During last week’s Board of Education meeting, Beacon’s Superintendent Matt Landahl presented updates on the district’s strategic plan, which he said is a work in progress, but was slowed after February 2020 when the pandemic began to hit. Every day, he said, the district works on the challenges for coordinating the Reopening, but was making moves to implement and retain actions that move toward the district’s overall goals, especially on Equity.

In mid-October 2020, the Superintendent released the district’s Equity Report Card. The mission of following equity, according to the District, is to “celebrate diversity and provide an equitable education for all students by working to eliminate race, ethnicity, class, gender identity, sexuality, and disability as predictors of student success.”

In his reporting, Dr. Landahl stated: “As part of our work, we have created an Equity Report Card for the school district. We use data regularly as part of our work as educators including this report card. Due to the hard work of our teachers, our Beacon High School graduation rate has seen significant positive progress in the past two years.”

The graduation rate is 83%. Student enrollment had been decreasing since 2014, the first year on the Equity Report Card, at 3,060 total students. In 2018, the enrollment population started to increase, and is currently at 2,947. The number of Hispanic/Latinos students have been increasing percentage-wise within that overall decrease (839 in 2014, and 904 in 2019), while the number of Black/African American students has been decreasing year almost every year except for 2018 (595 in 2014, and 477 in 2019). The number of white students has also been decreasing year over year, with a slight bump in 2019 (1,421 in 2014, and 1,283 in 2019).

“Last year we made progress,” Dr. Landahl told the Board. “This year we are trying to figure out ways to do it in a different health and school model.” Equity Action Steps were presented, which include:

• Further implementation of Restorative Practices through Talking Circles. Kids can talk about what is on their minds.

• Work with Dr. Hunter (a professor at Buffalo State) to create Culturally Responsive Curriculum in Middle and High School ELA and Social Studies Departments to further social justice learning. That work began one month ago, Dr. Landahl stated. Dr. Hunter is working with other districts in Dutchess County as well.

• Work with Dutchess BOCES to provide Undoing Racism Workshops across several districts and to plan for long term implementation. Trying to find ways to bring Anti-Racism training to Dutchess County. Dr. Landahl explained that this has been happening in Rockland County, and he wants to bring it to Beacon. Sharing services by partnering with other districts brings the costs down, he said, but if partnering is not available, the Beacon City School District will still go forward with the model.

• Use of the Equity Report Card Data to guide future actions will continue.

Dr. Landahl next presented on the “Culture of Care” that frames a lot of programming. Planned steps include:

• Continuation of Responsive Classroom Training at the Elementary Level. The district is partnering with with 2 other districts in Dutchess County, which gives Beacon state aid to make it more affordable. Three groups of elementary teachers have participated in training.

• Continuation of Restorative Practice model at secondary level.

• Create Student Bill of Rights to include Code of Conduct in all classrooms. “The rights of students are tucked into laws and codes of conducts all over all of the materials we use,” Dr. Landahl said. “We want to make something our students are involved in, and can use. For students at all levels within the district.” Dr. Landahl credited the Diversity Committee on having worked on this a few weeks ago, and they hope to have it done by February.

• Trauma Informed Support Training for administrators and mental health professionals. “Training has started,” Dr. Landahl confirmed, “and that is looking to be expanded, especially for everything students are going through right now.”

Beacon City School District Budget - Preparing For “Beyond Drastic Cut"

As for the budget, Dr. Landahl pressed on the need to prepare now for a drastic budget cut if there is no federal stimulus aid to New York State, which would prompt the state to cut funding. “We are possibly looking at beyond drastic cut from the state. When Governor Cuomo talks about the state cut in aid, that's about $4 million for Beacon. The money's not there, or so he says. We do have a good amount of funds in our Unrestricted Funds balance, but that is not enough to carry us over the next several years. We for sure will be preparing for a budget that is tough next year. If there is federal stimulus that comes to help New York State and other states, that would really help our process as well, but we should really prepare for all contingencies with that. It will be a year where communication, transparency and involvement of people is even more important.”

Fiscal Action Steps Include:

• Implement Audit Committee on a bi-monthly basis, which is an increase from years before.

• Use surveys and Town Halls to gather input on budget. Increase ways to work directly with students to hear feedback from them. Currently, the administration is debating on if the surveys will be self-created, or if an outside firm will be used.

• Develop process and timeline for 2021 Capital Project. Can do a Capital Project for $15 million that will not impact taxes.