BOE Business Meeting 2025-10-27

001Right. Good evening everyone. Thank you for being here this evening whether in person or by live stream or Zoom. This is a meeting actually of the audit committee of the school district of Scarsdale and I'm calling this meeting to order. The first order of business is to appoint Honoré Adams as secretary pro tem. Can I have a motion to do that? Leah, thank you. A second? Amber, thank you. And all those in favor? yes hi anyone opposed no okay that motion carries and i'll turn it over to andrew Thank you very much this evening we have as part of our audit committee the annual review of our external audit and this evening we have Scott Oling and Mark Calaman from PKF O'Connor Davies joining us today as Scott walks to the podium I just want

002to thank Mark and his team for the leading the audit this year and of course I have to thank Lisa Zareski our district treasurer who by contrast to last year's audit this was a very successful and very efficient process and she's a great member of my team that I'm very thankful to have so Scott, thank you very much for joining us. Thank you. Oh, and thank you. Before you begin, I just want to quickly mention one thing just as a clarification. So this is the first of three separate convened meetings we will have all this evening. Hopefully the first two will be relatively brief. The audit committee meeting is the one occurring now. There will be no public comment during the audit committee meeting. It is a meeting of the audit committee of the board.

003which is comprised of the entire board but it is the audit committee and we will hear from our auditors concerning the audit report as well as some corrective action that's been proposed afterwards there will be a public hearing on the district-wide safety plan there will be public comment in connection with that hearing but that public comment will be limited to the district-wide safety plan Hopefully that meeting will also be fairly brief. After that, we will have a business meeting at which there will be two public comment sessions which will follow our public comment guidelines, four minutes for each speaker. And at that business meeting, the public comment can encompass any matters before the board, including the bond referendum, which I'm sure is of interest to people here, the report that we've received. from our demographer.

004So that will all be something everyone can comment on, but that will have to await for the business meeting, which will be the third meeting that we convene this evening. Just wanted to say that so that people's expectations were clear on how this would proceed. Thank you. I'm sorry, go ahead, please. Thank you. I will try to be brief since you seem to have a lot going on tonight. So as Andrew mentioned, this is our second year as your external auditor. It did go much more smoothly this year. Not anything to do with Andrew or Lisa. It was just the software that existed in the district prior to this past fiscal year We don't need to to to go over again this year that that aspect was was much much improved So thank you for

005switching software So I'm here tonight to discuss the results of the annual external audit that the district is required to have each year. And you should have been provided with a copy of several documents, the audit report, which is the large report, 80, 90 pages or so. That's the financial statement. You would have also been provided with a copy of the extra classroom activities report and then a communications letter where we, you know, pointed out some minor, you know. more technical kind of little deficiencies and Andrew and Lisa and their team have already put together a response to those comments So I'm going to just focus my couple of minutes on the main audit report. And at the beginning of that audit report is the auditor's opinion. That's really the only part that belongs to

006us as the auditor. We've issued what's known as the clean opinion or an unmodified opinion on the district's financial statements, meaning we believe that these financial statements fairly present what happened in the district from a financial statement point of view this year. So I'm just going to focus on the general fund, which is the primary operating fund of the school district. It's the fund that the voters vote upon each year, authorizing your spending levels. But also be aware that besides the general fund, you have a school lunch fund to account for all the lunch activities of the school district, a capital projects fund to account for capital improvements that are going on in the district, and a special aid fund. which accounts for the various like federal and state grants that the district receives as

007well. The general fund appears in summary form on page 57 of the large document. And at the top of the page is the revenues that you generate to support your operations. The original budget had estimated revenues at about $182.4 million, and as most school districts are in Westchester County, the primary revenue source for the district is the levy of property taxes. The property taxes and the star portion that the state pays you on behalf of certain homeowners accounts for about 93% of your revenues that are in the budget. And then a smaller amount is state aid that the district receives, which was estimated at about $6.8 million out of the total budget. The good news for the district in the actual column is that you could see that revenues came in at $185.8 million. So

008compared to the revised budget estimate of about $183 million, you did about $2.7 million better than your budgeted plan on revenues. That was primarily derived from interest earnings on the line that's called use of money in property. You had budgeted about $1.7 million to derive from interest earnings on your available cash balances, and you actually generated almost $2.7 million, so almost $1 million more than what you had anticipated in the budget. Also, state aid, which you had budgeted at about $6.8 million, came in at about $7.5 million, almost $700,000 better than planned. So those two account for the majority of the positive revenue results. On the middle of page 57 is what you spend those resources on. The first group of expenditures are general support expenditures. So those are... administrative costs of operating the district,

009you know, buildings and grounds, superintendent's office, business office, those kinds of things. So those costs were originally estimated at just over $20 million. As the budget got revised during the year, it was revised to just under $20 million at $19.9 million, and your actual spending was about $18.9 million. So within that... group of spending, you saved a net of about $735,000 this year. The middle section of expense on that page is the instructional cost. So those are really the direct program costs, the classroom costs, teacher salaries, guidance counselors, principals, and any, you know, classroom-related type expenditures. So those were estimated, as you can see, originally at about $105.3 million. The budget wasn't revised too much to about $105.5. and your actual results came in about 104.2 million so within that overall group you saved just

010under 1 million dollars compared to the budget plan transportation costs the next cost to operate the buses for the district those were originally estimated at 5.5 million revised to 5.8 and those expenses came in about 4.9 million so you had savings of just under 400 000 in that line One of the big areas in the budget are employee benefit costs. Those are the benefits you provide legally or contractually to all your employees. Pension benefits, health benefits. employer FICA cost, workers comp, all those kinds of things. So those costs as you can see were originally estimated at $43.3 million but the budget was revised upwards to $46.4 million as health insurance costs ran greater than what was originally anticipated this year and Andrew came to the board late in the school year asking to amend the

011budget, appropriate additional fund balance to cover those additional unanticipated costs. But overall benefits this year, year over year, were almost $4.5 million higher than last year's actual. Employee retirement system costs for non-certified staff were up over $500,000 compared to last year because of higher rates that the retirement system charged everybody. Your teacher's retirement system costs were up $600,000. Some of that has to do with increased salary costs and increased rate from the pension system. Social security costs with higher salaries came in about 300,000 higher, but as I just mentioned, the health insurance costs were close to $3 million more year over year than in the prior year. And then lastly, you have your debt service costs on what you currently have outstanding in bonds for previous capital projects from prior years. The debt service total

012there between principal and interest, about $8.7 million. So when we get to the bottom of page 57, in the original budget column, you see a negative $3 million. So when this budget was adopted, you actually planned to spend approximately $3 million more than you were going to take in in revenues. Some of that was planned or most of that was planned some of its rollover purchase orders from the prior year That was about six hundred thousand of that number the rest though was about 2.4 million That is what we call appropriated fund balance when you put the budget out to the voters for this past year for 2425 your spending was expected to exceed your revenues by about 2.4 million. But you said we have fund balance, we have savings, so rather than trying to

013find 2.4 million in cuts to the budget or increase in property taxes of an additional 2.4 million, you used your savings account to help balance your plan. It was revised in the second column to the use of $5.9 million, almost $6 million, so an increase of almost $3 million. The majority of that, as I mentioned a few minutes ago, was the increase that Andrew came to you and said, hey, we have to pull more money from our fund balance. Our health costs came in much higher than we anticipated, and you amended the budget by that $2.8 million to cover the additional health insurance costs. The good news for the district, though, is the actual column. When we take all your revenues that you actually derived, which many of them came in better than you expected.

014And when we take the expenditures that you spent, which came in less than you expected because of the way you managed the spending side of the budget, you could see the third number up from the bottom is a modest $8,000 number. So that means your revenues exceeded your spending by $8,000. It doesn't sound like much, but when you compare it to the final budget, if everything came in on budget, your fund balance would have gone down $5.9 million. Your savings account would have gone down. But instead, not only didn't it go down $5.9 million, you went up $8,000. So basically a break-even kind of year. But from a budget point of view, in the variance column, you did just under $5 million better than your plan, which is good news for the district. So overall,

015the fund balance basically stayed the same other than the $8,000. And you end the year, as you can see, with a total of $22,136,000 in fund balance. If we go back to page 48 in the audit report, it gives a breakdown of what that $22 million is. Of the $22 million, about 60% of it is in what's called restricted fund balance accounts. All of these restrictions are restricted under general municipal law or education law, but none of these exist without board action. So you operate under that umbrella from New York State. So you've set aside by board action a total at the end of this year of $12.2 million of the $22 million fund balance. Of that $12 million, $4.3 million is set aside to handle tax certiorari claims. When homeowners or businesses are successful

016in getting their assessment on their properties reduced, you have to refund the difference based on what they paid originally. So you have this pot of $4.3 million that can be used to pay those claims when they come in. You've set aside close to about $4.8 million for the employee's retirement system. Again, that's under general municipal law. It's really there, so if the bill that you pay for the employee's retirement system happens to go up a lot in one year, rather than having to tax the residents and businesses for that increase, this would be... a pot of funds that you could pull down if you needed to. And you have used, as you can see, about $281,000 in the 25-26 budget for that purpose. You also have this self-funded health insurance reserve. As I mentioned earlier,

017this was drawn down this year to handle costs that came in higher than what was budgeted. But then, based on the other results of operations, you replenished a pot of funds. portion of it. So this reserve is down about $940,000 from last year, but still has 1.8 in it, and you used another million of it in balancing the budget you're in right now. And then there's another small amount that's set aside for debt service, can only be used to help offset principal and interest on your debt. So that's the $12 million portion of fund balance. Moving down the column, there's a signed fund balance. There's just over $1 million in encumbrances. So these were purchase orders, things that were committed to out of the 24-25 budget, but the goods or services didn't arrive before June

01830th. you carry that encumbrance over to this year so that million dollars will amend this year's budget and give you the authority to pay some of these bills a big chunk of it is in transportation i think it has to do with the electric buses if i remember correctly then you gave back in additional property tax relief another 1 million 190 from your fund balance so when you take all the pieces in this fund balance let's say for subsequent years expenditures Those total about $2.5 million, just under $2.5 million. So in the budget you're in now for 25-26, you expect to spend about $2.5 million more than what you're going to take in. But again, you gave that back in property tax relief because either you would have had to cut $2.5 million of spending

019this year in adopting your budget or increase property taxes an additional $2.5 million. or something in between. So this was kind of the middle ground of what you gave back. So what that leaves on the $22 million in total fund balance that I mentioned earlier, when you back out all of these things, that leaves what we call unassigned fund balance of $7.6 million. That's what we would call your free and clear fund balance. Under New York State education law, that number cannot be more than 4% of your current year's budget. The $7.6 million represents exactly 4% of your current year budget. So you're at the maximum amount that you're allowed to retain in unassigned fund balance while also having these other portions of fund balance to handle those other items that I spoke of. With

020that that basically summarizes everything I have for the general fund So maybe a good time to take a break and see if anybody has any questions That was a lot of stuff in a short time. Do we have a tax cert reserve or that's just a line? Yes, we do. We have a tax cert reserve It ended the fiscal year at four point three million dollars. Okay. Thank you and I have a question more about food service, but I don't know if that's better for your food service update, just to understand what that fund covers, staffing, you know, just to clarify that publicly. I'll answer briefly just in the context of this. In the audit financial statements, there is a fund. report for the food service fund it does carry cover the cost for our

021district staff who support the food service program which at the current moment is just one staff member as well as all the contracted expenses for the food service program that we reimburse to Chartwell's for food supplies their staffing all the delivery charges we have also cost in there that we pay directly for equipment services such as extermination or inspections and that sort of thing. And all those program-specific costs are isolated into the cafeteria fund. First, I want to start by thanking you. I know you're not done, but that was a great explanation. I thought it was very clear, so I appreciated it. I have just a couple of questions, but they might be more for Andrew than for you. Andrew, so... He mentioned that our interest earnings were higher than expected and state aid was

022higher than expected. Interest earnings, I assume, the rates were higher than when we budgeted. How did our state aid come in higher than expected? So you might recall that we anticipated a state aid reduction last budget year. That did not happen in the final state budget, which was passed after we adopted our budget. So we knew going into our budget vote for the 24-25 year that that additional revenue would be coming to help. return some of that to fund balance okay thank you for reminding me of that and then um Obviously, we discussed the $3 million in higher-than-expected health care expenses. I think we're fully aware as a board that that's something we need to be watching closely. But I also wanted to recognize that a lot of our other expenses came in lower than

023expected, but I think that was a very deliberate effort on the district's part to reduce our expenses. Is that fair to say? We definitely implemented some spending controls last year because we knew that we were headed to a tough time. budget cycle and yes i actually have to commend some of my colleagues at this table actually for their ability to withhold some of their spending and do more with less last fiscal year in order to help support the budget okay well thank you for your efforts thank you that's it for my questions actually if i may i actually want to add something because normally i would be talking just about what's in the report this year i have to add something about what's not in the report Because the district receives over $750,000 in federal

024aid each year, the district is required to have a federal compliance audit. So we take a look at all your federal spending. Because you're over $750,000, that threshold moves to a million next year, but for this year it was $750,000. And out of all your federal programs, we have to go through some matrix, and we pick one or two of those programs to do. We follow what's known as the Federal Office of Management and Budget Compliance Supplement. This compliance supplement, I'm not kidding you, is about 2,000 pages long, give or take. It's basically every federal program that the feds give out for everything. For school districts, it's generally the same programs every year. It's the school lunch, you know, federal aid program. It's Title I. It's IDEA. That's generally what we see. Normally that compliance

025supplement is issued in the spring. They put it out for comment or whatever, but they usually finalize it in the spring and it's effective for June 30th year end entities through the next, you know, May 31st of the following year. This year the federal OMB issued a draft version of it in the spring, but has not issued, and we're in October, has not finalized that document. We did the work anyway because we used the draft copy. We don't really expect any significant changes to at least the programs that we audit. But because the final is not out, we are prohibited from filing and including that in your audit report. Because normally once it's in there, we also begin a process of uploading the information to the Federal Audit Clearinghouse, which is their portal where you

026kind of tell them, hey, these were the programs we had. This is what we spent. This is the programs that our auditors audited. This is if they had any findings or didn't have findings. And that all gets uploaded to this portal. And you press the button. We sign off on it. Andrew would sign off on it. And then at some point a day or two later, the feds accept it, and we all move on. But because the compliance supplement is not finalized, we have not been able to do that. Once it is finalized and we don't expect changes, we will have to issue like a supplemental report of just the compliance section. It'll be like an eight or ten page report that we will issue to you. You'll probably still have to upload it to

027New York State, you know, the education department. And then we will take that report, that PDF, combine it with this large PDF, whack it all together, upload it to the feds at that point, and do the filing whenever. they get around to it. So that's on hold, not just for you, but for everybody. Is that because of the federal government shutdown, or why is that document not final yet? It's not. I can't say what it's because of. It usually comes out in the spring, and they finalize it at that point. Why it wasn't done prior to the government shutdown for whatever the four, five, six months, whatever it was, that I don't know. Okay. But everybody's in the same boat. I just wanted to put that out there in case you were looking at last

028year's report and saw some different things that were at the end of last year's report that are not in there right now. Thank you. Any other questions? Well, thanks very much. I don't know if you're done with your presentation, but okay. That's all I have. Okay, wonderful. Jim, if I could, I just really want to thank Scott and Mark and his team for really just doing a really thorough job, really professional, and they've supported us along the way in our financial transition into Envision as well, which made this audit much more successful than last year. So thank you all for your support. Thank you. Thank you, and it's definitely good news that we are. our balance did not take the hit that we were anticipating it could. It's certainly very good news looking towards next

029year and the budget for next year as well. So thank you for that. I guess the question I have is I know there's a corrective action thing. Do we turn it back to you to discuss that? Sure. I'll bring that up right now. So two comments that were listed in the report that Scott referenced earlier were about the extra classroom activities fund. And the first has to do with deposits, which you may be familiar with. This was a recommendation last year, being deposited within 72 hours. In her normal course of business, Lisa shares. that requirement with the advisors and the extra classroom treasurers. We will reiterate that, make sure that the club advisors understand that any cash deposits need to be turned in and deposited in the bank within 72 hours. The other recommendation was

030about clubs that have no activity for a period of two years. The high school has a program to review those. That was not completed by the time that the audit happened, but we know that that's being done in September to make sure that any clubs that have had no financial activity in recent years, if they're continuing to operate, we will leave those clubs in place, of course. But if they are no longer operating, those funds would be deposited into the student government account for the high schools. policy. At the middle school we're going to make sure that we do a similar program for the few clubs that are at the middle school. So we will implement those both as of November 1st. I guess I'll just note, for the record, since we're all discussing the

031external auditor's report, last year at this time we also had the internal auditor's report that we were discussing along with the external auditor's report, but we don't have that at this meeting just because it wasn't ready. Yeah, they're still doing some testing. They've been in correspondence with our HR office and with our health plan just to get more enrollment information and some clarity on some of the claims. So we're hoping to have a draft report from them in the next. two weeks or so okay thank you and if you get a draft report from them in the next two weeks when would it come to us would it be sometime in december or uh it could depending on the arrival of that report uh the corrective action plan will be created and we'd probably see

032them in the november board meeting okay if it's ready thank you um thank you sir i very much appreciate that and uh thanks for all the work and um and for your report thank you have a good evening So does it now fall upon us to vote as an audit committee to recommend to the Board of Education that they accept this orders report and corrective action plan? Okay, maybe we should let's have that vote. Unless there's any further discussion anyone wants to have. I think we're ready to vote. Great. Okay. So although we can have a motion. Yeah, it's my motion. Okay. Thank you, Jim. I move to accept the following resolution. Resolved that the audit committee recommends that the Board of Education accept the external auditor's report and management's corrective action plan, or CAP,

033for the 2024-25 fiscal year as presented. Okay. Is there a second? Okay. Amber, great. Any discussion? No. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? Okay. The ayes have it, and the vote carries. And I think now we need a motion to close the audit committee meeting and to open the public hearing on our district-wide safety plan. Can I get a motion, Amber? Okay, second. Leah? Any discussion? Anyone in favor, please raise your hand. Yes. Aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? Okay, that motion carries. And so we are now adjourning the audit meeting and entering into the public hearing on the safety plan. Good evening. I call this meeting to order and note that all board members are present. We are also joined by Dr. Patrick and the administrative cabinet. Thank you to all those

034in the audience joining us here tonight, as well as those watching on live stream or on Zoom. This is a public hearing on the district-wide safety and emergency management plan, which I will soon turn over to you and Eric, but before I do, just a quick comment that the revised plan here. sorry the revised plan was introduced at the stem bear 15th business meeting of the board after which followed a 30-day notice period and now in this evening in this hearing the updated plan is slated for adoption at the business meeting which will occur later tonight please note that there is a public comment for this There is no time limit to the public comments that may be made about this plan, but because this is a special hearing on the plan, public comment in

035connection with this hearing for this plan has to be limited to the plan. There will be additional public comment at our business meeting. which will open it up to all the business before us but for purpose of this hearing on the district-wide safety plan we are limiting our public comment to this district-wide safety plan with that i'll turn it over to drew and to andrew Thanks just ask Eric to summarize what the changes were that were before the board in September Thank you very much as Jim said we are at the end of a 30-day comment period the district did not receive comments on the emergency management plan during that comment period with that being said this district-wide safety and emergency management plan was approved before July 1st as is the requirement by the state

036Post July 1st, New York State decided to add a requirement to the plan, which is to have an annex for cardiac emergencies happening on school property. So we in turn added that annex and asked the safety committee to comment on it, but also asked the public to comment on it. And today we are here hoping for approval, so we can add that. annex and have our district emergency wide safety plan finalized for the year barring any other state mandates hopefully you heard me my mic was off what I said was does anyone either in the audience or on zoom wish to speak regarding the district-wide safety plan So with that, I think we can close the special hearing on the district-wide safety plan and adjourn into our business meeting, which we are now doing. Once

