BOE Business Meeting 2025-9-15

001Good evening everyone. This is Jim Dugan, the board president this year. I call this meeting to order and note that all board members are present. We are also joined by Dr. Patrick and members of the administrative cabinet. Thank you to those in the audience or those watching the live stream for joining us this evening. Earlier this evening, the board met with officers and representatives of the Scarsdale Teachers Association. Our teachers are our critical partners in helping to deliver optimal educational outcomes to our students, and we greatly value the opportunity we have in these discussions with them. This evening, we discussed a variety of topics of vital interest to our schools and our students, such as open grade book, the implementation of community lunch in the high school, and the cell phone ban also at the

002high school. We appreciate engaging in these productive discussions about these important topics and thank the teachers for their collaboration and dedication to our students over the years. I'll turn it over to Drew. Thank you very much good evening I would like to add my welcome to everyone in person and watching from home tonight tonight's Board of Education meeting and I want to reiterate President Dugan's appreciation for our meeting with the Scarsdale Teachers Association I thought we had a good good discussion on a number of important topics and appreciate the collaboration and partnership with the STA and with the board I'm pleased to report that the first few weeks of school have gone smoothly and successfully. Last week, our elementary welcome back picnics and open houses took place and instrumental music lessons started. Sixth grade back

003to school night took place last week as well, along with new family orientations. On Friday night, the first home football game took place on Butler Field, and it was a resounding win, fortunately. against New Rochelle and but it was really great to see so many students and families at the game real strong sense of community this week the high school holds their first parent coffees via zoom tomorrow the seventh and eighth grade and choice back-to-school nights are this week as well and then next week is Raider Pride Week ending on Friday September 26th with homecoming and again our football team will again be in action taking on Suffern High School at 6 p.m. and I hope folks in the community turn out and enjoy the festivities. Tonight we have a very important information discussion item

004related to the capital projects and bond planning process. A number of members of the capital project steering committee are in our audience tonight, some of whom will help present a recommended scope of work to the board. I want to publicly thank everybody who served on the committee for their contributions and for being here tonight. When we reach the question and answer portion of that presentation, committee members know that they're invited to contribute to that conversation as they see fit as well. then finally just some upcoming dates to note Rosh Hashanah begins at sundown on Monday September 22nd that's next week through September 24th and our schools will be closed on Tuesday and Wednesday the 23rd and 24th in observance of that holiday Navratri occurs during the nine days between September 22nd so again beginning next

005week and October 2nd and Yom Kippur begins at sundown on Wednesday October 1st through Thursday October 2nd and schools will be closed on October 2nd in observance of that holiday as well Thank you, Drew. And with that, just putting it out there for board member reports, I believe, Leah. Thank you, Jim. I would like to highlight a unique collaborative art community building event in the village called Paint the Dale, a community mural project on Sunday, October 12th from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. in Chase Park. The Village of Scarsdale and Scarsdale Business Alliance invite residents to take part in a historic collaborative art event. This unprecedented initiative will bring the community together. You can paint a part of the mural. There will be a sign up going out tomorrow. I'm going to be there and

006paint and I hope that people join our community. There will be other special art events in the village at that time including a digital art project, a gratitude rock garden, projects led by local artists and studios, crafts, games, and We Love Scarsdale interactive experiences. Thank you. Thank you, Leah. I don't know if anyone else has a report. If not, I do have one on the two by two meeting, which is what we here refer to as the meeting between village and district personnel, high level. On Tuesday, September 9th, Superintendent Patrick, Vice President Brown, and I. met with Mayor Arrest and Deputy Mayor Grunberg and Village Manager Alex Marshall here in the district at the Grand Conference Room. The topics that we discussed at a high level included the Scarsdale Police Department technology acquisition, the status

007of the A School building, the location of a shed that is contemplated to be built adjacent to Butler Field by Maroon and White. There was an early draft that was distributed of our shared resources between the village and the district. We discussed a recent MTA track incident involving, unfortunately, some Scarsdale students, and that has been the subject of a joint letter that has been issued this week between the district and the village. We also discussed parking concerns, the sharing of arrangements for various practice fields, electrification project at the bus compound, the stream dredging project, which has not yet commenced, shared use of Scarsdale High School and village tennis courts by both constituencies, as well as district efforts to address anti-Semitism. And I think that's the report on the two by two. And with that, student

008board members. Hi, thank you. So last time during our student board member update, we talked about how us two wanted to improve our engagement with the students at the high school for two key reasons. One, to let them know what we're doing on the board and how that directly affects them, but also to hear how they too may want to contribute their own ideas to the board. So one of the ideas we mentioned last time was using the high school's newspaper, Maroon, as a platform for Lucy and I to share any updates and offer a QR code, for example, to survey any information. So just following up on that, both of us just got talked with the Maroon editor-in-chief and advisors, and we confirmed that on their digital website edition, we would be able to

009have reports starting October, and we still have to wait on any follow-ups for the print edition as they have kind of already done that layout already. We've also been in the talks with the Maroon Multimedia team who does the weekly homeroom videos since those are a little more visible and seen by more students about either us or the hosts announcing upcoming meetings and just directing them to the website or the printed copies, whatever ends up being our source of communication. Yeah, and just for some general student updates beyond what we mentioned last time, as many of you know, this year we started the new cell phone ban, and today was the first day in which active punishment would be carried out, where phones would be confiscated. And although there were some growing pains today, as

010we mentioned in today's meeting, We anticipate that just like there was with the phone caddies over the three years that I've been in the high school, it went from something that was never really implemented to something that was so strongly implemented that created such a nice digital environment within the high school. We anticipate that the cell phone ban will be the same in which, yes, once these growing pains are over, we will see a similar healthy digital environment that follows these new state guidelines. And so for the response beyond for students has been healthy as well. Teachers, for example, have been started to using planners or writing the assignments on the board instead of using on Google Classroom, which is you obviously need your phone for. So that has been an update. And another for

011students when it comes to using phones during free periods. Shocker, it's supported face-to-face communication. So that has definitely been a plus that I think definitely improves student mental health and just general well-being. Yeah, and also kind of following up with what we said earlier about community lunch so far so good there was a few drawbacks about lunch lines and That kind of thing but people have more time to eat they have more time to study they can see more people than they could before they can see teachers they can see clubs I think the pros way outweigh the cons and it's been met with a lot of positive feedback thus far Thank you Wonderful, thank you. I don't know if anyone has any questions about the reports, but if not, we can move on to

012the next portion of the meeting. Thanks, Jim. The next item is cabinet updates. I just want to pause for a second. We are having some issues with board docs, some of us in the room. Honoré is on the phone with them right now, just working on the... So I can still... It's back? Okay, I can control the meeting from here. hopefully fingers crossed we'll see apologies for that so we'll start the first cabinet update with Megan staffing and enrollment update thank you thank you for giving me the opportunity to share this year's updates regarding staffing numbers and student enrollment The people are at the heart of all of our work to ensure a high quality Scarcell education. And while enrollment does connect with our staffing numbers, there are other factors that drive these numbers as

013well, including our special education students. And in addition, our commitment to class sizes at the elementary level can impact staffing in unanticipated ways. Just as a reminder, we're committed to maintaining class sizes of no larger than 22 students in grades K through 3. and 24 students in grades four through five. So any movement in enrollment above these numbers before our cutoff date on August 15th can impact staffing. So we closely followed those numbers up to the 15th. This is a picture of our newly, most recent tenured faculty who are, who we'll talk about staffing in a little bit. Alright, so starting with, I'll throw a lot of numbers at you, but starting with our student enrollment, we welcomed 4,672 students into our schools and classrooms this year, which is 23 fewer students than last year,

014but nine over our projected numbers. At the elementary level, we currently have 2,108 students, which is 19 students fewer than last year, but 29 students over projected. And at the middle school level, we have 1,084 in grades 6 through 8, which is two fewer students than last year, and nine under the projected number. And finally, at Scarcell High School, we welcome 1,480 students, which is two fewer students than last year, and 11 students under projected enrollment. This brings our total for the district to be nine students over the projected numbers, which indicates a fairly accurate assessment by our demographer. Moving through these next two slides show our elementary enrollment which were originally one I had them as one chart but my vision is You know failing me so I put it into two here with

015these slides show our elementary enrollment which Again can have an impact This is where we see probably the greatest impact when we have changes in enrollment and new students enrolling in the summer It can have the greatest impact on our staffing which I'll highlight in a minute So at Edgewood and Fox Meadow, our elementary sections remain the same as projected. At Green Acres, one additional section was needed for our fourth grade, with additional students registering since the passage of the budget. Their enrollment increased to 75 students late in the school year, which required an additional section. also at Heathcote they required one additional section in the fifth grade due to an increase in Roman their enrollment was at 47 in June and increased to 49 and this change again was related to moves into the

016district while at Quaker Ridge sections remain the same as projected and so in total we required two additional classroom sections at the elementary level over projected and if you recall these were numbers they would these were two sections or two grade levels that were close to at the time when we were planning our budget but were under at the time so those changes happened after the passage of the budget And so our total elementary enrollment, 29 additional students over the projected number with those two additional sections. So you can see what a slight, with a slight increase or a change in elementary enrollment, the increases happen in just the right spots that require, or maybe just not the right spots, that require those additional sections. Our ICT sections remain the same as projected with 22

017with our three additional special classes at Edgewood for a total of 25. Here, this is just another visual. You can see overall our trend in elementary enrollment remaining relatively constant over the past three years after a dip in 2019 to 2022, also around the time of COVID. And we're actually at one of our highest enrollment numbers at the elementary level over the past 10 years. And looking in more detail by level, our elementary enrollment, the largest difference in projections was in Fox Meadow, where we were 13 over projected enrollments. And elsewhere, there were no large discrepancies or swings from last year to this year. At the middle school, our actual number is nine under what was projected at 1,084. And you can see that middle school enrollment has been fairly consistent over the past 10

018years, hovering in and around 1,100 students. Currently, the seventh grade class is much smaller than the sixth grade and eighth grade. Sixth grade is at 385, and eighth grade is at 386, with seventh grade being at 313. So it's a smaller dip in enrollment for that particular year. and at Scarcelle High School. Our numbers are slightly less than projected, but fairly constant with last year's numbers of 1,482. And if you recall from our demographer's report, which was, I think, my first year two years ago, there was expected to be a slight decrease at the secondary level, while an increase at the elementary level takes place. And this will shift when those elementary students age up to the middle school. So this year's freshman class is at 377. Sophomores at 348. juniors are 383 and seniors

019at 372 those are our numbers at the high school and that was on the day that I looked in our infant we know those are change ever changing as the year moves so again just another chart showing the overall student enrollment currently at four thousand six hundred and seventy two and a generally constant trend over the past five years So just some points of note, as I mentioned earlier at the elementary level, we have 29 students more than projected, 19 fewer students enrolled from 24 to 25, but overall no major enrollment shifts from one year to the next. And what that tells us is that families with children continue to move into the district and send their children to our schools. So who are the people who are educating all these students who walk through

020our doors? They're talented faculty and staff. And so we are starting the school year with 665.5 total staff made up of 507.7 professional or certified staff. This is 1.0 FTE above our projected staffing numbers. You can see that our civil service staffing is in line with our projected numbers of 157.8. And at the elementary level, again, we added a fifth grade section at Heathcote because of enrollment, a fourth grade section at Greenacres because of enrollment. And this brought our total number of elementary classrooms sections to 105, which was two over projected. We had no changes at the secondary level and remained within our projected numbers. And we utilized the 1.0 contingency position for one of those elementary positions, which left us at 1.0. fte over the budgeted over budget with the elementary faculty some sums

021it up i just wanted to thank the board for being that helping hand this was on the first day of school in one of our kindergarten hallways but you behind the scenes helping our students to get what they need in terms of their educational experience so questions do you take a snapshot at the end of the year like of enrollment for people who move here during the year infinite campus allows us to do that so we can see where the numbers are at the end of the year as well Any other questions for Megan? Okay. Oh, sorry. I have a clarifying question. Part of my ignorance. For the staff count, how do you have fractional staff? So we have part-time. Oh, I see. So we have some part-time and some shared staffing across buildings. So

022those are those folks. They're full humans. Work part-time. Yeah, we've now moved to AI generated. Thank you. All right. We're going to shift to Edgar. He's going to do an elementary curriculum update. You moved. I did. Give me one second to. There we go. Thank you. I'm happy to provide an update for today's board meeting focused on the important work done by elementary educators during summer improvement days in enriching and adapting the existing curriculum in math, but also in developing an internal benchmarking system and procedural fluency and automaticity. Educators looked at our current pacing calendars when and what order concepts and skills are taught and made adjustments based on student and teacher experience. In line with feedback educators spent time improving the K-1 curriculum formatting and language. Educators also reach beyond the current tools and

023reveal math, namely using math for love and context for learning to expand the toolbox for enrichment to inspire and challenge our students at all levels. The key is, of course, using resources that are aligned with the next-gen standards around mathematical practices. The next slide. A real focus was on K-5 fluency benchmarking. Next slide. In it, educators reviewed the New York State Next Generation Math Standards for fluency and cross-referenced with our current pace and resources. Next, by grade, they created common Scarsdale-specific benchmarks for both fluency and automaticity, or math facts, to be given three times a year. The benchmarks were designed to reflect grade level expectations, but also educators felt it important to provide additional problems beyond grade level to reflect Scarsdale's range of learners. This is our first year with these benchmarks. We are excited

024to try them out and come back together and revise them based on educator feedback. And the final slide is a special thank you to the elementary program improvement team with representation from all elementary schools and all grades. We appreciate their dedication and of course the leadership of our math coordinators Vivian Robert and Carrie Orgera. Thank you Edgar. Any questions for Edgar? Okay. Eric has three updates for us. I have three updates but no slides so I'll try to keep it brief I just wanted to give a little bit of update on our ESY program and our special class programs that have started this year so we had a very successful extended school year at Edgewood for both our 12 to 1 and 8 to 1 classes the program lasted six weeks and included both academic

025and enrichment activities to make sure the students in those programs didn't experience a slide over the summer and could start this September ready to go and with the conclusion of that ESY program three of our students from Edgewood spent their last summer there with our eight to one program moving into the middle school and they were they have been welcomed with open arms they are finding their way around a much bigger school but they are and as of this morning when we went in to see them super happy that they're middle schoolers and our new teacher Mr. Krug is getting to know them and and doing an excellent job similarly Similarly, our new 12 to 1 program at the high school, we've had students move up from the middle school and they have started in

026their classes and are doing great and finding their way around. We toured a few of them at the end of the summer to get them ready. So all of those programs have started really nicely. I wanted to take the opportunity to thank the middle school, high school, and central office staff and administrators for making both of those programs get off the ground. really seamlessly and I want to thank the board for giving us the opportunity to expand the continuum into into both of those schools so we have smiling students and teachers who are thrilled to be teaching those classes thank you I also wanted to take a few minutes just to update the board and the public in our opening from a safety and security perspective. In Dr. Patrick's August 29th, Friday five, he shared

027links to our district safety plan along with a larger resource outlining our approach to school safety and security and emergency management, as well as a one page guide for parents. So if anyone missed that, I would encourage them to go back and take a look at that. You know, as we know, there's no shortage of news to bring safety and security to the forefront of our minds. It's important for the community to know that we have strong partnerships and relationships with safety and security experts, including, of course, Scarsdale Police Department. Our practices align with nationally recognized best practices developed by both Secret Service and FBI. We take steps to ensure our staff are trained in incident command structures, our simple six procedures, and are confident in their roles so they're prepared to respond to emergencies.

