001Good evening. I call this meeting to order and note that all board members are present. We are also joined by Dr. Patrick and Administrative Cabinet. Thank you to those in the audience or watching the live stream for joining us this evening. We're going to have a small adjustment to our agenda. Before I go into my remarks, we're going to move item four, a special presentation from the New York State School Boards Association recognition program. tomorrow's leaders today up to the start of our meeting and for that I'm gonna pass it over to Drew. Thank you very much Ron I appreciate it and we're pleased this evening to have Patrick Longo here who serves as New York State School Boards Association member relations manager he came down from Albany and he's here tonight to honor one
002of our own students Scarsdale High School senior Rick Yang who's with us in the audience tonight with an award from NISBA Mr. Yang is double booked tonight. He's got the Science Research Symposium presentation in just a few minutes, so we appreciate this flexibility. And why don't we turn it over to Patrick to give the award. On behalf of our executive director Bob Schneider and our board president Sandra Rufro very excited to be here we thank you for having us NISPA obviously is a school board association we work with your board to make sure that you guys can be the best you can be and we're always looking out for your students and staff through our recognition programs to really highlight the great work that's being done in the districts and last year we want to
003have another program that's specifically for students And so we created this program, Tomorrow's Leaders, today. And a lot of folks don't know about this program. We started off just last year, and we actually combed through Eclipse. You guys know the Eclipse service that we provide you? And we know that the press can be a little negative, right? So we combed through for the positive news stories, and we tried to highlight the work through our recognition programs. So what Tomorrow's Leaders say really was to recognize leadership. through the students and I'm gonna read the plaque because it really explains what we're trying to achieve here and what we're recognizing for you today so it says New York State School Board Association tomorrow's leaders today there's a quote by John Maxwell it says a leader is one
004who knows the way goes the way and shows the way this is awarded to Rick Yang to honor commemorate the extraordinary leadership shown through your high school Wellness Center proposal who can give a round of applause I just wanted to say we're talking the board president and I were talking about sometimes we get nervous just talking to a board community members our professionals I've seen people said oh I have to get up before the board tonight can be kind of intimidating and so Rick you actually did all this background research for this proposal and you came to the board and you said I want to make a change so you definitely led the way We thank you for your leadership. We commend you. We commend Scarsdale for growing students like this and allowing these opportunities,
005allowing him to speak and to get this done. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. Great work. Is that good? Awesome. Rick, good luck tonight. Thank you. Thank you. Well, that was a very pleasant way to start our board meeting. I'll now move us back into our regularly scheduled agenda and start with my remarks for this evening. I have a few items to talk about tonight. First was earlier this evening the board held a special meeting with volunteer and liaison groups. Thank you to the leaders of PT Council, the Scarsdale Action for Youth or Say, the Safe Coalition, Scarsdale Edgemont Family Counseling Services, Maroon and White. and the SSEF, the Scarsdale Schools Education Foundation, for attending and sharing their organization's important work this year. In support of our partnership with the SAFE Coalition, you
006will notice, and if you're on TV you may not be able to notice, but all board members are wearing denim this evening. The purpose of the Denim Day campaign is to stand in solidarity and support survivors of sexual assault as April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month. As the longest running sexual violence prevention and education campaign in history, Denim Day asks community members, elected officials, organizations, and students to make a social statement with their fashion statement by wearing jeans on this day as a visible means of protest against the misconceptions that surround sexual violence. Denim Day will be observed in Scarsdale on April 17th, since the schools are on break on the national Denim Day of April 24th. And of course, this is the closest board meeting to that day, so the whole board and administration
007is wearing denim today. Moving on to the budget. Later tonight, the board is expected to take action on the 2024-2025 budget resolution. This proposed budget is the culmination of a thoughtful and collaborative process. deliberations and decisions by the board were guided by a focus on students and with thoughtful input from the school community including school principals, teachers, students, parents and community groups. The board's budget process began as in years past with a public listening session in November for the community to share their budget priorities for the upcoming school year. The feedback from this session in November helped inform the administration as they prepared an initial budget proposal to the board. Multiple budget presentations and budget study sessions afforded opportunities to take a deep dive into each aspect of the district. This process allowed the board
008to carefully consider each option and have extensive, thoughtful, and transparent discussions. Members of the board also attended budget information sessions hosted by community groups and have received and responded to numerous questions. Thank you, Susie and the administration for responding to many emails and thank you to the community for all those emails. Later tonight, each board member will have the opportunity to share their thoughts on the proposed budget resolution. The vote for the 2024-2025 budget will be on Tuesday, May 21st. And new this year is early voting for anybody who wishes to. And those applications will open up on April 22nd. And information will be posted at that time. And with that, I'll pass it over to Drew. Get this started. okay well I add my good evening and welcome to everyone in person and joining
009us online I'm happy to start my comments this evening with a look at just a few of the things going on around the district since last time we met I'm going to start first with, appropriately, with an Edgewood event. We have our incoming Edgewood principal here this evening. But recently, Edgewood second through fifth grade students had a really exciting author visit with author-illustrator Jarrett Kruzoza, otherwise known as JJK. Students learned about how he developed a passion for writing and illustration at an early age and how he turned that passion into a career as an author. And he was also interviewed by the Clutch reporters from Edgewood News. So that was excellent. At Green Acres, students also enjoyed an author visit, this one from Stacy McAnulty. Third, fourth, and fifth graders spent the morning talking with
