improve K through 12's understanding of procurement. So it I'm assuming they're going to sell it back to us at some point. Um so anyway, I thought that was of interest if it wasn't on your radar that people were talking about. >> Thank you. business model. >> What >> interesting business model? >> Yeah, I mean unfortunately I think I mean and Denise can attest to this that there are a number of foil inquiries that the district receives regularly from companies that are just trying to scrape information um nationwide and they're often not based in New York and

they're of sometimes not related to education either. >> Yeah. Um, one of the the discussions was like um, which is kind of feeding into a later conversation that there was a feeling like is is it legitimate? Is a foil request legitimate if it comes from AI? Like it's an something that's automated and apparently they were told yes, you still have to comply. Fine. >> Maybe the legislation is not too far behind. Denise, would you like to add anything on this? I know you're tracking this. Yes. And I'll try to control my temper. Um, we have received numerous foil requests from that organization and we actually received multiple requests just slightly deviated from different employees from the same organization. So, it looks as though there's like something that goes out and many employees pick it up and send out a similar request. It's almost an identical request, but they're probably running it through AI, so it's slightly

deviated. So, we're having to respond to all of them. Um, and we are we're working with legal to see if there is a uh a way that we can legally respond and and somehow um collaborate uh all of those requests into one response. Um but thus far we have not had any um you know clear direct path. So I think what I what I'll say is we are going to be starting our um legislative advocacy season in terms of meeting with our legislators. We have our meeting with Senator Gillibrand coming up in a couple weeks and then the sequence for our local state not federal legislators will also start. It seems like this is something um we'll need to bring to their attention because it's a product of open it's a product of sort of you know municipal law and um we have to sort of make sure that our resources are being allocated to where they really need to go which is our students >> and now with a the AI component they are

able to just say create a foil request asking about these items and you can get a book of requests. test with the snap of a finger and it's really backlogging and inundating organizations where they're unable to comply. So, it is an issue district was saying like every every week like clockwork at like Friday 3:00 they were Yeah, they're getting the thing, you know. So, it's it's a real organized effort. Well, I'm sorry that sounds like something we're going to have to talk further about. Thank you for that update and thank you for representing us at the um the Westchester Putnham School Boards. Yeah, Nikki, question >> for Maddie and I. Can you guys just quickly explain um what FOIL stands for, what it means for our school? [laughter and gasps] >> Thank you. I'm not an expert on Freedom of Information Act or Freedom of Information Law, but essentially um under Freedom of Information Law in the

state of New York, um municipal entities, school districts, municipal government, state government, etc. are obligated when a member of the public or a citizen has a question, that question has to be answered and records pursuant to like records in support of that um question also have to be provided. So, um it's it is it is a legal obligation that the school district has um to to fulfill these requests. And what we're seeing as they've reported is that if we're getting kind of spammed by requests, it's going to become more timeconuming. So, it's it's something that we have to I guess collectively, you know, school districts across the state are going to have to look at my lay person's answer. We can also get you an official answer [laughter] from from her legal counsel who can explain it in lawyer words. I don't have those unfortunately. Um, if I can, I'm going to turn it over. We're going to just do

a quick flip as we did last week and talk uh first about the ad hoc committee on hiring, retention, and tenure. I know Theo, you gave us a detailed update last week. >> Yeah. Um, whoa. Uh, too close. So yes, did do a detailed report back uh last week, but just for um a as a reminder, the next meeting is of this committee is on September 8th at 5:00. Um and then looking even further ahead, we have already scheduled our oc we're having these meetings monthly. Our October meeting is October 6th, uh which is also on a Tuesday at 5 o'clock. All right, I'm going to now turn it over to our ad hoc committee on technology and Omar. >> Thank you very much. So, um, back in June, the board had created this ad hoc committee to engage the community and recommend a charge for a community advisory committee on technology. Thank you. Um, so we held listening sessions and sent out a survey. We received a great deal of feedback and

what we heard from the community was that they care deeply about ensuring technology is used intentionally and with purpose and the conversation is much bigger than just screen time which you will see shortly tonight. We worked the with the administration on a draft resolution uh which is on tonight's agenda. The resolution is for for consideration is to form a community advisory committee which will carry on this work. Uh before we start, I wanted to give uh or recognize Betsy Leair who did all the heavy lifting, did an outstanding job of uh compiling the data, synthesizing the data, and preparing next presentation. Um and actually I would love to pass it on to you as the uh Thank you. >> Just turn on your mic just >> Sure. Um so before diving in um and [clears throat] like we want to give a little bit of overview to get everybody on the same page of what we are trying to do. Um so if you don't mind going to

the previous slide. Whoops. Sorry. So some background this was the scope of our committee charge uh to which is basically to then determine the scope and charge through engagement with the community of a community advisory committee on technology which is what our resolution later will address. So um we had this committee per uh proposed b back in on May 7th. It was approved by the board in June 11th. We were assigned who was going to be leading it on July 16th and then we had those following committee meetings. Um our approach to obtain this feedback was that we scheduled two listening sessions um July 31st and August 3rd. And then we also had the community survey that was available for oh I forgot to put in the date for from middle of July until August 17th. And um we tried to keep it very brief the survey to basically ask people like get a little identifying information but then to um have people

rank their priorities. And then we had these four open qualitative questions. Um so in terms of like focusing on the listening sessions, um we had these two dates and we we kept it pretty open. They were all two hours and people could drop in, they could leave and interestingly most people stayed the whole time to have a very robust conversation. Um the first time we had seven participants and on the second we had five. Um, we had parents from prek, from other parents who had kids at all three schools. We actually had two former students from the class of 2025 um, added grandparent. And um, then in terms of professions, we did not ask everybody's professions, but it came up during the conversation. We had a number of educators from different um, perspectives. We had engineers and we had college students and many people were actual users of AI. So we were not a group of lites that that were in the

room. Um and so if we go to the next slide, um just wanted to crystallize some of the themes that uh came up from the listening session. There was um a desire for greater transparency and awareness of what is happening right now and why. Um there was this idea that technology needs to earn its place in the learning environment and there was widespread support of the K through 12 K through2 limits put forth by the New York State Union of Teachers. Um so this was all done before a like a lot of the tech reset was announced here um as as expansively it has. Um there was a noted difference among technology education versus educating through technology versus using technology as a tool for creating. So it was pretty sophisticated the dialogue. Um people felt there was a need for expanded education and understanding about technology learning and data privacy so everyone can make informed and intentional choices. And um

lastly, alongside of this, there was a acknowledgement this is this takes resources and will impact people's, you know, work. So there was concerns about class sizes and providing teachers with the tools and resources they need. Um and then I'll turn it over to Betsy. Um great. So you'll see that the survey um had a lot of the same themes as the listening sessions. Perhaps unsurprisingly, there were 182 respondents, as Omar shared last week, 155 of whom were parents or guardians in our district. Um, people were allowed to choose more than one role. So, we had a few people saying that they're both a classroom teacher and a parent or a community member, uh, no, sorry, a a support staff and a parent. Um, but we also did have 14 classroom teachers, seven community members without a student in the district, five students, and five support staff. So again, um the parents were allowed to choose whichever grades their um

children were in. And so the respondents spanned the entire school district um with the bulk of the families having students in the elementary school. In terms of the ranking, um the the participants were asked to rank what would be most important to them um from one to five in terms of topics and um screen time came out very strongly. Um uh for well student well-being actually the qualitative screen time came out very strongly. Um student wellbeing came out as the most important. A lot of the qualitative answers were really about the fact that all of this feeds into student well-being. And so student well-being sort of begs the question. It's really the first question we're talking about everything with. The lowest thing that was ranked was artificial intelligence. But I do want to make one caveat to that. Um in the annex of this which people can look at online there there was some discrepancy

between teachers and parents. So parents tended to rank AI as not as much of a concern yet. I think that could in part be because a lot of the respondents had elementary school students and it just might not be on their minds as much yet. But when you look at what the teachers were concerned about, AI became much higher in this ranking. So once you disagregate by respondents, you get a slightly different ranking. Um, so in terms of the qualitative findings, 173 uh respondents gave at least one qualitative response. So you can see below which questions were answered with concerns um being the question that was answered the most frequently with 161 responses. So the clear message was a concern about the overuse of screens in our school. So 91 91 of the respondents specifically said they wanted less screen time in the school which is what um the most recent announcement about our tech reset really starts to address.

