I'm going to pull up my slide. Hold on. Share screen. Dr. Mike, let me know if we have more parents joining. Okay. As for now, I always Yeah, I I'll watch it and I'll admit people as um as I see them. Jenny.
Okay. Awesome. Thank you so much. Welcome everyone to our April um DPAC meeting. Uh it is now 6:03 and I officially call this meeting to order. This is the agenda for tonight. Um welcoming by me and then we're going
to have Dr. Denona or deput superintendent doing the monthly uh superintendences report and then we're going to introduce the DPAC members for our new um new members in this group and then we're going to go through the DPAC bylaws. We were able to um review it
last time and share that with all our members. But today, we're going to make some changes. We're going to update it and um so and if we don't meet quorum, we're going to bring it up again next month at our DPACK meeting for um for consensus to reach consensus. But we're going to go through it and then I'm
going to give out a little CC election update and some upcoming up meetings. Katherine, sorry. Okay. So um so that we have some meeting norms that the meeting will start and end on time. Um there will
only be one speaker at a time and this is a safe space to speak. Um try to wait one two three and then me. If you spoke already allow three people to speak before you um speak again and we all
respect each other here. uh be present and engaged and involved. I'm gonna pull up the minutes from March meeting. Give me one second. I have to find it right here. I'm going to scroll through it
slowly. Is it big enough? M. Yeah, you might want to increase the size a little bit, Jenny. Better. Yeah. Okay. I'm just going to let um our members read it. I'm going to scroll through it slowly.
Okay. And I'm going to stop sharing. Um, can we reach a uh consensus on the March BPAC meeting uh minutes? Are we are we eight now? Can we make motion to approve? Uh, we are not eight. Not me and Dr. Mike and Mrs. Sarin does not. We
do not count. Yeah. Right now looks like you have five Catherine. Okay, that means we cannot get Yeah. And you'll probably have to table these to next time, but you know, you know, getting a good thumbs up from those that are here too is is fine as well. All
right. Um, let me go back to the PowerPoint. Dr. you up next. Okay, sure. Hi folks. Um, pleasure to see you guys. Going to go through um my report, share a few of the things that did happen in April. Um, love shining a light on some of the exciting things that have have
been made available to our kids um over the over the past month. And going to dig in a little bit around just some things that you should be aware of around uh C development. our schools are are getting into that space of organizing for next year's C. It's it's
really amazing to think that we're here in May. Um, tomorrow, May 1st. It's it's really wild how quickly these years tend to come and go. Um, and then I'm going to talk to you a little bit about what I have in mind for goals going into next school year. Uh, get a little bit of
your perspective. uh if you're willing to share uh some ideas that you think that I should also be keeping in mind as we organize our own district comprehensive education plan. Um and um and that'll be that. We'll go through through my my portion. If you guys have any questions or recommendations, I
certainly welcome uh welcome them. So just a few things updates and reminders. I briefly mentioned our our uh focus on um focus on L's and the ELA sprints. Uh those are things that that
our kids went through this past uh past six weeks uh across the district. So I'll mention that and then just some DCP goal uh goal review with each of you. Um just a reminder upcoming events. We have a virtual math uh workshop series comes
to a conclusion on Wednesday May 28th. Uh that is our uh fourth in the series. This one's around implementing a shared curriculum. Um Beth Eaton from our team is going to talk to you guys a little bit around uh the math curriculum that has been um identified as a district
community that we'll be using uh in large part in our middle schools and I'll talk more about that when we get to the DC goal. Uh but we have identified Amplify the Amplify math curriculum. That's going to be a grade six to eight program primarily. Uh but schools that are departmentalized in the elementary
school grades, uh we've encouraged them to to do that as well. And I'll mention a little bit more of that shortly. Um I Ready uh workshop uh session on Tuesday, June 17th. Uh this is for all families, but certainly families that are not as
equipped um with managing the I Ready platform. Uh we encourage everyone that that uh is interested to attend. We have laptops available and um we have folks from I ready that come in the event that someone's not sure what to do, how to manage it, uh questions that they have
from it. So, uh, important resource there. And we do a similar one for Aadians, um, for K and one and then we do a separate one for grade two as the Acadian assessment changes at the as the year goes on. And it's important for our parents to know what those differences
are and how a child earns that either uh, above benchmark, at benchmark, below benchmark, or well below benchmark. So, it's really important information that's shared and we encourage our families to attend if they if they are able. uh enrollment timelines. We are past the
first four of them um which the the latest one is around summer rising. Those um results were just shared uh with families last week. So we do want to make sure that our folks are uh aware of that because there is a deadline for accepting. Uh what has happened in the