037again, good evening. I call this meeting to order, this business meeting to order, and note that all board members are present. We're also joined by Dr. Patrick and members of the administrative cabinet. Thank you to those in the audience or watching live stream for joining us this evening Immediately prior to this business meeting the board held an audit committee meeting to repeat a little of what was said at that Meeting for those just joining us now The full board serves as the board audit committee and that has been the practice for the last several years During this meeting the audit committee voted to accept the external auditors report and manage management's corrective action plan The audit committee's recommendations will be presented to the board tonight at the business meeting as part of the consent agenda

038for the board to vote on and adopt. Thank you not only to our auditors, but also to our treasury and finance staff, led by Andrew Lennon, for all their work, ensuring that the audit was conducted smoothly, and for always continuously looking to improve our financial reporting and operations. Subsequent to the audit committee meeting was a public hearing on our district-wide safety plan. The revised plan was introduced at the September 15th business meeting, after which followed a 30-day notice period. And now, after this evening's public hearing, the updated plan is slated for adoption by the board later tonight at the business meeting. And I will turn to something probably much more in the foreground of folks' minds here at this meeting, which is the Bond referendum and the demographers' report. In this meeting, we also look

039forward to continuing our discussion of the proposed bond project and referendum, and we will review publicly for the first time a demography report that will assist us as a board in considering what projects should be included in the bond, as well as potential alternatives to potentially costly construction work to address overpopulation issues at the Fox Meadows School. I'd like to emphasize because I think there's been a lot of public comment already on this issue. The demographers report, which I think the board received on Friday for the first time, includes a very preliminary discussion about potential redistricting, which contemplates rezoning 60 households from Fox Meadows to Greenacres. We want to be very clear that this discussion is not a proposal. from the district. The district has not made this as a proposal to the board. The

040board is not considering taking any action on this redistricting discussion at this time. What it is, essentially, is an analysis that we wanted our demographer to consider as an alternative when considering how best to address the issue of crowding at Fox Meadow. Again, it's not a formal district proposal. We're not poised to act on any redistricting proposal at this meeting. And it really is, if you will, a due diligence exercise that we as fiduciaries have to sort of do because we do our work for the entire district, including people in all five schools as well as people who have no children in schools. We have to consider not just the financial. options that exist with regard to borrowing money to address crowding issues and there are crowding issues we also have to consider alternatives it

041doesn't mean we're going to choose the alternative but I think we'd be remiss not to consider it we also this evening be considering results of a district-wide survey that recently closed regarding the proposed scope of the bond work as well as a listening session that occurred on October 16th, 2025, here at the high school, and which was very well attended. As a reminder, we have an additional listening session scheduled for Thursday, November 6th at 7 p.m., which will take place via Zoom, where people will again have an opportunity to ask questions and offer opinions regarding the bond referendum and the scope of the work and the cost. We very much hope that folks will continue to participate in this process, as they have been doing, to the fullest extent possible. Now just a few words

042about public comment because it may be relevant. Although we'll explain this again during the meeting, we have two public comments sessions this evening. One will occur immediately after the cabinet update and another will occur after we are done with our action items voting later this evening. The public comment for each speaker is limited to four minutes and there will be a three minute warning provided. um anyone speaking should give their name address and indicate whether they're speaking on behalf of themselves or on behalf of a group organization and people often are confused about this but please note as a general matter the board does not engage in dialogue with public commenters as part of the public comment process there is a response period after public comment where responses, if we have them and we feel

043it's appropriate, can be provided to questions asked of us. And the reason for this, you know, we're not engaging in dialogue. This is going to seem a little, you know, sort of metaphysical, but this is a meeting of the board in public. It's not a meeting of the board with the public. We do have meetings of the board or some of us with the public that occur from time to time. Probably most noteworthy is our coffee hours, ever popular, which people can come to and meet with three of us, not all of us, but three of us at any given time. And there are other occasions from time to time where you might have a dialogue with us or engage in a dialogue with us, but not here. Here we are meeting as a board,

044which is really the only time we can act in our official capacity as a government entity. And so we are meeting publicly, the law requires that we do, but we're not meeting with you, we're meeting in front of you. So just keep that in mind when you wonder why we're not responding to the questions you're asking us, that's why. Let me just also come to the school visits. This is a time in the fall where we have our school visits. We as a board Some of us go to each of the buildings in the district and tour the facilities Basically inspect the condition of the buildings It's a wonderful opportunity for the members of the board to see firsthand the physical conditions of our buildings and grounds and to consider what improvements might benefit the

045buildings and the school communities As we continue to work on developing the next bond, these visits are especially helpful. Thank you in advance to our gracious principals in each of our buildings that we visit for welcoming us there and providing us with tours of the building. I do want to share, and I alluded to it before, that we do have two coming up. One will be Wednesday, November 19th, 2025 at 10 a.m. Another will be Wednesday, December 3rd at 7 p.m. And they will both be in this room. And with that, I think I want to turn it over to Drew. Thank you very much. Appreciate that Jim. Good evening. I add my welcome to those present here in the room and tuning in live stream I'd like to start by thanking the Scarsdale community

046for the high level of engagement over the past several weeks Around the capital projects bond work that has been underway We benefit greatly from the feedback shared by our stakeholders and that feedback helps to shape and inform both recommendations and ultimately decisions I think we also know from experience that people join the process at different stages along the way. So I thought I'd provide a brief recap of the last six weeks or so of this journey. I will cover some of the territory Jim covered, so apologies. At the September 15, 2025 Board of Education meeting, representatives of the Capital Project Steering Committee, along with Andrew and I, shared a recommendation of a scope of work after that group met nine times over the course of six months. In that presentation, we described a process of

047learning, listening, and eventually prioritization of what was at one point $400 million of potential work down to a scope of critical high priority work of almost $96 million. During that same presentation, I articulated that the proposals for new construction were informed by current and projected enrollment pressures. In our discussions as a committee, important questions about the degree of control the district has over enrollment at any particular school emerged. I indicated that two decisions that are clearly within the Board of Education's discretion are where we locate special education programs that draw students from multiple elementary school zones and the location of enrollment boundaries for our five elementary schools. To the former, we have special education programs that are currently being housed at Edgewood, our two 8-1-2 special classes and one 12-1 special class, each requiring a

048classroom. These successful programs have flourished at Edgewood, and we know the Edgewood community values them. We also know that it is prudent to evaluate whether we could successfully relocate these programs to another of our elementary schools if that was a feasible alternative to relieving enrollment pressure at Edgewood. To the latter, in an effort to bring as much information as possible to bear on this work, we promised the Board that we would engage our demographer to produce, along with the typical enrollment projection, an analysis that explores the potential for different boundaries between Fox Meadow and Green Acres. Since the initial recommendation was made by the Capital Project Steering Committee on September 15th, several important things have happened. We held a public information session on October 16th that drew an audience of about 80 people. We also

049launched a survey that garnered 828 responses. Incidentally, that's nearly 100 more responses than voters we had in last year's school budget vote. On Thursday, October 23rd, I received a demographic study and redistricting analysis from our demographer. Two of tonight's agenda items are dedicated to sharing and then discussing the information gathered through these efforts. I appreciate that we have a growing audience for these discussions. I will note that while the discussion will take place for the first time in just a little while, the Board and administration has received a great deal of feedback on the redistricting analysis of the demographic study, which took some members in our community by surprise. think it's important to reiterate that there as mr. Dugan did that there are no current plans to redraw elementary boundaries and no action will be

050taken tonight both the demographic study and redistricting analysis are designed to provide data to the board and administration to inform the weighing of potential alternatives related to enrollment pressure at our schools Of course, we'll keep the Scarsdale community informed of any and all future discussion on this topic and all topics related to the capital projects bond work that's underway. Separately, since our last meeting, Scarsdale High School hosted Global Citizenship Day. It's an exciting day, I think, in the life of the high school. There were 53 different sessions held across a wide range of topics, and students were treated to a very special keynote speaker, Zeriel Oduwole. Someone who began her advocacy at age 10 and has met with over 30 world leaders to promote education and to fight child marriage, influencing policy changes, including Mozambique's

0512019 ban on girl marriage. She's spoken to 52,000 youths across 19 countries and was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize this year. I want to extend my gratitude to the Global Citizenship Day committee members for their efforts to create such an impactful day. learning for our students and then finally two dates to note next Tuesday election day is a superintendent's conference day it's a day of learning for our faculty and staff members and schools will be closed for students on that day and then on Tuesday November 11th a week later it is the observance of Veterans Day and schools will be closed on that day as well and that concludes my my update Okay, thank you, Drew. And I believe we have some board reports this evening and going in no particular order. Leah, would

052you like to begin? Thank you, Jim. On Friday, October 10th, Laura and I attended a West Putt lunchtime webinar on negotiations, legal and financial perspectives. I found this session to be extremely informative. A finance and legal expert panel covered budgeting, board roles, the Taylor Law, and negotiable subjects, mandatory and non-mandatory, for contract negotiations. I shared the slides with the board. Found the process points discussion of the Taylor law and negotiable subjects as well as common pitfalls and lessons learned in Negotiations all to be meaningful and understanding what to expect and what not to do The panel also highlighted the various resources that Westpac has which show comparables between districts including teacher salaries Contract increases and per pupil cost. Thank you Thank You Leah I think Susie you had a report Yes, thank you Jim. I

053have three brief reports this evening. I'll try to keep them quick. The first is a tour of Green Acres. On October 22nd, Laura and I visited Green Acres Elementary School. We met with Principal Isello and Assistant Principal DiLorenzo, who graciously guided us on a tour of the school. Having undergone a large-scale renovation funded by the 2018 bond, we were able to see examples of successful design and visualize some of what could be possible for future work in our district. All the classrooms we observed were in excellent condition with an abundance of light and well equipped with new flexible furniture, magnetic whiteboard walls, and thoughtful storage spaces. The kindergarten nook has built-in student cubbies and en suite bathrooms. We observed younger students doing phonics work and an older classroom applying critical thinking to a reading they

054did and journaling personal responses to the text. The new wing of the school has four classroom sections for fourth grade and four for fifth grade. There is sufficient space to meet the needs of the school, though it was noted that there wasn't much free space and that finding spaces for small group services and meetings is challenging. The building design allows for flexible use with several classrooms as well as the large cafeteria or learning commons set up with dividers that could create different spaces as needed. Most of the school is air conditioned with either window units in the older part of the school or central air conditioning in the new addition. The only large space that is not air-conditioned is the gymnatorium, where gym classes held as well as the school play, which also has no

055windows as a result of the renovation, but only skylights. Despite a fresh air exchanger in use, it can become very hot in the space in the warmer months. The library is beautiful, with movable bookshelves and furniture, and the librarian showed us some new audible books and audio devices gifted by the Green Acres PTA. The kitchen is new and currently underutilized. We also observed the courtyard improvements including new paving gifted by the Green Acres PTA. It was a delight to see our students learning and joyfully engaged with their teachers and with each other. Thank you to Principal Izello and Assistant Principal DiLorenzo for their time and sharing their school community with Laura and myself. Next, Amber and I attended the first healthcare committee meeting of the school year on October 7th. In attendance were managers from

056UMR and prescription benefits, our KBM consultant Pat Calburn, representatives of each of our healthcare stakeholder groups, and members of the administration including Treasurer Lisa Zareski, Assistant Superintendent of Business Andrew Lennon, Assistant Superintendent of Human Resources and Leadership Development Megan Choi, and Superintendent of Schools Drew Patrick. This meeting conducted a 2024-25 year-end review of our healthcare program. as well as discussion of how we can further enhance our plan to provide the best care for our valued staff in this increasingly challenging healthcare environment. Our next quarterly meeting will be held in January. And lastly, on October 16th, as our board's New York State School Board Association delegate, I join nearly 350 other school district delegates as I cast our votes at the NISPA annual meeting in accordance with our school board discussion at our last business meeting

057October 6th. Out of 37 proposed resolutions, 24 were approved by the NSPA member districts in attendance. This set of resolutions will be the basis of NSPA's platform for this year's advocacy season. Thank you to Dr. Patrick and his cabinet for their input into our process. I also attended the NISPA convention this past weekend held in New York City. There were many presentations touching on all aspects of school governance including advocacy, curriculum, operations, budgeting, as well as best practices by school boards. It was a wonderful opportunity to learn not only from the convention presenters but to share experiences and information with other school board members in the area. Thank you. Thank you, Susie. Laura, do you have a report? Yes, so I have two school tour reports. First on Friday, October 17th, Colleen, Susie, and I

058visited Edgewood. Principal Keene and Assistant Principal Drapek, along with two fifth grade students, gave us a tour of the building and the outdoor classroom and garden area. We were delighted by the cheerful student artwork in the hallways with topics ranging from Halloween fun to Edgewood Wings, their school-wide initiative to implement the profile of graduate goals for elementary learners. This first tour was very informative and inspiring to me. The building and grounds are well maintained. Here are some highlights of the strength and challenges of the current physical space. The new library was funded by the 2014 bond. It's a beautiful and inviting space with easily accessible low shelves and functional modern furniture. It illustrates how facility improvements can significantly benefit students' learning experiences. The multi-purpose rooms are also used for assemblies and PE classes for lower

059grades. The custodians work very diligently to change the room setup back and forth to make that work. Many of the spaces for services, including LRC, ENL, speech, OT, and PT, face challenges. There are a few windowless small rooms they called annexes used for these services which is not ideal and ideally these annexes are more appropriate for storage. The two LRC teachers share an old space that used to be the old main office. So the two rooms are nested and the layout is not ideal. Edgewood has by far the largest number of ENL students. These are English as a new language students. They currently have 27 of them. The ENL, there are three teachers. Two of them share a room and a third one occupies a small room in a remote corner of the building. Their

060Spanish class currently has its own classroom. But if they get one more section, the Spanish class will need to go on a cart and push into classrooms. And lastly, the Edgewood outdoor classroom turned out beautifully. They are finishing up that area of the campus with plans to redo some of the fencing and also add more garden beds. So that was the Edgewood tour. And next Friday, October 24th, Amber, Leah, and I took a tour of Heathcote School. Principal Stile and Assistant Principal De La Gaza led us through all parts of the well-maintained building. We saw several classes in session. The quality of teaching and high levels of student engagement were evident and a delight to see. After their longtime PE teacher, Mr. Boyer's retirement, they now have a young female PE teacher, Ms. Barber, who

061is well loved by students, especially girls. This is a very successful, non-traditional personnel appointment. some highlights from our tour. The pod design at Heathcote is a distinctive strength of the building. It brings in natural light and open views and also gives each grade a shared hallway space. But because the rooms are all directly under a flat roof with large windows, it can get very hot under sun exposure. The shades do not provide sufficient heat mitigation, so air conditioning remains a high priority. The Heathcote Library is spacious and well-proportioned, but the interior and the furniture are old and worn. Some of the taller shelves are not appropriate for elementary students. The Heathcote community appreciates that this library renovation is included in the proposed bound scope. Some services like speech, physical therapy, and social worker don't have

062dedicated spaces or are in small windowless rooms. They conduct their sessions in shared spaces with the instrumental music rooms, backstage in the auditorium, or in the hallways. Parts of the building have dropped ceiling and dim old lighting fixtures that can be improved and only fifth grade classes have flexible furniture. The new multi-purpose room was funded in the 2014 bond and it looks great with their new school spirit mural. We looked at the small kitchen there and discussed the current food service study. And lastly, They got their new kiln for pottery and ceramics so the new art teacher and students are very excited Ms. Stile maintains an ongoing list of building needs and works closely with the facilities department to prioritize and implement improvements as needed Thank you Okay, thank you Laura Any other board reports?

063Okay, I think next on the agenda is student board member reports. Do we have reports for the student board members? Yes, thank you. So since the last board meeting, Anish and I had the privilege to attend a school government house meeting. While there, us and members of the SHS PTI shared the plans within this year's capital project for the high school with all of the school and class government members. We were able to hear their feedback on the project and encourage them to reach out with questions or suggestions. Also, apart from class government, Dr. Patrick has been focusing on collecting student responses to the capital survey form and going forward we aim on collaborating with him to ensure that all students who have thoughts about the project can get their voice heard. Another topic that

064was discussed at the meeting was the introduction of the open gradebook system for SHS students. It was very interesting to hear the opinions of students from all across different grades. Although everyone's thoughts were somewhat mixed, people are generally interested in seeing how it plays out as the year goes on. And to generally discuss student events, on November 3rd, the high school school and class governments are holding the annual High School Community Dinner, which is an all-you-can-eat dinner with games and events for students and families of all ages. Each year, they pick one charity to donate all proceeds to, and this year it's My Sister's Place, an organization in White Plains that supports victims of domestic abuse. That evening, the event is from 5.30 to 7. And if people are interested in buying tickets, they can

065purchase them through mySchoolBucks accounts with the link that was sent out, or from student government members who have been selling them in schools and other district-wide events, like the Scarcell Halloween Window Painting Contest sites, for example. Also, earlier today we sent in our first Board of Education Student Representative Update, or as we called it, the Ex Officio Student Scoop to Maroon, the high school's magazine where we discussed events taking place in the board meeting earlier this month, specifically the bond projects and their impacts on student life. It should have been posted sometime after this meeting started, but if not, it will be available on the Maroon website sometime this evening. These will serve as an excellent way to keep the student population updated on the topics discussed at meetings and improve the board's overall student

066outreach efforts as discussed to be one of our main goals this year during our July and August meetings, especially with the addition of Lucy and I on the board this year. And that's all we have. Okay. Thank you very much, Anish and Lucy. Appreciate that. And now we move on to cabinet updates. Drew. Okay, we just have a couple of updates tonight. We'll start with Andrew, the business office. As I shared with the board at previous meetings, the Food Service Committee continues to investigate the participation or potential participation in the National Food Service Program, which would then entitle us to universal premium meals if we so chose to go down that path. At the last meeting on October 21st, much of the time was spent kind of documenting pros and cons of... potentially joining that

067program, things we need to consider and also be prepared to share once we get to a position to do so. We spent a very large amount of time answering and collecting questions that must really be addressed before we even go out to ask our community for their input. We really need to understand what's on the mind of the committee members and what will be on the mind of our community when we go out there. So I appreciate the ongoing dialogue from that committee, which is made up, as you might remember, building administrators as well as members of the PTA and PTC from all of our school buildings as well as our food service program partners. Really the key objectives for our next meeting are identifying explicitly the menu options and the a la carte items

068that would no longer be available to our students and what they may look like if we were to return to the National School Lunch Program, determining the financial impact of any such move, and trying to make sure that we quantify all of the financial either benefits or risks for the program itself, and then what unintended consequences might we see. by joining this plan, whether it be in the bidding process or through perhaps the federal government and the impact on the program based on reductions that may happen at that level. So we're going to try to keep moving this project forward to make sure we have the right information available to provide the board in January or early February. And then I also want to update the Board of Education on the capital projects that are

069currently being worked on throughout the district. Our stream project is still in the permitting process. We were pleasantly surprised to see that the United States Army Corps of Engineers asked us for some follow-up information to which GEI, our engineers, have responded. So that was a pleasant surprise, not knowing what their engineers' status was right now in the federal government. So we are hoping to have DEP approval and Army Corps of Engineers approval to do dredging over the next several years beginning next summer to help mitigate some of the flooding issues here at the high school. We also are actively working through our field project at the high school, a practice field project. We were waiting for some soil samples that we believe should have been collected and now will be integrated into that design. begin

070that process of really trying to understand what that project will look like and submit that to the state hopefully this year with the hopes of breaking ground for that project next summer as well. And then last but not least, we had a bid opening last week for some district-wide exterior projects that were really touching multiple school buildings, including the 24-25 capital budget. There were about four different contracts being bid with multiple addendums to those. Facilities department as well as the architects at BBS are working to vet those contractors and we're hoping to have a recommendation to the board in the November board meeting and if we are able to we'd like to present that maybe even at the November 3rd retreat so that we can get some of that work done before the first snowfall