Um interestingly even respondents who want to avoid an overcorrection of tech did mention their concerns about the impact of technology. So there were some people who said, "We don't want to swing too far and have our kids not understand technology, but we're aware that technology can impact the students." Um, so specific uh specifics around the text impact on our students. 64 respondents described concerns about their children's development. So specifically mentioning things like their attention span, their critical thinking skills, their mental health, their executive functioning development. Um 54 respondents talked about pedagogical concerns, questioning whether skills are actually better taught with paper-based methods, feeling that tech was often used to have students do busy work, and worried that um using technology and using digital assessments gives the teachers a less deep understanding of

the students abilities and challenges. 48 respondents talked specifically about AI use. And I think this is only as low as it is again because of the respondent base that we had. But those that did talked those that did talk about AI talked a lot about concerns around AI undermining students ability to develop critical thinking and writing skills as well as increasing cheating and shortcuts for both students and staff leading to a more shallow education was how it was often described. Um concerns about students privacy and safety. So, this did not come up as frequently, frankly, as I actually expected it to. Um however the people who did raise it as a concern were were very um really emphasized that they think it's a very grave concern and that there's greater there's need for greater guard rails around student and family data and use that spanned you know from data being collected about students

assessment and whether that data is being sold all the way to people being worried about their children's photos in you know ending up online in various places. Um, I did think it was worth mentioning that four respondents specifically mentioned that data privacy is is a topic that felt different than some of these other topics in the sense that it there are legal, ethical, and technological complications to data privacy. And so getting an expert to advise on data privacy policy is important. I just thought it was notable that four different people mentioned this. Um, I also found it really valuable to see how teachers and parents are both concerned about technology, but they might have different vantage points on what that concern might be. So, teachers mentioned struggling to keep students on task who are exhausted from staying up late playing video games at home or just get distracted by games and social media

websites on the computers. Um, they mentioned worries about AI robbing students of opportunities to think for themselves. That's actually a direct quote, robbing students of opportunities to think for themselves. Um however they also do see the value in terms of differentiation and tracking student progress. There was some um good feedback around how valuable a couple of the teachers see uh the formative assessment aspect of it. Um parents talked about and this came up fairly frequently um that they felt undermined when they've kept their own children away from technology and then their children are given so much technology access by the school. they felt worried that I've tried really hard to keep this out of my kids' hands and then and then they've they've started to be exposed to it more. Um there were also concerns as I mentioned earlier about technology not being the best path to develop

children's socio emotional well-being, retention skills, and foundational academic skills. However, there was discussion of value in terms of learning about technology which I'll get to on on another um page. And I think what this shows me at least and and the other members of the committee is that we really have an opportunity to bring these two groups together in partnership to address the challenges. The teachers are concerned about the home use of technology. The parents are concerned about the school use of technology. Um and so I think this is this is and will continue to be a shared effort. Um there was recognition that technology has a place in the world and it's not going away and it is important to our future. Um 16 respondents used quotes like this saying technology is here to stay. Technology is a part of the future. Technology is part of our world. Um however there was a little bit of a

disagreement about what that meant. So some parents believed that means really strong technology education is needed. So really educating kids how to type, educating kids how to um how to use technology as a tool. Others said well technology is going to find our kids anyway, so why expose them to it in the school? which I I thought was interesting. Um, yeah, that's the quote down there. Um, so I think one really important nuance that Allison also mentioned is that though respondents stated that they want a reduction in overall screen time, that that needs to be complemented by a renewed vigor to devel to deliver a real technology education and to develop teachers capacity to critically evaluate how they're using technology to advance student outcomes. So, how does using tech actually deepen a lesson versus when is it making the lesson more shallow? Um, 34 separate respondents asked for education related to

technology, media literacy, physical mental health and safety implications of being online, coding, vigorous online research, programming, robotics, etc. Um, 14 respondents specifically asked for typing courses, which I thought was interesting. I loved my typing course as a kid, so um, yeah. Yeah, maybe speaking. Exactly. It was the best. Um, and so there there are some other deeper things um in here, but these were really the themes that came out the strongest. The data set was incredibly rich. Our community really cares about this topic. They really care about our kids' education, and we've shared the raw data with the district already. They've read through them all. Um, and we will share it with the board um after tonight as with the full board after tonight. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. Uh so any questions from anybody >> students anything that you want to add or ask about >> okay great we will move over to then the

um >> I just want to thank you all if you don't mind just officially >> I really I just don't want to turn it off at all first just because I don't want you to have to thank yourself. [laughter] I would like to thank on behalf of the board and the district and our entire community, thanks for the effort um and the thoughtful way that you put this entire study together. It's um the board doesn't often convene ad hoc committees and when we do it's for something really really important, something that's time-sensitive, something that's of large uh of broad community interest and something where um the recommendations that you make to the board and to the district are things that we're going to take seriously consider and um discuss how we're going to take action on those recommendations. So again, I know we um as a board uh offered you a very challenging timeline and a lot to get done in a short period of time, but I

think it dovetailed very nicely with all the work that the district has done and obviously is working worked in conjunction to some degree with the findings that we had from our own district committee on this topic throughout the year and what we've been hearing from the community. So it feels like this is all crystallized at a perfect moment actually to lead us into our new business item 3.1 which is a discussion of the ad hoc committee on technologies resolution. Before we leave this I just want to say just for members of the public who are possibly watching right now and wanting to dive back into that um presentation. It will be attached to the agenda. It seems to have fallen off. So, we'll make sure that it's attached to the agenda um later this evening or early tomorrow so that you can take a look through the slides um again if you'd like to. So, if I can move it into item 3.4, the ad hoc

committee on technology resolution. The recommended action. Be it resolved that the board of education hereby approves the resolution presented by the ad hoc committee on technology. So, move No, >> when when Nica moves it. >> Yeah. Yeah. So, we've got it moved. Just on the question, what I want to do is I actually like we can we can definitely have questions first. I I do think in this case because this is a pretty significant resolution although it's here. Do you feel like it's too much to read? >> It is too much to read. >> Okay. That's why I had to ask you all you all wrote it. So, I wanted to make sure that you didn't want it to be read into the record. Um but then we can open it up for questions. preamble before before we start. So we had relied on policy 2260 uh to help inform the how to write the resolution and it's divided into a few segments. uh one is you know providing the background um resol

resolution around the charge of the uh committee and then because this is such a broad and wide topic we really had a long conversation many conversations it took a few days for us to kind of nail this down around how do we want to proceed moving forward so um the question that Betsy raised that other community members had raised about how do you embed technology education like typing and I felt we felt was a little too specific to write into the resolution and wanted to leave things like that to the committee. So when they first form the committee and they start working those would be the topics that I would envision would be part of the discussion. So the charge uh because again it is so so such a vast topic we divided into three described as pillars. One is to the first one is to examine uh technology use within different grade bands. So K through 12. Um, and I can go into a little more detail, but I'm just

going to keep this because I know we're going to have a discussion about it. The other one is to look at it specifically look at instruction and student learning and how technology is being used to improve techn to improve instruction. Uh the third one is trying to capture quite frankly everything else AI uh data privacy um student safety and then the other uh are just again per policy we have to define who membership uh is going to be uh the timeline for the uh committee and when it when the term ends. >> That was my spiel. you could just before you before you turn it over to questions just explain to the community sorry if you could explain to the community what the who the who the what the proposal is in terms of who the comm the committee would consist in and also explain the difference between the ad hoc committee that just presented to us and what a community advisory committee is just

because I don't know that everyone listening knows the difference >> sure so the ad hoc committee on technology was formed with a very specific purpose and that is to develop uh a scope and charge of the community advisory committee and we were charged to uh recommend actions to this board by September 3rd today. Um so that was the ad hoc committee which as of tonight ceases to exist. This resolution is to establish a community advisory committee which per this resolution we're recommending and and again this is up for discussion. We're recommending will include up to six members of the community include let me get the members membership section. Um, it'll include administrators, um, uh, teachers, students, and where is it? Yep. And, um, and up to three board members to act as liaison. So the idea is that the superintendent will recommend members uh to the to the board for appointment and that we would seek uh

membership from the community that we'd have to again appoint for the term of this work which based on this language we're expecting or we're hoping for a final report on for to be presented to the board at the June 10th 2027 meeting and after that would the committee would be done with this work. >> And just just to anticipate a question that might have been coming from that corner of the table, student representatives as well. >> I did not say that. >> Uh you might have, but I may have said it again. >> Okay. Yes, students are student voice is in there. >> Thank you. >> Um yeah, I think we're just wondering uh if you have any idea of the process of how you how these student representatives will be selected. if you have an idea of what that process might look like and if we can help at all with the selection, >> much appreciated because I was going to defer to the superintendent on on that