028And most importantly, we have systems in place to identify and address concerns before they escalate through our threat assessment teams. We also work to ensure safety protocols are always followed and infrastructure is routinely evaluated for improvements. To that end, this year we will see the installation of door jar sensors and a replacement of some of our oldest cameras. We have already started our regular emergency drills with staff and students and our district and building emergency response teams either have already met or are meeting shortly to continue the work of training and evaluating our preparedness. Later tonight you're going to see the district emergency plan and building plans on the agenda to address an additional requirement by the state to add specific cardiac emergency procedures. This really is and has become something that is ever present

029in all of our discussions whenever we're thinking about programming, whenever we're thinking about construction or bringing people into the building, whenever we're thinking about new opportunities for parents, safety, security, emergency management is always kind of at the forefront. So I just wanted to bring that up at an update so everyone knows that it's well underway and being considered. So thank you. Thank you, Eric. Any questions for Eric? Okay. And last but not least, some updates from Andrew. Thank you. So the first update I'll give is on our purchase of EV buses. As part of the 25-26 budget, you may recall that we planned to purchase three large EV buses. Those EV buses would be the second, third, and fourth in our fleet to utilize the EPA grant funding that we received previously. Each of those

030buses assumed a $200,000 credit for the EPA grant, $100,000 for the NYSERDA matching grants, and then each one we assumed would get a $40,000 federal tax credit. In July, unfortunately, I notified the board that due to the federal budget bill that was passed and a revised deadline on the clean vehicle tax credit acquisition date, we feared that... Based on the delivery date of our vehicles and that new deadline, we would not be eligible for the $40,000 credit times three. That's $120,000 we felt we would not have available to us to purchase all three EV buses. So we moved forward in July with purchasing just two. Thankfully, on August 21st, the IRS issued an FAQ document which provided some clarity on what the acquisition date actually means in regards to this tax credit. And it is

031good news for scars yet. We believe we meet the requirements for that therefore resolution eight point one six on the agenda this evening is a resolution asking the board to appropriate or increase the budget for the 120 thousand dollars that we are receiving For the first three buses the first bus we ordered last year and the two we ordered in July Which we've since put down payments on making us eligible for this acquisition date deadline That additional $120,000 will give us the funding we need to purchase our fourth bus, which we will do so tomorrow, and we'll make the down payment shortly thereafter, again, meeting the requirement for the September 30th deadline. We will come back to the board in October for that fourth $40,000 credit and ask the board to increase that. if the

032board is so inclined. There is some risk in this because the IRS FAQ guidance is really preliminary. Federal tax law could always change, but we do believe that based on the criteria that's set out now, we think it's appropriate to move forward and maintain a momentum towards the zero emissions bus mandate in New York State utilizing these funds. So that's item one. I'll pause there in case any board members have a question. The next item under cabinet updates for me, I will address as part of an information item that was moved on the agenda this evening, so I'll get to that later. And then the update on the universal school meals. So as Dr. Patrick shared in his Friday Five, we've been receiving lots of questions about Scarsdale's lack of participation in the universal free

033meals program in New York State. In order to participate in that program, a school district must already be or become a... district that participates in the National School Lunch Program, which we have not historically done here in Scarsdale. To change into that program would require multiple adjustments to our program, including menu items. portion sizes, even some of the serving that we do on a daily basis at our buildings. And it would certainly require a revised contract with our food service management company, all of which to do so effectively would require a discussion and lots of thought about both the pros and cons as well as the consequences of the decision. Therefore, we shared with the board that... This fall semester, we will be working closely with our food service management company to do a deep

034dive into what the requirements would be, how those requirements would impact the food service program for our students, our families, as well as for our program itself from a financial perspective. And then we will make a recommendation to the board, hopefully in the January timeframe, of what we would like to do for the 26-27 school year. If it is recommended that we move forward and the board supports that. We would spend the spring semester really working on bid specifications for a management company program, and we'd have to go out and bid that whole contract again per the guidelines that New York State requires. It's a timely process. It will require lots of conversation with all the stakeholders at our buildings, and there's lots of nuance to it. So we want to give it plenty of

035time to do so carefully. There's also federal funding implications to this. If the funding for meal support... comes out of future budgets at the federal level that could impact New York State's support for the program. Therefore, we want to be very kind of fastidious about our approach to making this decision going forward and not make a change and then regret it later. So there will be an update to the board, certainly throughout the process, but definitely in the January or early February timeframe. Any questions for Andrea? Quick question. When you said a deep dive with the food service management company, you're not talking about our vendor. You're talking about the management company that consults with us based on? No, it's Chartwells. Okay, so you do a deep dive with Chartwells. So the changes that would

036be required for us to participate would be deemed as a material change in the contract. Under New York State law, we'd have to then re-bid that contract with a whole new bid specification. their chart will would be encouraged and we would hope would be bid on that but other management companies would also you know think of sex oh or Whitson's or companies like that that do large-scale school programs like ours any other questions okay just a really quick question Do you envision some way of educating folks, parents and students with respect to how options would concretely change if we were to go down the path of having the free lunch be available? Absolutely. I mean, would there be some type of education session to discuss the changes that would come? Yeah, so let me talk

037about the food service committee. Every PTA has a representative on the community as we also have administrators from our secondary and elementary schools. Part of that process, we probably would be doing a lot of reach out to the parents and get feedback from them on what this might mean at their building or at their level. And we circle that feedback through the committee as well to make an informed recommendation to the board. What the trade-offs would be and what the impact would be throughout the entire process? Thank you. Okay That concludes cabinet updates. Thank you, Jim. Okay, and with that we're moving on to the public comment section of the agenda and I will read the public comment preamble Members of the public are cordially invited to speak on district related items or other non-personnel

038related 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 at this point a speaker has additional comments, they may send them in writing to the board via email at boardofedscarsdellschools.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

039will take place after the first and second public comment periods. And with that, is there anyone in the audience who would like to make a public comment? Going once. I don't see anyone stepping up to the podium. So with that, we're going to turn to our live stream audience. There's no one on the live stream at this moment. Okay. So we will give that a few seconds. Someone's on? No, we have someone now. Is there a hand raised? Yep, there's a hand. We do have a public comment on the live stream. Hi, good afternoon. Are you able to hear me? Yes, we can hear you. Can you please turn on your camera? Okay, I hope so. This is Mayra Kirkendall-Rodriguez in my capacity as PTC budget co-chair. Mayra, can you please turn on your camera?

040We are parents in the district and also professionals in the fields of financial risk and business. We're very excited to be in the role as PTC budget co-chairs, basically to inform the community really at the heart. I say my right. Hello. Are you able to hear me? Yes, we can hear you fine. I got muted somehow. Can somebody tell me whether you can hear me? We can hear you fine. Can you hear us? Hello? Yes, it's on. You all need to promote me to be a participant. This has been an issue in the past in terms of the technology. Otherwise, I don't get permission to turn on. There we go. Okay. all right okay thank you for promoting me uh so i'll start again so uh i'm uh maida kirkandarodriguez in my capacity as ptc

041budget co-chair together with rachna singh who's also a ptc budget co-chair we wanted to introduce ourselves to the community tell you that we're parents in the district and we're also professionals in the fields of financial risk and business we're very excited to have been appointed uh to be ptc budget co-chairs Really what we see here at the heart of why we decided to volunteer is to represent you, the parents. We want to really encourage you to be involved and to be attentive to the budget process, as well as, of course, to the capital projects, the proposed projects, as well as the proposed bond, which are going to be discussed shortly. We invite you to be weighing in, to give your view. you're absolutely free to reach out to us at ptcbudget10583 at gmail.com we encourage

042you of course also to reach out to your budget liaisons through your pta all seven schools have budget liaisons and rachna and i thank them for volunteering already we're going to be meeting with them later this week to talk about the role basically the way the process works for those parents who may not be familiar is that we will be attending all of these meetings in person or remotely as we are today we listen to the district's proposals we listen to the be the questions from the board members and we ourselves will be analyzing all of the capital projects proposal items we will be analyzing the budget we'll be working with the budget liaisons roshna and i already have 30 questions about the capital projects presentation and we will be sending in those later. Basically,

043our questions revolve around clarifications on the composition of the committees, the taxpayer income, the equity among the schools and criteria for prioritizations of the proposed capital projects. We're interested in understanding if the community will see the me of the minutes from the meetings that have been taking place already. We're interested in understanding whether the proposal of this bond is really tax neutral or whether there's a certain part of the proposal that would be on that. And so those are some of the questions that we're going to be asking. So thank you very much and look forward to hearing the presentation later. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else on the live stream? With that, I believe we can close the public comment and move on to the next section, which I believe is written communications. Oh,

044no, follow-up to public comment, sorry. Do we have any follow-up to public comment? We look forward to the questions. Okay. And with that, we can move on to Section 6 of the agenda, written communications and the preamble. Since our last meeting, we have had... Oh, here it is, sorry. My board docs is not working, sorry. Please note that the Board of Education email is also viewed by the superintendent and district clerk opens meeting open meetings law requires oral all board deliberations Which may lead to action or policy changes to occur in public therefore your written communication and emails Will be reported at an upcoming public board meeting board member will respond at their earliest convenience a formal response requires that you include your full name address and if you are writing on behalf of an

045organization or a communication more detailed information regarding written communications received by the Board of Education may be found in today's meeting agenda located on board Doc's on the Scarsdale schools district website and since our last meeting we have had five emails on district matters and one email on board matters Thank you very much, Colleen. And with that, we're up to the consent agenda portion of our agenda. And that comes with a preamble as well, which I shall now read. The board may conduct some of its business using a consent agenda in an effort to achieve greater efficiency at board meetings. The consent agenda condenses some of the routine business of the Board of Education into a single motion. to consent agenda is prepared by the superintendent of schools in consultation with the president and or

046the vice president of the board items are selected for the consent agenda when the officers of the board and the 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 discussion in order to provide greater efficiency to conducting the routine items of business of the school district. And with that, we move on to the consent agenda itself, and I believe that's Susie.

047Thank you, Jim. Tonight's consent agenda is made up of 17 items, which I will go over now. Item 8.01, minutes for the business meeting, August 25th, 2025. 8.02, personnel certified. 8.03, personnel non-certified. 8.04, stipulations of settlement. 8.05 contracts over 20,000 special education. 8.06 contracts over $20,000 human resources. 8.07 another contract for over $20,000 in human resources. 8.08 Southern Westchester BOCES contract 2024-25. 8.09 claims audit report August 2025 payments. 8.10 Special Education 2025-26 Federal Grant Applications 611 and 619 funding. 811 Quarterly Report Student Activities Fund. 812 Building Emergency Response Plans. 813 High School Auditorium Project Change Orders. 8.14 2018 Bond Project Change Orders. 8.15 Appropriation of AP and PSAT Exam Fees. 8.16 appropriation of IRS clean vehicle tax credit and 8.17 I move that the board adopt the following resolution to accept the consent agenda as

048presented Thank You Susie is there a second Thank You Amber all those any discussion all those in favor please say aye any opposed aye any opposed With that, the motion passes. Thank you. Now we are up to the information items section of our agenda. I believe that's true. Yes. So thank you very much, Jim. We're up to the Capital Project Steering Committee preliminary recommendations. I'm going to invite – there's a number of our committee members who are part of the presentation tonight. They're going to join us at the tables at the head of our U here. We've closed it off. and once they get seated I'm gonna ask each to introduce themselves I'll be giving part of the presentation tonight as will Andrew Lennon and as well are one of our student ex officio board

049members Anish and we'll start with Michelle just introduce yourself if you don't mind and make sure the green light is on hi I'm Michelle Mangimelli I'm a second grade teacher at Edgewood school hi I'm Melissa Feinberg I'm the principal at Fox Meadow Elementary School Hi, I'm Matt Puccini. I live in the district and my children attend QRS and also a new sixth grader at the middle school. Good evening. Kevin Walsh from BBS Architects. Good evening. Nick Farrar, Director of Facilities. All right, thank you very much. And I also want to thank Mike Leon, our audio visual person, for getting this whole thing set up and working. He did some really creative thinking to get us in this position where we could present like this. Figured this team would be a little more comfortable seated than

050standing up. And again, to thank our committee members. So we're gonna get started. Thank you very much for this opportunity to provide an important update to you, the board, and the community this evening. The goal of our presentation tonight is to provide the Board of Education with a summary of the work done by the Capital Project Steering Committee over the past six months and to communicate what we support as an initial scope of work for board consideration. We've organized tonight's presentation into four sections starting with introductory and background information We will talk about the process and inputs used to reach a proposed scope of work and we will describe the rationale behind our recommendations and proposed next steps. For the purposes of this presentation, we've kind of color coded slides. I know it looks a

051little weird, but we've color coded them to help distinguish decisions exclusive to the district administration or which took place before or will take place after the work of the committee. and that will appear in maroon, and then the work and recommendations of the committee, which will appear in blue, just as a little bit of a guide. So first, we'll begin with a brief introduction and some context to remind the community why we are engaged in this work at this time. Of course, all of this ultimately connects back to our strategic plan, which is anchored in the three big ideas of learning, living, and leading to support our vision. The capital work that we're going to talk about really emanates from our learning goal, sorry, from our leading goal as we look to ensure long-term sustainability