071or anything that comes for the winter season. So those are some of the projects we have underway at the moment. Any questions for Andrew? Thank you, Andrew. So just a comment on kitchens. You know, when we visited Heathcote, as Laura said, we saw the smaller kitchen that's mostly used for storage. And, of course, that was built back when we had a different iteration of lunch service, when the PTAs used to serve lunch. So it just flagged for me, and I'm glad that the Food Service Committee is discussing this, but the timeline so that we can make an informed decision when we go forward with a proposed bond. Scope for the elementaries make sure it includes storage if we end up going forward with this, you know, whatever the needs may be Yeah so at the

072last food service committee that that actually came up and we're gonna dive into it a bit deeper to make some assumptions about What we would anticipate the volume impact to be if we were to issue free meals We are at capacity in our cold storage and even our dry storage here at the high school Which services as you know three elementary buildings as well as the high school So we are going to try to do some analysis that will help the committee make an informed decision for the board. And then we'll also have to figure out how that may impact some of our work here in the capital bond project. Thanks for those updates, Andrew. Actually, following on Leah's point, so my understanding is that there could be some, and you mentioned this, but you're

073going to study the financial, potential financial impact, right? Because if students are absent and they don't pick up their meals, then the costs are absorbed by the district. Is that correct? That would be the case. So the way the national program would work is if a compliant meal, which requires to have certain menu components on the tray when they leave that serving area, is served, we then submit for reimbursement. If we do not have that compliant meal, or if it just never gets served because the child is absent, we would not be able to claim that reimbursement. And the reimbursement rates, just for your knowledge right now, if we were in the program today, we'd receive about $4.75 per meal. And right now, for those of you with children at the elementary schools, you know

074that our meal cost is $6.50 per meal. So we'll have to look at what that portion size and what type of quality we will be issuing to basically bring that meal cost down to $4.75 or even below that to make sure that we can cover our own costs this year. So it's part of the challenge that we're working through at the moment. Great. Thank you. Any other questions for Andrew? Okay, last update, the safety team meeting. Very quick update. Our safety team met last week, and it's for its first time this year. It's a multi-stakeholder group that includes staff from all of our buildings, parents from all of our buildings, Scarsdale Fire Department, Scarsdale Police Department, and then representatives from all of our bargaining units within the district, really to focus on safety and security

075concerns. across the district in any form they take. This meeting really focused on what our safety and security projects are this year. We are hoping to have our door jar sensors installed prior to the winter break in December. And we are hoping to get started on the replacement of a number of our older cameras, mainly within the high schools because that's where our camera system started and we have the oldest. cameras that are a little bit blurry and could use a little bit of an upgrade so those will be happening over the next few months as we as we source the cameras that we need for those those projects we also discussed traffic concerns specifically at Quaker Ridge around where our crossing guard is stationed there currently does is there another place where more people

076are walking and crossing towards the back of the school so that's going to be reviewed by SPD over the coming weeks And there were some concerns about drop-offs at various schools in undesignated location and Scarsdale's enforcement of those areas to move parents along to the appropriate drop-off spaces. We also discussed the district-wide safety plan, which you heard about earlier, so I won't go over that here. But that was our safety team agenda. Any questions? Just a quick question. Do you liaise at all with, I think one of the village councils, the youth advisory committee is studying traffic issues around the village? Traffic safety issues? The safety committee regularly liaises with the traffic advisory council, not the youth necessarily. But if they are looking at traffic, we'd be happy to discuss what they're looking at. Thank

077you. Any other questions? Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Eric. Okay, so now we're going to move on to the public comment session, the first of two of this evening, which we'll start by I'll read the preamble from the agenda to public comment, which is... how we begin public comment here. Members of the public are cordially invited to speak on district related items or other non-personnel related matters during two separate public comment periods. When it is your turn to speak, please state your name, address, and if you are speaking on behalf of an organization. For those commenting remotely, please mute the live stream voice, turn on your camera, and then unmute yourself. Speakers will be asked to conclude their remarks after four minutes and will be given a verbal cue at the three minute mark. If

078at this point the speaker has additional comments, they may send them in writing to the board via email at boardofedscarsdaleschools.org. The public comment period is reserved for comments only. The board will not engage in dialogue. The board reserves the right to respond to comments and questions at its discretion, either during response to public comment or at a later time and place. Response to public comment will take place after the first and second public comment periods. And with that, anyone in the audience care to make a public comment? You just come up to the podium and begin. Hi, good evening. My name is Catherine Feintuck. I live at 32 Ferncliff Road. I'm a longtime Scarsdale resident. I grew up in Fox Meadow. My husband grew up in Quaker Ridge, and we've lived in Edgewood since 2010.

079I have one daughter age 10 who is a fifth grader at Edgewood, and one daughter age eight who is in the ICT program at Greenacres. I wanted to share our family's experience with the occupational and physical therapy at Edgewood and why dedicated therapy spaces are not optional but essential. I also wanted to explain why the removal of the 8 to 1 to 2 program would be a serious mistake. Our younger daughter began kindergarten in Edgewood with a 504 plan for OT and PT. These vital sessions took place either in a hallway or a closet that had been converted into an office. This is unacceptable. Children who need movement breaks, who are working hard to regulate and focus, cannot do an OT in a closet or a hallway. Even her formal evaluation by the district took

080place in the hallway. How can you truly assess a child's ability to focus or perform fine motor tasks in a setting with constant distractions? After that year, she moved to the ICT program in Greenacres, where she now has dedicated therapy rooms for her OT, PT, and speech. The difference has been night and day. She receives services in calm, professional environments, and her progress reflects that. But what about the many children at Edgewood with 504 plans who don't qualify for the ICT programs at other schools? They still deserve proper spaces for interventions that can change their academic paths. I also wanted to speak about the 812 program. When I heard it might be moved out of Edgewood, I was deeply concerned. My older daughter has been paired with a student from that program for the past

081two years, and they've become real friends. Moving this program would reduce that daily inclusion that teaches all of our kids empathy and understanding. If we value diversity and inclusion in Scarsdale, we can't keep sending children with IEPs or who are in the 812 program to other schools and stripping Edgewood of its resources. I understand there are competing needs, but this is not about nice-to-haves. Therapy spaces are needs. They're fundamental to equitable education. Edgewood should not remain the only elementary school without them. Let's give every child in this district, regardless of which school they attend, the same chance to thrive. Thank you very much. Thank you. Others who wish to make public comment, please come forward. My name is Eric Withrow and I live at 16 Fenimore Road. I submitted a detailed letter on Saturday. I

082would encourage the board to read it as well as a letter that was submitted yesterday by 176 residents of Fox Meadow. These letters pose many issues with the redistricting proposal, which is a horrible solution to the enrollment issues at Fox Meadow School. There are many problems with this poorly thought through proposal that many people will speak to tonight and submit letters on. One I would like to raise at this moment is the arbitrary lines that were drawn for redistricting, which consider a single option. They removed many families closest to the school. Also, in their brilliance, they have managed to capture the president as well as the VP of Tech and Communications for the PTA of Fox Meadow Elementary School. For all their hard work volunteering for two years, they will be rewarded with a redistricting

083to Green Acres. Under the proposal what an insult to them and other PTA volunteers in this group I am below implore the board to consider other alternatives to redistricting That would prioritize the current tax paying residents of Fox Meadow for enrollment at Fox Meadow Elementary School over non-resident students This is only fair I would now like to discuss five less disruptive solutions to address overcrowding at the school. Number one, move ITC programs to Greenacre. I know firsthand the ITC programs are excellent. My oldest son is a bed and fish area of the programs. However, most of the children are bussed in and they could easily be bussed to a different school. The appropriate special education teachers could also be transferred so there is no change in services for these students. Number two, faculty and district

084employees are allowed to have their non-resident children attend Scarsdale schools tuition-free as a benefit, provided the classrooms have not met max capacity. This proposal sounds serious enough to be a max capacity situation, and these students should be transferred to an alternative Scarsdale school where they could continue to receive tuition-free schooling. Three, the report describes 15 enrolled students that are not Fox Meadow residents, however, they are Scarsdale residents. These students appear to not be in the ITC group or non-resident group mentioned previously. Perhaps these students could attend their local neighborhood school instead. Otherwise, I would like to have the same variance. They were accommodated to enroll at Fox Meadow. Number four, if the prior three solutions are not enough to capture 60 students, freeze enrollment at Fox Meadow for any new residents. Anyone purchasing a home

085in the neighborhood would know up front that their children would need to attend Greenacres until overcrowding subsides. Number five, I've heard increased discussion of the possible redevelopment of the freightway site. I am a proponent of this as it increases the tax base and commerce in the village. However, the board could redistrict Freightway in advance of the redevelopment so that any new residents would be aware that their children would need to attend another school, perhaps Green Acres or Edgewood, until overcrowding subsides. conclusion the redistricting proposal is an overly simplified solution that does not take into account the many detrimental impacts to the Fox Meadow community this is about what's best for the children they are not statistics to be cut out of a neighborhood There are many problems with this demographic study, the most obvious being

086that in previous years the report has had significant errors in its projections. As someone that has studied statistics in both undergraduate and graduate school, this report cannot be confidently relied upon to make such an important decision, and I implore the Board of Education to consider easier, much less disruptive solutions to enrollment issues. Lastly, As a principle for this decision no non-resident student should be taking a seat from a Fox Meadow resident student. Thank you Okay others wish to come forward. Please do so Good evening members of the board. My name is Josh mitts. My wife and I live on 12 Butler Road and It's nice to see you all this evening. Ah You're gonna hear tonight from many concerned residents in Scarsdale whose concern was prompted by the publication of this demographic report. I want

087to just make two suggestions for the board to consider tonight that I hope are constructive. One is, in my conversations with members of our community this past weekend, there seems to be not only a disagreement with the policy proposal, but an erosion of trust and a feeling of a lack of confidence in the district and the board. This can be remedied very easily. And as Eric said just a few moments ago, transparency and making available the data, the methodology behind the report, as well as committing to a series of principles, as he suggested, would go a long way towards enhancing the confidence of the community and the board and the district as an institution. Whatever the outcome, whatever the policy choice, I would submit it's most important for Scarsdale as a community for the members

088of the community to have trust and confidence in you and in your judgment. So being transparent and committing to a set of principles, recognizing that this is only a consulting demographic report, this is not even a proposal, but going forward. opening up the methodologies and the data which underlie the report i think would just do a great service to the community and would help the community understand your guiding principles and the basis for the the consultant's recommendation and the second uh suggestion i would make is to you as a board but also to the broader community which is you know we've heard so far and i'm sure we'll hear quite a bit about the space challenges that our schools are facing i would call on all of us to ask are we committed to keeping

089Scarsdale at the very top of the school districts in this country and if the answer is yes if we are all committed to being the leader nationally in public education then we must step up and invest in our district We can quibble about the details of the methodology. We can underline the report. We can argue over the exact allocations. We have a committee, the Capital Project Steering Committee, which has worked very hard in trying to make those decisions, which are a lot of detailed and difficult and complicated tradeoffs. But at the end of the day, as a community, what defines Scarsdale and what defines us is our commitment to education. We should be willing at the same time as we're being critical of the methodologies and the report and the principles underlying the report and

090the board's actions going forward, we should be willing as a community to say at the same time that we will invest in education at Scarsdale, that we are willing, even at the cost of additional taxes, to put education first. That commitment is one we can make as a community. It doesn't mean we can't do a better job with these trade-offs. It doesn't mean there shouldn't be a vigorous debate over the details. But I call on all of us and members of the board not to cut corners. Scarsdale is not a community that cuts corners. Who we are is a community who invests in education. And hearing the stories of a lack of space. leads me to the conclusion that we need to invest and not hesitate in investing in building and constructing and doing whatever

091it takes to keep Scarsdale at the very forefront of public school districts thank you others please come forward hi Hidan Chung 46 woods lane dear members of the board of education I'm speaking to you tonight as a Scarsville resident, Edgewood alumna, former Edgewood PTA president, and parent of two children who are also Edgewood alumni. My older child is a Scarsville High School alumnus, and my younger child will graduate from Scarsville High School in 2029. I am puzzled as to how the current scope of work for Edgewood School and the Capital Project's bond proposal came to be, as it neither supports nor reflects the needs of the Edgewood School community. It is also unfair to our students. How is it acceptable that the recommended upgrading of the physical space for elementary school learners is a mere

092300 square feet for storage space given that we are full capacity in terms of classroom space? How are specials on carts an acceptable way to provide instruction for our students? How is providing OT and PT services from closet space fair to our students? How is the proposed allocation of $6.2 million for Edgewood acceptable and fair, given that the original contemplated needs started from over $20 million? Scarsdale schools have a history of innovation and forward-thinking vision, informed by an ethos of fairness, equity, and inclusiveness. This ethos existed long before the concepts of DEIB of today were formulated. We all belong to the same Scarsdale. Though the individual schools are different, we are all equal in terms of access to educational resources for our student communities. Physical space is an educational resource. Planning for a future where

093every elementary school student in Scars Hall has equal access to a learning environment comparable across schools is the correct path. The underinvestment of Edgewood's physical space is unfair and inequitable and must be corrected. Thank you. Okay. Others, please come forward. I'm Lauren Katine. I'm at 11 Butler Road and I have a current sixth grader and a third grader and I'm also a Scarcella alum. I went to Heathcote. graduated from the middle school and the high school and now I'm back in Fox Meadow and just to point out that I do appreciate that this is not a specific proposal I'm being told that we're not talking about redistricting right now but when you see a map and you see lines and there's red dots representing specific children and people are zooming in trying to understand am

094I at the cutoff who is going that is what is going to trigger a very strong reaction. And when my third grader hears, wait, mommy, I can't stay at Fox. That is where people get, you know, strong reactions that it wasn't just, hey, we might do some redistricting and this is potentially on the table, let's discuss it. But when that map came out, I think it brought a lot of very strong reactions from people, myself included, because we are a walking neighborhood in Fox Meadow and walking to school for us in Fox Meadow where we are on Butler is not just a nice to have. it has been a way of building connection for our family it is a way to strengthen ties to our neighborhood and to our village and i think that that's

095something not just for schools but the village as a whole we talk about building you know they just had the paint the dell we always want to have scar cell opportunities so walking to school is one of those and over the last six years that my two daughters have been attending fox meadow when i've walked them to school it is impossible not to pass and connect with multiple other parents and caregivers and children and yes it's smiles and pleasantries that are shared but i can't begin to tell you how many other more involved plans come to fruition based on these interactions and I'm sure all of you know in a business setting professional personal settings just passing people is what makes that happen and the idea of having to drive my children do car drop-off

096lines there is so much value in that community there from what happens and when my children walk independently they've gained such an incredibly strong sense of self-sufficiency and pride The idea of redistricting takes that away to provide a band-aid solution. My current independent walker would now be asked to cross a highly trafficked main thoroughfare, Fenimore Road, twice daily. Even as an adult when I cross that street, I find it challenging and cars don't stop. I can't imagine when you have rush hour commuters at 8.30 trying to make a train and you have an 8-year-old trying to judge, is the car going to stop for me? That is not something that I would feel comfortable doing, nor do I think any parent wants to have happen. And I should say Fox Meadow also has a tradition,

097some of you may be aware of the walking school bus, which encourages and invites families who are closest to the school to meet up and walk. And every single family that is being potentially redistrict based on the plan that was submitted would be one of those families who can do the walking school bus. And the irony is that a large proportion of this group would no longer be eligible to attend Fox Meadow. just in closing the walking culture and community spirit that the school has worked so hard to cultivate would be undermined we see the school we know the school it's in our backyards and we love being foxes we moved here to support the schools and are owed thoughtful solutions ones that breed community as well as logic thank you my name is randall

098watsek i'm a resident of 219 fox meadow road My daughter Olivia is a second grade student at Fox Meadow and my son Randy will become a kindergarten student next year. We're opposed to the proposal, non-proposal, whatever you want to call it, that was in the statistical report of the redistricting idea. The core purpose of any school... such as fox meadow is to serve the local community and our area that's being proposed to be redistricted away is undeniably a part of the local community but we're only a 10-minute walk from the school we as previous commenters have mentioned we bump into other parents all the time walking there green acres is a and it's a great school but it's in an entirely different area it's not really walkable from where where we are It would really

099destroy that community function that we've experienced making friends with. Our daughter Olivia has made friends with many other students in the community. We make friends with other parents. She loves the school. She loves Fox Meadows. She loves the teachers. And we were really looking forward to our son attending as well. So just saying that this idea was even being semi-proposed is very upsetting to us, as you can imagine. And I just don't see a reasonable basis for even considering it. So that's all I have to say. Thank you. Thank you for your time. Good evening. Alex Cruel, 98 Bright Avenue. I basically just want to second everything that was just mentioned regarding the potential redistricting. It's not the solution that... pretty much anybody wants. But the one thing I would want to add is that

100whatever minuscule benefit is proposed by it is just very seriously outweighed by the harm. That's what I would want the board to consider because it's really a balancing act between benefit versus harm and cost. And so I just want you guys to think about that when... analyzing this. Thank you. Good evening. Is this on? Yeah. My name is Benjamin Himes. I'm at 95 Avenue in Fox Meadow. Thank the board for taking the time to hear our comments this evening. I just wanted to weigh in. I know it's getting a little redundant at this point. You've heard from a number of our friends and neighbors about the redistricting. Non-proposal proposal at this point, but I did just want to highlight without hopefully repeating too much What some folks just said particularly Lauren? and looking at the

101map of the proposed non-proposal the inclusion of a catchment of homes that would have to cross Fenimore Road, which is the main arterial street connecting Bronx River Parkway to the post road during peak rush hour in the morning and afternoon really seems to significantly compromise student safety. I think it would have broader effects in the community in terms of, as was alluded to earlier, shifting a walking culture community to one of car culture when we already have an overabundance of congestion issues in our neighborhood and on that street in particular which has a serious dearth of crossing points. There's a single traffic light in the proposed catchment area that's out of the way for most residents and a single crosswalk that is frequently disregarded by moving cars and has seen at least two to three

102pedestrian strike incidents this year. I think inclusion of that street as a crossing point in a proposed redistricting just kind of underscores, in my view at least, how half-baked this idea is and as I think some of the frustrations that you're hearing now really reduces our children to dots on a map and requiring them to move in aside from all the social disruption and everything that others have spoken about more eloquently than I can, I think really puts safety at risk in a very meaningful way. Thank you. I yield the remainder of my time. Hey, good evening. Eric Grosshandler, 50 Fenimore Road. You probably can guess what I'm going to talk about, even though I didn't prepare anything. Thank you guys for your time. I don't believe anybody in this room really thinks that this

103is something that they want to do. We've sat here and we've heard, before we got up here, discussions from the board about capital improvements in various schools. And we heard about bright rooms, and we've heard about functional furniture, and we've also heard about some negative spaces where certain things shouldn't happen. I'll tell you who doesn't care about negative spaces where things shouldn't happen. Our children, when they're with their friends, when they're playing and laughing and not listening because they build a relationship, K through 5, which carries with them through middle school and high school, because this is the only time they're in separate groups. Fox Meadow, one in particular. And I'll tell you who doesn't care about the bright lights and the rooms with the air conditioning and our sconces, right? If you rip a

104fifth grader or first grader or second grader from their friends when they've been in this community for years already, they're not going to be having those same conversations. They're not going to be laughing the same way they would if they were in their communities with their friends. So I don't need more time. I just know that we're all here not because we don't like chiefs commanders. We're here for our kids. And that's what we should be focused on here today. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Mike Fruchter. I live at 14 Fenimore Road. My daughter, Sasha, and Addie attend Fox Meadow. We moved to Scarsdale because of the schools. We've been extremely happy so far, and I never thought I would attend a meeting like this to object to anything until last week when