past is folks would uh would put in an application and then not say anything and then unfortunately not attend um over the summer and they would wind up taking up a seat for folks that really really could have benefited from from that seat. Um so we do ask that any
family that did receive a um acceptance into one of these uh programs that they either accept or decline just so that it it opens up other uh children up to other children on the wait list. Um May 13th, prek offers will be released and
Tuesday, May 20th, 3K offers will be released. Uh we are right in the midst of testing season. Uh as you guys know, um we have gone through the ELA assessment, knockwood, without any uh any issues to date. Um our kids just
finished taking paperbased part um uh today for children in uh in grades three and seven. Um all others are computer-based from April 22nd to May 2nd uh for ELA. Math begins May 6th
through the 16th uh for grades four, five, 6, and 8th. And uh paperbased May 7th and 8th. And again, those decisions are locally decided upon whether or not it's going to be all grade levels do CBT or they have uh some that have chosen to
do uh to do that otherwise uh for their kids in grades three and seven. science computer-based testing May 13th through the 16th and that's for grades 5 and 8. Um D25 had their opening botchi
ceremony. Uh this was held in the Bronx. children from across our uh our middle schools. Um and uh 219 uh which uh Leah, I'm happy that you're here to see that this part of it, but uh we're really proud of being one of four districts
that participate in um in the Botchi League here in New York City. um children that um you know uh from uh neuro neurotypical children uh and our general population uh engage in sport together. It's really just an amazing
amazing experience um for our kids where they get to compete with one another. Amazing friendships, relationships are developed because of this and that really amazing opportunity to compete with one another is really really cool. Um, so we're looking to continue to expand this um over the next several
years, but this is an event that that did just occur in April. Um, and it's really really great work. Uh, we had our tier expo um in the first week of April. We have school uh teams from across our district participate. This was again
another amazing event for our kids. Um, big shout out to our schools, coaches, district team members. Um, and Diana Stein from our team. You're going to hear me mention her name a number of times as as the next set of slides are based on the work that she does. Uh, but
this was really really well done. Um, as uh our kids get to showcase their skills. Uh, we had our on April 9th and the 11th that was our elementary school all-star game. Um, this was held um at um Townsen Harris. uh for one of the one
of the uh the sites and Bayside uh high school, another one uh where we held our championship games and um our all-star game. And on the 11th, I also had an opportunity to participate. I was part of the halftime halftime show and what
made me realize is how out of shape I am. I only got to shoot for one minute and I could not breathe afterwards. So, uh it has encouraged me to start exercising, which I have not started yet, but it is on my mind. It is most definitely on my mind because I could not breathe after just one minute of shooting. Uh needless to say, this was a
really great um uh experience for for our kids, for our coaches um and most importantly for the kids. What I really appreciate most about this is children that are not even in the same school are participating on the same court and you
just see what's been taught to them about teamwork, working together, um collaboration. It it's it it's so cool to watch kids that have never played basketball with one another before get on the court and know how to how it is to op operate as a team. So, um really
really great work and looking to continue this moving forward uh into future years. We have 22 schools that participate across our district. This is unlike what you'd see anywhere else. Um you know, and it's a testament to the work of of our district principles and
Diana from our team. We also had for the very first time a pilot girls basketball league in middle school. Uh we did this with three uh three middle schools. We're looking to grow this next year. Um but also amazing amazing work that's
happened and come from from that league. Allowing our young ladies the opportunity to participate in sport um in this way in our middle schools is awesome. Uh youth leadership team. Um so we meet on a monthly basis with a group
of kids across our district. Uh part of their work is actually going to be very much connected to the um CEC and the the wellness collaboration that we're engaging on. And uh this particular group of kids decided that they wanted to bring together children from across
our district. So, student council representatives from all of our middle schools uh will be going on May 20 or May I think the dates changed on May 30th uh to Adelfi University um and at Adelfi University. They're going to be meeting with um a former uh Boston Red
Sox and a bos a former New England Patriot um who's going to be talking to them about the importance of of physical wellness, mental wellness uh and the like. Um they'll also be meeting with uh the arts department there. It's going to be connecting with them with the arts.