on the selection process. >> Uh yeah, I we have not nailed that down yet, but would love to consult with you on that so that we can think through how best to represent the entire student voice in this work. So let's let's talk. >> Yeah, go ahead. >> Just want to clarify. Um so as a the committee the work that we did over the summer we're we just came up with this recommendation because I'm anticipating we'll also get the question how what is the criteria we'll use to select community members experts etc. So that's like the some of the work that the up to the three BOE members who will be part of this committee will need to we need to figure that out first as the pre-work. Um, first of all, thank you guys for for doing this hard work and the presentation. It was great. I love the resolution. I love how comprehensive it is and how we're really going to look at everything. Um, coming from the from the

policy committee and trying to understand district policies more looking at 2260 and 2260R, I didn't see and maybe there is a mechanism or a decision for like we've got a hundred great ideas here. What's the mechanism? Who decides? How do we decide what gets put forth as a as a recommendation to the full board? So, I don't know if that's something that exists or we're thinking about, but I didn't see that in 2260. Maybe we can think about having something like that in there, but in in June, we say we've got 100 great ideas. They don't all align. What gets through the board? Something to think about. And then also, we don't have to wait until June, I think, on some of these things. I mean, we saw what happened in New York yesterday with AI and screen time. So, if there's stuff like that that bubbles up and we want to move, I think we should move. But thanks again for putting all this together. It's great.

>> Yeah, thank you Jake. So the you're right, we don't have to wait till June, which is why I have a line in there to say to the extent practicable because it may not be practicable. Uh that the committee is encouraged to share any emerging findings or considerations in advance of the district's budget development process. So, if there are any budgetary requirements or um uh you know information that would help the district in developing its budget for fiscal year 2728, we would love that opportunity to have this committee recommend some some actions. In terms of how it comes to the board, I'm not 100% sure, but I believe it's kind of the superintendent um recommends or or the committee recommends to the superintendent and superintendent in conjunction with the board then kind of discuss the the re the recommendations and the findings. >> Yeah. So, I'm I'm just going to chime in because I think our our most recent comp

to this and actually Omar, you would I think you would you may be able to speak to this because you were serving at the time that it was constituted was when the district constituted the equity stakeholder team to look at the district's equity policies. That was that was actually a district-owned committee, but it was a community there was community advisory there was a community advisory component. it wasn't formally a board committee and so it actually fell to that that um stakeholder group to to determine what the um what the key priorities were going to be and that committee then made the recommendations both to the superintendent and to the board sort of working together. So it's there there are definitely I think models to follow but to answer Jake's question it will primarily fall to the membership of the committee itself to determine what the priorities are. So that's why I think from my perspective having that um vast

representation across our community between students, community members, faculty, district administrators, leadership, you know, building leadership as well. Um we need to have sort of every voice at the table to help make sure that the priorities that are being presented to the board for action um or the district for implementation after if there's a policy change or whatever, it ends up being um sort of represent the work of all those people. And to maybe just add to the point that you had raised or you had mentioned Allison about the about membership. Um the way we're we're we've written this is that um the board liaison in conjunction with the superintendent or the administrative design uh will develop an application process and then recommend to the full board uh at the October 10th meeting. would obviously have to go into an executive session just to keep you know privacy of of um uh the applicants and um make the

selection then right and then the first meeting would start no later than October 26. So it gives a little bit of time for I mean there's a lot to do. It's a great deal of huge lift. Um but we've we've kind of maintained we've we've had great momentum so far and we would love to kind of continue that momentum into the school year. >> Other questions for the committee chair from the board or from the district or any comments from the district? I would just add that u you know I think this is the right work at the right time for the system and for the community and and to your point Omar I think it's a it's a natural um point of momentum right in terms of the conversations that have had that have occurred here over the past year the tech reset u and now an opportunity to deepen that work right we've already positioned ourselves as as Anomica said earlier as regional leaders um and hopefully thought leaders on this

and this now will it further that put us uh in a place again where the the depth of the conversations that occur here on behalf of our kids um are those that should be replicated elsewhere. So this is exciting for us as an administrative team looking forward to the partnership. >> Thank you Steve and actually there is one more thing I want to add. It it felt while we're going through this process that uh it felt to me I think in in the committee u members as well that there was it felt like there was some tension between or perception of tension between parents and teachers and I and I want to um suade anybody from that of that notion. This was a very collaborative process. We were working together with the administration on this. Teacher voice is an instrumental voice. Student voice is an instrumental voice. Uh while again I've I've I've said this before and I'll say it again. We are elected by

the community. we are um accountable to the community and to our students. Um but this is a joint effort where everybody is uh absolutely focused on what's best for students and we're all kind of in this together. >> Very quickly um agree with the voices here that this is a great resolution and a lot of great work has come out of um the existing committee. So thank you very much. Um just a I think a a smaller point just as as as we're talking about how we as a district are are I think leading in this area. Um I think it's always good with any of any committee work to also look at what other districts are doing um in relation to issues and whether and and I think great to lead and I think other districts may also be leading as well and and and have innovative ideas around this. So I think um obviously the priority here is um our district uh but to the extent that I think we can influence thinking outside

of our district and also gather ideas from other districts I think it makes our stronger. So I would encourage this committee to also think not only Croin but also outside of of Croin as well to I think uh improve upon our our own work. Um, I I completely agree with that and just to say that as part of the committee work over the summer, I shared a number of documents with Omar and Allison that came from other districts in Westchester as like these are examples of what's happening in Bronxville, what's happening in Hastings, what's happening in Chapaqua. Um, so I think there there is some good work going on um and we can definitely learn from those. But I I think that with the most recent changes, we are now really on the forefront. And so I think to your point, being a leader in that space and offering how we the district has accomplished the changes will be great. >> Um, building on that, I I I just wanted

to highlight some of what in addition to what was pointed out there, um, you know, over conversations on on this topic over the past year, the the data privacy has has been a deep deep deep concern. So we really tried to within this to address that and thread the needle on that. Um and you know uh totally agree Theo with your with your point about that and we saw that how New York City just you know released that they are shifting their policy on you know the use of AI but with all these things the devil's in the details right and so I think we have to be looking at what other districts are doing or how they're defining and that's one of the things that's been so challenging about this because it is it touched on so many different aspects and there's like no one perfect balance. So that's why I think we're really trying to like say like, well, how can we become as sophisticated in our understanding as

possible as a district and give everybody the tools and resources and what does that look like so that we really can as as the field rapidly changes, we're making the best decisions for our students as possible, you know? Thanks. Anyone else? Any other thoughts or comments? Okay, then I'm going to call for a vote. Oh, no. Go ahead, Matt. Sorry. >> Uh, just really quick, I want to say thank you to everyone for being so thoughtful about this. I think AI and technology is a very real, very large uh topic that's affecting all students. And I really appreciate that these uh presentations and conversations feel very connected to how this will affect students and how we can improve uh student life around these topics. So, thank you. That's definitely the center of the work. So, thank you for recognizing it and highlighting it again. So, if I can, I'm going to call uh uh a vote. All in favor of moving forward with this

resolution. >> I opposed abstain. The motion carries. Thank you very much again to the committee. Um and the work actually just begins now because we have another aggressive timeline that um that um that uh challenge has been accepted by this board to get this off the ground working with the district to continue this conversation uh and moving it forward while we also take on another um very ambitious project which we're about to turn to next which is item 3.2 our district goals. Yeah, sure. So getting to your point that we want to move rapidly on things. How when are we going to decide which of the board members are part of this [laughter] so we can figure out so that's a great that's great question. We I think we're moving so fast we haven't figured out all of the logistics but typically as as we know from the summer and from all of our board work um committee appointments are um are we'll talk about them

together. If pe if if trustees are interested in serving on this committee, please just email Omar and me your names and if we end up with more than three um we will uh have a battle royale, >> figure it out. [laughter] >> We'll have a process for determining We'll have a process for determining that. And the most important thing is is that this work is going to be ongoing and it's going to come back to the full board regularly, you know, as regularly as possible. So, we're all going to have ways to intersect with the work whether or not we're serving formally on the committee because this is a conversation we're going to be having all year, probably for years to come, actually. So, um so I don't think anyone will feel that they're missing out. At least I hope not. So, before before I turn it over um to Superintendent Walker for um the discussion of our new business, our district goals presentation. I want to

