BOE Budget Forum/Education Report/Business Meeting 2024-3-24

001Good evening. I call this meeting to order. Note that all board members are present. We are also joined by Dr. Patrick and Administrative Cabinet. Thank you to all those in the audience this evening or watching the live stream for joining us. Tonight, we continue our budget development process for the 2024-2025 budget. As a brief recap of the budget process so far. The administration began the process with the board by presenting their staffing recommendations for the upcoming school year and the educational impact of those recommendations. These were presented at the January 22nd board meeting. At the following two meetings, on February 5th and March 4th, The administration presented a deeper dive into the budget drivers of each area of the district as well as the educational goals that the budget proposal would support. During these two

002meetings, the board and administration also discussed the funding implications of these proposals being presented, including the staffing proposals. At the March 11th meeting, in response to the Board's request, the administration presented two additional budget scenarios, which included reductions to expenses. These reductions impact both current programming and proposed new programming. The Board shared their views about the budget scenarios and came to consensus on the budget scenario referred to as the March 11th budget. This proposed budget reflects a budget increase of 3.96%, a tax levy increase of 4.39%, and would require a 60% voter approval in May. Since coming to consensus on the proposed budget, the Board has been seeking feedback from the community. Thank you to all those that have shared their feedback already and to those who will be speaking tonight. Once we hear from

003our speakers tonight, I will share the themes of the feedback we have heard, including the feedback tonight, and then we will move into a board discussion. It is our goal this evening to discuss feedback from the community and come to consensus on any potential changes to the budget proposed based on this feedback. The board is then scheduled to take a vote on the budget on April 8th. And I will pass it over to Drew now. Thank you very much. So tonight I'll start with a brief overview that provides a little bit of detail to what Ron just covered, and we'll start with the summary slide. So as Ron said, we're working from the reference point of the March 11, 2024 budget presentation. In that presentation, the total budget dollars was $184,822,125, representing a 3.96 budget-to-budget

004increase and a 4.39% tax levy increase, requiring a 60% favorable vote among those who go and vote for the budget. We also have the projected tax rate increases here for the town of Scarsdale at 4.7%, and a tax decrease for the residents of the Mamaroneck Strip, a decrease of 8.59%. Okay, so in the big scheme of things, we'd like to point out what this budget accomplishes, what it's designed to do for our students and our community. First, it maintains high-quality teaching and learning by funding the exceptional level of instruction provided through our small class sizes at the elementary, the house and team structure at the middle school, and our course of study that attempts to meet kids' needs based on exactly what they choose to take. Ensuring that our staffing levels are consistent with our

005community expectations. supporting well-being and belonging through enrichment of curriculum and the engagement of our social-emotional learning approaches and supports, continued support for the elementary reveal math program implementation, and supports our commitment to the devices, tools, and infrastructure necessary for technology-enhanced teaching and learning. The budget also is presented also funds high-priority initiatives by supporting the development of a plan responsive to the belonging survey. Continued investment in social worker support K-12. Continues the high quality specialized instruction in our included settings along the continuum of services. Continues authentic global opportunities for students in the implementation of sustainability projects through collaboration across community and schools. And supports flexible and needs-based partnerships with educational institutions, trainers, to provide exemplary professional learning for our teachers. replaces an end-of-life website and emergency notification system, replaces our end-of-life systems in cybersecurity, supports facilities

006projects that improve climate resilience, sustainability, health, and safety, and includes an upgrade to our transportation radio system. This slide summarizes the major... Causes of growth within the budget. The biggest category here is our salary and wages. As we remind people, 80% of our costs are connected to our people. So we have a $3.8 million increase in salary and wages. $2.37 million increase associated with employee benefits, including retirement contributions. A million dollar increase in contractual services, including our education services, maintenance and transportation contracts. an energy management consultant, and you'll see an offsetting cost on that in the next line. Our work with Synergistics, this is a budgetary accounting factor, but decreasing our utilities costs based on our energy management program. We have capital projects totaling $770,000 there. We have savings coming down in our principal and

007interest on bonds and our EPC contract ending and some various other categories totaling just over $7 million in budget growth. Here we're going to just summarize the journey quickly of the steps we took through this process. It formally started January 22nd with our administration presenting our staffing recommendations led by Megan Troy. In that presentation, we presented a number of new positions. We recognized that elementary enrollment is going to require two additional sections. We pointed out that two special ed positions, one at the middle school and one at the high school, were added after the budget was adopted last year due to caseloads and mandates in the continuum of services, and we increased our Latin staffing at the high school by 0.2. So that was one way of thinking was we present that with our full

008faith and effort in terms of what we feel is important to run as a program. And then we move to budget study session one. Kind of formally reviewed referred to as the superintendent's proposed budget at that point we had a five point oh eight percent budget to budget increase and that budget continued all programs and included all the staffing recommendations that I just spoke about in in the January 22nd presentation Budget study session number two on March 4th. We came back with a revised. We really revised expenditures downward proposing to reduce just over a million dollars included some cuts to the current PD budget professional development cuts to some new equipment purchases and withdrew four of the proposed positions that we had January 22nd those were new positions and then most recently on March 11th

009The board signaled consensus around the budget at that time. That was what I presented earlier. We came to that meeting with an additional just over $900,000 in reductions, eliminated 2.8 current positions, and further reduced our proposed staffing additions by 0.7. It also included cuts. targeted toward material supplies, equipment, and textbooks, and those dollar amounts would be below this year's current levels. So that was our journey. Again, this just shows that in three steps, with March 11th being our current budget-to-budget increase of 3.96% and tax levy increase of 4.39%. So we thought it would be important just to summarize what those reductions are. We have gotten feedback about those reductions. So first let me talk a little bit about what we mean by a cut. It was pointed out to us there's a difference between stopping

010or no longer doing what you're currently doing versus deciding not to add something that we're not currently doing. So we've done both through this process. Both things have occurred. First, we have had eliminations or reductions of existing positions, programs, or services. So there are some examples in this budget. We did eliminate 2.8 positions, proposed to eliminate 2.8 positions in next year's budget that currently exist today. We lowered budgeted expenditures and program improvement, which is our summer. largely summer work performed by teachers so we we have lowered that budget by 20 percent from its current state we proposed eliminating sixty eight thousand dollars that's currently in the budget for arts enrichment programs that go beyond our normal instruction Different from that are withdrawals or reductions of newly proposed positions, programs, etc. So, for example, this budget

011reflects the withdrawal of 2.7 proposed new positions. This budget reflects withdrawal of a new time clock hardware and software. These are just examples to show the difference between... a cut from what we're currently doing this year and not doing something we've asked to do in the future but aren't doing right now. All in the net of adds and cuts because we have added a few things back in during this process as is normal. The net was $2.148 million. lower in proposed expenditures from that first superintendent's proposed budget. So these next slides, a little hard to read, I apologize, but tried to summarize the expenditure reductions kind of step by step as we went through the process. This document can be viewed in a PDF format on the website so you can read that more clearly.

012categorizes the summary of expenditure reductions that were discussed and presented on March 4th and the March 11th budget reflects that these items would not be in next year's budget so we have some BOCES costs including our relationship with Teachers College advancing literacy professional development support the technology piece I just talked about Some of these, the reduction of athletics charter bus transportation, that is a sustainable cut. That is more closely reflecting our actual lived experience in the current environment of bus costs. So for our teams that travel. you know quite a distance away we think we'll be able to continue our practice but budget a lower number for next year so that is actually the good kind of cut a cut that we can make without impacting the actual experience that our students have We made

013some estimate, revised estimates on our insurance premiums and our retirement contribution estimate, some reductions in equipment, and the withdrawal of some of those proposed positions that we talked about on January 22nd. This next section includes the summary of expenditure reductions discussed at the March 11th meeting. This is a longer list, covers a couple of slides. Also organized by category, BOCES, consultants, contractual items. This is where we see reductions to some of our ongoing sort of maintenance work, some slowing down of our, sorry, a reduction in our coverage of safety monitors at the high school and at our elementary start time. for safety monitors, the arts enrichment pieces that I mentioned a little bit earlier, some reduction in furniture expenditures, some reductions in some of our safety, security, emergency management equipment that was going to be

014expanded, and the positions that we discussed being reduced there. including the proposed addition in the high school to financial literacy and multivariable calculus. All of this combined totaling reductions a little bit over $1 million. And then we also presented on March 11th additional reductions that would be recommended should the board decide. to favor a budget that comes in within the tax cap. So this list includes additional. These are not reductions that have been made yet. These all remain in the budget as it's currently proposed, but these would be the areas we'd look to if we needed to reduce expenditures for next year's budget further. It includes some consulting. It includes additional position reductions, a total of five teaching position reductions. In this situation, we would no longer do the varsity and JVB teams, further reductions

015to instructional and non-instructional supplies and textbooks. So that would be, if needed, an additional one point. $2 million in reduction. So I'm just going to say it one more time. These have not been removed from the budget, but we thought it prudent to share what would be for a budget that came within the tax levy cap. So there's that same slide again. This is where we're at at the current point before we move to public comment. We did share this chart that shows the impact on the median assessed home value for both Scarsdale and the Mimarinick Strip at each of these proposed levels. So our original superintendent's proposed budget all the way on the right, the March 4th budget. the March 11th budget and a budget at the tax cap. So here we are, March

01625th. This is our budget forum and board review of the budget and the feedback. And I will turn it back over to you, Ron. Thank you, Drew, for that overview. Members of the community are now invited to speak on the proposed budget at this time. We will take comments from the audience first and then those participating via Zoom. Please state your name and address and if you represent an organization. Unlike at our business meetings, there is no time limit, but we ask that you be mindful of the time so that everybody who wishes to speak about the budget has an opportunity. With that, is there anybody in our large audience that would like to come up? Please just... Hi, everyone. I am Amy Frank, and this is Maura Crouch. I live at 9 Burgess Road,

017and you're at... 12 South Woods Lane. And we are the co-presidents of Maroon and White. And we came last time, and I got a lot of heat that I didn't speak, so I am speaking tonight. First off, we want to thank the BOE and the administration for preserving varsity B sports in the proposed budget. We know it's a big deal to go over the tax cap, and I'm here to tell everyone that I will reach out to my very large circle of friends and make sure that they vote yes. Athletic programs are vital to student health. are vital to students' physical and mental well-being. Eliminating the Varsity B would have sent the wrong message that only select athletes matter. Varsity B enables a greater number of students to participate in athletics, including those who might

018otherwise be cut from a Varsity A team, for those who just want to play for fun, for some needed stress release, or want to try a new sport. So we really want to thank everyone for... for keeping that in the budget, and we're going to do everything that we can to make sure that it passes. And we also want to thank you all for all the tireless work that you do. We know exactly what it is, but yours is tenfold. So we appreciate everything and want to thank you. Thank you. Is there anybody else in the audience? Hello. My name is Janine Cole. And I'm Amavandal. We are the PTA co-presidents for Edgewood. I live at 173 Lyons Road. Sixth Street Road. First, we just want to thank everyone for all the hard work and

019effort that you've put forth on the students' behalf. We've met with our PTA Executive Committee, held an information session via Zoom for our PTA community, and a short survey was also distributed asking our members to weigh in about the values they'd like to see in the budget put up for a vote. community members widely expressed the desire for clarity around the budget decision-making process and reasoning around items selected for reductions and elimination assurance is needed to provide the community with a comfort level that curriculum specifically the new spelling and math curriculums remain properly resourced and funded in partnership with our executive committee we would like to see the following items remain in the budget The annual indoor air quality baseline testing, particularly given the reoccurring flooding in the teacher's lounge and the age of the

020Edgewood building. An early morning elementary security monitor is critical to ensure the safety of the students attending morning band orchestra, which sometimes starts at 7 a.m. and typically at 7.30. Maintain the schedule for the rollout of door jar alarms and outdoor security cameras. The Edgewood Playgrounds specifically are widely used by the community after hours and we feel their presence is necessary for safety. There's also a heightened concern given the carjacking that occurred across the street from Edgewood so close to school hours. We would like to maintain the schedule for enhanced Wi-Fi access rollout. This impacts the hallways that are frequently used by students. for small group work, independent study, bulletin boards with QR codes for research, et cetera, and no reductions in textbooks to elementary school libraries. Thank you. Thank you. Is there anybody else