Uh kind of really talking about the whole child. And the goal of that is that from that student council representatives do have to come back to their school to kind of talk about how they're going to be connecting with their peers across the building around the importance of wellness to really continue to bolster this mindset around
the importance of we know that when things come from kids uh it tends to hit home a bit more than when it's just from the adults. So, um, that will be happening real soon. Really excited about that. Um, I've also been fortunate to
receive, um, some arts funding, which doesn't always happen, uh, with the district. We usually goes to the schools. Um, but I did receive some money and um, because of that, we have a number of things that I've been able to secure with Flushing Town Hall, uh, the
Arts Connection Studio in a school and Broadway show tickets uh, for uh, for students and families and CA and, uh, buildings to experience. So, I've been able to secure two community arts days that will happen. uh Chinese dance and
musical assemblies from uh Flushing Town Hall, Mexican Dance Assembly, Colombian Dance uh Colombian music assembly, uh Chinese juggling assembly, western African dance and drumming assembly. Uh we have a China patterns dance assembly
that's going to be taking place um in collaboration with uh Arts Connection. Uh kids are going to have an opportunity to go to Betty Boop, uh Operation Mincemee, uh Buenav Vista Social Club, and Aladdin. Um so the the first three,
the Betty Boop, Operation Minsme, and Buenav Vista. I put our schools into a spinny wheel. And uh the wheel has made their choice around schools that are going to have an opportunity because I unfortunately don't have uh an unlimited budget. So it's a small number of schools that are going to be able to get
the Broadway shows. Um, but we do have uh I think it's five schools that have been selected for Betty Boop, Operation Mins, Meet, and Buenav Vista. and Aladdin is going to be tied into um an attendance incentive um for the month of
May which um identified schools for kids that are are in the range of 90% to 100% uh they will have an opportunity to again in a randomized kind of selection get a chance to go to see Aladdin with a parent. Uh so a student plus a parent uh
will be able to have access to that in a way to kind of promote the arts and um this this funding's actually given me a lot to think about. You know, we've been really bolstering our uh athletics program uh and we do amazing things for the arts, but we don't nearly celebrate
it as as in a way that we should um and promote it as much. So there will be more to follow on this. I just have to start organizing my thinking around how we build and create district-wide opportunities for our kids to show showcase their their musical talents,
their arts talents, their their theater talents. Um they're often just held in-house in their own schools. And I think it would be really amazing for for our parents to also see that showcased on a larger level. Um so that's something I do have in my mind and hopefully we can build that out going
into next uh next school year. But at any rate, those are some of the things that I was able to get accomplished with the arts dollars that we do have uh that were made available to me. Uh just ELA sprint init uh initiative just so that everyone um is
aware of this. I know it was shared during the previous meeting, but just so for everyone's knowledge, uh we did do a sprint in grades 3 to 5 and 6 to 8. uh in relation to I Ready, we did encourage our kids to engage in 30 to 50 minutes worth of work throughout the week um to
support and and uh you know build them towards uh preparation for the remainder of the year and and uh promote that space of reading proficiency as a district community. Uh we did see you know on average 74 minutes per week in our elementary schools and 49 minutes
per week in our middle schools. Uh so was happy to see that our kids were active and on uh the program to support their learning needs. Uh setting the stage for DC uh and C just so that everyone knows this is the timeline for our com uh uh
comprehensive education plans to be completed. We are right now in the window of of root cause analysis. What's going on with our students in our schools and um also starting to plan those preliminary goals are happening
right now. So this month in particular, your SLTs should be talking to you about uh about goal setting for next school year. What are we thinking? What went well this year? What does it mean for plans into next school year? Um and then by June, all schools should have their
preliminary goals established aligned with what uh what the new budget will look like. Um and uh and ready to go for me to approve uh in July. Uh so I have to certify alignment of goals to budget
by July. So that's the expectation that uh that is made available to us. And this is also around state guidelines, right? So it's not just a city thing. This is about guidelines to making sure that we're we're uh aligned with state expectations for uh education plans. Um
so we we are always right on top of this. This is something that is an expectation aside from the state. It's an expectation from me to our building leaders to make sure that we're ready to go uh for that along with our SLTs. So what does it mean in terms of planning for next year? Um this data I
did share at the most recent CEC meeting uh as well as president's council meeting. I think it's important for us to linger over over this um and why I believe it's important for district 25 to really attend to the needs of our English language learners. Um we have
nearly 66% uh 6600 plus children in district 25 are uh children that speak languages other than English. Um, and because of that, it makes up over nearly 28% of
district 25 students. And they tend to also be the children that perform the lowest here in district 25. And it's not because of capacity. It's just because they haven't necessarily had enough time learning the English language, you know, uh, having the exposure to text at
levels that they are able to read in the English language. Um, so it's important for us to continue to elevate and accelerate as much as we possibly can uh to support the needs of this particular subgroup of learners. Um, and the the reason I say that is