highlight one thing. We've had a lot of discussion about our technology reset. And as we enter this next piece of the conversation, I want everyone to keep in mind that as we're hearing about what we're about to hear about, we're not going to see the word technology on the screen 58 times because we've talked about it 58 times already. The idea here is that the that that our shifts in technology are underlying our approach. That's really really important in terms of sort of level setting. So as we shift the focus to talking about our goals for the district and Superintendent Walker and Dr. Dubac are going to share more detail on that. Um, please know that the underpinning of that work is a uh an evolving thoughtful um view towards the use of technology in classrooms and how it supports instruction. And I just want to sort of um put that out there before I turn it over to Superintendent Walker

to share with us district goals for 2627. Thank you. >> Thank you, Anomica. I think that was obviously incredibly well put and and a great segue uh along the theme of ambitious goal setting on behalf of students whether it's technology or um our curriculum and instructional goals all of them share that that same underpinning uh the setting of district goals um is a a pro-forma thing in a lot of districts um and I think one of the things I feel best about it is that it isn't here and most particularly this round it I think exemplifies a genuine process that um just to speak a little bit to how these got formulated. Um these really began uh through a series of conversations and reviews of data through the budget process last year around how our students were achieving um where there were where there was evidence of progress and where there were gaps and questions u that were left that then led into the development of

board priorities and board goals um that then became the foundation for how we thought about the formulation of district goals. uh as the board knows uh and as we shared with the community uh the board and administrative team came together this summer uh for a day of of administrative uh and board work together, leadership work together and one of our priorities that day was to try to begin to crystallize some of the ideas and some of the language around this and that was a really important day uh for all of us I think to to begin to come to consensus around the conversations that we want to make sure that we're having. Uh we all know that as a system it's incredibly uh important to know what it is we're going to focus on, right? And to do that in a laser-like way and also to make sure that we understand our capacity and how we want to use the incredibly valuable professional learning time that we have

within the system each year. Uh as our teachers are incredibly dedicated, the schedule allows for substantial professional learning time, but believe it or not, there's still only about 40 hours in the year devoted to that work, right? And so how we want to utilize and focus that 40 hours becomes a really important part of of our work. U and so hopefully you'll see over these next few slides in the next few minutes. One, this isn't a one-time conversation, right? This will now formulate and be the basis for so many of the conversations that we have in this space and in other public arenas during the course of the year. Um and so we look forward to sharing these with the entire community. Um just briefly for folks who haven't spent a lot of time thinking about district goals um at a glance kind of they're designed to make actionable the board's priorities and goals, right? And so you'll see that foundationally in

the next couple slides you'll see a relationship hopefully a clear relationship between the board's goals and priorities and how the district intends to operationalize them through action steps for 2627. As I shared they were drafted by the administrative team. I want to thank the entire team who devoted a significant amount of time to this. I want to thank the board and especially Anamik and Omar who um met with us, communicated with us numerous times um in feedback, revision, refinement to get to the product uh that we've arrived at and are so pleased to share with our community. So I want to again thank the two of you for your leadership. Um and they represent to me progress, right? No document is perfect, no plan is perfect, but they to me represent significant progress toward where we want the student experience to be not only in 2627 but beyond that. Uh they represent an ambitious series of

goals and action steps for one year. Um but all based around the student experience, right? There's genuine student centeredness to all of this. U in terms of timeline considerations, just a couple of things I wanted to mention. One of course the budget process, right? And so you'll see as we think through the reporting timeline, the reporting cadence, a lot of it is based around how can we make sure that we're identifying times to check in on where our progress is internally and then report it externally to the board and to the community to the extent that those things inform our priorities and where we want to fund certain things going forward. Obviously, another priority for us is our summer professional learning work that really begins to get uh put together in the spring. Uh and so we want to think again about how this work and these goals not only in 2627 but beyond that um can better inform and more clearly inform

what our we want our faculty to be engaging in during that valuable summertime. U as well as the sub uh subsequent year's goals. We've always thought about this work as an evolving long-term conversation, not a whiplash of one year it's this, the next year it's this. Uh, and so I think I would encourage us as we make this shift into how we think about board and district goals that we think about again a trajectory of we don't talk about math for a year and then drop it, right? These are long-term conversations that we want to be engaging in as a faculty and as a community. Uh, and so Laura's going to talk to us a little bit about the relationship that was mentioned, the themes, the board's priorities, and the alignment. >> All right. So you'll see on this slide um on the left you'll see the three board priorities and what we tried to do um following the board of ed and administrative retreat this summer was

to really match up the district go roles directly to each of the board priorities. And you'll see that the bulk of our district goals um lie in the continue to strengthen academic rigor curriculum coherence and measurable student achievement. Um we have four of our goals in that area. um and those are um most directly tied to the student experience. So we think that that makes a lot of sense. And now we want to spend a little time going through um each goal and kind of the thinking behind each of them. >> So to start we wanted to share uh an overview of our first proposed goal in terms of establishing a unified community engagement and response approach. Uh and so just to to summarize what it is we're looking at on the screen, we have the proposed action steps on the left of course and then measurement u and reporting and how we would go about sharing information on these various things on the right hand

side of the screen. So just to highlight a couple of the key action steps. The first being of course um onboarding a new communications team to help us rethink our strategy around how we're engaging with the community. Um this represents a significant increased investment in communications on behalf of the board, the district and the community. U and so we look forward then to as we onboard these uh these folks and this team thinking through what an entry plan looks like uh as well as how we're going to be measuring the progress here. And so we're proposing obviously some presentation around January of some first semester communication metrics as well as some feedback from what we're proposing to be a series of town hall conversations with the community. Um I referenced earlier the idea of the parent learning walks. Um and so tied to that developing an exit ticket or feedback survey u for families as they

leave those right to give us an impression of what it is they've they've left feeling great about and what questions they have in their minds uh after having had a a chance to spend time in our classrooms as well as an exit ticket or feedback survey system for those community conversations. Um so one of the things that we're proposing is and Laura will share some more details about one of our ideas shortly is to identify two or three high priority topics within our community perhaps in addition to technology right we know that conversation will be happening what are some other high leverage important timely conversations that our community wants to engage in structure times for folks to come together to have those conversations and then gauge feedback u about from the folks who participated in those um and so you'll see on the right there again this idea of kind of midyear and end of year cadence to try to summarize all of

the the work that's included in those action steps. >> So our next goal um is around horizontal curriculum alignment. So, we began work this summer with our teacher leaders in an effort to be ready to focus on horizontal curriculum alignment. And that is about ensuring that our curriculum is aligned across grade levels and content areas, which will help create a common student experience while still encouraging teacher autonomy and choice and pedagogical approaches. So horizontal alignment is about ensuring that the curriculum and experiences are not substantially different from teacher to teacher among a particular grade or teacher to teacher in a content area. Um so we always value teacher autonomy of course um but core curriculum and experiences need to be common for students. So part of the work of ensuring horizontal alignment is to have curriculum overviews posted on a user-friendly website, not our Atlas

curriculum maps for those of you who have tried to navigate that system for all grade levels and content areas. And those curriculum overviews will include common student experiences across grade levels and content areas. And those will be kind of clearly delineated so families can see that. Um, and we will have those up in December after spending time this fall writing, revising, creating more common experiences and assessments and going through a review process on multiple levels before they get posted. Um, I gathered quite a lot of feedback from our community on what families in particular really want to see in curriculum overviews. And what was shared with me was actually very consistent across almost everybody. Um, and what parents want to really see is key content by unit, core texts and resources, key assessments and projects, and student experiences such as demonstrations of learning that are

consistent on grade levels. And interestingly enough, not surprisingly, I should say, um, that's actually pretty similar to what faculty felt was really important for families to know as well. Um, and you'll see that we have quite a bit more curriculum work as part of subsequent goals in specific areas. And um to that end, we'll also be formalizing a review cycle for our curriculum to foster a culture of continual updating and improvement kind of on a a cyclical basis. All right, I'll keep going to the next goal um which is around math curriculum development and assessment. And uh some of this Maline will relate to what you were talking about earlier. So, in our analysis of data that we shared with the board last year, our math scores district-wide have some fluctuations and gaps and are less steady in terms of growth than our ELA scores. And that's why we really wanted to start with prioritizing um math curriculum