021in the audience? Good evening. I'm Leah Demitzer, 354 Maranek Road, PT Council President. I'm Ranjana Sani Chandrana, one Mercer Court PTC Budget Study Co-Chair. And we are going to read the PT Council Executive Committee and Budget Study Statement on the proposed budget. Position. The Scarsdale Parent Teacher Council Executive Committee, PTCEC, and Budget Study Chairs thank the District Administration and Board of Education for their work thus far on the proposed budget. The PTCEC and Budget Study generally support the proposed Scarsdale Schools Budget 2024-25 March 11th version. We would like to emphasize, however, that certain reductions and cuts made during the budget planning process to arrive at the current budget may affect levels of student experience and support and will defer aspects related to important initiatives such as safety and security in the high school auditorium. The

022PTCEC and budget study would like to highlight that the March 4th version includes items that more fully support the ongoing needs of our district as well as better maintain the current level of student experience. For the community, please note that the tax impact of adopting the March 4th version is an increase of approximately $126 per median assessed home in Scarsdale over the majority of BOE-endorsed March 11th version. The PTCEC and budget study further note, as per the administration, that implementing the additional cuts necessary to achieve a budget below the tax cap would have significant negative impacts on the current level of student support and quality of experience. We encourage the community to support a budget that provides sufficient resources for our schools and ask that all eligible voters vote yes on the presented budget on

023May 21, 2024 at Scarsdale Middle School. The PTCEC and budget study strongly support the norms of small elementary class size, robust student support at all levels, differentiated teaching and learning, and the development of the whole child. We support and encourage initiatives related to student mental health, wellness, and belonging. We strongly encourage ongoing professional development and work with the school community to further these significant and essential aspects of the student experience. The PTCEC and budget study endorse a continued commitment to the development of innovative best in class curriculum practices. We further encourage the administration to provide additional history, context and rationale for curricular changes and enhancements in order to bring the community along in its process. We'd like to highlight the need to benchmark best in class curriculum practices with other comparable schools in order. Excuse

024me. for the community to understand the types of curricular offerings at cutting-edge New York State public schools, as well as to identify metrics by which the success of new programs will be evaluated. Process. The PTCEC and budget study strongly encourage the BOE and administration to articulate and elaborate on the rationale and framework behind the decisions made. We acknowledge the external pressures on budget planning this year, which include high inflation, potential loss of state aid, several years of tight budgeting, a state-mandated tax cap, and the inability to use reserves to close the gap next year. We further acknowledge the challenges facing the BOE as it seeks to maintain the excellence of our schools while being mindful of the financial strain that increased taxes may place on residents. The PTCEC and budget study continue to advocate for

025proactive outreach on the part of the BOE to the community and suggest the BOE create opportunities to hear from the public on our shared values and hopes for the Scarsdale schools. Additionally, we request that the administration share the long-term and short-term strategic plan, belonging survey results, special education plan five years out. capital projects plan and a financial plan PTC acknowledges that the strategic plan is in process the belonging survey has been completed and results are being coalesced and that the assistant superintendent for business plans to organize a financial forecast sometime in the fall of 2024 as PTC seeks to encourage voter participation and support for the budget we emphasize that the community would benefit and from understanding the nuances of the BOE and administration's budget planning process Facilities planning as district facilities and buildings continue

026to age the PTC EC and the budget study would like to emphasize the importance of addressing the specific physical spaces at each school that need updating or renovations. One such area is outdoor playgrounds at some of the elementary schools, which need to be maintained and updated both for safety to meet changing student needs. Another aspect of facilities work that the PTCEC would like to emphasize is attention to increased air cooling spaces in the schools. In addition, PTC strongly encouraged continued consideration of planning resources and advocacy in order to address flood mitigation at the schools. We appreciate that the high school auditorium, a highly used performance community event and classroom space project was included in the bond last spring, and we look forward to updates on the progress of the work. We do realize that due

027to budgetary constraints, the district cannot tackle all capital improvement projects at the seven schools simultaneously. The PTCEC would like to emphasize the importance of a comprehensive timeline to understand what the district has identified as priorities. When it is anticipated, the items will be addressed and how they will be prioritized and financed. The proposed budget and overview. The March 11 proposed budget, which was endorsed by the majority of the BOE, totals $184,822,125 for a budget-to-budget difference of $7,047,938 and 3.96%. The projected increase in tax levy is 4.39%, and the projected tax levy limit is 3.63%, putting the budget at 1.231466 above the New York state tax cap. The estimated tax impact in dollar amount for a median assessed home in Scarsdale is approximately $1,045, with a decrease in the dollar amount for a median assessed home

028in Marmarinac at approximately $2,372. The PTCEC and Budget Study vote, or note, as per discussion during the budget study sessions that our reserves have been declining and we ask that the BOE and administration maintain safe reserve levels in order to preserve the integrity of the overall economic health of the district. Regarding district reserves, the PTC notes, as per the administration, the reserves and fund balance provide the district with financial stability, cash flow liquidity, and demonstrate general physical health. In addition, according to Andrew Lennon, declining reserves have the potential to negatively impact a district's credit rating, thereby increasing borrowing costs. The budget exceeds the tax cap and thus requires a supermajority yes vote, 60% of those who vote, to approve the budget. If the first budget vote fails and the BOE revisits the budget to make

029further reductions, the PTC, EC, and budget study are deeply concerned that those cuts will be felt district-wide. Furthermore, if the budget vote fails a second time, our district will then have a contingency budget, which will require an additional $5.9 million in cuts below the tax cap, which would be... 7.1 million in cuts from the current March 11 version of the budget. The PTCEC and the budget study strongly support a budget that will provide sufficient resources for our schools and encourage all eligible voters to vote yes for the presented budget on May 21. The PTC Council Executive Committee in partnership with our budget study chairs will continue to engage in budget advocacy and disseminating voter information related to the May 21st community budget vote. Thank you for your time and consideration. Sincerely, the PTC Council Executive

030Committee and the budget study chairs. Thank you. Thank you. Hi, everybody. I'm Erica German. I live at 24 Harvest Drive, and I'm here today representing the Quaker Ridge PTA as the PTA president. So, excuse me, I'll share with you a statement that I had sent in advance to the board. Dear Scarcell Board of Education, thank you for all the time, care, and effort you've all put into this 24-25 school budget. The March 11th proposed budget delays the start of security monitors in elementary schools from 7 until 7.45. We, the Quaker Ridge PTA Executive Board, request that this change not be made. We feel it's prudent that there's always security coverage present when organized groups of students are in the building, including for early morning band and orchestra rehearsals and for other PTA and school-sponsored activities.

031The Quaker Ridge School PTA shares the district's admirable and consistent attention to keeping our children as safe as possible at all times. And then a lighter concern is our school garden at Quaker Ridge. We understand from the March 11th presentation that the proposed funding amount in the budget is enough to fully complete the needed garden restoration work, and that if it's not enough to cover actual costs, the district will find ways of allocating funds related to BOCES to complete the needed work. So I just want to reiterate, our garden is really widely used all year round from our... school time enrichment workshops during the day and then all summer long for weekly community building garden nights that bring a lot of people together so i just wanted you all to know it's really important to

032our quaker ridge community that the garden is maintained and good thank you for your consideration of these issues thank you hi everyone i'm jen gallion 55 garden road i'm the green acres pta president and i'm here to read a statement on behalf of the green acres pta executive committee and our green acres pta budget chair First we just want to thank you for your time and hard work on the proposed budget for 2425 We recognize that this has been a challenging budget year and we appreciate the difficult decisions that have to be made and coming up with a final budget that will have the support of the Scarsdale community While we are generally supportive of the March 11th budget We ask that you reconsider the proposed delayed start time of elementary school security monitors from

0337 until 7 45 We feel it is necessary for a security monitor to be present whenever organized groups of children are inside the building as the safety of our children is of utmost importance. Moreover, we are concerned that it will place an additional burden on our bands and orchestra teachers who will now be required to monitor arrivals as well as potentially disrupting the start of early morning lessons. Thank you for your consideration. Thank you. Hello. i'm dahlia khan i'm here as the budget school budget portfolio co-chair for the league of women voters of scarsdale and i'm just going to read our consensus statement the league of women voters of scarsdale thanks the members of the board of education and the district administration for participating in the league's march 20th 2024 general membership meeting and school

034budget information session and addressing questions on the 2024-25 proposed scarsdale school district budget as of march 11 2024. THE FOLLOWING STATEMENT REFLECTS THE CONSENSUS OF LEAGUE MEMBERS AT A CONSENSUS MEETING HELD IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING THE INFORMATION SESSION. POSITIONS. THE LEAGUE SUPPORTS THE 2024-25 PROPOSED SCARSDALE SCHOOL DISTRICT BUDGET WITH THE COMMENTS MADE BELOW AND RECOMMENDS THAT, BORRING ANY SIGNIFICANT REVISIONS INCONSISTENT WITH OUR COMMENTS BEFORE ITS ADOPTION BY THE BOARD OF EDUCATION, THE COMMUNITY VOTE YES TO APPROVE THE FINAL PROPOSED BUDGET ON MAY 21, 2024 AT SCARSDALE MIDDLE SCHOOL. The League offers its comments and recommendations regarding certain budgetary items as well as the budget process, which we hope will be considered as next year's budget is revised and finalized and in future budgets. Budget overview and noteworthy features. The proposed budget is $184,822,125, with a budget-to-budget increase

035of 3.96% and a tax levy growth of 4.39%. The estimated tax rate increase for Scars Hill homeowners will be 4.7%, and the estimated tax rate decrease for Mamaroneck residents will be 8.59%. This budget is $1,231,466 above the tax cap. According to the administration, the budget accomplishes the following, maintains high-quality teaching and learning, funds high-priority initiatives, improves communication and emergency notification, maintains our technology infrastructure, and improves and upgrades facilities. General comments the league acknowledges with appreciation the substantial time and effort that goes into developing the proposed budget and Thanks the administration and board for their additional efforts spent preparing for a March 20th information session Including responding to our written questions and to the questions posed orally during the meeting The league also appreciates that the administration continues to include league budget questions and administration responses

036on the district website as a public resource comments and recommendations proposed proposals and budget proposals and tax cap the league supports budgeting to a student-centered program and not to the state imposed tax cap and appreciates the administration's disclosure of their organically and authentically developed first draft of the budget on february 5th 2024. Although the district cut approximately $2 million from the initial budget, the current budget still exceeds the tax cap due to a variety of factors, including several years of high inflation, potential loss of state foundation aid, years of tight budget, use of reserves to hold on tax increases in prior years, higher costs of goods and services, significant increases in special education classification over the past 10 years, increased health care costs, increased student health and well-being costs, and increased safety and security expenditures.

