001Okay. Good evening. I call this meeting to order and note that all board members, including our student members, are present in person. We are also joined by Dr. Patrick and the Administrative Cabinet. Thank you to those in the audience who are watching the live stream for joining us this evening. As we go into our final days of summer, the board would like to acknowledge and thank administrators teachers and staff for all the hard work done around the district these past few months so that we can welcome our students back to school next week teacher and administrative hiring professional development STI classes and other enrichment opportunities capital and facility projects and cleaning and organizing throughout our many buildings are just some of the important work that's been done in our schools And we will hear more
002about this work from Dr. Patrick and cabinet members both during this meeting and later on in our September meeting. With that, I'd like to turn it over to Dr. Patrick. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. I add my good evening to everybody and welcome those in the audience tonight and watching at home. with the new school year fast approaching as mr. Dugan indicated we appreciate all of you taking your time to join us and tune into to our business I'm gonna keep my remarks brief tonight but just have a few things to note so for us the school year officially began today so we welcomed our new faculty for the first day of our orientation program which will continue as well tomorrow On Wednesday, we're going to gather as a K-12 faculty for our
003district convocation, which we'll be holding in the renovated auditorium here at Scarsdale High School, to mark the formal start of the new school year. A few other events to note. Tomorrow, we will be hosting new student orientation for 7th and 8th graders at the middle school who are new to the district. then we'll be hosting sixth grade orientation and ninth grade a school and new student orientations at the middle school and high school respectively this coming Thursday we are closed Monday September 1st in the observance of Labor Day and we'll welcome all students back for the official first day of school on Tuesday September 2nd and we can't wait we're excited and that's all I have for tonight Thank you Drew. We're going to move to board member reports. I just want to start. I'll
004start with the new faculty orientation that Drew alluded to. This morning Colleen Brown, Vice President, and I had the pleasure of attending the start of the new faculty orientation. Part of what makes our district so special is the onboarding, mentorship, and professional development provided to our faculty and staff. This process began today for our new teachers and will continue for all faculty and staff Wednesday and Thursday during full day conference days. We look forward to seeing everyone at Wednesday's convocation ceremony, except for me. I'll be helping my daughter move into college. And that will kick off the new school year for our faculty and staff. And with that, I turn it open to other board members who may have reports. Anyone? Okay, nobody has a report. Student board member reports. Do we have any reports
005from our student board members? Yes, we do. So as the new school year is beginning, both Lucy and I have been brainstorming since our last meeting, how do we actually fulfill our roles as the new student members of the Board of Education? So we plan to do this in two distinct ways. The first being that we want to let people and all the students in all the schools know what exactly is the Board of Education doing. and not only how does that affect them as a Scarsdale citizen, but how does it affect them as a student? And second, we want to hear their thoughts on this, whether they have recommendations or suggestions for the board, and how we can implement them and discuss them in mediums like this. So specifically, when the school year begins,
006Lucy and I were thinking that Maroon, the school's newspaper, would be a good outlet to do this. So if you're unfamiliar with Maroon, every single season they issue a printed edition, as well as every few days they update their website. So we were thinking that in these seasonal editions, we could have an ex officio report in which Lucy and I can either give an interview segment or simply write up a report on what the Board of Education has been doing that season. And we can put information such as the Board of Education email for students to give suggestions and recommendations, as I mentioned earlier. Maroon also runs a homeroom video every Thursday, weekly every Thursday. And so after the week of a Board of Education meeting, we would love there to be a segment talking
007about what actually was discussed at the meeting and help open up some transparency for the board and also provide another medium to put up a QR code and get other suggestions. Some some sorry other ideas that we had because we're just kind of brainstorming everything for now could include Putting a segment into the quarterly emails sent out by principal Bonomo or even if that means us having our own sort of blast email that we could send to the students to just keep them updated and gather their opinions on The things that we're talking about during these meetings and the new policies that might be enacted Well, thank you very much. I love the idea of a regular periodic way for the student board members to communicate what's going on to the community in the high
008school and throughout the district, really. So that would be a great idea, keep those ideas coming and let's act on them, the best ones anyway. Very good. Cabinet updates, I think back to you, Drew. Yep, thank you very much. We're going to start tonight with a brief update, preview of education reports for the year and kind of how that's going to operate. Great. Edgar. Thanks a lot, Drew. So I'm pleased to report on the major themes of program improvement and our plans for how we'll structure our education reports this year. The Scarsdale School District never sleeps. Over the summer, teachers have been involved in program improvement work across all levels, grades, and departments. And this work falls into three major categories. The first, collaborative work that involves the alignment of practices and grading across the
009grades and departments, horizontally and vertically, as well as several ICT partnerships and collaborations. The second, educators update existing curriculum materials, assessments, resources, and thoughtfully curate supporting resources. And third, invention, integration, and creation of new courses and new materials and performance assessments, particularly this year. This year's educational reports will highlight how we are adapting our practices and priorities to better serve our students now and in the future. Both short cabinet updates and detailed reports will show how ongoing assessments and research guide are evidence-based changes. The education reports were aligned with our strategic plan of living, leading, and learning. For example, we'll have one focused on living, shifts in fostering belonging through programs like Responsive Classroom and Civ Ed, and promoting civil discourse and student resilience. We'll also have one focused on learning, advances in learning such
010as new performance tasks, expanded best practices, and stronger ways for our students to communicate complex ideas. Also focus one on leading, educational leadership with updates on our use of AI, recognition of Scarsdale educators as thought leaders, and updates from our community for inquiry and innovation team. For the more succinct cabinet curriculum updates, I'll share key program improvements, share out the tri-state report, updates on math and assessment initiatives, and highlights from various events. There has been a recommendation that we give advance notice to key topics. So for the next Board of Education meeting, my cabinet update, I'll be focused on the updates to elementary math resources, focusing on benchmark assessments at every grade, language and formatting modifications for early grades, and K-5 enrichment strategies. I look forward to engaging the board and the community to share
011out, explain, and celebrate all the evolutions that are going on in our learning community. Excellent. Thank you very much. Edgar, any questions for Edgar? Appreciate that. Okay. We'll go to Andrew with some facilities and fiscal updates. Yeah. I'm going to start in my facilities department, but I'm actually still some of Megan's shine here. We talked in June about the hire of our new facilities director, Nick Ferraro, which caused a vacancy in our... in our leadership team at the facilities department as the assistant director. I'm happy to say that under this evening's agenda, Luis Magalhães, the high school head custodian, has been offered and accepted the position as assistant facilities director here in the central office. Luis has been with the district for 24 years. He's been a valuable member of the custodial and maintenance team,
012both as a... steward of the building but also as a leader amongst the custodial staff he was in Heathcote for approximately 20 years or so before moving to the high school in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic and he really took a leadership role I think during that that stage so his leadership skills and his experience in the district has been invaluable and we're really happy to have him continue that as the assistant director of facilities joining an amazing team that we have in that department So congratulations to Elise and we look forward to having him there. In terms of facilities projects, over the summer it's been very busy in the facilities department. For those of you that have walked around our buildings or through them recently, you'll see that there's been many deep cleaning
013activities and beautifully waxed floors and maintenance projects that have happened both inside and outside of our school buildings, our facilities and maintenance department. Space reconfigurations, lighting replacements. grounds beautification projects that the buildings really have been through quite a bit a lot in a very what feels like a short amount of time and it's kudos to our team who've been able to do that over the summer their list is longer than they're able to accomplish but they try to do as much as they can over the summer we're really grateful for their support as well as the contractors that we trust that we've used supplemental staff as part of our budget so we're really excited about those beautification projects In terms of capital projects, the auditorium project is essentially complete. We do have some follow-up items