because we don't get all of them just in kindergarten. All of our L's don't come in just in K. They don't come in just in grade 1. We get our L's across years. So when a child comes to us in grade three or four absent the English language, it takes that much more for them to become
equipped as readers. Um and for me, I don't want them leaving district 25 and getting going into high school absent that space. So there's lots of work that we do have to do and we've been doing a lot um this year and I'm going to talk to you about that in just a moment when
we talk about performance. And here's one of the other reasons why. So midyear I ready we were at around 48% of our kids on or above grade level. That includes all kids. When we remove our English language learners from that from that equation we have nearly 62.4% of our kids that are currently
honor or above grade level. Um you can see a huge difference when we're talking about overall children multiple grade levels below standard uh comparatively speaking to all students. And then when you look at our L's, the the performance drastically changes in terms of
um capacity to meet standards when taking an I Ready assessment. You can see the large range of children that are three or more grade levels below. Most of those children are children that are entering and emerging uh in our schools. Um and you know it
tells a story around why it's important for us to continue to emphasize this particular subgroup of children. Now what we paid attention to quite significantly this year was around building those decoding skills of our L's and what you see as a result are
lots of positive outcomes from last year this time to this year this time and now this is the MOI we'll have new data within the next month that I'll share with you around how our kids performed on the whole by the end of the year but what we have seen are positive things in
relation to the foundational skill development particularly for our English language learners which says that we're doing things differently that are impacting in a more positive direction with all of these things connected to phonics high frequency words for our early childhood
children nonsense word fluency which is really around that they can decode um when letters are put together that don't really make up a word but they're able to decode it gives us a clue as to that they're able to do that with more with more fluency which is really really good. The trouble
that we now see is now that we're building some of those foundational skills is now how do we start elevating their capacity to read that complex text with more fluency so that they can comprehend um as learners. So for us as a district we're seeing that the use of
decodables has influenced the positive change. Now it's from the decodables to continue to build in that space where the our kids can comprehend what it is that's in front of them. So uh it's a it's a positive but also a learning that we have to keep doing that but also
build on it as well as a district community. So where did this bring us? It brings us to two spaces of uh of for goal setting for priority one with all students learn to read well. So, this has been revised a bit from the uh the first round of goals based on feedback
that I've received from uh from parents and from uh from our building leaders. And uh so priority one is really around strengthening instruction inside of our classrooms, making sure that we're making really strong database decisions and using the instructional
resources that we have and that is foundations heard and the HMH curriculum uh so that we're supporting our kids as much as we possibly can. Now percentages are going to change uh based on what I see at the end of the year benchmark.
Um, I'm going to make some adjustments there for, you know, based on what we we learn from our kids. The subgroups in particular that we're attending to here are our Hispanic learners, are our black learners, are our students with disabilities, uh, just based on past
performance of our kids. uh we do need to continue to elevate and keep our mind's eye on how are we supporting growth for uh yes for our all student subgroup uh for all children but but queuing into kids that we need to make sure are
elevating and then secondly uh and just as important is the focus on our English language learners uh that we're elevating their performance levels uh particularly on the nislat which calls for the four modalities if you're not
aware of this the our L's get tested on the nicest lad as well and it covers four components listening speaking reading and writing in order for our children to either be identified as entering emerging transitioning expanding or commanding and what we
really want to bolster is the standalone time that our kids get. So, our L's get services for either four or eight periods of instruction uh additional instruction from an L provider. If they are an L
that is an entering and emerging student, they get eight periods of instruction. Four of them are intended to be standalone. What we what I have found uh is is necessary is that we dig deeper into the standalone instruction so that when those kids are receiving
that additional time they're build we're building doing a good job of building their language and that includes foundational skills as well as their ability to read and to write. So that in a nutshell is where we are with this. You don't have to answer or give me
feedback necessarily today, but I do ask that you go back to this slide to these slides and and say, "Mike, what do you think about uh I really do welcome that space of conversation because it it helps us get better uh at what we're doing." So, you know, please lean into
this. These are not, you know, stamped and said this is exactly what it'll be. I do welcome the feedback in uh in these areas, but this is where I'm leaning be based on what we've learned this year and what we're seeing in terms of performance from our
kids. Uh secondly, uh priority two uh really want to continue to dig in around uh implementation of uh the mind program that we have. What we have seen is that relationships are things that we need to build. Uh, and what I've learned um
