New York State Council of Educational Associations

NYSCEA

October 24, 2014

The Century House, Latham N. Y.

Meeting Minutes

Call to Order, Welcome- Sue Bogdan-Ritty, President – 8:33 am

Approval of May, 2014 Meeting Minutes - Carol Geddis, Secretary,

Diane Aronson, NYSAEN made a motion to approve

Seconded by Joanne Ryan, BTANYS, all in favor.

Treasurer’s Report – Susan Hildebrandt, Treasurer, absent Sue BR did report. NYSCEA did very well on budget, actually over budget for income.

Bill Caroscio, AMTNYS made the motion to approve the report, MaryAnn Karre, NYSLA/SSL seconded, all in favor.

Forecasting through the rest of the year. – Budget line question, online resource? Person who maintains website. Webhost is the person who hosts the site. Development and maintenance – things we can’t do ourselves.

BerylSzwed, NYSAMS made the motion to approve end of the year report and BillCaroscio, AMTNYS seconded. All in favor.

President’s Report – Sue Bogdan-Ritty, President

  • Executive Board voted to approve $2,500 transfer to Investment Funds.
  • Major changes to website coming ASAP
  • Spring conference – looking at dates, and making plans with speakers.
  • Laura Lafontaine – Congratulations on being with NYSCEA as Executive Manager for 1 full year.
  • Liz Sheffer, NYSUT– Congratulations on her recent marriage
  • Dave Peele absent, Robert Melia is stepping into the delegate position.

Nominating Committee Report - George Raneri, absent – Sue BR gave the report

2 Positions are open for the May election, President Elect, and Secretary – Please see Sue BR or Marc Greene or George Raneri for information. There is a form to complete and supporting information from your association required.

Presentation on the NYS Revitalization Act for Non-Profit Organizations

Presented by Jennifer Boll, Esq. Hodgson Russ LLP

  • PowerPoint in the packet – PowerPoint will also be available at NYSCEA.org
  • NY Non-Profit Revitalization Law
  • Most comprehensive law change in the last 40 years.
  • Not enough guidance for Not For Profits on fiduciary matters
  • June 2013 Passed the Legislature
  • Effective date of enactment June 30, 2014
  • Who does it apply to:
  • Education, religious corporations. Corporations that fundraise in NYS
  • What is the purpose of this and where did it come from
  • Reducing the unnecessary and outdated burdens.
  • Enhance nonprofit governance and prevent fraud and private trust.

Highlights in terms of Governance

  • Independent director rules – families that run the organization.
  • Related party transaction rules – specific rules on what to do.
  • Conflict of interest policy – specifically related party transaction must be included.
  • Whistleblower policy
  • Audit oversight rules – include independent governance
  • Board governance provisions.

Independent Directors

  • Conflict of interest matters
  • Whistleblower policy matters
  • Certain audit matters.
  • What is independent director slide from PowerPoint–

Take away Lesson

  • Independent director questionnaire – go back 3 years
  • Determine and continuously monitor which directors are independent
  • Ensure the non-profit has enough independent directors

Related Party Transaction - NEW – People who are related include any directors, trustee, officer or key employee of the nonprofit corporation or charitable trust

  • Any of their relatives and their relatives
  • Any entity in which any individual described above has a 35% or greater ownership or beneficial interest.
  • Related party transactions – go before the board and has to disclose any material facts with regards to their relation to the interest.

What if we get it wrong?

  • AG may begin an action to enjoin, void or rescind any related party transaction or proposed related party transaction.
  • Can void the transaction
  • AG go to court to remove board of directors, etc.
  • If you ignore you can be charged for double damages.

Take Away Lesson

  • Make sure you know and are documenting related party transactions.
  • Document consideration of alternatives is there is substantial interest

Conflict of Interest Policy

  • The policy must cover directors, officers and key employees
  • A key employee means any person who is in a position to exercise substantial influence over the affairs of the corporation.