052of the district. Naturally, physical improvement to the learning environment also impacts the learning and living components of the strategic plan as well. As a reminder, this work is also linked to a board goal to support and participate in the planning and development of a bond proposal that addresses the current and future needs of our school facilities and programs. When we began this journey almost exactly a year ago, last fall, we identified several guiding principles to serve as a tool to help steer us in this process and evaluate alternatives. First, that student learning and the strategic plan goals should guide and inform decisions about capital investment. That facilities maintenance and improvement is an ongoing responsibility that requires both an annual financial allocation through our budget and periodic injections of capital. The required five-year building conditions survey

053and five-year facilities capital plan should be crafted to help meaningfully identify and prioritize short, medium, and long-term projects and guide decision-making. That stakeholder engagement should be ongoing and iterative rather than as a step in any particular process or plan. And then finally, that alternatives and decisions should be informed by a long-range financial plan and a fund balance and reserve plan. an update of which you'll get a little bit later in the early fall. We also articulated a five-step process that we would follow. And as you can see, we're making progress. And tonight marks the start of a shift from step three to step four, the start of a scope definition, refinement, and adoption. This is not done tonight. This is beginning tonight. The capital project steering committee has completed the lion's share of their work

054and is handing that work over to the Board of Education and Administration but will remain in an advisory capacity. That's our hope. The process of scope definition and refinement will continue over the next several months at least with continued advice and input from the committee public the board and iteratively as needed so we see steps three and four here you see a little circular arrow there we see steps three and four as a bit of an iterative process that will unfold over the next several months for reference we've included the two timeline scenarios that we had originally laid out last fall The work to date has followed this, what we called scenario A at that time, a timeline where we would be on track potentially to be able to hold a bond referendum this spring

055if that is the ultimate decision of the board. Of course, we also presented a less specific timeline, the steps being the same but exact dates. We're not locked into this. This shows a more flexible version, and we'll see how it unfolds. So the capital project steering committee the committee was convened this past spring and Was charged with developing detailed knowledge of our buildings and the educational programs within them Assessing current and future needs and the financial resources required to meet those needs and To try to reach consensus of a scope of work to recommend to the Board of Education And that's what we're here to do tonight The multi-stakeholder group includes representation from across the district, as indicated in this slide, and we are truly grateful for the many, many hours and deep thinking that

056they have graciously contributed to this process. All members of the committee took this work and their responsibility extremely seriously, once again reinforcing the extraordinary level of service and volunteerism that exists in this community. We're truly lucky. Now, we've also been guided by the knowledge and expertise of professionals from BBS Architects and Engineers and Aris Contracting, our consultant management firm, and representatives are here tonight from both of those organizations, and we're grateful. The committee met a total of nine times since it was convened in March. The major inputs and activities that took place during and between these meetings has included building awareness and understanding through meeting presentations, activities, and discussions in both small and large groups, the expression of values and priorities exhibited through workbooks, email, and submitted outlines and reviews of the conversation, the work

057of refining our understanding aided by building tours and administration and facilities input, and the expertise of our partners. and refining values and priorities, including activities that caused us to have to express those values and priorities. Early on, Kevin introduced us to this graphic as a way to help frame our thinking. And we've sort of followed this, revisited this throughout the process. A simple framework for categorizing potential work scope items to identify values and priorities. Must include are items that we felt must be in any eventual referendum. Should include are items that are of high value and importance and should be included if possible. On the fence, we might need more information about that particular thing. I'm trying to get that information. Do not include or items that really aren't appropriate for a bond or this

058bond or don't meet the values or priorities we talked about. Defer to the future, a valuable project, but we can do without it for now as long as it's revisited in the future. or fund separately other ideas such as annual budgets energy performance contracts we talked about those fundraising outside of tax levy important and consistent with values and priorities but these are things better supported outside of a bond referendum so we we considered all of these Using these categories, the committee and BBS worked iteratively to understand, weigh, assess, and evaluate work scope items over the course of our meetings. Items were prioritized according to the framework as a result of discussions, activities, aforementioned site visits, and through the sharing of opinions of those who use the buildings and are responsible for maintaining district facilities. Over

059the course of the first several meetings, the total scope of possible work grew as we introduced spatial building conditions, survey information, air conditioning, conversation, and field study projects to the mix. Later in the process, the total scope narrowed as particular projects were deemed to be falling into one of these other buckets. And with that, I'm going to turn it over to Andrew. Thanks, Drew. The primary funding sources for capital improvement projects include the maintenance department budget, the capital appropriations budget, also referred to as transfer to capital line, and bond project financing. Both the maintenance and the capital appropriations budget are line items in our annual budget and can fluctuate based on the annual financial projections and budget deliberations of a given year. The maintenance budget primarily includes the labor materials and contracted support for smaller

060projects and building repairs throughout our buildings. While the capital appropriations budget funds larger scale projects that most often require architectural or engineering designs, New York State Education Department approvals and detailed public bidding documents. Bond projects are typically larger projects both in scope and funds needed in support of those improvements. I'll turn that next piece over to Nick. Thank you. So with seven school buildings totaling over 978,000 square feet and also some of which are approaching or exceeding 100 years old, plus the various district buildings such as the bus compound, our maintenance and grounds buildings, the choice building, the former A school, and well over 115 acres of grounds and athletics field. The facilities department is responsible for a wide range of tasks. These tasks include everything from basic repairs to more complex space reconfigurations to

061support the evolving programs and needs of the district. This is done through the department's annual operating maintenance budget, which covers items like air and water filter replacements, fire alarm inspections, and much, much more in between. We also play a key role in identifying facilities needs that rise to the level of capital projects, work that goes beyond the scope of regular maintenance due to cost, complexity, or long-term impact. Let me share a quick example of a small capital project that we've recently taken on. Right outside of this room, under the breezeway to my right, is a blue stone walkway. While it's a beautiful architectural feature, it has required frequent maintenance over the years and has led to safety concerns due to uneven or even broken stones and surfaces. Each year, sometimes even more than once, our

062grounds team goes out to lift and level the stones to replace the damaged pieces. While the materials themselves are inexpensive, the labor involved is significant and also ongoing. To resolve this, we've developed a capital project to remove the bluestone and replace it with a stamped asphalt, similar to what you see right outside the Brewster entrance. This one-time investment will eliminate the need for regular repairs, reduce safety risk, and free up staff for their other priorities within the district. When this new walkway eventually will require maintenance, which is likely around 15 years from now, it will only need a recoding of the surface. a test that is similar to what was done in by an in-house team completed over the summer right outside on that bruce to walkway while this project is not part of a

063bond it's a great example of how we continue to proactively manage our facilities even as we plan for larger improvements throughout this proposed bond throughout the bond planning process our maintenance and custodial teams as well as the facility department were deeply involved not only in informing the facility study conducted by bbs but also reviewing and adjusting the project list to reflect what could be reasonably handled within our department's capacity and budget. Some items originally considered for the bond moved into the maintenance budget to help reduce the overall bond impact. Conversely, other items, those that exceeded our staff's ability or made more sense logistically to handle through capital funds, were prioritized for inclusion into this bond scope. A good example of that is the replacement of our district's building management system, also known as the BMS,

064which you might hear a few times tonight. This centralized system controls all of our heating, ventilation, and cooling throughout the buildings. It has become outdated and in some cases will soon be unsupported from a technology standpoint. Because it impacts every building and directly affects comfort, energy efficiency, and long-term operating costs, we believe that this BMS replacement, as well as other high-cost items, will have a long return of investment and are best addressed through this bond. So unlike maintenance and capital appropriations projects, which rely on a single year's budget and tax levy for funding, require annual deliberation and also voter approval as part of the annual budget process. Bond projects allow the district to proceed with the construction and also issue the debt that must be included in the annual budgets for the term of the

065borrowing for bond projects. Districts are obligated to fund the debt annually. Additionally, the debt schedule is more closely aligned with the period of useful life and the state building aid, which is amortized over a period of 15 or 20 years. Alternative funding options do exist including energy performance contracts, capital reserves and other funding sources such as gifts, donations and grants. However, these options have limitations and drawbacks so we will not focus on them this evening. This slide may be familiar to all of you who have watched the budget process last spring. It represents the current debt service schedule, including the estimate for the auditorium project that we anticipate closing on this October. We are obligated to include these costs in our annual budget, and you can see that we anticipate a significant decline of our

066debt service line during the 27-28 fiscal year. Early on in our capital project planning process, we determined with the help of our fiscal advisors that this decline represents approximately $40 million worth of capital improvements. In other words, a project valued at $40 million would result in no additional tax levy beyond what is currently in our budget. The committee used this number neither as a limit nor a target, but rather as a reference point to compare against as we deliberated the potential scope of this bond. And Kevin. Okay, all right. So I'd like to just give a little kind of snapshot of our journey as a committee. So I'll just read this and I'll get to the graphic in a minute. But we as a committee have reviewed what is and what could be through analysis

067and review of the building condition survey. You'll hear that called the BCS, Building Condition Survey for Building Infrastructure Needs, and through a lens for design for what could be spatially. Aspects of both bridge the practical with the extraordinary and enhance the student and teacher experience. Both support the Scarsdale Public Schools strategic plan. We have endeavored to provide tools and information to the committee so that they can have independently meaningful conversations about potential work scope. Lectures, information sharing, and collaborative exercises have provided support for building consensus as to the why or why not of potential work scope through open debate and discussion. The discovery goals motivating this process apply not only to the next potential bond referendum, but to the broader context of long-term planning for the school district. Today as a group, we find ourselves

068surrounded by possibilities, aware of the committee's sensibilities relating to tax neutral, beyond tax neutral, and deferred work scope. We are moving forward by defining major themes and categories of work to ultimately inform the prioritization of bond scope work. The concept of value remains centered on financial cost and impact, but has expanded its definition to include the value of the overall student and teacher experience and overall contribution of the built environment to the culture of the Scarsdale community. The graphic above is just a little collage of a few things along the way with the committee. Upper left are all of your buildings represented at the same scale and size and how they're currently used. Lower left, we looked at that and we talked about what could be spatially. Upper right, we did have an investing activity

069where we actually had allotted monies to spend on priority items, and then we had an allotment for deferral items. We went through that, and finally, we had a chart activity at the end to kind of build a bond in identified scope pieces, starting at the top. in the yellow tones which are tax neutral and passing through to what ultimate scope was determined by each person and group so then the next slide is just a reiteration kind of looking at the whole year so far and moving into what could happen next spring in terms of as part of the design team we got started in January and the committee was very much active March through now and continuing but here we are in the fall switching to more of the public engagement getting the Board of

070Ed on board to that fact that by the end of this calendar year should there be a bond in the spring we would pretty much know what was that bond scope by the end of this calendar year to go through the processes needed to get to a vote in the spring So the capital project steering committee spent time in each meeting building and deepening our understanding of a wide array of needs and wants. We developed a working knowledge of the educational program at each school from a building use perspective, interrogated the recommendations in the facility study, explored air conditioning needs and options, and became familiar with the recent joint village district field study. Andrew Lennon shared a presentation on the tax impacts associated with borrowing money via a bond and maximizing state building aid, and

071BBS and ARIS described the process of cost estimation and unique factors associated with public school capital projects in New York. As the process unfolded, we also engaged in important discussions and debates, some of which do require further analysis. Over the nine meetings we had, the potential work scope initially grew as we were introduced to different areas of potential work. By May, we had discussed over $350 million in projects before starting to identify those things that must be included and eventually narrowed in on the highest priorities. Individuals on the committee expressed differences of opinion about which specific projects are essential while referencing the tax-neutral amount of $40 million and considering increments above that. So it eventually became clear that the needed work fell into four major categories, infrastructure, air conditioning, fields, and spatial projects, recognizing that

072there were clear needs and additional wants. We also discussed different ways that these priorities could be effectively communicated by both the Board of Education and the public. For example, we discussed the importance of equity and the extent to which all the schools need to be included in the scope of this work. What became evident in the discussion was the was that equity could be thought of in two different ways. We would consider infrastructure work and air conditioning. We felt it was imperative that all buildings be addressed as the priorities identified need attention now. As far as spatial projects go, it was also equally clear that certain locations needed more immediate attention than others. longer time horizon might be more appropriate frame to use when considering equity and spatial construction and renovation for example the projects

073such as the Scarsdale high school learning Commons the lab the Scarsdale middle school orchestra room the Edgewood library and the Heathcote multi-purpose room were accomplished in the 2014 bond green acres and the school safety vestibules were the major focus in the 2018 bond and here we're proposing the emphasis on Fox Meadow Edgewood and to a lesser degree the Scarsdale High School project in 2026. So areas required more information and discussion in our group as previously mentioned several challenging questions emerged during the process that related to enrollment and program the proposals we will share shortly for new construction at Foxmo Fox Meadow and Edgewood are at least in part driven by current and projected enrollment measures In our discussions as a committee, important questions about the degree of control the district had over enrollment at any

074particular school emerged. Two decisions that were clearly within the Board of Education's discretion are the location of the enrollment boundaries of our five elementary schools and where we locate special education programs that draw students from multiple elementary school zones. The third question we grappled with was the current and potential level of food services at our five elementary schools. In an effort to bring as much information as possible to bear at this work, the district administration has engaged with their demographer, Dr. Richard Grip, from statistical forecasting to produce, along with his typical enrollment projection analysis, a scenario that explores the potential for different boundaries between Fox Meadow and Green Acres. This work is still underway, and a report is expected in the early to mid-fall. As for special education programs that are currently being housed at

075Edgewood, we have two 812 special ed classes and one 12-1 special ed class. Each requires a classroom, though there is nothing that requires that these programs to be located at Edgewood. However, there is opportunity cost involved. There is training for all staff that takes place to create a strong culture of inclusion to support these students. There is also a number of contracted service providers that work with these classes and co-locating them in a single building creates an economy of scale that we benefit from. Of course, all of this can be more or less qualified as part of the decision-making, and the administration has committed to doing just that. With respect to food services and dining, our current approach to date has been to limit the utilization of the facilities at Quaker Ridge and Green Acres

