##VIDEO ID:ZParCe3ZJ1E## so I'll call the cc20 business meeting to order at 8:42 um Kevin can you take attendance please sure all right okay president Steven sto here first White President John ricoton second wice president Elizabeth Chen according secretary Kevin Z here treasure May fun Chen yes yes yeah okay second Y and then council member uh Tamara Stone here okay Maya nen nen okay uh we mean Chen women are you around yeah yeah okay yep thank you AR knew yet nice to see you okay y chin Chen Yin are you around yes I'm here okay thank you Spina Manara here okay thank you faora Manda correct me if I if I did not pronounce it properly but Thea M Delta and Delta okay all right I guess here and Ryan KNE still remember Ryan knee no okay and I saw the other cin here thank you yep thank you Kevin um for our business meeting tonight we will um approve the minutes from the last business meeting and then special minutes did we have one we have two did we the candidate oh yeah yeah go for it so we'll approve minutes from our different C our special meetings as well as the last business meeting so Kevin can you just share those [Music] so this is from the last business meeting okay any changes to the business meeting minutes the minutes are approved so this is the minutes from the special meeting um it just shows the questions that we asked and we interviewed several candidates um any changes to these minutes all right the minutes are approved and then the second special meeting any changes to the minutes okay the minutes are approved any new business council members things you want to bring up chat about I do I'm I put the um I put the the um the link in the chat for um for the BP um the budget link when it gets updated to 20 it wasn't 2025 when it get updated to 2026 you should be able to access the application through that link that I just posted in the chat great thank you to Mar um Helena do you want to say your idea oh yeah we do this at our PTO meetings you share the minutes in advance and then when we get to the minutes part it's just a yes right it we do not have to spend time reading them yeah yeah what do we think about that council members I don't think we need to do a vote or anything but just does that sound good to Kevin do they get sent around I don't I'm honestly not familiar are they sent out when the meeting not go out like when you'll send out a meeting notice in the agenda them done I link it to the I send the agenda for the meeting to the Past meeting minutes and you could just do the vote and you don't have to spend time anything love it anyone anyone everyone think that's a good idea we'll start doing that um anything else new business we good besides besides the um sea at our next meeting they are they going to be the only presenters yeah actually so let's chat about that right because I did email you guys about that and I don't want to we don't have to anyway it's 8:47 we can talk as much as we want about this but um does SCA need to be there um you know SCA as as you guys might know on my email I think it's a really really um ineffective process now I will say just in the last couple days and I've just got I'll share I'll share the um information with you guys I just got the email today so I haven't really had time to process everything but they did provide some more of the information that I was asking for and so I'm actually hopeful that maybe we could um have a little more productive meeting with them than than has been the case in the past but I'm that's always been my complaint is this process has yielded almost nothing in the four years I've done it we've had almost not not a single project approved from the CC request BP and elected officials is totally different those guys have money those guys have influence that we do not have um but the C process has been almost no effect so I I've I've I'm telling SCA now we'll take all the requests from our principles we'll we'll sort them we'll even rank them but we'll just send you guys the list we'll vote on it at our January meeting but we don't need a whole presentation um necessarily it's the same present uh presentation they give exactly to all the districts exactly and it's very canned and there's there's not that the answers to the questions we all want to ask which is what are the projects most likely to get approved how can we make this more effective what should our principles be asking for um they never answer they just say submit everything and we'll review everything and then they give back very very short non-descript responses and so anyway if they do the presentation tell them it's like only 20 minutes we give them yeah like we could do yeah we could time it just say that's it yeah and so anyway so it and it's evolving like I like I said I've had some email back and forth with them and it's I'm cautious on it because I've had so many experiences with this but I'm cautiously positive there might be a little more content so I'll share it with you guys as soon as possible yeah I would say keep push until if we can get them to actually say something substantive and they can come if they're not going to don't waste their time otherwise we'll send them a list want the list but if it's not a real process don't ask don't come it's it's far more effective for us to work with our elected officials work with the buau president those are the guys that that listen to cc's I found um so anyway um but yeah Tamara to your point I think that's have we talked about anything else for January has there anything anyone else that's reached out to us no we've gone through the the people that have come through when is that fair student funding thing happening February they did like four months I think it was February they started February I April and May I think it's all the months I left over I think March that be March April May you know the thing I'm talking about though this Fair student they're gonna be at our the4 they didn't confirm yet but they they had us fill out and they I think they're gonna reach back and multiple months they're going to be there at our meetings no they're gonna choose one of those months oh gotcha okay gotcha okay and that's just the standard I think that's just the standard presentation that has to be given every year or is it a different top anyway we'll that's that's to be determined so that's the only other thing but that won't be January are we voting on The SDA projects January in January of have to be yes to hold a vote correct John yeah good point yeah so do we know the school in January yet yeah 264 264 okay so we need two more people to come in yeah and I'll honestly like when I know there's a vote I'll be a little more proactive about like get here on person guy but tonight I knew there was no vote so it was just kind of like can we have because I um I would like to recommend having the multilingual um Department come in and do a presentation for our M's MLL families and our L families about like any resources that they would need as L families like especially with um you know like IM immigration status jobs and stuff like that they have like a lot of resources that our families might not know about general which department is that to I send you I could send you the contact I'll send you guys the contact information the person that I was talking to because I invited them to present at my PTA meeting yeah for my L families and stuff like that so I I I'll email you guys the information and you contact them but they like a lot of resources and everything like that for multilingual families and L families yeah and and and every council member just like Tamar is doing if you have ideas thoughts about present please share it and um you know I'll set the schedule for the next meeting and yeah awesome all right I think that's it all right motion to adjourn the business meeting motion toour second any oppose all righty uh good night everyone thank you --------- ##VIDEO ID:dAN_jxzZxDo## okay um good evening everyone welcome to the cc20 December calendar meeting um can our recording secretary Kevin please take attendance you you can you can unmute yourself yeah all right I have a very important job to take attendance today I'll President Steve sto first vice president John Rons second vice president Elizabeth Chen is she online no you she not not on okay uh recording secretary Kevin Z here and treasure mayun Chen mayun I see her I don't see her online either okay um student member hold on one second um council member Tamara Stern yeah she here okay okay and then um Maya rosenort Maya are you here no okay okay and then weing Chen I think I saw her online yeah okay aren okay hi y chin Chen here okay Spina Meara Spina okay faora mandata faora are you around okay I don't see her and then still remember Ryan KN Ryan Okay anywh Kevin Elizabeth walking in but I don't know where she went um we are um um here tonight at ps176 um hosted by the amazing principal Liz culin um I really want to say a special thank you to her for every time we're here she's exceptionally hospitable some excellent food um earlier tonight and really appreciate the the the good conversation and and warm welcome um unfortunately tonight we do not have um interpretation there was a a last minute mixup with the interpretation service um and I apologize to that if there are any um individuals on the call on the meeting who um would like some assistance understanding anything that's that's being said please um message any c member Post in the chat ask us to repeat something there are also several Mandarin speakers here and um at least one Spanish speaker on our uh c um can we share the agenda for tonight so the agenda for tonight's meeting um we'll have our first public speaking session then we'll have a presentation from the office of language access presentation from the alliance for Quality education report of the superintendent report from Council president the second public speaking session and that's that's it and our business meeting will follow the calendar meeting so for our first public speaking Kevin and so just to go over the um procedure for public speaking if there is anyone who would like to sign up for our public speaking you can do so using the form the Google form the link should be in the chat um and we're also a pretty small group tonight if you'd like to just raise your hand um in the raise your hand virtually we can recognize you as well um are there any sign up yet yeah onl we have to okay great okay great and people uh for public speaking you'll have three minutes um and I see we have two people signed up for online the first is Jim Baker um Jim Baker if you can hear me you can unmute and uh and speak Jim Baker are you in the meeting we can go on to our okay trying to okay hello hello hello we can hear you all right perfect thank you very much uh thanks for giving me the the opportunity to speak um very excited to be here today um I just want to address some concerns that um my family is having about student engagement and overall apathy with the current hmh curriculum um specifically the content uh I've got a fifth grader um and a second grader and what I've noticed is you know there are no whole novels that they're reading in elementary and only four novels in Middle School from what we can tell um um and so you know as we've been taking my son who's at PS 682 in fifth grade around to a variety of Middle School events um you know in anticipation of selecting a middle school for him to attend you know we're we're overall very excited with the process but um anytime Ela comes up um the room kind of grows a little quiet and people start asking well what about assessments what about assessments so my question is um given the constant focus on assessment and the recent statements by the chancellor the curriculum does not have to be implemented with Fidelity we were wondering how much leeway um uh schools would have um how much guidance that there was on what what extent they could deviate from hmh and how are integrating things like um that kids are excited about like um a chance to read good things and novels and stuff like that thanks thank you speaker um our next speaker signed up for public speaking is Kate burn hello Kevin where should she go for in person okay I'll come down to you when you're ready you can go ahead okay thanks so much good evening everyone um I'm Kate for um coming from the office of council member Alexa AES and I just wanted to let everybody know that we're working on coming up with new office hours for um Den HST Andes for the next year January so be on the lookout for that we're going to be confirming that very soon um and also just wanted to leave an open door if you ever have any questions or comments please feel free to reach out to me um to get in contact with the council member I can give you my email in the chat um but it would be curn council.nyc.gov I'll type into the chat now um but feel free to reach out if you have any questions or comments um and thank you and happy holidays thank you um and I'll just take a moment and recognize um we do like to try and recognize any Representatives here from um elected officials offices I know in the room here we have Stanley ing from um councilwoman Susan jang's office I also see in the in the online Tony krupin um as always from councilman Justin Brandon's office um and if there's anyone else that I did not see um from elected officials offices it just like Kate was saying it's a good idea to identify yourself in the chat um and make yourselves um known there okay for our first public speaking session is that anyone else Kevin signed up Stanley you want to talk sure yep go ahead okay and we know you're ready good evening everybody hello District 20 I'm here today on behalf of council member Susan Swan and I just want to give you two piece of information in five weeks our district office will be starting the new allocation for Public Funding and there's a very special piece for the schools for 2024 2025 5 our office allocated close to $6 million for all the schools in District 20 and 21 within our district and how we start the process a year ago we would get together with the PTA offices of the schools in our district so I'm making the announcement now on January 7 January 17th 10 a.m. at the Jewish Community House of Benson Hurst 78 and Bay Parkway going to be holding a meeting for every PTA officer in our district and these are the schools of 105 176 186 205 247 682 686 and Junior High School 220 227 and 187 so you're all invited to come to that meeting information will be going to the schools via your principal and the district cc20 that's the first announcement second announcement tomorrow Thursday noon time on the steps of City Hall we're going to be holding a protest rally on this issue of the sh satat contract for people who are in junior high school especially in seventh grade we invite you to come down to City Hall tomorrow at noon time and to help us with the valley thank you very much thank you Kevin that's it for speakers okay so just a reminder we will have another public speaking session later in the evening if you'd like to sign up for that one you can use the same Google form um so that concludes our first public speaking [Music] session so our first presentation tonight is from the office of language access and I believe we have Robert Williams external Outreach specialist who's here to talk about services offered for parents Robert Williams are you here yes hello how are you sir I'm good how you doing good thanks for coming to just cc20 thank you if I can share my screen [Music] everybody see my screen yes okay good evening everyone how you doing my name is Robert Williams I am the external Outreach specialist at the office of language access and that just means that I am the point person for all parent engagement the PowerPoint I'm going show you mimics exactly how the web page is so once you look at this PowerPoint and then you go to the public you'll where to find the language resources whether it's translation or interpretation resources so on the agenda we have five buckets we're gonna talk about the NYC Public Schools background our commitment to New yor City public school families schools.nyc.gov hello public web page raising awareness in our community and then questions so there are over 1 million students in over 1600 plus schools that speak over 180 languages approximately 40% of the New York City Public Schools households speak a language other than English at home and the New York City Public Schools top 10 covered languages besides English Arabic bang Anon French na Creo Korean Mandarin Russian Spanish and er written translations are also available ined Chinese our office is dedicated to supporting both Public School staff and families by providing the resources necessary for effective communication and languages other than English so here is just a little snapshot of the top 10 preferred languages in your District as you can see here um have a we have Chinese any is among our um top cover languages but you want to keep in mind but there are different as you can see that um you have mandarin and also Cantonese dialects and we also have a good um majority of usbeck families as well in this District so when we translating documents or when we have a meetings let's try to keep in mind of these families as well don't want to exclude anyone out so um our office supports New York City public schools with translation and interpretation Services for Families whose preferred language is other than English our translation team which is our largest department they provide written translation services in the 10 non-english languages and works in close collaboration with our Contracting vendor to extend services for languages beyond the capacity of our internal resources our interpretation team they work with our contracted interpretation vendors to ensure schools receive services for in-person virtual and over the phone for parent engagements our Outreach and data in integration team we focus on promoting Equitable language access re access services to schools and empowering New York City Public Schools parents to understand and advocate for their language access rights we also collaborate with Advocates to identify needs and address language barriers in our everchanging community