development and assessment this year. Um, so that kind of context paired with the fact that we are now using the algebra for all model in 8th grade makes it really essential for us to invest a deep look in our 3 to7 curriculum to ensure that we are best preparing our students and perhaps preparing them somewhat differently to reach that level of rigor in algebra for all. Then on the other side of algebra for all, we also need to ensure that our geometry courses at the high school are being carefully created and analyzed to um to ensure that our students who took algebra in 8th grade are prepared to move through a more rigorous math sequence more quickly because there our goal was always to have more students advancing in the math sequence than previously did. or in other words um as many students as want to will be able to take calculus by the time um they complete high school. So you'll see um on the right hand side

what we're envisioning in terms of measurement and reporting where we um intend to see an increase in our periodic RENSTAR assessments um in grades 3 through eight as a result of some of this work. And then we intend to crosswalk the performance of students who took algebra for all last year for the first time as they progress through this year in geometry looking particularly at geometry common assessments throughout the year. >> And then shifting to uh English language arts we're as Namica referenced earlier thinking about this as in and in some of our other scopes of goals in a multi-year cadence. So uh for 26 27 thinking about um how we can further the work deepen the work of the CCT literacy committee from 2526 um and engage in a process of reviewing the current curricular resources particularly in grades three and four at CCT and then identifying potential additional um or supplemental curricular resources for um

implementation. Additionally, looking at those curriculum overviews that Laura described for grades three and four to identify potential gaps in what it is that we're teaching um in addition to how we're teaching it. We anticipate that completion by the end of 2026 and then work to define u develop and refine common assessments to be administered across all classes uh in those grades. In addition, in 2627 reviewing all PVC ELA curricula uh to identify those same things, strengths and areas for improvement. So that is in year one in addition to the math work an ambitious scope of of curricular work in those two core areas then leading us into 2728 where we see the implementation phase of those new updated curricular materials identified and brought in hopefully by the end of this year through this summer and into next year. Um that's when the professional learning comes to support those in classes through our coaches and

and other resources leading into our measurement scopes which again reflect um 2627 reporting to the board in this winter about where we are in terms of kind of an intermediate phase of this work and then looking at those projected increases um around 27 28 assessments. >> All right. And our next goal is around college and career readiness, which is obviously our ultimate goal at the end of a a K12 system. But much of that work lives in the high school world, even though we know every student's experience leading up to um leads to their success in high school. But this goal really centers on the work of the high school. Um and as most people, I think, know by now, we have about seven interdisciplinary classes at the high school as options for students. But we have all of our ninth graders taking a core interdisciplinary class as freshmen. Um, and so we wanted to use this goal as an opportunity now that we

are in year three of having interdisciplinary team talk classes and dual enrollment classes in addition to our expansive set of AP offerings including two new AP courses that were added this year. Um, and you know in three years in we now think we have enough kind of standardized data to take a much deeper look. So, in particular, we are going to focus in this goal in terms of action steps and reporting on our nth grade interdisciplinary course implementation. Um, and just for kind of background knowledge, um, if you're not familiar with the trajectory of the class, it's changed a bit over the years while still maintaining its initial purpose. Um, so we wanted all of our students to start in the high school with a core interdisciplinary experience and then be able to branch out to a number of choices throughout their high school um, careers. So, in year one of the class, um I think when you started,

Meline, there were only about 50% of the nth graders that took it that year, while the other group of nth graders took the um global nine course. And then in year two of the class last year, all of the ninth graders took the connections class. And now in year three, changed the name to humanities. Um but it's the it's the same core course and there are more sections of it and more teacher teams of it. So we've made some incremental changes to the structure of the course, the number of students in each section. Um and now in year three after piloting for the first two years, we've have aligned we have aligned the curriculum and are developing common assessments and have three teams teaching the class. Um, and again, it's being renamed to humanities to better reflect the content of the course and to be more in alignment with how this kind of course is named at other schools and more familiarity with

the NCAA process um, for our students who are going to be student athletes in college. Um, so we have some data analysis planned here to track how our students are doing on standardized assessments now that we can do this for at least two years of assessments. And we're also planning to hold a one of those community conversations that Steve mentioned previously related to this topic because although we've had coffee and conversations and communication on this over the years, every year, this is a good reminder that every year we get a new group of students and parents. So, it's important to keep the conversation going and make sure that families understand the po full picture when it's the time for their child to make the decisions. We talk about it all the time, but it matters most for you as you're making those decisions as a student or as a family. >> And the final goal is really about how

we develop a cadence for planful, thoughtful sharing and community engagement around how we're doing, right? Um and uh you'll see on the right hand side uh an ambitious cadence of reporting beginning next month uh with the sharing of curricular priorities by content area culminating at the end of the year with multiple reports including an overall end of the year data report summary um that we're investigating uh you know thoughts with other districts now about who's done this well and effectively in terms of um sharing data with their community to summarize not only our progress toward these goals uh but also as importantly more importantly how our students have achieved uh on various metrics RESSTAR AP regions other standardized metrics looking at with humility as we talked about on the first day with the staff um things that we feel good about and then things that we need to have deeper and further

conversations about looking at at all of it um with an unbiased eye um with institutional humility and a readiness and orientation for um continued growth u and so I think in summary Again, this represents u a significant potential year of progress within our system. I think hopefully a series of goals that um through conversations with the board and with the community, the community will will understand, will find value in, we'll see that there's a clear trajectory and vision for what we want the next few years of our system to be about and the launching and continuing of some really important conversations around student achievement. So, we're happy to have shared these with you. and thank you for making this a genuinely collaborative effort um in a way that I don't think it has been in the past, right? Um and so I think that sort of work makes us all better. So thank you for for the time.

>> I want to thank you both before we open it up for questions just for a really excellent presentation of what we have to look forward to in 2627 and beyond. And to reiterate again that this is part this although there's a there are some new elements to this collaboration in terms of how we're articulating these goals and how we're sort of guiding them. It's important to remember that for this district the idea of setting goals that are multi-year that tie very specifically to our budget allocations has been a practice here for several years now. So it's really important to remember that we may be using some different terminology. We certainly are talking about a different um level of measurement and reporting on an annual basis which I think is going to be really productive for us because it really helps us make those budgeting um and governance decisions against data. But it is still very similar to the work

that we've been doing over the last few years at a building level and certainly in terms of the overall budget making sure that um we're always talking about our resourcing as it connects to student experience as it connects to hiring instruction facilities and all of those elements that make this um school system I think what it is. So, I just want to thank you both and the larger team um that met with us over the summer for the the very serious and thoughtful look you took at the priorities that the board articulated based off of our the feedback of our community. And I and I want to reiterate again something you said last week, Steve, which is our goal here is to ensure that the work we're doing really does represent the values of our families and centers student experience, which I think we know it's the core and it's the heart of it, but this makes it visible in a way that I think is really important. The other

thing I just want to highlight before I open it up for questions is a really good point that Laura made, which is this idea of every year we've got a new group of parents coming into kindergarten. Every year we have a new group of high school parents, a new group of middle school parents. And one of the things I know I've talked about this a bazillion times, but I I really appreciate how we've annualized certain experiences like talking about, you know, my favorite one, the hidden transition. Omar knows I love the hidden transition between grade six and grade seven at the middle school. And Laura, to your point, I think talking about again the um the value of interdisciplinary learning, the meaning of APs, while we talk about it a lot in this room and you talk a lot about it, you know, in sort of in these halls of the high school, I think to have that sort of regular cadence of explaining it

to parents um every year and becoming that sort of practice of communication, it's going to instill understanding and also confidence in the decisions um that we're making in terms of how we allocate, you know, our teaching resources. and budget dollars and time spent in school. So, I will open it up now for questions if I could. Um, because we we are trying to reme remember our practice of turning to our student trustees first. We'll start at that end of the table, work our way around. Don't feel put on the spot. You don't have to have questions, but if there's something you'd like to ask, this is a great opportunity. Um, I just want to thank all four of you on that side of the table. I know how much work has gone into this over the last several weeks and I um the the specificity of these goals I think is really fantastic and we're really headed in a great direction. So I'm I'm overall really excited and Laura knows that I'm

very excited for the curriculum overviews in particular. Um I I had two quick questions. So, I wondered if maybe separate from or in addition to the parent learning walks, there could be a discussion of opportunities to open up more volunteer um opportunities to parents. Um are there things that parents could do to better support our teachers while also getting a feel for the building and their children's school day? You know, can they come in and and read some books? Can they help in the lunchlines? you know, I sometimes think that having the parents there to actually help instead of just witness might might go a long way for building that community. So, it's just something that crossed my mind. >> If I could just quickly on that, this is why we talk about this as an organic process and an organic doc, not one that we had thought about in terms of documenting, but um we do recognize a need to think about our volunteer