throughout the year that we have to add more time in for is the program does have things called conversation starters uh inside of the program which allows kids to just have conversations with one another um and build those positive relationships. Uh I do think we have to
do a better job of that inside of our buildings. Um so part of the the focus around physically and emotionally safe is around that the implementation of the social emotional learning program that we have. Um I think sometimes we have things like community agreements but
they're not used as they should be. Um so there are going to be more tweaks that we add to the curriculum program that we have for SEAL with the goal of improving those relationships between our kids especially our middle schoolers uh moving into this
year. Uh, priority three is going to be dedicated to math and implementation of the amplify curriculum, primarily our grades six to eight. And we're going to lean into our kids for that are departmentalized as well. Um, but this is a a goal mostly for our middle
schools so that we're implementing this program uh as it is intended uh with the instructional shifts in mind uh to improve outcomes for our learners across the board. Again, these these percentages will shift based on what we see for our endyear diagnostics and
state assessment data as well. This one I love um still has to be teased out. Uh but we've been doing a really good job of growing civics work across the district and promoting student voice. Uh project soapbox is evident across every school in district
25 where our kids are able to do some research uh and take a stand. Um what my goal is here um all of our kids by the time they leave 8th grade have the ability to receive the state seal of civic
readiness. Um and we can and should be able to do that for every single one of our eighth graders here in district 25. So the goal is in order to do that our kids have to participate in a in project soapbox and engage in an action
project. So for me that's one of my goals. I think in order for our kids to be civically ready, um they need to have these experiences. Um and what we've what we have added to our CEC meetings and Katherine has been been a part of this is we've been having our kids come
and share their calls to action and um I can't speak for anyone else. I I'll just tell you that they're really great. It's really amazing to listen to our youngest of learners. We had a a a second grader um come speak in front of us like an
expert and it's amazing the power that they have in their voices. So, this is a space that I want to continue to grow and develop. I think our kids have a have an amazing opportunity to use their voice and um we I want to continue to push that across our schools. And the
most recent example of that was at PS32. Um, they did receive a uh a letter in the mail talking to them about water quality and students from the student council did a full-on push across the building and they sent letters to the
facilities managers across um across the department of education. And what wound up happening is they grades three, four, and five then had an assembly with the leaders of that work to explain to them how it is that they know that their the
water is safe in their schools and what they need to be able to do to notify them when they feel that there's an area of concern. So, um it was really really great and all based on the power of a student student voice. Uh they were able to do that across across their school and that's what we want to promote
across every one of our buildings. Uh couple of questions here around safe for college and things that we might want to see for science and technology. I leave it as a question mark to come back to you with in May. Uh things that you would want to see us have a goal for when it when it comes to that. Um moving
into next month, I ask you guys to reflect on that a little bit. Um and the last two ones around parent engagement. Um any recommendations that you have in regards to parent engagement, things that we should be thinking about as a district. I think we've done an a really
good job this year of opening our schools uh much more than what they what they've been in the past. Our schools are doing things like open houses, first Fridays, welcoming Wednesdays, together Tuesdays, marvelous Mondays, you name it. Our schools have come up with the the the language for
it. Um and we've seen many more families in our schools because of that. Um, but if there are other things that we would want to see in terms of parent engagement, parent empowerment, progress monitoring, I would love to hear your feedback on that and ways that we can get better. Um, and lastly, to close
out, the last goal that we're going to stay attending to is chronic absenteeism. Uh, for those of you who have been at any session with me in the past, you know, I mentioned this. Our kids can't learn if they're not in school. Um, we have the second highest attendance rate in New York City. um the
second best chronic absenteeism rate in the city. Uh but even saying that we still have 18% of our kids that are chronically out. That's way too high of a number. Um and we have to do do a better job of connecting with our families, providing the supports
necessary. Um I can't, you know, say this enough. I'm not telling anyone to have their kids come to school when they're sick. Uh but we're going to continue to work on it to offer the supports uh for when those our are other days that that come across and um we choose to keep our kids home instead of
having them come to school. Um but other than that, those that's my that's my report for today. Um would love any feedback that anyone has on any of these goals. Um it doesn't have to be today, but I I do ask if you if you wouldn't
mind read through them. um you know any questions that are raised from you, any um wonderings that it brings for you or anything that you feel that I need to think about differently with the team uh our principles and APs, please share because our schools do take um note from
from me um at the district level around how our school goals are going to be created. Uh but so anyone has any questions or feedback for me, I'd love to hear it and I will stop sharing now. And you know, we can certainly do a round for any of you that that would like to um share your thoughts.