Policy needs to include:

  • IRS definition – “A conflict of interest arises when a person in a position of authority over an organization such as director, officer, manager, may benefit personally from a decision he or she could make.

NEW Conflict of Interest must include:

  • Define circumstances constituting a Conflict of Interest
  • Establish procedures for disclosing, addressing and documenting Conflict of Interest and Related Party Transactions
  • Prohibit the conflicted person from being present at, and participating in or improperly influencing the vote.
  • Require documentation of existence and resolution of Conflict of Interest
  • Require compliance with related party rules
  • Require annual Conflict of Interest statement be signed by all Directors Just board members must submit annually
  • Identify areas of Conflict of Interest
  • ***If your bylaws address a Conflict of Interest statement, then updates need to be in the bylaws. IF not it can be a separate policy.

At this point, Whistleblower Policy doesn’t not apply to the majority of the NYSCEA organizations – 20 or more employees and 1million + in income.

Audit Requirements

Chart in PowerPoint

Audit oversight committee – independent directors, oversee, and review with results with auditor.

More than 1 million in revenue, must review scope and plan with auditor and look at process. Committee must be independent as well

The act allows fax and email communications for

  • Notices of board and member meetings
  • Waivers of notice
  • Board and member unanimous written consents
  • Authorizing member proxies

Skype is allowed, over 500 members meeting must publish in the newspaper.

Can’t vote for board members via email. Must be written or visual. Board members must deliberate and vote, can’t do that by email. Sign a form and scan and send back for vote with signature. Law doesn’t allow email vote of board action. Must be in real time or with signature.

A committee of the board must be made up of board members. Committee of the corporation can have board and nonboard membership. Just designated for task.

Take Away Lesson – Update Bylaws to modernized provisions.

Ken Wagner, Deputy Commissioner, Curriculum, Assessment and /Educational

Technology

The Deputy Commissioner will provide a Department update in the areas of Curriculum, Assessment, and Educational Technology.

PowerPointwill be available on the NYSCEA website.

Advanced Designation diploma

Board action on the Pathways

2010 and prior graduation rate

Now talk about % of graduates that are ready for career and college

Higher cut score

Advance designation diploma – been a pathway since 2001, more broad

Good portion of achievement gap is tied to race/ethnicity. Message is the same, there are still gaps.

Advanced diploma is the diploma to determine career and college ready, this % of students is not changing. Regents diplomas went up because local is no longer available, but AD did not increase.

ELL students need support and services. Bilingual services are being updated and addressed.

Access to the coursework data has been gathered, because some students just don’t have access to the courses to achieve AD diploma. There are High Schools in NYS that don’t even offer the minimum coursework for schools to obtain the diploma.

94% of kids make it to the first day of 12th grade. Graduation rate is ~75% what happens?

93% of schools offer the coursework but only 48% of kids take the courses.

The subtle messages of who takes the courses, or the scheduling messages from schools. A lot of explanations for why students don’t take or don’t have access to the courses.

Inverse relationship between poverty and performance of students.

Bubble chart is a representation of real schools – each bubble is a school. There is a link at the bottom to see the list of schools.

Computer Science – Accelerated Math

for meeting the CS requirements for students. Group has been doing great work.

Typical acceleration of kids in Math is skipping 8th grade math. But the supports are not there with the math.

Social Studies Framework updated and adopted – people are concerned that the SS exam will be swapped out. NYS has 2 exit exams in SS. Students still required to take 22 credits and 4 courses in SS. Students can still take the exam even if they don’t know if they are taking the CTE pathway.

Looking at this as a pathway to keep kids engaged. Particularly those kids that struggle with a particular course or exam.

Science – updating the standards it is going to take time. Teacher preparation issues around updated standards. Preparation for teachers will require more updated math and engineering. A lot of stuff on teacher prep side of the coin.

Posted a Science strategic Plan – standards, resources, curriculum, instructions. Etc.