we engage parent leaders to enhance the message of language access to our communities we pursue innovative ways to engage with and receive feedback from families such as online portals emails rooc calls texts or direct mailers we leverage technology to continuously enhance the interpretation experience for families such as virtual meetings we ensure translation quality such as professional trans translation tools and we keep a post of Citywide parent language data and translation and interpretation service outputs so the New York City public school free language Services include let me repeat that the New York City Public Schools free language Services include interpretation for all types of meetings and interactions with nycps staff translation of General documents into the New York City public school's top 10 covered languages and some examples of that will include like a parent newsletter or event Flyers translation of individualized documents into a parents preferred language upon request and some examples of that will include like an IEP which is the in individualized education programs or section 50 Section 504 plans which is a medical cool accommodations let's say if your um if your child has anxiety so you would go to the school um ask the school for the 504 um form you would take that form to your apartment re doctor if your doctor deemed that your child does have anxiety they will fill it out you'll bring that form back to the school and now your child can receive extra time on their test we also translate foreign transcripts in any language not just the top 10 covered languages we translate foreign transcripts in any language so here of the if you go to the schools.nyc.gov web page you'll notice at the top right there'll be like a Google um select language drop down just scroll down whatever preferred languages click on it and the entire website would change into that preferred language but please note automatic translations are not intended to replace human translators and are provided as a service to users of the website some content such as images videos animations Etc may not be translated due to the limitations of the translation software so here's a little brief little short video um it's just going to guide you on the language Services New York City Public Schools speak your language did you know that New York City families speak over 180 languages all New York City Public Schools provide translation services for documents and interpreters for meetings for example if not already provided you can request the following services from your child School translation of report cards and school letters translation of individualized education programs IEPs evaluations and other special education documents and interpretation services for meetings with teachers and other school staff members for more information and resources or to provide feedback on the services offered by your school visit schools.nyc.gov SLO or call 311 also if you notice at the top right top right corner is also the Google dropdown you can translate the web page and video this video is available in Arabic bangler Cantonese English French haian Creo Korean Mandarin Russian Spanish and eru and if you notice while I was playing I just clicked the CC button so that it can um translate the wording as the video was l so you have that option as well so right underneath that video when you go to the website the very first tab would read helpful resources so here you may cut you may print and cut out an ie card in 10 languages to request language assistance Services when communicating with the New York City public school staff um also on this um page you you'll find health forms and notices rment forms special education Communications but let's say you want to learn more about language assistance I mean language access for New York City Public Schools families brochure you would click on that and this is a snapshot on how to brochure look there's a little cutout at the bottom portion of this brochure whichever preferred language you speak you can just cut that portion out bring that portion to your school and the school must provide Communication in that language we also have a blank I speak um language so if one of your languages is not listed here you can just write in underneath where it says I speak and just write your um language in same process cut that portion out bring that to the school and the school must provide communication and support in that language so the very next tab will read request language services so families May complete the translation interpretation service request form to request language Services the new yor City Public Schools office of language access will forward your request to the appropriate school office or committee on special education but please note language assistant Services may vary depending on the type of school the student attends families can also call 311 to make a request for language assistance Services over the phone interpretation is available in over 200 languages so let's say you want to click on the translation interpretation service request form on the left is how it's a little snapshot of how the form looks but before you fill out this form please go to your school first your school is your first immediate support now um some staff members come and go or um um might have a staff member that's fairly new and let's say they weren't they were not able to help you and provide support then you could come here fill out the form um this form is available in the top covered languages so the process of this form is whoever F fills out this form it it comes directly to my personal inbox it doesn't go to our office inbox and I read my emails every single day and I respond within 24 hours so if if someone fill out this form what I would do is I would forward the um the email to the principal whoever the language access coordinator is of that school and the parent coordinator let them know hey um this parent reached out saying that when they came to school they wasn't supported with um written documentation in their their language so I'll guide them on how to support that parent and they must provide a response back to me within five to seven business days let me know that they supported that parent we also have a QR code for those who just want to take out their phone to scan so the very next tab underneath that will read connect with Ola if you or someone you know needs help receiving information or communicating with the school staff member in a language other than English please tell your school's principal or parent coordinator or or you can call 311 or visit our contact Ola form so let's say you wanted to click on the contact Ola form on the left is a little snapshot of how the form looks and it's the same process if you fill this out I'll contact the principal the parent coordinator and whoever the language access coordinator is of that school letting them know of the inqu that came into our office we also provide a QR code here as well so the very next tab underneath that will read share your experience with the New York City public school language assistant Services you may you may also provide feedback on the New York City Public Schools language Services by completing our translation and interpretation feedback survey or you can do so by calling 311 let's say say you want to click on the feedback survey this is a snapshot on how the form looks and again it's the same process I contact the principal parent coordinator and the language access coordinator now we don't just want to hear what the school is not doing to support you we want to hear a lot of the good that schools are doing as well so we can actually contact their school let them know hey thank you for you know supporting the parents of your school can you please share some of your um what has worked for you so that we can try to Showcase you to other schools so that you know because maybe you're doing something that other schools are not doing you know we just try to come together as one to make sure everyone's on the same page to support and help our families and our communities we also provided a QR code as well so um for sign language interpretation services please contact your school's parent coordinator or the office of sign language um they are a separate office from us I know a lot of people have the misconception that we are in the same office but they are totally in a different office so that's why we ask if you need to contact them please reach out to your parent coordinator or you can email them at oslis schools.nyc.gov so the last tab will read are you having difficulties obtaining language assistance Services if you are you can learn how to you can click on the get help or you can click on the file a complaint when you click on this filing complaint this goes directly to the district not to our office so this is a an an actual through um complaint so now we going talk about raising awareness in our communities we have done advertisement in schools grocery stores laundry mats n here and barber salons pharmacies and what's not on here we have done advertisement in the Mt MTA train stations and on their buses we've also have done Direct parent Outreach through rooc calls emails text messages and postcards like the one you will see on the right if you're saying I have not received one or neither of these please go to your school um secretary to make sure that your all your information is updated because we pull from the same system that schools enter the information in so if if you're not if you if you are not receiving anything any one of our um Outreach methods that means that maybe because we all know we change phone numbers or we may have mve to a different location but please make sure all your information is updated so that you can receive these Outreach methods so with that being said are there any questions yeah um thank you so much Robert really informative presentation um and the services that Ola provides are so valuable um we have obviously across the city but I I just know District 20 we have a lot of families who really rely on these Services um what's the most you you mentioned you had a slide there that talked about feedback uh from from families um what's the most common feedback what do you what are things that you're hearing sort of commonly from families is year and I don't know do do you track the feedback by District like could you could you say what do you mostly hear from District 20 parents that that can be done um if you shoot me an email I can have my data person um have that that data for you I don't know top of my head if you know from which districts is coming from great yeah it would be interesting it would be really interesting obviously to hear District 20 but then even even if that's I don't know if that's available or not but just to hear the most common things so that you know we can continue advocating um you know for for the things that that you guys are hearing and I'm sure you guys I mean I can I can mention some of the common things but I'm not sure it pertains to your District though yeah yeah go ahead I would love to hear so um I have been getting a a lot of um actually recently a lot of good um feedback that schools actually um supporting them in their language um other feedbacks that I would necessarily say it's a complaint but they just said that um they can benefit from having a document translated into their language and then so we asked you um one of the questions we ask can you benefit and then another question we ask have you requested it so if you have requested it and you were denied or you didn't receive it then that can be a potential complaint but um most of them just said no they have not requested but they could benefit from it yeah that makes sense how how long does it take to get a document uh translated or yeah to get a document translated especially a document that's not in one of the 10 languages so a document that needs to be translated outside of the 10 languages let's say Japanese so if a parent needs a document translated into Japanese I would contact the school now every School receives a translation and interpretation um funds from our office so and those are specifically for the language resources and supporting the parent so and before I contact them I can look to see how much money they have left let them know hey um you have such such monies please reach out to the contractor vendor to have this document translated for this parent or now some scho may say U well we have staff here who can translate it fine you know but please you know make sure that this parent is supported that's really interesting yeah and then for one of the 10 languages how long does that typically take um okay I'm sorry I didn't even I forgot I didn't even answer your question so if they went through a vendor a vendor is they're much faster than us you they can get it back within probably two days now okay coming to our office and a little lengthier I would say it's between five to 10 business days depending on the length of the document and I office they work on a first come first serve basis so if you have a a one pager and somebody like say Kevin submitted uh apparent um booklet before you they they work on that booklet before they go to your one page I've been trying to you know compromise with that with them but they will not budge and so everything in the 10 languages goes to the office of yes okay okay we have we have um um translators translators there that are translating everything that come in is it a staffing issue that you guys can't get the things done faster do you are you constantly looking for translators to hire oh yes well um and I believe just a couple months ago um a couple of notices out for positions with um for translators we are we have about 40 right now which it should be to about 60 okay that's really interesting um and uh just one more oh how do you decide how long is the process for adding a new language to the 10 how I'm assuming it's fairly complicated but how is that decision made yeah that is made with the higher ups that's that's a little above my pay grade um our director you know I guess it it it depends on because I know that they're actually adding um oh man what's the language I'm not I can't think of the language right now but I know um one of my uh colleagues was um fighting for um this language that she says in in her District there's a influx of of parents who speak that language and I would say the timeline it took probably about a a year I think about a year she's been trying to promote that for for about a year and to my understanding it's about to happen real soon okay interesting um and and I think you you pretty much answered this but the if someone wants either the individualized inter translation service or the phone calling um when you have to call in for um interpretation go through the school that's the first stop is go to the school and request that so yes so now I know let me um explain this I know that there are some CC members that wear multiple hats so if you're wearing a hat as a cc member of course your direct um support would be the administrative assistant but if you're wearing a hat as a PTA member PTA president your direct support would be the school which should be the parent coordinator first some schools do not have a parent coordinator and if if they do not it would be the administration and I am um we we train staff like whoever the principal designate as the language access coordinator of the school we we give them a training and their training is about a two and a half long training I mean it's it's it's a lot of of um information and they're supposed to TurnKey that information back to the school now not everyone is comfortable with presenting and turn information back to the school so I offer myself if they want me to come to the school to give a presentation on it I can do that as well great CC members anyone have questions for Robert anything in the chat I don't yeah there's something in the chat um Allison wrote will AI be implemented in translation services to assist in Expediting services in the near future um so the difficult problem about collaborating with AI is that if you don't speak that language you will not know if if all the wording is correct so I'm give you little little um example and not to um give too much information but about two years ago there were some advocate who tried to sue the doe because a parent received a document that was machine translated but there were some offensive words um in the document now the scho was was not aware of it because they didn't speak the language so you know we we we try to say if if you're going to use machine translation as a caveat somewhere on the bottom have it written in their language that this document was machine translated just to you know cover yourself to let them know no it was a human translator and there may be some errors got it that makes sense it's it's similar similar i' AI at my company and um it's I would give the same kind of answer it's good we're starting to use it we've got to learn how to use it but you've got to understand the output don't just take the output at face value and and it takes knowledge to be able to understand the out not just so very interesting comment okay great Robert thank you so much um for coming by um and you are the and I think you would be our first point of contact at the OA if if there's any follow-ups right yes I I'll I'll drop my email in the chat please do thank you you're welcome um I just want to ask our um our next speaker is Britany Kaiser and I believe that's you um Britney do you mind terribly we've had two elected officials show up and us usually we give them um priority to speak there'll be a few minutes each is that okay sorry I'm so sorry but we'll uh uh we definitely want to get to hear your speech as well so we've had two um elected officials uh show up one is assemblyman Lester Chang um and Lester would you like to say a few words sure Lester you can go over here Kevin will set you up right at the yeah he done when you're ready go put it over here well uh good evening everyone uh I hope you enjoy your evening I got several announcements for my offices so it's a public service announcement I'm my office is