105I heard about a potential redistricting proposal. Redistricting is an awful idea that will have extremely detrimental impact on my children and their development. They will be taken away from their school, their friends, their routines, and their comfort level with the Fox Meadow teachers and staff, all of which are critical for children their age. My kids need stability and to stay at Fox Meadow. My wife Nora is a child psychiatrist and strongly believes redistricting would have an extremely negative impact on our kids and all of the other children who would be impacted. She's working tonight, but will be at the next meeting to address her concerns to you both as a parent and a mental health professional If you need to build more classrooms at Fox Meadow, you should yeah my support The reason Scarsdale schools

106are so good is because we invest in them What you shouldn't do is punish 60 kids who don't deserve it and who will be harmed if they are pulled from Fox Meadow We bought our house specifically so we can be close to Fox Meadow and walk our kids there. That's not possible if we are redistricted to Green Acres as we would be forced to cross Fenimore Road. I live on Fenimore and I see the high car and truck traffic, the frequent speeding and traffic congestion, and the lack of sidewalks on the north side of Fenimore. You would be risking the safety of our children if you redistrict us to Green Acres. Finally, I refer you to the following pages of the consultant's report. On page 8, the last paragraph, which considers the overall Scarsdale school

107population, states, and this is a quote, in our previous study, enrollments were projected to increase throughout the projection period. In actuality, enrollment declined in both years of the projection period. On page 9, table 2 shows that the consultant's erroneous overestimate of the size of K through 5th grade enrollment well exceeded what the consultants state is an acceptable error rate. I can't imagine that any of you would ever agree to have your kids taken from their school and moved to a different school without your consent. appreciate your time and I hope you will reject redistricting my and my neighbors children from Fox Meadow to Greenacres thank you okay thank you anyone else Hi everyone, my name is Chelsea Mitchell. I live at 30 Sprague Road. I am going to be speaking on behalf of the Edgewood

108PTA. I'm the PTA president this year. Additionally, I have four children, four small boys, three of who are at Edgewood, one who will be coming next year. And I thought a lot about what could be said because I imagine there'd be a lot of comments and I looked over that demographer study. many times and still it I don't know how you guys go over it because it's so detailed and so difficult to understand I have a doctorate degree and a master's in epidemiology and it still took me a few good tries and a chat with chat GPT to help me get some info out of it but actually despite the numbers what I actually more wanted to speak to was the PT OT and as well as our special needs classes because I thought a

109lot about what does Scarsdale stand for? And it is hard for me to wrap my head around our community choosing the option to move like a minority vulnerable population to meet our spatial needs. And that's what you're talking about with the 821 class. And I'm a pediatric emergency medicine doctor. I trained at Columbia. I trained with some of the best developmental pediatricians in the country. And kids who are in the 821 class are kids who have special needs, most of which have diagnoses, ICD-10 diagnoses. And I really think we as a community have to decide, is it the right decision to be taking that population and moving them around to meet our spatial needs? Because at some point we have to make a decision and say we do have to invest in the infrastructure and

110figure out how to make more space. taking people with special needs and using them so that we can get space. It doesn't make sense for our community. I don't think it's in line with what our community stands for. It's definitely not in line with what the Edgewood community stands for. And we as a community feel strongly about, you know, our special needs program, the 821 class. And it's not always easy for those parents to get to these meetings to speak. And we just want to make sure we as a community are kind of rallying for them and making sure that their needs are met. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, if there's no one else who wants to speak in public, we'll go to the Zoom session. So anyone on Zoom with their hands raised? Yes,

111there's a few. Oh, I think I got her. Hello, can you hear us? Hi, good evening. Mayra Kirkendall Rodriguez speaking for the PTC Budget Study Group. The PTC budget chairs really want to thank you for responding to the questions that we had sent to you and for posting them on the district's bond site. We're going to be sending them to the budget liaisons and the PTAs as well as including a link in PTA newsletters. Of course, I'll be posting them on the local Facebook sites as well for all our fellow budget enthusiasts. Additionally, we have more questions that have come in from some parents and budget liaisons, and we'll be sending those to the board and the district. A recurring theme definitely is getting more details about how discussions that transpired at the Capital Project

112Steering Committee, what those discussions were and how they influenced and informed the choice of projects. We also wanted to thank you for running the feedback session last week and sending out the survey both to parents and guardians as well as community partners. We hope that when you speak about the survey tonight, you'll share details as to the response in terms of how many were taxpayers, how many were students and or staff. And we certainly encourage the community to attend the second feedback session, November 6th, which will be on Zoom. We also have a few questions about the audit and emergency plan sections that were discussed today. On the audit, we wanted to say that last year. rising health care costs as well as the use of the reserve balance were very important topics so we're

113interested in knowing if you presently have a forecast for health expenditures for the coming budget and what can be done to bolster reserves and if you could kindly remind the community what moody's ratings stated about the district's reserves and what that might imply in terms of the credit rating secondly Curious as to whether you have a scenario analysis of what interest income might be given that the Federal Reserve has entered an easing phase that is a lowering of rates in monetary policy. In terms of the emergency plan, just curious whether at this meeting or perhaps in the future, you'll share with the community whether we'll have to use reserves to fund any kind of recurring or safety emergency costs and whether that might pose some risks to the finances of the district in the long

114term. Also, given the level of health insurance and staff cost increases, does the spending on this emergency plan add another dimension of pressure to district spending that we should be discussing? What are the implications to the tax cap given this emergency plan? Also, it would be good to hear some more comments in terms of... the safety improvements if they're phased in or if they're all front loaded how's that going to affect the budget in terms of the upcoming budget discussions that is and lastly whether any of these new systems any additions and cameras and sensors and and ongoing maintenance upgrades are there going to be any training refreshers what kind of planning is in place presently at the district to ensure that costs don't spike unexpectedly. Thank you very much. Thank you. Others? Hello, can

115you hear us? I can hear you. Can you hear me? Yes, thank you. Okay, thank you. My name is Kevin Ziegler. I live at 24 Fenimore. I have a second grader at Fox Meadow and two other children who would attend Fox Meadow. I want to thank the board for a quick and thoughtful response to my wife and I's notes regarding the redistricting proposal and the bond study. Just sharing the feedback here briefly. We've reviewed... both our family opposes the rezoning we would be in the rezoned area to Green Acres we urge the board to consider alternatives and then in regards to the bond proposal we wanted to ask that There's further discussion or presentation of what a tax neutral proposal might look like or if there seems to be community consensus around Fox Meadow addition

116a tax neutral say plus the Fox Meadow addition what those would look like We're familiar with the process We think a lot of time investment has been made and there's a good process for the facilities studies and such and we just want to Add that feedback, but but push for a tax neutral option as well And then finally, just one last piece of feedback in the bond proposal. I know there will be more discussion on this in an upcoming meeting, but my family would not endorse the softball field location in that piece, and we'll share that feedback as well at the November 6th. We just think there are better options at this time for the community. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Hello, can you hear us? Great. Thank you, everyone, and in particular, Drew Patrick,

117who has been very responsive. My name is Nate Superior. I live at 43 Kohani Road in Scarsdale and Fox Meadow. I want to start out with a quick story about my family's Saturday. We started off at second grade baseball. Kevin, who just spoke, was... was coaching the boys second grade little league and they were having the time of their lives by lunch we saw our house in a red dot on a grainy map that some demographer had put together, looks like somewhat hastily, and no one had told us about. And I don't know how anyone could possibly put out a map like that with specific houses marked without giving the families a heads up. We understand that the discussion is exploratory, but it does not feel that way to any of us. Once you put

118out a map with specific houses marked, that is down on paper. And that's the reason you're feeling so much pushback. So I think it would be appropriate to pause, engage the community, and winter or spring of 2026, which is outlined as the decision-making time, is incredibly inappropriate. for this. These are children who went to preschool, kindergarten, elementary school through COVID. We spent years trying to get them back on track. Many of them have their own special needs, which I don't think was taken into account in any of the analysis. Moving them, tearing them, tearing apart that baseball team that's playing together and just so happy to be together would just cause so many further emotional and social issues. I'm a little bit surprised that no one saw this coming, not giving us a heads up.

119Finally, there's a safety issue that seems quite obvious. You know, I reiterate what everyone said. I just think everyone needs to think of this a bit less as statistics, but fourth, second graders, kindergartners who are real children who've already gone through COVID and it wouldn't be appropriate to make them go through this. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Hello. Can you hear us? Hello. Hi. If you could just turn on your camera. Yes. i just did here we go all right thank you so much to the committee for uh for taking um comments from uh from everybody uh my name is jose barilla i live at 28 parkville road i have two sons that went through fox meadow elementary one is in high school right now the other one is in middle school and i have

120a daughter that is in fourth grade in fox meadow elementary i'll keep it quick because i think you've heard from many of us already and you're starting to you know to get the point here but i wanted to express my position to any discussion about redrawing the lines of the school districts and so i echo a lot of what our my fellow community members have said i sent an alert to the board expressing my discontent with this and i received the response which is very thoughtful uh thank you colleen for that um but as i understand this is being considered as part um of a i guess a study that is being done in the spirit of considering all the options to address a need for additional classrooms at Fox Meadow. I went through the

121statistics report and I noted that Fox Meadow in the years between 2016 and 2025 is the only school that has seen consistently increasing enrollment numbers. And in the projections, it's the only school other than Heathcote that is also seeing consistently increasing enrollment numbers. And I think that tells us that this is a community that is very desirable. for young families. And because of that, I think that we're going to continue to see enrollment numbers go up. So it doesn't seem to me like a good solution to redraw the school lines now. and relocate 50 or 60 students when the real problem is that we really need to increase the capacity at Fox Meadow Elementary. So this should not be seen as a substitute to a capital investment that looks to be very necessary at Fox

122Meadow Elementary. So that's my point. And I just want to say thank you for the opportunity. Thank you. Hello. Can you hear us? Yes, I can hear you. Can you hear me? Yes. Thank you. Hi, my name is Zach Phillips. I live at 19 Kahani Road. I want to thank the committee for hosting this tonight and for giving us a chance to add our thoughts. I have a son who is going to be at Fox Meadow Elementary next year and a daughter who will be there in a couple years. I don't want to rehash everything that has been said. I want to echo and second all the points so far on the demographic study and really urge the committee. to take another look at the impact that this would have. My only addition is about

123when does being in Fox Meadow Elementary really start. For us, we moved to Fox Meadow a few years ago, and part of being so close to the school was the draw to buying our house. We can see the school from our house, and then to see the dot on the map saying that this is one of the houses being considered and kids considered to be redistricted really comes as a shock because there's a predictability. of being so close to a school, about being your kids going to that school. The planning for that also starts a few years before going to the school. So as we are choosing which kids our kids will be in preschool class with, we're thinking about who are they about to go to elementary school with as we're building our community

124and thinking about how do we set our kids up for success as they go to the elementary school. We're thinking about which elementary school they're going to. And as we're thinking about occupational therapy, we're talking to the principal and the teachers at the school to know that we'll have that continuity of care. So what I want to reiterate is being part of an elementary school starts far before actually going to that elementary school. And so seeing that we're thinking about redistricting even before the kids have had the chance to actually go and follow through on that plan really breaks that continuity. and that predictability that comes with being part of this neighborhood and part of this community. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening. Can you hear me? Please turn on your camera. Thank you. Yes.

125Hi. Can you hear me? Yes. All right. Rachna Singh from Griffin Avenue. I'm the PTC budget chair along with Mayra Kirkendall-Rodriguez. As PTC budget chairs, we have heard from several community members who are eager to better understand the personal tax implications of the proposed capital bond project. We truly appreciate the district's ongoing efforts to communicate the details clearly and we would like to respectfully suggest one additional way to further enhance transparency and community engagement. Specifically, we recommend adding a simple online tax rate calculator or chart to the district's capital bond webpage. This tool would allow the residents to enter their home's last assessed value and instantly see their estimated annual tax increase using the same formula we shared in the email. So for example, for Scarzell, that's going to be the home assessed value divided

126by 1.32 million. times $560. For Mamaronek, that's going to be the home assessed value divided by $1.971 million times $560. We also understand that the $560 estimate likely represents the lower end of the range. In other words, a floor, a starting point rather than the ceiling. Providing a calculator would make it easier for residents to see how their individual tax impact might vary based on the assessed value and the final project costs. To make the information even more accessible, it might be helpful to include a few sample scenarios in public communications. For examples, home assessed at $1.5 million, home assessed at $2.5 million, home assessed at $5.5 million, and at $10 million. So families can easily see how that $560 value applies to them. We believe that this small addition would go a long way

127in supporting the district's commitment to transparency, clarity, and community partnership. Thank you so much for your time and for your continued work on behalf of all our schools and families. Thank you. Thank you. So it seems like there's no one else on the Zoom with their hand raised, but we will give that a couple of seconds and see. Okay, so we will move on from public comment. And to follow up to public comment, do we have any follow up to public comment? Drew. I'll ask Eric just to address one of the PTC study chair questions. Yeah, there was a question about wanting to further understand the emergency plan, which I believe was referring to the district emergency response plan. That is not an additional cost. to the district the what's proposed this year for safety

128security emergency management spending is already budgeted the adjustment of the emergency plan was simply to add a cardiac procedures annex these are procedures that the district already has in place they're not actually monetary we already have the AED machines placed we already have our nurses and coaches and trainers trained on how to use them so it was really just formalizing that into the plan so with regards to the budget and ongoing costs there's no no additional or new costs associated with the district emergency plan and then I think certainly a number of the other items will be touched upon in the in the information items today but I just expressed my appreciation for the thoughtful considered public comment that was delivered very respectfully Yes, agreed. Thank you to everyone who did come and speak today,

129either in person or by Zoom. And with that, should we move on to written communications? I'm in charge of written communications for those that don't know that already. i'll start with the preamble please note that the board of education email is also viewed by the superintendent and district clerk open meetings law requires all board deliberations which may lead to action or policy changes to occur in public therefore your written communications and emails will be reported at an upcoming public board meeting a board member will respond at their earliest convenience formal response requires that you include your full name address and if you are writing on behalf of an organization in the communications more detailed information regarding written communications received by the Board of Education may be found in today's meeting agenda located on board docs

130on the Scarsdale schools district website And before I report on the communications, I just wanted to let the community know that the communications I'll be reporting on tonight were all of the communications we received prior to Friday, October 24th, when our agenda was posted. So the emails that I responded to over the weekend will be reported on at our next board meeting. So since our last board meeting through Friday, we received 22 emails on district matters and one email on board matters meetings board highlights and invitations. Thank you Colleen and Now we have reached the portion of our agenda which deals with the consent agenda and I will read the preamble to that section The board may conduct some of its business using a consent agenda in an effort to achieve greater efficiency at board

131meetings. A consent agenda condenses some of the routine business of the Board of Education into a single motion. The consent agenda is prepared by the superintendent of schools in consultation with the president and or the vice president of the board. items selected for the consent agenda when the officers of the board and superintendent believe there is no controversy regarding them. The items on the consent agenda will have the same background material as ordinary items on the board agenda. If any member of the board feels that any item on the consent agenda requires discussion prior to action, that board member may remove the item from the consent agenda merely by requesting same at the meeting. The exempted item then moves to the regular agenda. However, all non-exempted items would be moved, seconded, and voted upon without

132discussion in order to provide greater efficiency in conducting the routine items of business of the school district. And with that, we will move on to the actual consent agenda. I believe that is Amber. Thanks, Jim. There are seven items on tonight's consent agenda. Item 10.01, minutes, business meeting October 6, 2025. 10.02, personnel non-certified. 10.03, personnel certified. 10.04, contracts over 20,000, curriculum, instruction, and assessment. 10.05, NSBA membership dues. 10.06, external auditor's report. 10.0, accept the consent agenda. I move. that the board accept the consent agenda as presented. Thank you, Amber. Is there a second? Susie? Thank you. Any discussion? Jim, can I ask Megan just to point out a couple of the retirements on there? I just wanted to take a moment. No, it's my fault. We have three very longstanding secretaries who are going to

133be retiring fairly soon, mid-year retirements. Someone very... near and dear to me in my office carolyn rossetti who is the personnel clerk she worked at quaker ridge as well as the middle school will be retiring mid-year and we'll have plenty of time to celebrate all of them at some point more formally but i just wanted to recognize her for her 27 years of service in the district uh lori richardi who's in eric's office she has been in the district over 31 years when i started out here as a brand new teacher she was at the middle school and she served many roles across the district most recently in Eric's office and she'll be leaving in January as well and then finally not last but not least Risa Lamador who's the secretary to the principal at

134Green Acres will be leaving after 25 years of service in the district and so they have been really institutions have a lot of institutional knowledge, are caring, are warm, are always a friendly face and a friendly voice on the other end. And I just wanted to take a moment to recognize them and let them know that they'll be missed. So thanks. Thank you. I appreciate that interruption. Thank you. So we're about to have the vote. So may I say all those who want to vote in favor, please say aye. Anyone opposed? Okay, that motion carries. Consent agenda is adopted. We're now getting into the information items. We have a couple of weighty items. We could certainly hear the Treasurer's report, which shouldn't take long, and then maybe take a rest break after that? Yeah. Okay,

135great. Okay, right before the break. I'll keep it quick. Okay, so tonight you're presented with three months reports. As I previously told you, we were holding off on giving the report for June until the numbers were finalized and fully audited by the auditors. So you saw the financial statements tonight. So tonight you have the June Treasurer's Report, which corresponds to the year-end financial statements. I didn't include a revenue status or an appropriation status through June because, again, those numbers are reflected in the financial statements. For July and August, there are separate reports for each. Again, some items to note. We previously talked about we have a consolidation of one of our, two of our bank, investment banks, NYCLAS and NYLAF. Effective July 1st, the balance of the NYLAF account was transferred into our NYCLAS account

136and that's reflected on the July statement. You'll see that that account is now closed. In over the two month period, 1.3 million was received in state and federal aid of that. The majority of it was a receipt of money that was actually revenue in the prior year. So it was accrued at year end. There was $24,000 that's reflected as revenue in August for the New York State implementation of the cell phone ban. Second quarter sales tax payment was received from the county in August, which again, this is for revenue that was accrued in the 24-25 school year. interest earnings for the two months for about a hundred and seventy three thousand this is a lower amount than usual but again the summer months reflect our lowest cash on hand before our 2526 tax revenue come

137in So the interest is low, but our accounts are earning through September. We're still holding steady at about 4.1%. Our conservative budget for 25-26, we're still on track for that. We also received $521,000 in stop-loss recoveries over those two months, which is included in the health insurance contributions line. Now that 2425 is complete and finalized, we're focused on getting the initial high-level projections for 2526, which will be shared shortly. Thank you very much for that, and I think we will now take a rest break. Five minutes. Okay, we're back from our quick break, and we are taking up item 11.02, the demographic study. Okay thank you very much Jim and I just want to start again reiterating appreciation for the public comment tonight but also Nate's comment we had exchanged some messages over over the

138weekend but just just want to acknowledge the comment he made about you know when it's in paper it it feels real and feels different and that it's not a technical exercise if you see your your place in there and I just want to say I appreciate that understanding some difference between intent which I think everybody understands the intent was good and to provide information and impact which sometimes is harder to predict and say so just appreciate that we are as we indicated earlier we're going to talk about the demographic and enrollment study that was commissioned just going to go through a little bit of where this kind of comes from this particular study was timed a little bit different than our normal but this is a regular part of our practice to engage in projections

139of enrollment and then occasionally to do a demographic study that you know ground truth said a little bit or takes a little bit more statistical view of that we do have a policy board policy 7120 that directs me as the superintendent to evaluate the district population and housing trends and make enrollment projections for the district and that those be reviewed and brought up to date annually. You're familiar with this because we do this in annual planning as part of the budget cycle. So one of the things Megan presents is our best estimate in January of where we think elementary class sections are gonna be in the subsequent year, and it's really this study that becomes the basis for that. Sort of as time goes on, away from the last study, The better information we have

140are the kids in front of us except for kindergarten. We are still making a guess there. We only open our kindergarten enrollment almost at the same time that we share the first run at the budget. So it's important, important part of the process. So we also... engage with this demographer to do a more comprehensive analysis pretty much every two years is how it's gone. And we use those medium, you know, that information for medium term planning to think about the next five years. And then also, of course, we do long term planning. What do enrollment projections signal about? Space and program really and for the purposes of this discussion We did this a little earlier in the year because we're in the midst of this this planning process with respect to capital projects So with