010her about planets, research, and math. They even talked about her work as an author on those subjects. Scarsdale High School recently hosted an incredible able athletics wheelchair lacrosse game which enabled athletes with a variety of skills and abilities to play competitively against each other and congratulations to coach Sinowitz and coach Guskey on their leadership and success of this stellar program. Last Wednesday night, our Scarsdale High School choral students and their families and supporters braved some pretty terrible weather to come out to perform or to listen to the performance of a beautiful repertoire of music. Groups performed in a variety of configurations, including as a combined ensemble, seen in the picture here. congratulations to our students and choral director Amanda Gundling and I encourage our community to take in one or more of the many performances
011taking place in the months of April and May dates of performances can be found both on the community calendar and on our individual school websites just on the upcoming events section there This past Friday and Saturday, our Scarsdale Middle School Science Olympiad team competed in the statewide championships. The team performed in Syracuse. The team performed incredibly well, finishing seventh statewide. I spoke with Coach Jay Gandelman earlier today, and he complimented the students on not just their scientific prowess and navigation of these really cool challenges, but also just on how incredibly well they conducted themselves traveling there, at the event, traveling home. Congratulations to our students, our Science Olympiad winners, and thank you to the coaches. We really appreciate that. And then finally, earlier this afternoon, I had the pleasure of joining the middle school student
012body and faculty as they did some solar eclipse viewing on the field. They did a dismissal to the field where everyone could get a glimpse with their safe glasses at the eclipse. And really around the district, there were some good vibes, exciting feelings about that event, and it was really exciting to share that in Scarsdale. then just a couple of announcements schools will be closed for students on Wednesday in recognition of Eid al-Fitr marking the end of Ramadan April 22nd is Earth Day 2024 we will be on spring break from the 22nd through the 26th but we like to put the reminder out there one of the themes for this Earth Day is planet versus plastics the effort to try to reduce plastics by 60% by 2040. Sundown on April 22nd to sundown on April
01330th will be the celebration of Passover, and a lot going on. We're in that stretch of the year where we are racing toward June, and it feels like that every day, that it's picking up faster and faster. So thank you. Thanks, Drew. Are there any board member reports this evening? Bob, please. Yes, I've got two. The first is I'd like to report on the status of the auditorium project, which many of you I know are interested in. The auditorium committee met last week to discuss the final design refinements, finishes, and a proposed timeline to maximize the likelihood of a timely and successful bid award within the constraints of the SED, which is the State Educational Department, approval process. Right now, we are anticipating SED approval in late May or early June. The bid process is
014timed to be able to award the bid as close to the approval date as possible. Thus, we anticipate issuing the bid on April 25, 2024, with a receipt date of May 23, 2024. The bid cannot be awarded until we receive the approval from SED, but based on the current review period, we expect to be able to award the bid at either our June 3 or June 10. board of ed meeting this would preserve the original timeline of july 2024 to january 2025 with the space turned over to the district after the december january holiday break we will continue to keep the community updated on the process And the second meeting that I attended was last Wednesday, April 3rd. I attended the annual Southern BOCES meeting where BOCES presents their budget to all of the districts
015as well as the whole staff. This was an opportunity for me personally to understand their budgeting process so that when we vote next week on the Southern BOCES budget, we are aware of why the Scarsdale portion is what it is. Thank you. Thanks, Bob. I think I saw Jessica's hand also going up. Thank you, Ron, for mentioning Denim Day and April being Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Safe Coalition is going to be hosting a conversation with author Emily Baselton on her book, Sticks and Stones, on Tuesday, April 30th at 7 p.m. It's virtual, and you can register on the website of the Scarsdale Public Library, and it will tie with discussions we've been having this year on defeating the culture of bullying. and rediscovering the power of character and empathy. Thanks, Jessica. Other board member reports?
016Susie. I have one current one and two old ones that we didn't do last time. First is a PT Council PSA. It's a presentation April 30th at 7 p.m. called Combating Hate Crimes, Bias, Incidents, and Discrimination. Please join the PTA for a Zoom webinar with the Hate Crimes Unit from the Westchester County District Attorney's Office and the Westchester County Human Rights Commission. Representatives from these offices will discuss the difference between hate crimes, bias incidents, and discrimination, and how children and their parents can respond if they experience or witness a crime. The panelists will also discuss available protections and resources. And last time I didn't mention these because our meeting was so long, the budget forum. But on March 8th, I had the pleasure of attending a presentation hosted by the middle school PTA on supporting
017students in the age of generative artificial intelligence. Many thanks to William Yang, K through 12 coordinator of digital literacy and learning, and Lynn Torrey, a technology teacher at Green Acres, who led the discussion. Ms. Torrey has been part of a collaborative group with Ms. Kronk at the middle school and Ms. Dutra at the high school on researching AI in education. The presentation explored how our children are using AI, how the district is approaching this new technology, and helpful tips for parents on how to navigate discussions with their children on AI. I was so blown away by what AI can do now, how it can take words and create such realistic video imagery, for example. The presentation and recording will be shared in the newsletter. And lastly, on March 19th, Ron and I attended a West
018Chester Putnam School Boards Association Zoom presentation called The Public Process of Developing Curriculum. There were three case studies shared with us from neighboring districts. The first discussed was called Realigning Our Comprehensive Reading Program with the Science of Reading, presented by Rye City School District. The second was on Artificial Intelligence, presented by Pleasantville. And the third was regarding the health curriculum called Radical Sex Indoctrination at Croton Harmon High School? These presenters shared how these administrators look to develop and implement curriculum to suit new learning needs, study and implement ever-changing technology, and respond to public controversy. Thanks, Susie. Any other board reports? Okay, we'll move to the next item. So item four, we had moved to the start of this meeting, so we will move to item five, cabinet updates. Drew. Thank you, and we will start
