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Shared Decision-Making Initiative
The Compact for Learning Reboot: A Vision for Shared Decision-Making
Lynbrook Public Schools
Lynbrook, New York
Fall, 2025
Mission Statement
All members of the educational community work collaboratively to provide students with a supportive and safe environment where diverse learners are exposed to varied opportunities to develop critical thinking skills, while engaging in a personalized and equitable instructional program.
Vision Statement
A cultivation of the next generation of 21st century lifelong learners who possess a balance of character, ethics, extracurricular interest, lifelong thirst for knowledge, social awareness and a mindset to make an impact in the world.
Belief Statements
- Each student should feel comfortable in the learning environment to pursue his or her personal excellence.
- Each student is a valued individual with unique physical, social, emotional, and intellectual needs.
- Each student should be the center of the learning experience and therefore actively engaged.
- Each student will learn in an environment that promotes equity, inclusion, and diversity.
- Each student will seek to understand the complex and rich identities of self and others.
Anchored in the Profile of the Owl – Click here or the icon above to view the Profile of the Owl Information page.
The Lynbrook Union Free School District is proud to present a revised Shared Decision-Making Plan (SDM), reactivating the foundational Compact for Learning originally adopted in 1992 and last revised in 2004. This update reflects both a continuation of Lynbrook’s tradition of collaborative governance and a significant evolution in purpose driven by the development of the Profile of the Owl, our district’s community-developed vision for graduate readiness.
Over the past two academic years, the Profile of the Owl process engaged more than 800 stakeholders (students, staff, families, alumni, and community members) in defining the skills, mindsets, and traits every Lynbrook student should possess for success in school and life. This process resulted in the Four Pillars of the Profile of the Owl: Creative and Critical Thinking, Real-Life Skills, Social and Emotional Learning, and Global Citizenship.
Why Now?
This plan update serves as a strategic reboot, ensuring that Shared Decision-Making:
- Aligns school-level planning and committee work with the Profile of the Owl
- Reflects updated priorities, including New York State’s Culturally Responsive-Sustaining (CR-S) Education (practices that support student inclusion and belonging, champion equity, and sustain cultural diversity) and Social Emotional Learning (SEL) (skills that build self-awareness, relationships, and responsible decision-making).
- Reinvites stakeholders into meaningful, empowered roles in shaping school life and student outcomes.
Key Enhancements to the SDM Plan
- Alignment of building goals to the Profile of the Owl outcomes
- Updated expectations for transparency, participation, and communication
- Expanded stakeholder representation
- Revised protocols for committee composition, meeting structure, goal setting, training, and self-assessment
Shared Decision-Making Issue Areas of Consideration
The following areas are subject to Shared Decision-Making (SDM) in Lynbrook UFSD, combining long-standing priorities with updated focus areas that reflect current educational goals, including the Profile of the Owl initiative.
State Law Reference (NYCRR 100.11)
State regulations require SDM to address curriculum, instruction, student achievement, professional development, parent involvement, and building-level planning and budgeting.
Core Categories
- Budget & Resources: supplies, conference funds, grants, fundraising
- Curriculum & Instruction: curriculum development, textbook review, educational software review, program offerings, evaluations, report card format
- School Operations & Climate: food service, school safety, student conduct, parent conduct at school events
- Communications & Engagement: parent conferencing, community partnerships, field trips, volunteer programs, school and district communications
- Effective Use of Technology: curricular programs, software evaluations, program feedback
- Social-Emotional Learning (SEL): emotional wellness programs, SEL curriculum, staff training, student supports
- Culturally Responsive-Sustaining (CR-S): inclusive practices that honor diversity, culturally responsive instruction that affirms identity, and intentional strategies to ensure equity, access, and student belonging.
Composition of the Committees
Each building-level committee shall be composed from among the following:
- Principal
- Assistant Principals
- Parents
- Teachers
- PPS Staff
- Secretary
- Custodian
- Other staff members (Teaching Assistants, Aides, and Monitors)
- Students
General principles:
- District-level administrators will be included in deliberations at the building-level whenever an area of their expertise and involvement comes up for discussion, planning, or evaluation.
- Members of the committees will be determined by the appropriate constituencies. Each committee may engage other staff members as necessary to best conform to the building’s needs.
- There should be equal representative balance between constituencies, especially between faculty and parents.
- One member of each committee must represent the special education community.
- Students will be standing members of the High School Compact Committee where their representation shall be commensurate with other constituencies. At the elementary and middle school levels, students will be invited to sessions when student input is vital to the decision-making process.
- Staff members (e.g. custodians and secretaries) may be excused from sessions when their professional duties are required elsewhere.
- Terms of office will be for two years. To ensure continuity and team cohesiveness, where possible, constituency groups with more than one representative should stagger their representative's terms so only one representative at a time rotates off the committee. Each constituency will be responsible for monitoring and evaluating the performance of its representatives.
- Building teams will be expected to meet at least monthly from September through June of each school year. They will be expected to publish draft minutes within a week of each meeting. Formal minutes will be sent to the superintendent, the Board, the PTA Council, SEPTA, all building Compact Committees, all bargaining units, and made available to the general community.
- All meetings are open to the public. Five minutes will be set aside at the end of each meeting for privilege of the floor.
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Committee members will be expected to make decisions based on consensus. The district will support this effort by providing appropriate training in this area. Any interested party who may take issue with the decision of a building Compact Committee may address concerns directly to the committee and from there to the building principal in his or her capacity of executive officer. The chain will continue through central administration and ultimately to the Board of Education which is recognized as the final authority. In no way is this policy intended to deny or limit the rights extended to individuals under Commissioner’s Regulations, state and federal laws.
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The means and standards by which parties will evaluate improvement in student achievement will be specified in the goals and objectives that each building-level committee will be required to develop at the beginning of the school year. It is recognized that the degree of achievement in some areas (e.g. improvement in standardized test scores) may be ascertained by quantifiable statistical analysis and acknowledged that other concerns (e.g. enhancement of student self-esteem) require the careful development of non-traditional assessment techniques.
Evaluation methods include:
- State-mandated tests
- Standardized tests and benchmark testing programs
- Alternative forms of assessment as they continue to be developed
- Student performance on projects and activities
- Individual diagnostic tests, such as those used with special education and ESL students
State and federal regulations will be complied with at all times. It is recognized that no building-level Compact Committee may contravene regulations or directives of state and federal agencies or policies of the Lynbrook Board of Education, though committees may adopt a resolution that may be forwarded to the Board of Education as a recommendation.
An agenda will be developed and distributed to school community organizations before all building-level Compact Committee meetings. All meetings are open to the public and minutes will be taken and distributed to the school community organizations. Time will be set aside at each building-level meeting for the privilege of the floor.
Informational meetings on school-related matters including relevant information about federal and state guidelines will continue to be offered to school community organizations to encourage parental involvement in the schools. Parent participation will continue to be part of any district task force and other committees established by the district or individual schools. When necessary, evaluative criteria such as a questionnaire may be used to improve parental involvement.
Members of the building Compact Committee must be held accountable to the students in the building, the constituency they represent, members of the community, administration, and the Board of Education.
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- Accountable for implementing the District Plan.
- Responsible for continuous feedback to their constituent groups.
- Responsible for publishing minutes of each meeting within one week.
- Responsible for listing goals and objectives at the beginning of each school year and reviewing their progress monthly.
- Responsible for self-assessment at the end of each school year.
- Responsible for providing training for new Compact Committee members on an annual basis.