hosting a holiday toy drive starting now to the 23rd at my office and drop unwrapped toys and and uh we will give out to the churches and uh and and to um into M's Hospital on those unwrapped toys so just let you know we're accepting toys unwrapped toys in my office the next announcement will be um December 14 okay a few days from now uh we have uh we invited Department sanitation to my office a tabling event basically they will give away stickers information and tickets about about sanitation but uh about the trash unfortunately I don't have any free bins to give out so uh that's one thing unfortunate but sanitation department will be in my office on a 14 between 11: to 2: p.m. any questions about bins uh that'd be more happy to to answer about that December 30th at the end of this month MTA will uh will be in front of my office and this is regarding about the Omni cards so this is for application for people for half reduced feir application trans transfering for your Metro card to the Omni cards exchanging damaged cards and also sign up for Omni so they will have a van or or bus will be in my office between 10: a.m. to 2 p.m and that's all I have and I hope everyone have a great holidays stay safe and uh let's wait for the snow thank you all thank you thank you assemblyman uh Chang um we also have here a new uh newly elected um state senator elect Steve Chan um Senator would you like to speak good evening everyone I'd like to just introduce myself briefly my name is uh Senator Le Steve Chan uh so what brings me here tonight is I am an absolutely absolute proponent of quality education for our children uh I've served in two schools in this district ps12 and is- 187 mcov I was the PTA president over there I was an SLT member for three years over there as well as the SLT member of in ps12 for 10 years and um I was also the title one chairperson for I believe six years and sadly I had to give up those uh positions in the course of my campaign so I ask everybody to uh be patient with me as I apply my new trade and uh I am here for everybody in fact tomorrow I am going down to City Hall to to U councilwoman Susan trang's rally in regards to shsat I'm a proponent of quality education and I love children and I want our kids to excel that's what I want um so here I am uh when my office opens in January please if you have any problems reach out to me the name is Steve Chan uh I'm GNA have an office probably somewhere around the bath Beach area with a satellite office in the uh Sunset Park area U maybe maybe daa Heights thank you very much for your time thank you president St thank you superintendent thank okay unmute great and now we can have our next presenter um Britney Britney would you like to I think Kevin make sense for her to come sit up here yeah and Britney we're int Britney Kaiser from the alliance for Quality education she's here to talk about their initiative around the state Foundation Aid uh which is currently and next year going to be up for reform debate so Britney okay just that's perfect thank you okay hi everyone Hi hi online can you see and hear me okay can't see their responses there she's good right people can hear okay great okay hi thank thank you so much to ec20 for having me here um my name is Kaiser I am the NYC Community organizer with the alliance for Quality education um and I'm here to tell you about some of our work some of the campaigns that we're working on right now in particular are really relevant to every school um particularly in terms of funding so um just before I start can I get a sense in the room and online do you know what Foundation Aid is do a raised hand if you know what Foundation a is so many of us don't and and that's okay that's why I'm here it's really important it is how our it is one of the biggest ways that our schools get funded um Foundation Aid the foundation Aid formula is the formula by which the state distributes education funding among all the districts in the state including New York City and then within the city um there's another formula called the fair student funding formula that distributes money to each individual school but the foundation Aid formula decides how much money New York City gets from the state um and that formula was created as a result of the campaign for fiscal Equity um which aqe took part in aqe and parents organized about e inequitable and underfunded schools in their District led by Robert Jackson They sued New York state in 1993 and in 2006 we won New York state was legally obligated to pay Public Schools $5.5 million across the state and created the foundation Aid formula to distribute the funds equitably in 2021 the New York State enacted budget included a three-year plan to fully fund Foundation Aid so that discrepancy is important that the F the formula was created in 2006 it was not fully funded until 2023 last school year was the first school year that it was F funded um and so in 2023 it was the first time that students started their school year with the full funding that was committed in 2007 um almost $6 billion dollars to public schools so this year two of our biggest fights are Foundation Aid and also child care which I'll talk about in a moment but um for foundation a the foundation a formula was created over a decade ago it does not fully capture the current cost of educa students today so think about over a decade ago um the iPhone had just been released Twitter was very new a lot has changed since then including prices we know that costs have gone up costs of educating students have gone up think about how much technology we use in schools now New York state has recognized this and tasked Sunni Rockefeller Institute with conducting a study to evaluate the current formula and analyze what adjustments are needed to reflect the cost of educating students today this process was rushed it was only a few months that they had to conduct the study and the governor commissioned the study asking about the quote fiscal sustainability of the formula so we understand that the governor may have this lens of reducing costs without realizing that those cuts would be harmful um I'm going to hold off on our other campaign here Universal childcare I'll back to it in a minute but to talk more about the foundation Aid formula so the Rockefeller Institute has released that study on December 2nd um some recommendations that we were hoping to see in that study and by we I mean aqe um we wanted them to suggest adding a weight for students in temporary housing and students in the foster care system to reexamine the current poverty weight um the current poverty weight is based in part on the 2000 census data from the 2000 census obviously not current um we wanted them to differentiate weights for students with disabilities and English language Learners currently in the foundation Aid formula those are each separate flat weights if you have if you're a student with a disability with an i AP you are in the bucket of disability and it's just one rate even one weight sorry even though we know that there's a huge range of needs that a student might have if they have an I AP um we also wanted them to increase weights for students with disabilities in English language Learners because the cost have increased as I was talking about before and also including funding for class size we know that in New York City in particular there is a law that doesn't come with funding and we need to be able to reduce class sizes and this is one way that would make sense to pay for that so the study did come out December 2nd like I said they did not recommend adding a weight for students in temporary housing or students in the foster care system they did recommend reexamining the current poverty weight they um they gave these are recommendations so the governor does not have to is not um obliged to act on them in any particular way but these were their recommendations they did recommend differentiating weights for students with disabilities and English language Learners they did not recommend increasing weights for students with disabilities of English language Learners and they did not uh I think that's a mistake I will go back and check but they did not include funding for class SI sorry that check mark is I don't think there is I read it I um so as I said the recommendations are not binding they're not mandatory the governor and legislators will make their own decisions about what adjustments to the foundation Aid formula to um that they think should be made this year um we have an advocacy day February 4th in Albany so we will be on our way up there telling them what we think needs to happen uh and if this is something that you care about again this is how all of our schools get money it goes through the fair student funding formula but if there's not enough money in New York City then whatever the fair student funding formula says schools are all schools are going to suffer right so if this is something you care about think about your school think about what your school could do with just that little extra bit of funding um and I'm going to be passing around a sign up in a sheet signup sheet in a second not for the advocacy day itself but just to keep in touch get more information um so just so everyone's aware of the timeline December 1st was the due date for the Rockefeller Institute um report they did release it on December 2nd in January Governor hok will be releasing her executive budget then February and March are really the time for us to respond with advocacy so like I said we'll be going to Albany to Advocate the Senate and assembly during that time also put out their one house budget that's kind of their response to the governor and then April 1 the final budget is due it's not always actually done on April 1st but that is when it is due so that's kind of the timeline of of um our window to really uh make our voice heard and just so you know the the kind of Power Players here who are making these decisions the governor the majority leader of the state senate Andre Stewart cousins and the um speaker of the assembly Carl Hasty and like I said I'm going to go back now to our campaigns and also talk about Universal Child Care All Families regardless of income immigration status and Disability should have access to affordable highquality child care child care providers also deserve to be paid fairly for the vital skilled work that they do at both the state and city level we are advocating for legislation that will move us closer to Universal Child Care by investing in Workforce wages and benefits and ensuring that all New Yorkers have access to child care assistance one important thing to note is that the definite sorry definition of child care actually includes birth to 13 years old so when we talk about um accessible after school programs that is also included in child care um so these are state level uh bills but this is something that is uh very current right now to it's actually two of these bills because I just saw a message literally this evening during this meeting that one of these bills was already signed so there were three bills pending the governor's signature um I'm not going to read off the numbers but those are the numbers the first one ends the rule tying child care assistance to parents work hour So currently if um if I am not working consistently then I might not be able to access child care assistance because I won't be able to fill out the form and say oh I work these hours every week and so they'll say well I don't know if you need child care because I can't see which hours you're working but we know that many workers in the gig economy they do need child care they're ours just aren't consistent um so that's the first one the second one eliminate minimum earnings requirements for CCAP so that's for the um the child care assistant assistance minimum earnings meaning that if I make too little I'm not eligible for that assistance and then the last one enact Statewide presumptive eligibility and that's the one that was just signed with a caveat um presumptive eligibility means that if I am submitting paperwork um that says that I uh am eligible for assistance I should be able to access the care in the interim while I'm waiting for that to go through uh that has been enacted with um a caveat that it is optional I believe but that just happened so don't quote me on it um but the other two those first two here uh have not been passed they're pending the governor's signature sorry they have passed the assembly and the Senate the State Assembly and the state senate so they are only waiting for the Governor's signature and they are likely to either pass with her signature or expire and then we have to kind of start over so this is a really important opportunity for advocacy so you can take action right now you can use this link www. AQ n.org childcare and write to the governor if you're calling you can use the script that's on the screen but if you're using that link you won't need a script it's one of those fun tools online where you just put in your email address and it sends the letter so it's really easy just takes a couple minutes um and please demand that she sign those now two bills you can say why it's important to you I have a 9-month-old daycare is so expensive it is important to me partly for that reason because everyone needs access to child's care I'm just giving everyone a minute to take that website you like so in summary New York City School District is the largest school district across the country however our schools have remained underfunded refusal to tax the rich disproportionately funding institutions such as NYPD while underfunding social and academic safety nets that would benefit our schools in addition to prioritizing private and charter schools and not public schools have all contributed to the issues we're experiencing today so if you're interested in learning more potentially joining us maybe in Albany on advocacy day or maybe it's some smaller actions along the way you can follow us at aqe corny on Instagram and blue sky um our website AQ n.org and then my email address is Kaiser k i r AQ ny.org feel free to reach out even if you're you just have a question you're not sure about something and you want to talk more I am around or if you're having a problem uh funding something at your school and you want to talk more about what are the options at my school for getting this service that we need I'm here I'm um open to connecting with anyone and I will also for the people in person I have a signup sheet here I'm going to pass it first to the council members and then if anyone else wants to sign up for more information as well um and any questions I'm happy to uh great thank you yeah thank you Kaiser it was really informative and you've obviously are a pro at this um type of presentation and thank you for coming by um just a quick question about Foundation Aid and the fair student funding because we've dealt with Fair student funding it's the city's version of this and Foundation a do you know how similar or dissimilar the two formulas are um like what are the major ways that they're different or similar because conceptually I think it's trying to do the same thing right I think they are similar conceptually I agree with that um and I'm not I'm not an expert on the intricacies they are very complicated formulas so so I I wouldn't necessarily be the best person to compare the details um one thing I do know is that the fair student funding formula was reevaluated I think it was in the last like three years I don't remember exactly what year but but much more recently than the the foundation formula was reevaluated um and I believe that they added uh weight for students in temporary housing correct so that's an update that we have that the state does not so far yeah um I'm trying to think if there's any other significant in uh and I believe that the fair student funding formula does also yeah it does um differentiate weights for students with disabilities and English language owners corre according on their level of need so so so the foundation a I just want to clarify a point you made the um currently there's not a separate weight for students with disabilities and L's and those weights are the same as a general sorry they are separate from each other there's one weight for students with disabilities and one we for L's yeah but each weight is just flat it's just it's just a number you know it's like a student so in other words there really is no because if a general student receives $100 does a student disabilities is an L also receive each $100 no no there there is a weight that's more than one okay it's just a single got it it's the same no matter what level gradation of level of service exactly got exactly okay yeah okay um um actually I'll see I think I see Tamara's hand up Tamara did you have a question yeah hi I wanted to find out sorry my it's weird um I wanted to find out what is the the minimum um number like like um what am I thinking um cuz you you know you said that there's a minimum number that if you make too little you won't get assistance like what is what is the minimum and like like what would the maximum be that's a good question I would have to look at the minimum I believe the maximum is it's not a number it's a percentage of the um of the average I believe it's a percentage of the average income in the state um it's it's like yeah I don't remember the specific numbers I'll have to look but I can get back to you on that um yeah that's a good question um Child Care um you know the issue has been in the last several years here in New York City been extremely um in the news a lot lots ofos lots of stuff funding has been a big thing I I'm not I'm not up to speed on sort of where things are currently but there was obviously Universal was rolled out and then it was resed and I think the the latest um sort of that I was aware of is trying to match up seats with neighborhoods and there's an over supply of seats in some and not enough in others your campaign obviously is advocating for state or city F you don't care where the money comes from you just want Universal Child Care Statewide you guys Advocate statewide right right I mean yeah I think ideally it would be Statewide because that would help more people and because the bigger the