019with Megan, who has an introduction. So even though we officially appointed Dr. Annette Keene at our last board meeting, I would like to welcome her now that she is here in person. Already she's winning in that it's almost, it's not even 7 o'clock, the last meeting you would have been here. 10 o'clock, so good choice. Dr. Keene is currently the principal of Anne Hutchinson Elementary School in Eastchester. She's been an elementary principal for 12 years with the last eight in her current school. She holds a PhD in teaching and learning from NYU, an MA in early childhood education from the City College of New York, and a BA in history from Boston College. As I shared last time we were together, Dr. Keene holds all of the characteristics in the leadership profile. She's a strong
020instructional leader, a skilled communicator, and a community builder. Earlier today, Dr. Keene joined the Edgewood faculty, staff, and parents for a brief introduction. She asked them how they would start their amazing journey together and gave some highlights of her entry plan. Once again, Annette's humor, her warmth, her approachability, and professionalism were front and center. The energy was positive, upbeat, and contagious. I look forward to watching this journey for the entire Edgewood community with Dr. Keene at the helm. so welcome annette good evening everyone thank you for that introduction megan um i would like to just thank the board of education dr patrick and his leadership team and the entire edgewood community for this incredible opportunity like megan said i have to recognize the faculty and staff as well as the families of Edgewood that I
021met with today and I feel even more confident that we are going to do great work together and I'm excited for the journey so thank you so much Edgar so on Monday April 15th I will give two presentations on the resources materials guidance and methods we're using for our revised fifth grade health lessons on gender-inclusive puberty I will share lesson plans and topics and answer parent questions. This opportunity is open to any interested parents of current fifth graders. I will be hosting a coffee at the central office at 10.30 a.m. in this room, room 170, and a Zoom webinar later that day at 6 p.m. I sent out an invite to the current fifth grade parents to sign up for either meeting. As well, I will be hosting an information session for all interested elementary
022parents on the revisions in June, exact dates and location to be announced. Thank you very much, Edgar. And Eric, an update on our safety monitors. Thank you. I just wanted to put out a clarification on how safety monitors were readjusted for the current budget being discussed tonight. To start, from a 30,000 foot perspective. The schedule has been rearranged so that the 7.30 start time at elementary schools is maintained. That's when they start this year. That is when they will continue to start. And the same number of safety monitors that are currently on for arrival, dismissal, and then after school club dismissals are maintained. And that's two for arrival for school, two for dismissal for school, and one safety monitor for the dismissal of ASC. We have reduced the hours by 30 minutes to allow the
023district to recoup approximately 15 hours a day over all of our safety monitors throughout the day, which will add up to a significant savings at the end of next year. The only other changes to the schedule that will be noticed are at the high school, the Brewster Road entrance, unless there is a major event going on, will close at 5 p.m. rather than 7.30 p.m. Brewster Road or the excuse me the athletic entrance will remain open till 830 and that's concurrent with this year those are the major changes that are going on to the schedule so from a parent perspective they shouldn't see any change with the exception of Brewster Road closing a little bit earlier when there's no major event going on on this side of the building any questions for Eric on that?
024Crackle all right so That concludes our cabinet updates and I just want to extend my gratitude to Dr. Keene for being here tonight but mostly for saying yes and accepting the role it was wonderful being at Edgewood earlier today Megan captured it all, but your good humor and warmth and just your presence is just fantastic. And the grace you've shown to Karen Eldon, who's done a great job there this year. Really exciting times ahead and welcome. And you don't have to stay for the rest of the meeting. Thank you so much. This is actually a good time if you would like to walk out because now I have a long preamble to read. We will move to item six, hearing from those present. I will begin with the preamble, which will hold for both public
025comment periods. Members of the public are cordially invited to speak on district related items or other non-personnel related matters during two separate public comment periods. When it is your turn to speak, please state your name, address, and if you are speaking on behalf of an organization. For those commenting remotely, please mute the live stream voice, turn on your camera, and then unmute yourself. And now is a good time to log into Zoom and raise your hand if you'd like to speak remotely. 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 boardofed at scarsdaleschools.org. The public comment period is reserved for comments
026only. The board will not engage in dialogue. The board reserves the right to respond to comments and questions at its discretion either during response to public comment or at a later time and place. Response to public comment will take place after the first and second public comment periods. With that, is there anyone in the audience that would like to make a public comment? Hello. Hi, I'm Heedon Chung, 46 Woods Lane. and in President of the League of Women Voters of Scarsdale. In September, Governor Hochul signed into law a measure that requires local boards of education to adopt policies that promote student voter registration and pre-registration during the school year and to provide students with access to and assistance with completing voter registration and pre-registration forms. This law will go into effect in July. The League
027is interested to know when the community can expect to see the Scarzo Board of Ed's policy. We look forward to learning about the Board's work in this area. Thank you. Thank you. Is there anyone else in the audience? Hi, John Rothenberg, 39 Meadow Road. Sorry, Dr. McIntosh, this is going to be a broken record to you. I'd like to speak about the budget, which is very opaque, and there's still no transparency on spending for DEI initiatives. At a time of budget tightness, we need openness on what DEI costs Garzdale taxpayers. We're wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars and countless hours on DEI initiatives. Over 100,000 has gone to a single DEI consultant who's still on a contract for more. This Wednesday, when all the kids are out of school so teachers can have a development
028day, the entire agenda, not some or most of it, but all of it, is focused on DEI as opposed to academics. The opportunity cost is massive, so before we spend another dime or minute, let's pause and see what kind of return we're getting on this. I guarantee you nobody is getting smarter, doing better at math, science, or writing, or becoming better prepared for college or life because of it. More important than the financial reasons Scarsdale should end DEI is that there are plenty of moral and ethical reasons to do so. It is destructive to virtues like fairness, merit, and excellence as we've seen at such institutions as Harvard, Disney, Anheuser-Busch, Boeing, and others. Because DEI is both wasteful and a harmful diversion from the core missions, corporate America is cutting back as the DEI fad