076in order to deliver a comparable or equitable level of food quality and services at all five schools. Through discussions with the capital project steering committee and constituents at the three schools with more basic dining amenities, it was determined that investing in dining facilities for the sake of equity was not a top priority. Instead, the consensus is that we can live with differences and therefore should maximize the facilities we do have while investing in new funds and other types of improvements. We believe the district should carry this conversation forward to a broader group of stakeholders including food service committee, parents, faculty, and staff of the buildings that are impacted, which are Edgewood, Fox Meadow, and Heathcote. As a result of the work to date, the committee is recommending a preliminary scope of work that generally falls

077into four consensus categories. These categories are purposeful, and projects within each are connected by the type of work required and the needs that they address and the problems that they solve. First is the building conditions or infrastructure work, as Kevin referred to as the BCS, the Building Conditions Survey. That proposed work total is $33,533,520. Now, this facility study, the BCS, surfaced $129,047,500 in potential work scope. Items listed were evaluated based on a number of considerations, including health and safety, cost of the repair or replacement, reliability, efficiency, payback period. and the life expectancy. Items were then organized by priority from a range of priority one, which were life and safety and mandated code items, to priority five, cosmetic improvements, as described on page six of the facility study. In addition to the facility studies, the district

078facilities team has highlighted several important projects that they strongly believe must be addressed within the timeframe of this bond and that they're well suited for being funded through the bond. Some of these projects were completely or partially included in the study while others were not. This will be discussed during the upcoming presentation. The building conditions survey items that are included fall into several subcategories. The BCS infrastructure priority one items confirmed by the committee facilities team and the buildings as necessary. The BCS infrastructure priority items two through five were selected based on the importance and impact. by the committee members, and then the district infrastructure priority one, two, and three items that were identified by the facilities team as necessary and appropriate for inclusion in the bond. Next, we have the air conditioning for a proposed

079work total of $12,060,000. Air conditioning was discussed during the 2018 bond process and the decision was made at that time not to move forward with including AC projects beyond those tied to new construction and renovation projects. And since that time several things have changed. First, the district has pursued an approach of installing air conditionings in the classrooms within annual budgets. prioritizing health and safety needs of students and staff and expanding beyond that where feasible. This has resulted in significant progress towards cooling a vast majority of the typical classroom spaces. The administration recommends continuing with this approach, which is a lower cost way to create a more comfortable spaces. Another thing that has changed the expectation and need for cooling of our larger spaces like gyms, cafeterias, the auditoriums, the libraries, and the multi-purpose rooms. This

080is now seen as both a need in light of changing climate and a need in terms of the growing demand expectation from our community and as expressed by state law. As one committee member put it, there really is no other facet of modern life where air conditioning is not present. We have it at home, at work, in restaurants, in cars, in college, etc. Furthermore, our so-called large spaces generally have high demand and are often used for instructional and or co-curricular purposes, including athletic contests. As a result of these factors, the committee supports the inclusion of air conditioning work to cool our large spaces. We also want to attend to Heathcote's classroom need, which requires a different approach from the rest of the classrooms due to the unusual nature of the pod design there. The size

081of these projects require a different level of capital investment than can be handled by annual budgets. So we recommend including air conditioning as part of the bond. Thus, all are included in this estimate, though the work that we have yet to do is to prioritize the large spaces from A to Z in the event that we're unable to accomplish all of this work at once. Now, the third category is fields. The proposed work total is $5,676,428. This represents the two remaining priority recommendations from the field study. SMS turf and the Fox Meadow softball multi-use rectangular field projects. The committee saw these projects as an important investment for the broader school community as they are used for both school and community based recreational programs. And then finally, the spatial new construction renovation and reconstruction with a

082proposed work total of $44,372,600. Based on all of the data gathered by BBS through building tours and interviews, a range of spatial construction renovation projects matched to identified needs and problems were presented and developed to the committee. All were considered. and various activities resulted in a prioritization of these projects according to the framework outlined above. The major issues associated with these projects were building utilization, enrollment and space constraints, functionality, food service dining needs, and in the case of classrooms, the age condition and flexibility. New construction and or renovation concepts were developed for each school except for Green Acres. Large construction concepts for Scarsdale Middle School, which was a new kitchen dining building and the high school learning exchange building within the current courtyard just outside of the BOE room were ultimately deemed to be beyond

083the scope of this bond. However, significant renovation projects are necessary at each building. For example, the SMS library and lunchrooms, in the high school, the 3D art studio, the LRC, the little theater, and the upper level of the library. The aging condition and significant space restraints at Fox Meadow were deemed very important to accomplish within this bound. Edgewood has some potentially similar concerns to Fox Meadow, but while Fox Meadow space constraints are immediate in the present, Edgewood may be able to accommodate enrollment with some more modest modifications and program adjustments. This is discussed further in the addendum below. However, in the case of both Edgewood and Fox Meadow, some level of school-wide classroom renovations needs to occur to bring the spaces up to a higher standard. Renovations of Heathcote's library was also identified as a

084high priority, while spatial needs at Greenacres and Quaker Ridge are a lower priority due to the current conditions in each building. Importantly, the committee did discuss the concept of a program of classroom renovations over time at other schools as well. Our capable facilities team has demonstrated what they're able to accomplish with renovations of classrooms in the new wing of the high school for the A school program. While major classroom updates are focused on Edgewood and Fox Meadow, this type of renovation work could be prioritized in annual budgets in the future. So this next slide breaks out the cost by building and reflects a range from if you look at the very bottom on the grand totals. So the third item in there that is green acres at 1.4 and then the largest one is just

085to the left which is Fox Meadow at 30 million. But you can see them all across the board here broken down. you know looking at each of these rows for air conditioning the BCS the classroom updates district priorities the field studies and the internal spatial renovations now on the next slide is a graph that gives us a visual representation of that slide. And what it does is it shows you how it's broken down by each building. So on the left, this is a breakdown of all the work scope broken down by building. And then on the right, what we've done is we've removed the cost of the construction for Fox Meadow only. So you can see with that removed what it looks like for each building. Several working assumptions were used to guide the discussions

086and weigh alternatives in terms of average cost to our taxpayers. The committee feels that it's important to frame the cost in this way for the public for a variety of reasons. So we talked about tax neutral. The tax neutral estimate of $40 million due to that expiring debt that I showed on a slide a few minutes ago really has some key assumptions in it. 15-year amortization schedule for this bond is assumed. An average interest rate of 3.7% is assumed. And New York State building aid is assumed on 95% of this project with an aid ratio of 19.5%, which we paid out over the life of that debt schedule. We talked about $40 million being tax neutral. Each million dollars of bond scope roughly equates... to $10 in annual impact to an average taxpayer. And the

087average taxpayer, we used about $29,000 to $30,000 annual tax bill is what the assumption is. The $40 million is, when you do the math, $400 per average home. If we look at the total proposal this evening of $96 million, it is, if you back off the $40 million, $56 million of that would be above the tax neutral situation, so it would equate to an increase of about $560 per homeowner. As we proceed further down this... The financial assumptions will become much more concrete. Scope discussions will provide clarity for more accurate cost estimates by our construction manager and building aid estimates by our fiscal advisors. The debt service projections will be updated to reflect more current interest rate assumptions. And additionally, the final scope As the final scope is determined, our construction manager can begin logistics

088planning for how we might group and schedule these projects and work effectively through all of our buildings over a multi-year period of time. We recognize that the Scarsdale community already places great value on the education of our students. What we have put forward in this series of recommendations thoughtfully balances the value for student learning now and in the future with the financial support provided by our community. All of these projects, new construction, renovation, air conditioning, and even the behind the scenes and literally behind the walls, projects contribute daily to the learning outcomes, health, and well-being of students. When we support comfortable, inviting learning spaces, we support student growth and achievement. We have already seen the impact of forward-looking investments through past bond projects. For example, the creation of the design lab at the high school

089provided a unique space to explore new interests, collaborate on ideas, and engage in hands-on learning experiences. Projects like the 3D art studio renovation in this current bond for the high school are in that same vein of thought. What might seem on the surface like polish or enhancement has in reality had transformative effects on student learning opportunities. These spaces spark creativity, build confidence, and open pathways that students may not have otherwise discovered. Okay, so we will close with a discussion of proposed next steps. So the expectation tonight is that the work of the Capital Project Steering Committee will shift from steering the work to providing advice and counsel to the board over the next several months as you deliberate, ask questions, and seek more information. You've heard the consensus recommendations and now we'll have to work

090to more definitively define work scope to be included in a potential bond referendum as well as the work scope that's beyond the capacity of this next bond. Work that may have to wait or work that might be accomplished in some other way. We will present the demographer study on enrollment and boundaries as soon as we possibly can. and the board can use that to help assess our assumptions particularly with respect to the Edgewood and Fox Meadow proposals and further refine the bond scope finally we want to either reiterate or point out a few last things while the facility study included the a school building we have not found a way to prioritize that building right now over other work That may ultimately mean handing that building back over to the village. It is their property

091or to discuss some other use for it. You will notice the Edgewood recommendations include a priority three BCS item to replace the playground at Edgewood. This is a need that has previously been identified and articulated indeed all five elementary schools have a need in this area Funds are included in the current budget to update Fox Meadows playground and we suggested that a district PTA Scarsdale schools Education Foundation partnership might be the best way to accomplish this work Obviously that conversation has the potential to impact this recommendation. That's an example The cost projections are based on a number of assumptions. Andrew outlined several of them that kind of go into the mix that will require refinement over time. Similarly, as the scope of work for inclusion in a bond becomes more firm, further conversations with stakeholders

092at the building level may suggest modifications or revisions to the ideas that we've presented tonight. So we hope... that provides the board with a strong first look at what the proposals and recommendations are. We had not planned to go school by school, but we have those slides available in the slide deck for the public and for tonight's discussion in the future. And they're broken out into the different priorities that we discussed, those four broad categories and a total with each. And with that, and thanks to my colleagues on the steering committee and at this table for all their work to bring this information to you tonight. And we're excited to engage in dialogue. Thank you very much, Drew, and members of the committee who presented here tonight. Appreciate your time and all the effort that

093has gone into preparing this recommendation. Certainly has been a lot of work. And, you know, it sort of puts the board in the, I guess, enviable position of having to consider ways to best improve our schools with the options that have been provided. With it, you know, keeping in mind the cost, of course. And, you know, there's different ways we can discuss this as a board. But I think, I mean, among other things, we can just give our views. I mean, I don't want to restrain any discussion or put it into buckets. I mean, starting off, I think reactions are appropriate, if there are reactions, that we should hear them without putting any guardrails on what they should be or directionally. Because we do have time, you know, not infinite time, but we have time

094to discuss and chew this over. I'm not entirely sure we'll get all these fine people back at the same time again. Maybe other groups of fine people. But we, you know, should, I think, all feel free to give our views on what we're thinking now, having heard this and seen this, the details of this presentation. So who wants to start? Yes, Amber. Thank you, Jim. And thank you to the members of the committee who presented tonight and all the members who spent time over the many months going into great detail. I think this has been incredibly helpful, so thank you. I actually would like to start with just some questions about things that were not recommended by the committee. For example... Well, actually I'm going to back up and start with the cost of classroom

095renovations. So at I think it's $175,000 per classroom. I understand you can't entirely know what's involved in that scope. But perhaps you could just give a high-level overview of what's involved and is your feeling that all of the classrooms and all of the buildings need that same level of work? Kevin, can I ask you to just share the two, like the work that would get done in a $350,000 classroom, that's for one classroom renovation versus a 175? Correct. So we had discussed $175,000 and we had discussed for that $350,000. The $350,000 was a direct comparison to what had been done probably cost-wise at Green Acres in the last project. Well, we go back to what the 175 means, right? So at Green, well, 175 is essentially finishes, flooring, ceilings, lighting, walls, wall surfaces, and all

096loose furniture. So certainly impactful, but not to the point of removing and rebuilding casework and not to the point of potentially annexing adjacent space and changing where walls are. Okay, so I think one thing that I've heard when I've toured buildings at Fox Meadow and at Edgewood and even other schools, Heathcote, even potentially Quaker Ridge, is that interest in storage space in the classroom. And so you're saying that the $175,000 renovation would not include storage space for those classrooms. Is that correct? Unless we can build that into loose furniture, which storage solutions can be. Solve that way, but it's not the same as built in casework And it sounds like the committee felt that it was more important to get all of the classrooms renovated at a lower price Is that sort of the decision

097process that went through there? I don't think we are getting all the classrooms, but we got as many as we felt that we could The Cost is very expensive and we had that I forget the gentleman's name who broke down Why the costs are so expensive a lot of that is mandated by the state there are certain we have to get people in who are You know Union and a lot of things like that. So it is very is a very expensive, but we felt that We wanted to get as many classrooms as we could get done, but there's still a lot that were that we're not able to touch And I'm going to keep going back to this, sorry. So no, like in terms of furniture in the classrooms, this doesn't include any new

098flexible furniture or anything like that. It's just the classroom. No, it would be furniture. It does include the furniture. It includes new furniture. Okay, great. Thank you. That's very helpful. So I guess then my question next is about sort of the, there was discussion around renovations for the high school classrooms, and those were not put forth in the final recommendation from the committee. So I'm curious about the discussions that led to leaving out that big chunk of work. I mean, I think what it really came down to is we had $350 million worth of work that I think 100% of that was fully merited to be done. However, we felt that coming back to the Board of Education with a nearly $400 million budget would be untenable and that the village would not vote for

099that. So we tried to figure out what can we call down through the number of different exercises, what... rose to the top as more important priorities. I think for me, as someone brand new to the district, I did get to tour all of the seven schools. And for me, personally, Fox Meadows stood out as being the one that was in the most need of work. Not that there weren't other areas that needed work, but there are certain rooms in the high school, for instance, there's an art studio that is... in very very bad shape and might even potentially become dangerous like it's just not really workable those things we made sure we were able to address but you know we're talking about redoing the the little theater i mean there are things in the high

100school that are being touched but the ones that that we felt as a that we came to consensus across the entire committee we had to prioritize them in one way or another so unfortunately there are things that are going to be left off And, you know, this was done through a number of exercises. Yeah, I think to add to Matt's point, as Kevin showed, or as Dr. Patrick showed Kevin's buckets earlier in this presentation, I think one of the most important lenses we looked at all these projects through is this idea of deferral rather than rejection. So like Matt said, we would love to have these high school classrooms, but they aren't the most important. So we decided instead to defer them to... perhaps another bond or some other way of financing it. But it