141that question in mind we're focusing on that one tonight and as has been pointed out There is an added dimension to this year's demographic report that hasn't been in place in the past based on our discussion with the capital project steering committee We wanted to understand the potential that moving elementary boundaries holds for redistributing our student population in a way that could potentially forego identified needs for adding space, adding square footage, which is the most costly option that the board faces. in thinking about these these decisions however before jumping into the report and then ultimately the redistricting analysis i want to first share some information that the committee used during the deliberations which were based on the last demographic report so with credit to our colleagues in the audience from bbs and paul from eris

142here tonight thank you i'm going to share a couple of the slides that we used as the as the steering committee to think about what the needs would be early on in the process. So as part of that work, BBS performed a current space utilization analysis of each of our schools. obviously each of our schools has a fixed number of classrooms that's just what it is and those are spaces designed to accommodate an entire class as well as our schools have a variety of specialty use spaces think music art ENL we heard about OT and PT today speech things like that and then our larger multi-use spaces like multi-purpose rooms and so forth For the elementary level, the analysis involved looking at, for the committee, looked at the assigned and, where applicable, the unassigned spaces

143in each building, mapped them out, and then used the 2023-24 enrollment projection to determine if there would be enough capacity in the future. So that assessment, which is really summarized on this slide. resulted in identifying Edgewood and Fox Meadow for possible additional classroom space as the projection predicted a potential increase of four and two additional classroom sections within that five-year time period respectively. Fox Meadow and, sorry, Edgewood for Fox Meadow too. However, when we compared the projected enrollments to our actual enrollments, Edgewood's actual enrollment inclusive of the special classes was 24 students lower in 24-25 and is 27 students lower than this year than was originally projected in those things so those sort of misses on the projection if you will was a substantial enough difference that we felt administration felt that was important to

144get an updated report to get a better understanding these projections before recommending an expansion at Edgewood. As we'll see shortly, the new report continues to suggest that growth and that need at Edgewood, but we'll talk about that in a little bit. This is the actual these are the actual data sheets that the committee looked at it's hard I don't expect anyone to read this but the bottom line is the left columns that are in a paler color Reflect the current distribution how many kindergarten sections how many first how many second so on? That are currently in Edgewood the middle is Fox Meadow and the on the right is Quaker Ridge and then the highlighter color the yellow predicts it in 2028-29 which was the out year of the previous demographic report. And so this shows

145four additional sections at Edgewood from current, two additional at Fox Meadow, no additional sections at Quaker Ridge. no additional sections at Greenacres and no additional sections at Heathcote so let me pause for a second to talk about why I'm saying the word sections a section of elementary is a classroom it's it's the space it's the defining unit of space and we figure out how many sections we need based on our practice around class size so as we always talk about in the budget time our long-standing practice is to cap elementary class rooms at 22 students in grades K, 1, 2, and 3, and 24 students in grades 4 and 5. So that dividing the total population on a grade level by that respective denominator helps us predict how many sections that we'll need. And that

146will be a theme throughout this. You'll notice the demographic report doesn't... necessarily contemplate the number of classroom sections but that's how we use it really so we'll add that you'll see in some of these slides that these slides are all mostly going to be from this report but we'll add the division that shows classroom sections as we go but continuing on with the project capital project steering committee this was the analysis for the middle school the middle school let me get get to my page sorry about that there was a similar analysis discussed which and really the upshot at the middle school with our house and team structure there is that we have sufficient classroom space there's not a demand for additional classroom space needed there this is the backup around that for each of

147the four again not expecting you to read it but it's there in the slide if anyone wanted to print that out and look at it then as we think about the high school the high school operates a little bit differently than our elementary or middle school high school our particular high school is 94 what are so-called teaching stations or teaching classrooms it's not Like the elementary school where you have a single teacher in a single classroom. There are classrooms that are shared There's a schedule that's built. So there's X number of periods in a week or in a year and How many of those periods the classrooms are occupied by students gives you? Sort of a capacity measure and this slide kind of shows the capacity measure Thank you again to BBS for for the

148work they did on this and based on the idea currently that the high school is 518 out of 679 periods occupied that is a that is a healthy capacity that signals to us there's not the need for additional classroom space improving existing space is a different conversation but in terms of addition and again here's the backup that bbs used to conduct the the analysis on that So one other way we think about or can think about space with respect to our schools is the square footage per student. So this is an analysis that they did based on last year's enrollment and a projection based on the last year of the demographic study at the time, which shows the... square footage per student based on based on the enrollment and you can see that that amount

149it appears in the the last column of the the first set of four columns there and you can see for example Fox Meadows the lowest at a hundred and thirty three square feet per student some thirty three square feet below the next lowest which is edgewood and that's part of the whole discussion with respect to that so that is information that was part of the the process with the capital project steering committee and then this is slide 20 from our september 15th presentation where some members of the capital project steering committee kind of reported out the the recommended scope of work and we pointed out three topics for discussion and debate I highlight two here because they've come up already tonight we did say then we had a discussion about enrollment and does moving boundaries

150between our elementary schools obviate the need for new construction we felt the committee felt we had to at least get more information about that question to give the board information they could use to weigh those decisions and then also program location again the location of special class programs at Edgewood is a choice we heard you know poignant comments about why it's a good choice and why we prefer to have the programs there but it is a choice so we indicate we'd have to think about that as part of the totality of the information needed to make way alternatives and make decisions. So that goes back to the 20th. Okay, so as we turn to the report, again, this report is provided on the website in item 11.02. Anyone can download it. I took sections of

151the report, images to put on slides just to help walk people through the key pieces of it. Again, we've only had it for a handful of days. And I will say our demographer, Dr. Richard Grip, who's done this for us before, is certainly willing. We could set up an opportunity for him to come and address the board if you have questions that you'd want him to answer. It was a little too premature. to bring him in tonight and be helpful if we could prime some of those questions if we have them. So Richard Grip is the Executive Director of Statistical Forecasting, LLC. He has a doctorate from Rutgers University Graduate School of Education in Educational Statistics and Measurement. He's published widely and he's done this over 175 times for school districts in New York and

152New Jersey. He's been doing this for over 25 years. The typical components are included in this study. So you'll see in the study. a reporting of attendance area demographic characteristics refers to the to the census and the American Community Survey to get a sense of the community it looks at historical enrollments so we provide the data to him our official New York State data that describes our historical enrollments across all grade levels and then k-5 6 8 9 12 those are our three school levels and then by individual school it also looks at the enrollment trends of non-public school attending residents so we do have students who live in scarsdale but attend non-public schools at their choosing they he looks at school attendance area birth counts so using live birth data and then the study

153also examines housing so new housing starts within the community freightway came up tonight in public comment and we'll see later certainly that location holds the potential for producing a large number of residential units there are no plans currently active around doing so so he did not take he did not make an estimate of how many school-aged children would come from there because there are no plans to actually do that right now even though it's a possibility. What was unique this year in the study was this redistricting analysis. That's not something we'd done before, but again, that emanated from the Capital Project Steering Committee's conversations about questions that we had and wanted to answer. So we'll start with historical enrollments, and I just put this slide up because this is not part of the demographic study,

154but data that has been collected here in Scarsdale over the years. I know you can't read that, but all the way on the bottom left is 1965-66, right up through to this year. So a big range of Scarsdale history and the five elementary areas. So Edgewood on the bottom in darker blue, Fox Meadow in red, Greenacres in green, Heathcote in yellow, and then above is Quaker Ridge. And we've just highlighted the maximum enrollments for each of these. So back in the late 60s, Fox Meadow was at, sorry, Edgewood was at 523 students. Greenacres was at 455. In the early 2000s or end of the millennium there, Heathcote was at 410 at its largest. And then more recently, Quaker Ridge at 529 just a few years ago and Fox Meadow at 516 just last year. It's

155peak enrollment just last year. So it's just an interesting trend. I'm still researching the dip and if it has something to do with Quaker Ridge no longer being K-8. but being K-5 and we had middle school 7-8 for a period of time so there would have been sixth graders in some of these schools that then went to the middle school so I don't have all those answers but it is an interesting visual of our history a little bit so on to just looking at the site this was also referred to in comments tonight but In our previous study, enrollments were projected to increase throughout the projection period in both projections. The methodology is called cohort survival. I'm not going to go into that, but it's a statistical analysis. And he produces a cohort survival ratio

156based on four years of data and based on five years of data to give two different possibilities. We have tended to use the four-year predictions in our... budget conversations and so on as it shows a more recent sort of experience but in actuality despite this prediction enrollments declined in both years of the projection period 2024-25 and 2025-26 as such enrollments were overestimated in each year with the magnitude of error increasing over time so in the first projection the four year error rates range from 0.9 to 2.1 percent so in numbers that's between 40 and 96 students and in the second projection error rates range from one to two point four percent which corresponds to 49 to 110 students so that range of error depending on the level and year is you know obviously shows that

157this is not a perfect perfect predictive science but it is a sound and accepted methodology that we use to the best of our ability at the elementary level enrollments were overestimated in each year of the projection in both projections and those error rates range from two to three point six percent again that's about forty two to seventy six students at the elementary level across across all five elementary schools in the second projection the error rate range from two point six to four point six or 56 to 98 students most of the error in the k-5 band was over projecting kindergarten which is always challenging and second grade and fourth grade in 2024-25 whose errors are compounded in the following year as the students weren't here to move move through at scarsdale middle school grade six

158through eight enrollments were primarily overestimated in each year In the first projection, it was from 0.3 to 0.8%, which is three to nine students. That would have no real impact on our program. And in the second projection, 0.1 to 0.4%. So that's just one to four students. That's a pretty accurate projection. But of course, that's a much larger gathering of students. And then at the high school. enrollments were underestimated in the first year of the projection but overestimated in the second year a range of five to eleven students and then in the second projection six to eight students so that just gives us a sense of the last report where the error was it was primarily concentrated in the elementary zone kindergarten has a big factor to do with that it's difficult to predict so

159on to the current demographic study just zoom out and frame the the big picture these are historical enrollments from 2016-17 to 2025-26 these were stable in the first part of this but declined in 2020-21 and we associate that with covid we did have a number of students choose to leave during that period of time and go to other programs we had a rebound in 2022-23 as students returned and then enrollment's been fairly stable since then so if you look at the 4 678 students in the current year it's a decline of 100 students from 2016-17 but we'll see the prediction going forward as we look at this just want to point out here so this is a look at the breakout same data but broken out by level so k-5 on the top grade six

160through eight on the bottom and then grades nine through twelve in the green in the middle over the same time period self-contained special education and ungraded students are incorporated into the totals by grade configuration we sometimes get that question for grades k through five the enrollments as you see generally declined through 2020-21 before reversing trend and stabilizing. Enrollment sharply declined in 2020-2021. That's a hard thing to say over and over again. Sorry, due to the COVID pandemic before rebounding in 21-22 and 22-23 as students returned. So similar to what we just looked at in the totality. In the current year, enrollment is 21-14 at the elementary level, which is nearly unchanged from... 2016-17 for grades 6-8 enrollments were fairly stable through 23-24 before declining and enrollment is just over 1080 in 2526 which is 58

161students less from 2016-17 where it was 1142 and then finally scarsdale high school enrollments were fairly stable through again through 2021 before declining and stabilizing and we are currently at 1480 students which is 37 students fewer than 1617. when you think about program that is ultimately an insignificant difference it's not enough to cause the need for fewer teachers necessarily or or less less of a program um okay figure 12 here from the report for grades k through 12. this shows the number of non-public students over time from 2021 through 2024 25 we don't have the 25 26 data yet that's data that is furnished through the state of new york um so the number of non-public students has increased from 466 to 495 over this time period or 29 students at the elementary level the

162number of scarsdale resident students attending non-public schools has been fairly stable ranging from 175 to 208 students per year stability is defined statistically 24-25 we had 208 scarsdale resident students attend non-public elementary schools which is slightly higher than 2020-21 nine students higher and then at the secondary level the number of Scarsdale residents students attending non-public schools increased from 267 to 287 or a gain of 20 students this chart shows the percentage of students attending non-public schools has remained fairly stable over this time period ranging from 8.9 percent to 9.5 percent of our total population okay this is one of my favorite charts in this this this illustrates enrollment changes with respect to kindergarten replacement so concept you might recall from previous reports is is this idea of kindergarten replacement it's simply the numerical difference between

163the number of graduating 12th graders and the number of incoming kindergarteners so all other things being equal that number will change your enrollment either up or down The thing is, in the last nine years, the district's losses due to negative kindergarten replacement were partially or totally offset by an inward migration of students in other grades. This is a phenomenon and certainly something you could ask the demographer about, but the desirability of Scarsdale schools causes us to have an unusually high inward migration in non-starting years. kindergarten is the main one but even sixth grade ninth grade so over time the desirability of the schools causes people to move in replacing people who maybe move out or obviously in the case of kindergarten replacement graduated this is a summary of the the housing start information the the

164one you'll note up top here is is 80 Garden Road reason it is scheduled to be broken up into five single-family homes from the two properties that are currently there that's zone that's a green acres property just just for information then regarding the section of Mamaroneck that sends students to the Scarsdale Public Schools we call it the Mamaroneck strip there are no residential developments under construction nor their development applications that have been approved by the Planning Board so the demographer reaches out to those bodies as well So the baseline enrollment projections that we'll look at were not adjusted for additional children anticipated from the new housing developments since it's unclear if these projects will be constructed and occupied in the next five years. There's no definitive information about that, and that's the timeframe of the

165study. As members of the board have noted in the past, we must continue to monitor the status of Freightway to determine... potential future impact on the school district but again that's not included in this particular study because there's no definitive way to account for that Home sales peaked in 2002 at 279 sales before declining in 2008 associated with the banking and financial crisis. From 2010 to 2021, home sales generally increased. While there were significant number of sales in 2021 during COVID, the number of sales has declined in the last three years, which is likely due to increase in mortgage interest rates and lower inventory. fewer homes being put up for sale as of September of this year there were 153 home sales in the Scarsdale Public Schools attendance area with an additional 31 pending sales

166at this point in the year So that's background material to move into the projected enrollments. So we start the projected enrollments in Table 11. Again, there's a four-year average and a five-year. So that's why you see everything appear twice. In both projections, enrollments are projected to increase throughout the five-year projection period. In the first projection, using the cohort survival ratio based on four years of data, enrollment is projected to be 4,736 students in 2030-31, which would be 58 students more than the current enrollment. And in the second projection, the enrollment would be projected to be 4788, a little bit higher, 110 students more than we currently have. Again, within the normal range historically, that's not a huge change. It's a fairly normal change, but that's what the data show. Now we break the total numbers

167out, projections out into the three grade bands, K-5, 6-8, 9-12. For the elementary grades, enrollments are projected to increase for the next two years before stabilizing in both projections. In the first projection, based on the four years, it's projected to be 21-82 and 20-30-31, which would be 68 students more from the 25-26 enrollment. And the five-year method would be 79 students more. For the middle school, enrollments are projected to decline in 26-27 before reversing trend in both projections. So in 2030-31, enrollments projected to be 1,151 students. And in the second projection, which is 67 more than current, and then 1,183 or 99 from the current enrollment in the five-year projection. then finally for Scarsdale High School enrollments were projected to generally decline in the first projection and that's really as a wave of students for

168the declining enrollment way back in the elementary school moves through the middle school in the high school that's really what we're seeing but it's projected to be 1403 in 2030 31 which would be 77 students fewer or 68 students fewer in the second projection so that's that's what it looks like so again sort of a fairly stable look certainly no concerns about our middle school or high school in terms of capital projects new space new square footage being added Here's where it gets more interesting. We've just looked at the K-5 analysis, but here is school by school. So as best we can project based on the school-based history, historical analysis, he develops a cohort survival ratio on the four and the five year for the school specific. You'll see to the right I'll explain in

169a second that's added information just that just shows the number of sections so historical enrollments for Edgewood from 2016-17 to 2025-26 are shown here enrollments declined through 2021-22 no I'm yeah sorry so that's at the top before reversing trends in 25-26 the current year enrollment is 410 which is nearly identical to 2016-17 in both projections enrollments are projected to increase for the next three years before reversing trend and stabilizing in the projection we'd be looking to gain 23 students from in 2031 from the current enrollment and in the second projection It could be as high as 422 overall students. slightly higher than the current enrollment. So as we noted at the beginning of this presentation, we use these projections to help inform our annual budget projections, kindergarten enrollment in particular. And for example, with this

170study, you will see in January, we'll use this number 64, that's the one highlighted in red here, as our budget projection for next year. to estimate the need for three kindergarten sections. That's how we do it. So we take that number 64, we divide by 22. that gives us those we have 66 spaces in those three sections 64 projected students so that would be an enrollment of three sections does that make sense to everyone so this means when we look at all of this the estimated anticipated need for next year if we repeat that procedure across this particular projection we would need in 2026-27 a total of 20 sections plus our three special class sections totaling 23. so if you look over in the blue to the right where it's 20 26 27 20 and

1713 with 421 total students projected that is up one section from the current year so right now we're pressed for space in edgewood and we would expect one more next year And then as you look at the projections over time, it's not just the total number of students. It's only 11 more students. from 2026-27 to 2027-28 from 421 to 432 but it's where they are and how they push through with our class size guidelines so eventually we would be looking at as many as 26 sections that's consistent with what we looked at with Kevin's analysis earlier but again because we had not realized in 24 25 and 25 26 the projections we decided that we wanted to reconfirm that and it does look like you know with these projections we will need that so it

172does mean we should plan on Edgewood requiring up to 23 designated classroom spaces plus three additional special class spaces plus the space that we believe we need for art and music and obviously phys ed and Spanish and as we heard tonight our service providers reading ENL LRC so in the end This being consistent with the initial projection we considered, we would recommend that we'll need to add space at Edgewood going forward. This really reinforces that original study. So we'll have to continue to talk about that and what that means. as we move on to Fox Meadow we repeat the same exercise here so these are the school by the grade by grade projections for the school and then over to the right we see what that amounts to when we divide by 22 for grades

173K 1 2 & 3 & 24 for grades 4 & 5 it looks like we're currently at 25 sections in Fox Meadow we would project based on the projected kindergarten enrollment 26 for next year and the next several years with perhaps going up to 27 in 2029-2030 so again the the need for additional classroom space is reinforced by this current most recent demographic projection questions on how we're doing that how that is being calculated We repeat that for Greenacres. We're currently at 19 sections, and it will pretty much stay there, perhaps dropping to 18 in 27-28. Same for Heathcote. Looks stable. And then as we go to Quaker Ridge, potentially a one-section decline in 28-29, but otherwise stable. So those are the newest demographic projections in terms of... how they translate into class sections. Yeah,

174yep. It's a good time to ask. So the class projection sizes are based on the CS4 number? We base them on the CS4. That's been our practice. That's what we've historically used. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, so a couple questions. One is, are we forgetting something if we don't include potential impact? for faculty children because and the reason I'm asking is it occurred to me certainly I've noticed huge numbers of retirements of older people who've been you know in within the district for long periods of time I'm assuming probably being replaced by younger teachers I mean logically that may have children that may find Scarzillo a very desirable place to work because of the opportunity to send their kids to the school so that's just that's one question a placeholder yeah that and then it occurred to

175me that again it's I know it's hard to predict but as we As we grow, improve, and refine our special educational program, I know just through my own conversations anecdotally with people in Scarsdale. people who have children that have special needs have shopped around and chosen Scarsdale. I mean, that was said to me that they looked around and they made a decision because of what they felt was a very strong, you know, philosophical approach. So, you know, it seems to me, number one, those are variables that could affect. the numbers but kind of layered on top of that again this is all very complicated matrix but as an architect I know we know more and more about the spatial acoustic environmental needs of special needs kids whether that's in terms of quiet or certain lighting