system is generally um the more the better the state can um leverage the sort of discrepancies of need across the system to even things out I don't know if that makes sense but it's it's also easier for the state to shoulder the cost and then like I said use taxes to make up for it whereas local taxes are just a smaller percentage then do do you have any thoughts on how the situation I I don't know if you if you haven't followed it as close it it's fine but how the situation evolved in New York City or the last few years right it was a big proposal of a former mayor deasio and then under mayor Adams that's pulled back or my impression is are trying to make it actually effective depending on the areas that actually need it do you have any thoughts on sort of How It's evolved over the last few years I do um I mean I think that I think that it has pulled back and I think it's concerning how it's pulled back um I I know that there are efforts to um put seats where there's demand but my concern is that I don't necessarily see the necessary Outreach um because just because there's your hearing demand in a neighborhood doesn't mean that some other neighborhood doesn't need child care every neighborhood needs child care I don't know of a neighborhood that doesn't need child care right um if there are no seats in that neighborhood and there's not people actively you know writing to the doe saying Where can I signed my kid up that doesn't mean there aren't kids in that neighborhood who need 3K and prek um yeah they're just might up be as many and it's possible uh but have have we done the Outreach have we I know that anecdotally there are also um concerns that some families did try to get a seat and weren't placed and then later there was some some compensation for that and but but that's concerning right that does lead me to believe that there might be some gaps in the system right the Outreach system in particular Tamara did you have another question is your hands still up from before yeah no no I have another question go go ahead and then Kevin I'll get to you then because I I know you um you shared before like um like a link for us to um to to click on are you able to put that in the chat for us and like does that link once you once you um put in your information does that go to like all of like theary people that need to go to and like what other you know besides the the advocacy on February 4th was it yes um what can we do locally like can we you know like contact you guys to help us like if we have parents that actually want to contact I mean because we have there's local officials on the school and in the room like you know so I think like you know since you guys are here you know we want you guys to advocate for foundation aid for our for our children and child Universal child care for our families that actually need it in order to to survive because as a as a PTA president and a member of the PTA I don't think that the PTA should be the ones that help responsible sometimes in order to raise funds to migrate the cost that they're not able to do coming from their budget so like I you know so I would like to to hear or like you know put call to the the local officials that are in this meeting right now to like please reach out to your your PTA your communities that would want to advocate for this like this should be like on your the top of your agenda you know coming back you know going into the the end of this holiday season into the new year yeah thank you for that I really appreciate that um I did put the link in the chat I tried to hopefully someone can tell me if it's not working um but uh yeah there's there's a lot we can do on the local level for child care um and I think I think what's important too about child care it's really a win-win issue um paying for early learning and child care is an investment that is returned because people can then go back to work um people uh the the workforce for child care also needs to be compensated or else we don't have enough providers that's a big issue so having a more Universal system would solve several problems at once um and I'm hoping that the elected officials in the room are hearing that there is Broad support for this um and the best way to uh continue the involvement is just to get on our list and make sure that you're getting our emails there will be a lot of we're just starting the um the advocacy season right now there's going to be a lot of opportunity for engagement on this and um from elected officials as well if you are an elected official or you represent an elected official who is in support of universal child care then get in touch with us we can work together um we will put you front and center Center and uh shout your name from the rooftops how excited we are that you are on board with it because we know we need it Kevin you got a question Yes actually I do have one three questions one is I know we all need a project so so how much was the percentage of educational year budget in the state budget yeah um the I I'm not 100% confident I would want to look at something just to make sure I'm not U misquoting but I believe I know that previously in New York City it was 5050 that uh New York City was paying 50% of the education budget and 50% came from the state and it has dropped meaning that the state share has dropped I believe it was my memory is saying 35 but I'm not 100% confident like I said it's dropped how much what's the percentage is that what's the percent waiting to the state's whole budget oh the percentage of the education budget in the state whole budget I don't know the number it is a significant portion but I don't know the number off hand probably is the highest amount I believe it's probably is if I had to guess about 35% probably 35% I think I'm don't quote me on that either of course I mean is it similar to the city Nev on a city city may be higher but I'm just guessing off of yeah but yeah the point is it's a lot question it's number one or number two yeah okay thank you my second question is so I know we need money for multiple initiatives do we have a priority L which one should come first for which one is more urgency in terms of between which like between uh educ child care or or like within educationin within education um uh no the short answer is no I think um I think we wouldn't want to right I mean just just like if if it was your kid and and you went to the kids school and you said my kid needs X Y and Z and they said well our priority is X we're not going to do Y and Z you know it's mean that you were implying that but but but no I think education is such a basic essential need and the things that we're not we're asking for are not extraordinary right uh we're we're not saying hey let's build an Olympic swimming pool in every school that's that's not where we're going sounds nice but it's not what we're asking for for foundation Aid we're asking for students with disabilities to receive the services to which they are federally mandated right we are asking for every student to receive the sound basic education to which they are constitutionally mandated um we are asking for students who are learning English to for the school to be funded such that they Contin continue to have services to learn English past what was in the Rockefeller uh Institute study included cutting that off after three years and I don't know about you but I've been learning Spanish since I was in high school and I still don't know it it's been a lot longer than three years it's it's not always a three years and done situation that school is going to have to keep paying for those service Services one way or another so the reason I hesitate with that question is because I don't think we have to choose I think the funding is there it's about how we're using it and so many of these things are so essential that I wouldn't want to put one above the other we can do it all okay and then I'm sorry I have one more question so we I mean we spend the money and how do we know do we have any mechanism to evaluate the money is spended effective yeah the student or family really so yes and no I think some of the mechanisms that we have to evaluate um student performance in general right um we can do that with like portfolio assessment we can do it with standardized testing we can do it with graduation rates we can there are many ways to evaluate student performance um as far as I know the foundation Aid formula doesn't include that inherently and that is another way that it could be adjusted it could include some kind of um transparency mechanisms right some some reporting to ensure that funding is being spent well I would personally be in support of that not speaking on behalf of aqe but I I do see the need for that um yeah does that answer your question yeah it's a bit unfortunately we don't have a clear way to answer yeah okay thank you K yeah I like the questions Kevin brought up you know it's it's one thing I just want to mention is um or maybe suggest to you guys like I I recognize you know just like every organization you guys have an agenda you are you have a mission you have a you know believe in and things should be done a certain way do you think you could be following up on Kevin's point because I think it's an important one could you maybe be more effective if you embraced a little bit of that you know you mentioned at the beginning of your comments about how Kathy hokel wants to focus on fiscal responsibility and you know well I I hear what you're saying about we don't want to prioritize Anything Could you think you might be more effective you could maybe reach the governor better if you said okay we think these on a look at it on a cost benefit basis and say these these three things yes we know we're asking for more spending on 10 things but these three are the best on a dollars you know per um outcome basis and please prioritize these um if you have to and on the list like could that help you guys sort of cross the line from advocacy organization to sort of working with the people who do have a mindset of fiscal responsibility right I hear you and yeah to some extent there is some of that um especially because Foundation formula is Statewide there are certain things within the foundation formula overall that we we think should be adjusted in a way that would save money over time I didn't include those mostly because they're not specific to New York City they're more of a um yeah uh but so yes we're we're certainly not only recommending things that cost more money M um we do think that our schools need more money but there are also ways to save money so that that money can be spent in better more effective ways yeah I also think um the the foundation a formula is one thing on a city level that's a different story and um it to me again personally it makes it would make more sense to have that conversation about where money is being misspent on a city level because we're more directly in control of that whereas on the state level I mean that formula needs to fund schools adequately so that they can do what they need how the individual districts use that money is a district issue and this is our district and so that's our issue does that make sense it does did you think what do you think of the Rockefeller Center's proposal to remove I think they had something in there about removing set asdes and putting that money instead of having these car these little very very narrowly focused set sides but basically putting the money into the the more General pot kind of like you're describing I think you know put fewer strings on it from the state and um yeah what did you think of that proposal I I think it depends I think you have to look at the whole formula holistically and any adjustments that are made holistically for instance if the poverty assessment adjustments recommended in the Rock Institute report are made and nothing else changes yeah New York City will lose millions of dollars the poverty just on the poverty weight adjustment and so that doesn't mean that they shouldn't change the poverty assessment yeah we believe that they should it needs to be updated and also it you have to look at the whole formula yeah if New York City is losing millions of dollars as a result of that is there something that we're missing right like is there is it is it not evaluating um accurately the need yeah or is it evaluating the need accurately and how can we make sure that that adjustment is not harmful because anytime you're taking away a huge amount of money from a district suddenly that's just going to be harmful because it's a big adjustment so it should be phased in if there is going to be a huge adjustment like that and we would argue that there are other adjustments that make sense to include just because they make sense that would then result in an evening out of that effect yeah and then what about the hold harmless section yeah that's another one where it sort of depends on the rest of the formula what um The Rocker Institute recommended was to phase it out but again over time so uh you don't anyone who has worked in a school or has run a school knows that it's one thing for a school to operate on a lower budget it's another thing for a school to suddenly operate on a lower budget that's a much bigger problem so any major changes like that should be phased in or phased out over time yeah um yeah have you guys put out this is obviously your sort of core presentation on The Rocker I some of these things were not in it have you guys just not had an official policy on some of these other points from The Rocker no there's lots more this was just kind of a snapshot but yeah everyone can read more on our website or social media yeah gotcha Kevin did you have another one yeah just quick follow um you mentioned about every district is different I told I that's very obvious and you have theity and every District might have unique need take like that other also so in the funding do they give any flexibility to the district and also is there any like a mechanism for parent to not I wouldn't say Marone but some transparency to see how is the money spended in the way the community yeah so um to the first question the answer is yes that's one of the reasons that Foundation Aid funding is so important is because it is more flexible than certain other funding streams um there are certain carats and certain restrictions but overall that money can be used more flexibly than for instance like Transportation money um the second part of your question oh transparency for parents so um I know on a city level that that parents can see their school's budget um I I don't know exactly what's available um the next level I mean I yeah I I know that New York the the doe makes certain data available um I don't know how to classify what data is and is not available it's also as somebody who has tried to look through some of that data it can be overwhelming enough that it's not always parent friendly you know yeah it's not friendly right right I mean we try to look at it yeah I mean assume we saw this information that some share with us but it doesn't seem un questions we are looking for right and either numbers to aggregate to very high level know about we just simply remember a break so I mean I I would say that especially as council members it would make sense to be in communication with the doe and advocate for more transparency especially if there are specific questions that you're not seeing answered um yeah I mean when you're talking about how districts use money that could potentially be better spel spent elsewhere we need to be able to see how they're using the money before we can answer that question so yeah okay ask you question the specialized high schools and the tal program funding is it part of your budget also uh yes the the foundation Aid formula funds about 35% if I'm remembering that percentage correctly of New York City Public Schools including uh yeah most of the programs the only things it doesn't cover are trans ation um facilities including things like water fountains and air conditions um air conditioners uh School food those are not covered pretty much everything else is Staffing programs yes any any more questions from Council Members Kaiser go ahead John the universal Child Care is that the same as universal after school no Universal Child Care would be birth through 13 and Universal after school would just be K through 12 so and being that like some after schools would be funded with money from the lease program would you be able to help with that what program is that leaps program Le at the school uh write to me did you put your yeah I it was State yeah it was through the office of Family and Child Services at the state level do you ever interact with them not personally but aqe might I I have also only been with aqe for a few months so there might be some in my knowledge I apologize worries no worries um leaps program because that was an issue that hit it was anyway long story but as a result of a new program right several schools here lost funding some of them made it up they still have to get it back for next year because a lot of the solutions were only temporary so this is for after school funding uh that is likely to be part of a package that we're advocating for with the Coalition called the Coalition for Equitable education funding I will look into it and see if that's one of the things on the kind of agenda um yeah thank you yeah no problem cool thanks any other questions I think we're good thank you Kaiser Jo meeting did everyone up here get this that wanted it okay thank you so much for having [Music] me next we will have a report from our superintendent Dr David prto Dr prto don't worry about it am I awesome thanks Kevin just so just want to present on a couple of um upcoming events uh related to parents first on uh family support Mondays this has been a structure that we've put in place to support uh parents across the district on timely events or topics uh that are you know relevant and uh kind of urgent for parents we held one in October on admissions specifically Middle School admissions we got a lot of Outreach that there would be uh some there was a lot of interest in kindergarten missions when the kindergarten uh enrollment process began the kindergarten enrollment process has