014that we have to work through with the contractor, but it is going to be the home for our convocation this week, and we're really excited for that. Related to the auditorium project, our maintenance and custodial staff just on Friday installed a brand-new projection screen for us to use in that auditorium, so we're excited to continue to use that space to its full potential. Tangentially to that, the band room roof project was completed in the spring and as a result, there was no more water infiltrating that space. So we took the opportunity this summer to really replace the floor tile, improve the walls and ceiling and paint. That's a beautiful new space that the high school students will be really happy to have. So we're excited about that. at Heathcote. We had a chimney repair project
015that was approved a few years ago and that project was underway and started late in the summer but we've completed that nearly entirely in terms of the brick work that was done there. The cap that will go on top of that chimney will be scheduled for a time when students are not occupying the building and it'll happen later this fall so we're excited to... to complete that capital improvement project. And late last week, Dr. Patrick signed the permit applications for DEC for us to apply for the dredging of the Brewster stream there. So we're gonna continue to work towards improving that stormwater management issue we have here in the campus. And then I'll jump to Edgewood Elementary School. The outdoor learning facility that was funded by our PTA is well underway. It's nearing completion. It's
016going to be a beautiful space for students to learn and connect outside of our school building at Edgewood. And I know it's going to be another valuable piece of that property for the Edgewood community as well. And that is a really quick overview of just a taste of the things that the facilities department has been doing over the summer. Any questions from the board on that before I? I have a question, I don't know if it's more for the treasurer's report, but the long range plan, like the financial projection, can you just remind us when we're going to circle back on that at the board table? That's a perfect segue to my next point. Okay, thank you. So I wanted to give the board a quick update on where we are with our financial work.
017So last week, the field work was completed for our auditors, the external financial audit for us, and there are still some lingering things as expected. some reports that have to come from the state and from actuaries on the health plan. But the good news is the numbers are nearly final. So what I'll share this evening is that kudos to Lisa Zaretsky, our district treasurer. The audit went seamlessly this year, in stark contrast from what we experienced last year as we tried to transition from smarts to Envision. So all the hard work that Lisa put in, the business office team as well as the data service team, was really valuable. The results are that we exceeded revenues by about $2.7 million over the fiscal year, but unfortunately we also exceeded expenses by about $2.8 million, and
018that was the health plan primarily driving that expense change. So the good news, though, is that is a better performance than we were projecting. Our fund balance, which started the fiscal year at about $22.1 million, it finished at approximately $22.1 million. So really no change in the overall fund balance for the district. That is an improvement from what we were even using at budget time, as some of the expenses that we were anticipating did not come to fruition over the last few months of the school year. So within that fund balance, the reserves are going to be changing. Our health reserve will be reducing because of the use of the reserve to cover some of the expenses that were over budget. And we will detail that more once the water report is finalized. but the
0194% designated fund balance, the undesignated fund balance, excuse me, that's limited to 4% of the subsequent year's budget, we are maximizing that value. So that number will go up, and that is the most flexible reserve fund that we have in the district. So that's a taste of where we are. Again, it's about $2.4 million improvement from what we anticipated at the start of last fiscal year and a $1.3 million improvement from when we started the budget process in January of last year in terms of where we ended with fund balance. So as we continue to be diligent about our fiscal oversight and work as thought partners with the administrators across the district and the teaching staff, we've been able to... kind of preserve that fund balance number at the end of the fiscal year. I
020will provide more detail to the board in an update, written update, but then after the audit is finalized, we will do an updated long-range projection plan and present that to the board and the community in the fall, sometime around the August or November timeframe before we start the next budget. So I think I snuck in the answer to your question at the end there. Sorry. Okay. Thank you very much, Andrew. Appreciate that. And then finally, some updates from Megan. I'm excited to share that our faculty is fully hired and staffed to start the school year. We are still engaged in hiring a few teaching assistants, bus drivers, and teacher aides as we approach the school year, but we anticipate having those positions filled in the upcoming weeks. Over the summer, we hired a number of
021new faculty, and I'd like to welcome those new faces who are joining our community. And I appreciate all of them when I say your name. If you don't mind standing up so we can fully recognize you and welcome you to Scarsdale. And I will give an extra thank you to them for coming after a long day of orientation and then also anticipating orientation tomorrow. So we appreciate you being here. So welcome to Valeska Billings, who will be teaching music and chorus at the middle school. Valeska, hold it. Valeska holds an MM in music education from Boston University and a BM in music education from NYU. Ms. Billings previously taught at Wilson Middle School in Massachusetts. Her love for music must come from a family dedicated to music including her father and brother who are musicians
022as well. We're happy she has chosen to continue the family tradition here in Scarsdale. So welcome Valeska. Welcome to Kristen Cochran who will be a classroom teacher at Fox Meadow. Ms. Cochran holds an MS in Childhood Education and Childhood Special Education from the College of New Rochelle and a BA in Sociology from Siena College. She previously taught at PS205. Her warmth and care were evident during the interview process. In addition, her flexibility during a summer hiring process guarantees that she'll be able to meet the changing demands of an elementary classroom. So welcome, Kristen. We welcome Brooke McKenna as a Special Education Lead Replacement at Quaker Ridge Elementary School. Brooke has been teaching first grade special education in New York City public schools having grown up in Westchester Brooke is excited to be returning home as
023someone who wants to grow in the profession Miss McKenna saw Scarsdale as a place to support that growth and we agree so Brooke will be replacing Kristen Palladino who is out on leave this school year so welcome and that welcome to all of our new faculty and thank you for choosing us to be part of your professional journey Thank you very much Megan you all had a long day and you have another one ahead of you tomorrow So you don't feel obligated to stay the board takes the actual vote during the consent agenda a little bit later on But you're welcome to have an evening Thank you so much. I think we now move on to public comment So the public comment preamble. Members of the public are cordially invited to speak on district-related items
024or other non-personnel related matters during two separate public comment periods. When it is your turn to speak, please state your name, address, and if you are speaking on behalf of an organization. For those commenting remotely, please mute the live stream voice, turn on your camera, and then unmute yourself. Speakers will be asked to conclude their remarks after four minutes and will be given a verbal cue at the three minute mark. If at this point a speaker has additional comments, they may send them in writing to the board via email at boardofedscarsdaleschools.org. The public comment period is reserved for comments only. The board may not engage or 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
025time and place. Response to public comment will take place after the first and second public comment periods. And with that, we would go first to the live audience. If anyone has a comment, now's the time. Seeing nobody, we then go to the Zoom, the live stream. There's no one on the Zoom at this moment. Okay, we'll give that another little bit of time still. Okay. All right. With that, we'll move on to, there will be no follow-up to public comment, so we'll move on to written communications, and that's you, Colleen. please note that the Board of Education email is also viewed by the superintendent and district clerk open meetings law requires all board deliberations which may lead to action or policy changes to occur in public therefore your written communications and emails will be reported
026at an upcoming public board meeting a 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 organization in the communication more detailed information regarding written communications received by the board of education may be found in today's meeting agenda located on board docs on the scarsdale schools district website and since our last meeting on july 1st we have received nine emails on district matters and three emails on board matters moving right along thank you colleen uh we are now entering item six the consent agenda portion of our evening and I will read the consent agenda preamble. The board may conduct some of its business using a consent agenda in an effort to achieve greater efficiency at board meetings.