Hi, I'm coming to you as a teacher's perspective. Okay. Yeah. A teacher and a parent. So I personally I teach prek and I taught 3k last year and every day when I do circle time our transition we do
foundations. Mhm. I know it's not technically supposed to be done in prek but I will tell you it makes a huge difference and if we started in prek by the time we get to kindergarten we should be that much further ahead in reading. Yeah. You know what Stacy? One
of the things that we did did talk about they have a version um not so much with foundations they do have a prek version of heard okay uh which is around the the phmic awareness part of uh of foundational skill
development that we have been discussing um and um I do think it's worth us talking a little bit more out about at the district level. I appreciate that. Yeah, because even today, like I did a lesson with my kids about we're in the gardening unit and we were labeling our
drawings and I said, "Okay, we're going to sound out the words." And my kids when I'm sounding it out, we're spelling out the words for me in prek, which is what we do in kindergarten. So, if we started at the prek level, we're hoping that that will help, you know, the kids
move forward, you know? Of course. Yeah. So the earlier we can start them, I get it at prek, not every kid is ready, but if we introduce it to them, it makes it that much easier. I I always think about the the how we do it, right? Is the the how and when we incorporate some of
those things. Um, I think uh the the prek pre-K landscape um does create a lot of opportunities which I which I do appreciate for kids to engage in that productive play and you as a prek teacher know how valuable that is too,
right? Uh as to to to make sure that we we create that balance of opportunity so that um we don't take away from the the the those things that happen with that social development for our kids in prek. So the way I started, I'll be honest, is
I start with their letters of their friends. Okay? So whatever the first letter of all the kids' names, and that's how they transition off the rug. So that so it's organic. They're learning their letters, they're learning their friends letters by, let's say,
November, December, then I'll start to add in the rest of the alphabet. And then by January, I start with the sounds. Yeah, I think it's uh I think it's a great point. I I just noted that. So, thank you for that. The earlier we start, the better. The stronger readers
we get. No. Yeah. Listen, that's what we're here to do, right? Is to build our kids so that they're ready by third grade. Yeah. Um, you know, to be reading with fluency. Yeah. Yeah. Love that. Okay. That's just my thought as a teacher and a parent. No, I love it. I
really appreciate it. No problem. Any other any other thoughts or um or comments? And again, it, you know, some of these things you do need to digest. I said a lot in a short period of time. Um, so if there's there's something that hits you after that you want to send me
an email or um bring it up during the next meeting, I would love I would really love to hear your your thoughts. Uh um I just want to piggyback a little bit off of the foundations, but and then I'm going to say something else about the Flushing House, but um I think
anytime we can give our kids more exposure, I think it's great. But I think that uh all the way up for kindergarten and first grade, the K I can't really speak about exactly what's going on in preK right now. I know how it was when my daughter was there. Um but in they in
kindergarten and first grade, the kids are sitting a lot. Mhm. They sit for a long time going through the foundations and the heerty and the whole um ELA lesson. Um and I would just hate to see
more play taken away from the kids because really lost a lot of it. Yeah. So, you know what, Catherine, I think one of the the things and it's important it's it's important you said that is that um schools have been trying to find those really really smart creative ways
that uh they're bringing in those opportunities to to get around and move and um and not have to be you know kind of um you know in that stationary space without having that flexibility. So, you know, you'll see you'll see schools now
in kind of uh you know, bringing in some of those move to improve spaces or, you know, they'll they'll incorporate, you know, movement into their into their space where it's a little bit more of that play uh and not necessarily, you know, so restrictive in a you know, one
next next. And yeah, because we we do know that especially for our little ones, we got to get them moving around a little bit. Moving and socializing. moving around and socializing, learning how to like really get along with each other and and um and and be a friend and learn work
out their differences. Yeah, 100%. Yeah. Um but I thought the Flushing House I was really excited to hear that you are working with them on a bunch of arts initiatives. I think that um they um and I'm really excited about all the stuff that you're bringing in from Broadway,
too. and can't wait to hear which schools got picked. Yeah, just know just know that I could not do it for everyone. I know. I heard I heard my fingers. I could not do it for everyone. It was not it was not a large enough amount of money for for me
to do it for everyone. But um you know what what it does you know hopefully allow for if if if given another opportunity moving into into next year and and kind of maximizing the you know what we can do for for what my goal was they just couldn't do it. What I was
hoping to do with the money Katherine was you know create like these larger district opportunities uh but they just couldn't they they couldn't uh offer that. So most of these are, you know, like little spot assemblies that they can do for smaller groups of kids. Um, so it's not going to
hit home the way that I was hoping, but it's at least a start to do to do some fun stuff. Um, but yes, unfortunately, it's not everyone. No, it's still great. It's a great Yeah, it's still great that some even some of the kids are getting to do it. Yeah.
Yeah, for sure. Anyone else? And the last thing I just want to share with you is that we just had at um Bell Academy 169 a recruitment fair um for
district 25. We're going to be hiring um quite a bunch more teachers uh in district. uh we had 500 registrants um and a waiting list of about 170 um for for this this event and it was really
really great. Um our building leaders were able to connect with with uh candidates from uh a wide range of uh certification areas from special education, L the arts, sciences, math. Um, so, uh, for me, and I said this
during the CEC meeting, uh, that once we got the word that schools were going to be needing more folks, we kind of, you know, it gave me the green light to to get moving. And in short order, we were able to put together a um, a recruitment fair. And it was so very well attended
and um well um wellreceived by those that went, meaning the the folks that went to uh as candidates, but also our building leaders. We're really excited to have that opportunity. So, just to give you guys a little bit of of knowledge that we uh we did do that and
um we you know we're hopeful that because of that the relationships that were built initially will result in follow-up uh interviews and and demo lessons so that we have um you know the the best teachers that we possibly can have in front of our
kids going into September. Uh so just so that that everyone knows that we we did do that and it was a quite a big success. And that concludes my my stick. Thank you very much Dr. Mike. I just want to let you know at one point we did
meet corum but then one parent has another meeting to attend so she left. Okay, let me share the my presentation. Katherine, do you see my screen? Yes, I see it.