037The League acknowledges the inherent risk of putting forth a budget that exceeds the tax levy limit, which requires a 60% supermajority vote to pass, and appreciates the administration and board's efforts to prioritize expenditures that have the greatest impact on students' growth and learning, while also considering the financial impact of the budget on the entire community. The League commends the board administration for actively soliciting community feedback and for their willingness to keep an open mind about the budget. The League further commends the Board and the administration for their transparent and thorough discussion of the proposed budget. This transparency allows the community to better understand the Board and the administration's rationale and helps ensure a greater degree of confidence that the final budget represents the best balance between advancing the program and gaining taxpayer support. The League

038encourages future Boards to continue to evaluate and analyze proposed budgets in an open, thorough, and transparent manner. Communication. Communication about the budget is especially critical this year because a budget over the tax cap requires a 60% supermajority vote to pass. In addition to the board and administration's current plans to communicate about the budget, the League encourages them to be creative and explore all possible forms of communication, including additional print for those members of our community who do not use social media. The League advises the Board and administration to use clear charts, engaging graphics, and bullet points to illustrate the importance of passing the budget and to explain in an easily digestible way why a budget over the tax cap is required to retain valuable services, assets, and initiatives that the community expects and that are

039a hallmark of Scarsdale's standard of educational excellence. The league further recommends that the board administration clearly state in their communications the consequences of both a budget under the tax cap and a contingency budget. The communication should highlight the draconian cuts required to bring the budget under the tax cap, including loss of current teaching positions, 10 to 15 teacher aides, all arts enrichment, and athletic B sports teams. The communication should also explain the catastrophic level of additional cuts required, approximately 5.9 million, should the first two budgets fail and a default state-mandated contingency budget be imposed. Use of fund balance and health reserves the league is concerned about the continued use of the fund balance to offset expenses and acknowledges that the Administration is aware of such risks including negatively impacting the district's credit rating creating cash

040flow challenges and being unable to address unanticipated expenses The league also is concerned about the administration's reliance on the health insurance reserves to offset expenses and the relatively low level of those reserves Given the trend of rising claims in the last few years, the League recommends that the administration have a plan to replenish the health insurance reserves in the event that claim levels do not return to lower levels. The League encourages the administration to use long-term financial planning to better manage reserves in future budgets. Long-term financial plan. The League supports the administration's intention to create a long-term financial plan for the district using its new financial management system and vision. The League recommends that the administration use long-term financial planning to better anticipate, plan for, and respond to challenges, including those related to revenue shortfalls,

041excess expenses, the tax cap, program changes and expansions, unexpected events, and high inflation in a financially sound way. The league looks forward to reviewing the long-term financial plan when completed and encourages the administration to use a plan as a means to create longer-term plans for achieving its goals, including providing for a continuum of special education services at the middle school and high school, completing recommended safety and security projects, and scheduling plant and capital improvements. program drivers, and curriculum. The League commends the administration and board for continuing to support the elementary class size policy, the middle school's house and team structure, and the high school's vibrant program of study. In addition, the League recommends that the administration and board continue to provide appropriate staffing to protect the high academic standards of the high school and to

042ensure academic choice with extensive course offerings. The League encourages the administration to support innovation, creativity, variety, and excellence in the SCARZEL curriculum at all levels, and specifically in the electives offered at the high school. We appreciate the administration's willingness to create and introduce new electives, such as a financial literacy course. The League recommends that the administration regularly review the electives offered at the high school, survey students' interests, assess what is popular and what is not, and add or delete electives as applicable. The League encourages the district to ensure that proposed future budgets not only maintain Scarsdale's long tradition of educational excellence, but also pursue forward-looking curricular initiatives and program enhancements that provide opportunities and environments to stimulate innovation, growth, and enhanced educational excellence for all students and faculty. Special education. The League has consistently stressed

043the importance of supporting special education students in Scarsdale throughout the significant rise in the number of classified students over the past 10 years. The League commends the district for funding the addition of a special education administrator in the budget and we encourage the district to continue to expand the existing continuum of special education services as students served under those models age up through the middle school and the high school in future years. Especially given the highly volatile nature of special education services, the League encourages the administration to use long-term financial planning to achieve such expansion in a financially sustainable manner. DEIB and mental health and well-being the league commends the district for its commitment to keep values of diversity equity inclusion and belonging at the forefront of its programming and the curriculum and strongly encourages

044the district to ensure that DEIB remains a consideration across all areas of Scarsdale schools the league further commends a district for continuing to prioritize student mental health and well-being including elementary social emotional and learning support and the budget Plant and capital improvements league urges a district to keep our aging facilities in mind as we budget for the future We would like to reiterate from past statements that given that several of our schools were built over a century ago Thoughtful proactive facilities planning and capital improvement are of the utmost importance to ensure that our buildings maintain and enhance student learning and are safe sustainable and flexible enough to support 21st century innovation and future programs We appreciate the district for trying to mitigate the potential impacts of increased frequency of heavy rain and flooding including funding

045stormwater mitigation projects in the budget. While we recognize the desire to tighten the budget, we are concerned that certain delays and deferrals to building maintenance capital projects and other purchases could lead to greater long-term costs. We encourage the district to use the long-term financial plan to better address and plan for future capital projects and facilities maintenance. The League further encourages the District to support sustainability projects that would be beneficial to the environment, the individuals who use our buildings, and the physical plant. The League appreciates the District's efforts to reduce its energy costs by entering into a contract with CenterGISTIC. According to the information shared at the information session, the contract has had a net zero effect so far. We look forward to learning whether the Behavioral Energy Savings Program leads to cost savings next year.

046Safety and security the league encourages the district to prioritize safety and security and to engage in a cost-benefit Decision-making process to be shared with the community about why and whether specific cuts such as to door ajar sensors make sense Especially if some of the cuts are merely deferrals to be requested in subsequent years budgets We also question whether the cost savings in the reduction of safety monitors hours justify the resulting disruption to early morning music rehearsals at the elementary schools We encourage the district to continue to implement security measures that incorporate best practices and also reflect and connect to the values of the entire Scarzell community. State Foundation Aid. The League appreciates the Board's efforts to restore the State Foundation Aid and encourages the Board to continue to engage in advocacy around State Foundation Aid

047restoration. budget process and community engagement. As an initial matter, the League commends the administration for providing a budgeting process that prioritized open communication, clarity and transparency. We acknowledge that this is the first budgeting process for a new superintendent, a new assistant superintendent of business and for others new to their roles. We commend the administration for hitting the ground running, addressing issues head on and working around time constraints, inflationary pressures and other challenging factors to put together multiple iterations of the budget. The League appreciates that the administration makes the budget presentations and budget development and staffing recommendations available early in the budget development process. The presentations allow a comprehensive view of the myriad components of the budget, and through them there is an enhanced understanding of the budget itself. The league commends the district for recognizing

048the challenges faced by many organizations with a one-week turnaround between the last budget study session and the public forum and for adjusting the budget calendar for this budget season to allow for a two-week gap. This added week provided slightly more time for the league and other community organizations to engage in a more detailed study and understanding of the preliminary proposed budget and greater opportunity for discussion in the formation of a consensus statement or other community feedback for the board and administration to incorporate into a final iteration. The League thanks the Board for creating opportunities for public input into the budget at various points in the development process and strongly encourages the Board to continue to work to be proactive and transparent to ensure community trust in the Board process. We thank all members of the

049administration and Board for consideration of our statement. The League looks forward to the release of the Board's final budget iteration resulting from having considered community comments. Thank you. Thank you. Is there anybody else in the audience that would like to make a comment? Please. Good evening. My name is Jeffrey Osterman, 16 Oak Way. I'm not here on behalf of any organization, just me. Thank you, members of the Board of Education, for your time and attention to the school budgeting process. As a matter of background, I've lived in Scarsdale for most of my life, more than 29 years at this point, and I'm a graduate of Scarsdale High School in the late 1980s. Some years back, I was a member of the facility steering committee that provided guidance on priorities for capital improvements, including the Green

050Acres School Edition and the high school editions that included construction of the fitness center, D-Lab, and Learning Commons. My wife and I have made the decision to remain in Scarsdale long-term after our daughters graduate high school this year. So I write with the perspective both of a parent of kids who have gone all the way through the Scarsdale schools, as well as a future empty nester. While the board should of course work collaboratively with the district's administration, I remind you that you members of the board are the elected stewards of the district's resources, and we members of the community call on you to ensure that the administration's priorities are well aligned with the interests of the broader community, both pedagogical and fiscal. A few notes. I urge the board to require the administration to provide

051a clearly articulated facilities investment plan that prioritizes keeping the buildings open and able to serve their core function of educating our children. This past year, the high school was closed or delayed multiple times due to flooding, most recently this weekend, and on even more occasions, parking was severely impaired. While the district should, of course, be able to focus on multiple priorities at once, it strikes me that keeping the schools open and safe must be higher priority than refining the curriculum or seeking to add courses with difficulty even higher than the already rigorous high school curriculum. I strongly support investment in a financial literacy class, and I'm somewhat disappointed that a $55,000 item got thrown in. It doesn't seem like it's going to swing the budget a whole heck of a lot. Far too much of

052our mathematics curriculum is focused on teaching skills that, while they may be a checkbox for college admission at some point, will be of limited utility to students who continue study on non-STEM subjects, while financial literacy provides a necessary resource for all students' lives following high school. The B athletic teams provide a valuable resource, giving an increased number of students an opportunity to participate in interscholastic competition. These teams are particularly important given the district's focus on belonging, and I note that is also only $100,000 in the $1.2-ish million swing between the current budget and the budget to get under the tax cap. It's not a lot of money associated with those teams. I understand you could say that about any one of those light items, but this one does not strike me as a huge swing.

053Parking at the high school, a personal topic, but one that won't be my problem, but it's going to be other people's problem coming soon, is a perennial problem made worse by a recent decision to slash student parking substantially. Adding headcount with no plan to deal with parking is a recipe for future conflict. I understand there are a number of partial FTEs who work at the high school. Each of those FTEs, I'm sure, is allocated a parking spot to the detriment of older students who might be in a position to drive to school. Generally speaking, administration discussions of additions of FTEs just talk about the cost of personnel and ignore the follow-on impacts of having more employees using the facilities. Please ask them to do so, and while you're at it, it would be good to

054know the administration's plan for parking at the high school, which is a disaster. I encourage the board to require the administration to provide regular updates on how allocated money is spent and what follow-on budget impacts are expected to result from construction projects. For example, for those with longer memories, there was money allocated in the 2014 bond toward addressing the renovation of the high school's auditorium, a topic near and dear to my heart as a very active drama club member for all four years of high school. And yet, in the course of the bidding process, that money got reallocated to other priorities because the estimating project... associated with that bond must have been defective, which is particularly frustrating because as members of that steering committee, we asked multiple times whether the bond that we were being

055asked to shepherd was going to be adequate to cover the listed priorities which included the auditorium. Turns out they weren't. And while the auditorium construction in the current bond will be funded by the current bond, please ensure that the impact of maintenance and upkeep on this enhanced space is also planned for, lest we find ourselves several years out facing unexpected costs. For the present budget, the board has proposed a number of draconian sounding cuts to keep the budget under the tax cap, and yet I haven't seen any motion toward addressing a multimillion-dollar ongoing trust driver for the district, transportation of in-district students who could attend local schools to private schools. Last time I saw this issue discussed over 10 years ago, it appeared that a significant majority of the school's transportation budget was actually directed

056to busing students, not special education students, to private schools. I understand that that busing is mandated under state law. to a radius of 15 miles. However, I do not believe that state law requires that we make it particularly easy or convenient or that we offer door-to-door service to parents who are utilizing those services. At the time it was estimated we could save $200,000 right off the bat by mandating collection from Central Points, and that's not even counting a possible deterrent effect to parents who might, when they no longer have door-to-door service, which I will note is not available to in-district students. they might choose to get their kids to school another way, which would also further reduce costs. I've not heard that discussed in any of these budget discussions. And finally, a number of members

057of the community have advocated for a long-range financial plan. For those with longer memories, this is not a new request. Back in 2013, the last time a school budget failed, citizens were vocal in asking that the administration provide longer-term financial projections. It's been more than a decade, and what do we have? The same snapshot request for financial investments with no larger picture and no sense that there is some pathway to fund investments that are visible coming down the pike. At the time, I and others said that this myopic approach would bite the district in the future, and it seems that we are once again being bitten, just as my daughter has been repeatedly bitten by the mosquitoes who have spawned once again in the perennially flooded areas outside the high school. Thank you for your

058time and attention. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Matan Davies. I live on 15 Kohani Road, and I'm a junior at Scarsdale High School. I'm also a member of the Scarsdale Youth Forum. I'm an officer of the DECA Business Club and a certified basic tax preparer for the IRS Volunteer Income Tax Assistance Program. Last week, I published an article on the Maroon website, the Scarsdale High School newspaper. It is titled, Rejecting Financial Literacy, Why the Board of Education Should Reconsider Its Plan. I am strongly in favor of the high school financial literacy course originally proposed by the school administration. In fact, I even registered to take it. As you know, it has now been excluded from the proposed budget. I think this is a significant mistake for our district. The positive impact of basic

059financial literacy is undeniable. According to a recent FINRA study, respondents with higher financial literacy scores were far more likely to make ends meet. Our nation's lack of financial education has surely contributed to the record high $1.13 trillion of total national credit card debt. Unfortunately, a lack of financial literacy disproportionately impacts women and people of color, potentially undoing much of the work that we do here in Scarsdale on diversity and inclusion. There are now active bills in the New York State Legislature that would mandate a financial literacy course in every high school as a graduation requirement. This type of bill is long overdue. How can our students graduate high school without understanding how to use a credit card here in New York, the financial capital of the world? Also, don't we want to be prepared for

060this legislation? It is clear that there is a lot of interest in this course here in Scarsdale. My Maroon article included a petition in favor of this course, which after only four days has 181 signatures calling for the reinstatement of the class in the budget, of which almost 100% are Scarsdale residents and a minimum of 30% are Scarsdale High School students. In addition, I learned over the weekend from the school that 55 students had already signed up for this course before it was deferred. I would also like to share a comment on the Maroon website by Dean Michael Gibbs. I had a surprisingly large number of students requesting this course, which appealed to students across the spectrum. Students were excited to learn pragmatic skills, and I was excited by the prospect of an academic course

061which offered students a heterogeneous setting to exchange ideas and learn important life skills. I understand that there are tough choices to be made in this budget, and I very much respect the process. I hope you will reconsider the decision to defer this class. Thank you for your consideration of my views on this topic. Thank you. Good evening everyone. My name is Manisha Maria. I reside at 56 Carthage Road and I'm here on behalf of the SMS executive committee to read out the budget statement that we prepared together. I've also shared this beforehand with the board as well as the administration. Executive Committee of SMS, we joined hands with Board of Education and PTC in expressing our support for the proposed budget for 24-25 academic year that was presented on March 11th. This budget reflects a

062deep commitment to preserving the high-quality educational programs that are the hallmark of our district, recognizing the delicate balance required to maintain these standards within the fiscal constraints we face. While this budget is unfortunately above the tax cap and would require a super majority vote, we feel that this budget protects the core components vital for our students' academic and social growth. A budget below the tax cap would require the elimination of core programmatic resources such as SMS computer teacher, AIDS and varsity B sports, and would negatively impact our students' overall experience. While we stand behind the proposed budget, we also see potential for its enhancement, especially in ways that directly benefit the student experience and outcome. Should the Board of Education be open to revisiting the budget, we strongly advocate for additional investments in curricular advancements.