176or certain visual environments that improve their experience and learning. And so that, you know, as we move forward to talk about growing or changing or switching, you know, since we have made such a strong commitment to the special education program, which I think we all embrace and support, you know, I'd like to see that, the notion of it's not just building a classroom and putting someone in it. special needs may suggest some refined or differences that if we're going to build something, maybe we want to think about building environments that support it, which in my mind then triggers, well, where would we do that? And I know there's a long Edgewood history here about special ed, and I don't know what that history is and why it's there, and I'm not saying it shouldn't be

177there, but... But if we need or think about, well, do we want to focus on building if we're going to grow, looking at the special ed as maybe what we build, I would step back and say, well, where is the best place to do that? We have five schools. We have X amount of layouts and situations. I'm not minimizing the historical, the history of Edgewood. I don't mean to do that. But again. It doesn't mean it can't move. So I know these are a lot of questions, but I think now's the time, and I personally really appreciate this study because it's really triggered lots of thinking in my brain about how to do this the right way. So I'm just throwing out these ideas because I think we all need to. This is like a

178really unique opportunity to do this right. You know, so. I would just say, so my first reaction to the second part you said is, like, we think we're doing special education right. As right now with the kids that we have now in those programs. Now, to some extent, those programs will be moving. You know, we've had 8-1 move to the middle school, and there's been some space considerations there, and subsequently to the high school. Right now, we think we can handle those through our. budgets and capital capital work yeah I think as opposed to the bond oh okay I just want to be a little bit more nuanced in the way we talk about the capital needs the environmental needs for students who are who have special needs or have IEPs because there's a very

179wide range of what that looks like and by and large The move towards flexibility and furniture the move towards the integration of technology rather than individual pieces the move towards a more universal design For flexibility within classrooms is all to the benefit Yes of kids who have differing needs because it creates a much more flexible space an adaptable space that allows us to to to do what we need to do in the spaces we need as our population changes, grows, contracts. Because what I've seen over the time here, we've had an increase in special education students. Certainly that's been a current trend. The fluctuations of the needs of the students within that increasing population fluctuate. Some years there's more of this, some years there's more need for that. So that's important to know that we

180need to have that flexible space. When we talk about our self-contained classes, you know, the on the elementary level that same thing that I just said holds true where kids a regular classroom space that's adaptable is really important for those students as we move it's really when we move on to the middle and high school programs that we need a few different types of learning spaces that things like a kitchen, things like laundry, things that are more life skills and adaptive skills based, where we're not necessarily doing those types, we're doing adaptive living skills, but not those types of adaptive living skills in the elementary. So I think there's a good handle on what types of spaces need to be there. There is a fact that a small section, like an eight to one to

181two or a 12 to one, need the use of a full classroom space because of the needs of those students. That is the box in which they need a full classroom. And it is their own. As for staff member children, under policy, the children of full-time staff members have an opportunity to bring their students here, their children here. free of tuition we currently have 34 element I'm just talking elementary that's that's the one that really that's what we're a lot of what we're talking about right there are 34 currently spread across the five elementary schools the largest school is Edgewood with 16 the smallest is Quaker Ridge and Fox Meadow with two faculty kids each we reserve the right under our practice to When you look at that 64, that box there, if we had...

182if we had two, let's say we have one faculty member who's asked to bring their child here kindergarten at Edgewood that's not in that number. So that number goes up to 65. And then in June we have two more registrations. So that goes up to 67. We would note that would break to a fourth section. We would no longer assign that staff member's child there. We would move that staff member's child to another school where it's not forcing a break of a section yes it is another student in the classroom wherever that classroom is but we do not allow it to force open another section that requires another classroom space that's not otherwise that's that's been the practice and i'm sorry just one last question um because i think clearly the goal here is to

183have a flexible rova robust classroom distribution so we can kind of go since there's an ebb and flow that's not totally predictable. And I know we have a 22 or a 24 person student limit. Would it be crazy if we have like a peak year, if we were to have instead of 22, we were to have 25 or 26, but we would say, yes, we're going to have an aid to help to create a more, you know, break it down into smaller groups, because we don't know in two years whether we're going to need another classroom. See, that's what I'm struggling with is the fact that things are going up and down. So you may in four years need an extra classroom, but two years later you may not. Could you solve that extra classroom

184through staffing? And kids get to go to the school they want to get to. They're not being moved. Instead of being 22, there are 25 kids in that class, but you give them an aid to help. You know, it seems as a strategy. To build in a certain flexibility, it's just that for any of us who sat through the capital project discussions, and I'm an architect, the cost of construction. is staggering. I mean, it's staggering. And so, you know, $800 to $1,000 a square foot to build this stuff. We need to be really careful that we're just being smart about it. And I'm not saying we're not, but again, this is the one month or two that we have to banter this around. So these are just things that are coming through my head to

185avoid building when we don't need to. Without responding to that as a policy item. No, don't be sorry. I just want to state for a fact so everybody knows. We do have instances where class size exceeds those guidelines. Now. That happens now. Okay. That would happen if a student moves in after we've started the year, for example, or after we've used August 15th as the close-down date where we make the judgment that it would be better to add a student to that room than try to hire a teacher as of high quality as the ones we have. on August 20th or September 3rd just as an example so we do have that cut off and we have had instances and families in the community know it's different when your class has of 22 has 24

186in it or your cap of 24 is 26 in it that that has happened we've we try to avoid that as best we can it really does make it like I think the educators around the table believe that class size is an important it helps to have a lower class size. It's hard to quantify that because the students are always changing, but I think it does help. But I'm just stating that that does happen. So if someone's wondering, no, my kids' class had 23 kids in it and the cap was 22. Yes, that's right. That does happen sometimes. It's after we were in motion for the year and we make the judgment that it's better to do that than to... make try to hire someone reset reshuffle classes at that point set up a new

187classroom those are all tricky tricky things because remember when you break a section maybe from three sections to four you're reshuffling kids from all of those other existing sections because you wouldn't have 22 22 22 for like you wouldn't do right yeah anything you dad Megan So just a couple other pieces on this. So this is all the sort of same data but summed up, K-5. So this is something where I know Megan and I are taking a deep breath and Andrew a deep breath around. This is the total number of sections. We're at 105 this year. It's projected to go up to 110 by 2029, 2030. That's five additional full-time staff members. That has a potential. Whether that comes to pass or not, we don't exactly know. In the projected numbers, the current staff

188children are in those numbers. The ungraded special education students are in those numbers, so it's inclusive of everyone. That doesn't necessarily reflect that option we have to move a faculty member's kids or a staff member's kid. That could be the thing that... reduces that or the projection might not come to be in terms of kindergarten enrollment but that's just on the horizon and that's that medium term planning thing that we should be thinking about this is a long term history of that so you can if you look at this you can see over time that class sections have ranged between 103 and 113 We had a year in 2015-16 to 2016-17 where it jumped by seven. It's happened in the past. And then it went back down. so that you know there's just there's a

189range in this and this district has held held firm to that this is just one other look it's all five of the schools I showed these individual but it's all five of the schools together with the projection so this this information is out there for you to look at for to think on to think on to ask questions for the public to have access to but this is this is the behind the scenes how we how we think about this then As for the redistricting analysis, the redistricting analysis was completed to help test this question of overcrowding. And really, when we talk about overcrowding, we're not talking about the total enrollment. We're talking about the number of class sections compared to the spaces available. It's the space utilization that really it relates to. So the

190demographer... again using data that we provided did an analysis and then made a projection over a five-year period based on a revised attendance boundary that could and I I'm not trying to sound like these aren't real families and real kids but the the work required developing a map of every address in in the community that sends kids to the schools or has for the last five years then these are our five elementary attendance boundaries and then finding a cluster of enough that could realistically produce fewer numbers of sections by making that that movement it's one thing to move 10 or 20 or 30 kids from one place to another that doesn't necessarily mean they're spread in the right place to reduce class section so this this was an apologized for the word but this was

191an exercise to see what would happen if to understand what the what the possibility is or isn't with respect to this so this this figure in the report shows the current elementary school attendance boundaries as many people know the the red lines here the the one separating the purple in the green near the top or northwest that's the Fox meadow and Greenacres boundary and that is Fenimore Road the line running sort of north east to south west is post road We know we have these major thoroughfares in this community and whenever kids have to cross them, as the Edgewood community knows as well, it's challenging. So that's absolutely. And then you see a more spread out area there, you know, in Heathcote and then Quaker Ridge has its various clusters. The figure shows the boundaries,

192table 20 that's inset to the right there shows that most students attend their zoned home school but some don't. Some go to different programs within our own district or in fact attend schools or come to our schools from outside. So this includes faculty and staff kids who don't have an address in Scarsdale but come in to one of the school attendance areas. essentially the same data but spread out so you know for example in the first row there are 363 students who attend Edgewood school but three from that attendance zone who attend Fox Meadow three to Greenacres one to Heathcote and two to Quaker Ridge that's part part of that so that data was used in this analysis because you wouldn't count someone who's already not going for example who's already not attending fox meadow

193you wouldn't count them in the analysis of redistricting because they're already not in enrolled in fox meadow does that make sense um so um as we go to the next uh chart here this is the zoom in of the area that the GIS kind of looked at to identify enough students to make that transition to green acres that would produce changes in in classroom sections so this is sort of a zoom in of that addresses that currently have are sending kids of elementary school age to Fox Meadow and i and again i realize i acknowledge that's difficult to see and then this shows how the enrollment would change from the current year given the number of students so they identified 60 students who could cross grade levels who if moved would result in an impact

194on the number of class sections and so here's here's sort of the the upshot of that um so this shows The new projection for Fox Meadow they used Historical data to show what the historical would have been if it had always been that way that those addresses were zoned for green acres instead of Fox Meadow and Then it projects the future the five years in the future. So what I've put over to the right is the actual data that we had in Fox Meadow and the projection we just looked at in the previous part of this report versus the move. So again, this analysis showed, for example, that with that change, enrollment next year at Fox Meadow would reduce from 531 in the projection to 443. So that's and then it would carry out even

195though it would continue to grow because enrollment is projected to grow at Fox Meadow the way it would carry out would be to grow to 478 instead of 543 Now, when you look at that, and then here's the similar number for Green Acres. Green Acres showing increased enrollment from what was projected. So that's what the computer spat out with the new analysis, and then this is the information that is information that would show what impact that has on space, ultimately, the need for space. To the left, the left box is Fox Meadow, the right is Green Acres. In the first year, 26-27, remember we were projecting 26 sections. That change would result in the need for 23 sections. We'd have one fewer second grade and two fewer fourth grades than originally projected. And over at

196Greenacres, we would see an increase in the need for three sections because of their higher enrollment, one in K, one in grade two, and one in grade four. So that's essentially a wash in terms of number of classroom sections. When you look at those additional three sections over at Green Acres and you compare that to the two available, potentially available classroom sections they have, now we're talking about shifting the problem from Fox Meadow to Green Acres. Green Acres would need to find a third classroom. Those spaces are currently being used for services and stuff like that. They're not classrooms as we think of 24 fifth graders or 24 fourth graders in the room, but they are being used for services that would have to be done in different parts of the building, and we'd still

197need to find a dedicated classroom space. So beyond two, Green Acres is not a great solution to moving that. Coupled with that, in the second year, in 2027-28, we would see the need for two fewer sections than projected at Fox Meadow and four more sections at Green Acres just because of where the students fall. at Greenacres, which the one student puts you over the class size limit, causing a break in sections. So that would result in not only the disruption to families, but the need for two additional staff members that we're not currently projecting. Now that changes in year three. It goes back to what is projected. So in 27-28, we would need 24 at Fox Meadow, 21 at Greenacres. total of 45 which is what we projected but then again in the in the

198fourth year if everything holds you would need one more staff member from what we what we projected in the regular not moving anyone so there are two two issues with that one is space in the receiving school becomes challenge that we're not currently experiencing and staffing is a budget is a budget constraint not mentioning all the other things that were factors that are real that were mentioned these are sort of the the numerical financial pieces of it so let me I said a lot let me stop there for a second before drawing some conclusions yeah yeah thank you true I find it interesting it was kind of one of my questions as does Greenacres have the space And it seems like that would be a challenge as is. So another question is, would the addition

199in the preliminary proposed bond mitigate the need to potentially move those students? For Fox Meadow? For Fox Meadow, yes. Okay, so the capital project that's in the preliminary proposed bond would mitigate that need. However, would redistricting the kids remove the need to add to Fox Meadow? Well. I think that's a great question I don't I think when we're still looking at 24 sections that that is where we are now or close to where we are now and they're they're full there there no no space is available even to do things that are scheduled and planned so there'd have to be something something done there would it theoretically have to be four new classrooms that are being proposed right now I'm not sure, but they would still need something. That's my viewpoint. Thank you. I would

200also just like to acknowledge the shared values expressed by the Fox Meadow community who've come out, and I wanted to thank you for all your comments on the importance of neighborhood culture and community and, of course, traffic safety and stability for your children. So I just want you to know that that was heard. Thank you. actually really thank you for this analysis it's super helpful I just want to make sure I understand so right now in terms of number of sections at Fox Meadow because I know these are the predictions for next year with a redistricting maybe it should go back to that slide so I understand So right now they have 25 sections at Fox Meadow and next year without any redistricting we're looking at 26 do they have space for 26 sections and

201we forget about the bond right now do they have a classroom space available No It's not empty though one classroom that is empty on the lower level that is being utilized for meeting space and a conference room that they desperately lack for the function of their building on a regular basis. I think that's a challenge for them today even though they have that space. And what that room looks like? Yeah. It is not what we would expect you know yeah so I guess I'm I'm I mean I appreciate that we're looking at the bond and forward thinking but I'm even thinking about next year how are we going to address that in that building they'll have to make some choices and so the the pro so looking back I showed that graph of historical enrollments

202what's different now than 25 years ago when maybe we had just as high enrollment we're I think we're doing different things now than than we did so one thing is from some time in the past is Spanish language instruction starting in grade two we also have an increase in our special education population that requires related services more E&L population that we provide English as a new language you know we're doing more things in our schools that really require space and and what we've tried to do as best we can is provide dedicated space so the short answer though as long-winded is parts of our program that could push in would push in and the dedicated space for those programs would be given up to a classroom that's really the the tool available right now at

203Edgewood and Fox Meadow if there's a growth in enrollment before anything can be can be added so you're talking about Spanish We call, like, as a euphemism, say, on a cart, right? But what we're talking about is they push into classrooms instead of having a dedicated learning space. That could theoretically be art. That could be general music. Those are the types of spaces that we want a dedicated space to, but the classroom comes first. Okay. Thank you. So just one more slide, finishing this up. Sorry, I went back here. Obviously, redrawing boundaries is a high-stakes decision, and we've talked about that, recognizing what that feels like. Two things that this particular version would accomplish is lowering, potentially, forgoing the need for the kind of new construction we're proposing at Fox Meadow, and the boundaries would

204not require transportation, so that's an added cost. It would certainly require an army of crossing guards to cross Fenimore Road, but there are a number of negatives in addition to the things that were mentioned tonight. by the public obviously that dangerous crossing is there the student learning and social emotional disruption is of course a factor the potential for additional staffing is a factor creating the need for more sections unintentionally but just that's where the numbers shake out you can't over time if you projected 20 years in the future and we had redistricted you don't know who's going to move into those houses when and of what age students are going to be and then the GA the Green Acres enrollment increase that changes the program there perhaps equitably with Edgewood you know because maybe they

205have to do that too but not the way we envision the program running and then the reality of achieving this depends on achieve you know having school elementary school age kids continuing to live in those houses over time Not that you know the board couldn't do this again in the future But as I said in the capital project steering committee, oh, this is every superintendent's favorite topic bring up redistricting in the elementary zone But we understood why it was requested and so it's a lot of information, but I just want to say one thing first of all, thank you for this that the whole report was very heavy and I think you did a really nice job of simplifying it so the community can understand I also just think it's important and I think what

206this report has shown tonight is how serious the district is taking every component of this bond and how important it is that the decisions are student-centered and I really got that from your report tonight and I hope that the community got that as well and that the redistricting was not the reason for this report it was a part of the report but we want to make sure that the bond we're putting forth is giving our students what they need and I appreciate the components of this report tonight that you so thoughtfully and eloquently presented to the community. So I just wanted to thank you for that. In terms of Edgewood and I'm also worried about them for next year I was thinking too of Laura speaking of their E&L population I know that E&L teacher

207is in a classroom right now and be pushed out to probably use that classroom for a section but in terms of your potential suggestion for a smaller or different addition to Edgewood is that something we're going to discuss later in tonight? So I think it's putting it on the radar and I think what we're seeking is sense from you whether we should go pursue that as a board not you Leah yes I say yes I'd like to know about that thank you well you know I I'm sure like most of us I'm struggling with wrapping my head around what are the next steps in terms of Edgewood and in Fox Meadow and I think what I what I hope the community understands is I'm just going to say it for myself is I don't think

208anyone doesn't want to do these things It's not like oh, we don't want to add classrooms at Edgewood or Fox Meadow. It's that It has to be sold as a bond and people have to vote on it and approve it You know, we came up with 400 million to start with, you know tax neutral was 40. So think about that already someone got on which And mentioned well, what would it be if it was tax neutral? Well if it was tax neutral most of the things a lot of the things that we've listed won't be done on that on this round, so I think What I'm struggling with is should the 96 be 120 or should it be 140? Because I think should we study Edgewood? I would say yes, we should study it. But

209at the end of the day, what is the number that's going to be acceptable to the whole community? And I think this is- the reality that there are many people that don't live in these neighborhoods who might be thinking, well, I'm sorry, I don't want to have my taxes go up X amount. So, oh, they said maybe you can do this or you can do that. And so, again, I would say it's good to understand the Edgewood scenario, what it would cost. I would like to know those numbers because I think I want the community to tell us you can increase that number. I haven't heard people come up yet and say that so far tonight. No one got up here and said, no problem. We'll get you this vote for $100-something million because that's

210what we're going to need, or we're not going to get it at all, right, unless I'm missing something. So, I mean, I think we need to understand what that final number is. I'm not opposed to Edgewood or Fox Meadow having new construction if the bond can get approved to do it. Makes sense. Can I just suggest in the interest of order? We have an entire other report that's going to be getting into exactly what you were referring to. So I think maybe we should hear that one. And then, you know, that was actually part of that. So I just want to put that out there. But with respect to the demographic study, it is interesting. Thank you for, you know, that. providing the bite-sized pieces it's a lot to digest my takeaway you know just

211personally is that it's it's far from clear that this redistricting would solve the problem and it would certainly create lots of others so that's just my thought I'd like to add that I do appreciate everything in this report. I agree that right now looking at what you've presented with us, I don't see that redistricting solves our problems at all. I think it just shifts. things over to Greenacres which has already had an extensive renovation so that that doesn't seem like the right approach taking all the students and the feedback out of it right like then you think about that it it seems like a fool's endeavor there but I do think looking at Edgewood I think we we need to look at those pressures as well Thank you. I really appreciate the approach of looking

212at data. Not that it's perfect to project numbers like this, but I think it's very useful. I agree that it looks like redistricting doesn't solve the problem, and that's looking at the numbers, you know, that it would be shifting. issue to another school on top of everything else that we've heard tonight from the feedback I also appreciate all this the engagement that we have reached out to the community and the community has reached out to us you know like the the engagement session the survey I think those are the things that ultimately are gonna help us as board members decide you know Bob your question you know what will the community support I recognize that this is you know an organic process you know the last bond we we said it's going to be tax

213neutral and it made it on some level simpler you know to to come up with a bond scope i appreciate that this this process is a little messier you know um that we are trying to look at real student needs look at data and look at what the community values and i think that those things you know What might come up with a bond scope that doesn't fit neatly into a text neutral bucket? Not only you know Is there such a thing as inflation? What this bond that we're replacing paid for when it was issued is a different dollar amount today. But also student learning, how we support our children has changed dramatically. And we want to give our children the kind of experience here that we consider a Scarsdale top education. I do appreciate