Out for about a month, finalize and adopt in January 2015, January 2016 new science standards. Expectation to sit down with educators and come to the board in January 2016 with updated standards. Body of content that has changed. This will take several years.

Where are they now? Reports

Data set. A student graduated, where are they? National Student Clearinghouse. School Loan Company, providing information on students who are in schools and persistence with college.

% of students that go on to college is smaller than we thought and % that graduate is smaller than anticipated. Need an honest conversation about this issue. A part of SED’s dialogue over the next year.

RTTT ends in June 2015, SED loosing 40 personnel. SED trying to figure out where they go next.

Teaching is the Core Identify emerging priority areas, not take on the work, but engage the field to do the work. How do we make sure that the assessments that we have are the best to compare the schools.

Go through and exercise that if we are spending precious resources (time) administering tests in the best and most efficient way. 250 school districts have to post plan with goals at the end of this school year.

Common Core Institutes – useful, helpful and can be made better. Owned by parties who produced, available for free forever. How do we keep them fresh and updated? RFP for teachers to take time and work on modules to work updating and refreshing. Curriculum is new role for SED. The role is to help and facilitate the release time to put the right people on the job to get this done.

Data Systems Capacity Grants – student data security and privacy. SED realized that parents had no idea what school districts were doing with student data. 99% of school districts use for profit 3rd party vendors. This was under the radar, so SED had to open the process up to the transparency. Parents learning this process was a difficult process. InBloom outlawed in NYS. They shall consider contracting with their BOCES. Working with BOCES to pick up some of the goals of InBloom.

  • Thinking about what can continue after RTTT is over utilizing the talent in the classrooms.
  • Pathways developed with the achievable in mind. Foundations that was formerly out is something that may happen over time.
  • Regents Board has not changed the safety net for special education students, and just put forth in October safety net for ELL’s.
  • Can’t base expectations on typical 9th grader because that changes each year. We have to challenge the kids to move to harder more rigorous work.
  • Pathways regulation (when voted on by BOR) applies to kids who would graduate in June. Lots of miscommunication on what a CTE program.
  • Social Studies framework June 2018 in the new test, fall 2016 is the new chronological. Test will only be Global 2.

Lisa Kissinger, NYS Council for Social Studies Conference March 11-14, 2015 in Syracuse

1 ½ years in the planning for implementing the NYS K-12 Social Studies Framework.

Strands of learning:

  • Strand #1 CTE and Civic Engagements
  • Strand #2 Language and Culture
  • Strand #3 Leadership and Learning attractive and targeted to administrators, data, and change.
  • Strand #4 Libraries and Information Literacy
  • Strand #5 Professional Learning Communities and Technology
  • Strand #6 Theory and Research in Practice – working with higher education.

Highlights

Policy Panel

Toolkit authors will be at the conference. Not sure if the toolkit will be available, but the latest information on the toolkit will be presented.

Keynote speakers and featured presenters in each strand

Sessions in three locations – Sheraton hotel (near SU), Syracuse U and Syracuse city schools

Partners contact Larry Paska,

Partners receive some conference benefits.

twitter @nyscss, Larry 518-428-9808

Member updates:

  • 64th Annual AMTNYS Fall Conference November 9 - 11, 2014 Syracuse, NY
  • NYSSCA Annual Conference is October 31- November 1st in Albany
  • NYSAMS Annual Meeting/Breakfast: November 10, 2014-Syracuse Crowne Plaza
  • DATAG Winter Meeting December 5, 2014 @ Marriott on Wolf Road Albany
  • New York State Reading Association Conference Nov 9-11 Syracuse

Update on National Core Arts Standards

Leslie Yolen, NYSED Arts Associate,will provide an update on the development and structure of the National Core Arts Standards, outline the adoption/adaption process in NYS and a panel of Arts Association representatives will give their perspective from each discipline. There will be time for Q&A. To preview the new arts standards or review supporting materials visit

Panel Presenters:

  • Media Arts – Steve Honicki, Niskayuna HS
  • Music – NYSSMA – Marc Greene, David Gaines, and Michael Brownell
  • NYS Theatre Arts – Kristi Fuller
  • Visual Arts – Jennifer Childress

Updates are “evergreen” standards because they can be ever changing as the times change.