063We propose prioritizing the addition of the full-time equivalent in financial literacy and one FTE in special education at middle school level. These proposed enhancements are vital for sustaining our district's esteemed reputation for educational excellence and should be prioritized over administrative budget increases. We are mindful that these expenses would have higher tax implications for Scarsdale residents. Therefore, we highlight the need for a transparent, comprehensive, long-term financial plan spanning up to five years. This plan should meticulously detail capital expenditures and special education needs, offering residents clear insights into how strategic plans and survey findings are integrated into our financial forecasting. We also wish to express our appreciation for administration's efforts in addressing our queries so far. Nonetheless, we continue to advocate for greater transparency in decision-making process and would encourage the board to share more detailed justification

064for budgetary decisions as well as metrics being used to evaluate efficacy and impact. In reiterating our priorities, we underscore the importance of academic excellence and maintaining optimal class size, the middle school house system teams which are vital for student engagement and belonging, A robust special education program that meets the diverse needs of our students. A school environment that fosters belonging, inclusion and mental health. ensuring the safety and security of all our students and staff. And I think some of the folks have already reiterated the same. With a collective commitment to excellence, innovation, and inclusivity, we encourage our community to rally behind this budget, acknowledging its pivotal role in fostering the ongoing success of our students and district at large. In unity with the school administration and Board of Education, I urge all eligible voters to

065support the proposed budget on May 21st at Scarsdale Middle School. And I think we'll rally for that. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Wana Papazoglu, and I reside at 17 Tunstall Road. I have three kids, one in each school, high school, middle school, and elementary. I actually read the slides that you sent out and I was very worried when reading the slide about the high priority initiatives. The first item on the list of these new initiatives for the district was the only new academic item. I'm talking about the financial literacy item. It has been chopped. The high school principal came in front of the board with several requests. The first one was for a freshman team, the second one was for a dean, but both of them were dismissed. Now the first

066item to be chopped is the financial literacy multivariable calculus resource. Regarding the dean, for those who do not have kids in high school, I would like to say that he acts very much like a college consultant. The more deans a school has, the better they get to know one's child and can help guide the child through course selection and college application process. In a public school district, not everyone can or should get a private college consultant. I would like to know the details on why that was dropped, but other items on the priorities were kept. I do not think that classes should necessarily be approved via emails or petitions. I would hope the word of the high school principal should be heavy enough in this district. I feel that he is the best suited to

067tell you when the high school is falling behind in class offerings in attention to students when it comes to college help. I think that you are sending the wrong message by putting first on the cutting board all of Mr. Bonamo's requests. after all a big number of us moved here for the quality of the high school education. There are other long-term initiatives that stay but have really no explanation associated to them. I tried to find some details in the budget book but without any luck. And I would really appreciate if you could explain to us, for example, what does the second item about development of a plan responsive to our belonging survey means? How is this different from the DEI initiatives so far? And how does it add to the DEI costs incurred so far?

068How do we even know that a plan is needed and how much will that cost? How about another item, for example, implementation of sustainability projects? I think it is very important, or at least for me, to share the cost of these initiatives and also to provide your ideas on how you would measure their success. It is quite obvious how one measures a full-time resource, both in cost and in success and direct impacts on students. So I think as the district embarks into exploratory initiatives, it is very important that you provide us with clarity into reasons, goals, cost, and outcome assessment. I would also like to know what happened with all of the Our Future Together discussions. When will we see the plan for that? Do you anticipate that those will require no additional resources for

069those budgeted for? Multiple parents have raised concerns during those discussions about the various curriculum areas from revealed math to science, spelling, foreign language. I would imagine that in itself would be a far bigger and more worthy initiative than the one I've seen listed. I personally feel that if a budget increases and there are new initiatives, the board should come and explain what they are about before they ask us to vote for it. I also feel that an education report and also a strategic plan should have been shared with the community before asking everyone to vote. I have no interest in not supporting the budget since I have three kids in the school, but I do feel that in its current form it fails to reassure me that the district has a vision for a strong

070academic future. Thank you. Is there anybody else in the audience who wishes to speak? Hello, my name is Joe Vaughn, physics teacher at the high school, speech and debate coach, but I'm speaking today in my role as the president of the Scarcell Teachers Association. I'd like to begin by applauding the board on its transparent and thorough process in constructing this budget. Whether one agrees or disagrees with potential outcomes of the process, for those that have been paying attention to the process, the steps, progressions, guiding philosophies and principles of this process have been clear from the start. Balancing the fiscal stewardship of the Scarsdale schools with the educational stewardship of the Scarsdale schools is no mean feat. The board has the unenviable responsibility of balancing the interests of taxpayers with the interests in our students and

071hoping to find alignment between these. A school budget is more than a fiscal document. It is also a statement of a community's values. The community of Scarsdale has always been rightly known to value education. A yes vote for the school budget has been seen as an investment in the future. and a recognition of the centrality of supporting the students of the Scarsdale schools as a shared community value. Dr. Patrick and his team have presented three budgets for consideration to this board. We view the original budget presented by Dr. Patrick on February 5th as a forward-looking budget that seeks to advance the educational objectives of the district. Based on feedback from the board and community input, the budget presented by his team on March 4th pairs back the ambition of the central office team and is

072more, as we see it, a status quo measure with a few targeted attempts to push the educational mission forward. This budget was their attempt to balance the educational needs of the district from what they heard from the members of the board and the community as the potential fiscal difficulty of this budget above the misguided, regressive, political construct that people know as the tax cap law. The budget presented on March 11th further pairs this budget and the STA's view it is clear that this budget proposal although it allows to maintain the excellence the core excellence of our schools it will have direct negative impact on students. It's clear. As one clear example of many of this is slide 15 from budget session three. And all you see in that slide is list after list after list

073of cuts to the arts. Cut in this. Cut in that. That is cuts to the opportunities for our students. And they were all in the arts. And just for me as a former four-year drama club kid when I was in high school, that was painful to see. Our schools have always prided ourselves in bringing the broader world into our classrooms, and to see this cut in arts funding made me not recognize some of our shared values in this proposal, even though I absolutely understood fiscally the rationale for why these particular cuts. During budget session two, the Board of Education tasked Dr. Patrick and his team to look for those cuts and withdrawals, just to use that language. I appreciate that. And I think this was a prudent thing to do, to rightfully know the consequences

074for making those additional changes. The SCA would argue that those cuts and withdrawals go too far as they change the impact for the opportunities of the young people in Scarcell, as I've said before. Also during Budget Session 2, the Board tasked Dr. Patrick with showing what would be needed to get under the cap. Once again, this was a prudent decision of the Board to want to know the information to make good, transparent decisions. Hopefully, this Board agrees that the cuts listed as necessary to get under the cap in Slides 31 through 34 of Budget Session 3 presentation are not ones that best support the needs of students. In response to the presentation, It was suggested that the budget proposal in budget session three by some did not cut enough because it didn't, quote, cut into

075the muscle. I would disagree and say that the cuts and withdrawals presented in the March 11th board while supporting the key programs of the school absolutely do begin to affect children negatively. But more important, I question the basic presumption of the argument that cutting into the muscle is a worthy goal of this process. If we think physically, our muscles allow the human body to propel itself forward, to laugh, to dance, to run, to see, to live a life that is filled with joy, meaning, and learning. Why would we want to cut into that which allows us to achieve our potential? The heart is also a muscle, and the heart must be protected. Just as the SCA asked the Board of Education to protect the hearts of the programs that serve the interests of the children

076with excellence here in Scarsdale, and we have faith in this board to do that. Therefore, the STA supports the superintendent's original budget proposal on February 5th as reflecting the best values of the school. But we are not myopic, though, to the fiscal pressures that we ourselves face. So if such a budget is not practically possible, we would join with our partners in the Scarsdale PTC and the various PTAs in supporting the budget presented as a more modest step forward than originally presented, but one which seeks to avoid... impacts upon students and we support the requests of our PTA partners on restoring many of the specific elements that they see as vital to the mission of the Scarsdale schools. The SCA believes that supporting any other budget that is more restrictive than that is going to

077have significant negative consequences for students. I thank you for your time and more importantly for your service to this community. Know that the STA values your partnership with the board in meeting the needs of our students. Thank you. Is there anyone else in the audience before we move over to Zoom? Last call. Okay, Susie, do we have any participants on Zoom? I have a few attendees on Zoom. Now would be a good time to raise your hand if you would like to speak. While you may speak, please turn your camera on and announce yourself, please. Thank you. Hello, can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you. Hi, my name is John Rothenberg. I'm at 39 Meadow Road. And I was wondering if the budget, are you sure you want that? Required. What's that? That's

078required? Okay. I warned you. I was just hoping that the board could provide us, the parents and community members, taxpayers with a little more. transparency in terms of DEI spending. A budget obviously is inherently a system of trade-offs, and there are obviously cuts being made to academics and arts and athletics that people value. And in order to evaluate these tradeoffs, it would be good to have more transparency into what is being spent in some of these other areas that are either not broken out or just big line items without any detail. So especially in terms of the DEI initiatives that you're spending on for next year, if there's a way to provide, like I said, more detail and transparency, that would be very helpful for us. Thank you. Myra, you are promoted to panelist. Hi,

079good evening. Thank you very much for having this very useful and informative meeting. My name is Mayra Kirkendall Rodriguez and I live on Fox Meadow Road. So this budget season, I think, has truly been a missed opportunity. You know, after years of isolating COVID and an embarrassing IRS scandal finally behind us, this really could have been a process where a new strategic vision was presented, one which could have really united us in excitement about what our kids could expect educationally in Scarsdale. two or even 10 years from now, this could have been a process where we were told where the Starsdale School District stands in terms of cutting edge world languages, science and or math courses. And with historic levels of high inflation, globally rising probabilities of default in key economic sectors in the United

080States. and heightened geopolitical risk this certainly could have been the year to start implementing a long-term financial plan with a view of scenarios and stresses that could impact financially what we really collectively want to achieve for our students instead not only this evening but at other board meetings and when i speak to a diversity of friends and neighbors i have yet to hear anyone who feels that this is truly the best budget for our children And without a long-term financial plan, are we to expect that every budget will get bigger and bigger? The district and Board of Education trustees have mentioned that inflation is driving costs. And I think it would be useful for residents to know what percent of the rising costs are due to inflation and what percent is due to choices made

081by the Board of Education trustees in deciding compensation packages. And if inflation drives up costs... Shouldn't it also drive up the asset side, meaning the interest that the district is receiving from how it invests our taxes? Budgets are supposed to reflect a community and involve compromise. And I keep hearing about Scarsdale's values, and certainly I know that we're a community that values education, but we're such a diverse community. I'm not really sure who determines what the community's values are. We all want education. The question is what type and at what cost. For example, for those of us who want foreign languages, math and science for our students, where are those items in the budget? Or at least some. As I have said in many of my emails to you, I urge you to adopt half