029begins to recede. We've also seen how the oppressor-oppressed framework that Scarsdale is teaching, which is elemental to DEI, and it can't be stressed enough that the oppressor-oppressed framework is an intrinsic part of it, has spawned a tidal wave of shockingly brazen anti-Semitism. Scarsdale is teaching this framework. DEI is inherently dehumanizing in how it rejects our individuality by making us nothing more than interchangeable members of favored or disfavored groups, divisive in how it pits groups against each other based on a privileged hierarchy, and demoralizing in how it denies our kids agency. It is also why our fifth graders supposedly need to learn about all the different genders in the new puberty curriculum despite the fact that it has nothing to do with the anatomical and physiological changes induced by puberty. It is only because of DEI
030that this agenda is being shoehorned into a lesson for 10-year-olds. The words diversity, equity, and inclusion might be fine, though it is no accident that under DEI we switch from equality to equity, which is a direct repudiation of Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream. But we don't need to waste time and money on fundamental notions of decency that we all know. Treat everyone with kindness and respect no matter who they are and without the prejudice and stereotyping that DEI institutionalizes. My wife and I learned it from our parents. We teach it to our kids. And we don't need to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to train teachers about those values. So before you put the budget to a vote, please, I ask you for actual transparency on total DEI spending. And that includes the euphemism
031belonging so you can cut it and apply it to educational uses instead. Thank you. Anyone else in the audience who wishes to make a public comment? I see no one else in person. We will turn to Zoom. There is one attendee with their hand raised on Zoom, who I will promote to panelists now. Hi, Myra. You've been promoted to speak. Please turn your camera on when you get a chance. Thank you. Hi, good evening. Myra Kirkendall Rodriguez, Fox Meadow Road. I really want to thank Dr. McIntosh for all the tremendous amount of work that he has done on diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. I am only speaking as a parent and an active volunteer who has seen close up and personal how involved Dr. McIntosh has been. at the elementary school level my my former
032co-chair uh in at fox meadow in diversity equity inclusion uh she and i invited him to come and speak to parents about specifically what this means and how the curriculum in scarsdale follows the law there is nothing in the new york state law about teaching an oppressor and oppressed framework absolutely nothing is there I've also had the opportunity to work with Dr. McIntosh closely. He accepted our invitation when I was co-chair of the Scarsdale Middle School DEI initiative, the PTA group, excuse me. And again, I saw how closely he works with very different people. He answers my questions. God knows anybody who knows me. That takes its own special patience and skill. And he welcomes different points of view. It doesn't mean that he's going to agree with everything I say. And that's not, I
033believe, what any parent should expect. But I personally have witnessed how he listens to people's points of view and he answers questions. And it's too bad I was not prepared for the previous speaker's comments. If you could please take out the budget and look at the numbers, the spending on diversity, equity and inclusion is actually quite a small percent. The biggest percent of spending on budgets has already been arranged because of the seven different unions. And so it goes to pay our hardworking teachers. And there is zero about diversity, equity, and inclusion in Scarsdale that is about teaching any kind of oppressive model. And a lot of what goes on in Scarsdale with diversity, equity, and inclusions aren't even being run by the district. They're actually run by the hardworking PTA volunteers. So again, thank
034you for everything that you've done there. And of course, thank you for including financial literacy. the budget thanks for all your hard work on these topics thanks good night there are no other attendees with their hands raised I don't know if you want to thanks Susie if anybody would like to comment either in person or remotely there will be a second public comment period later in the agenda we move to item 7 follow up to public comment yes we will to Hidan's comment we will you know provide will follow our policy process on that and When the time is right, we'll bring forward any policy that we need to do with respect to that. We do have pretty active. awareness raising campaign of the high school first seniors or age eligible kids who can register
035to vote and anyone who wishes to register to vote can always come in person to our office and the district clerk on array Adams who's at the end of the table would be happy to walk walk people through that we do plan on sending a series of email updates about the budget vote board election as deadlines come up with respect to registering to vote the ability to to vote by mail early voting by mail and so forth so those things will be communicated hopefully in in good due course here I do want to address Mr. Rothenberg's comments a little bit so we we do have a consultant line in the contract for some of our belonging work $61,000 is the is the amount in the proposed budget that the board will be considering tonight In
036terms of our superintendent's conference day on Wednesday of this week, I think as a lot of the community knows, we gave a survey to students, faculty, parents earlier this year. The focus was on belonging. That's the research construct underneath it. And it's really built from, and I encourage people to go to the Search Institute website. It's built on... a long-term research base that they have around what they call developmental relationships. There are sort of five key things that... survey was based on inside of developmental relationships their terms are express care which is as a student from a student voice standpoint show me that I matter to you so when students feel like the adults around them care about them they actually perform better academically and and socially The second area is challenge growth, push me
037to keep getting better. Third is provide support, help me to complete tasks and achieve goals, share power, treat me with respect and give me a say, and expanding possibilities, which is connecting me with people and places that broaden my world. That's the framework of belonging that we're building off of, that the survey was connected to, and our... focus on Wednesday is thinking about the ways the the clear and compelling ways that when students experience strong developmental relationships with the adults in their lives and in our case teachers at school that's the part of our work of course, they also demonstrate strong social-emotional competencies and a stronger sense of belonging and importantly better academic outcomes. So things like, and Serge's own research shows, things like motivation, engagement, critical thinking, responsible decision making, emotional regulation, those sorts
038of things. what improved when kids have strong developmental relationships so those are the facts that's what we're what we're focused on here thank you drew we will move to item 8 written communications Susie Thank You Ron first I'll read the written communications preamble please note that the Board of Education email is also viewed by the superintendent and district clerk open meetings law requires all board deliberations which may lead to action or policy changes to occur in public Therefore, your written communications and emails will be reported at an upcoming public board meeting. A board member will respond at their earliest convenience. Please note that a formal response requires that you include your full name in the communication. And I hope I tallied up all these emails correctly, but according to my count, we have 243 written