027A consent agenda condenses some of the routine business of the Board of Education into a single motion. The consent agenda is prepared by the superintendent of schools in consultation with the president and or the vice president of the board. Items 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 that item from the consent agenda, merely by requesting the same at the meeting. The exempted item then moves to the regular agenda. However, all non-exempted items would be moved, seconded, and voted
028upon without discussion in order to provide greater efficiency to conducting routine items of the business of the school district. And with that, I'm not sure who actually has the wheel on the consent agenda. I think it's actually Linda. Or Laura, sorry, Laura. So here are the items requiring action on the consent agenda for this evening. 7.1 minutes. Organizational Business Meeting July 1st, 2025. 7.2, Personnel Certified. 7.3, Personnel Non-Certified. 7.4, Contract Over $20,000. Westchester Community College, State University of New York, Boys and Girls Swimming and Diving. 7.5, Claims Audit Report July 2025. 7.6 stipulation of settlement 7.7 Westchester Putnam School Board Association annual dues for 2025 to 26 7.8 high school band room roof project change order 7.9 award of RFP for charter bus services 7.10, RIC 1, Risk Operations Center, the ROC Board Resolution. And
0297.11, I move that the Board accept the Consent Agenda. So, we have a discussion. All right. We move on to budget transfers. Good evening. So as Andrew said our auditors were on site last week so we are in the process of finalizing all of our 24-25 numbers there are two final budget transfers that are presented tonight for 24-25 the first one is to cover the final salaries and payroll taxes for substitute teachers and the STA program improvement payments these are paid on a lag meaning that they're recognized and recorded in 2425, but the timesheets and the approvals come in in July and August, so they were paid after, so that's why we held off on putting the transfer through until we had our final numbers. The second transfer is for BOCES special ed costs. Again,
030this type of transfer is due to services provided through BOCES and generating the aid rather than going directly through the consultant themselves. So there are also an additional four transfers for the new school year 25-26 and the first transfer is to shift special ed contractual funds to speech from the OT and hearing and that's based on the actual IEPs as they come in so we know what the actual needs are The second, Microsoft licenses were budgeted with the intent to purchase directly through Microsoft, but the opportunity came up that we can purchase through BOCES, again generating aid, so that's shifting the money to BOCES. The third is adding a teaching assistant in place of a teacher aid in the 812 class. So again, it's just moving the money from one salary code to the other.
031And the final one is the reallocation of funds for the debt payment. It's just shifting the funds from principal versus interest. Anybody have any questions? Thanks, Lisa. Just a question about the shift from an aide to an assistant. Assistants cost more than aides, right? So I know the budget line item is the same, but will that expense be more? Like why do we move from an aide to an assistant? It wasn't actually changed in the staff member that we're utilizing. It's really where I put the money in the budget. I didn't have an aid code when we were building the budget, and I put it in a, sorry, flip that. I didn't have an assistant code, and I put it in an aid line just so we made sure we had it when we were
032talking through the program development, and then we never fixed that budget code later. Thank you. Thank you, Lisa. Okay, great. I guess we move on to the Island Fleet Service Agreement. I think that is Andrew. Yep, we're just making jokes about the microphone This evening we are requesting the Board of Education to approve an eight-year agreement with Highland Electric Fleets to assist the district in implementing our electric bus charging infrastructure and management Over the last year Highland Electric Fleets has been working with the district to develop an EV bus strategy to comply with New York State's zero emissions bus mandate They have also assisted us with obtaining $800,000 in EPA grant funding for the purchase of the EV buses. In 2025-2026, the budget approved by the voters in May included the authorization for a multi-year
033service agreement with a provider to assist us with this charging infrastructure. We believe this multi-year partnership is the most appropriate way for SCARS to quickly obtain the expertise needed to successfully implement the EV buses under the timeline we need to meet based on both the New York State mandate as well as our own fleet replacement needs. Since the budget passed we have been negotiating the terms and conditions of this agreement with Highland and we believe we are now ready to move forward with this agreement. So this evening Emily Parrish from Highland Fleets here to help us review the key points with the Board of Education and answer any questions the board may have. Welcome Emily. Thank you. Hi everyone. Nice to be here this evening I really want to thank Andrew and drew and the
034whole board for your thoughtful consideration of this project We're really excited to be working towards implementation here Have a short presentation As Andrew mentioned to talk through just the key components of the contract do a little bit of recap And I would be more than happy to answer any remaining questions about the project The first slide we have here, I just wanted to give a quick summary, Andrew mentioned a lot of this, of the partnership to date. So it's been about a year and a half of us kind of working together, initially applying for some grant funding, you know, no commitment to work with Highland. We applied for the round three of the EPA funds, and we've also subsequently recently applied for an additional round, which has not been awarded yet, but that's kind of
035a future discussion. We completed a fleet electrification study for you all about a year ago, and then the last year or so, we've been supporting the district with diligence on the project in terms of working with Con Edison. to get information on the utility interconnection process, the pricing, the product offering, economic analysis of what the options are here. And I have presented a few times about the project. And then we worked through our agreement, which we call our Transportation Equipment Services Agreement. You can go to the next slide. So I just wanted to talk through a few key components of the agreement. It's a little hefty, so appreciate the review. Just to summarize the service contract, this agreement, it's a fixed eight-year price for the implementation and operation of four charging stations. It includes Highland
036procuring all the electrical equipment, the charging infrastructure. working with Con Edison, as I mentioned, to get the necessary power to the site, doing all of the equipment installation. We are providing a comprehensive warranty for the charging stations with remote and technical support for eight years. So we essentially have to ensure that the chargers are operating and you're able to charge your vehicles for eight years. As part of that, we provide some charge management software, which is really important in managing the operations of the fleet. We are fixing your fueling costs based on how many miles you anticipate to drive the vehicles annually. So we pay for the electricity, and we provide training. at the beginning when we're implementing the project and then throughout the contract, whether that's annually or as often as you need to