082of a full-time employee, FTE. for multivariable calculus and financial literacy. It's always been incredibly ironic to me, somebody who has worked on Wall Street for a number of decades, that the very state where Wall Street resides does not require that its students take a standalone financial literacy course to graduate. Last November, the New York State Blue Ribbon Commission on Graduation Measures report stated, that diploma graduation requirements should include financial literacy education. This February, the New York State Comptroller, Dean Apoli, and Regent Commissioner Rosa wrote an excellent opinion piece strongly encouraging financial literacy both and Excuse me, encouraging financial literacy in high schools. And both in the New York State Assembly as well as in the Senate, there are bills that have passed would require financial literacy to be a graduation requirement. I've spent the last

083couple of weeks periodically going through the course catalogs of numerous schools in New York State. And thus far, I have seen that there are over 20 districts throughout the state that already offer a standalone financial literacy. course. Some have even been doing so for several years. And as you know, I sent you the spreadsheet last week. I commend Mr. Davies for his opinion piece in Maroon. I don't have kids in the high school, so I was pleased when someone posted his opinion piece on Scars Del Vaz. And I just wish there had been more explanation about the fruition of this course. As parents, we shouldn't have to go looking. for this kind of information so more explanation as to as to these two great teachers who took the time to design the course i certainly

084had no idea that 55 students had already signed up so it really is unfortunate that this was presented and then withdrawn without much of an explanation here in starsdale in your own presentation for later this evening you highlight that in the 937 parent responses that you received you saw that one of the key academic skills that parents would like is financial literacy. Why should administrative positions take precedence over staff requests that can be directly linked to our students' achievements? And once the students gain introductory knowledge in the financial literacy course, guess what? They could apply their learning and help the district create a five-year long-term financial plan. Happy to hear that apparently this has been requested even before my time as I learned now from I think the gentleman was called Mr. Osterman. I know

085that I have been on this crusade since 2017 both alone and as former co-chair of the forums education committee and subsequently as PTC budget co-chair for two years, we've been asking for a long-term financial plan precisely because that's where you can put the scenario analysis such as what could happen to the district if there were a cybersecurity attack? What could happen if the district had to close down more than several days because of flooding and other effects of climate change? that in a long-term financial plan is where you would put if indeed the one rating agency moody's were to downgrade uh scarsdale what could that mean that's exactly the point of a long-term financial plan is to do scenario analysis and to do stress tests i thank the scarsdale middle school ec and budget co-chairs

086for including in their statement that a long-term financial plan is necessary and for supporting financial literacy And I very much thank the PTC for respectfully requesting that the administration provide additional history, context, and rationale for curricular changes and enhancements in order for everybody to really understand the process. The PTC also highlighted the need to benchmark best-in-class curriculum practices with other comparable schools in order for us to understand the type of curricular offerings at cutting-edge New York. state public schools as well as to identify metrics by which the success of new programs will be evaluated i know that a number of us have asked before where are the metrics if those of us who have been actively engaged in scarsdale civic life do not know where the scarsdale school district stands in comparison to other districts

087do new scarsdale residents and parents know thank you very much for having this forum and i appreciate all your work on the budget thank you Good evening. Robert Berg, 19 Carriage House Lane in the Mimeric Strip. I've been a great proponent of the tax cap. I think it was one of the greatest achievements of Governor Cuomo in his... Rocky tenure because it's imposed discipline on school districts in New York State and particularly it's been effective in reigning in Scarsdale's historic tendency to have very large increases in the year-to-year school budgets and there's been quite a change in the since 2013 when the School board first proposed an over-the-cap budget and I led the charge in the community against that budget and in fact the community came out in droves to vote down the over-the-cap budget

088and it resulted in the change in the superintendent and a Newfound respect for the tax cap and so I'm disappointed here in this proposed budget, which is over the cap which I don't think there's been a substantial justification for that. I don't think this process has been transparent in that it's not a rigorous proposal that the administration has made. There's been really no justification for the various positions and the various expenditures that drive this budget over the cap. And when I look at other districts, other high-performing districts, in particular on Long Island, Newsday did an analysis yesterday which sets forth all the districts on the island and whether or not they're going to go over the cap. And every high-performing district, including the districts that rank higher, substantially higher than Scarsdale in various ratings and

089offer more rigorous academic programming. None of them are going over the cap. That includes Jericho, of course, which is typically the highest ranked district in the state, Herrick's, Manhasset, Roslyn, Syosset, Port Washington, Great Neck, Garden City, Comac, Cold Spring Harbor. They're all going to be within the tax cap. It's harder to find anything in Westchester because a lot of the districts haven't announced yet whether or not they're going to meet the cap. But I know Bronxville is proposing a budget under the cap. The Maranek's going under the cap. I couldn't find much on any other districts. But, you know, those districts are all super high-performing districts. There are comparable districts. And they're meeting the cap this year without. begrudgingly perhaps, but they're doing it and they're not cutting in to their programming. They're not firing

090teachers to get there. They're managing to do that. When I look at the... The way the budget was presented to the community here, Drew has proposed his aspirational budget initially in February, and that included nine additional full-time employees, which is really outrageous. The district has added 40 full-time employees over the past decade, while student enrollment has declined by 100 students. So you're adding a massive infrastructure here. which drives costs higher by a tremendous amount. The average teacher salary in Scarsdale is $167,000 a year. And you add to that the very generous benefits package that we provide, another probably $50,000 or more. That's real money we're talking about. I mean, we're talking about the Mega Millions lottery is huge. Well, our... compensation packages to our teachers and God bless them is very very substantial when you

091add 40 full-time employees over 10 years that drives our budget much higher and we give generous increases during the budget during the contract negotiations as well so when you're proposing five full-time employees and then you say oh we're gonna cut cut to get down lower, we recognize our initial aspirational budget's too high, you're still adding one and a half full-time employees in this budget that you're agreeing on now. So there's room to cut further to get within the tax cap. And I think you really should reevaluate that. You can find other things to cut. I would keep certainly the Varsity B is a good thing to keep in for the reasons people have stated. But there are other ways to cut and get us within the tax cap. And I think it's very dangerous to

092put before the public a budget that exceeds the tax cap. If you do that and it's defeated. You're going to be in a really tricky place. And it was very disruptive to the community in 2013. I don't think we want to go there. And I urge you, again, to think long and hard and try to get this down at the tax cap so that we don't have to get a supermajority to pass the budget. Thank you. Thank you. Can you hear me? Okay, thank you. Rachna Singh from Griffin Avenue. I spoke on the budget before, so I'll keep it short. I support adding on the financial literacy position at high school. This should be added on instead of the administrative position in special education. In a tougher budget environment like this, I think only instructional

093positions should be added. Non-instructional positions like administrator and special education can probably be found by creating efficiency in your organization. I also urge that the current special education team get better professional training in conducting IEP meetings and talking to parents. I support continuous of continuum of education at SMS and high school, and I hope you tackle that in your strategic planning. As far as the narrative that tax cap is politically constructed, it's baseless. We live in Westchester County, which is one of the highest property taxes in the country, has one of the highest property taxes in the country. There is limited salt deduction. Most people don't even qualify for the star exemption. Tax cap is democratic. It's progressive. It says you can go with the tax cap. You just have to earn your taxpayers vote

094by 60% voting. It can't get more progressive than that. Instead of complaining about the rules of the game, earn your votes and show your curriculum deserves support. And if you get the vote, you made your case. As an investor, I can tell you that money has opportunity cost. The taxpayer has to ask themselves, what does this get them? Are they seeing a balanced curriculum at all levels, which includes math and science at all levels? Thank you. Beth Sukier, 104 Catherine Road. I am going to read a prepared statement that the Scarsdale High School PTA sent to the Board of Education and Administration earlier today. The SHS PTA Executive Committee would like to thank the Board of Education, the administration, and community members for the many hours that we have collectively spent developing a budget for

095the 2024-25 school year. We acknowledge the added challenges this year from a tight budget landscape, shrinking state aid, and being still early in our strategic planning process as a district. We appreciate that this work was approached in a collegial fashion, keeping in mind our shared values of providing an exceptional education while remaining fiscally responsible. We encourage the district administration to publish elements of its strategic plan as they become available in the next few months and encourage the Board of Education to engage the community in their deliberative process of response. The SHS PTAEC believes that the March 11th budget, which has been endorsed by the members of the Board of Ed, generally represents a good balance between fiscal conservatism and maintaining the educational experience for all of our children. We would, however, recommend that the Board

096of Education consider restoring several elements that have dropped out of the budget that would have a material impact on the high school community. First, we'd suggest that the 1.0 FTE for a learning resource teacher be restored. When looking at the high school court for the 2024-25 year, there are projected to be only four open spots within the LRC program. If we don't authorize additional hiring now, then any students who are newly classified after the start of the school year are more likely to need to change their general schedule in order to access the mandated support. Current teachers may need to teach an overloaded schedule, thus reducing the time they have for team meetings, to collaborate with classroom teachers, and to liaise with parents. LRC provides a vital executive functioning support to many families, and this

097change will dilute its effectiveness for all, creating more of a study hall environment. In the past, deans have used LRC support to support students who struggled upon transition to a new grade, especially incoming ninth graders, before and without a formal classification hearing. With no excess capacity in the system, these students would be left to flounder. Additionally or alternatively, the school may try to fulfill this using contingency hiring. However, the candidate pool for mid-year hires is much smaller and it would be difficult to secure a quality teacher at that point. If historic rates of new student classifications continue and we have no reason to believe that they would be materially different in the future, then we can expect the LRC program to be oversubscribed for 2024-25. It would be prudent to budget for this now so

098that we can get the best candidate rather than just hoping that we can defer meeting the need for an additional year. Second, we would encourage the Board of Ed to reconsider the 0.5 FTE math position. This position would allow for the creation of a financial literacy elective that would be accessible to any 11th or 12th grade student. While it's difficult to consider the addition of new programming while also administering cuts to many areas of the budget, this is a program that warrants real consideration. Garsta lags behind many comparable skills in offering a financial literacy class. Financial literacy teaches both importing adulting skills of personal finance and also critical civic education so that students can engage in public finance debates such as the one we're having now. We've heard community support for this curricular offering here

099at the Board of Education meetings over Facebook and local media and from our students in the maroon and in bills considered in Albany. This HAP position would also be able to support a growing cohort of students who exhaust the math offerings at SHS during their junior year. The landscape of STEM education has changed over the past decade. BC Calculus is becoming the expected standard for incoming first years at elite science and engineering programs. In order to differentiate themselves, our students need to show a deeper engagement. More and more families are engaging outside mathematical enrichment for their students during elementary and middle years, preparing them to take Algebra I before eighth grade. Both the high school and middle school math departments have increased awareness of opportunities for students to test into the appropriate high school math

100classes. We would encourage the district to look critically at the math sequence from fifth grade through high school graduation to ensure that all students have an awareness of and reasonable access to the on-ramps to accelerated study, especially as curricular supports at the highest levels are expanded. In the past, students have completed AT calculus during their junior year. We need to turn to online courses or independent study to continue their education in mathematics. Additionally, the number of students who opt to take multiple math classes in their junior or senior years, studying AT linear algebra or AT statistics along with the traditional mathematics sequence in lieu of taking threes has increased dramatically. There's now a sufficient cohort of students at this level to make class offering the more efficient, effective, and equitable option. And finally, the SHS

101PTA EC would ask the Board of Ed to weigh the relative costs and benefits of reducing security coverage. While limiting the building access to a single point in the evenings and on weekends can be seen as merely an inconvenience, the impact would lead to having community members and visitors wandering through the building to each evening events. adult school classes and creating more congestion for parking and drop-offs and pickups from a single entrance. We question whether the bottom line savings would be worth the cost and inconvenience to the broader community. The SHS PTA EC thanks the Board of Education for its careful consideration. We understand that it is not possible to include every worthwhile proposal in the 2024-25 budget, and if any of these requests are deferred, we ask that they be considered for the following

102year. Thank you. Well, thank you everyone in the audience and on Zoom who shared your feedback tonight. Before moving into the board discussion, I'd just like to take a few moments to share back a bit of the themes that we heard from the feedback, including what we heard tonight. And I just want to thank all the organizations that sent us their letters in advance. It made reading through them beforehand very helpful. Since our last meeting, when the board proposed the, quote, March 11th budget, The board has received more than 60 written communications from students, parents, community members, and local organizations, such as our PTAs and PTC and League of Women Voters. This brings the total written communications regarding the budget to approximately 140 since we began the budget process. It should be noted that a