101isn't a complete rejection of the project or the rejection of the idea that it's not an important project. Okay, and then, I mean, I think there's a lot for me to unpack here, so I'm not going to respond necessarily. I just want to get my questions out and let my other board members get their questions answered. In terms of the library, the decision to only do the second floor of the library at the high school, again, I assume this was an attempt to save costs. It was felt that the first floor was okay. And it's not redoing the library, it's the rooms on the side. Yeah, I'll just, other people join in. The second floor somehow came out as a label. Really the idea of the high school library project was to create six glass

102rooms within the library, within the existing columns, to provide quiet space, study space, group workspace within the library as a whole. So that is actually what defines the work within the high school library as proposed. So there would not be changes to the look and feel of the rest of the library? No, it was really about creating six rooms within it. And I would just like to say for members of the community to come too, there was a lot of negotiating going back and forth. And we spent a lot of time in the beginning understanding what building we were attached to and then making sure we also took a look at all of the other buildings that we were not attached to. And I think there was a lot of conversation about kind of looking

103at everything at once. And I think that led to a lot of these decisions. And it's maybe a good point just to reiterate that consensus does not mean there was unanimity in the room that these are the most important things to do. It was a collection of projects that a majority or people felt, okay, I can live with that. That is worth our putting on that paper. There's certainly people who did not get what they wanted in this. that is the that's certainly the reality so I think I'm gonna pause my questions there because I often learn from what my other fellow board members ask thank you thank you all for your time I know there was a lot of time that went into this and the presentation is so well thought out and presented

104so I just want to thank you for that the one area that I A lot of the things I presented I expected, actually. I've toured all the schools, too, and I can see the need, especially in Fox Meadow. So I was happy to see that Fox Meadow and Edgewood needs addressed in this bond. The one I have been mulling over, actually, all weekend is really the middle school. I was hoping maybe to see the... the common larger cafeteria addressed in this bond. I think it is a huge need. I think the... We just met, our students gave the update on the common lunch and the benefits of that in the high school and I actually do feel like that could alleviate some of the stress around house placement assignments and other concerns that parents share

105with us around the middle school. And so I was just curious if you could share with us why you chose not to put that in the bond over the library and also... addressing those smaller cafeterias that I feel also don't fit the needs of our students. So I would be curious to just get the committee's thoughts on that. Yeah, as a parent, I mentioned earlier, I have a daughter at Quaker Ridge, and I have another daughter who's just entering into middle school. So obviously the middle school is something that I kept my eye on. And I actually loved the idea of the design for doing a unified cafeteria. The price tag, there's two different versions, but one of the price tags was $46 million. so no I don't think it reached that high it didn't

106know that's what I have for what was the do you remember the number okay I'm I I was just checking but I may be looking at it wrong as I was doing it was extremely high and so what we did do though was we made sure that we put budget in to renovate each of the individual house cafeteria rooms that are currently existing because we felt that they weren't really adequate. But to do the entire new construction was a very, very costly endeavor. And again, we had to prioritize and it was like, what do we do here? But that was ultimately the decision that the committee came to as a whole. There's a 20 million-ish version, Chris, and a $15 million version, depending on location, in that iteration that we went through. But the rationale,

107yeah, it's a great project because of the, I've learned this word to think of, program, the program of lunch and dining. It has, I think I can say, very strong support from the middle school. We'd love to do it. It's another $15 million in light of everything else. It's hand-wringing. It is. I understand that. Latest estimates were $19.9 million for the addition that would have been in the upper courtyard, very difficult to construct, and then $15.2 was the estimate for the lower courtyard by the drop-off circle. I apologize my numbers were the total I don't know I was just I think I was really hoping to see that in here you know one of the things I see a lot of it of support in renovating the library and one of the things that has

108always come up is the food service goes through the library so I'm assuming that that's being addressed in this renovation terms of the food not being pushed to the library anymore? So that was actually a perfect example of how this discussion I think will progress if we have a general sense of where the scope is. We've already started to talk about how do you build, for example, a corridor in such a way that that pass-through is no longer through the functional space of the library but maybe is a somehow a bypass on the back end. Very conceptual at the moment, right? But those are the types of things that will come. after this discussion I participated so I obviously have the inside track on understanding sort of the back story here I would like to

109just in terms of the middle school library not library cafeteria in particular my concern is that I would like the bond to have elements that are really transformative as opposed to keeping the status quo in great shape and tweaking some of the things. And I know, like a lot of things in life, you can't always afford what you want, but I feel that to put in a cafe, renovating the cafeterias is not transformative. passing on and continuing and almost in a way drilling into the point that we're not going to do the new building because we'll have just invested money in renovating cafeterias that we didn't want in the first place. So I personally would rather see no renovation of the cafeteria room with the anticipation of prioritizing the next project because my concern is

110that it might serve as a roadblock when we start to discuss it again. And I think there weren't a lot of projects, and I'll pat Chris, the principal on the back for this, that really had the word transformative in it. And I really perked up when I heard that because all of our students go through the middle school and the high school. Now that doesn't minimize doing all these other improvements in the elementary schools, which of course we have to do. But the middle school and the high school, and to me, the aligned issue is student well-being. And I think there is a lot of, not a lot, but there are some roadblocks in terms of creating community in terms of We have a house system, but I think the notion of, just like in

111the high school, which I think, you know, we had this download this afternoon, which was so informative about how transformative, you know, the common lunch was, which I, frankly, didn't necessarily even appreciate until I kind of started hearing more about it. So I would like to put that back into the consideration pile, if possible. Thank you to the committee for all your work. I served on the 2018 bond facilities committee. So I know it's a lot of work and really appreciate that. I also appreciate Leah and Bob being our board liaisons to this committee. There's a lot of work to do. We're a very old school district, and I appreciate that. We have, over the years, gone on these building tours, as Colleen mentioned, and I recognize there's a lot to do. And I guess

112almost $400 million of work was identified as possible projects. How you choose to get it down to whatever number we eventually get it down to. is an impossible task. So I appreciate that. The one thing I would urge is as soon as possible, let's get the feedback from the community because we sitting here. Every one of us would come up with a different bond, you know if it were up to us, you know We would prioritize different things Not in a selfish way and not like my kid goes to the school So therefore they must get something but just you know, really, you know how you view a value project So for example for the a school, you know, I think It's come to my attention that parking is a real issue in the high

113school. And a lot of our students park at the A school lot. What would happen if we gave that back to the village? Those kind of questions. I personally would love to see the middle school dining halls, some version of that come along. I think we talk about connection and belonging and community, mental health and wellness. I think that would go a long way for that. I realize it's expensive, so I'm just saying that I hope that we can get. feedback from the community as to what they value as a whole. I'm sitting here, but I'm not in a position to say what we should and shouldn't do. I just hope we can get that feedback in an iterative way, which I think is the plan. I appreciate that. Thank you, Susie. I agree with

114you. I want to say yes, I sat on the committee as well, and I want to thank you all for presenting. It was a wonderful presentation. I really appreciate your time and your work. I have two kind of questions points. Number one, universal school lunch and dining spaces in the elementary schools. I don't want us to kind of work backwards. If we're working on this bond, and I know we agreed as a committee to have other projects prioritized at Fox Meadow and Edgewood, for example, instead of a dining space or a kitchen, I just want to understand would we convolute the process for ourselves if we then chose to somehow do universal school lunch? the short answer is we don't know for sure yet there's certainly an expectation of storage concerns at all of our

115elementary buildings and the high school quite frankly if we were to participate in the universal school lunch program because we would anticipate an increase in participation and the menu requirements of that program would mean there would be more things on the tray whether the child wants it or not so there's gonna be a lot of analysis we need to do So that feedback I think much like some of the other demographic work and other things that were pointed out in our presentation We need this year to gather that information. So to use that to influence this bond scope I don't think was appropriate But I will put that there with a caveat right this committee talked quite a bit about annual capital appropriations projects and the need to continue to stay ahead of work so

116I'm not kind of foreshadowing anything because I really haven't gotten there yet, but perhaps if it was determined that, let's say, a cold storage solution at the elementary schools needed to happen, given our current kitchen setup, perhaps that could be funded through a capital appropriations budget line in a future budget. To remind the board and the community, we have $1.7 million in that line this year. quite a bit smaller than that just a few years ago, but we recognize the need to do some immediate improvements. So we'd like to maintain that. I've had professionals tell me that that's not even enough for a district with 978,000 square feet and 115 acres, as Nick talked about earlier. So our hope is to maintain that capital appropriations line to deal with those other things that didn't fit

117into this discussion tonight. Thank you and then I think it would be helpful to understand what the number is for the you know number of classrooms at the high school that would potentially need renovation work that was initially you know floated at 175k 11,150,000 for 62 classrooms regular classrooms five science rooms five art rooms at 175 at the 175 but the science rooms would be at 250 because there's more more work more equipment and then art rooms at 160 sorry as a follow-up to that with those high school estimates include furniture new furniture as well yeah those those the movable costs include furniture outfitting much like Green Acres I just had one more question about the renovations for the classrooms because I forgot. So the 175 is floors, ceilings, furniture. What about technology upgrading? So,

118you know, the technology is changing every day. So, you know, the wiring for that. I know just from Quaker Ridge, we used to have issues because we just didn't have the right wiring to plug in certain. microphones in the auditorium so do the does this 175 000 allow for teachers to use appropriate technology in the classroom it would allow them to use what they have now right that's And I think some of the decisions that were made around that, of course, the $350,000 renovation that included the storage and updated technology, the questions that we asked were, can we accomplish what we want to accomplish at a lesser cost so that we could support other parts of the bond work that was very important with all the proposals, taking all the schools into account and all

119the needs of the district. I appreciate that. I guess my concern is if in a few years we realize we need to rewire all these classrooms and now we're just tearing down all the walls, we just redid. I think that was my concern around that. On a personal note, I'm not an IT guy at all, but things are going more and more wireless. So hopefully in a few years there will be solutions that could do that wirelessly. I'll actually note that your concern is actually kind of the origin of one of the facilities department's priorities in this, which is replacing some of the spline ceilings and stuck-up tiles. depending on the sections of the building you go into in many of our buildings you'll find these small square ceiling tiles that are not very easy

120to do work above so when we are running wires or our contractors ring wires to get him back in place they've either broken the tile or it just doesn't sit right back so so we've asked to include significant amounts of you know ceiling tile replacement so that you can like this room pop up a ceiling tile move it over run wire and do things like that so My point of bringing that up is really a tip to the facility team for saying this doesn't cost a lot if you're doing a small space, but if you do the whole building, it really helps us on a day-to-day basis. That's why one of those things got included in there versus something else. I also want to echo the appreciation for the quality of the work of the

121committee. So I have like a quick framework question because there's... ECS priority one to five and then a district priority one to three and at one point I think from the timeline it's you know it's a higher number and then we kind of went on it down to the 95.6 million And in this, is it like a simple, like all the priority ones made it into the scope or all the, like none of the fives made it? So I just want to understand that process. That's a great question. Maybe Nick can chime in when he talk about some of the work. So the facilities priorities pulled several of the things that were already in the BCS, and we pulled them out and said these are. facilities priority we also added some things that had not

122been accounted for because we really felt like the ceiling tile replacements as I mentioned we really felt it made sense so that's the origin of facilities piece make you want to talk about the BCS report and how we went through that sure yes we went through every line of the BCS report from the priority one all the way down to five before the committee even kicked off, we had spent some time pulling things out on our own to see what we can do through operating and also through future capital projects to help get it down while also making sure that these priority ones were put into there. So what you will see in there is all priority items one listed on this, while at the same time, as Andrew just pointed out, maybe something's listed

123as a two or a three in the BCS, but for our... future proofing the building such as ceiling tiles or for seeing something that's maybe as age part of our infrastructure infrastructure that needs to rise to the top that's become what's called a priority one from the facility side of it you can see most of them are priority one items but certain things like these oil tanks that need to get replaced while they're technically a three by the study that was done when we looked at it as a whole we were like no this is something that needs to get prioritized I was just going to add as part of the committee's process I mean back in June each of the building buildings had their groups and each group prioritized from its point of view

124what should be a priority items instead of it being listed by someone else like me. So so there was reprioritization that happened midway through by committee members correct. Right. We went we went through line by line item that was quite. exhaustive, but I think important. Thank you. And about the spatial needs, I just want to make a comment that I would love to hear more about the thoughts about what classrooms are going to look like in 10 years, like what programs these spaces can deliver. I'm sure there's educator inputs on that front. I echo Bob and other board members' comment about interactive spaces, like spaces that is conducive to interactions. So as we dig deeper into the common spaces, I love that there are a lot of library upgrades and LRC rooms and all those

125common spaces in the scope. But I think if just some more elaboration on that thought process would really help, I think, also help the community to understand the benefits. of how they're going to deliver programs. Thank you. In terms of piggybacking on Laura's point about the classrooms, I think another way perhaps to nuance our allocation is that right now it seems that all of the classrooms are essentially going to maintain their configuration. In other words, we're not moving walls. They're just going to be refurbished, if I can put it that way. I would personally like to see some percentage component within the schools which are creating opportunities to rethink the classroom, to Laura's point. In other words, to have a vision of a future. And it's hard to know what that is, but I don't

126think... the status quo we can be sure is going to necessarily work in the next 10 or 20 or 30 years. So I'd like personally to see us take some risk, if you can put it that way, and really research the classrooms of the future and, you know, give some of them a try and just use them as prototypes and learn from it rather than You know we know how once these classrooms are renovated we're not going to sit down in five years and Probably renovated them again. We're gonna keep going with other things so that Not unlike renovating, you know the the house cafeterias Which you know once we do it, that's it. We're not necessarily gonna go back and do an essential. I I Personally would like to see us have more transformative

127ideas built into our scenario. I'd rather do 75% of the classrooms that are the highest priority, but some of them being reconfigured, you know, even if it's one per school where we have a way to rethink, you know. how we deliver our pedagogy. Just a thought. If I can highlight some of that, because I think the committee, to some degree, agreed with that concept, and I'll start by pointing to the high school, right, and pointing to the 3D art studio, and even revisiting the way the LRC is structured, right? I think those are the areas where you will see student-centered... Reimagination of the space and that was a priority right so while yes there are other classrooms that are functioning just fine now and greatly benefit from a facelift It wouldn't transform the work I