037ensure everyone is comfortable operating the system and really the goal is for you all to have a successful implementation, starting to electrify your fleet. Another key point is that we are installing quite a bit of electrical infrastructure, kind of more than is required for just four charging stations. And this was in a big effort to streamline costs and just operational implementation of additional charging stations. So there will be, we are installing enough infrastructure to support. at least 30 more chargers there is more cost there there is a little bit more scope that goes to actually building out those remaining 30 but we've done a really good portion when it comes to the conduit transformer switch gear to really set set the district up to continue electrifying your fleet as as you're able to get more
038funding So that's a big component of the contract and we've created flexibility that you are all not required or locked into working with us to deploy those 30 charging stations. We will agree for you all to access that infrastructure should you proceed on your own. The last point here kind of covers a little bit of the value Hyland provides as opposed to you all going alone on this endeavor. We are deploying more than 800, I think. nearly 900 electric school buses across the country. A lot of our projects, we actually own the vehicles as well. So we have a huge amount of expertise and knowledge over the last six years of deploying these vehicles. We've basically seen every problem. So we hope to bring kind of that expertise to you all to help troubleshoot any
039issues as you start to electrify your fleet. Again, we guarantee the chargers will work for eight years. So if something happens, We have to replace the chargers. That's no additional cost to the district. So you're not anticipating any kind of out-of-pocket future expenses over the next eight years to keep those chargers maintained and operating. As I mentioned, also, you're getting a fixed fueling contract. If electricity rates increase drastically, we cannot come back to you and ask for more. We've modeled this and locked this in for you. And the last point here is you don't pay us until... all the chargers are installed, all the equipment's installed, and they're commissioned and ready to go. So there's no kind of upfront payment or capital outlay from the district. So I thought those were some points to touch
040on. You can go to the next slide. And I think you've seen some of these, the remaining kind of three slides here. This slide just reviews the annual service fee at $28,000. We were able to bring it down from the initial price. And again, that... That price includes everything that I talked about, including the future proofed electrical infrastructure as well as the ongoing services. It does escalate a little bit each year according to CPI, but it will never escalate more than 3%. We've capped it in the contract at 3%. Trying to see if there's anything else on here. We're also, as Andrew mentioned, you all are using the... the EPA funding to pay for some of the costs of the vehicles, and then we're also able to utilize some state funding through NYSERDA to cover
041a portion of the charging infrastructure as well. And yeah, I think that's it on this slide. Just a quick overview of the depot, which you all have seen, and we kind of outline the future proofing scope of the infrastructure on the side, but we would be starting with implementing kind of a long run of conduit and wire from the poles on the street to the depot location, and we would be starting with charging stations along the fence line. as you can see the bus is in green and i'll touch on the last slide here which is the project timeline. So we're looking at this point about a year to get everything installed and most of that is kind of the utility interconnection timeline and the lead time of those large pieces of electrical equipment. There
042is potential to move that up if we get favorable kind of feedback from the utility as we continue the process. But Highland Highland has a lot of work to do over the next 12 months to ensure the chargers are implemented and your staff is trained for next summer so that you can start operating these vehicles next school year. I think I'll stop there. Happy to address any additional questions. I think I'd just like to add a few bits of detail that Emily... may not have highlighted, one being the types of chargers we're installing. The NYSERDA funding that Emily has referenced is assuming that we are going to be installing some fast chargers for these vehicles. It's our anticipation, of course, that we're gonna continue this process because of the New York State mandate, but also
043because of the sustainability benefits that it provides. And we are also obligated to transport students. So as we build our fleet, we need to ensure that every vehicle is able to be charged and operational every morning. And if we do have a problem with some of our charges, we want to make sure that the infrastructure installed can support charging more than just the four. And the fast charges will help us ensure that that happens. I think the other piece is about the actual vehicles themselves. So that's our obligation, not Highland's, but I wanted to highlight where we are with that. We believe we could have our first bus that we placed an order in January for as early as October. Certainly these charges would not be operational by then, so we're gonna work on how
044to do a more kind of. standard slow based charger through our operational budget to support that vehicle when it arrives. We've got two other large buses on order. We do think that they will be more closely aligned with Highlands timeline in terms of when they'll be able to install the infrastructure. And then we still have the fourth vehicle that we had to not buy because of changes in the federal tax. Credits that we were concerned we may not end up being eligible for therefore we would not have the income coming in to help offset those costs That's still a developing conversation In fact Emily shared some information this afternoon with me that I need to look into further that may allow us to obtain those credits But if it does not happen We've edited this
045contract in such a way that we can potentially purchase a type a mini bus electric bus and utilize these chargers for that purpose then at such time when we purchase another large bus we could replace this fourth vehicle as part of the agreement with Highland and there'll be no cost to the district so continue to maximize the usage of that charger so we've been putting a lot of thought into this project we've been doing a lot of due diligence I think Emily referenced the cost reduction since we initially started this conversation so I think we really feel comfortable at this point that this is a good decision for the district I'm just curious, is it correct to say that the electronic buses require less maintenance than, say, a more traditional bus? I believe that's a
046yes. I will look at Emily in a second to help me fill that in. But from what I understand, the things like fluid replacements and those types of kind of annual update costs are certainly far less on an electric vehicle because they don't exist. There's no combustion engine. Right. So I was just curious if as we ramp up and have more electronic vehicles, whether there will be a positive impact in terms of staffing to maintain vehicles because right now. the staffing I assume is based on traditional buses versus electronic buses. So I'm just curious how that fits into the overall picture in terms of one maybe starting to balance out the other from a cost point of view. Yeah, I'll start by saying I think you remember we partner with the village on our maintenance.