begun and on Monday December 16th we'll have a representative from uh the office of enrollment family Welcome Center to guide parents through the you know the ins and outs and the basics of the kindergarten admissions process it's a big deal it lasts for a month part of the time that the kindergarten missions process happens is over the uh the holiday break so there's a little bit of time when we're not kind of interacting with each other and don't have time uh to engage with schools go on some of the open houses that a lot of our schools are hosting both before the winter break and then in January so we felt like it' be important to just provide access to families uh prospective parents for kindergarten uh to have this uh presentation on the 16th we'll send out a reminder via messaging we'll send an email we'll also send a text message to all families in the uh in New York City Public Schools particularly you know obviously want to get in contact with our our prek families but then also other families who are you know considering New York City public schools and considering our great you know District 20 schools uh so that will be on December 16th it'll be via Zoom at 5: pm and at that same presentation we've also invited the child MIND Institute uh one of the requests from families has been some support around social emotional learning bullying student to- student interactions safety related measures across the district so uh last month we had the office of safety and development do a presentation for our families uh around uh safety in school between home and school it was really well received uh we want to continue providing families with access to those types of presentations we do have a partnership with the child MIND Institute they do provide a lot of support for families uh uh as well as our schools around uh positive behavior supports and interventions you know between the home and the school so on the 16th we'll also have a a presentation and a discussion with with parents uh around positive Behavior Uh supports uh between the home and the school uh facilitated by the child MIND Institute so again we'll send a a text reminder and email reminder to All Families across the district closer to the date we're finding that that's helping and we really encourage uh families to attend we've really appreciate the structure and again I want to thank Sylvia uh for my office and Lauren tone my social worker uh in the district office who have been coordinating Family Support Mondays and you know appreciate the structure and and as always appreciate the feedback on what topics are like relevant for parents and you know we want to have a discussion uh with the district office and connect with resources uh just to emailed out the the first uh District 20 newsletter of this year uh it captures some broad topics across the ways in which the district office is supporting District 20 schools this one is a lot shorter than the first kind of beta version of the newsletter we sent out last year I have a feeling this one might be a little short so we're just trying to find the happy balance of you know getting the the right amount of information onto the newsletter to make sure that we're you know providing uh the the community with information around how the district office is supporting District 20 schools and families uh the last one was about like five pages long was a little long this one's a little shorter uh so again I'm in I'm always open to feedback around you know how this could be better couple of the things that are highlighted on the the newsletter which was emailed out today to All District 20 families uh is around our multilanguage Learners and uh English language Learners supports for teachers we do conduct a couple of meetings per month where our uh instructional team I have a couple of folks on my team who are specialists in uh Elementary and Middle School uh instructional support for English language Learners uh one with uh fluency and a lot of background in uh dual language and bilingual programs specifically in Mandarin uh and then I have another and and in um elementary school and then I have another who has uh a strength in Middle School supporting English language Learners at the middle school level and is flu in Spanish and is very well familiar with the program so this year we've been engaging um our enl teachers as well as our dual language teachers and bilingual teachers in monthly professional development around just supporting their capacity to be able to uh provide access for um English language Learners and students in dual language and bilingual programs uh to the grade level curriculum and to the standards um we have been expanding this support uh we have a lot of enl teachers as was mentioned before uh by uh the president sto uh we have a lot of families who really rely on language uh access and uh and we have a lot of students about 28% in the district who are English language Learners so it's a really important uh demographic in our district and we really prioritize providing support for our English language Learners across our five different languages of uh dual language programs as well as the multitude of languages over 80 languages spoken in the district that we provide direct enl support uh for in the district uh another piece that we put on the uh the newsletter was just some brief information about the superintendent program this is the first year of the Middle School screened middle uh superintendent program in the district and we are providing professional development uh to teachers across the subjects that'll ultimately culminate in a Regions exam in the e8th grade I highlighted the social studies uh professional development structure as well as the science professional development for our science and social studies teachers because these are the two regions that that are relatively new uh we will now we now have a biology Regents rather than the uh kind of the previous living environment region uh the new biology region is aligned to the Next Generation science standards uh so we're making sure that our all of our teachers our current eighth grade teachers who are preparing our current eighth graders for the biology Regent exam that they're prepared uh to be able to engage the students in it as well as our sixth grade uh science teachers we want to make sure that that trajectory starting in sixth grade for our students who entered into the the screened uh superint program are engaged in um accelerated opportunities within uh science and then for social studies the US History regions is the uh region exam that does culminate it is typically an 11th grade exam uh it is pretty rigorous uh we do want to make sure that the students who uh begin an eth grade who are on the pathway to take the US History region that they're engaged in a curriculum that's you know ensuring that they're getting uh access to uh an accelerated uh accelerated coursework so on that pathway so we've been engaging uh social studies teachers and science teachers in how to do uh engage in different aspects of accelerating the curriculum uh to make sure they're on a pathway for Success uh the third piece here are the D20 assistant principal institutes so an additional uh new structure for professional learning in the district we have engaged our over 100 assistant principles uh in professional learning that's targeted into different aspects of District priorities namely literacy math uh School culture uh and supporting some of our um special populations namely English language Learners and students with disabilities uh so we're really focusing on you know supporting our assistant principles and our supervisors uh with being equipped to be able to provide uh really high quality feedback to teachers so that teachers are put in the best position to be able to support the students in their classrooms and uh and ultimately uh you know reveal you know higher outcomes uh and then finally I'm highlighting the NYC reads learning Labs so this is a structure that we continued from last year uh this year we have a kindergarten through fifth grade or Elementary School teacher leader uh professional development professional learning community structure uh where my team and the teachers increasingly as the year goes on have been constructing and engaging in professional development aligned to the literacy shifts from NYC reads the science of reading uh and then the curricular the curriculum that are being implemented uh across foundational literacy in K to2 Wilson Orton Gillingham uh and really great reading and a couple of other options and then in all grades uh hmh uh into reading and then in sixth grade and all of these teacher leaders one from each School uh engage in professional development and then they uh are teacher leaders so they go back to their schools uh and engage in professional development with their colleagues and this is one kind of primary structure that we have in the district in order to kind of push out uh how the literacy shifts uh in the science of reading and specific aspects not just of the curriculum but also of uh kind of being responsive to challenges and needs that teachers are presenting uh as the year last year went on and and as this year goes on uh being able to support them uh and now as we had some presentations last year at CC also beginning to co construct uh some uh some PDS with some of these teacher leaders uh to kind of lift up some of the great practices that are already happening in the school and seeing how different schools can you know take advantage of some of these structures to uh you know potentially take on in their schools if they like uh the 6 to8 learning lab uh engages not just a middle school Ela teacher leader but also an enl teacher so in addition to the uh elll teacher professional development structure that we have uh in the district for the bilingual programs and enl teachers kind of in Mass uh we also engage a an enl teacher leader alongside their Ela counterpart uh in the learning lab to support uh you know the the priority uh within Middle School which is supporting uh English language Learners uh in middle school we have a lot of newly entering students uh into the Middle grades uh you know taking on a language is very challenging as you get older it gets more and more and more challenging so students in the Middle grades uh who who are you know new to the English language really can get a lot of challenges and we want we want to provide teachers with uh as many tools to be able to make sure that they're connecting the curriculum uh that's grade level appropriate uh and align to the standards uh for all of our students including English language Learners so we've emailed out this newsletter you know you know obviously happy to take feedback on it uh in addition to the the length of it but you know also other folks and I do want to highlight that the images that are on the uh newsletter itself are from Chancellor AIS Ramos's visit to dist 20 we were really excited to welcome the chancellor to the district she visited uh two schools uh ps170 and ps506 uh and she was able to see some of the great practices and work that we're doing in the district so I really wanted to you know give a a big shout out to principal Tony woo and principal Dana parentini for you know welcoming me and the chancellor into their schools and being able to see some of their great work uh that's happening in the district um another program that I just wanted to kind of like highlight for a second is our safe for college program uh the safe for college program is uh our partnership in New York City public schools with uh the New York City kids rise organization and it is uh a 520 New York State 529 College savings account program where kindergarten students and all participating districts have 529 College savings accounts opened for them on their behalf every year starting in kindergarten uh we're in our third year of being a save for college program District uh and we have so far have over $1 million deposited in 529 accounts across the district on behalf of District 20 students um it's it's an exciting program and uh you know we're really kind of like happy to um spearhead it again uh Sylvia jinsky family leadership coordinator is the is our um is our Point person for the safer college program and uh you know District 20 has done an incredible job in comparison to the other districts in the city in terms of students who are you know enrolled in this program and you know how much money has been saved and also some of the Outreach uh that the program involves in terms of engaging parents in information and learning about the the 529 accounts and how they can kind of build you know their own financial literacy and kind of you understanding the benefits and the values of saving for college early and taking advantage of the 529 structure in New York state um just want to highlight and thank the CC for sponsoring ing um we had a financial literacy resource fair at PS 971 where we engaged PTA presidents Title One um uh reps from schools we had the president's Council there I want to shout out Josephine uh for supporting us in this as well uh and we had a great Fair where a lot of vendors who kind of provide all sorts of information and opportunities around financial literacy were uh connected with parent coordinators with PTA presidents uh and with Title One and with Title One reps in in all of our District 20 schools want to thank uh principal Stacy bakaras from 971 for hosting us January is scholarship month in safer in the safer college program and what scholarship month essentially means is that the accounts for the kindergarten students this year their accounts will be able to be activated uh beginning in January and so parent coordinators in all of our schools will be pushing out information to families about uh these accounts and the opening of these 529s for our current kindergarteners and you know the new and New York City public schools has recently been pushing an initiative called alumni scholarship they're really kind of reaching out to alumni of former public schools in New York City to encourage them to donate funds on behalf of these existing accounts uh to encourage and just kind of raise the dollar amount that are in these uh accounts so that's some more information that you know parents can expect to see us kind of promoting from the district level and then finally uh we have a career planning for Youth Event it's December 12 it's December 12th not January 12th like tomorrow December 12th at Junior High School 62 dipus uh where uh we will have uh four speakers who are uh would be considered experts in the financial field speaking to students uh and families around their experiences and tips and tricks around you know you know the financial landscape and ultimately like promoting financial literacy so we hope the families can attend please don't uh take my mistake and show up on January 12th it's tomorrow December 12th at 5:00 pm uh at Dimas and I know that we wanted to have a discussion about test scores so I don't know if you just want to have the discussion or yeah I'll I'll give there were a couple things I wanted to bring up but then does do any CC Members First have questions for super but any I wanted to go back to the comment made at the beginning um a parent called in was asking um how the superintendent plans to support schools with the flexibility given by the chancellor who's recently announced last week so I wanted to ask Dr krao directly um how do you plan to do that and specifically how are you going to address the concerns that you've heard both last year and this year specifically about hmh and specifically the lack of whole book BS and too much assessment so how will you use the flexibility that's been granted by the chancellor in the implementation of this new curriculum in order to support schools in responding to the concerns that they've raised with this curriculum what's your plan going forward for that and can you be as specific as possible please thank [Music] you so just to address the uh the chancellor statement around uh there were four categories that the chanc sent a message if folks aren't uh familiar or aware with uh what Miss L is speaking to last week Chancellor Abus Ramos issued a some guidance to all New York City uh employees around the NYC reads uh program and some flexibilities and agreements made around uh pacing assessments um duplicative work tasks and also professional development um the first one is really the only one that really applies kind of directly to District 20 in terms of Assessments the guidance that the chancellor put into her letter is exactly the same you know guidance we've had in District 20 uh Chancellor vus Ramos uh put into the uh assessment category that the module assessment is the assessment that you know should be prioritized and the only one that really kind of needs to be given uh by by teachers that's the same guidance we've been giving in District 20 since last year so you know in ter and that was the decision we made in the same with the same intention that I think the chancellor was putting out the uh the message which which was around you know reducing the amount of assessment that's happening in schools uh so you know at the district level when we were thinking about uh NYC reads and thinking about assessments we did not uh promote or uh anything beyond the module assessment that's the same guidance that the chancellor gave um with regard to the pacing uh we're we're excited about it like I think that that's something that you know teachers really kind of you needed to hear uh and I think that I really appreciate the chancellor for you know coming out and and saying that and putting it at writing for folks I think it really kind of eased uh some of the minds of teachers so we're really excited about it uh we're really making sure that you know the the the literally that that guidance is going to be you know put in place for all teachers across the district as it's written we want to make sure that principles and teachers can use a professional discretion uh to use flexibility to meet the unique needs of their children you know and uh we're going to make sure to do that we're starting by just engaging principles in uh conversation