128would say the 3d art studio and the LRC work are perfect examples of things that will happen that we could grasp on to I would also say that I think we as a committee and me up observing the community members in the committee go through Kevin's early presentations about Things like exchange spaces and big ideas and we we navigated through those waters for a little bit but the committee was really grounded in two things I think which is Scale of the BCS and the facilities needs just as they are today and the concept of a 40 million dollar tax-neutral Kind of impact and how do we marry all of those concepts together in a sound recommendation? Dr. Patrick said it earlier. This is not a perfect recommendation. I think Susie you said it you know

129every one of us could come up with a different bond I think we tried to just present this evening a Balance of all those things because we heard all those things in the presentation Beyond the 3D art studio and the LRC are the libraries. So the Heathcote Library, that is such a space to imagine that. Middle school, that is a place where that reimagining can take place. Fox Meadow, that construction. Part of it is thinking about how do we get more out of the multipurpose room in Edgewood and using some additional space there to try to improve. what's possible within that shell, but to improve what's possible. I see elements of that transformation in what's proposed. I do, too, and I'm not saying it's not there. However, to me, the core building block within the

130system is the classroom. Essentially, that's the common element in all these schools is the notion of a classroom. And the thing that I personally have struggled with is the notion of equity. Is it fair to do half the classrooms? That means half the people won't be in renovated classrooms. But I think our obligation is to look big picture here. That yes, we want it to be, we're not. necessarily talking about classrooms that are non-functioning slums, okay, that are dangerous. Obviously, anything that falls in that category has to be rectified, and that's where the BCS study helps us know that. So I think if we all agree that we're trying to push the boundaries of teaching and learning and be leaders in that, I would rather do less classrooms, perhaps better or more creatively, in terms

131of some sort of a pecking order and then learn from that experience so that the next bond we can pick up what we've learned and finish it off. I mean, that's just my own. Because we know we can't do it all. I mean, that, you know, the $393 million, that's not feasible. So already we're starting to kind of make these decisions. But I think the classroom in particular, I just feel I would like to see perhaps a little more again. thought being put into that solution. I think we should do the classrooms. The question is maybe less, but a few of them more creatively. Maybe 20% are, they're not great, but they're okay. And they get put into the next bucket. I'm sorry I know this conversation is going long but if I can add

132just one quick thing for me I'd be really interested in learning about some of the sustainability conversations that the committee might have had sustainability as a strategic plan core value and I'm I can see you know energy consumption going up in this bond which I you know approve of I think you know we need to have more air conditioning I see what is it called the BMS you know potentially offsetting some of that and being more energy efficient. I'd just like to learn more about some of those conversations about the energy performance contract options that we might have and what we expect to get from the BMS system. Thoughts? So, I mean, I really have nothing to say about the proposal itself. I really wanted my fellow board members to react to it. Personally, I

133support what we ultimately will decide to go forward with. I'm not sure it'll be $96 million. We don't yet know what it'll be. But I guess that's kind of where I'm wondering where we are, because I don't sense consensus among the board in terms of... what the next step should be other than I think there's consensus that there should be community input in terms of what this proposal is and what the community thinks are good priorities for us to pursue with, you know. opportunity that we have here so you know I'm not sure exactly what concreted that means in terms of the format or the venue I know you know lots of people have worked very hard already I'm not I don't want to like you know throw lots of additional meaningless work I do

134think you know some types of forms are probably in order to you know have community to bring this kind of presentation Obviously people can watch this meeting, but we don't really have the type of give and take in this venue that another type of presentation with the community could have. So I don't know what other people think about that as a next step. It seems like that makes sense. But I mean, what do people think? I agree with your assessment and Susie's in terms of I think we've had an interesting conversation and you know there's certainly been ideas about transformative spaces and Colleen and Bob talked a little bit about the middle school cafeteria which got me thinking about how nice that would be to have and so I think getting getting opinions from getting

135more input from the community I'm not sure how much this has been socialized within buildings. I think you drew and Andrew had indicated that it has been socialized within buildings, but also with members of the public who probably are just seeing this for the first time and hearing this conversation, getting their input, I think would be valuable. I think as a board member, I'd like to hear that input. I don't think I would want to necessarily. think the committee was the one who put together the proposal so they might be best suited to answer questions but I think I'd still want to have the ability to hear what the community was asking I wouldn't want it to be those meetings were sort of closed door and not really open for us to listen to I

136think I'd like to have the opportunity to hear directly from the community I'm not sure how that's just my feeling. Yeah, I think I mean again my concern would be that you know to this Hearing from the committee now where the board we're considering it, you know, it can't be a closed loop, right? It has to be open so Thoughts on format welcome But I I do think that that is a necessary element of this that we need to help us inform our decision-making Okay well I'll put out an idea we can talk about it you know the past board has done listening sessions where the board didn't talk but we just listened I mean we could if members of the committee were willing to engage with the community set up a session where they

137answered questions from the community about it we just listened we didn't talk and then any board member who wanted could be present it's just one idea open to other ideas as well. I like that. Maybe board members could talk if they wanted to, but I really wouldn't want to hijack the process. We've already had our say here. We're going to have other opportunities to have other say, but the communities might not have those other opportunities or as many or as the same venue. So, I mean, that sounds like a very good start. Can I ask, so one idea just to float and then I'm gonna ask a question. Idea to float, we recently did a field study. We had a couple of engagement sessions. They happen to be in this room, but that is a

138concept that might be familiar. You could think about that as a possible approach. While you chew on that, I guess a question I have for the board is, I'm gonna take a second to frame it. as best as I can. Well, let me think about that for a second more but that's so maybe you can react to that idea as a way to yeah I think it would I mean maybe multiple I'm not saying many but like, you know, maybe three I'm thinking different times those sessions were great I don't know how many of us attended those sessions, but I thought they were a really valuable tool for community members to put their their feedback or input and then I mean it's work to to gather that input, but I thought it was really, that

139was really helpful. It is work, but we do have some time. I agree, and I think Drew sent out text messages right when they were going to begin, so people have the link even, or whatever. Oh, they could join by Zoom? Something that happened? I think we did that. At least one of them we did, I think, or maybe both of them we did. I thought that was helpful because it reminded me of the meetings. Yeah, I think you could be in person or on Zoom. And it was very visual. I think it was very easy for people to walk around the room and see. what was happening and so yeah, I think I really like that idea. So I think things that would, you know, we're gonna need a sense of whether we're on

140the right track or not or whether we are in some sort of recalibration mode. So one thing I think that would be helpful, you saw work in four different categories. I guess it would be helpful for us to know if you see that idea, whether whatever the scope is, is that idea resonating or is that idea we've got a category there that should not be there that would be helpful so there's building conditions and infrastructure priorities there's air conditioning which is almost exclusively the large spaces that require more complex projects plus Heathcote classrooms because We can't do those so far, at least the way that we've done other typical classrooms. Fields, the two field projects, or variation on them, that's a possibility, and then the spatial projects that themselves, at least the elementary, have additional

141information necessary to come in on enrollment and that piece, and we've heard tonight, other spatial interests from the board? I think these categories seem appropriate and seem to address the needs. Again, I would like to revisit the middle school a little bit, but maybe the community feels that the changes suggested in the spatial for the middle school are what best fit the needs of the students at this time within our financial constraints. But for me, I would be interested in maybe seeing the cost of what it would be specifically. I know you guys gave a number. to switch or could reconsider the middle school renovations but again I think I would be more interested to hear where the community falls on that before I went down that path personally I was going to say, I

142personally think we should stick with the categories. First of all, I think they're good categories, but also there's been a lot of analysis that we have that we can use to take a deep dive into those categories should those questions arise just through the work. I don't know if this is productive or not, but I think we should... Discuss the 95 million why 95 not a hundred and ten or eight? I mean, I I just I don't think that's cast in stone and I think I'm not saying it's wrong. It may be the right one, but I think the the marketing and the selling of the bond Some of it has to do with the detail because some things will just resonate and get people excited. I think there are projects that if people get

143on board and are excited about, might say, well, you know, $15 million, maybe I can live with that additional $15 million. I'm not pushing for it to be higher, but it's just not a number that's... Fixed to my knowledge. Can I just step in on that because? We've been discussing this now for quite some time already this evening. I'm concerned that if we're throwing up in this evening the notion of let's revisit 96, let's consider if it should be 120, let's consider if it should be 40. We're going to be at that for a solid hour. No, I didn't, by the way, mean tonight. I thought we were talking about topics over the next few months. I thought you meant tonight. No, no, no. I don't mean tonight at all. I mean, I think we're

144throwing out... We're gonna talk more maybe about some of the projects and we're gonna get feedback and I think one of the topics could be feedback on The number what what is that number that you know, I totally agree Bob, but I think one thing that comes to my mind is What are people interested in you know, I look at this and I go I I don't know how we're getting rid of anything other than the 33 million for BCS like we have to I don't want to go into the numbers, but my point is once we get input from people and the community. and then we will sit here as a board and we will say what makes sense right given what we've heard not just from the committee but from the community as

145a whole so i think it's i think i'm with jim and that it's a little premature right now but i agree it's i don't think it's set in stone i don't know what the right number is i think it's what's the right project what belongs in here and what is that number in the end i don't think we should be working towards a number specifically so if the right project's 100 million then that's the right project if the right project 30 million and that's the right project but we should worry about the project and then go back to the number from where from my viewpoint I appreciate Bob highlighting the cost component and what I'm struggling to find words for is our consultant construction manager Paul in the audience is probably searching for a clear

146path of where to begin his team's cost estimation work because I think as we start to debate the merits of including one thing versus another, we've been in an early planning phase, so numbers will become more accurate as we have a more defined scope, but if we never define scope, it's gonna be this back and forth. I'm just being, I'm trying to. I just highlight the work. I'm not trying to press the board on an answer. I'm really not. I'm just struggling with my concern about giving them work to do. Like, how do I direct them? Right. I get it. I just don't think we're going to be able to give that definitive clarity tonight. I don't know if that was the expectation. I wasn't aware that was the expectation actually in terms of coming

147down to, yeah, we're going with 96 as opposed to something else. I think Andrew's expressing a need, not a demand. Right. Yeah, no, we get the need, but I just don't think tonight's the night in terms of that kind of clarity. That's my sense from assessing where everyone is. I mean, Andrew, do you think if we were to say... I think it would be safe to say it would be reasonable to start sharpening his pencil on that scope of work because, first of all, I'm sitting here assuming it's $95 million. If he sharpens his pencil and it's $110 million, then we would want to know that, or if it goes down because he's done a little more detail. I think we want to know that that's approximately the right number. So I think everything in

148there we would want to know. I could see other things we'd want to know too on a personal level, like maybe the middle school cafeteria. And there's some other things that I can throw out too. But I think essentially, I think they should start with. Verifying, if we want to put it that way, looking a little more carefully that the $175,000 per classroom is the right number and it's not $170,000 or it's not $180,000 or whatever. I think that certainly would be a good use of everyone's time. I think that makes sense. I don't know if that's helpful. Is that helpful, Paul? Yes. No, Paul, sorry. As I was discussing at one of the last, actually I think it was at the last meeting. It seemed like the air conditioning was one that everybody was

149focused in on in the large rooms. So I have my team working on that right now. to break that down into different systems as we're going through. And as I was discussing, what we're going to do from there is we're going to get into the BCS items since they've been established and go through that. So as you're making your decisions on which way to go, I'm picking pieces of this out to basically cost it. So the numbers that were generated here are big picture numbers. So what I have to do is get it down into really the actual cost of that. that item that's been identified but also one of the things that I need to do because it affects the cost is start figuring out based on what you're going to ultimately recommend how

150does this how does I sweet sequence this And how many years is it going to take to build this so that we start looking at that because that affects the escalation on the project. So we escalate the project so that we know basically what it's going to cost at the time we're going to build it. So, yes, all these discussions help. I've got a number of pages listening to what everybody has been talking about. So, yes, they're all helpful. yeah so can we do yeah I have a to-do list okay and I think you know engage with at least some of you about a community outreach piece to this and throw ideas around and we'll think there's enough to plan to come back at our next board meeting with the next update and things like

151sustainability the forum for feedback, a couple of other things. I'm hearing the dining room option in the middle school is something that... Well, we have. I mean, it's $15.2 million. Or $12 million. No, no. Well, yeah. Between the auditorium and the gyms, that courtyard there, it's costed it. With equipment and furniture, $15.2 million, which does not appear in this. Just so everyone's clear. The renovations of the four house, there would be some cost to do something different in those spaces that we'd have to figure out. Because those spaces would be freed to do different educational things in. So it wouldn't remove that cost. It could cost more, depending on what we do with those opportunities. They would be opportunities. And again, I want to keep out there. We've made assumptions about Edgewood that are tied

152to enrollment and we're going to learn more about that I I don't want to be in a position where we know we have information that tells us We can expect so much classroom pressure that it's going to change the program there impact specials or something like that we don't want to be in that position I think right now we don't anticipate that happening but we're gonna have information from the demographer that should help sharpen that viewpoint and we'll bring that to you as as soon as we have it and we don't yet know when that would be in terms of he's working on it right now There's also the bugaboo of Freightway as potentially something that can come down the road, at least in the next 10 years, something. So we might have to think

153in terms of a buffer, whether it's Fox Meadow or... Okay. Can I just thank the committee members again? Really, all of you for your work and engagement. And you are welcome to stay, but do not feel obligated to stay for the remainder of the board business tonight. I don't know if you want to take a break. Yeah, we want to take five, okay? Yes, relaxation. Putting us back in session. Yeah, back in session. And we've had our break. We're now ready to get into item 9.02. That's Eric. District emergency safety and management plan. After our initial... Our district emergency plan was approved back in I believe it was June or July and we thought that would be it for the year but since then the state has required an additional an additional it's not an

154appendix but additional planning procedures addendum to our plan that would include specific cardiac emergency procedures. So we have reworked the plan to add that in the building. The building response plans all have that in which you approve during the consent agenda. So, but whenever we re-approve a district emergency plan, there needs to be a 30 day comment period and a public hearing at the end of that comment period. So today's discussion item is really to open up. that 30-day comment period for the community and then not at the next board meeting but at the following board meeting we will have that as an action item to approve the district emergency plan the draft you have there has the new language in it there's literally about 25 word difference between the old one and the new