047So all those mechanics that support the district are dedicated to the district and they support both transportation and grounds. So there is a continued need for that work. I think that over time it is a reasonable assumption to think that there may be a shift in what that looks like. I just, I think at this point in time it's really difficult for us to quantify what that will look like. I don't know on whole fleet transformation. Emily, if you've got experience at one of your other clients that kind of. Refer to but we're going on the assumption. It's gonna be a long game in terms of when we start seeing savings Yeah, I think that's totally fair. There are 97% less moving parts on the vehicle so that you definitely achieve some savings and I
048think at this point a lot of the The battery and the powertrain are under warranty for eight years on the vehicle, and a lot of that maintenance work has to be done through the dealership because there's just not enough kind of training and expertise resources to have in-house mechanics do all of that work. But maybe when electrification becomes more commonplace, there'll be more other shops or internal mechanics that can do more of that high-voltage work. I just have kind of a logistical question about electric buses. During, you know, when you're running the heat or running the AC, so did you anticipate having to charge these more than overnight just for the day? Like, will there be times of the year where it's more challenging to last on the daily battery? Yeah. Luckily, the district has
049pretty short routes, and they're a really good use case for the vehicles. In the wintertime, you're exactly right. the efficiency of the battery drops and a lot of the battery use is actually being used to heat the cabin. So there's potentially times in the winter where the vehicles have to be charged midday and we do that all through software. And that's like if the temperature is below 20 degrees, which is really only a handful of times at this point. And then so 95% of the time, the vehicles can be fully charged overnight. I'm just wondering how that metric is determined. Yeah, so we'll be strategic about how we deploy these first few vehicles, and I do think that the shorter runs that we do for home to school will be the first test case, because
050if something goes wrong, we also want to make sure that we can quickly get a bus to support that run. This contract, it's based on an average home to school of all of our bus runs. So our initial deployment will be for... like I said, the shorter routes, and I think that they're gonna be more than covered by the charging capacities and timeframes we have in place. We also have the flexibility based on the contract language to utilize these buses for some trips, and there's, I won't get into the detailed language, but there's. annual mileage caps and annual charge times that we have to, the district has to manage to ensure that Highland has had the opportunity to charge the vehicles the way we need to. But we're going to try to use those vehicles
051for some of the field trips, especially the local ones initially, because I think it's the right thing to start to use it across the district, not just for home to school runs. I also just want to express my appreciation for Andrew to take me over the analysis to bring me up to speed over the past couple of days. I appreciate that this deal will allow the district to avoid significant capital outlay to implement chargers. And I just also want to say that this... Over the next few years, I think Andrew provided a multi-phase projection. related to an ebus implementation. So when you update the long range plan, I assume this will be one of the major items with multiple scenarios. It'll actually substantially change the long range financial plan because of what was assumed in
052the original version last fall. I used in the original version of the long-range financial plan large capital expenditures kind of in our budget planning. I think this model will spread that cost out over a longer period of time, so it will smooth the growth of that expense in our capital budget over the years. So I think it will look different, but, yes, we'll update it for this new contract. Any other questions for Andrew or Emily? okay thank you thank you for the school year building on the 2024-25 adopted goals and objectives with appropriate updates for completed work and projects that are scheduled for the 2025-26 school year further discussion and possible action and approval of our board goals for the year would be at our September meeting And with that, we do have a draft
053of the board goals that I think is on the agenda. Would anyone like to kick off that discussion? Sure. I'm gonna try this way now, sorry. Thank you for drafting these goals, Jim. I appreciate that you sort of, I just wanted to check. I appreciate that you structured them around the strategic plan. Are they essentially... updated goals of what we had last year just written slightly in a different order I just wanted to be sure I understood some of the changes you might have made yeah there's only one that's completely new which is the student ex officio board member just you know goal of sort of reviewing that process and how it's going but the others are revisions of existing goals which are really ongoing work you know that we're still doing and we'll have
054to do this year as we did last year just continuing Great thank you I don't have any comments other than to thank you for putting that together Thank you for drafting this so my question is last year I had mentioned technology with a capital T under ongoing district work to highlight kind of the weight of technology in this moment we're living in. And I don't see that anymore. So I think we had added it last year. I don't know if we still want to add it. I wasn't sure if you used an older version. It's under ongoing district work. There's instructional technology review. No, I know, but I had asked for technology with a capital T last year to kind of highlight it as like belonging, you know, as like one of those things. Yeah,
055well, this is a draft, so obviously, you know, I'm taking comments. No, I know, it's fine. And, you know, if there's something specific, I mean, technology as a capital T, I think, would include instructional technology and technology system upgrades, but there may be other things you're thinking of specifically that go beyond that that you may want to, you know, send me an email or, you know, just. bring something specific if you've got something specific in mind I don't mean adding I don't mind adding a technology as with a capital T but I just know the questions whether there's other things that would go under that rubric than what's here I mean I think it's I think it's a larger issue like AI and all the research our faculty is doing and you know different aspects
056you know even the phone ban I mean we've there are so many kind of interrelated pieces that we deal with in the district but you know I'm not married to it it doesn't matter so much if the board would prefer to keep it out just wanted to mention it again I'm open to revising it sure anyone else have any comments okay nothing further I guess we can move on to the next item which is the superintendent evaluation template and provide an overview on that This is also discussed at our organizational meeting. Each year, the Board of Education evaluates the superintendent of schools. As part of this evaluation, the Board adopts an evaluation template that will guide the evaluation for the year. The template is required to be completed in early fall of each year and
057kept on file at the Office of the District Clerk. At our July 1st meeting, the template we used last year was presented as an information item for discussion at this meeting and for finalization in September, in our September meeting, to fulfill the requirement. Last year, the board utilized the New York Council of School Superintendents, NYSCOS evaluation template, as well as the SuperEval platform. In the past, the board has used a rubric developed by the New York State School Board Association, NSBA. And this change from NISBA to NYSCOS was made after careful review of both templates and extensive research on the superintendent evaluation practices of comparable school districts. The board may choose to go with one of these two, NYSCOS or NISBA, or choose a third party framework or develop its own framework. These are all
058options that are available to us. With that, I'd like to open the discussion starting with the question of how people felt about the NYSCOS template. which we used last year. Did people believe it provided a good framework? They want to continue with that template for the coming year. Amber. I'll try this microphone now. I thought the NISQIS template worked well, and I think, Drew, you felt comfortable with it, so I would be happy to use that template again this year. Yeah, I just wanted to agree with Amber. I think on both sides, obviously, it's important that Drew is comfortable with it because he's using it as a tool to communicate to us. So I felt it was clear to me, and I felt it was clear to him, so I would say it's sort of
059a win-win at this point. Hi, thank you. I also agree that the NISQIS template has been very helpful along with Super Reval. I think it worked really well. As a past president, they do a lot of the consolidating of board member feedback, so I thought that was very helpful. For people who might be tuning into this for the first time, the biggest difference found between the NISPA and the NISQS templates when we first looked at it a couple years ago was that the NISQS template had more descriptive language around each like level of the evaluation which I think was very helpful for board members so that you know a three was consistently a three throughout the evaluation whereas in the NISPA template it was just a The classic Hedy template was a one through four,
060which people can interpret in different ways. So the Nisqyis template worked. Anyone else? Yeah, no, I joined the chorus of those who thought the NISQS template was a good one and worked effectively for purposes of evaluating the superintendent last year. And so I think it is a good template to use. And I think I'm happy with going forward with that, assuming the board is in agreement that that's the right way to go. And I'm looking like there's consent on that. So I don't see anyone saying no on that. So good. I think we can move on then to summer work. just to give a little update on that on summer work and it's you know it's still summer even though here we are it's August 25th we got like at least 20 more days 25
061more days anyway tonight we're gonna have a discussion about where we are on summer work And just to refresh, and I don't know if this was stated before, and I don't mean to put anyone on the spot, but in terms of who was looking at what, we had myself, Amber, and Colleen agreeing to look at gifting procedures, which we looked at last year, and then this was just a look at it again kind of thing and assess it again. And we have Susie, Bob, Laura, and Anish. who have volunteered to revisit the community engagement plan and consider that or whether there should be anything done differently or revised there. And then we have a group of Amber, Leah, Susie, and Lucy who are reviewing the student board member, ex-officio board member policy. And I want
