Schenectady City Schools will receive $45 million in Foundation Aid for the school year. . We have been engaged in numerous new initiatives throughout the 2022-2023 school year that will continue into the 2023-2024 school year. Below is a summary of the areas we are supporting with the increased funding with the ultimate goal of eliminating the K-12 learning gap and increasing graduation rates of our youth.

SCSD is using funding to increase graduation rates and eliminate the achievement gap. SCSD created an EWI (Early Warning Indicator) dashboard to allow us to review data and create data driven plans to dress trends in data with our building leaders and district directors. Furthermore, the new system detects early warning indicators for elementary, middle, high school, and an Equity Dashboard which was specifically created to monitor, support, and improve graduation rates and, eliminating the achievement gap.

In the Schenectady CSD Elementary Schools we underwent a thorough curriculum equity audit, from November of 2021 through February of 2022. The audit helped identify curriculum needs at the elementary level, through the lens of equity, and helped accelerate the move to adopt a new literacy program (Wit & Wisdom), as well as move, in conjunction with the entire district, K-12, to a Core Curriculum. This was accomplished through partnership with Capital Region BOCES, and was formally launched in 2022-2023 at the K-5 level in all buildings. At the secondary level we invested in the creation of two Grad Lab programs for the 2022-23 school year. The Grad Lab is a specific place where seniors can go to focus on their academic requirements to either catch up or to stay on track for graduation with the support of a teacher assistant and scheduled periods with an English, Social Studies, Science and Math teacher. In addition, counselor and social work support will be included to assist our seniors in staying engaged or reengaging in their studies. Seniors are chosen for the Grad Lab programs based on their level of support needed with an emphasis on addressing the disproportionality of our identified subgroups.

We have increased our support services k-12 to include attendance specialists, engagement team, school counselors and administrators to develop an early warning and ongoing support systems to address chronic student attendance issues inside and outside the school building.

We have completed and are entering PHASE I of a secondary redesign to include pathways “schools within a school’ to place an intentional focus on career and college readiness. Two of our pathways include an off campus partnership with Proctors Theater and SUNY Schenectady College. Secondary schools redesign is designed to support student interest in focused pathways to increase all student's engagement.

In the area of teaching and learning we have budgeted for additional human resources in the area of AIS Math teachers, AIS ELA teachers, ITCs, ISC, librarians and additional reading teachers. We have introduced and moved forward with numerous researched based strategies and programs to include a district-wide curriculum equity audit that was conducted to assess current curriculum and assessment with the goal of writing and developing more culturally and linguistically responsive learning opportunities for all students. SCSD adopted Wit & Wisdom as a comprehensive, district-wide K-5 literacy program to strengthen tier 1 literacy instruction as well as iRead, an assessment tool for reading and mathematics, K-12. In the 2023-2024 school year, SCSD is committed to reducing class size; We have added three sections of pre-Kindergarten to three of our elementary buildings for the as well as added multiple sections across several of our elementary buildings. At all secondary buildings we reduced class sizes. For all courses, we have reduced class sizes from 32 to 28 students, which require additional FTEs

Our Student Support Department has been intentional about providing targeted support for students who are not meeting, or who are at risk of not meeting, state learning standards in core academic subject areas. For example, our K-5 schools are engaged in PDSA (Plan-Do-Study-Act) Cycle work, in partnership with our Office of Planning & Accountability. The schools piloted this work, which is designed to review data in chunks of six-week cycles, and adjust instruction based on data and assessment results. The purpose of the PDSA cycles is to best identify students who are at-risk, based on assessment data and differentiated instructed adjustments. Our School based Support Teams continue to meet weekly in all of our eleven elementary schools and are comprised of teams of teachers, pupil personnel staff, students with disabilities staff, social/emotional learning support staff, and related services staff, who meet regularly to adjust our multi-tiered systems of support to best meet the needs of all students. At the secondary schools we added AIS FTEs, at grades 6,7&8 specifically for math, English and reading to support students that performed at Level 1 and Level at 2 on local interim assessments. SHS will expand their after school Math and Writing Lab programs to get more students engaged in additional instructional and remediation work to ensure that they are prepared for the NYS Regents Assessments and are prepared for College and Career requirements. SHS will use the Master Schedule to create professional learning communities to capitalize on our district wide curriculum development efforts developing Culturally Responsive curriculum in all areas of the school. SHS will integrate the principles of AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determination) throughout our 9th grade academy within the newly created Pathway Experience Course. AVID- will be implemented across buildings serving grades 6-8.