039communications regarding district matters since this was last reported. as well as 18 emails, written communications regarding board meetings, highlights, board invitations, and correspondence. Thank you everybody for writing in. Thank you, Susan. Thank you for responding to many of them along with Drew and a lot of the administrators on various topics. Andrew and Edgar did a lot of responding as well. So thank you for all of that. And thank you to the community for engaging with us. It's very valuable to hear from the community on all topics that we're talking about on the board. So it was great to see so many people writing in. We will move to item nine, the consent agenda. The full preamble is available on the meeting agenda on BoardDocs. Just briefly, a consent agenda condenses some of the routine business
040of the Board of Education into a single motion. The items on the consent agenda will have the same background material as ordinary items on the Board agenda. At this time, would any Board member like to move an item from the consent agenda to a separate action item? Okay, seeing nobody, we will move to the consent agenda, and it's Jim tonight. Thank you, Ron. There are 10 items on the consent agenda this evening. First, we have minutes for the budget form and the education report budget meeting on March 25th, 2024. Item 1002, we have minutes of the special meeting executive session on March 27th, 2024. Item 1003, personnel certified. 1004, personnel non-certified. 10.05 Claims Audit Report, February 2024. Item 10.06, 2024-2025 Board Meeting Calendars. Item 10.07, Election Inspectors and Assistant Clerks Budget Vote and Board Elections,
041May 21st, 2024. Item 10.08, Contracts Over 20,000, Alvin Ailey Dance Foundation Dance Residency Agreement. item 1009 a stipulation of settlement and finally item 1010 it is moved that the board accept the consent agenda as presented thanks jim is there a second colleen all those in favor all right anyone opposed okay the motion carries thank you very much we will move to item 11 information items we have one information item this evening the board budget insight letter i'm going to ask susie to take this one please thank you ron just as a reminder to the public as discussed in the last meeting the board agreed to have ron and i draft a potential letter on behalf of the board for the insight newsletter the upcoming spring edition of the district newsletter insight will be an informational
042guide to the proposed 2024-25 budget should it pass tonight A draft of the board's annual letter to be included in this mailer is attached to the agenda. This letter has been viewed by all members of the board as well as members of the administration. In crafting this message to the community, the board describes some of the goals and achievements of this budget as well as its process. Does the board have any questions or feedback with regard to the letter? Or if it looks okay to move forward with it? I'll take that as it's okay. Okay, thank you, Jim. let's see there's a caveat being that there might be some slight changes to the letter um if it's required for formatting purposes for the newsletter thank you this is part of a communications and engagement plan
043to inform the scarlet community about the budget that is getting underway given that the board might not meet before the next communication goes out would the board feel comfortable allowing ron and me to draft Next future budget communication like we did with this insight letter I would decide one thing it might all be even just just be cosigning something that drew is putting out for example about early voting I'm not sure we talked about whether it makes sense just to come in the district or board officers But as Suzy mentioned we may not meet well We likely won't meet again before the next communications if it's around early voting so we just wanted to ask if the board was comfortable with us signing something if Drew in the district thinks it makes sense So it's
044a letter on early voting like the mechanics of voting that you would be signing I'm just sorry I'm just not clear what you're drafting a letter about So there are some key deadlines that are coming up so one is tonight you'll be adopting the budget it might make sense to send a communication out budget was adopted last night but we and and subsequent dates when absentee and early mail ballot applications are available when they're due think things like that each of those I would suggest including the basic voting information that's already on your website the board's website that honoree maintains that includes for example how to register to vote what those deadlines are how to do an early early voting application all of those different things that in addition to like the headline here's a
045deadline coming up having that regular information included in every one That's kind of what was on my mind I think that makes sense sometimes seeing that information over and over helps to kind of drill it in so Ron and Susie you would be signing that just as the board officers you were nuts the whole board is not Correct but we felt it was we wanted to ask the board if the board's comfortable with that before we did that I have no objection and thank you for doing that so the there is a draft copy of the insight letter in board Doc's that anyone is welcome to read it but the official version will come out in the next insight which forget exactly when it gets mailed out okay great we will move to item 12
046now to action items item 12.01 is the 2024 2025 budget resolution let me pass this over to let me ask Do you want to say anything? Actually, I guess should I ask for... Should we move into discussion first if you want to say anything? Yeah. All right. Let me give this to Amber. Yeah. We'll have a second and we'll move into discussion. You and Andrew want to say anything before board members start discussing? Okay. I think this one is Amber. Yes. Thank you, Ron. I move that the Board of Education adopt the budget resolution set forth below, and I'm going to read that, resolved that the sum of $100,000 $84,934,125 shall be appropriated to meet the estimated expenditures for school purposes for the school year 2024-25 and that the Board of Education be authorized to
047levy the necessary taxes to meet the same resolved that the adoption of the 2024-2025 budget requires a tax levy increase of 4.45% which exceeds the statutory levy increase limit of 3.63% for the 2024-2025 school year and therefore must be approved by 60% of the qualified voters present and voting at the annual meeting and election Thank You Amber is there a second Bob okay now we will I will ask if there's any discussion I don't know if you and Andrew want to kick off with anything Just just to remind people that the budget that Amber just read the resolution connected to is largely what was presented on March 11th with a hundred and twelve thousand dollars of items restored at the last board meeting after the public budget forum. So it's largely that lengthy March 11th