062to, you know, confess that I don't think our particular gifting procedures group has met. But it's not entirely because, you know, we were just lazy. We were actually scheduling-wise it was hard to do because, you know, some of us were away when others were here and others were away when some of us were here. And anyway, it didn't work out. So I think we will get together soon to talk about gifting procedures. I just want to see if anyone has anything else they want to. update us on if there's anything to update about this yes Amber Thanks Jim just on behalf of the committee that includes Leah Lucy and Susie and I for the student officer position we're going to hopefully meet later this week to come up with a plan so we're looking forward
063to getting started and kicking that off before the school year starts and trying to get some of Lucy's time before she gets too busy with her school activities One thing I did want to just mention or share a thought on earlier this evening, Anish and Lucy made some comments about some work that the student board officers might. might do in terms of community engagement i think that might tie in nicely with the community engagement committee to kind of formalize some of that and really make it part of a process and discussion for all of us to kind of be involved and give input on as well so that was just some thoughts i had about that committee thank you Actually, we did meet today. So a quick little update. This afternoon, Anish, Bob, Laura, and
064I met for an initial discussion on our board's community engagement efforts, both formal and informal. We reviewed some of our new initiatives from the past year, primarily our board coffees, and brainstormed some ideas as to how we might potentially improve opportunities for promoting dialogue and feedback with community members. Having new student board members, to your point Amber, Anish also shared how he and Lucy might do outreach and elicit feedback on student priorities as well, as they shared in their update earlier this evening. To be continued, we plan to meet again and hopefully present some of our ideas in more detail for board consideration at the next meeting. well thank you very much susie i appreciate that um so it seems like we're busy with with all that work and that's and that's great um and
065i thank all the board members who volunteered to do that um and um can't wait to hear about how things are developing there um and with that we're going to move on to a discussion of the memorandum of agreement with respect to madza i think that was going to be megan who talks about that So I'm pleased to share some highlights from the agreement between the Scarsdale School District and the Scarsdale Managers and District Services Association, Mazda. This four-year agreement includes salary increases of 1.75 for the upcoming 25-26 school year, 1.65% in the 26-27 school year, and 1.5% both in the 27-28 school year and 28-29 school year. In terms of health insurance, the members will increase their premium contribution by 1.5%, bringing it to 11% of premium for those earning a salary of $100,000
066or more, 9.5% of premium for those earning a salary between $80,000 and $100,000, and 7% of premium for those earning under $80,000. This is in line with other recent agreements that we've reached with different bargaining units. And there are also some adjustments related to member absences, which includes defining personal days in the contract more clearly, vacation day blackout periods leading up to and including the first week of the opening of school to ensure a smooth opening to the school year. And in addition, as it relates to illness days, having some language in the contract about when a member reaches a threshold of 10 illness days. and how that will lead to a conversation and a process with an administrator. So those are sort of the highlights of, as well as a number of other things
067in terms of cleanup and language in the contract. Thank you, Megan. Do you have any questions? No? Okay. Can I add two things? Yes. So one is to thank Megan and Andrew for their work, hours of work on this. and good ideas and implementing them so gratitude for that the second thing is I'm looking at the agenda and this was supposed to also come back as an action item and I don't see it as an action item tonight so putting out to the board the possibility of adding that as an action item if you're open to that you can think about that we have several more information items before we reach that point but my apologies that that was an oversight and I can answer questions about that if what does anyone feel like a
068concern about having it be an action item given where we are with it I don't see anyone having a concern I think we can add that identify someone I'm happy to move or make a motion that we add the Mazda contract to the agenda for as an action item for approval second Susie thank you any discussion okay everyone in favor please say aye aye anyone opposed that motion passes okay thank you very much my apologies for that the next several items are you drew on this I'll let Megan do stop-loss I'd like to share our stop-loss insurance renewal for the 25-26 school year just as a review the district has traditionally purchased both specific and aggregate stop-loss coverage to limit potential risk associated with self-insurance of the medical benefits plan this specific stop-loss coverage limits
069our exposure to individual catastrophic claims establishing a maximum liability for each covered member Once claim costs have exceeded this deductible, the insurance carrier will reimburse the employer for all the additional claim costs. So part of this renewal process is that our health care consultant, Pat Calvern, from One Digital Center, who you met last year at a board meeting, distributes a request for proposal to various stop-loss carriers. This year it was sent out to 15 A-rated carriers, and they were asked to provide proposals for the present deductible of $300,000, as well as for higher deductibles. Only our incumbent, Sun Life, shared a proposal. All other solicited carriers declined due to the ongoing claims and inability to provide competitive quotes. So Sun Life has proposed a 48.8% premium increase, raising the annual premium from $1.17 million to
070$1.75 million, and $1.28 million was budgeted for. It is recommended that the district purchase the Sun Life policy as presented in the attachment with the $300,000 specific deductible, and based on recent experience, the $300,000 specific deductible continues to provide. a better balance between risk and premiums questions on stop loss so sorry just um it sounded like this was a significantly higher expense than what had been budgeted um for this uh stop-loss insurance and so um that's impacting what the 2025 2026 okay um and um is that just like a hit to the bottom line or what's the sort of thinking about how that's going to play out Much like our claims exposure, we'll have to wait and see a little bit and see how our participation is in the claims side for medical costs. It's
071our hope that costs are low and that the increase over budget will be funded in the health line through low claims costs this year as hopefully member experiences less versus last year. If not... The worst case is we have to unfortunately either transfer funds from other budget codes or utilize the health reserve to fund. And generally, do we have a sense of how the health care claims are going? I mean, in terms of timing, would we have a better sense of that, roughly, usually? We get weekly claims information. It is difficult on the short term to project what the weekly claims mean for the full year. but we will start looking at that probably in the next two to four weeks to see where we ended the end the last fiscal year and the beginning
072of this fiscal year to see where our trend is versus the budget and we can give the board an update in the next several board meetings yeah thank you that would be helpful to have an update on that any other comments no and just that our our health advisory committee will also be meeting where board members are present just so that information can be If there are no further comments on that, we can move on to STI courses. I guess that's you, Drew. Oh, great. Good evening, everyone. My name is Anne-Marie Niam, the director of the Scargell Teachers Institute. Nice to see many familiar faces, and welcome to the newcomers of the board. Welcome. I am here to present the STI fall and year-long catalog. This list, of course, represents classes that begin from September
073through February of 2026. and courses go through a rigorous process by an accreditation committee that looks at every course to make sure that it fulfills district and building goals that it is taught by a teacher in good standing who's in a position to become a master teacher and a leader and also to make sure that the course itself is structured in such a way that it encourages learning by teachers The new courses that you'll see on the first page of my cover letter, there are six of them. Counting, Comparing, and Constructing, Building Early Number Sense in Kindergarten, Constructing Meaning in Addition and Subtraction, Big Ideas, Strategies, Models, and Trajectories. Exploring the Professional Shelf, which is aimed at the high school. It's a deep dive into a book called The Disengaged Teen, Helping Kids Learn Better,
074Feel Better, Live Better. building and strengthening co-teacher partnerships and curriculum in ICT classrooms at the middle school, culinary creativity, critical thinking and problem solving in the kitchen and beyond, and integrating next-gen science standards with playground physics. These are in addition to the list of courses that have previously been approved by the Accreditation Committee and the Board of Education. Just to note, there are two more hurdles after, hopefully, Board of Education approval. Each course requires a minimum number of teachers to enroll, and they're also subject to all of the scheduling conflicts that no doubt happen. So not all of these courses will be seen, finally offered by the teachers. And just a note of gratitude, the Scargell Teachers Institute is made up of all of the K-12 teachers in Scargell and Edgemont. And if it wasn't
075for the teachers who are willing to really step up and lead and share their expertise, we would have no courses proposed. At the same time, teachers give up their weekends, after schools, and summers. This past summer, we had an STI course running every single week, some multiple STI courses in a week. So their willingness to learn from their colleagues is really second to none. But I also would be remiss if I didn't say our administrators at the building and district level are so supportive of teacher learning and have even taken courses themselves. And finally... The STI touches every part of central office from HR, obviously, curriculum, and the business office. And so a lot of the folks who make all that possible are sitting at this DS and all the folks who work with them.