155one really just lets the public know that there are plans for training of the staff of where our Defibrillator machines are what to do in the event of a cardiac emergency Both in the building and on the grounds just as information for the community in conjunction with a donation from our private sports leagues amongst the village we have installed defibrillator machines one outside in every single school to be accessed by the field any questions so this will come back in October okay thank you so the next item on the agenda is 903 board follow-up on summer work and Just to sort of reiterate on that, there were three groupings of board members who looked at three different aspects of our procedures or policies. Myself, Amber, and Colleen, we looked at gifting procedures. I don't think

156we recommended there be any change. The one item we talked about, I was meeting after our meeting with Maroon and White, just that was the one concern. I think that came up around the gifts because some of those gifts tend to be time sensitive and for us to try to maybe find a way to allow them to give gifts. You know, if like the cheer team needs signs next week. and we're not having a board meeting, those were some hiccups that they have experienced, and we were just starting to brainstorm ways to address that with Maroon and White. And did anything come of that? Not yet? Not yet. I think we talked about working with Cindy to kind of create a procedure that maybe would allow Cindy. To purchase them in advance and then them

157to offer to to give the gift I've been meeting with Andrew I was gonna kind of brainstorm a little bit with you this when we meet this I think it's this week right or Wednesday, so I'll circle back on that. Okay. Thank you very much and I guess we have a group of Suzy Bob Laura and Anish looking at Community engagement plan and anything to report on that Thank you, Jim. We did meet again since we last got together and we were looking at ways we could possibly improve our practices and reach all interested stakeholders in our schools as best we can. I want to thank Honoray, our incredible district clerk who makes all of our engagement efforts possible. And she's part of our summer review team as well. We did meet and get her

158feedback on some of this stuff. So last year's main, I guess, community engagement effort were the coffees and we did speak about the coffees at length. Reviewing the coffees from last year, as we know that we had six of them with attendance ranging from 19 attendees for our first meeting in the fall down to one lonely attendee by the end of April. So we were trying to think of ways that maybe we can, you know, address that. and maybe boost the spring coffee if we wanted to continue that way. We were thinking one of the things that came up in our group was maybe changing the venue for that spring meeting and maybe having it at the Scarsdale Public Library. That way we can maybe reach you know, a different part of the community, be

159on their calendar, be on their email list, maybe reach families with little children who aren't yet in the schools, reach empty nesters. Also, it's, you know, a familiar place. Maybe, you know, people would feel more comfortable there. And also maybe doing something outside. We were talking about maybe doing something at a picnic table or something during maybe switching up the times. I think there was a suggestion of having something like on a Friday that might be easier for some working people. Having something at drop-off times or when there's student activities. So it might be a nice time for parents to stop on by. Anish had some ideas for student engagement, maybe not necessarily calling everything a coffee, but maybe doing something during one of the community lunches, you know, geared at students. Maybe having an

160ice cream social we discussed. Anari seemed okay with that. You know, things like that to, you know, maybe make things a little fresh, you know, and invite as many people in the community, you know, to come and get their feedback. I think we talked about things like parking issues, you know, that we may be, and I can see pros and cons to it, you know, having a sign-up sheet like a RSVP. That way we could prepare, you know, whether it's parking spaces or, you know, coffee or food or whatever. And also I think we discussed maybe having an option that people could. put what they're interested in or what their question might be optional. We certainly don't want to create hurdles to coming, but we also want to be able to best service the people

161who come or best anticipate what people might have on their minds. I'm thinking of roping off some parking spots. And I think some of the student initiatives that Anish and Lucy talked about last time too, we wholeheartedly thought were great ideas. You know, the Maroon publication for student engagement, and also there's that, you mentioned a student video that's made once a week, being on there and trying to educate the students about what's happening on the board, asking for feedback. I think that'd be great. And I'm trying to think of anything else. We talked about social media as well. Last year we looked into it quite a bit, and the board itself, you know, shouldn't really have its own account, but the district has an account. And given our new ParentSquare platform, communications platform, Honoré said

162it could be easy maybe to get some content from ParentSquare onto, you know. whether it's Facebook or Instagram. I think we were looking into that. So we're looking at different ways that we can maybe engage. We know a lot of people only like to look at social media for content, so things like that. I don't know if people have initial feedback on those kind of ideas. Well, I think that's great and be obviously interested in seeing what comes out of that in terms of final recommendations or proposals The only thing I'm thinking about is in terms of the coffees or whatever we want to call them That we need to you know generate sign-up sheets for that, you know, probably Yeah sooner rather later so we just would want to get that process Underway even

163maybe I don't know if we have to wait to get you know a full recommendation about things we could change or do to at least get availability for the things we know we'll do which I think will be meeting with the people you know at least at least here and I think meeting with them at the library may also be a very good idea you know getting the space because it is a little intimidating to come here I think for some people Yeah Okay with that, I'll look at that. Well, I love the idea of meeting at the library, but just going back to our conversation earlier about the bond, if we're trying to engage the community on the bond over the next month or two, I worry that having a coffee at the same

164time will be a little... Like there's only so many activities you can ask people to come to so I don't I'm a I'm a little cautious about trying to schedule Like our typical board coffee not so much the students So that's just one thing that comes to my mind and then the other thing I wanted to ask was You know the ice cream social sounds like a lovely and cute idea, but do we have a budget? I don't think we have a budget, a line item to supply ice cream for potentially 1,600 students at the high school. So like maybe a candy or something that's a little bit more cost effective. Just a couple ideas there. I appreciate that. When I was at the PTC meeting earlier, because I'm their liaison, they were suggesting sitting

165at a community lunch at a table, but yes, to have candy or something, some incentive to get people to come speak to us. Okay. Sorry, just a quick comment. I know during our community engagement meetings, we talked about how during or around the time when some important board meetings happen, like when we discuss the budget, we should have coffees that maybe they aren't only for that topic, like the budget, but we want the focus to be on that. So I think to Ms. Yusef's point, if we are wondering on... how we can get community input on the bond, whether or not those two events can be combined into one. Like we have a coffee where the overall notion is, okay, come to this coffee and we will discuss the bond, but if you have any

166other extraneous questions, then those can also be discussed as well, if that's a possibility. One thing I also omitted from before, I think, there was also talk about, you know, public comment and kind of reviewing maybe a couple tough meetings last year, you know, just to communicate out to the community what the expectation is and what the guidelines are, you know, maybe a little bit more clearly, you know, maybe rewording the preamble a little bit, you know, to say. you can't just hand off your time or that you have to speak one at a time. So maintain order in our meetings. Okay, anything else on that? All those sound like good ideas. I mean, in terms of the timing of the meeting. joining the coffee to a discussion of the bond may make sense. Wouldn't

167want to require committee members to sit there through the non-bond portion of whatever gets discussed, but those things are all potentially doable. I think one thing to keep in mind, sorry, I love the coffee idea, but we are limited to only two or three board members at a coffee, right? So if we do that, then again, the whole board can't be present for that. conversation or that input and those aren't recorded so board members that were not there would miss out on the opportunity to hear directly from the public so i think if we can phrase it in a way that it's not dialogue with a board member but it's really just an opportunity for board members to listen then I think any board member who wants to be there could be present right I

168think that would be the goal for those sessions whereas the coffee is a little bit more dialogue so sorry I don't mean to I do love the coffees I think they're a great idea I just feel like for the bond work as many of us that can hear that is important We do have the board members who attended the coffees write up. I realize it's not the same, but I think if people can make a coffee but not a forum, if we decide to have one, I don't want to limit people in what they can talk about. I think it's also kind of inevitable that people are going to talk about the bond at our coffees anyway if it's happening this year, if we're working on it. So I don't know if we can silo

169them that well. And I like the coffees too. Yeah, well I'm hopeful there will be several opportunities to have community engagement on the bond in different venues and forums, I suppose. But okay, all that is very interesting and good. Can we move on to the student board member discussion? Yeah thanks Jim. The ex officio student board student member of the Board of Education Committee has met twice since our last board meeting. The committee consisting of Lucy, Leah, Susie and myself determined that we are comfortable with policy 2245 as it was written. We will focus our efforts on the exhibit associated with the policy 2245-E and also may develop suggestions around onboarding for ex officio student. members as part of the process we are soliciting feedback from stakeholders on the process of the process including but

170not limited to the administration of the high school the student government which served as the vetting body and the candidates we look forward to bringing our findings to the board table later this fall after we have received input and discussed it as a committee okay thank you very much i'm not sure if anyone has any reactions to that but it certainly sounds good and looking forward to it thank you if not we can move on to 904 which is a discussion of follow-up discussion on board goals and objectives for the 2025-26 year and those have been revised I think we discussed the draft at our prior meeting on the 25th of August There was a comment about adding sort of a big bullet for technology, which would live some technology things that were in a

171prior draft, but also supporting implementation of the cell phone ban, as it's called, at the high school. So, you know that work revision was done and we circulated, you know today a slightly revised Policy board goals document I should call it now. We don't vote on this. We don't You know take a vote. We just reach consensus on these as Objectives, I don't know if folks want to discuss them Or whether they're comfortable saying yeah, this looks good or how you want to proceed, but I bring it to you all and however you want to proceed with it. One quick question. Thank you for breaking out technology. Do we want to say anything about including AI? Do we want to include AI at all under the technology bullet, or do we not? I wasn't sure

172exactly, concretely, to say about that specifically, that I would say, like, yeah, we would have a, like, you know, go back at the end of the year and assess what we did with it, because I feel like it's, you know, that hasn't really been... the board table much I mean there's been discussion of it and you know I think you know Drew superintendent Patrick mentioned it in his you know welcome back to school but it hasn't really been a board table thing so I don't know my view is that I'm credible not including it but if others feel differently you know I think we evaluate ourselves at the end of the year based on how we achieve those goals. So maybe keeping it broader. I think you may bring up a good point, Jim, that

173we haven't necessarily had those discussions at the table. I don't know where we might. I feel like after tonight, we're gonna be talking about bond work for a little while. So I'd be inclined to leave it open. And then if the opportunity presents itself, I think it's certainly. something that yeah of interest do we want to say that even though we're all focused on the device bandit at the high school that it is a K through 12 yeah they it's the new at the high school it's that's true it was already in place another that's well that's why yeah I guess we just have any policy I am thinking of the policy yeah okay I think we've got consensus, which is good, always good. So we can move on to the draft budget calendar. I

174think that's back to Andy. That's me? Yeah. So first I want to thank Honore for all her work preparing this draft budget calendar. Many of the key budget deadlines are actually set by New York State. Some of them have windows of opportunity to meet, so we try to coincide those with board meeting dates. The calendar you have in front of you has two sections of it. One is Board of Education meetings and responsibilities, and then the administration kind of responsibilities in the second column, and both are described in the third. This calendar largely mirrors what we did last year in terms of budget development and discussions. The dates have been updated, but there was no meaningful changes that I recall. going through in this new proposed calendar. I think the first opportunity to say Drew's

175line, please come out and vote May 19th, 2026 at the middle school gym. Andrew reminds us, it's always budget season. Any questions? I have one question about our budget forum and when we hear from the public in the spring we usually have an education report on top of it it feels like a very heavy meeting are we still doing that this year that we're aware of I just want to flag it noted flagged and we'll talk about it in two by one yeah I had no comments on the on the actual calendar and you know proposed dates myself just yes thank you for putting that together Okay, 9.06. This is the annual time when NISBA is considering resolutions for, well, they put out the adopted resolutions for consideration at the delegates' business meeting, the annual

176business meeting. That takes place October 16th. What we've traditionally done is review these as a cabinet and give our recommendation. about our best thinking on this. We've only started that today, so it's a partially done list, but we will certainly have that to you in advance of the October 5th meeting so that you can deliberate on that and then be in a position to. Give guidance to who's who's our deli Susie for the actual meeting. Do you want to say anything about West putts? We say that there was a West putt legislative advocacy meeting last week that I attended as our Westpac board liaison where we did do that similar review of the NISPA resolutions and made recommendations as a you know as an organization as Westpac it's included in the agenda I thought it

177was interesting to you know hear the different priorities and perspectives of the different schools around us you know we have a lot in common we also have a lot you know different things going on so this is very interesting Okay any questions on that? Okay thank you and Susie thank you for carrying the torch. Okay 9.07 this is just a brief information item I had mentioned to the board but after the budget was adopted and voted on New York State made available some limited funds on a per pupil basis for supporting the bell-to-bell distraction free schools law we received twenty four thousand three hundred eighty three dollars we anticipate using that toward We don't have specific things lined up yet, but to use that toward education of students on the impacts and adults on the

178impacts of technology use, social media and so forth, and the acquisition of secure storage for potential students who are not following the policy. So that's our plan right now, but later in the meeting, there's an action item to appropriate that money because it came post-budget. Any questions? Not that I'm advocating in any way but was this funding supposed to cover yonder pouches if we had decided to go that route? It's certainly an allowable expense Would it cover our district? No, nowhere close Any questions from our student board? Okay thanks and next one is Andrew So I'll address both. Yeah, please, Drew. 908 and 909 I'll discuss together because they have implications related to fund balance and they both go together. I wanted to give the board an update on the financial results for last fiscal

179year at the high level with a little bit of ability to talk about reserves in particular. So the first table here is really just a high-level overview that takes us from the original budget to the projected budget at the budget time for our current school year and then what the actual results were as you go from left to right. If you see our revenue projection was low at budget time and certainly at the time of the 25-26 budget. It improved by about $1.3 million from our current year's budget development time and today, or $3.3 million versus the original budget for last fiscal year. We've talked prior about some of those projection increases for state aid increases and things like that that happened after the budget But we also had a couple of one-time accounting transactions

180that would not be recurring So we'll have to factor that into our upcoming budget development process, but they did help us in this current fiscal year That had to do with some flux accounts that were on the books for quite some time that we were able to take that revenue in for almost $550,000 one item for example We also had $200,000 for the EPA grant for one of our school buses, so that's reflected in both the revenue and the expenses side. On the expense side, our projection that we started with in April or March, or actually February or March, came in really close, $3,800 away. That's at the gross level. At the budget line item level and even by categories. It is nowhere near that clean and pretty so we just happen to Do a

181decent job of playing the averages there so versus budget our expenses were over budget by nine hundred and thirty seven thousand dollars at year end I've highlighted two numbers for you because they'll show up in subsequent slides our actual Change in fund balance. I listed as use of fund much but change in fund balance was $8,169 better than the budget assumed it to be. That's what that negative equals there. And that improved by $1.3 million. You can see the direct correlation, the improvement from when we projected it to the actual was all in that revenue category. So on the next slide, I'll just talk about the reserves and fund balance. This is from the projection to the actual. It's kind of the interim step. You can see the biggest swing are in two categories. One

182is the health reserve, where we continued throughout the fiscal year to experience some high-level claims, and we had to go in and appropriate that health reserve to address some of those overages. We were, however, able at the end of the fiscal year, on tonight's agenda, UBS to approve the transfer of those funds to increase our unassigned fund balance to increase that to the 4% maximum of this year's budget. So really trying to keep money in the most flexible reserve category that's available to the Board of Education. The next slide is really the budget to... or the year-to-year changes in our fund balances. So you can see that our health reserve did go down $1.9 million year-to-year. A million of that or so was planned in the budget. The difference is for the overages in health.