103number of these communications were from organizations, just the ones that spoke tonight. and represent many more than one person. Either they were letters signed by multiple people, or the organizations had reached out to their membership through meetings and surveys. In addition, we heard about from one of our student speakers tonight, we received a student-led petition in support of the financial literacy class, which at the time it was sent to the board had over 140 signatures, and now we heard it's up to over 180. approximately 50, at least 50 of which were from our students. We've also had many people speaking during our public comment throughout the process, including tonight, to everybody that spoke and every organization that spoke. And of course, board members are often out in the community and hear from people informally with

104their questions and their feedback. I'll just share a couple of the general themes. As I mentioned, we heard from a lot of people. So if you don't hear an item that you spoke about, please know that the board reads every email that we receive and considers everything that we hear. But I thought it would be helpful just to play back to the community because the community hears from everybody speaking tonight but may not hear about all the communications that were sent directly to the board. So some general categories of emails we received. ones that supported a version of the budget as is or with additional items added back into the March 11th proposal, some of who prefer adding everything back in to get to the March 4th version of the budget, those that are against

105a budget over the tax cap. We received emails with just questions either about specific items or just the general process but did not share a specific view about the budget. And from those that we have heard from, The most emails we received asked us to consider adding additional items back into the budget. I want to thank Susie, who has responded to most, if not all, of the emails, as well as Drew and team that have been responding to many board emails that either have specific questions for the administration or emails directly to our administration. Please note, if you have not received a response yet, just give us a couple more days. I'm trying to just make sure we... go through everything. We did receive a lot of communications, which is fantastic. So a couple, a

106few themes that we commonly heard from multiple people or organizations. Again, if you shared an item or a thought that I don't mention, it does not mean we did not receive it. It does not mean we did not consider it. It doesn't mean it won't be considered during the discussion tonight. I just thought it would be helpful. There were a few themes that really spanned from multiple people and organizations. The first is the support of adding back in financial literacy and multivariable calculus. As a reminder, these two courses are the same half of an FTE, so we received some that were just about financial literacy, some that were just about multivariable calculus, including from a number of students who wish to take the course, so thank you to our students for reaching out, and some

107that talked about both. We heard about safety, security, and emergency management, especially safety monitors in the morning at the elementary schools and door-to-jar sensors. We received a number of emails about Varsity B prior to our March 11th meeting and a few since our March 11th meeting. I just want to highlight that we did receive those, but also highlight that that is currently all Varsity and JVB sports are in the March 11th proposal. And, of course, again, we heard many other topics both tonight and through our written communications that the board received individually and can consider when we go into our board discussion. Prior to moving into our board discussion, I'm going to suggest we take a quick recess. I think this is a nice break before we get into what might be a deep discussion.

108So could we come back at 8.20? See everyone shortly. Okay, we are back from our brief recess and we'll move into the next item, our board discussion. I'll start by just putting a suggestion out to the board on how I think we could structure this discussion. As Drew mentioned, using our March 11th proposal, which is where we had board consensus at our last meeting as our starting point. I would suggest that I ask each board member if they'd like to go around and discuss any additions and or reductions to the March 11th version of the proposed budget. At this point, I would suggest that people just share the list of items themselves rather than going into any discussion or rationale so that we can go around the table and hear what everybody's interested in discussing.

109I would then suggest that we order the discussion based on how many board members are interested in adding or removing that particular item. So we can start with the higher priority items first. then we can go through each item individually and understanding that this is a collective budget so we can always come back and discuss something as we go but starting to go through each one item identified by a board member and whether there is board consensus to either add a removing item or keep the proposal for our April 8th vote at the March 11th proposal The goal for tonight is to come to consensus on a final budget that the board will vote on at the April 8th meeting, which will be the budget that is presented to the community in May for the

110public budget vote. If that sounds okay to everybody, I'm just going to quickly look around. Okay, everybody is good with the process? I'll open it up to my fellow board members if anyone would like to share if they have any items they would like to see added or removed or changed from the March 11th proposal. Anyone like to go first? I'll go first. Love it when somebody raises their hand. All right. So first of all, assuming that this is just a conversation about what we'd like to keep in or take out. Just the items. Just the items. We'll go around. I'm going to take notes from what everybody says. I will say my items are I am interested in. The FTE for financial literacy and multivariable calculus. Safety monitors in buildings at any time when

111school sponsored activities are taking place. Those are my two big ones. I am also interested in having a very brief discussion on the value that an administrative position in special ed might add to academic needs. Thank you so much Jessica. Who would like to share any items they might have? Bob. Okay I will like to chime in on the point five for the math for financial literacy and multivariable Oh, okay, sure, the .5 for math. I'd also like to add in the staff for the Learning Resource Center, the LRC in the high school. I would agree with Jessica about the, I guess it was coming down to maybe a half an hour or 45-minute security modification for the schools. I'd like to add that back in. I also would suggest that the special ed admin

112person shows our added commitment to that program, and I would like to see that in. Sorry, can I just clarify? The special ed administrator is in the current proposed model. Oh, it is? Yes. Okay, sorry. Sorry, then we don't need to add it in. Sorry. And I think the last thing is I would like to... If possible, add back or go through some of the arts that have been cut out. I think it came to like $68,000 if I added it up correctly. I'd like us to reconsider that as part of the core March 11th budget. So a modified March 11th. Thank you, Bob. Anybody like to volunteer to go next? Colleen, thanks. I only have. Two things. I would like to discuss adding back financial literacy and multi-variable calculus. And I would also like

113to discuss adding back in the safety monitor when there are school-sponsored activities going on. And just to clarify, because I've heard a few times, when I hear safety monitors for student activities, I'm hearing both the elementary morning as well as the high school second time when we are having afternoon and Saturday events. If anybody has a different view, please let me know. Actually, we can discuss that when we get to the discussion. I just wanted to put that out there. Jim, Amber, or Susie? Thanks Ron and before I before I share my list I'd like to just say thank you to my fellow board members because I know we've all spent a lot of time thinking about this so I appreciate everybody's thoughtful consideration I also would like to discuss the math FTE for financial

114literacy and multivariable calculus I would like to more broadly discuss SSEM not just the safety monitors I realize that's a little different from some of the others and I think I would also like to discuss the request from the middle school and high school PTAs the LRC ad in the high school and the other special education ad in the middle school thanks so much Susie thank you I have three items that I'd like to add back to the budget One is that half math financial literacy and multivariable calculus FTE. I'd also like to look to add back the safety monitors and the door jar sensors. Thanks so much, Susie. This is the benefit of sitting here. I get to go last and listen to all my board members. So thank you very much. I'd also

115like to discuss the HAPN FTE for financial literacy and multivariable calculus and discuss adding that back in. I would also like to discuss SSEM. The three items, the elementary morning safety monitors for early morning band practice and orchestra practice, the safety monitors at the high school in the afternoon and on Saturdays, the second one, so that people don't have to go through Y, and the door ajar and cameras. So if everybody can give me a second just to quickly go through. Okay, well, we're going to start with a half FTE of financial literacy and multivariable calculus. I'll open it up to the floor to anybody share. I heard consensus from six of us. We can certainly discuss, or if, Drew, you want to share anything about it. On this one, we heard, yeah. share why

116I'd like to add it back in because I have was I was thinking about this over the weekend and for those that were on the board a few years ago you might remember that we had a meeting with the high school students before one of our board meetings and I think it was the year Karen was president and we were talking about classes where it was it was a discussion about belonging and inclusivity and I remember there was a high school student who brought up how great the PE program was because it It brought kids together from different parts of the school, not just kids that they were typically in classes with. And it strikes me that financial literacy, this ad, accomplishes that same thing. I think Dean Gibbs talked about a heterogeneous group of

117kids, and I feel like this is a really, it's an important elective to add for our students. We talked, you know, the first slide talked about. our high quality teaching and learning. We have a strong commitment to our elementary class sizes. We should have just as strong of a commitment to our high school program. And this is an elective I think that we should be adding. I think we can add the multivariable calculus along with that. We can see if those programs grow. We can revisit again next year, but I am strongly in favor of adding this back into the budget. Thanks, Amber. Jessica? Well, I had written down that same note about a heterogeneous group of kids but additionally I wanted to point out that we can see if these programs grow but we

118have reason to believe they will. We've already had more than 50 students express interest or sign up actually commit to taking financial literacy if offered next year and We're already busing students from Scarsdale middle school to Scarsdale high school every day Because there are students who are out of sync with the math curriculum Students were already ahead and needing that higher level of math those students will be the students who are on track to take Multivariable calculus in a few years. We have a pipeline of those students and so I think the demonstrated need is there and I really I appreciate and applaud the effort of the administration and my fellow board members so far in looking at these programs and bringing them up first of all thinking critically about whether or not we need

119them and in committing as Andrew and Drew have to a long-term financial planning process for the district and a long-term strategic planning process for the district that will enable us to evaluate you know these programs and others and make sure that they're additive and in line with the values of the district but I think in the short term these programs are needed thanks Jessica anyone else want to share I don't have too much to say. Thank you for the story, Amber. I was not in that meeting. But I tend to agree with you. I wish Mr. Davies was still here because I felt his email was really informative for me. As not having a student in the high school, I did not realize that students had signed up for this class. And I feel like

120right at this point, I think there's 57 students who have enrolled or expressed interest in this course. And at this point, I feel like we owe it to these students. to support the plan they've created for their education for next year so i'm full support of adding back in financial literacy course thanks colleen anybody else I don't really have much to add. I think so many people have written in advocating for financial literacy and multivariable calculus, and I can't say it more eloquently than they did. I think hearing from the community on this was really gratifying to see people come out and advocate for their children and for themselves. We saw a lot of students. you know, write in and it's made a big impact and I think these are both important classes to add.

121Thanks, Susie. Anybody else? I'll just add, I agree with everything that's been said around the table. Jim, are you comfortable adding in half an FTE back for financial literacy and multivariable calculus? So are we going to discuss and then vote? on each thing and then discuss the next thing and vote on that? Is that how we're doing this? I'm just wondering what the process is because I wasn't sure. Sure. I would, well, I think a little bit, let's see how it goes because some of these might, there might be trade-offs, so we might go through and say we want to add them back in, but then we might want to talk about what that, why that number is looking like. I'm asking that because of that very thing. I mean, I'm just, I'm not, don't

122take my not. having a list of things to say as an indication that I'm not supporting something. But I want to hold back until it's time for us as a group to express support until I express my support. Unless I'm moved to say something. That's okay. That is okay. I'm just trying to think through practically as we go through. I think to be productive, we're going to need to know for each item. Is there a consensus? And I think if everybody was here with this, I think once we have that full list coming back, looking at it holistically, we might want to look at what that number turns out to be and how much. And before we move forward with the package of it, having a discussion about the totality. I'm a little worried if

123we don't go through each item, though, that it will be difficult to then get to that package at the end. I mean, I think you've got consensus now on the financial literacy. You clearly do. You got five out of seven, at least. Six out of seven. Six out of seven. Yeah. That's consistent. Okay. So let's move on to the next item. It is the safety and security monitors. This is the... elementary monitors for early morning. Right now, there is no discussion on the table to not start monitors at the five elementary schools when school starts. Currently, we have monitors that show up early for early morning music practice. We also, in the afternoon and on Saturdays, have two monitors at the high school. The proposal right now on the table is to go down to

124one. So the discussion is about adding in that early morning at the elementary and having two monitors at the high school on Saturdays and the afternoons. I will open it up. I'm going to put those together in the discussion if that's okay because that's what I heard from around the table. But obviously if you only are interested in one, you can say that. So let me open it up to the board. Yeah, Jessica, please. Sorry. I'm interested in both, but I only feel truly informed based on my personal experience. Well, I want to speak first to the elementary school issue. I think it's important to note that those early morning practices are part of our band curriculum and orchestra curricula. They're not standalone opt-in practices for students to attend. They're part of kids' academic programs.