076So it's a big undertaking to run over 80 professional development courses in a year, but it's a real team effort, and I thank everyone here for your support. Do you have any questions about anything that's been offered in the packet or comments? I just want to make a quick comment. I commend the wide variety of topics and how clearly the courses are aligned with the strategic goals of learning, living, and leading. I'd like to highlight that I noticed high school math teacher Monica Palaker is coordinating four courses, and two of which are related to Indian culture and religion. And I feel very inspired by how culturally responsive teaching, like our teachers are kind of living and embodying that. So I just want to highlight this, that I really appreciate it. Thank you very much. Thank
077you. Monica will be happy to hear that too. Yes, Amber. Thanks, Ann Marie. I always appreciate hearing about the new courses that you're putting together. And you sort of touched upon something I'd been wondering about because there's a lot of courses that are offered in a semester, this six-month period. And I know our role is approving the courses, but do you keep track of how many teachers attend each course? And do you phase courses out after a certain point if they're not popular? How does that whole process work? So we have our policy board meets monthly in which I give an enrollment report and talk about the courses that didn't run for lack of enrollment and talk about why that might be. And then we have courses that are kind of almost like must-have courses,
078courses that you really need to take to become a better teacher, to understand your content and pedagogy. And so we talk about ways to publicize those more to teachers. And there are courses that, frankly, run their course, that they may have been offered once or twice, and they reach a saturation point. where so many years have taken it now we've kind of phased that out and we'll bring it back in the future in a more updated way. Like right now, AI is a very hot topic everywhere, but especially in education where we're trying to figure out the best ways to use that and there's courses offered at every level and those will be fairly popular. They were popular last year and they'll continue again this year with people who want an update but also new
079people who didn't get a chance to take them last year. Thank you for sharing the background around the process of how you manage this. Thank you. We collect a lot of data, and we go through it at least monthly with the policy board. I just wanted to add thanks very much Emory for this very informative description of the courses that will be offered just to echo what Amber said it's always nice to see the variety and the different topics that are available and you know the teachers if they want to pursue those I mean it's one of the things I think that makes our district special and I was hoping if there was any extra space I could take the culinary creativity class critical thinking and problem-solving in the kitchen because I really It would
080be useful to have some critical thinking in the kitchen. Whenever I make dinner, I get a lot of critical thinking from my kids. But maybe you mean something different there. Anyway, let's move on from the thank you very much. Thank you. If there's any other questions. Thank you. You're welcome to audit the question. Yeah, right. Nice, you're like defense to critical thinking. Anyway. This is our second reading of draft policy 8113 this is a required policy under education law that went goes into effect this year on September 1st and pertains to extreme heat condition days policy basically sets forth actions that have to take place when first when temperatures in the classroom reach 82 degrees and then when they reach 88 degrees The policy lays out those actions and is very consistent with what we've
081had in place for a number of years, a cooling plan that enables us to reorganize space or send kids to different spaces within all seven buildings if that happens when learning is just not really practical under those temperatures. So this would be our second read and if there are no changes it is on the agenda for adoption later tonight. Any questions or comments or changes? I was going to say I was thinking of a cooling plan when I was reading through it. I'm thinking that we'd already practiced a lot of this. Thank you. and then 8.10 is the second reading of a regulation 1400 our public complaints and complaint form in the background it sort of explains that this was this was in place but when the board was doing a top-to-bottom policy review they
082sunset a number of this was years ago sunset a number of policies with the intent to move this regulation into an existing policy and that work never got done. We discovered it in the late spring and Edgar's been working on this item and I don't know, do you want to say anything about the regulation? We've been working on it. We actually brought a committee together last year using the old document and had an opportunity to practice it in real time. and then heavily relied on the ALA, the American Library Association, for guidance. Spoke to other districts and saw what they were doing and thought that this really was concise and covered it, gave people an opportunity to voice questions, concerns, and also bring together multiple stakeholders to engage. Thank you. So again, this would be
083a second read and up for inclusion within policy 1400 questions Yeah, thank you. I mean my question is You know having been on the board for a number of years. I can't recall the last time a text was brought to us as part of this process not this policy was not in place, but there was a process From the old policy. That's just it doesn't seem like it happens very often. Does it does it come to you? Sometimes. Yeah. Sometimes. It doesn't... Some of these things actually don't get very far from the teacher about it, or sometimes to a librarian, sometimes the building level. It's when it gets beyond that that we ask them to put it formally in writing and be very specific about it. But it is not a frequent occurrence. Thank you.
