The January 15 Board of Education (BoE) meeting was one of the most wide-ranging in recent memory, with topics discussed ranging from childhood nutrition to the upcoming ICSD budget. Several of the changes discussed will have a significant impact on current and future IHS students, and below is a recap of some of the most important agenda items:
Childhood Nutrition Collaborative
This year, ICSD’s childhood nutrition program has partnered with a group of wide-ranging agencies, collectively called the Childhood Nutrition Collaborative, that are working to ensure that the nutritional needs of all children in the district are met. A diverse group of agencies are involved, ranging from agricultural non-profits to students enrolled in Cornell’s Masters of Public Health program. Together, the district and these agencies have set a very specific goal for the coming year.
The New York State Education Department has recently implemented a program that will award districts 19 additional cents per meal if 30 percent or more of foods used in school meals are grown or processed in NY; the Childhood Nutrition Collaborative is working to ensure that ICSD can meet this goal. The Collaborative came to the January 15 board meeting in hopes of securing funding that would go towards hiring a coordinator to organize the district’s farm-to-table purchasing efforts in hopes of meeting the 30 percent goal. After a brief questioning period, the BoE unanimously voted to provide this funding to the Collaborative.
Thanks to this decision, students can expect to see more fresh, local produce in school meals in the coming year. Additionally, ICSD now offers universal school meals at two schools in the district—Beverly J. Martin (BJM) and Enfield Elementary Schools—and will explore offering this program at more schools in the district when state funding for school meals increases.
ICSD Athletics
At the January 15 meeting, ICSD Athletic Director Samantha Little gave a presentation about the changes and future plans for athletic programming in the district. One of this year’s most significant athletic changes was a partnership with Ithaca College’s sports health department that provided social and emotional support and performance training to fall and winter athletes. Additionally, Little mentioned that athletic study halls, implemented in the last year at IHS and both middle schools, have allowed student athletes to retain their academic focus during sports seasons. There’s reason to believe both of these programs were resounding successes—a record 8 out of 10 fall sports teams received state academic honors this year.
The athletic department has also tried to become more inclusive of students with different athletic interests. IHS students were offered the chance to work with the sports performance team during the fall season, and the IHS E-sports club now offers students the opportunity to competitively play, and in the future develop, video games.
The future of district sports looks bright. The athletic department plans to partner with the IHS video production club to broadcast more games online, and perhaps even more boldly, Director Little stated her support for making cardinal and gold the official school colors of every school in the district.
In the comments period after her presentation, board members were quick to ask Director Little about the future of IHS football. Little stated that the athletic department has already begun a partnership with the Ithaca Youth Bureau (IYB) to kickstart a resurgence of football, with an intramural league in the works. She did mention that, if participation numbers continue to dwindle, the JV and Varsity teams may be forced to merge.
Innovation at BJM
BJM has been at the forefront of experiential learning and family assistance programs at ICSD, and Principal Susan Eschbach presented to the board about a series of initiatives that the school has run in the past year. She began by showing the BoE a case study about flight in which first graders were able to learn about complex physical phenomena like thrust and drag through hands-on experiments. They also learned about the scientific method through experimentation involving flight, and combined their science learning with history when they watched videos of the Wright Brothers’ tests and visited the historic Brinley Street airplane factory. ICSD hopes to offer similar learning experiences to all students in the district, and many presentations in recent months have related to developments in experimental learning in the district.
Eschbach also discussed a family assistance program at BJM that has been extremely successful—its participation in the Federal Housing for School Success (HSS) grant program. Through the program, a BJM social worker works with families experiencing or entering homelessness to contractually set goals regarding setting housing and career goals, and maintaining their involvement in their children’s education. If a family is able to sign such a contract, they are moved to the top of Ithaca’s public housing list, and so far, no family in the program has stayed in a shelter or hotel for over a month.
As one of only a handful of schools in the nation to have met the benchmarks to receive HSS funding in consecutive years, BJM sets an example for schools throughout the state and country that look to tackle homelessness. The benefits have been drastic—the academic performance of children in the program has improved drastically, and BJM now has one of the district’s most involved parent communities, composed in part of parents who succeeded in the HSS program.