125And I think as a result, if it is part of a student's academic program and we are requiring students to be in the building, it's also incumbent upon us to provide safety monitors during that time. I'm not someone who wants to be alarmist, but nor do I want to be on the other side where we haven't staffed the buildings in a way that we previously had reviewed and thought was the optimum way to staff them. I understand. how we could decide not to do this by saying it's a limited number of students they'll all be with one teacher but it really does give me pause to consider withdrawing that I had the opportunity to serve on the district safety committee as an observer I think two years ago and it was at a time when

126we were considering adding safety measures for the schools and it was very clear that in general the community was quite supportive if not insistent on improving safety at the school so I'm reluctant to pull back on those measures and I think the same concept applies to the high school as well if it's school sponsored or curricular activities I think we need to really be providing safety monitoring. Thank you. Thanks Jessica. Amber? Yeah, one thing that became clear to me over the weekend that I think maybe is worth pointing out here is that we originally thought that the elementary school monitors started at 7 a.m., but they actually start at 7.30 a.m. is what we've learned. So the time change now for some of these greeters is from 7.30 a.m. to 7.45 a.m., which to me

127is... It's obviously a much shorter amount of time, and I have to think, okay, perhaps we want to consider is that really worth it for that short period of time, the disruption that we're causing. That said, I don't know the dollar amount of saving 15 minutes on both ends of the monitors, but I would. Be in favor to Jessica's point of having monitors there when there are school activities and Correct me if I'm wrong Eric. I'm just looking at the slide for the elementary monitors It's twenty eight thousand dollars for the high school monitor for afternoons and Saturdays. It's in another additional 33,000 and just to clarify the Saturday changes. It's not an elimination. It's a reduction from two to one entrance Yeah, I think it's important to look at the afternoon and the Saturdays

128at the high school What we're proposing is post five o'clock So adjusting a rover's hours to cover Brewster Road entrance after school until 5, which is when most of the evening things will have already started. And then rather than going to 7.30 there, shut that down and have the regular hours, which is through 8.30, at the athletic entrance open, given that athletics typically runs those later programs and they are situated there. You're looking at a two and a half hour a day change if you move from 7.30 to 7, or from 7.45 back to 7.30 times 185 days at the hourly rate of guards, which is essentially taking up a fair bit of the savings that we would have seen if we do that. I think the idea of looking at the safety monitor scheduling.

129Was to try and make sure we had full coverage when the schools were open and operational The idea that the early morning band practices are not every day And there would be about a 15 minute difference between when the teacher Let those people in and when the safety monitor started So if someone was late, they would have to wait for the safety monitor. That is an inconvenience But it does equate to significant savings over the year I think for the safety monitors, the fact that I believe every elementary school PTA is advocating for that, I think, you know, says a lot to me that it's... broadly supported to put back in the budget. I agree with Jessica that given that early morning band and orchestra is curricular as opposed to extracurricular, that having monitor coverage

130there would be great. I don't really have a strong opinion on the high school, so I'd love to maybe discuss that a little bit. I kind of feel the same way Susie does. And I agree with Jessica's point about... the early morning band and orchestra being a required academic expectation. So for me, I'm more strongly in favor of making sure the elementary school security monitors are on campus when students have to be there. I don't feel as strongly about the second high school one, but would be open to talking about it if my fellow board members felt like it was something that they really wanted to add back in. Oh, yeah, please, Jess. No, I was just going to say I sort of agree with Colleen and Susie that, to me, the distinction between the

131high school and the elementary school decisions is also going from, like, 1 to 0 versus 2 to 1. I do see a value to having at least one safety monitor on campus when anything is going on. And I guess my question... would be whether removing the second one from the high school actually for certain hours actually provides merely an inconvenience or whether there's any material concern that we should be aware of. One thing I just from my perspective I wanted to add I agree with everything about the elementary the high school is a vastly bigger building with many more entrances. So I think at the elementary it's a lot easier and we've done a great job with our security vestibules. We have one entrance. That's what you go in. At the high school, for those

132that aren't in the high school, Eric is talking about the athletics and the main entrance. They are pretty far apart. The idea that we might have community members walking through our entire building because if you're at athletics and you need to get to the auditorium, You have to walk through a lot of the building, a lot of the classrooms. That is the part to me that I think, why I believe we should add it back. So I just wanted to put that out there. I just wanted to be clear. The thought... in this rescheduling was something like the drama play or something like that that was going on on this side of the building that was a major event, we would put a safety monitor open that entrance. We wouldn't be expecting people to come

133in through the athletic entrance and make their way across the building into the auditorium. So that's where the split, and I'm not advocating one way or just giving the thinking behind it, where the 5 o'clock close there which is significantly after the close of school and quite honestly when central office most of their meetings are done and and no one is coming in um so that was really the thinking there so i just want to be clear we would be putting on a safety monitor for major events you know ptc conferences things like that we would put those got it but so if barring a major event if a student or a community member parent needed to get to um somewhere that's not an athletic event, they would have to walk through the building. Yes.

134Eric could I ask a question about how that might actually work in a different way? So I noticed some of the changes proposed would have the monitors Leave the Brewster Road entrance at 3 and the athletic entrance at 3 does that mean that the the Rovers would go to those stations because I know kids get out of school at 3 and Someone might forget a book and or well a book but might forget something else I need to run back into school would would there still be some would we move a rover to those positions at that time or would you literally lock the the door so the doors the current closed time the current closed time of the Brewster Road I'm sorry, the post road entrance is 3.30. Oh, I'm sorry. I was looking

135at Brewster. At 3.30, the post road closes. What would happen is you're actually seeing two schedulings. We're looking at a spreadsheet together. But the rover would move down to this entrance, and that would stay open until 5. The one upstairs would be closed. We're not proposing a change. That closes already at 3.30. The way the traffic flows here, kids do come in after school if they've forgotten something, and they are able to make it to where they need to to get whatever it is, but they'd have to come in through Brewster or Athletics now. Kids who are – there are very few people coming back post-5 o'clock to pick up whatever it is they forgot. But if they did, they would go in through the Athletic entrance at that point because Brewster would be locked.

136Okay. And you are taking action on textbooks tonight, just to point out. They do have books. Do they bring them home? Do they go back to school for the books? That's a different story. One more question. For the high school, would having just the one monitor negatively impact people who have accessibility issues? I don't believe so, but we would take a look at that if there was an issue there. Obviously, if there was one monitor and someone needed handicap access to the building, they could open an entrance at that moment. particular person but we'll take a look at that so I'm I'm hearing consensus certainly on the elementary morning time I'm just a little unclear where everybody's at on the high school afternoon and Saturdays well I'll chime in I think I don't think I

137totally understood it until we talked about it so I do appreciate all that clarification My sense is the elementary schools makes 100% sense to me. I personally think that the high school we could reconsider and not include the high school. I think the number of instances we're talking about I'm sensing is very, very limited. would be inconveniencing people. I mean, I don't know, but I'm looking at Eric, and he's suggesting that this is not an onslaught of people that are, and they are students that typically would know their way around to get whatever they need to get. So I think it's, the number was, what, 30-something thousand, 33. So, I mean, I think I would, that would be my vote to pass on the high school portion. Yeah, and I support the elementary but not

138the high school monitors I can I can also get in line with that that makes sense if it's I Think you know, it sounds like we'll have two monitors till 5 p.m. And so it would be an after 5 p.m. Decision I think that makes sense to me. I agree. I think you know that we can Defer or remove that that cost for the high school. I will say I'm probably being super petty about money here, but I think we could still cut the 15 minutes at the end of the elementary school day. It doesn't seem to me like there's any reason to have a monitor there till 4. The advocacy was really about having monitors there when there were student programs like band and orchestra, so I would be fine with keeping the elementary

139monitors in the morning at the 7.30 start time, but moving them back to 3.45. Eric, can you just talk about why are they there until 4, verse 345? I mean, there's activity going on in the school through about that time. The door would still be open, given that kids in the elementary school are less independent in and around the school. We had the rover going until 4, but I don't think there's a huge impact with the 15-minute change. We're also making some changes around how we govern lunch for them and a few other things as cost-saving that don't impact their their time on on post but So four o'clock was kind of in line with when the doors closed that was really the thinking when that was first I think the schools have a lot

140of them have the PTA led after-school clubs, right? Yeah, so the the dismissal of after-school clubs can run Runs pretty much right up until that point. Okay, so if I'm hearing correctly if we cut back to 345 we would have we would not have a safety monitor during dismissal of after-school clubs We still have until 430 it's just not two people on got it got it so there will be a safety monitor the the dismissal of clubs is is dismissal by club chaperones and supervisors to parents. So it's not a, it doesn't look like buzzing people in and out of the doors. Okay. Can I hear from Colleen and Susie still on these two? On the elementary and high school and now the added part about the extra 15 minutes at the end of the

141day at the elementary. I'm following Amber with this I think that we need them in the morning at the elementary school I think one security guard past 3 45 at the elementary school seems sufficient and I don't feel like we need to have a second security guard after 5 p.m. at the high school at this point I agree with Amber and Colleen on that thank you both As a afternoon cost savings instead of a morning cost savings? It would be half of that would be the savings because we're adding 15 minutes. So if it was 28, it would be 14. Okay, so I just need to hear from Bob, Jessica, and Jim on this elementary afternoon going from two to one safety monitor. I'm okay with it. I'm okay with it. I'm okay with it,

142yeah. Okay, so I... That's fine. My preference was to keep them all, but I understand the perspective of my fellow board members, and I'm good with what we are going. So I just want to recap this. We would be reinstating the morning safety monitor at the elementary schools for the 15 minutes before schools open. reducing from this is now this is a new reduction reducing from two to one at the elementary schools in the from 345 to four and we would no change to the high school safety monitor proposal in the March 11 budget okay so I have a 14 thousand dollar cost 14,000 net additional cost to the March 11 budget Okay, we'll go to, while we're on safety and security, let's go to the door, ajar, and cameras. This was a $65,000 cost.

143Eric, correct me if I get anything that's wrong. Door, ajar is a one-time cost. So what we've done is we typically have a recurring equipment line that allows us to slowly increase our camera. numbers and look at new hardware for physical plant safety this year the priority was for door jar sensors. That is usually or has been historically around $150,000. About $50,000 of that is really used for upkeep and maintenance of the existing hardware. This year we look to use some of that for the bus, the transport radio system. That left us about $45,000 to $50,000 prior to the last reduction of that to look at small additions to cameras and starting to look at priority door jar sensors. The thought was never to... Put on door ajar centers on every door at one major

144sweep. It would need to be prioritized and each year putting on a certain number of them We have it's really exploratory as far as the cost in which products we want to go to we haven't gone down that road for that research yet, but currently in the in the current proposal of the budget We are at a maintenance on hardware So in other words, we would upkeep all of our cameras if things breaks we can replace them and keep them in good operating order But we would not be able really unless there was a low year in maintenance to expand the camera system Okay, thank you very much for that So it's it's this item is a sixty five thousand dollar line item and would essentially defer to the start of the door ajar sensor

145rollout and any additional expansion of cameras. Currently this is not in the March 11th budget, but we heard from some board members that were interested in discussing it. Eric, it's $65,000 total for the cameras and door ajar sensors. Is that right? Yes. It really is about prioritizing which that is a number, that is a placeholder number that is not for any particular amount it's about two thousand twenty five hundred dollars to wire and place in a new camera so that gives you some scale door jar centers are going to be similar although we still have to do a lot of research around costing those out and how to really work them into our hardware so it gives you some you know some idea of the scope the you know at this point that wouldn't be

146happening I just have one other question. I'm a little confused. So if we were to add this back into the budget, exactly what would it be used for? Do you have a plan of specific cameras or door drive sensors? We have collected from all of the building administration. the priority camera areas where they would wish to see additional cameras added. There are spots in each of those schools. We would kind of equally distribute those amongst the seven buildings given the budget. And then we did the same with doors that are most likely to be propped in any of our buildings as a start point to where we would start to look at door jar sensors for those. One more question. So based on that assessment, how many, I know not this year specifically, but how

147many cameras do you anticipate adding overall based on this assessment and the door or jar sensors? How many do we need? I think there's probably opportunity for, you know, somewhere between 75 and 100 cameras across the district if we really wanted to hit. all of the places that have, our buildings are not lovely rectangles. They have lots of corners. They have lots of blind spots. They have lots of interesting geometric patterns, which requires a fair amount of cameras to cover all of the places which we would ultimately like to see cameras. Like a 10-year list. Yeah. Without increasing the budget from what was maintained over time. Now, that, you know. A lot of that is a lot of the camera benefit, and I want to be clear, we have cameras in all of our priority

148entrances, exits, things like that. So from a first responder standpoint, there are a lot of the major areas covered. Our camera system really allows us to see when things have been damaged or things have happened on cameras and often have an investigative purpose to them that really help. us as school administrators and safety, security, emergency management identify either people who have done things, things that are going wrong when we're not in the buildings. You know, perfect example is some of the experiences we've had in buildings where there's graffiti or different types of things. We don't necessarily have the camera infrastructure to be able to narrow down who, where, and how. Or when. I'm open to what my other board members think on this topic. I think given that it's a deferral, part of me is