structure, our volunteer coordinator scope and role. And so, actually, I think that's probably something we should add an action step. So, thank you. >> Fantastic. Um and the second one was related to the college and career. Um one of the questions that this is more just something I want to learn more about which is our college guidance process and how we are guiding students to think about what they might want to do after after high school and and make sure they're kind of shephered in some of the right direction. So this is more me admitting that I don't know much about that than any suggestion, but it came to my mind when that came up on the screen. You have time. You have time. But uh No, no. Um I think that would actually be great and maybe I don't want to overstep, but I know we've been talking about um kind of new trustee conversations if we might want to add even counseling because I know that's

often a question and if you don't have kids in the high school, maybe that's something we could do as a separate kind of onboarding conversation. um would echo what Betsy said just around the the clear collaboration here and um and really just fruitful stuff that that came out of it. Um I guess just a very very general question if you could speak to how you see the goals outlined here sort of like in the larger in the context of the larger road map that you know we the strategic plan the kind of the big piece right that and sort of how you I guess just how you see this fitting into that ultimate picture um and and like I guess maybe looking forward right like what piece of this puzzle of that overall puzzle does this represent? Yeah, it's a great question and something that we wanted to make sure that we addressed as the faculty came back, right? Because we what we don't want to have happen is to lose the

the work of the vision map within what to anamica's point is is a different way of of thinking about and communicating about the work. Um to us, you know, one of the the core pillars of the vision map is that idea of assessment and feedback, right? And how we're assessing student learning, how we're providing regular feedback to them. And so I think you'll see obviously clear alignment there that so much of this is about how we assess student learning, how we communicate to them and to the their families and the community on a broader level how students are doing. And the other part of is is class design. And so what we spoke about was there's been a tremendous amount of work u and innovation but also foundational core curricular work that's happened here over the past few years. And so it's a moment to say let's let's subject that all all of that to some really healthy scrutiny um from the community and

internally too, right? That's one of the things we said from the beginning was we we've embarked on this journey of doing some what we think is really important and impactful work, but we need to make sure we're measuring it. And that's something that the board has has reminded us about regularly over the past few years. And so we feel like to Laura's point because now we're in year two, year three, year four of implementation of some of these things, we have enough data now to be able to do some some really interesting uh analysis of it. So um I think hopefully the the staff who live this day in and day out see the relationship and it's important for us to continue to remind them of that, right? It's not a departure from, it's a continuation of a question. Just u a couple comments and want to commend you, Steve, and the administration for for your leadership in putting these together. Um these are

very different from what we have seen in the past and student voice is very clear in here. Um these to me feel they're absolutely ambitious but they're not aspirational right they will require focus but it feel like accomplishing these goals to me will make Croin schools the best that they can be like the when you say the best they can be these goals to me kind of embody um and these action key actions embody the that philosophy so thank you for bringing this together really commend you again and the administration for that >> yeah I agree I think there They're designed to make us better. I want to thank the board for uh coming into the year with some really defined priorities that allowed us to then roll up our sleeves and dig in uh to this work. Um and I think it's it's absolutely positioned us to continue to to progress to lead and to make the student experience better. I want to make sure

Allison and Jake have a chance to go, but just to to piggyback off of that, um I think the other highlight just to to piggyback both off of Omar and Steve your remarks is that that all of these goals actually, as I said before, also have sort of an evergreen quality. They're things that we're going to need to be talking about. Just, you know, this these are the topics that we need to be talking about. So, I don't think we're going to see uh, you know, a complete shift as we as we look into 28, 28, 29. We're not going to necessarily be stepping away from these. These are going to while there's going to be a lot to measure on a yearly basis. These are conversations that are going to be ongoing. So, we'll be able to build on the work of each previous year. And I think while it's going to feel and it certainly looks like it could be a heavy lift this year, I think, you know, getting some of this work accomplished

is going to uh it's going to be a good sort of uh baseline for us going forward. Turn it over to Allison and Jake for any other questions before I do my question at the end. um echoing the appreciation for all this. This is a lot. Um so I'm sorry I have I have a laundry list. Um so just um if we could go to like say one of the slides that see that has like a 5% on it. >> Yeah. uh that so um that slide says the goal is an increase a 5% increase. So just want to clarify so all because there are other sides that just say 5%. So just that the the anticipation with all the slides is that when there's a percentage we're talking about an increase >> increase in proficiency. >> Okay. So I just wanted to get that on record to to clarify that is consistently across the slides. Okay. Um, so I guess, um, one of the the questions that I think you addressed a a little bit, uh, Laura, that I had a question about was the the, um, the

prioritization in terms of timing of the math curriculum versus the ELA. I guess like um, I I like a lot of what I'm seeing. the the a a question I have with that is that I I know for a few years now um we've heard questions about some of the the curriculum for the reading materials itself. So, one of my concerns is like are we going to get enough recommendations for the budget cycle so that we can ramp up the a more robust reading curriculum for those grades? Because I also there was a literacy committee last year. I'm not sure where things landed with that. In short, the answer is yes. Right? Not only do you see it prioritized here, you'll also see it prioritized as a CCT building goal. Um, and so we're establish a different kind of structure for how we go about identifying what additional resources or what change in resources we need to have, but that'll be ready for the the budget process. Yes.

>> Okay. Great. Yeah. Because I just want to make sure we're not Yeah. letting go. Um, and then the other thing that um just wanted to like bring up so when when I'm looking at this like um thinking about it like Laura this is a lot for you particularly like falls under you like and you're in a new role. Um and then I was I was going through like further on and uh particularly with the the review of the college readiness goal. Um, and um, Nikki, when you were presenting, Matteline, you kind of like stole some of what I was going to be bringing up with this goal. So, you know, I think this makes a lot of sense to have an internal assessment about like what what's been happening and like and to me, this really focuses on the the learning of of the student experience. to me um what this does not yet address and I want to make sure we don't get lost is that these other issues that come with these that aren't

and like like what Nikki was talking about how are these courses conveyed to the colleges how is the information conveyed to the families and students so they have a clear and um I guess too as we're just going through this as well as some of the others um is to make sure that we're also thinking about this from because also this this is the curriculum work that's one group of people but then guidance is a different group of people. So hopefully there would be a little bit of cap capacity to like still be focused on that to make sure everybody's making clear decisions when they're choosing their classes. Um, but I I just with this I'd like to make sure that we're also looking at what other other schools in our in our in our neighboring communities are doing in terms of some of their curriculum. Um, because that, you know, when it comes to rigor, it's not only what are we doing, but also what are the other schools and the other

options that those students are having to keep that in our mind. So also taking into account the the external environment as we're going through this uh because that does impact the reality of our students opportunities. Um and then just the last thing what I would say is like I really again I really like a lot of the goals. I just would want to make sure that uh in terms of the development of a regular reporting schedule um and the data that we're really making sure that when we're getting the data that it's it's it's done so in a way that that it's not marketing that it's very clear you know all the scales because with any like an annual report there can always be a more of a spin on it. It can always be like these are the you know take it or leave it results. Um because I think really what we hear from the community all the time too and I think it's beneficial to us and our governance function is is

that we have data presented in a way that we understand what's happening here but we can also see what's happening >> you know compare with what's happening with other districts because even if we don't want to do it though a lot of people are concerned about that and they want to have that information. So, just want to say that like I know what I'm what I'm looking forward to is to have something that might look very boring, but to see like the very precise not just like for example the AP scores, not just what the averages are, but like how many people got a three, how many people got a four, how many people got a five, like because to me that's a way that we really get a sense of student performance in addition to understanding what is the average. And I know there's different stories on why that average might be. either or their scores like some kids might be more engaged in certain courses. They might be seniors

and already gone in school and they're like this doesn't count anyway. So, there can be a lot of reasons why there might be ones, but it's still important to see that information. >> Thank you. >> I just um just to just for discussion and thinking um when we think about data and comparing to other districts, we just also have to be mindful of what's actually publicly available. So everything's publicly available for the regions across um districts but not the AP exam. So we're not able to make those comparisons just because of what's publicly available. But for within we can definitely do what you're asking. >> And I I totally get that. I guess for us like so so if we want to like somebody's like oh my friend is at Brier Cliff and they you know we can even get the information and slice it. Not to put everything on you. >> Yeah. Um, so I agree every with everything that's been said and I I