Okay. So, do you want to introduce the the B25 DPAC chair members or district members? Sure. So, I am Katherine St. Pierre and I am the chairperson for the
DPAC and um we actually have a vacancy as the alter. I moved up from being the alternate when our chairperson um fortunately had to resign. So, that left the vacancy in my seat. So, if anybody would like to um volunteer for the next two months for that position, that would
be greatly appreciated. Um and we also have Crystal Gonzalez as our secretary. Okay. So, today's meeting is also um where we're going to review I mean we review it under our March meeting DEPA meeting. uh we have to um
so um the DPACK bylaws need to be reviewed on an annual basis and this one has not been reviewed for a while. So today we we're going to meet and review it and make amendments and vote on it. But since we don't meet quorum, we can still review it and then we will bring it up on our next meeting to be voted
on. U I'm going to re I'm going to bring it up to all of you. This will also be shared with everyone once it's uh reached consensus and signed by our DPAC chairperson Katherine which is Katherine. Um so on our last month's
meeting I was able to share this same um bylaws with everyone and have everyone review it to see if there's any changes that needs to be made. Uh Katherine and I also met the only um chains that we would like to
uh we would like to do is let me find it. So this is a two years term. So whoever who get elects on on elected next next time on our 2025 2026 school year will be sitting here for two years. Katherine um were replaced by Mr.
Mitchell who were, you know, who unfortunately couldn't join us. So, Katherine moved um from alternate to the chairperson, but she's finishing Mr. Mitchell's term, which will be June 2025. Um we were our um one of the
amendments that we were going to do is change the quorum from eight members to five members. Since we do not meet quorum today, uh we will bring it up again on our May um DPAC meeting. Once this has reached
consensus, Katherine will sign and we will date it and share with all our Title One P members. Does anyone have any questions? Okay, I'm going to move on to my next
slide. Um, these are all our title one schools. We have at this point uh 26 title one schools and we are a total of 34 schools in our district where two of them are being our prek centers.
Um I'm going to provide a little bit update on the CEC elections. In the past few weeks, we have been having um candidate forums where parents can meet the candidates who are running for the CEC. Um right now we are at the CEC
voting um timeline where parents can join um the can join the next account. I mean go to the next account and be placing their votes. you have up to three uh votes. Um I have um used my own
account to show you for an example how to choose your candidates. Hold on. I will go back to this one. So all votes can only go through the Nexa account. This is the only platform that's been used to the CEC voting. Once you sign
in, uh, you will see the students who are the your children who are linked to your account. In my case, I have two linked to my account, Alec and Jaden. On the bottom um, right side, you will see the grade box says vote for CC CEC. When
I click on that, it gives me two options. So, I have Jaden who attends high school and I have Alec who attends a middle school in district 26. So, I would have I have the options to vote for citywide council on
high schools and I have the uh eligibility to vote for community education council for district 26 though. So, let's play around. I was able I click on Alec Chen who um attends the middle school in district 26.
When I click on the under ALEC, I see a bunch of names which are all the candidates who are running for the CEC campaign. These uh folks have already um been uh vetted and gone through the uh
CEC forum which were held held on their president's council's meeting where you can meet them. They will they will ask a few you know a series of questions where you can have have an idea who they are because these people would be the voice of your child's school. So you want to
make sure you place the right vote. Um I to play around I chose the first three names just to see how the next page will look like. When I chose the fourth one it didn't allow me a red box was you know showing me that I couldn't pick more than three uh candidates. So once I
pick the three candidates, I just hit submit. So this is the this is not hard. This is actually very easy. The hardest part for me will be who do I vote for. So if you have any, you know, doubts who you can vote for or who you will vote
for. There's this link on the DOE's website. I will share this link with you. on this do website it, you know, they have listed all the CC from CC one to all the way to CC I believe 30
um 30 something 30 32. So if you want to watch our candidates who who are um running for this CC2, you just go back to CC25, you can watch the recordings.