Everything is there the new arts standards NCCAR the National Coalition for Core Arts to Standards. The National Core Arts Standards:

  • Extend Prek -12 and grade by grade from PK-8 in each arts discipline.
  • Includes Media Arts as discreet 5th arts discipline
  • Use a standards Matrix to provide a unified view of the standards for the five arts disciplines, while allowing the distinguishing characteristics of each discipline to be preserved.
  • Framed by a definition of artistic literacy that includes:

Resources section includes research on these standards.

Web based set of standards – will allow States to create own “skin” utilizing the same, national website.

Allows users to customize search options, customized workbooks, without losing critical frame works.

Framework all based on artistic literacy.

Discipline specific standards have varying level of rigor.

Creating, Performing, Producing, Presenting, Responding, and Connecting

Over million questions and suggestion during the review process, 20% came from NYS. Our teachers have a great stake in this process.

Steve Honicki - Media Arts

What is Media Arts?

  • Moving imagecinema/video/animation
  • Imaging Design – code enhanced/photography
  • Sound Design – digitally processed
  • Interactive Design – web, game, creative code
  • Multimedia and Intermedia
  • Virtual Design 3d, 4d

Standards are very, very rigorous.

Connections with the 4 other disciplines and outside the arts. Help kids make the connections.

Resources

David Gaines – NYSSMA - Music

Reviewed the choices available on the standards website the can drill down to specific areas in the performance areas.

5 Standards at high school level. Novice (1-2 years of study) and Intermediate (3 years of study) at the lower levels.

Very rigorous and intense, well documented and integrated with what kids are doing already.

Lots of information from the curriculum committee.

curriculum committee page there are documents that simplify and explain the music processes.

Kristi Fuller – Theater

National standards separate out the standards – big difference creating and performing are separate, responding and connecting are additional. Strengthen technical theater areas.

Dance Statement – See attached document

Jennifer Childress – Visual Arts

K -12 standards help sidestep some of the issues with certification areas. Average of 32 class periods a year in the visual arts is going to make this difficult because of the rigor of the standards.

Need to stave off the adolescent brain “pruning” because of lack of exposure to the arts by incorporating and infusing the arts in to the curriculum.

Video trailer

Medium that students want to be a part of.

Primary Goal-

Creating – conceiving and developing new artistic ideas and work.

Presenting – Interpreting and sharing artistic work

Responding – Understanding and evaluating how the arts convey meaning

Connecting – history, context, social connections

Some new buzz words –

  • TEAM
  • Technology and media integrated into processes
  • Work world contributions
  • Common Core

Handbook section of the website. Anyone can do this and download as a pdf.

Benchmarking process is ongoing for the Cornerstone Assessments.

Art Standards Timeline – Working on Survey results for adapting these standards for NYS. Be presented to Board of Regents at some later point. 2 years is the magical number. Will take a while because some areas have more adaptations to make.

If you are doing interdisciplinary work you meet the standards in the arts just as you meet the standards in the disciplinary work. Use all the standards that you have available to you.

How do we bring this into pre-service teachers programs?

  • Music is making a recommendation for partnerships we made with colleges to immerse the pre-service teachers in the new standards.
  • Some of the colleges have started to look at the new standards in the education programs. There are handbooks that currently available that the teachers use, EDTPA booklet that are used for certification purposes.

Next Gen Science Standards are linked directly to the Arts standards.

What is being done to roll out this information to administrators to support the concept of the STEAM initiative and the standards? National arts associations have been rolling out for arts teachers, it will have to be addressed for other teachers at the state and national level.