214this process. I appreciate the transparency. We got this report just a few days ago and we sent it out. And I think that speaks to our feeling that we want to engage the community as much as possible on this. We could have sat on it. But I think I appreciate that. And I know you and the cabinet have put in a ton of work. these kind of reports and I think it's very important that the community sees the work that goes behind what we will ultimately present to the community for approval. So thank you. I'd also like to express my gratitude for all the work that goes into the presentations today. Yeah, I agree. I echo the opinion that redistricting doesn't seem to solve the problem. Yeah, I think sort of the continuity that is

215important and also shifting the population around. You know, there's a lot of unpredictability going into future years. The numbers even even though we've had a few like sort of over projections recently Even if the numbers in the next five years doesn't go as high as those in the report I think just from experience and anecdotally like the you know, we're certainly not seeing any decline in student population as to some of the discussions prior I think the quality of our schools is probably you know like a strong draw to this to the town so yeah it's important to kind of we are kind of doing this sort of like a paying it forward right it's a really long term So I also appreciate the transparent and thorough process. And I would love to maybe have

216like a... deeper dive into the Edgewood numbers to kind of to really understand kind of the rigor of that part of the projection. Especially given that it seems to be that like the past couple of years like there's some variance if we can understand sort of the drivers of those variance. Maybe it'll give us like even more confidence. with the projection. And I think in this process, we talk about equity when we look at all the schools like if we look at like what their whether their specials have dedicated spaces or services have dedicated spaces I think it will be helpful I appreciate the the chart Eric provided the board with all the ICT sessions across schools I think that's very helpful information if Maybe we compile like a similar chart with like services and

217specials That will be another helpful guide And in terms of the ultimate, like, overall size of the bond, from the survey, I think the survey, we got really, I think, 800-plus responses. I think that is a very good response rate. But I'm a little concerned that most of the responders have children in the schools, so it will be... think it would be important to try to get more responses from people without kids in the schools kind of to to gauge the level of community support yeah I don't know if there's other people have comments on the demographic study yeah didn't seem like it I think yeah I know it's late I just our student board members just want you to know you whatever you need to do where it's all totally good Okay, so we'll

218shift now to a discussion about our capital projects specifically. Again, no final decisions have been made. In case someone's watching this for the first time, even recorded, we're in the part of an iterative process where we're seeking feedback and discussing it and so forth. This is all part of our strategic plan. I've done these slides before. I won't spend too much on it, but just to make the connection that this work is connected to really centrally to what we believe in and what we're trying to focus on. We have guiding principles that have guided this process, and we're in this iterative phase here between what the Facilities Committee did, the Capital Project Steering Committee, and then the Board. We're in this feedback phase, and that will continue for a little bit. of time and theoretically

219we're still on par on the schedule to potentially have a referendum in the spring but again this is all all part of it so tonight this update will focus on the feedback that we've received since the last meeting we'll talk a little bit about cost estimation work that that's underway with our partners at eris talk about ongoing stakeholder engagement just a few steps that have taken place since we last met and what's upcoming and then talk about next steps So in terms of the public feedback, on October 16th, we had 80 attendees who joined us in the auditorium and then in the common area for understanding and conversation about what's been proposed so far, and we had 238 comment cards submitted at that, suggestions on green cards and questions or concerns on red cards, and

220then the feedback survey that went out, we had 828 submissions. we're grateful for that that's a record as far as i i can recall in terms of participation um so major themes from the first from the october 16th session we tried to assess the the themes and i'll admit i did use notebook lm a little bit to help with this putting in the the written feedback But there are some themes that participants want us to think about. They want to know a little bit more about how decisions were made or recommendations were made, I think is what that means, data or criteria and how equity was considered, why Fox Meadow and not Edgewood. That came up, and we've talked a little bit about that tonight. Some themes around the fields, some supportive, some concerned about

221where they are, and then also about... synthetic turf in some cases as we look at the general bond planning big picture we've Been asked to define what we mean by equity and facilities planning and I'll just say a word about that We did talk about this with the steering committee thinking about equity in two ways that there are infrastructure type projects building conditions priority one items especially That really need to be addressed equitably across all of our schools We also viewed air conditioning in that way the proposed projects around air conditioning should be applied equitably And then when we thought about facilities and space, the spatial projects, the construction or renovation, we thought about equity on a longer time scale. And we looked at the history of bonds, several of which were mentioned tonight in

222the classroom visit updates or the school visit updates by board members, that you can't do it all at once, that there's sort of a movement across schools over time. So that's kind of how we thought about that. emphasis on ensuring all buildings have equivalent program quality and space that has just come up in this last discussion we were asked to kind of separate deferred maintenance versus new space rather than lumping it all together in one school being clear about that and define what act capacity is i think we went some way tonight toward explaining that that we're really thinking about classroom sections and the demand for space in that in that lens In terms of the Edgewood, there was a whole category of Edgewood, Edgewood specific concerns from the participants on October 16th. Identifying their

223space and capacity as being maxed out, questions about enrollment growth and forecasting, we kind of talked about that tonight. Again, equity, as we discussed. wondering what the criteria for determinations and again why Fox Meadow and not Edgewood but again we've talked about that tonight on the field concerns some people are worried why are we spending why aren't we doing more related to student learning and not even and put those resources toward fields however I mean an alternate view of that is fields are places where students learn that is those competition spaces that is part of our program there was question about why did we like add the field cost into the middle school in Fox Meadow we've since kind of backed that out and thought of fields separately equity why aren't we talking about indoor

224indoor spaces it just wasn't the charge of the the study at this time and can the village do more well the we talked about our properties these are the properties the school district owns and maintains there is the village also participated in the field study and is having a conversation about about their fields as well that's a real brief there's more the board has access to all of the feedback from those 238 comments but I just wanted to touch on we could be here all night on them they were so thoughtful but just touch on big picture there on to the survey it's a little easier to show because there's some quantitative data we had 828 responses thank you Scarsdale that's amazing we presented the survey in these four categories spatial BCS air conditioning and

225fields three of those four had an area to follow up if people wanted to. So I've just listed the number of comments in each of those follow-up areas here, over 200 in all cases. So again, thank you for taking the time to write. So on to the demographics of the survey. So of the 828 responses, 77.4% were residents, 18.4% were employees, and there were a small percentage of students who participated in it, which is great, 5% or so. do you currently have school-aged children this is to Laura's point 91.3% of the respondents had one or more students attending the public schools in terms of elementary attendance zone it was divided among the five zones with Edgewood the largest that doesn't mean they had only elementary age kids it's just what part of the community are

226they living in Which schools do your children attend? And this just shows the breakout there. It's a mix. Obviously, the high school and middle school have more kids. So that's part of that there. And then of the staff, 152 staff members responded. The majority, or not the majority, but the biggest representation was from the high school. The second biggest was from the middle school. Okay, so in the survey, sort of this type of information was shared with the survey participants. So the first area in the survey was air conditioning, and they were asked, we referred to this sort of behind the scenes as the Goldilocks survey. Is it just right, too much, or too little was sort of the emphasis, just to give some sense and direction. So 66.7% thought air conditioning or large spaces

227was a necessity in this day and age and was supported. 25.6% think of it as a nice to have, but support maybe going through priorities, maybe not everything. And then 7.7% felt air conditioning was not a priority at this time. In terms of the... comments about that. It was like, if you think they should be prioritized, how would you prioritize them? The responses there had a number of different themes to them. Again, this is a little bit of use of AI to try to make this thematic. But there was a recognition that... we should explore as efficient ways to air conditioning as possible people brought up ideas like geothermal and other thoughts like that there was the idea that we should phase this in and set priorities where classrooms come first learning spaces come first

228and less frequently used spaces come later Heathcote strong theme was that they for equity they really need to be classrooms need to be air conditioned the facility that can't be done the way we've air conditioned classrooms and the other buildings there was a theme around the high school gymnasiums really emphasize that we've heard that at public comment as well last year some people want it all all to be done there's some skepticism about it from some some respondents that the the number of days per year that we actually need to cool some of these spaces is that worth worth the cost emphasize energy efficiency wherever we can and prioritize vulnerable populations. Those were really some of the major themes. Then the survey moved on to the spatial projects. Again, this included the, well, what's on

229this list, the proposals that were brought forward on September 15th. We haven't changed that at this point. That's what was being responded to, this $44.3 million of work. The respondents, 47.7% said the projects reflect the right balance of need and affordability for our community. 28.9% said the projects are necessary but not sufficient, that it's an opportunity to be more expansive. And 23.4% said the opportunity is important but it's too much and it's out of balance with respect to affordability. On these projects, the overwhelming feedback involved being equitable to Edgewood, that Edgewood was left out. there were some ideas to do high school spaces beyond what's in the scope of work right now science labs among other things came up there a theme of concern about the cost to taxpayers the middle school improvements were discussed

230in their in some cases support for a project that wasn't included with the lunch area and then an emphasis on pruning nice-to-haves and focus on need-to-haves that was some of that feedback again there's there's a lot of it but those were some of the big themes third we moved on to the building infrastructure priorities Building condition item ones and the other things that have been identified thirty three million dollars Sixty two percent felt these projects reflect the right balance of need and affordability And then another twenty one point six percent said they're necessary but not sufficient should move beyond this and then Sixteen percent that it's out of balance with respect to need and affordability we did not ask a follow-up on that one it's so vast and broad we could we can in a

231future opportunity but but we didn't have a follow-up on that and then with respect to the fields we asked give them some information about the projects and ask the question here so 28% 0.7% felt improving fields is a priority among one among many support prioritizing one and not both 37% supported both these projects and 33.9% said it's not a priority at this time so that's sort of quasi a third a third and a third we asked follow-ups on that and The main things that or some of the things that came out I can't say the main things were potential concern about any synthetic turf Which is part of the proposal for the middle school field on the other hand the emphasis on playability and access was really important to some of the respondents there's some

232concerns over the project at Fox Meadow field disrupting that field and we also have some questions about that that we're going to talk about at the November meeting so we've continued to do a lot of behind the scenes thinking about that and I think there might be a better alternative to that anyway then and then this idea of let's make sure student learning is at the center again it probably depends on your vantage point you some people might feel that play playing time and the athletic program and PE and stuff is a critical part of student learning and others might not might not feel that way which is understandable And then we asked questions about the overall big picture scope of this. So we showed this graph, which is just the distribution of these four

233categories by dollar amount and percentage. And another way to look at the same data – oh, no, sorry. That's the one we showed. Sorry. That's later. And the question here was about the balance. And 44 percent felt the balance of these four areas and how they're distributed is appropriate and is the sound approach. Another 22% felt it was appropriate, but the scope should be expanded from that. 14% felt it's appropriate, but the total scope exceeds the affordability for our community. And then a smaller percentage thought it wasn't appropriate and should be adjusted, and then within the same cost. And then some 11% felt the balance is not appropriate and should be adjusted and reduced. then we showed the the distribution by school excluding the field projects because they're really school agnostic in a way and

234then showed it another way just in a pie graph and then asked the the view about the distribution of projects by school 61% felt it's important to prioritize updates and improvements across all schools and this approach does that 23% felt it's important to prioritize updates but to emphasize the middle and high school more than are being emphasized 12.3% the district should consider a different approach than either of the above and we're asked to comment on that in open-ended and then the district consider a different approach than any of this Then some summary of the comments here again we heard Edgewood is neglected Make sure we're focusing on the older buildings Are we catching up or are we being future ready? Are we ignoring an opportunity? there was a thread about prioritizing these elementary projects What

235we need over I think that's supposed to say over what we want i don't know why it says need overshared sorry that's a typo make sure we do ac across all the schools heathcote classrooms as a priority it's other schools turn like moving on from green acres and then again a threat of prioritized middle school and high school more than we currently are and then finally the the last overall scope 51.7% felt this amount is just right it reflects a balance of need and affordability 20.9% felt it was too low the opportunity is too important and should be more expansive and 27.4% the amount is too high while the opportunities important it's out of balance with respect to need and affordability so that was the upshot from from the survey and then we had just

236some bond scope comments again some of the same themes we heard in other sections include Edgewood expansion reduce the field project scope or change that Fox Meadow one again the scrutiny over the cost of AC and is it justified given the number of high temperature days or low number of the high temperature days depending on that recognition that there are some spaces not included middle school Edgewood and then safety and learning before bells and whistles was one of the themes that make sure we're really doing the things kids really need and not stuff that just would look nice or feel nice there was an opportunity fewer comments but just for additional anything else you want to add there was a theme around making sure we're more transparent more clear on accountability and once we get

237into the work to make sure we're really careful about the the costs and staying within those budgets again Edgewood needs not met in this project some space is not addressed another version of that and the field project so it kind of boiled down over the different iterations into these key things. Real quickly, we'll talk a little bit about cost estimation work. Andrew, will you talk a little bit about what's been going on in our conversations with ARIS? Yeah, so Paul Tosdy, who's here tonight, and his team have been taking a deeper look at our air conditioning cost estimates. So we believe at the November meeting we'll be able to share some updated cost estimates that are far more detailed than the planning numbers we've been using. We're hoping also to have some updated BCS infrastructure

238cost estimates as well. So hopefully those items will... be a little bit more clear and subject to the the field conversation that dr patrick mentioned we're having internally we think that we might be able to update those cost estimates as well to give a little bit more detail in terms of what we're assuming and then what those cost estimates will be obviously on the spatial projects we'll need a little bit more direction on on how to proceed but we we think we're making progress there as well Awesome. Thank you. Some additional stakeholder engagement. Andrew and I met with the Edgewood faculty since last time we met, updated them on the projects and proposals, and beginning to just hear some more feedback from them. And we also met with the Edgewood PTA. I met with the

239Edgewood PTA co-presidents and the principal and assistant principal to learn more about their concerns and answer their questions. Andrew and I met today with the Fox Meadow faculty and have a meeting with the PTA at Fox Meadow on Friday of this week, Halloween. We have a November 6th Zoom session that's open to everyone. It's gonna be a sort of a brief presentation and a chance to hear questions and answer them, hopefully, kind of hear what's on people's minds. Throughout we have a board meeting on November 17th. And of course we can think about other things that are not on this list That's the other question mark down there and then So just thinking about some some next steps just to kind of put a bow on the two reports in a sense So in terms

240of Edgewood, we know what the demographer report shows Potentially not enough capacity and that we we think we should roll up our sleeves again on that hi back there that's Kevin Fox Meadow and Green Acres the redistrict I think we heard tonight that though the information is appreciated that the that is a solution is probably not really viable given the additional problems that creates not to mention the the general concerns over the the idea in the first place and then as Andrew alluded to it we feel that we should be ready by the next board meeting to do those revised provide those revised estimates on air conditioning BCS and field projects so we'll leave it there and take questions and have a discussion. Yeah, I'd like to suggest one of the comments that we've received

241through our board emails was from an architect who had queried the design solution for Edgewood. And I have to say, I haven't personally critiqued it, but I think it's really important that we make sure, because if you look at the site plan, it's obviously of all the schools, it's one of the tighter site plans. I think we need to number one, make sure that we can build what we want to build successfully. If we can, then we need to know what it will cost and then decide if we can proceed. If we can't come up with a design solution that maintains the light and quality of environment that we want, then that raises another issue of how do we solve the problem? Because the growth of the demand remains, the numbers are the numbers, the

242functions are the functions. So I'm not saying we have a solution to offer, but. I am concerned that we're assuming that it's feasible to do what we want to do successfully. It's not just a matter of squeezing it in and messing up the current plan. So I think I'd like to suggest that we, for as soon as possible, just. check that off. Yes, it's feasible that everyone would be happy with what we come up with. I mean, just conceptually. I don't mean in detail, but where we're citing it, how it's going to affect courtyards and whatnot, and light and whatnot. So that would be my, I personally would like to encourage us to have the architects just check that off again and look at it. That's okay. Well, I guess we'll hear from others. I'm

243not quite sure what it is we want to do yet. I mean, I know there was what was part of the proposal that wasn't pursued. Are we talking about putting that all back on the table? Are we talking about putting something else on the table that's not as much as that? I'm happy to throw out some thoughts. I found the demographic study compelling in terms of the real pressure. on Edgewood in terms of enrollment so for me I'm interested in really classroom space there additions there you know I think there was a larger and the committee looked at a larger scope project I'm not sure that I'm that camp at this point I'm looking at really the data that we've been presented which says we have a growing classroom need and and that's what I'd

244like to see us address at Edgewood and Fox Meadow as well I mean I know we have plans for Fox Meadow and another and I'm not suggesting a change there I'm just saying that's that's my concern I agree I I think I would like to see if there is a possibility to maybe have a lower addition to Edgewood where we're addressing classroom need and also the need that the community has shared around services and a space for the children to have services appropriately. So I think... We toured Edgewood. There are a lot of beautiful parts of it. And I know that the courtyard was discussed briefly as an area that was not under consideration for an addition. After touring it, there is a very easy egress from there that could easily, I don't know all

245the architecture of it, but I would also be interested to see if there's a way. to affordably add classrooms and spaces for the services and still maintain part of the courtyard, but maybe it be more cost efficient. I think there's just a little number of options at Edgewood that I would be interested to see what those are so we can make the most informed decision. Just along the lines of Laura's earlier comment about special spaces like OTPT and Colleen's comment, I would like to understand with all the five schools, which schools have kind of new, discrete, not even new, but discrete usable spaces that are kind of healthy, positive spaces for those experiences of speech, OTPT, which schools don't? Because I know... Sometimes it's mixed. I think he'd go if they have some but then

246I know they have their OT on the back of the stage You know their auditorium and again with you know Edgewood and Fox Meadows really understand even though I've seen those schools compared to like Greenacres for example because I think it's You know, it seems to be a need at all of our elementary's and I think it's an equity issue I appreciate the data that supports adding space to Edgewood. And I'm not an architect, so I'm not even going to try to guess how we would do that or where we would put that. I am a little concerned that I don't want this bond to get so out of control. So if there are things that are kind of lower priority in the bond scope as it is that you think that we can take

247out and put into budgets, I don't know, like... spoilers or something like that. Don't get mad at me, Andrew, sorry. If we can try to look hard at those things again, that maybe we can, might not be possible. Well, just to add on to that, I mean, I do look forward to our discussion on the 17th about fields, because I think that the survey results show that we should probably revisit. portion of the recommendation so I think that I agree that looking at what we might be able to refine in scope is helpful but I think I'd like to get the full big the full picture and then I mean that's just my perspective and then maybe get those recommendations and you know I think there was one comment in there about you know what

248do we need to have versus what's a bell and a whistle and I think that might be a discussion that we might have as a board when we get that idea because I don't know what what might come back from Edgewood could it be you know if it's another 20 million dollars that's that's a large chunk for us to try to ask the community to absorb so I think we'd really have to look at a lot at that point based on what comes back again just my thoughts moving forward what do you feel like you have received is it something that's sufficient at this point or do you need more more feedback from us so I'll go out on a limb and say what I think what I think I think you so I think

249you haven't said no to a total cost that's in this range at least yet that you see value in the projects that you'd like a classroom project at Edgewood to be revisited and scoped out and understand what that impact would be but also to have us look at other areas to reduce the scope that might offset that is that we'll do the best we can to do that I do think so work moving ahead to try to accomplish some of that does involve our partners and cost estimating things at this stage so for example if we were to go back to sorry close your eyes and if you get seasick so if we look at all of these projects For example, the Heathcote and Middle School Library renovations. We haven't talked much about those, but

250there's work that could be done to move forward on getting a better cost there. I haven't heard that we shouldn't do that. The high school work, including the classroom renovations at the two schools, Edgewood and Fox Meadow, that those are all things we could. move forward with and and expect to to be included at this point that's the out on the I think it's a good question because you know we got a lot of feedback from the Edgewood community that they weren't as excited about the classroom renovations and they were really more interested in the additional space so I think that you know that's something we'd have to look at in terms of a price tag to me that's that's something I would consider because we heard we heard quite vocally from the community that