around what exactly that means uh and making sure that we're all kind of in the same place when uh uh implementing that guidance uh so but we're excited about it I think that it's a great thing uh and I think that it definitely aligns with some of the priorities that we've had in the district in uh year two I think kind of coming to your second question around you know how we're supporting and being responsive uh to families and teachers uh and our own observations uh in the classroom around the implementation of the curriculum in year two and year 2 is really about kind of focusing on two big priorities in the classroom which were uh time for reading you know we really want to make sure that kids had enough time for reading uh reading the books that are available in the curriculum and not just in you know schools that were finding success uh in that in year one which we had many and I brought a couple schools last year as examples of schools that were you know you know able to Leverage The Curriculum to read the books that are in it uh and be able to expand that across uh the entire District you know to being responsive so that uh schools can you know again meet the unique needs of their students it's a big District there's a lot of students and there a lot of teachers and we want to make sure that we're meeting all their needs and one of them that we saw consistently was that teachers really having a hard time you know within the curriculum in year one and learning it uh which year one is always the most difficult year uh you know making sure that they had time to read the text that includes the books that were uh you know available to read in the curriculum so that's definitely our first priority this year and we've been working with the principles we've been working with our teacher leaders in the learning Labs both in the elementary and the Middle School uh and we're starting to co-construct some of those models with teachers because as I mentioned before we had many schools last year who were you know engaging very successfully uh in Reading uh books you know in the curriculum and uh we're encouraging uh teachers to not just you know hear from us but hear from their colleagues and it's been really well received and I have to also you know commend a lot of our principles who really did a lot of prioritization around making sure that the structures that they had existing uh in their schools for how they uh get kid uh books in kids hands and how they guide their teachers to uh have time uh within the school day as well as outside the school day and uh to to be able to read and encourage them to read uh not just within the curriculum uh and for learning skills and standards and building knowledge that's aligned to the themes in the unit uh but also Al to love it you know to to like reading and to be able to read books that they want to just read you know so that's something that you know to you know addressed the first kind of big piece that we need to be responsive to uh was that the second one was writing I think that the the aspect of writing in the curriculum was a big challenge uh and a big shift with the science of reading has been the three different types of writing and this was a a a heavy a district that was Heavy in the Balan literacy curriculum and Balan literacy really did had a lot you know there were uh the writing some of the WR the craft writing aspects of that curriculum were um successful particularly within process writing so writing arguments writing narratives uh writing informational pieces that were disconnected from um you know a unit of study that was uh focused on a theme to build knowledge uh there were successful but you know writing about reading was a type of writing that you know really was a a you know a grow a growth area for a lot of our schools uh and something that principles had kind of keyed keyed into uh as early as you know 2022 so a topic that we had in the district for a little while around how can we you know improve uh how we teach kids how to write about reading uh and so this year we're really focusing in on a couple aspects of the curriculum that do indeed do that uh and engage students in writing about reading uh and really using this flexibility and some of these other guidance pieces to kind of engage teachers in how can we expand our you know toolbox for teaching writing specifically that writing about reading uh so excited about that that and that's something that has been uh launched and you know we're engaging in that and goes to the third piece that we're really kind of getting back to after the year one of the curriculum and that's looking how at how the students are doing you know I think there's that a lot of emphasis last year on learning the curriculum and rightfully so it was it's a it's a lot to learn a new curriculum and you know a lot of the time that teachers had to take with uh their teaching was consumed with learning what was in the curriculum I think one of the kind of big size of relief that teachers breathed this year was that they knew what they were walking into this year they knew what the lessons were they knew what the units were uh and they you know kind of didn't have to worry so much about what like tomorrow's lesson looked like and uh could get back to what good teachers do and what all of our schools do which is look at how the students are performing to make DEC like good decisions about what aspects of the curriculum we need to implement you know a curriculum is not a script it is not a prescription it's like it's we really look at and prioritize in the district how we look at data not just I ready and aadience like these screener datas are these are benchmarked this is three times a year teachers know how their kids are doing week to week day-to-day based off of the student work that they're producing based off of their observations and conversations with kids and how they observe students performing so we're getting back to the structures of how we're looking at how students are performing and looking at student work and using that student work to make a determination of like did our students Master this like are our students getting it last year we did a lot of focus on the module assessment which was the only assessment that we were um really promoting and recommending to be implemented in the district uh and teachers really kind of got Adept at looking at those module assessments we were able to kind of move Beyond uh some of the initial uh pain points I call them uh around kind of understanding uh the value of a of an assessment that's you know strictly aligned to the standards with a cold read not with a text that the kids had read in the unit the module assessments don't engage kids in reading a text that they read over the course of the unit it's a cold read that when they take that module assessment it's the first time they've seen that text uh whereas in the performance task which is the writing piece that we're really lifting up this year you know it was something that I think the teachers really received well uh not just because it's writing about reading but also Al leverages the knowledge that the children have built over the course of the the the module or the unit what they're writing about on the performance task is connected to the texts that they've read over the course of the unit so really gives students the the opportunity to express and demonstrate and that's the point of the performance task is to demonstrate what they've learned uh knowledge-wise not just skill-wise but like knowledge like you know link to the theme of the unit what they're be able to take from the text to uh to say what they've learned so not just how they be able to demonstr their comprehension of what they read over the unit but also like what they've learned uh and that would that's an important aspect of the uh the knowledge building classroom and the science of reading that you know really uh teachers are you know getting more Adept at so I'm excited about that but you know the just coming back to the the looking at student work and just being mindful like how kids are doing in the classroom you know on the day-to- day like that's something that teachers you know really do well in this District you know we have strong structures in the district for uh we have amazing principles principal culin is one of the like you know ps176 is a school that has tremendously strong structures around how teachers meet in teams uh regularly to analyze student work and then namely uh look at subgroups like we have priority subgroups who you know really have extra challenges English language Learners students with disabilities and we also prioritize those particular students uh to you know make sure that we're looking at their work and looking at how their work reflects some things that we either need to do better or to recognize successes that we've had uh and then you know the last piece I want to say about that is it also provides teachers with you know regular opportunities to make decisions about what to do in the curriculum coming back to the first piece around the flexibility that two weeks that up to two weeks to meet unique needs of kids within professional discretion knowing where your kids are in relation to the standards is like the basic idea around what unique needs of kids are you know like that's time where if a child still doesn't understand a particular concept that's a little bit more time that the teacher has uh to be able to have them meet it and you know we really want to make sure that teachers are just equipped with uh the structures that are provided by the principles and uh you know the time with their colleagues uh and protocols to look at that work so that they're making good decisions about what to do with the the kids in their classroom so I'm excited about it and you know it's uh you know and all that work is underway and uh you know that's can I get you a clarifying Point David thanks um just to go back to the the what I think you said the four you pointed out four key points from the Chancellor's announcement right you said pacing professional development duplicative tasks and assessments and I think if I heard you right the only one that changes from current policy is pacing yeah the other ones we don't have a lot of you know the duplicative task piece uh that is something that has been uh are Provisions in the UFT contract about uh paperwork and duplicative tasks and you know that's a contractual thing that we always honor like we're always striving to make sure that we're honoring the contract and the you know the agreements that we have with the with our Union Partners including the UFT yeah um but beyond that you know we also just we want to make sure that we have great workplaces for teachers for principles and so in addition to the contract we also like look at things and I really push our principles uh to look at pieces of how we engage teachers in work to make sure they're not doing stuff they don't need to do you know like teacher being a teacher is incredibly difficult it's it is really really hard and uh the last thing that a teacher needs is to do some you know seemingly mundane work that could be done by somebody else so we our principles in this District work really hard to find ways and leverage resources that they have to be able to take those tasks off nothing changes nothing changes with the chancellors the only thing that's changing in this District was the pacing of the yeah the assessment guidance is the same that we the same add one question comment to Y go ahead um I think one the Chancellor's language on the assessment is somewhat vague um and two if you're going to allow for the two-e flexibility I just that is going to affect assessment so over time that would compound and then eventually a teacher would need to like skip or modify end of unit assessment so I'm wondering if that is being given to District 20 teachers as an option because the language here is um not concrete but if you keep getting two weeks behind eventually you would need to skip a unit assessment I understand the line of thinking yeah um what I have you know learned with kind of implementing uh you know the evolving context of something that's as large as this uh at scale is that I don't like to run up the inference L too quickly uh and there's a lot of kind of intended and unintended consequences of coming to certain conclusions like that uh again it's a big district and there's a lot of kids and there's a lot of different needs that need to be met uh and there are uh just as much as there are some teachers who are going to uh predictably leverage some or maybe all of that flexibility there's going to be other teachers who won't uh and there are teachers right now who don't need any of it and actually need less time so like you know we want to make sure that as we put that guidance out and support uh principles and teachers in uh utilizing it that we really stick to the what the guidance is which is to use uh you know teacher and principal discretion um to meet the unique needs of students so the things that I was speaking about before within like you know uh the focus on uh the different aspects of the curriculum around reading uh the writing piece and then looking at student work and you know looking at uh curriculum specific data uh you know those things are you know aspects that we will utilize to support teachers and helping kind of like make those decisions and make good decisions because we want to make sure that they're doing indeed that with the Chancellor's asking I again I I hesitate to run up the INF lad too quickly and make broad generalizations about what it uh could mean uh so but that's something that we're going to continue engaging principles on and you know it's uh but in general I I feel like it was very well received by teachers I think it was received well by all of us and I'm excited to to implement it one of my follow-ups superintendent and I I think we we've had a conversation about this before but I ultimately you know I I try to learn the the curriculum and I try to learn how it works in the classroom but UL I've never been in a class never taught I don't know anything but of course as a parent I'm always looking at results and we've talked before about the state test scores last year Citywide went down it went down a little more in District 20 um and that you know we're following up I'm following up on conversation with you you know about these points I've raised but the two things that jumped out at me after our conversations were our L scores we did perform worse than the city for our L students um and you know you were helpful in pointing out that we have to compare it to other districts with high numbers of L's and I you know our neighbors in district 21 did better than us and I know we're all competitive and we all like to be best but is there a do you think there's any lessons that we can you know is there anything that that maybe district 21 did different um District 24 a little better than us um and we were pretty similar to District 25 and so I thought that was interesting just to look at the the mix around the city so I'm curious for your thoughts on on sort of L's and in particular with New York City reads and and the curriculum well none of them were good they all went down yeah um that was my kind of first takeaway yeah with regard with English language Learners uh I think that there's one thing I do know like I see the I see the question like why did why did they go down less than we did um I can't answer that question at the end of the day I don't really don't know um I you know districts are big and different District 25 is much more comparable to us in terms of size and demographics uh and performance than district 21 is um so I would I would that's one thing I would say uh but I look more at being responsive to it I think what's most important is that you know we're utilizing the resources that we have at the district level and also uh to to to be responsive to it I mean I think that's the most important thing and we really have dedicated a lot of our uh resources and I've done a lot of work prioritizing uh obtaining staff who can support our uh School leaders and our teachers in supporting uh English language Learners uh you know one thing that we did not have last year was uh an L Services administrator that's the instructional coach for English language Learners and district offices uh we did have a vacancy uh for over half the year what's the position say that again it's the M it's we call it the Messa so it's mea the multilingual learner L Services administrator okay that one um it's essentially an instructional coach for English language Learners yeah uh it's a it's a an EA position in district offices uh and so we were we had a vacancy for about half of the year and this is the person who's primarily tasked with supporting enl teachers with uh professional development uh so the the enl professional development that we and we offer and we when our we haded a messa prior to like the uh we lost in like November um we provided those so it was a little it's a loss like that's that's definitely a resource piece in the district that we now not only have a mess up but we were also able to um bring on an additional instructional coach it's a long long title but like another instructional coach who balances out our mesa's expertise so our Messa is uh expertise obviously in uh supporting elves but Middle School which is an area where we did not previously have somebody who kind of like had a lot of experience and expertise in serving Middle School English language Learners which is a large percentage of our students who are challenged when we're talking about these uh scores and then we're also able to bring on somebody who is uh has Elementary expertise also has a lot of experience with developing the home language assessments that are given to students uh in you know mandaran or Spanish uh against uh the the English language assessments that are given in the curriculum uh so not only does she have a lot of expertise in those home language assessments but she also has a lot of uh experience in bilingual programs and Mandarin and that was really important we have like Mandarin is the single biggest language