Board of Education Meeting Recap
September 10, 2024
We are excited to welcome Talijah Davis as our 2024-25 student representative. Ms. Davis is a senior at Suffern High School and involved in a wide variety of activities including Heroes and Cool Kids (HACK), Peer Leadership, Athletics (Basketball and Track), and is President of the National History Honor Society. She also does the PR for the Class of 2025. Talijah will report each meeting on the happenings of SHS.
Last night she spoke about a variety of topics including:
- Reconnecting with teachers and friends
- HACK meeting for 11th and 12th graders this week to be mentors to middle schoolers
- This year's phone policy: It's an adjustment, but has been helpful to teachers and students
- Colleges are visiting our school during lunch. The schedule is posted in the schools and online.
- Meet the Teacher Night is next Thursday, September 19
- Spirit Week and Homecoming are a few weeks away - tickets will go on sale next week.
Dr. Gundersen spoke about the newly restructured school buildings and the positive energy being shared by teachers, staff and students in the buildings. School-wide activities are taking place and teachers had their first extended day where teachers collaborated with all of their grade-level teams to continue to build consistency across the district. He spoke about the challenges we are experiences with transportation, but that each day is better than the last. Thank you to our transportation team for working to rectify issues as they come up and our principals who are working to make sure procedures for dismissal are efficient.
Lastly, Dr. Gundersen presented our District priorities for the upcoming school year. Those include:
- Fostering a Sense of Belonging (See below for details)
- Improving Operations in the areas of:
- Communications: timely information across the board
- Facilities: Building by building approach and focusing on cleanliness and cosmetic improvements, beginning with Suffern Middle School
- Technology: Systems integration, future of school issued devices
- Registration & Residency: Streamlining the process and implementing a residency renewal program to ensure our public that the students that attend here, reside here.
- Curriculum & Instruction
- Bi-lingual programming improvements
- Implemented Science of Reading and CKLA curriculum in elementary schools
- New SMS Schedule to enhance experience piloted this year
- SHS Portrait of a Graduate - what we're looking for our students to achieve when they graduate
- Capital Project Investigation: Need to upgrade our aging facilities, bringing people together to take a look at facilities and focus on secondary schools to update and modernize those spaces
Enhancing Student's Sense of Belonging
"A student's sense of belonging improves academic outcomes, increases continuing enrollment and is protective in mental health." - The Learning Lab at MIT
Director of School Counseling and Wellness, Mrs. Sarah Kern, presented on the district goal of Belonging during last night's meeting, exploring how we are all Suffern Mounties and all connected. She began with a recap of the Panorama survey that was given last year around Social Emotional Learning (grades 3-12) and Belonging (grades 6-12) both of which are connected to the New York State standards.
Results were varied by school depending on topic, but that all students pretty much answered similarly - and couldn't find any significant difference across all demographic groups. Through these surveys, goals were created for this school year in each of our six school buildings.
Why Belonging? In Suffern we have an increase in students with diverse backgrounds, increase in linguistic diversity and a restructured elementary experience that connects students in different ways. We want this school district to be one where all kids feel like they belong.
Mrs. Kern also spoke about a character, our mini mountie, that will be leading the SEL curriculum in the K-2 buildings. It isn't a mascot, but a friend to help students learn and understand SEL through 20 lessons that will be rolled out in classrooms this year.
Lastly, she spoke about the Well-Being Intern program, a group of students at SHS that, in a variety of ways, help students (K-12) feel like they belong. This program, we're excited to say, will be expanded this year. New recruits (both English and Spanish speaking cohorts) at SHS, a group of students at SMS, and eventually, we will bring in students from the 3-5 buildings.
Additionally, keep an eye out for the Fall Excelsior: Back to School Guide that should be in mailboxes this week.
And, if you are around on Sunday, stop by the Suffern Street Fair and visit the Suffern Central School District booth!
This year marks the third year of our successful Mountie Minds Advisory Council and we are again seeking volunteers to serve in the group. Mountie Minds meets four times a year, and this year, we'll be exploring topics that include: bilingual education, K-12 school counseling curriculum, the Portrait of a Graduate initiative, and possible facilities upgrades with a bond referendum.
The past two years of meetings have provided the District valuable insight from its members and helped guide many of the programs and initiatives we have put in place to date. This year, we are seeking new members to represent our community and give voice to the needs of families, students and residents of our District. If you are interested in joining the Mountie Minds, please fill out the application here.
Meetings will be held in the evening, from 6:30 pm - 8:00 pm, in our District offices in Hillburn, and as of now, the tentative dates for the meetings are as follows:
Tuesday, October 15
Wednesday, January 8
Wednesday, March 19
Wednesday, May 14
Applications will be accepted through September 13, 2024, and all who apply will be notified by the end of September. If you've been on Mountie Minds before, please indicate that below. We look forward to another collaborative and informative year with our Mountie Minds.