048presentation with a few increases from that. And there might be value just in reiterating what was said back earlier in March too about state aid just because it's been in the news. There's been no official news, but there are news articles about what's going on. As often happens during state budget negotiations, sometimes articles come out or the governor makes statements, but I think it might be valuable. I know we talked about it earlier in March, but about the recommendation if state aid is, we receive some or all of the back that we expected to lose. Right so I'll start Andrew you can fill in my blanks but yes so you'll recall that the governor's original state aid proposal included a reduction in what's what was known or is known as the safe harmless provision of
049the foundation aid formula so the foundation districts as they have worked to reapportion state aid according to the proper use of the state aid formula many districts throughout the state with the reconfigured formula were actually receiving more foundation aid than the formula would normally account for but those districts were held harmless from a reduction and they kept that sort of original base amount and that's what we entered this budget process expecting we were surprised as districts all over the state were that the governor's budget proposal actually moved to reduce districts that have the save harmless provision to reduce their foundation aid to its new level over two years so we had about half of a little over a million dollars removed in the governor's budget proposal total of about five hundred and fifty eight thousand
050dollars since that time there have been obviously negotiations with the legislature and signs seem to be pointing toward postponing that reduction until there is a study that can be done so it's possible too likely that we will actually receive an additional five hundred and fifty eight thousand dollars in state aid then we are currently accounting for in this in this budget we recommended given the amount of fund balance and reserves we have put recommended you use to offset the tax levy that we would recommend that you allow that revenue to come in unassigned and essentially hopefully if all goes well fall to fund balance at the end of next school year to help offset that basically that hole that we create when we use fund balance Well said. Perfect. I'm learning from the master over
051here. Thank you for that update, Drew. And obviously nothing has been finalized with the state budget yet. Things are being negotiated, so we still don't know exactly what will happen. I just want to highlight one point that, Drew, you talked about, which is that from what I read at the end of last week, what the governor stated was that If they do this in negotiations, if they don't reduce state aid this year to districts through the removal of Save Harmless, it would be in part of reviewing the foundation aid formula as part of a study for next year. What I think is important just for the board and the community to understand, correct me if I'm wrong, Andrew, we get about $3.5 million of foundation aid based on this formula. If the formula is totally
052redone, we have a lot of uncertainty of what that number will be in future years. It could go up, it could stay the same, and it could go down. So I think that piece is important because that's... That's a nuance I think would be hard to see reading some articles about this unless you're really, you know, spend a lot of time thinking about it like we all do. And the other reason I want to bring it up to the board table is just to remind us all in the near future, we have done a lot of advocacy on this issue and this board might need to do more advocacy on this issue if there's going to be a change to the Foundation Aid formula because while we get significantly less Foundation Aid, than almost every
053other district in the state three and a half million dollars is still a lot of money for our budget so i just wanted to put that out there before i turn it over to the my fellow board members for thoughts um before voting on the budget resolution i just wanted to also mention to anybody who's tuning in either for the first time tonight or maybe at the budget forum and tonight that this board has been underway on this budget Really since November hearing from the community and then full steam ahead starting in January almost every meeting between January February and March up until now we've been talking about budget So I know for myself all and speak for myself It is always hard to sum up in a short statement in one evening all the
054discussions and the thought that we've had But it is all out there for anybody to watch. We have great board highlights that Honorary puts together and sends out to the entire community. Everything is on video. There's a lot of presentations. Andrew and Drew did a really commendable job trying to help both the board and the community be able to follow through. that thread of exactly what was being removed from a proposal, what was going back in. So I just wanted to put that out there for everybody who might be watching that there is a wealth of information if you'd like to learn more before any public budget vote. With that, let me turn it over to my fellow board members if you have any comments. Jessica. Hello. So I think it's never easy to get
055to a budget that both honors Scarsdale's traditions of excellence and aspirations for the future and also the realities of the financial constraints with which we live. I appreciate the administration's effort to go back and revise and revise and revise again, especially amid uncertainty that kind of continued from Albany to come up with a plan that works for the district in continuing. um to support our students and our faculty and our community and to offer strong programming and i think this is a great budget it is a budget i'm very comfortable with like everyone there are items i wish we had been able to add back but i look forward to the work that drew and andrew are doing to try to you know bring the district to a more stable financial place for the future
056so thank you all for your work thanks jessica amber Thanks Ron. This has been a challenging budget season. A large portion of our budget encompasses legal and contractual obligations. As has been aptly pointed out, we faced a number of budget drivers that created a situation where the board felt obligated to look at reductions to the superintendent's proposed budget. Our last few meetings have been duly focused on the task of balancing our fiscal responsibility with following our guiding principles based on our mission and vision to sponsor each student's full development. I would like to express my gratitude to Drew, Andrew, Lisa, and the entire team who spent countless hours brainstorming and implementing ideas for the board's consideration. The budget presented to us today provides our community with the opportunity to adhere to our commitments to our
057students. While not every program or idea was fully funded, the board balanced its commitment to our students with consideration for our taxpayers during the development of this budget. Among other things, this budget maintains our commitment to small elementary class sizes by introducing new staff when needed. This budget adheres to the house structure in the middle school and expands ICT programming into the seventh grade providing all students with the least restrictive classroom learning experience. This budget enhances our student choice at the high school. We have heard from student speakers and student petitions and parent emails about the value in offering a financial literacy course. And this budget exemplifies our motto of non-SIBI, allowing students who are taking multivariable calculus online to now have the opportunity to take that class in person. This budget responded to feedback