really want to uh I think you know you know point out how quickly and efficiently and effectively we put all this together and it and it took a lot of work. It took a lot of hard work the staff, the community, the teachers, the BOE. But I mean this was we began talking about this I think in the middle of July and started putting these goals together in the middle of July and here we are with like actionable outcomes that we want to see with timelines. So I think it's really great. Um, I think the key is going to be communication, right? So, we're already talking about, you know, even this presentation, like how do we get this out into the community in a way that's accessible and digestible, right? So people can take a look at it. Um, have conversations about it, ask the administration questions about it. Um, making sure there's equity in terms of the town halls, which I love that idea, but making sure we have evening and

remote and and translators, right, available for those sessions so everyone can participate. Um and then at the end, you know, communicating out. So to contrast with Allison, yes, we want to see, you know, sort of the full monty, but then also how do we communicate something that everyone can understand and see, you know, and and being honest and saying this is where we're going to look to improve. You know, I really want to commend uh how efficiently we we put this together. It's it's the first week of school and we've already got, you know, a couple year timeline. Um, one question I did have was when you were thinking about the percentage increases in benchmarking, how did you how did you put that together in a way that's saying we want to improve, but we don't want to put pressure on students, we don't want to put pressure on on teachers and start hitting benchmarks and it's going to be

more and more every year. So, how did you think that through and and come up with those metrics? >> A good question. So, the safer percentage to use to be honest would be 3%. That's kind of like the industry standard. We thought that we would go with five with the um idea that that piece of it might be a little aspirational in a year, but I think we'd rather be a little aspirational and say, "Okay, it was three and a half or four um and not quite meet that versus playing it safe." So that was that was the thinking, but industry standard is 3% usually. I think the other part of it when we say improvement o over a year that's important but the the bigger conversation is what are we doing year after year and so because you have such variations in cohorts sometimes you'll see spikes and aberant uh data but our interest is through this sort of a structure is how do we create a system where there's a regular systemic

expectation of improvement year-over-year and I think that's what we talk about this is kind of year one of that sort of thinking publicly public facing as a system um I I think that leads us into that idea of this then changes the way that we talk about the trajectory of of students in the system. >> Sorry, I just want to say um you know hopefully too with the tech reset that will also contribute to the improvement because it'll allow hopefully more you know focus critical thinking skills and all that as well. So I think that we were like that >> we were just talking about this earlier actually wondering about with Renstar being an online assessment which for obvious reasons we still need to use that because we're something better will come out soon once once these companies start working on it but for now it's what we have. So with the tech reset and very little tech happening in the classroom and then going to an online

assessment there might be a dip just from format changes. you see that whenever a test goes from paper to um to digital or vice versa. So, you know, we're prepared for that. I don't think we will see it as a a failure if we don't hit 5% exactly. Um but there's some interesting things to look at related. I was actually thinking from the positive >> in the sense like particularly the kids who are familiar with online tests that you know having less distractions potentially and more like reading stamina etc like that that might be helpful >> hopefully it'll go that way >> just al to your earlier point about kind of expectations and workload related to Laura I think that's that's true right she's leading this in a lot of ways the there's an expectation of substantial commitment from the entire team but as importantly ly if not more importantly from the faculty. And so we what we try to do is balance what can be

accomplished administratively with what's going to require time from the incredibly talented but busy faculty. And so I think to your point uh Omar, it's it's doable, right? I think there there's aspiration in it, but um certainly accomplishable, achievable ambition. That was the balance we tried to find. >> Yeah. And I think just to just to sort of close out the um that piece of the conversation. So going to those questions about the benchmarking, I think the goal here is to look for progress. It's not necessarily going to be, you know, a specific number in terms of improvement on an annual basis. There's going to be, we've already discussed what some of those factors are going to be, that shift in technology. It's like it could it could advantage some students, it could disadvantage other students. And then we're going to have also similar changes statewide and nationwide because again, you know, it's

like Renaissance Star offers testing nationwide. we have our I assume it's a New York specific I don't actually know if it is a New York specific test right um but but again it's like that those are all there's not going to be any way to sort of like isolate the variables so we are going to have to be looking at improvement over sort of a continuum I think also just thinking about in terms of the the work that we're going to be undertaking as a whole it's going to be incumbent upon us as a board also to support that work by being very thoughtful about how we're using our work session and presentation time this year to ensure that the topics that we're delving into are things that they are working on to advance these goals. And so what I'm going to ask of this board, and I think we've we've talked about it and we're in agreement, is that we want to try to keep, you know, the things that we are honing in on, whether

it's through committee work, policy development, technology, um, advocacy really relate to centering these the board's priorities, and the district's goals every time we're asking a question so that the work of the collective is in support of advancing those goals. So I think that'll help streamline and keep us from getting distracted from sort of what our what our collective goal is for this year. And then I think the other piece of it is um just again uh being thoughtful about like how we can you know for example like our work session calendar I think as a board development committee we or board governance committee we can go back to that now and sort of say okay what are the sort of specific points that speak to what our students asked about wanting to look at this year what we had sort of brainstormed can now coales into specific points and all of that actually I was thinking about this

you know thinking about for example we've been doing um uh through Rachel's department the reporting on climate etc. Like that's also part of that conversation that then becomes something that feeds into that endofear annual assessment. It's not just going to be like what was everybody's renaissance score test but how did they report they felt that year because it is there's still a holistic view of student experience and uh social emotional outcomes are equally important within the school district in terms of like how we're experiencing life in school. So all those all the things that we're asking the district to sort of provide us information on I think is going to come together to sort of give us that picture at the end of the year and then that picture is something we'll be able to look at year-over-year to really look at progress in terms of the district in terms of sort of like the life of the

system. >> Yeah. >> Sorry. Go ahead. Go ahead. >> This is just really fast. like um interestingly uh Betsy and I were at the meet the BOE and one of the community members parents who came um brought up this issue about liking the concept of academic rigor but also how do we balance with so like doing keep the social emotional learning and thread that needle with the balance. So 100% of what you're saying and I think the community is also looking for that us to maintain that balance. Um my final thought on on this >> is if you were to to hide Croin Arman right and you take these sub goals and take them to any institution any organization these to me speak to a value of um continuous improvement and that's like that's a that's a cultural shift for for many institutions that uh they try to do and aren't able to accomplish. But again like reading this that that between the lines like that's what that's what I'm hearing here. I'm

I'm quite frankly just less concerned about hitting the 5% mark as long as we're it's the learning from the exercise of looking at the data of questioning what where we can we can do better and this is again it's embodied in these goals. And thank you. Thank you. >> Any further questions? Otherwise, I'd like to again thank Steve, Laura, the entire administrative team, our building leaders, and our faculty leaders and the entire faculty for their collaboration on this work up to this point and I think we have a lot to look forward to and a lot of really great meetings actually where we'll be discussing this in the year ahead. I want to take a pause just because we are always trying to keep things on time and say to our students, we've got four more agenda items to go through. So, if you feel like this is a time to step out, we're going to do instructional personnel, but the majority of our active discussion on

big picture topics is winding down. So, if you'd like to to to use this as an opportunity to head out, you're welcome. Or you can stay for the next four. We will try to make it efficient. Okay. Yeah, absolutely. I know it's the start of the school year and there's already homework. I am aware. [laughter] Yes. Unfortunately, trustees, you have to stay. I know we all do. We all have homework. We're Listen. Hey, wait a second. We started at 6:30. It's still before 8:30. So, we're under a two-hour meeting. And I just want to point that out to everybody. I think we're doing a really good job here. Um Maline, you don't mind if I talk while you're closing up your stuff? Okay. Wonderful. Thank you. So, we'll move then into um 4 point item 4.1 instructional personnel recommendations. We are not. So, it's not a resolution because the district has presented these goals. The board adopted. So, again,

just for the benefit of the community, the board adopted goals earlier this year. those are going to be published to the to the website. Uh, generally speaking, we don't adopt the district's goals because the the the board the board goals sort of are the the overarching uh view and at this point we've agreed and through this conversation I think they've got some good feedback. Anything that needs to be refined in terms of how these goals are presented that'll happen. We obviously anyone member of the public can see it in the presentation in board docs tonight and then they'll be shared um through various mechanisms and we're also going to be hearing as you know at our back to school nights it'll be touched on by our building leaders as families come back in we will also in a couple of weeks I don't want to set a date yet because we haven't determined that um but we'll be hearing the building goals as well how how the