other than English spoken our district we have the most Mandarin programs you know it was really important we brought on someone who could support uh you know you know Mandarin uh bing wool sorry this is this is the Mesa or this is another that's the that's the deis that's a district achievement and instructional specialist okay so these are both the Messa and the deas are both uh they're both they're both District 20 employees or they share responsibility all right and so those two individuals are sort of oversight of all the programs in the district they're they're providing report to you or do they report to someone else they report to me uh they but they and they uh they provide professional development for teachers and they also support individual principles with their um with their programs uh so in addition to holding the uh monthly professional development uh both within uh all just enl teachers and bilingual teachers yeah uh and we we focus on utilizing curriculum to support pedagogical practices that get kids access to grade level curriculum that's ultimately like the goal we also uh they're also on my literacy team so they support in the learn the the learning lab so our general Ed teachers also get PD that's rooted in um practices that support El's in addition to that they also have um schools individual schools that they work with on a regular basis like three times a month where they go visit the school they work with the principal and they develop a school-based plan for how they can support like the individual unique needs of that school yeah uh so will they do things like look at the um I ready assessments during the year and the module assessments and see how El's are doing compared to last year and see if we're making progress we do that at the district level through the DCP like we monitor progress uh for how our kids are doing in those subgroups that that we have all those subgroups broken out into individual goals with Priority One no I know but like I mean even more granular like on a however seven or eight times a year with the New York City reads assessments and then three times a year with ireddit you guys specifically look at L scores on those yeah and we um and now we have the uh yes so short answer is yes and then the other thing I thought was really interesting as I communicated to you was um really jumped out at me that the computer the two grades that did computer-based testing and correct right computer-based testing was only done last year for the state test in grade five and eight right across the district and across the city yes yeah and it it was mandated in those grades other schools like had like may have done it I had a couple of schools that did their all of their kids school okay but grades five and eight stand it's a statistically significant difference I agree in how those schools Citywide and District 20 computer-based versus traditional which was really interesting to me you can that to me was the number one as far as I could tell from looking at the data reason why scores dropped Citywide and I think that there really has to be and this is a big issue because the world's going digital everyone has to learn how to do things on a computer on a screen even though as parents I have huge problems with screens but like we've got to get there and so we've got to do more to get students capable of taking their Ela tests especially Ela I think I feel like math might be a little different on the screen but um a little easier but anyway just thoughts on that uh a lot so I I have like I'm a parent you know I have I have a child in eighth grade I have a I have a junior in high school you know I have my own personal feelings about the you you know the the presence of computers and this type of stuff like so i i i u I have my own feelings but I do know that we have to provide uh access and support for kids to be able to do this it's just a reality like I you know in the midst of you know my feelings about it we we need to make sure that our kids are being in put in position to succeed one of the aspects of so one thing that we are focusing on in the district to last year and I want to say this principles were very tuned to this last year you know we had a couple schools pilot the U the the computer-based testing the year before it was successful in the schools that we uh piloted it in last year our principles really put in place structures to support kids in kind of getting used to typing you know the Big Challenge we saw was just like the concept of stamina in writing on a computer like that was the biggest one and you know that was just something that at again at scale like the the the one thing that I already does is it gives us like this screened you know assessment it's all there's no writing like they're not doing any writing on it uh and one thing that hmh provides is a writing platform that's online it's called writable uh that in that gives sorry stop this um that it all of the writing tasks that are available in hmh are automatically on this platform it's a platform that was not included in uh The Core Curriculum last year so all schools didn't have access to it last year this year all schools do have access to writeable uh and it's something that our schools are starting to look at as a way in which to kind of like accomplish a couple purposes but the main one is regularly engaging kids in the just the practice of writing on a computer in response to their reading you know I think that just our kids we could been in the rabbit hall for a long time about like technology and like you know kids engagement with it and you know to what extent they're able to write on it but the short answer is the writing that kids do do currently what they're used to doing on their phones otherwise is very short blips of whatever if there's any text at all like primary like primarily students engaged in um text if we use the broad sense of it that's visual um you know you know uh movies short clips you know that type of thing very little if any is like actual text yeah and um you know that's something that yeah we've started to so we've really started to kind of like principles have been doing this uh but we've also been needing to build the teachers's capacity using writable as like this platform to engage kids regularly in the writing about reading piece and then there's a lot of communication with parents that we need to do around that because we got a lot of push we got a lot of feedback last year around how much kids time how much time kids are spending on the computer which I I get it like I go I I get it and frankly you know we want to put kids in the position of success so like the module assessment for example the module assessment engages kids in writing about reading on the computer however a lot of schools opted to uh administer that assessment last year by having kids first handwrite their you know responses and then to either just enter the scores into the platform or in sometimes they would transcribe uh the draft onto the computer but the the short answer is every kid who was taking the module assessment wasn't typing their answers into the computer and those who were I mean I think that a lot of the CH some of the challenges we had around scoring of the module assessment like how kids were actually performing in addition to the fact that there were cold reads and standards aligned questions and not like building off of the text that they had read in the in the module but it was also that they were having to type their answers yeah that was like two pieces that were like new for kids and I think that that was you know that it's a lot you know it's a big change so I think that a couple things that you know we in the district need to be much more responsive to and prioritize is you know making sure those module assessments are opportunities for kids to respond to these tasks for writing on the computer so the two things yeah so the two things I've heard the writable and the module assessments those are the two ways we'll try to train kids on a keyboard correct that's okay I heard this is I heard um anecdotally and I'm not gonna but um this is just um back to the class siiz law for a minute that there has been a um I've heard that schools previously had a teacher for um keyboarding and Computing skills and had to reallocate that teacher this is off this is my own editorial David you don't have to respond to this but um and and they had to reallocate that teacher was previously doing things on um um on technology and stuff to the to the general classroom as result of class size law so again I'm just I'm gonna as I go forward for the remainder of my term I'm going to point out situations where these trade-offs have had to be made because of the class siiz law mandate um and I'm going to leave that at at that so we're getting a little bit less in some schools on the stuff like Computing skills maybe you've got a smaller class but that's the trade-off parents have to think about as these things are coming to to to fruition here um go ahead I listen this is a difficult District to uh meet the mandates of the class size law and we're working as hard as we can to you know to meet the benchmarks and I I I really applaud the principles in this district for you know Finding ways to uh to reduce class size here and we you know I I feel like we did a as good a job as we could have last year considering the capacity of our buildings and how many kids we have um I would say that in terms of the goals I think this is an important piece around the uh I think this is an important piece around the the writing on the computer the the the matter of stamina of like having the concept of when I'm sitting at that computer like I'm using that to like get my thoughts out uh and in in robust ways is like we find that it's very contrary to the ways in which kids engage with technology when they're getting their thoughts out there like kids aren't typically used to using technology to get robust you know well-developed thoughts out on the computer like that's not their primary mode for doing that uh we do it through speaking right uh and we do it for through writing but like writing has been very much with the pen yeah so like you know I think that with the the example of the keyboarding class like the keyboarding class will definitely teach them kind of like how to type faster and with a better technique I have terrible technique I only use three fingers when I type I've just gotten weirdly fast with my three fingers yeah um but like we had a lot of uh teachers who are you know leveraging some of these apps you know and running them in uh you know stations in the classroom yeah uh for how to practice uh keyboarding um but like ultimately even that keyboarding help wasn't as important as connecting this concept of like my thoughts about this text and responding to this prompt you know need to result in a developed thing the thought process is more important than just the mechanics but they're both important but anyway um I see two hands Tamara Kevin I don't know who was first Kevin and go ahead Tamara do you have a question for David yeah I have um a couple um thanks thanks for um this report you know um you know I've said before that you know the way you're doing um what you doing with this new curriculum is way different than it was done with common core so like we I can already see like a big difference you know from how common cor was was implemented or not implemented that's a whole different discussion um but one of the questions I want wanted to ask you know I know we were talking about like the h& um and there like they recommend books and stuff like that for the children you know according to um grade level and soth is there um like an alternate list of books for like if the kids don't want to read the H&H recommended books like that could be given to the parents like similar similar books you know that they might be interested in is is one question and and my second question is do do you our schools have all like the needed devices for when they take these state exam because I know that that was a concern for some schools like they didn't have like all the devices you know and you know after a couple of years some devices need need you know to be like get got rid of because like they they can't be updated anymore and they're too old and they need new ones like how is that yeah so books and then the computerss so the first one is yes there there are lists of books that are connected to the modules a big aspect of reading within the science of reading and this concept of a knowledge building classroom you'll hear me say that use that phrase a lot uh is that's a big shift for how we Center what kids are learning about when they read like when we're teaching kids reading especially in the upper grades third grade fourth grade fifth grade and Beyond we're not just teaching them how to read we're teaching them to read to learn stuff you know we're not just teaching them to identify the setting or to identify a cause and effect relationship uh between two characters or not those are skill those are like discret skills that you know when you're learning how to read like these are things that you know good readers are able to recognize when they uh when they read books we're not just teaching kids how to identify those things we're teaching them how to learn stuff like and the the texts that they're reading in that module are all connected to a larger theme or topic or idea that we want them to kind of learn about uh and be able to see the connections between those texts for how they're making meaning out of what they're reading about so that's a that's a really important piece of the curriculum and a big reason why uh New York City reads exists because of this concept of having children be able to learn to read uh once you hit third grade you are no longer uh learning to read you're reading to learn like you have to be able to make meaning out of that text and then uh create uh and demonstrate thoughts many is to make sure that teachers have the resources in the class so that teachers are positioned to succeed one of them is procuring books and making sure that the books that a teacher needs are in the classroom and uh principles have different structures uh processes how do they utilize their budget how they prioritize how they survey teachers like they have different ways in which they make these decisions in addition to the resources that the curriculum uh provides which you know hmh does provide uh every teacher with like different lists of books that connect to every module that are options that teachers could use uh principal Cen is one of those like exemplary principles who has a well-ingrained structure that ensures that not only do teachers have these books but they're uh prioritized for kids that they're in kids hands that there structures for them not to just have the books but for them to read them regularly uh and that's some those are the types of practices that we uh you know we really promote so that's those like there is the curriculum and the resource and then there are the practices there are the things that teachers do and principles do with those resources uh to make sure that they're being uh like the chancellor said in her uh message you know being responsive to unique children students needs the second question is around the computers and the short answer is yes schools have the computers uh to be able to uh and the different devices you know Chromebooks iPads like we have different devices uh one of the challenges that I I just want to acknowledge uh for our teachers is that this is just another layer like this is another piece that they you know kind of have to incorporate into their practice it's easier to take out a notebook and a pencil than to get onto the computer uh and you know we have learned over time and how we've practiced around administering the I assessment and these other things around how some of these other aspects of utilizing technology uh in our classrooms and the the you know the level of bandwith that different sites take when you know utilizing uh computers with you know 253 kids well now 23 uh in the classroom uh at the time you know you know those are additional challenges that teachers have and uh again this is another piece where I'm really thankful for the flexibility because ultimately like on the ground practically turn on the computer and try to log on and your password doesn't work and you need help and you know that so those things are those are real for teachers so those are things that we're also kind of thankful for the flexibility I think it'll kind of again take a little the air out of the room for some of our teachers working really hard to kind of like do all this stuff simultaneously but the short answer is yeah we do have the technology uh and another challenge I'm going to leave it at that I could talk about this one all day but um is also just having update up to-date technology you know we have like large purchases over the last couple of years these things go absolete very quick you know these updates for operating systems and for apps and for these other things um you know if you don't implement the updates they suck more bandwidth uh so like these different like aspects of the tech kind of infrastructure is also something that we're like really mindful of and you know principles are you know really kind of working hard with their we call them SPX uh their their Tech folks uh to to make sure that the devices are working that they're in the classrooms and that teachers are getting more Adept with like using them on a more regular basis that's a big lift for us this year uh at scale Kev yep I just have um quick questions um this curriculum and parent concerns like is this curriculum more challenging for my kids than be than the previous one and how do how do we demonstrate that it is for to and the second thing is um a lot of parents I mean talk to us saying that the kids is on the computer all the time now they don't feel comfortable with it I mean they do not know if they're redoing their homework or they are Ming ping computer game because there are incidents um kids are switching when the parents coming in coming into the room so is there anything we can do