058from parents and prioritized the mental health and well-being of all students by retaining full funding for varsity B sports. And this budget maintains funding to expand our security measures to introduce door jar sensors in our highest priority locations. This is not an exhaustive list of all that is accomplished in this budget. This budget achieves many other objectives as highlighted in the budget book and it is with enthusiasm that I support this budget. Thank you. Thank you Amber. Colleen. What Amber said. It's very well done, Amber. Mine will be shorter. I just want to start off by thanking everyone who worked so hard on this budget process. To all the district cabinet members, thank you for working with us to meet your department goals while within the budgetary constraints we asked you to revise and revise
059and revise. To my fellow board members, I just wanted to thank you. for your hours and hours and hours of hard work on this budget and for engaging in such a productive discussion so we can create a budget that continues to provide our students with a world-class education while being fiscally responsible. I'm confident this budget will continue to help us achieve our mission and make sure the students have everything they need to grow and thrive. I look forward to presenting this budget to our community for approval on May 21st or earlier if you register to do it. knowing we did our due diligence to create a budget that finds the balance of delivering and educational programs and services that our students deserve while being responsive to the fiscal realities that many school districts are facing
060I support the proposed budget and feel an immense degree of pride in both the thorough process we used and the ultimate consensus that the board came to. Like many in the community, I struggle to decide what is a reasonable and appropriate percentage of growth to target. My initial instinct was to have a higher percentage over the tax cap, but I believe that the board has set an appropriate target that maintains the highest level experience for the students while balancing the tension created by asking our community to increase their school taxes. Particularly, for example, the more controversial modifications around security staffing were investigated, carefully discussed, and agreed after analysis. that there would be no perceptible impact on the safety for students, family, and faculty. I would finally like to thank our board and Drew and Andrew
061for their patience and thoroughness. Thank you. Thank you, Bob. Jim. Thank you, Ron. Very briefly, budgets are a reflection of values, and I think this budget does a good job of reflecting the important value of excellence in Scarsdale education while at the same time recognizing fiscal responsibility and stewardship to our taxpayers. I'm proud of the efforts that we've gone through, the long hours we've spent, the very hard work that the administration has done, and the very hard work that we have done in reviewing and understanding the impact of the various proposals and ultimately choosing a course that I think reflects the values that Scarsdale does hold dear. I proudly and enthusiastically support this budget. Thank you, Jim. Susie. Thank you. It's funny, Jim, that you used the word value because I chose to focus on
062that too. It's been said that a budget is a reflection of the values of its community. A value is something cherished, a principle held dear. A value is also the idea that you derive comparative benefit given what something costs. I think it's a good value. I think that this year's budget process has asked us to think especially long and hard about both what we value as a school community. and how best to deliver value to our taxpayers. I'm gratified that this proposed budget, as presented, fulfills our goals of upholding our mission of excellence in education while exercising prudent fiscal responsibility. Despite many financial challenges facing schools today and some frank discussions, this budget process has remained student-focused, prioritizing the care and development of the whole child. Accomplishments of this budget reflect responses to the educational
063and learning needs of our students in this ever-changing world. We value supporting all our students, expanding special education along the continuum of services, offering new innovative programming in financial literacy and math, investing in safety measures such as the installation of door-to-jar monitors in our schools, as well as the mitigation of flooding at our high school with today's increased extreme weather events. This budget delivered value through our careful and thorough budget process, pairing the budget from its original draft proposal back in January. I would like to thank Drew and the cabinet for the countless hours they have put into crafting this budget, as well as every version before this one. Andrew, this might not be what you imagined your first budget to be in Scarsdale, but you have handled everything thrown at you with the knowledge
064and expertise of someone who has been here already many years. Thank you. I also wanted to thank Jeannie Crowley, who is not here today, I don't think, but as without her, the transition from our old financial system to Envision would not be possible. I want to also thank the community for their feedback throughout this process. As I reported on the written communications, that was wonderful to see. What else? Sorry. All the written communications and feedback did show how invested the people are in our town, in our school system, and that was really gratifying to see. I also want to thank my fellow board members for their hard work and partnership, and I'm pleased and proud to vote to approve the proposed budget tonight. Thank you. Thank you, Susie. I'm going to echo many of the
065sentiments stated around the board table on why I support the proposed budget. As many have said before this, we will be continuing to fund the delivery of educational excellence to our students across the district. Even in this challenging budget year, We are finding ways to continue to expand our programming to meet the needs and desires of our students. And I'd like to thank the many, many students that engaged with us throughout this budget process to share their perspectives on why they urged us to add certain programming. I think this is, as Susie mentioned, the budget is a reflection of what our values are and we always talk about being student focused and I think these actions show us, show that the community that we are being student focused. I also believe this budget and the
066thoughtful process we undertook to get here is respectful of our fiscal responsibilities both for the upcoming and future years. A number of difficult decisions have been made to reduce expenditures while setting us up to replenish our fund balances which are an important financial safety net. both reducing expenditures that were existing as well as very valuable proposals that were brought to the board through a thoughtful process. It's never easy for me as a board member to look at items that went through a process of many months or even years sometimes from teachers, principals, district leaders to bring those ideas to the board table. Certainly from an educational standpoint, I support all of them, but this was a difficult decision and I... I think this board made some important decisions through a very thoughtful and transparent process.