different buildings are going to interact with these priorities and what we'll be seeing in those um in those individual um buildings. >> Yes. Is there value in thumbs up? >> Absolutely. There's 100% value in a thumbs up. You want to go back? We can do that. >> Yeah. I think I think to demonstrate um and show how we feel about absolutely because I think for because I think there's alignment there's value in sharing there's alignment orration around these goals. So our formal is not required. >> Yep. >> Or yeah, thumbs down >> that works. So thumbs up. Yes, you can give you can give a uh uh yes a uh an emotional two thumbs up, but we will only count one of your thumbs, Jake, [laughter] for the purposes of of of for recording purposes. So, and I appreciate again for everyone who was who engaged um you know and uh delegated to Omar and me the um representing the voice of the board throughout this

conversation and for your feedback every step of the way as well. It is definitely a group effort and for me it feels really good. I hope for everyone sitting at this table it feels good because I think again we've got hard work ahead but we're hard workers. That's what we're here for. So I'm really really pleased and I hope our community sees um uh sees our commitment to centering student experiences and outcomes in all the work that we're always doing. It's just being articulated much more clearly and on the third day of school. Man, that's pretty awesome. It's really good stuff. Okay, moving into item uh 4.1, instructional personnel recommendations. Be it resolved that the board of education hereby approves the instructional personnel recommendations as presented. >> Second >> on the question. All in favor? >> I opposed abstain. The motion carries. Moving into item 4.2 instructional personnel recommendation. Uh recommended

action. Be it resolved that the board of education hereby approves the instructional personnel appointment of Amanda Capacella 1.0 zero leave replacement position for Dorothy Morales as a special education teacher at Carrie E. Tomkins Elementary School effective October 5th, 2026 through June 25th, 2027 to be compensated at an annual salary of $91,744 MAP 7 prrated >> on the question. All in favor? I >> opposed abstain. The motion carries. Moving into item 4.3. I think you'll all be pleased to see the recommended action resolved that the board of education hereby approves the probationary instructional personnel appointment of Carmelina Kiperveser. I hope I pronounced that. Kippervaser uh school nurse at Croin Harman High School at a salary of $73,178. Nurse step 14. Effective September 17, 2026. 52-E probationary period to end September 16, 2027. on the question. All in favor? I opposed abstain. The motion carries. Moving into

our consent agenda, item 5.1. Be it resolved that the board of education hereby approves all the items under the consent agenda. >> Second >> on the question. Any questions on any of these items? Okay. Then all in favor? I opposed abstain. Motion carries. Moving into the closing of the meeting, item 6.1, our second hearing of the public. If there are any members of the public who would like to address the board, please approach the podium. State your name. You have three minutes. Anyone? You you are welcome to um you are welcome to state your position or questions on anything. We won't necessarily be able to respond in the meeting because our practice is to get back to individuals afterwards. But you're welcome to state them here and then if you can provide your email address, we can respond through that way or set up a time to meet with you. Could sir, I'm sorry. Could I ask you to approach the podium if you don't mind

only because then you won't be picked up by our live stream. And if you could um uh I I'll just give you like a little preamble. our practices that we do ask people to introduce themselves by their name and the street that you live on in the school district if possible. That would be great. >> Okay, >> you have three minutes. >> Do I turn it on or not? Okay, >> you're on. >> All right. Uh Chris Field, I live on Applebee Farm Lane, uh Croton School District. Yeah. August. >> Uh just on the the college and career slide, it's uh there's like a gaping miss there in that the only thing you talk about is college. Like there's got to be some like we have to do some like not everybody in the school is going to go to college. It's not a 100% of people that make it to college make it all the way through college. We have to acknowledge that that's a reality and support it because those are also real

jobs. So their careers and things like that. So might want to >> Right. I think that's actually an excellent Am I miked on? Yes. Uh so I think that's an excellent point and sometimes we we will take an opportunity to answer. Do you have another question or I'm >> I think maybe I'll just email. >> Okay. Sure thing. Sure thing. So So just to sort of reiterate that I think that for this evening's presentation, we specifically asked for a focus this year on uh college and career readiness through the lens of our educational program in terms of core curriculum. We actually have a very strong relationship with um Putnham Northern Westchester Boseies through which a lot of our students receive technical and career education and part of our um annual initiative is actually to discuss and present um the work of students who attend those programs to recognize the specific type of project work and curricular experiences they undertake.

We also go often and visit our students who are up there uh taking part in the coursework there. and through our student trustees, we're actually going to um develop a way again this year, which we've done the last couple years, to invite those students to come down and actually talk about a little bit of what their programs look like. It's a really um it's a really it's really insightful for all of us and I think it also supports the idea that there are sort of many paths to what comes after high school. Yeah. And if you're going to have a goal slide presented by the district, it should be inclusive of all of the educational outcomes, especially when it's talking about careers and, you know, lifetime employment. So, yeah, >> really great feedback. Thank you so much. Moving into item 6.2, the polling of the board. >> Go ahead. Uh just just um a brief comment that uh for for me when I hear something around

college readiness, it's really about um preparing students for preparing them for experiences that transcend college and that a focus of or having uh a focus of preparing students for college will prepare students for college and and career as well. Um, so that while we're saying we're articulating college in here, I don't think that means we're not focusing on students that may not be pursuing uh or have that ambition. I just want to say that >> but I think that but I think that >> right yeah so I think that that I think that's a point well taken and I and and and for consistency with the majority of communications that come out from the school district that is our um our standard terminology but we'll we'll definitely make sure that that's acknowledged in the way that these goals are presented. It's excellent feedback. Thank you. Moving into item 6.3. The next board of education meeting is

currently scheduled for September. Oh, yep. Sure. Yep. >> I just wanted to thank uh Steve for we had a great walk through the middle and high school today. Um and it was really wonderful to see the students so socially engaged with each other. And I've never walked through the middle school before, so this is my first experience. But I what I really love to see is that in multiple classrooms we walked into, kids were sitting there with big books and they were reading. And it was just amazing to see how engaged they were. One of the students said, "Should I read this one or this one to us?" And it was really funny. Um, but I I thought the energy in the school was so fantastic. I really I saw some kids playing Uno in the hallway at some point, which I was like, that's so wonderful for their social development um to be really with each other. And um I found it really impressive. And we also had one student give us a quick

presentation about her summer and I was really impressed by how well spoken and confident she was. Um, so I really enjoyed seeing that and I think the school year is is clearly off to a really great start and it would echo Mr. Riley's feedback that the schools look impeccable. I mean, I don't think a middle school has ever looked so clean. Um, so uh yeah, just thank you so much for that opportunity and um yeah, >> and Steve, if I may, you've offered uh you've offered that invitation to any trustee who wants to go on a exclusive learning walk with Steve Walker. I was I was just gonna say that I I would love that opportunity. I think we had a great time today. We did get um Dragoon by um Marty McDonald at at CBC to play some baseball. Something's going up with my rotator cuff now. But u that was it was a wonderful walkthrough. Um a great great chance to get a chance for us to see in action some of the conversations

that we've had including you know that sustained silent reading as a response to the tech reset and that that would have looked different in May or June. So, um, really great conversations that came out of it and I I extend that invitation to all members of the board. Would love to make myself available at your convenience to do that. >> Right. I think last year we took a break from doing our board learning walks because Allison had just sort of lived through 13 years immediately of being a school parent. So, we we didn't prioritize them last year, but in previous years, we've actually scheduled um specific times for the board for three of us to come in at a time. But again, I think there are multiple opportunities. I think also as trustees we should avail ourselves of the building um scheduled ones as parents because I think again you get like a different experience when you're walking in with a group of other parents who are

parents of um kids you know your kids' age. So, I think there'll be multiple opportunities for us to sort of be in there. And going back to your point earlier about volunteering, I know that's something that we have been talking about um as a leadership team for a few years now about how to sort of um to allow for that um that connection uh to come back because that homeschool connection of having like the parents sort of see what's happening in the trenches, it's just a way for you to have visibility to what your student is doing. So I think it's really great that the district is um moving back to some of these common experiences for parents too actually because um that that's that's another practice that I think um is w we're welcoming the return of that. So moving into item 6.3 again our next board of education meeting will be scheduled for September 17th 2026. It's another work session um and we'll

announce the topic after we uh regroup on that a little bit. Item 6.4 we're moving into entering executive session. And so be it resolved that the board of education hereby enters into executive session to discuss a confidential student matter regarding a particular student. I will note before um we move this that the board will after entering executive session leave executive session and promptly adjourn the meeting after that. If I could just get a motion please. Thank you. All in favor? I opposed abstain. The motion carries. Thank you and thank you to the members of the public, the admin team and Nikki, Denise, Greg for being here tonight and supporting us. Um we will um leave executive session um and then adjourn the meeting. Thank you and good night.