on that uh to the first question around is the curriculum more challenging or the curriculum is aligned to the standards so the the thing that we utilize to measure uh rigor is the level of alignment to the grade level standard the higher the standard the more rigorous like kind that's our that's our that's our Baseline there's then we can go in different directions around how challenging something can be uh but like that's that's our kind of Baseline for all kids the curriculum is aligned to the standards so in ter like it is as challenging as it is expected to be uh based off of the grade level that the child is in if that makes sense so is that a space now stand the same as the the previous a lot of the previous curriculum that were put in place in the uh in the schools were not aligned to all the standards so do we say that curent one is stand yes you can say you can say that all three curricula that have been that are being implemented in in New York City reads are aligned to the standards um the second uh and that's all the standards there are different standards there's reading standards there's writing standards there speaking and listening standards uh there are standards for social studies there you know the the uh there are curriculum that have been used in the past that were aligned to particular standards but not all of them this curriculum is aligned to uh all of them uh the second piece around comfortability like my kids are on the computer too much it doesn't feel comfortable people are comfortable with things usually they're good at you know like you know you're you're going to be able to be comfortable with something if you're you're kind of experiencing Success With It uh we find that uh children are a little bit more tolerant of uh challenges and being a little uncomfortable and trying new things we find that adults are less comfortable with trying to do things I think they're not talking about comfortable we all know computer is the future the problem is the kids are exctly games that's what it com yeah I I'm not going to disagree with you there um I I would say that the I think that's another great example of like how kids think about interacting with computers and computers aren't of for the future they're for right now computers are for like 10 years ago like this is beyond a reality for us uh and this generation doesn't know like there are people in this room who know an existence before smartphones and you know I remember I remember when call waiting came around right like I had a big old yellow phone with a bell in it and it was heavy and you know it was connected to the wall like I remember that I remember that world uh our children don't have any concept of that world you know that is a completely different world for them so like this is is very urgent they know more than we give them credit for in terms of the computer what we're competing against with their attention is that's a great example the video games and some of these other like you know quick flashing um interactions that they have with yeah it's it's it's a lot so I I would say that you know writing on a computer for a child is incredibly challenging for for them one because it is not nearly as it's not nearly as fun as a video game like a video game is way more fun than writing an essay on a computer um especially when you don't experience initial success with it our kids are very used to getting immediate gratification from their phones when they look at a phone and you know look at an image or you know get a like or there's a lot of science behind just like the ways in which all of this technolog has been developed uh to be like really you know consumer based it releases dopamine in the brain uh and you you know the do you know people go back to get the dopamine the writing of the essay is releasing a little less dopamine uh than you know social media or a video game or something so I I think that you know another big challenge that we have uh as parents I fight with this I fight with this concept all the with my own kids you know my son has a PS5 and you know he wants to play Madden and I he needs to do his essay and that's a it's a big challenge right there and I struggle with it um but I I think that that's an additional layer that you know we as a community need to kind of you know come up with different ways how we can really communicate and promote the importance of this uh you know the utilization of the computer for things that are going to ultimately be beneficial for kids and we know immediately that every fourth fifth sixth and eth grader will take the state exam on the computer so like urgently it will be valuable for them to learn how to like Express themselves in a detailed way in writing on the computer um David I want to ask you this the proposal I would like to get your thoughts on and that's specifically adding geometry to our Middle School um academic offerings you know um you know this is my my quick sort of um you know the world from my perspective is it's obviously changing just like we're talking about with technology and everything and in my line of work I I'm acutely acutely acutely aware that our country has a shortage of qualified stem Professionals in many many Industries and um it's it's critically important um and you know it it sounds abstract to talk about um Fortune 500 companies and technology companies and Ai and then K through 12 educate but it really is not and you know the the stuff that we need the type of talents that we need type of education we need um starts right here with everything we're doing um and so I really want to you know I I you know we um thank you a lot for the superintendent program of course you know it's a very it's a it's a great a great program and I like that you have a component also for just math as well kids were accelerated at math but still need sort of more more general education on Ela and I just want to propose um adding geometry to the to the options for the superintendent program um there are schools across New York City doing this um we need to be doing the same in District 20 I strongly believe that um we should have you we should be offering making the same offerings for our kids um as as these other schools across New York City are including in district 21 nearby so like to get your thoughts on that I'm open to the geometry regions I think what the priority was within the superintendent program was like creating a a program like making sure that that we were able to put in place things that we could support teachers on we could uh you know scale and the algebra region is one that uh is the first one right like in order to take the geometry regions in middle school you have to first take the algebra regions the year before yeah and then take the geometry regions after so you have to take a regions in the seventh grade and then take take a region in the eth grade so it's like it's an added layer yeah uh so it's a little bit more complicated the short answer is I'm open to it like again like I want to make sure that we have you know access to like all the opportunities that Mak sense for our kids and again like the chance said like meet the unique needs of all of our kids great uh and so I'm open to it it's a um you know I will say and no one's going to feel sorry for me I get it like it's just part of the deal uh but we do have a lot of kind of balls up in the air right now we want to make sure that all the things that we have committed to that we're able to deliver like we committed to providing robust PD for all of our uh sixth uh seventh and or eighth grade teachers who teach accelerated classes in the district uh to that that they're prepared for for math for social studies for uh for the new biology regions uh so that's something that I want to make sure that we're committed to uh however I'm totally open to the idea so uh you know I can take this back to my team and we'll kind of you know think about it and see what we can kind of come up with but I'm totally open to it and want to kind of look at some of the more particulars and see what something like that could look like and what would be the Ben like what would be the challenges and uh what would be some of the pitfalls and drawbacks that I want to avoid uh and then what could be some you know potential ways we could do it so I'm totally open to it thanks appreciate that c c members any other questions for Kevin is your hand I just rais my hand take too long no go ahead go ahead um I it's not really a question I just want to share something I observed so um in our community we noticed that for the state test we G we gave a simple state test for past practice past year practice to the students just for them to get used to so we notice that the older I'm taking on the math because it's easier to okay so I notic that the old the test is is usually more challenging for the students I mean for the same student if I gave the 1997 they might score 90% but if you give it I mean they might score 80% but if you give a recent years same students they might score the 90% And this quite common do we have I mean I just wonder how did that happened and the second thing I observe is wait Kevin I just want to make sure I understand the question so like you say you're administering the past uh math exams is like eighth grade tests seventh grade State exams or a four to5 is the Ste I mean is the standard state test but like the state test like the 3 to eight tests and you're saying that you would give some like old versions like late 90s versions and then you would give some and then a more updated like recent version and what was the difference in the scores well I do not remember exactly the difference I can get back to find out but feeling we observed is that the from the older test they didn't score as well as the results they scored they didn't score as well in the old test as the new test or they scored better on the old test they scor better on the new test okay I mean I I don't I don't I don't know if I have an answer for you I you know I'd have to get so just one we are going to we are going to check how challenge the test is but that's something we noticed uh okay yeah and then the second thing I want to is we I'm looking for I'm hiring a develop two developers you I'm sorry say I'm in my office I'm hiring two developers okay engineer to do the coding yeah and I notic I have been looking for three months um I cannot find one no one and I also noticed now one I haven't seen any think anybody get closer to the one we looking for and but we notice another thing is the ones we feel is getting closer I usually they took the education the basic education I'm not talking about college the high school and middle school education overseas the ones tooking the high education high school and middle school over here they usually not as qualified as even though we can find anybody so at this moment okay this is for folks who are coming out of high school seeking uh like a computer programmer developer job is no they they graduate from college already they're graduating from college already they both graduate from I mean they all graduate from college already and I mean they high the ones who's like closer to they tend to have I'm not saying everybody but they tend to have like a took their high school and middle school overseas gotcha so if I'm hearing you correctly you're saying that we need to get better at computer science well I Absol it on computer science I can I cannot speak for the obiously gotcha gotcha okay um I think that's uh enough for now um thank you superintendent prto um I will just I just have a few quick comments um one is a not related to anything particular for this meeting or recently but I did want to make it known I've over the years I've had a number of interactions with parents in the district on bullying incidents um and I just want to give a compliment um over the years almost every time I have heard that the schools ultimately do what I consider to be the right thing in the situation and I know it's It's tricky at times there's a lot of confidentiality and a lot of privacy issues and it can be really frustrating for parents but um I I just want to put that out because sometimes I don't give compliments as much as I should and um I just want to say that so you know by and large I think we do a good job of addressing things I know it's always going to happen it's always going to come up and I know you're constantly working at it um but many many situations where I've come into contact with someone usually gets worked out and It's tricky to do I know but um I want to put in another plug as well for the um um the rally tomorrow we you know we as a cc20 we do have an official position on this and so I think it's worth mentioning that the rally at at Tweed tomorrow at noon to ask the panel for educational policy to vote to approve the um the the Pearson contract to administer the specialized high school admission test um there's some issues that have you know this goes back to the also the paper versus computer I know that there's concern that the test is now going to be moving to computer-based um the feedback I've gotten is the doe should have been a little more transparent about the way that they um they they changed the contract they sort of um brought the contract fully formed to the pep um that being said I understand the value of moving things digital I mean I think it has to happen and it might be challenging and there might be bumps but I think we have to do that and so for the shat to be on um and I know that there's accommodations for students um a certain limited number I think in the in the contract if you need paper um but um anyway so I just encourage if anyone can make it tomorrow at noon we need to call on the pep to approve the contract so that students who are preparing for the chasset for next fall have certainty know what they're preparing for um so be there at noon at 52 Chambers um if you can um SCA Capital requests principles please email us cc20 schools.nyc.gov of um there have been emails we've sent out emails to all of you asking for Capital requests we will um submit those at our January meeting um um and then last I'll just make a note about CEC elections coming up um in January is the time frame and um I think there's a website set up for that now the doe has rolled out a website for C elections for the 2025 2027 term and I encourage um parents to um get more information if you're thinking about running for a c um to to run and get involved um and that is it for my president's report um second public speaking session we'll now hold our public hey Tam you have your hand raised yeah I would like to just give um information about when the the um BP um applications will be open okay um we met with Donovan um yesterday the BP sorry Monday um the BP um application for um requests for the schools will be open January 1 so I want everybody to be very aware of that and I believe he said it's going to be closed like was it like the middle of February um something like that but so just so you um our schools are aware that um there this is a second app um a second funding stream where you you can um apply to to get funding for any requests um that you're you're interested in doing but one of the things that um Donovan told us was to make sure that you actually get specific numbers for what um you're trying to request as capital plan like specific numbers because what happens is if the numbers like a little bit below sometimes they're not going to request might be denied because you're not you don't have the the appropriate um amount of funding for it to get it done so um I will be contacting my schools to make sure that they have a list of everything so hopefully is there any way like the the CSA could give us like number-wise you know with their um their Capital planning they like you know like a gym would be like a certain amount Auditorium would be like a certain amount are they able to get us like number-wise for like what those specific numbers are for our schools ahead of time that way we could be prepared for for adding like say say that again Tam Tamar what was the ask can the was it the sca yeah because you know how like when when they do their prop when they do their presentation they normally let us know like like a Auditorium cost this much or like you know a hydroponic you know thing cost this much like specific numbers that we that we have them for our schools so because if we if we're doing these Capital requests especially when it comes to the BP we we want to make sure that they give the correct number so they could actually get the funding that they need that ways not below the number so they won't get like denied or something like that so send it to make sure all of the principles know have these estimates in so they can better Target their requests yeah yeah I'll I'll reach out to SCA cool and Tamar is there a link or something for the BPS um he has updated it it's not updated yet like it literally opens January 1 and they're still working on it he has to update the the numbers and everything he has to open it for 2025 because the when you go on there it says 2024 right now okay okay thanks um second public speaking do we have anyone signed up again if this is our second public speaking session of the night if there's anyone who would like to speak please sign up using the form I think can we throw the link in the chat again you just put it in the chat um has anyone signed up to speak online no one online anyone in the room want to give another shot um going once public speaking going twice um I think that's probably it so thanks that concludes our second public speaking session um should we approve the minutes from last meeting so everyone please review the minutes and let's if there's any changes please speak up this I I really don't care about this but it says Steven Stow first vice president it doesn't matter you've been demoted I've been demoted thanks a lot Kevin I think you have to get rid of first just in general because I think it should just be just say yeah for for I think okay is that that's the okay yeah [Music] um any changes to the minutes okay the minutes are approved um we can now adjourn the calendar meeting as there a motion to adjourn second all in favor yes