Okay. Does anyone have any questions? Let me stop sharing because I can't see when I'm presenting. It's all like, you know, I can't see. Does anyone have any questions about the CEC voting part? So, you have it started on April 25th and the last
day to vote for your CEC candidate is May 13. That's the last day to vote for your CEC candidate. And again these parents will be the parent leaders of your school and they will be presenting you know representing your
boys. Katherine is also our one of our CC parent on district 25 and she's also my chair president. Let me go back to the PowerPoint. Um, okay. Upcoming meetings. So, CEC
meetings, uh, as I mentioned before, CEC members, they have monthly meetings with the superintendent. The next meeting will be Wednesday, May 7, 2025. It is an inerson meeting for all CC members. They need to be in person to be counted in
the quorum. Uh, parents or anyone can join the meeting online. There's a there's a hypot.ny. NYC on this link on this website you can find all our um meeting public meetings dates and link to all the
meetings same thing with the president's council same link you will find all our president's council's meeting the next one will be May 19th and it it is a um virtual meeting um our meeting the next meeting will be
held on Thursday, May 29 at 6 o'clock and I, you know, I create this flyer and this fly will be sent out to all the parent coordinator would then would who would then share with all their DPAC um members. These are our um DOE vendors who've been
working with schools when it comes to title one uh 1% set aside plan when parents have you know um would struggle and don't know how to spend that 1% set aside uh title one fund. Uh we have invited a few of them to attend our
monthly meetings so you will be able to meet them and learn more about their programs. Uh most of the programs are aligned with our CP goals. The last visit or guest speaker we have on our meeting was from Turbo Ryan Meal. He was he's he's the founder of Turbo and Turbo
is also a um his program is aligned with SEAL which is social emotional learning. Um and he presented what he does with this toy. It is actually a big giant toy who weighs I don't know five pounds or 10 pounds and it it calms you down. So a
lot of schools have you know decided to buy the Serbbo for their students because this is very calming for those who you know struggles with anxiety and and and other stuff. Um next meeting will then be Thursday May 29 at 6 pm and we again we
have been alternating between Thursdays and Wednesdays you know to make it f flexible for everyone to meet. Um, did I share my Hold on. Let me stop sharing. Or did I not
share at all? I didn't share at all. That's okay. It did stop. It stopped. It was showing and then I don't know what happened. Okay. I'm sorry. That's okay. Jenny, there's a question in the chat about being able to um sort the CEC
candidates by school. Is that an option on the on the um It's not It's by district. It's not by school. It's by district. And all the names are listed in alphabetical order by last name. Yeah, I can I can show the website again
if anyone are interested. So to find the CEC candidate, let me share my screen this time. I did not realize that I didn't share the screen. Okay, so on the DOE's website, I have the link inserted in our
PowerPoint, but if you type in CEC, it will pop up um CEC councils. If I go a few steps back, it will bring me to the candidates, I believe, here
citywide. Let's go to CC council. There's a there's a link where you can view all the candidates. Queens. Let's go to Queens 25. Oh, these are our current these are
our current CC members. But there is a way to view all the CC, you know, um CC members who were running. I just need to find the right link. Oh, I'm going to stop sharing for now.
If you use my PowerPoint and click on that link, that will bring you up to the recordings. It has two link. One link was for the recordings. The other link was to view all the candidates. Now, we just need folks to vote. The voting period ends on March on
May 13. Um I think I forgot to show one slide. Let me show one more slide which was from today's uh data. Hold
up. One more slide and then I'll promise I'll be done. So this was from today. Does everyone see my screen? Did I did I share my my PowerPoint? Yes, we can see it. You can see it,
Jenny. This was from this morning. Actually, it was shared from face this morning, which is uh the people behind the CC elections. The blue color is from two years ago. So, as you know, CC election goes every every other year.
So, and this these are the dates for se for April. So the first one is April 25 and the 26, 27, 28, 29. On April 28, we see a huge bump on the orange color which is 2025. So they were you know they were
thanking all the schools, they were thanking all the principles and the parent coordinator who were sharing and doing their outreach because this number means a lot to them. So just want to share the good news with everyone. Let me stop sharing. That's it from my end. Does anyone have any
questions? Did we meet corum? No, we did not. That means we have to bring up the um the bylaws amendments for our main meeting and I'm going to table the minutes again for the main meeting. Dr. Mike, you have want to say anything? No, just saying I'm I'm a highly competitive
guy and I want to make sure that, you know, we get out there and vote so that it so that we represent the way that district 25 should. Always at the top of the heap. Oh, let's talk about our voting party at district uh at PS32. So, each district are asked to
have a voting party to make it festive. You know, when when voting, you also want to make it fun, right? Like how we normally vote for the president. So, presidency. So each district are asked to have a voting party. We're going to have our FPS32. The date is May 12th. So please
keep an eye on the flyer. It going to be sent out very very soon. And we're going to make it fun. We're going to have some photo props and have those I voted stickers and face going to come and support us. So please keep an eye out on the flyer. That's it from
me. Oh, thank you, Arati. Arretti is from PS21. I work with Arati for many, many years. She just put a text in a in a chat. Thank you for supporting and thank you for pushing. Katherine, do you have any comments? Do you want to add anything?
Did I forget anything? No, I think you covered everything, Jenny. Everything. All right. Again, I apologize for not sharing the screen before, but again, I will share these PowerPoints with you. It will be on D25's website under DPAC and under
share documents. So, it should be, you know, accessible for everyone. And I thank you for everyone for attending today's meeting and for being a part of the Dpack. So, thank you. Thank you so much and we're going to adjourn the meeting. It is 7:01. Thank you everyone. Everyone have a
great night. Good night everyone. Good night everyone. Thank you so much for being here. Great job.