251that they prioritize that that new space so that's just that's something that jumps out at me I don't know what the rest of the board thinks well I mean I don't and I'm not sure if what they were reacting to was either or choice as opposed to the renovations of classrooms already in there So they weren't necessarily thinking, I'll get more space, but I won't get the renovations of the classroom. I don't know if they were thinking about it that way. They might have just been saying, look, I know you're renovating some of my classrooms. That's not enough. As opposed to, I don't even want that. I mean, those are two different things you could interpret. So, I mean, I don't know how to interpret that exactly. But what I was thinking is, like, you

252know, obviously the classroom renovations. very few things impact the kids as directly in every day as that, right? Because they're in those classrooms every day, making use of those spaces every day, and improvements on those spaces that facilitate learning and directly impact their ability to make use of the space probably has a great value add in terms of they're in that space every day. So I kind of think those renovations might be very important to the extent that they... uh improve the learning experience the classroom experience you know for the kids and the teachers so i'm not so sure that i would feel like yeah yeah let's maybe look there to cut i mean my personal feeling is maybe we think about the fields but because we have we see a lot of ambivalence about

253the fields and what we're hearing back from the community um and that's a big nut too so that's sort of where my my thought is during our tour we actually discussed this with the administration and matt And the feedback we received was that the space was the priority and they felt that needing more space was their prior, they were willing to prioritize that over classroom renovations if we needed to cut things from the budget, which is I think is why I was requesting ideas for adding that space. The only other thing that I heard from community members was around the middle school library and trying to understand what that looked like. So if we're looking to give specific areas to focus on that we feel like the community would support, I feel like the high

254school renovations, we've gotten a lot of support from those, and that would be an area where I think... would be a good use of time and energy because I can't speak for everybody, but I see that moving forward. And, yeah, so I think that for me those are, and the Heathcote, all of the work at Heathcote also I feel like from the community and based on the price would probably be something that I feel would also be worth time moving forward. Those are just my opinions. Well, if I'm understanding this correctly, I think. A common methodology is that if we need another classroom, we go into a space where a support service or a support activity occurs and we turn it into a classroom, which means that the support services are under provided for in

255Fox Meadow, I think, and in Edgewood. So I think what I'm hearing, I wasn't on the Edgewood tour, but I think what I'm hearing is that at some point there's going to be a tipping point where that really just doesn't work. That strategy doesn't work. And I think... Perhaps, obviously the principals and the people in Edgewood are the closest to it, and what I'm hearing is rather than a new classroom, they'd rather make sure that they have the proper space, these other spaces that they're short of to be built properly to do what they need to do, they're designated, and that maybe the rest will fall into place. Now that's a feasibility study that one could. test one could see because I'm still sitting here thinking well if there is an increased demand for the

256classrooms in Edgewood how will it occur? I mean that it's not it's not on it's not How can I put it? It's an exercise that one can actually go in and do. Like if in two years they need two more classes. Well, they're doing it right now. And they're doing it right. So I think if I'm hearing they're saying, well, I'm not as worried about that as I am about all the other stuff, then I think we should, you know, I'll revise my request. We should make sure that that other stuff can be done properly in the school, and what will it cost? I mean, that to me is what I'm hearing. So I think that's what we maybe should focus on at this point. Or both. I mean, honestly, again, it comes down to,

257you know, would the community embrace another $19 million to the budget? I don't know. I just don't know. Does that make sense? Well, I guess my thought would be, and I'm not sure how best to do it, is... To really try to keep it pretty tight to what it's currently estimated to be at its Top number 95 96 whatever that number is. I mean in other words not to say here's our new number. It's 120 I think that would be I just think that would be a little irresponsible Maybe I mean to do it that way, right? I mean, you know, there might be a way to do it where it's an alternative here is Adding edge wouldn't changing nothing. Here's adding a doing and changing some things like that we've done that kind of

258analysis before, it is more work, but I do think it gives people insight and transparency into decision making. Yeah, that makes sense. Maybe that's all I had. Yeah, any other comments? Are we good? I think we're good on this, and we can move on to the next item, because it is late, and we're actually starting a whole new topic here, education report. Usually you like to have a little more time to talk about this very important thing. Yeah. I just want to say thank you very much to the team from BBS and ARIS that are here this evening it's much later than we anticipated them sticking around for and they didn't have a speaking role but I know that this conversation that the board has had has been valuable to their work so I really

259appreciate them coming this evening and also to our facilities leadership back there John and Nick thank you very much appreciate you being here to listen to this want to take thank you before another rest do people want another rest okay all right then we'll do it it's been two hours okay so thank you five minutes reconvening after that refreshment break and Drew yeah we're gonna we're gonna postpone the education report it's 1015 at night I think it's too important to not have fresher eyes and ears and questions and all that so with Edgar's gracious and we'll agree to do it at the November 17th and we'll make it early in the information items if not first So thank you, we'll move on to 11.05. Textbooks? So two books to be proposed. The first one is

260Everything I Never Told You. It's being recommended for ninth grade English classes by Kimberly Summerfield. A wonderful mystery, important themes, family, friendship. She's planning to use it in two classes. For her ninth grade English class, it's a choice book for small group discussions, for book groups. And her ninth grade skills class is a whole class text. She found the themes valuable and relevant to students' lives and of high interest, high quality, relatable, and universal experiences. And then the next one is The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows by John Koenig. It's being recommended by Rachel Stark for her 12th grade dilemmas course. The author has created an alternative dictionary of words that describe emotions that are not specifically covered in English. It's an epic work of creativity. It's a way for the class to come together and

261make meaning. And it's a very unconventional text to review because it won't be read in a linear fashion but used as a kind of dictionary and resource. And she was describing it as kind of a balm to AI, large language models. It's kind of a workaround because they're new words that are not part of the English language. She's using it for free writing and to help deepen comprehension and have students negotiate ambiguity. This is a book actually that's been passed around by English teachers and based on its success across the department, Rachel is looking for a class set to use with her students and she promises to share with other teachers in the department. You can tell it's very well loved by all the marks she has in it. Okay, that'll come back as an

262action item at the next meeting. Well, I think now we have a policy review, which is... It's going to be Andrew. Andrew? As part of the work of my office trying to... streamline operations, be more effective in our work. One of the things that we noticed in our purchasing policy is some of the thresholds by which staff members are required to get three quotes and support their purchases in that manner. We did a review of some comparable districts in our regions to see what other folks are doing. And the revised policy adjustments here that we are making in this agenda item, which we'll come back. in the future really just helps it to streamline the work in our office not only in our office in the business office but in all the school offices where

263staff are asked to go get quotes most of our purchases I'll note fall into either district issued bids, cooperative bids, BOCES contracts, state contracts. So there's a really small population of these things, but we felt an important change to make to really just help effectively use the resources we have across the district in this policy. hopefully that's a succinct enough kind of abbreviation and just as a reminder it is a regulation that's attached to the policy and it is the not required by law but the practice of this board to to treat regulations through multiple reads like policy do anyone have any questions for Andrew I think that's pretty clear thank you Discussion of a gift proposal to Fox Meadow. This is first of two gifts on this part of the agenda because they are

264in excess of $1,000. The first is a gift from Fox Meadow PTA in the amount of $1,175. That's not a real number. $1,775. I apologize. For the third grade trip to Ward Pound Ridge Reservation. part of the Native American program that they that they have any questions on that one the second gift is proposed to Fox Meadow well Edgewood elementary school and involves a variety of different teacher grants totaling four thousand six hundred and ninety four dollars donated by the Edgewood PTA we've reviewed those and and support them any questions on those Okay, so those will come back as action items in the next meeting. Thank you. Great. Now we have action items in this meeting. The first one is we're going to see now the district-wide safety and emergency management plan. I think that's

265Robert. Yes, I'd like to make the following motion. Resolve that the Board of Education approve the district-wide safety plan with revisions as presented. Is there a second? Susie, any discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? That motion carries. The next action item is proposed new textbooks. I think that's Susie. Thank you, Jim. I move to accept the following resolution resolved that the board approves the proposed book for the middle school as presented. Is there a second? Leah. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any objections? That carries. And now we move on to gifts. The first gift is a gift proposal to Fox Meadow I'm trying to see who that is it's me that is okay I think it's actually Amber oh you know Bob don't steal Amber's gift I

266move that the board adopt the following resolve that the board accept with thanks the gift of five hundred eighteen dollars for the 2025-2026 school year to support the transportation to the Ridgefield Playhouse on November 17th 2025 as presented in the attached letters Okay, is there a second? Suzy, any discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? That motion carries with thanks. The next is a gift proposal with regard to high school athletic department. That is Leah. Thank you. I move that the board adopt the following resolution. Resolved that the Board of Education accepts with thanks the donation of an inflatable tunnel, including ropes and sandbags to secure it and an electric pump. valued at approximately $2,325 to the athletic department for Scarsdale High School teams as described in the attached letters. Thank

267you. Is there a second? Susie? Okay, any discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? That motion carries with thanks. Next is a gift proposal to Green Acres. I think it's Laura. I move that the board accept the following resolution. Resolved that the Board of Education accepts with thanks the gift proposal of teacher innovation grants valued at $1,150. $50 which has been awarded to two projects the Gator news grant for $150 and the building community at GA at Greenacres at GA through picture books grant for $1,000 as presented okay is there a second amber okay any discussion All those in favor please say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? That motion carries with thanks. And now Bob I think you are the gift proposal to the school. Yes, sorry about that. I move that

268the board accept the following resolution. Resolved, that the Board of Education accepts with thanks the gift $500 to cover essential supplies for the SMS Mosaic Club including substrate materials, additional nippers for cutting tiles, grout, a grinder, and glass tiles as presented. And as a potter, I really appreciate this. Okay. Great is there a second okay, yeah, amber Any discussion all those in favor? Please say aye aye Anyone opposed no that motion carries with thanks and we will now going back into public comment Section 14 of the agenda. I am NOT going to repeat all that preamble But really the question is is there anyone in the audience who wants to make a public comment? Okay I had a longer presentation, but I wound up crossing out a lot as you presented. So thank you for

269all that information. My name is Christian Callahan. I live at 173 Webster Road. I'm a parent of two children who attend Edgewood School, a taxpayer, a Scarsdale High School graduate, class of 97, and the architect that wrote that letter about spatial planning at Edgewood. So that's kind of two points I want to hit on first. I do think... Thank you for revisiting the Edgewood expansion, and I think what needs to happen is we need to look at programming needs and spatial impact. And I do think that there are smaller alternatives, more cost-effective alternatives, and interestingly enough, Edgewood, at least even in my parent cohort, I can name six architects. So there's more than enough community input to be provided to the architects that will be working on that kind of spatial impact. And then the

270second thing I wanted to highlight, which is more of a longer-term planning concern, is that using the building conditions study as an example, we're accommodating about $33 million of it in this bond now, leaving $100 million for later. I think as part of the bond process, we need to really comprehensively plan out how we're going to alleviate that $100 million over the next 10 years. So when the next bond comes up... We're not in the hole. I think there's an acknowledgment that there's going to be some sort of running debt with facilities maintenance, but how can we proactively, through annual budget, alleviate those concerns? So that's it. Again, I just want to reiterate thank you for bringing Edgewood back to the table, and myself and others would be more than happy to do whatever we

271need to do to meet with the architects to figure out a spatial solution that's cost-effective and meets the needs of the school. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Anyone else in the audience? Okay, can we check the Zoom? Hello, can you hear us? If you could please turn on your camera. Can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you now. Okay, hi. It's Art Rublin, 22 Dinellen Road. I just wanted to speak to the... question of whether or not this bond needs to be tax neutral. And I welcome the comments that have been made to suggest that this doesn't have to be tax neutral. Often at these times, pivotal times for Scarsdale, I look to Scarsdale history, and I was just looking at the book that Carol O'Connor wrote about Scarsdale from basically 1900 to 1980.

272I just want to just... come up i just want to point out a couple things between 45 and 65 the community supported bonds in the range of a total of around 10.2 million dollars uh kylo akana reported which uh by uh calculations i just did on uh i think it was the federal reserve's uh cpi numbers that's the equivalent of about 120 million dollars which is it's an interesting number given the discussions that have been had and i would venture to bet that those will not were not tax neutral bonds to build new buildings such as the heathcote school that bond passed 551-47 there was there was talk at the time about whether or not it was you know too much of a super duper school but i think we're all happy that that work

273was done work done at large budgets to support the educational program more generally work at the junior high school two additions to the high school improvements improvements at old elementary schools so some things never change 1962, Scarstall Inquirer says the village's greatest asset is its schools. 1979, auditorium bond issue, $1.5 million, which in today's terms is probably around $7 million. I also just want to note just one of the dimensions here is Scarstall's been described recently as the United States' wealthiest suburb. And I don't want to lose sight of the fact that a lot of people are on fixed incomes. At the same time, you know, home values, I think, have continued to rise. So, for example, one article about Scarsdale being the wealthiest suburb had the increase in home value, average home value, going

274from $1,170,000 in May of 24 to $1,207,000 in May of 25. That's an increase of about $37,500 in terms of average home value income. increase from 588 to 601 in terms of average income that's an increase of 13 000. i don't want to be pollyannish about this too much i just want to sort of just put this in a frame that on the one hand this is about kids education and and not having to scrimp uh here and there um whether it's edgewood space or heathcote space or high school space or ict or whatever else this is america's wealthiest suburb and this is actually arguably just from a i think Good argument from a pocketbook point of view, this is a home run. Whereas if we don't do this work and people who are looking

275to buy a house here that, well, the work wasn't done because the community wouldn't support additional space in Edgewood or additional work in the high schools or air conditioning where needed, that... Would be a problem now one other thing. I just want to note to close is I appreciate mr. Cline's, you know, look it's always good to brainstorm, but I heard something about class size I'm just reminded of the work that I and others did in 2011 you had a school board room that maybe was never so packed there were 150 people we we turned around the views of several school board members with the view that this is this should be sacrosanct 22, 24, that's it. I think Dr. Patrick made the good point that already these are not fixed caps because you can

276have people move in after September 15th or what have you. And so while I appreciate the idea to try to be creative, I think the answer is it doesn't have to always be either or here. It can be and, and, and we can work together. I think actually. Bob, I think you had actually also made the point that you're not hearing enough about people saying we will support this. I will remind that we had a successful vote to override the tax cap a couple of years ago. I will remind you again that over time, the building, probably the room that you're in right now was probably built with bond money from a bond that was not tax neutral. He's coat, again, I think was from a bond that was not tax neutral. so i would

277argue that you should have faith in the community that if you put together a sensible proposal and again jim i understand your concerns about not being irresponsible but if you make the case that the work is being done not to build fancy schools but to build functional schools to keep scarsdale scarsdale that the community will be with you and if you try to scrimp and save too much that it actually could be a point of diminishing returns and uh thanks if you gave me a couple extra seconds that's all i have okay thank you Anyone else? Hi, Rachna Singh, still at Griffin Avenue. I'm speaking in my personal capacity as a parent and taxpayer. I want to make it clear that I'm not here to negate anyone's feelings or experiences regarding Fox Meadow redistricting proposal

278that some members communities are facing. However, I would like to highlight experiences of students in special education within this district. For many years, these students have been attending non-home schools moving between different ICT classrooms at various grade levels and in different buildings. Special education students often are being schlepped from their home school to other schools across the district. This occurs despite the fact that students with IEP are protected under a federal law, the Individual with Disability Education Act. which emphasizes the importance of least restrictive environment for many students, that is their home school. I hope you can see the irony here. Again, I want to make it clear, I'm not negating the experience and the Fox Meadow community is feeling. I hope that after today, hearing the concerns of Fox Meadow parents, the Board of

279Education, the district administration, and the community members gain a deeper understanding of the difficult and emotional decision that a special education parents face when their children are placed in non-home school. I hope you appreciate how resilient and Teflon-like special education parents are. Real rock stars of the community. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Give it another few seconds. Hello, can you hear us? I can. Can you hear me? Yes. Thank you so much for your time. I know it's late. Just like Christian, I will try to keep it short, but my name is Ashley Luke. I'm a resident at 25 Hamilton Road in Edgewood. I was also born and raised in Scarsdale and Fox Meadow and a Scarsdale graduate of the high school in 2004. I am honored to be able to have the

280opportunity to raise my children here in this community, especially after growing up in this community. And I think back to my elementary experience here, I remember getting up, going to my specials, having different learning environments, and it was something I looked forward to daily. Hearing that this has the potential to possibly move to carts or be taken away from our little children's experience in their elementary schools is extremely disheartening. I hope that as you look at Edgewood's needs, we are learning from what has already happened in Fox Meadow, and we are proactive to ensure that although we are, you know. reaching our capacity. We continue to make these spaces warm and inviting for the children and allow them to learn in different environments and not be kind of in one spot the entire day. Edgewood

281also thrives off of inclusion and having the self-contained special education classes be part of our community teaches our children patience, respect, respect for differences that really can't be taught without having that exposure. I work closely with children up in Vermont and they all, you know, they don't have legs for skiing and they're all in wheelchairs and my kids seeing this. day-to-day and working with children that may not look the same or learn the same or act the same is, as I said, something that can never be taught from a teacher to another child. It is important to have empathy, patience, and the exposure to our children here. Looking at the proposal for the bond, I heard us talking about, well, maybe, you know, we don't work on the classrooms as is and we just prioritize

282the space our classrooms have We have parts of the building that are falling in and continue to be repatched. My son is sitting in front of an area that is just crumbling behind him, one of our walls. It is still important to prioritize these spaces to your point that they are in every single day. We want them to be happy going to their school and feel safe and be excited. create an environment that is important. Also, as a mom of two children with 504 plans, I strongly feel that these environments need to be sanctuaries for our children. They're already struggling enough with what they need to work on, and kind of banishing them to either a hallway or a closet does not make this exciting for them to go learn and work on things that

283they are already being pulled out of their current classroom to go work on some areas that could be pretty sensitive, I guess. So I am so grateful that you all have heard Edgewood. I'm asking that we all learn from experiences. We have also heard from so many Fox Meadow families tonight expressing their concerns. And we don't want Edgewood to be a consequence of any reactive planning, but really continue to be proactive. So just. kind of coming off of Christian as well, we are families that we are willing to sit here and talk and talk about options and understand truly what our needs are, what may be a smaller footprint, or, you know, what our options are to move forward and still meet the needs of our community. I appreciate the time. Thank you. Okay, thank

284you. No one else's hand is raised. We'll give it two seconds. Okay, that's it. public comment yes it's over all right so let's move on the address matters raised doing public comment and you need for that okay um so we're going to go to any need for wrap-up items is anything we want to I think we I think we have a lot of notes I think we summarized the sort of direction and the discussion was very valuable thank you really appreciate it so then I'm gonna hand it back over to Colleen for the meeting dates for the coming month thank you Jim our next meeting Tuesday, October 28th, the Board Committee for District School Visits will be at 9 a.m. at Fox Meadow Elementary. On Thursday, October 30th, the Board Committee for District-Ride School Visits

285will be at 9 a.m. at the Middle School. On Monday, November 3rd, the Board Committee for District School Visits will be at 120 at the High School. On Monday, November 3rd, the Board of Education Retreat will be at 5 p.m. in this room. On Thursday, November 6th, we will have a virtual Capital Projects Bond Feedback Session from 7 to 8.30 via Zoom. On Friday, November 7th, the Board Committee for District Schools will visit Edgewood at 845 and Quaker Ridge at 10 a.m. On Monday, November 17th, we'll have a special meeting with the high school student group at 5 p.m. in the Learning Commons, a public forum for the 2026 budget priorities at 6 p.m. in the high school in this room, and immediately following the forum, we will have a business meeting in the high

286school in this room. On Wednesday, November 19th, we will have our first board coffee at 10 a.m. In this room and on Wednesday, December 3rd We will have our second board coffee at 7 p.m. In this room. Okay. Thank you Colleen Can I get a motion to adjourn this meeting Leah? Yes, Suzy second any discussion now everyone in favor, please say aye aye No objection. We're adjourned. Thank you