067We are funding key investments, especially in capital areas, as Suzy mentioned, around flooding. We hear all the time as people drive by after a rainstorm what is going on at the high school. I urge you, if you have not seen it, to drive by the high school on Brewster Road to see the real flooding risk that is before us. And it is no longer every year or two. It seems like it's every month or two out of the blue. We are putting real money to address that and to try to protect our high school from having to close from, you know. rain events, which we have seen in the past. We don't want rain days to become new snow days. I believe this budget was done in a thoughtful and transparent manner. As part of
068our process this year, we evaluated multiple scenarios and had detailed and thoughtful discussions on specific line items to determine the appropriate balance of funding items and fiscal responsibility. And lastly, I just want to touch on the state aid, the hopeful state aid news in our fund balance. I am extremely relieved to hear we may receive our full foundation aid amount and want to thank our representatives, Shelley Mayer and Amy Paulin, for their tireless advocacy on this issue. There have been many, many meetings we've spoken about during the budget process. Drew, Andrew, Suzy, members of the board, with many groups to work on this issue. So I'm very hopeful to hear that it is likely, hopefully coming back. I hope that the expected reinstatement of State Aid will help support returning our fund balances to healthy
069levels as an important financial safety net for our district. We've spoken about the use of fund balance over the last several years, including the significant amount we're using this year. And we can't keep doing that. And our fund balance needs to be replenished, and hopefully this will help us do that. And I just want to echo the sentiment and the thanks for Drew, Andrew, Lisa, the entire administration and every faculty and staff member that helped with this budget and the many iterations of it. And thank you to the community for all the thoughtful ideas and feedback, as well as my fellow board members for the detailed and thoughtful discussions throughout the process. With that, could I take a vote? All those in favor of the proposed budget? Any opposed? The motion carries. We will move
070to the next agenda item, the property tax report card. And this is Bob. Yes. Be it resolved that the Board of Education adopt the attached 2024-25 property tax report card as presented. Thank you, Bob. Is there a second? Jim? Any discussion on this one? Okay. All those in favor? Any opposed? Okay, the motion carries. We will move to item 13. This is the second public comment period. It is the same preamble from the first public comment period. I will first open it up to those in the audience before moving to Zoom. See no one in the audience. Susie, anybody on Zoom? Not with their hands raised, but maybe we give a couple seconds. Yep, let's give everybody a few seconds since nobody spoke in the audience. Okay, well. can always write to us Susie loves
071getting emails and responding to them at board of ed at Scarsdale schools org item 14 follow-up to public comment there's no additional follow-up we move to item 15 wrap-up items I think just will flesh out that communication schedule and we can share that with the board Thank you for working on that drew Item 16 meeting dates for the coming month Susan Just so the community is aware the budget book is available online It's also gonna be available at central office for anyone with like a hard copy of that and at each school And thank you for all the work that you and Lisa put into that This is a hundred ish page detailed line item budget that people can go and really see where all of the funds are being proposed to go with Commentary
072to give context. So thank you for all the work on that. There were many hands in that project So it's the entire administrative cabinet and many folks. Thank you. Thank you to everybody who worked on the budget book Okay with that we'll move to item 16 meeting dates for the coming month Susie Thank You Ron On Tuesday, April 16th, there will be a special meeting on the Southwestern, Westchester BOCES vote at 9 a.m. here in this room. On Monday, May 6th, there will be a meeting with a designated group at 5 p.m. in the High School Learning Commons, a special meeting or executive session at 6 p.m. here in this room, followed by a business meeting immediately following here in this room as well. Monday, May 13th, there will be a special meeting or executive
073session at 5.30 p.m. here in this room. A statutory budget hearing, education report, business meeting will follow at 6.30. And on Monday, May 21st, everybody put this in your calendars, there will be a public budget vote and board election, which will run from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. at the middle school gymnasium. Thank you, Susie. And with that, could I have a motion to adjourn? Colleen, second? Jessica, any discussion? All those in favor? Okay, motion carries. Thank you and good evening.