084Thank you. My question is, the committee... So when you have to convene a committee, is that committee pre-designated and the same throughout the year if there's more than one complaint? It will be. What's going to happen is I'm going to put an invitation out to the librarians, the teachers, we'll get a parent, or actually some parent volunteers. We'll have the volunteers by level as well. it remains the same committee if there's more than one generally okay Edgar thank you for your work on that appreciate it the next four agenda items are all gifts and they appear in the information section because they're in excess of $1,000 the first 8.11 is a gift to elementary Edgewood elementary school from the PTA for fifth grade poetry grant for texts that accompany an author visit we have gratitude
085to the Edgewood PTA for this proposal any questions on 8.11 this would come back at the next meeting as an action item the next three are to Fox Meadow Elementary so with thanks to the Fox Meadow PTA similar 8.12 is a grant for books for the classroom related to authors visiting for for author visits any questions on that one 8.13 is for purchase of a new subscription newsletter for fifth grade students any questions on that and then finally as we've seen with some of the other PTAs is 8.14 it's the author visit grant which is part of this new process that William Yang and the business office Andrew put together to try to streamline streamline the process for our schools and for our PTAs So this is the first time we're seeing these author-as-it-gifts at
086the board table? So you saw some in July. Right. Starting this year. Yeah, so some of them did come on a case-by-case basis, but the idea here is either once or twice during the year to have those funds ready to go for when that determination is made that a visit is going to come. we're also streamlining the contract that will go to the visiting author thank you okay and with that we move on to item nine the agenda action items the first one is Bob yes I'd like to recommend an action resolve that the Board of Education approves the attached budget transfers as presented is there a second any discussion all those in favor please say aye aye anyone opposed the motion carries the next item is item 9.02 the highland fleet service agreement that
087is laura i move that i move that the board of education adopt the following resolved that the board of education approves the attached agreement with highland fleet as presented is there a second Amber in discussion all those in favor please say aye aye anyone opposed that motion carries thank you next item a 903 the stop-loss insurance renewal I move that the board adopt the following resolution resolved that the Board of Education accept the bid for stop-loss insurance at the $300,000 specific deductible effective September 1st 2025 Is there a second? Bob any discussion? All those in favor please say aye aye anyone opposed that motion carries thank you Moving on to 904, the policy review for public complaints and the complaint form. And I believe that is Susie. Thank you, Jim. I move that the Board
088resolve that the Board of Education adopts 1400-R, complaints about instructional materials and complaint form 1400-E as presented. Is there a second? Amber, any discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? No. That motion carries. Moving on to 905, the extreme heat condition policy. And that is Amber. Thanks, Jim. I move that the board adopt the following. Resolve that the Board of Education adopts policy 8113, extreme heat condition days as presented. Okay. Is there a second? Laura. Okay. Any discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. anyone opposed that motion carries and we move on to new motion 906 which is the agreement that's me Jim okay Thank you. I move that the board adopt the following resolve that the Board of Education approves the attached agreement with the Scarsdale managers and
089District Services Association and MADSA as presented. MADSA. Yes, that's right. Is there a second? Any discussion? All those in favor please say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? That motion carries. Thank you. Then we move on to the gifts discussion, action items for gifts. And I believe the first one, 1001, is Leah. Thank you, Jim. I move that the board adopt the following resolution resolved that the Board of Education accepts with thanks the gift proposal of $12,000 to support the 2025-26 visiting author program at Edgewood Elementary School in accordance with the district's new author booking policy and as presented in the attached letters Is there a second? Amber any discussion? All those in favor please say aye Aye Anyone opposed? That motion carries motion 10-02 and that is Laura I move that the board adopt the following
090resolution resolved that the Board of Education accepts with thanks the gift proposal of seven hundred and nine dollars and fifty five cents for the 2025 to 26 school year to support the purchase of school planners for fourth and fifth graders fourth and fifth grade classes as presented in the attached letters is there a second Susie any discussion all those in favor please say aye aye anyone opposed that motion carries with thanks motion I'm sorry item 1003 Bob yes I move that the board accept the following resolution Resolved that the Board of Education accepts with thanks the gift of $3,486.95 to fund teacher innovation grants as described in the attached letters. Is there a second? Amber, any discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? The motion carries with thanks. Item 1004, Susie.
091Thank you Jim. I move that the board accept the following. Resolved that the Board of Education accepts with thanks the gift of $10,000 to support the visiting author program at the Greenacre School as described in the attached letters. Is there a second? Leah? Okay, any discussion? All those in favor please say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? That motion carries with thanks. Item 1005 Amber. Thank you, Jim. I move that the board adopt the following resolution. Resolve that the Board of Education accepts with thanks the gift proposal of $10,000 to support the 2025-26 Visiting Author Program at Heathcote Elementary School in accordance with the district's new author booking policy as presented in the attached letters. Thank you. Any seconds? Okay, Laura. In discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? That motion carries with
092thanks. Sure. Should we go off for five minutes? Okay. We'll recess for a few minutes. I guess it's time to go to the rest of you. Thank you, Jim. I move that the board adopt the following resolution. Resolved that the Board of Education accepts with thanks the donation of the gift of $5,000. with a current estimated value of $4,939 to fund a series of programs and materials designed to enrich students' experiences across the school day as described in the attached letters. Is there a second? Susie? Any discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? That motion passes with thanks. On to item 1007. I believe that is Laura. I move that the board adopt the following resolution resolved that the Board of Education accepts with thanks the gift of $9,000 to fund
093the Quaker Ridge author visit enrichment program for the 2025 to 26 school year as described in the attached letters thank you is there a second Bob any discussion all those in favor please say aye Anyone opposed? That motion carries with thanks. Item 10-08, I believe that's Bob. I move that the board adopt the following resolution. Resolve that the Board of Education accepts with thanks the gift of $9,000 to fund the author visits for the 2025-26 school year as described in the attached letters. Thank you. Is there a second? Susie, any discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? That motion carries with thanks. And on to the last one here, 1009. That is Susie. Thank you, Jim. I move that the board adopt the following resolution. Resolved that the Board of Education
094accepts with thanks the grant of $389.94 to fund the installation of a weather reporting system on the SMS nature trail as described in the attached letters. Thank you. Is there a second? Bob any discussion all those in favor please say aye anyone opposed and that motion carries thank you stall so we are now moving on to item 11 which again is the public comment second public comment period of our evening we did previously review the public comment preamble unless anyone feels strongly otherwise, I intend not to restate all of that. But I would like to invite anyone who's in the audience live who would like to make a comment to do so at this time. And I don't believe anyone is doing that. So let's turn to the Zoom. There are no attendees on Zoom.
095Okay, let's give them a little bit more time. checking back in okay so I think we can now safely move on there is no follow-up to public comments so we are moving right into item 13 wrap-up items I don't think I have anything okay so moving right along to item 14 the meeting dates for the coming month Monday September 8th is a special meeting our executive session if needed at 6 p.m. in the high school in room 170 172 Monday September 15th Special meeting of designated group the STA at 5 p.m. in the high school room 170 172 Special meeting executive session of needed at 6 p.m. In the high school room 170 172 followed by a business meeting at 630 in the high school room 170 172 and then Monday October 6 a business
096meeting at 6 p.m. In the high school room 170 172 great into executive session yes that's where we're going goodbye all thanks for attending