With the District's goal on academic improvement, the funding of content area specialists as Assistant Directors who are auditing existing curriculum and resources and gathering teams to research evidenced based resources and curriculum, with increased evidence of quality intervention programming. SCSD will be implementing a new bell schedule for the 22-23 school year to further support our teaching and learning initiatives. For example, we have modified our Bell/Master Schedule at the High School from 45min instructional class periods to 90-minute instructional periods for increased instructional time, Modified Elementary and MS Master schedules to include academic intervention class periods for both math and ELA based on student State performance data (L1 and Level 2 interventions). Math labs will be offered to ninth grade students based on eighth grade math assessment performance (Level 1 and Level 2). SCSD has moved from STAR to iReady as a district wide, K-12 literacy and math assessment tool. Data retried will support teachers in reteaching and purposeful grouping/interventions based on individual student or group of students assessment data.

Addressing student social-emotional health has been one of the district’s highest priorities as we transitioned back from COVID to address the long lasting impact the pandemic had on our students. At our elementary schools we developed procedures for dealing with student and school social-emotional health. Our Crisis Response Plan now includes procedures for convening crisis response teams, and intervention procedures. Crisis response team members now work together to support the students and building during a crisis. Self-contained classrooms and behavioral supports, including attendance monitors, safety monitors, social workers, and elementary counselors at each of the eleven elementary buildings have been added. The district has adopted Second Step, a CASEL approved SEL to support staff and teachers when teaching and supporting social emotional learning. Our secondary schools will utilize an additional social worker and school counselor support to expand our turnaround space for students who are struggling with their social emotional health. SHS will be investing in a building-wide social emotional curriculum for students. At the middle level, there will be extensive investment in PBIS. All middle schools will have PBIS leaders and teams to ensure PBIS is done with fidelity for the 22-23 school year. The summer of the 22, PBIS leaders and team will attend PD to identify best practice and develop a plan for the 22-23 school year.

In regard to providing adequate resources to English Language Learners, students with disabilities, and students experiencing homelessness we have increased our focus and resource: Our elementary schools continue to add programming to support students with disabilities, adding one self-contained section at one of our elementary schools, and all of our buildings have at least one type of programming dedicated to supporting students with disabilities. We will use our Foundation Aid to increase staffing so that buildings can receive greater staffing support for our ELL students. Our McKinney-Vento Officer and Transportation department works hand in hand with building administrators at our elementary schools to ensure any impacts of homelessness do not impact or disrupt the learning environment for students and families. At the secondary level our Teaching and Learning department has been collaborating with the Student Support Services Department to identify instructional resources, materials and support for English Language/Multilingual Learners as well as Students with Dif-abilities with the outcome beginning creating of processes that will accurately place ELLs/MLLs in ENL programming and school location based on the HLQ. K-12, the ENL department is creating benchmark assessments for speaking, listening, and writing for a District Progress Monitoring system. We also have partnered with R-Bern for professional development in the core content areas. Additionally we partnered with the Teacher Center to provide in house quality staff development with our newly created ENL Department Chair. Goals and ratios for pupil support are projected to be accomplished. For example, we are projected to meet the following student-teacher ratios at all eleven elementary buildings for the 2022-023 school year, per the guidelines.

Below, you will find examples of investments in our current year with regard to initiatives and balance funds spent in priority areas.

The eleven elementary buildings in our district all have a planned budget for the 2022-2023 school year that is equitable in distribution and spending between all of the buildings.We will look to maintain this balanced spending approach over future years. The breakdown of each building’s percentage of spending out of the elementary school division budget is as follows:
- Hamilton- 8.84%
- Howe- 8.04%
- William C. Keane- 9.10%
- Lincoln- 7.90%
- Martin Luther King, Jr- 8.79%
- Paige- 11.20%
- Pleasant Valley- 8.04%
- Van Corlaer- 8.60%
- Woodlawn- 10.18%
- Yates- 9.17%
- Zoller- 10.13%

Teaching & Learning Expenditures:

Curriculum:

Wit & Wisdom:
iReady
AVID
BOCES hands on Science kits K-8
Curriculum writing teams K-12 in every subject to create maps and UBD

Teacher and leader professional development:

Principal professional development
Technology
UPK
Project Based Learning to support secondary redesign
AVID Training
Restorative Practice Training
PBIS
Haggerty or phonemic awareness for K-3 teachers
Fundations or Phonics pd for K-5
Geodes or decodable book training for grades K-5
Trauma Informed Care

Schenectady City School District

You are invited to provide feedback on our spending plan for 2024-2025 Foundation Aid and Contract for Excellence funding

2023-2024 FOUNDATION AID SUMMARY

CONTRACT FOR EXCELLENCE