183And then the increase in the unassigned fund balances is $1.5 million versus the budget time. On tonight's board agenda, the board is being asked to approve two resolutions. If you recall in June, Lisa and I shared a memo with the board talking about we knew that there was about a million dollars or so of expense funds unspent that we could transfer, but it was all over a multitude of lines and our estimates weren't quite sure where exactly that money would be. So we asked the board to support us doing. what we're doing this evening, which is we appropriated money from the health reserve to cover the overage in the health plan, and that generated then an excess of fund balance because we had expense savings elsewhere and additional revenue. That expense savings and revenue we

184would put into the health reserve to help offset some of that usage this fiscal year. And we used the 4% of the current year's budget as that barometer of how much we were able to put back in the health reserve. It's kind of convoluted, and I understand that, and it's late this evening, but I'm happy to answer any questions the board might have. I don't think I have any questions, but I appreciate the slides and the explanation because it is complicated. So thank you for that. I appreciate it. So what will be the total? Health reserve once the transfer is the total health reserves on this slide. It will be 1.8 1.8 48 million That's after the chance after the transfer. Yeah, these numbers all reflect the transfer We're asking the board to make do

185we still have 4% of the within our unassigned fund balance of the total budget? Yes, that the 8.9 million represents 4% of this current budget. Thank you. I have a random question one of the NISPA resolutions was support of legislation so that boards can create a health insurance reserve fund. We have one. Is it because we self-insure that we can have one? No. Actually, Scarsdale, I believe, was the first district in New York State that had special legislation specifically naming Scarsdale as being allowed to create this reserve. Subsequently, several other public school districts have been named as well, but the resolution that NSBA is proposing is so that any school district may create that reserve. I see. Thank you. I'm glad we have one. So updates to the fund balance and the long-range financial plan

186will be reflected after the audit is final. We expect the audit report to be presented to us in October, and then the long-range financial plan will follow at the following point. So that's really 9.08 and 9.09. So we can move on to 9.10. And this is a gift. for Fox Meadow it exceeds $1,000 so it's here as an information item we'll come back at the next board meeting as an action item and this is for trip to BOCES for the Fox Meadow fifth grade for their outdoor experiential course in the amount of $3,500 which cabinet supports No, but I wanted to say that I thought it was a pretty cool sounding field trip actually I'd never I didn't know that Fox Meadow took this field trip and I guess reading the letter that they do

187Anyway, it's just it's nice to read about the field trip so I appreciate the work Andrew that went in to kind of get this set up because It's a whole dimension of student learning that that I didn't have any insight into so I appreciate it Thank you for sharing that Okay back to you Jim Okay, so now we're moving on to action items, section 10 of the agenda. The first one has to do with STI courses, and I believe that's Amber. It is. Thank you, Jim. I move that the board accept the following resolution. Resolve that the Board of Education approves the attached STI courses for the fall semester as presented. Is there a second? Susie? Any discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? That motion passes. The next item is

188item 1002, which is the action item on appropriation of New York State funding for distraction-free schools, and that is Susie. Thank you, Jim. I move that the board adopt the following resolution. Be it resolved, the Board of Education hereby approves the appropriation of New York State funding for distraction-free schools. Thank you, Susie. Is there a second? Laura, thank you. All those in favor, I'm sorry, any discussion? No, all those in favor please say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? No, thank you, that motion carries. The next item is 1003, health insurance reserve increase. We were just discussing that and that is Laura. I move that the board adopt the following resolution. Resolved that the Board of Education adopt the resolution for the increase of the health insurance reserve for fiscal year 2024 to 2025 as presented. Thank

189you, Laura. And is there a second? Leah? Okay. So any discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? That motion carries. And then we move on to 1004, appropriation from the healthcare reserve. And that is Leah. Thank you. I move that the board adopt the following resolution. Resolved that the Board of Education adopt the resolution for the appropriation from the healthcare reserve for the 2024-2025 fiscal year as presented. Thank you, Leah. Any second? Thank you, Amber. Any discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed the motion carries And we now move on to the gift section of the agenda section 11. The first one is a gift posal to Edgewood and that is I move that the board adopt the following resolution resolve that the Board of Education accepts

190with thanks the fifth grade poetry grant proposal of $1,200 to provide enrichment activities which will strengthen broaden or deepen children's understanding of material covered in the classrooms as described in the attached letters okay thank you Bob is there a second Amber thank you any discussion All those in favor please say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? That motion carries with thanks. Next is a 1102 gift proposal to Fox Meadow. That is Laura. Move that the board adopt the following resolution. Resolved that the Board of Education accepts with thanks. the donation of $1,100 for the 2025 to 26 school year to support the purchase of books for classrooms as described in the attached letters. Thank you, Laura. Is there a second? Thank you, Susie. Any discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. No one is opposed,

191and that motion carries with thanks. Next is 1104, give proposal to Fox Meadow. I believe that is Susie. Thank you, Jim. I move that the board adopt the following resolution. Resolved that the Board of Education accepts, with thanks, the donation of $1,552 for the 2025-26 school year to support the purchase of a weekly news subscription for fifth grade students as described in the attached letters. Thank you, Susie. Is there a second? Thank you, Leah. Any discussion? All those in favor please say aye. Aye. No one is opposed that motion carries with thanks. 1104 is a gift proposal to Fox Meadow Elementary School again. That's Leah. Thank you. I move that the board adopt the following resolution. Resolved that the Board of Education accepts with thanks the donation of $12,900 for the 2025-26 school year to

192support author visits throughout the school year at Fox Meadow as described in the attached letters. Thank you, Leah. Is there a second? Thank you, Susie. Any discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. and no one is opposed that motion carries with thanks and we are now at 11 0 5. uh give proposal once again to fox meadow elementary school that is amber thank you jim i move that the board adopt the following resolve that the board of education accepts with thanks the donation of approximately 640 dollars for the 2025-2026 school year to support the purchase of a traveling science program for fifth grade students as presented thank you very much amber is there a second Thank You Leah any discussion all those in favor please say aye aye no one is opposed that

193motion carries with thanks and we are now at section 12 of the of the agenda which is the second public comment period and I will not read or reread the public comment intro but I think I'll throw it up to the audience and see if anyone would like to make a public comment at this time if so please come to the podium My name is Chelsea Mitchell. I live at 30 Sprague Road. I am a pediatric emergency medicine doctor by day and PTA president for Edgewood by night. And I am coming to speak to you as a member of the Edgewood community, not as the PTA president. I am actually was... given access and as everyone was to the slides for the capital gains project this morning and I just wanted to express some of

194our concerns around the project. I know that this is early and there will be many forums in the future but I just wanted to take the opportunity kind of to address everyone this afternoon or this evening I should say. Also I'm a little unaccustomed to speaking uninterrupted so bear with me. I have four small children. It's very rare that I speak uninterrupted. So I think that the proposal, so much work went into it, which I greatly appreciate. I do think that the lack of the addition of space to Edgewood might be short-sighted and lead to issues in the future with... The budget if it's not included within the bond that we're currently discussing Our classrooms are as of right now pretty tight our first and our fifth grade are at capacity currently and we have

195two other grades that are very close and I understand that and Drew had mentioned that they're gonna look into enrollment But I just want to bring it to everyone's attention that we're very close to that and we're already talking about projects for this bond that won't happen for several years. I think some of the solutions... to potentially not having that space are also really difficult for our community to digest one of which is the removal of the 821 classrooms to provide moving them to a different school to provide space for us we don't have ICT classes at our school either and it is concerning to remove exposure to all of our students to neurodivergent students. We would then have a school that really doesn't have exposure for our regular students to students of different learning

196capacities and different learning needs. And I will just say, even this year, our interaction with the 821 class has been so fulfilling, and I think that our community really feels that as well. I also just think that... there should be a discussion around do we actually need classroom updates versus is the expansion potentially more important and kind of gaining insight into that. We are the oldest school at Edgewood now that Greenacres has been refurbished. And so I think that also has to be taken into account. If we don't expand now, I think that in 10 years we're going to be in a situation where decisions are going to have to be made that have, like, large impacts on students who are there at that time. thinking about these things now as we look at the

197bond that's in front of us um i just want to highlight some of those things that we've been thinking um and that's it thank you um anyone else in the audience like to speak seeing nobody uh is there anyone on zoom we have two attendees on zoom um one has their hand raised i'll promote them now yep as panelists yes hi can you hear me yes we can Perfect. Rachna Singh, Griffin Avenue. I'm the PTC budget chair with Myra. First of all, I wanted to thank you all for the presentation and thank you to the board for focusing so much on the community engagement piece. Myra and I have some very preliminary questions that we want to pose. I will ask some and then Myra will take some. There has been facilities committee meeting from

198March 25 to September 25. Where can the community access the minutes of these meetings? These minutes would be very helpful to understand the rationale of why these projects were chosen. Is the capital project steering committee the same as the facilities committee? There are two board of members, board of education members in these committees. Are the minutes available to view? And lastly, I would like to just make a comment that it would be really helpful to listen and understand building by building analysis of how different capital improvement or addition will impact student learning. Board members have had the opportunity to visit these spaces, but taxpayer who are responsible for the bill would need to understand how each project in each building gets prioritized and the student outcome focused. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Is there anyone

199else on Zoom with a hand raised? All right, so we'll promote the next person. Hi, good evening again. Maida Kirkendall Rodriguez, PTC Budget Study. Thank you very much. for the presentation of capital projects. As the capital project selection process continues, it would be very useful, especially in order to encourage and ensure community engagement that a number of the financial elements of the whole proposal are considered. So we'd like to suggest that Obviously, as things unfold, we're at an early stage that you please consider in upcoming sessions a number of issues such as defining for the community what exactly you mean by the term tax neutral bond in the presentation, because there is an additional $560 per household in addition to the $400 that are in there. So that's a 40% increase of the actual $400

200tax neutral. So a clarification of that would be helpful for the community. also it would be helpful to understand how the proposed budget when that starts to unfold and how the capital projects timeline will work hand in hand would waiting for a finalized budget allow the district to present a more precise tax impact on the residents also could committing to a whether it's 96 million or whatever the amount ends up being before a budget is finalized, would that possibly risk overextending finances if costs arise or if revenues were to fall sharply, especially if there's a decline in enrollment? Another thing that would be useful for the community would be to understand precisely the granular elements of what is this $175,000 per room renovation? Where do these figures come from? What kind of things are in

201there? Also, if there were to start to be research of the classroom of the future, a term we heard this evening, what could this mean in terms of costs? Other questions that would be quite useful would be whether at some point your committee has analyzed or will analyze current tariff challenges and uncertainty and how they can impact the price of commodities and the materials that are used in the projects. Also, curious as to whether the committee or members of the committee could share the quantification or type of metrics that are being used to really understand how these proposed projects directly impact student learning and the overall educational experience also the projected debt service and the tax impact per household or assess value under different kinds of scopes for example if the bond ends up being

202smaller if it ends up being larger what does that mean for the debt service. Additionally, how are alternative or other kind of financing sources being incorporated? Anything else in terms of reserves, any grants? What about federal government type of funding? Any energy performance contracts? How likely or feasible are any of those kinds of alternatives? How likely is a tax neutral scenario? We kept hearing that term. And so it'd be interesting to hear for the community here. Is it even feasible? How feasible is it? Under what kinds of assumptions could a tax neutral scenario actually exist? It would be good to see that comparison of what does the community get with this scenario that is not tax neutral? What does the community get with what is tax neutral? And then of course the community would benefit

203greatly from hearing what are the risks? What are the risks of cost overruns, delays, unexpected issues such as supply chain issues, zoning issues, uncertainty surrounding freightway development, impact of climate change on any of these construction plans, and how would those things be managed and who's responsible for those? And lastly, And all of these considerations would be the interest rate environment. At what point will you consider different kinds of interest rate scenarios and how that would impact the cost of borrowing? Thank you so much for your attention and look forward to continued information about the bond. Thank you. Thank you very much. Is there anyone else who's got their hand raised? Okay. With that, I think we can move on to item... 13 of the agenda follow up to public comment if there is follow up

204to public comment I would just say I think they mentioned or Myra mentioned earlier that they would send those questions and Andrew and I had already talked about it's not too early to start a FAQ all of this so I think that'll help guide us to start that document so we appreciate it okay and now we have section 14 of the agenda wrap-up items I think we have direction for next time and appreciate all the input. And then we move on to meeting dates and that would be you, Colleen. Thank you, Jim. Our next meeting, Monday, October 6th, is a board special meeting, 530, at the high school, room 171, 172. And on Monday, October 27th, we have a special meeting and or executive session at 6 p.m. here in this room, and an education

205report business meeting at 630 at the high school here in this room. Okay, thanks very much. And with that, I think we need a motion to adjourn into executive session, do we not? Amber has moved that we do that. Is there a second? Leah has seconded that motion. Any discussion? Susie has something to say? No, there's a business meeting that night, yeah. Okay, so wait, you had moved Amber to adjourn the executive session, and Leah has seconded that. I asked there was discussion. I don't think there was. All those in favor, please say aye. Anyone opposed? No? Okay, we are moved into executive, adjourned into executive session. Thank you, everyone.