149thinking, well, it's going to come back next year. We might as well do it. I think safety is obviously a big concern for schools nowadays. Also, I was wondering... Would this count? Would we get some building aid or something out of this? Is there any aid consequence to installing these? So at this level, what Eric's describing is really just it's an ad hoc maintenance project. The scale of the number of cameras that we are tracking and the door or jar sensors that we are tracking in terms of overall need. Those could all be part of a much larger capital project in which we'd follow a much bigger process for. So, no, even just a transfer to capital project, you know, then you'd have architect fees, you'd have engineers. We're not talking about that level of

150work at this dollar amount. So I think, you know, what Eric's describing is it is a funding source for us to prioritize our most important cameras and door jar sensors. Based on how much is there we would just start going down that priority list I was just just a point you talked about deferral just as a reminder and then I know everyone knows this but as a reminder this is a budget reduction that would to Return to the sort of long-term plan would be a ad it would right be a budget ad next You know in the future budget cycle so it's a it's a little like a deferral has a longer arm than Just saying oh, we won't do it this year. We'll do it. We'll do it next year Because what we're reducing

151the budget down to with this cut is just the maintenance and upkeep of the existing infrastructure just to clarify that I'll add in a comment because I was one of the people that wanted to talk about this. I think We've done a really good job with our security vestibules over the years, especially the elementary schools. And part of the idea of that is that everybody comes through a secure entrance. And God forbid there's an emergency, that gives us our... faculty and staff a little bit more time to prepare. And to me, all that's for naught if there's a door that is propped open. And we know some doors sometimes get propped open. I understand this wouldn't fix everywhere. And to Eric's point, you know, our buildings are not just squares that are easy to see

152all the sight lines. I think this would allow us to prioritize doors that probably all our principals know which ones they are and start that process and to me this is just a continuation of all this other safety and security work that we've done so I would support putting this 65,000 back in I agree with your comments Ron I'm less I'm less moved by the camera additions because I do feel like It would be nice to have those, but when I think about the door jar sensors, I think there's a, you know, it's nice. The reasons you gave for wanting more cameras didn't strike me as, they're valuable, but when I think about the door jar sensors, I'm more concerned about not putting those forward. So given that it's sort of a lump budget, I

153think I would also support adding the $65,000 back in. Ron, would it be... at all logical to, rather than eliminating it, reduce it. To me, it feels different when you reduce it. It means you're starting, you're continuing some momentum. Yes, it may take another year or two to complete the task, but it's part of a mindset of action. So, you know, could it be reduced from 65 to 35 or whatever? In other words... we're keeping our hand in doing it, but not to the same extent. I mean, is that a silly way to think about it, Eric? I don't think it's a silly way to think about it. I think you're exactly right in what you're saying, that we can start at that price level. I think we were thinking roughly two-thirds of that would

154probably start to think about. Start to think about door jar sets up the 65,000 so we would do the research and we would we would prioritize the the most important Most important spots. I mean, so that's just a six Suggestion that it's I don't want to say split the difference but some number that kind of makes sense Sure. So I mean if we did two thirds, it's around $40,000. Yeah, I mean so it's you know other thoughts door jar sensors Either at the $65,000, $40,000 level, or no level. I'm fine adding it back in. Can I hear from, wait, you were supportive, right? Yes. Okay. I just need to hear from Jessica and Jim if you have any perspective. I don't have as strong a feeling about this as I did about the other SSEM

155measures that said, like, if everyone else is aligned to do it, that seems reasonable. I do see more of a reason for the DORA jar sensors than for the cameras based on what other people, you know, my thoughts are in line with what other people have said. And, you know, part of me does think that this kind of more plant-oriented investment could be something that we evaluate as we do that sort of long-term planning process. And again, we will look at the total package at the end. I'm just trying to get a sense of what to include in that. Yeah, I haven't heard anything that to me is compelling on the cameras, the door sensors. I'm not sure exactly what specifically we're referring to in terms of which doors, but I assume that the administration

156knows. But in terms of the cameras. There's so many hallways and whatnot in our buildings I would think you'd need a lot of cameras to cover all the spaces and I'm not hearing that we're trying to do that or that would even be Remotely feasible to do so I'm not quite sure what adding some cameras in some places Accomplishes I mean, it's always good to have more cameras, but it's just you know, I'm not hearing compelling rationale for You know, let's have 25 more cameras as opposed to 500 So I hear consensus to keep it in the discussion for the end, at least for the door jar censors. So let's go to the high school special ed FTE, which I believe is an LRC teacher. This amount is $120,000 that would be added to the

157March 11th proposal. I don't know if Amber or Bob wants to start. I have a question about that. So I think Beth had mentioned that there's only room for four students to move into LRC. Is that, I mean, could you give some background? It's hard to give an exact number right now because we always have, we have seniors leaving, we have initials and declassifications that will happen throughout the year from now. But I think it's reasonable to say you're going to have a single digit number. spaces in LRC as we start in September for next year and so then if more students get classified for LRC we're obligated to add right because that's I mean to add if we run out of sections we do have to provide LRC services to students no student is

158not going to get LRC services that might require starting a separate section with a teacher Taking on an extra prep it might might require over subscribing a section until the end of the year with a variance It is We are not starting over We won't be starting over where you know, there will be some empty seats, but But it will be closer than is usual Part of that will also depend on so it's hard to you can't have LRC in a vacuum Part of it is going to be how many skill sections are there and how many sections at the end of the day do we need to have? Co-taught how many sections of AIS are there going to be and those things are all a bit in flux until We get really to the

159end of the year where we see which eighth graders are going to require those services coming up Which ones will not and that's really? not going to happen until end of May, early June, where we have a really hard understanding of those numbers, and then people move in in the summer, and that can kind of mess things up as well. Right now, we believe we can cover it, and no kid will go without services. Okay. Thank you. So if I'm hearing you correctly, it sounds like It would be nice to have it queued up should we need it, but we don't necessarily at this point know we need it. Is that correct? And I think it's important. This would certain we are, if we weren't contemplating expansion of continuum, I'm not sure we would have

160come with a full FTE ask there. It really is a situation of setting the stage to have the capacity to expand continuum as we talk through what those needs are going to be and step this expansion of continuum out over a number of years. So that is the deferral. We're not going to have an effect on student or a major effect on student experience if we don't put this in for this year. It does. down the road create a situation where we will have needs. But that's helpful information to have. So I think I'm, at this point, I'm comfortable with not including that. Can I just ask sort of a more general question? Because the way you framed it makes me think there's so many different pieces to this puzzle and unknowns. So not only

161a lot of pieces, but unknowns. Does the budget at this point have that wiggle room to have a discretionary one FTE? Because if it's not for LRC, it could be I'm thinking for something else, you know, that more kids show up for kindergarten. I mean, are we cutting really right down to the bone? I guess I'm missing that. We have one contingency position FTE in the budget. That is the lowest since I've... That seems very, very low to me. Just, you know, again, in order to be, what's the word, fiscally, to make sure we can deliver what we need to deliver. You know, it's a big district. One FTE just feels, I mean, if you think of all the scenarios of what could happen, it just seems... low to me. So, you know, whether it's

162for LRC or something else, you know, maybe the question is should we have two so that we at least have, we're prepared. I mean, again, I don't know how these things work, but, you know, if we really need more than one, which I know we've found during the year that we've approved, you know, things like, you know, additional people. So, it must happen. I would just say anything is possible, like from the unexpected. We do have the recent, this year, demographer's report that I think gives us pretty good confidence on the elementary level, which is why we came forward on March 4th willing to say that a reduction from two to one in the contingency was palatable. The issue with that one is there could be many different asks for that one contingency position. I

163mean, it seems, you know, as we've discussed, you know, the commitment of the district to the special needs student that as more people get more educated, frankly, more comfortable with the notion of getting support that they should be having, that... It just feels logical to me that it's going to rise, not probably decrease the demand. So if you think one FTE is sufficient, that's fine. Just for whatever reason, it feels intuitively low to me. So Amber, you were one that wanted to bring it up, but you said you're comfortable without it. Bob, it sounds like you'd be comfortable if we added an extra FTE back. Yeah, I'd like to package it as more. somewhat more generic if it if we're sort of on the fence about the LRC, you know whether we should be lobbying

164for You know from going from one to two But again if you if you're comfortable without it and you feel we can work around it as we move through the year Then let's not do it. I guess well, what what I'll suggest is first I just want to ask if anybody else at the board, nobody else asked to discuss this item. So unless somebody wants to specifically add this back, let me know now. What I will suggest to your point, Bob, about thinking about this as a contingency is let's put a placeholder for a second because now we're going to go to the Middle School Special Education FTE. So at the end of this, I think after all these discussions, we can then discuss if there's a feeling of additional contingency, which could be anywhere.

165I think this was Amber that asked that. Actually, it isn't really an ad discussion that I wanted to have. I just wanted to share my viewpoint on this because I'd heard some criticism from the community about us adding a special education administrator versus potentially not adding special education teacher at the middle school. And my perspective on this is that Our numbers have grown. We've seen that from Eric. And the special education administrator can serve all of our special education students, those with IEPs and 504s. And it's not to say that we wouldn't want to consider perhaps having someone at the middle school for special education. But when I think about things that, you know, we're in a tough budget season, and when I think about things I'd like to... put back in they're things that

166I would like to have touch as many students as possible and to me that's an important ad to keep in there so that was actually the context that I wanted to bring it up in I appreciate that Jessica you would mention that wanting to talk about the special ed administrator do you want to add anything I apologize if what I had said was unclear what I wanted to discuss was sort of the administrator very similar to what Amber just said more she said it more articulately but the difference between the administrator and the academic position because that had come up in both emails we had received and in community comments tonight I agree with Amber about serving the greatest number of possible students in a tough budget year, but I also believe that to get

167students the services they need in the classroom, we have to identify who those students are, who need services, and to go through the channels, and that does require an administrator. So I understand the confusion or... perhaps a public perception that you know education is done by a teacher but even to identify the student and get them to that teacher you need to have adequate administrative staff in place to go through those processes so that was sort of my thought at this point it does make sense to keep you know the administrative position in and I guess I wanted to speak to that community perception disconnect thank you for that So unless I hear anything else about the special ed administrator or SMS, special education FTE, we would continue forward as the March 11th budget was

168proposed. It wasn't something I had thought about, but the idea of adding a contingency might merit exploring. It's a lot of money, but... I agree that one contingency is low, and if we go over, then we're just going to be eating into our reserves that much more. Okay, so thank you for that. Let's circle back on the contingency in one sec. Let's just finish. The last item on the list we had was arts that Bob had wanted to bring up, and then we'll go back, I think. I'll give an overview of where we're at, and then we can talk about the contingency. Yeah, so I don't want to distract us with getting into too much detail, but I think one of the things that triggered... the comment from me was the expenditure reduction detail, which

169I personally found really helpful because I kind of now knew really what you were suggesting. And maybe you can explain it to me, but it looks like for Alvin Ailey and the dance, which obviously is not necessarily a core ad, but For the elementary school and for the middle school, it's been eliminated 100%, and in the high school it's been eliminated 50%. And it seems to me that, again, I'm more a fan of reducing the number of touch points or opportunities than eliminating them. I don't know, maybe it is only once, so maybe I'm misunderstanding it, but it seems to go for the elementary schools down to eliminate the dance performances as opposed to reducing it, I think is, yes, it's a luxury, but it feels disappointing as someone who really knows that it can

170really change someone's... vision of what's out in the world and what are opportunities for themselves in terms of forms of expression. So I really am a big fan of providing these events if possible. So just to, I do want to be clear that there are still events that would be happening through the schools and the programs. Okay. These were district coordinated ones, so there were special enrichment events. The reason we made the determination to keep the small amount in the high school. Over the last few years, we've built up a relationship with Alvin Ailey, and it's a way of keeping the most established part of it connected to the high school. So that was the rationale behind that. Sorry, that's helpful because, you know, again, if you're just eliminating one small piece of a bigger,

171you know, menu of opportunities, of course that's fine. I just... Again, I didn't know how rich it was, and I just want to make sure that the kids have an opportunity to see these things, because I think it does make a difference. So I'm comfortable with that. You've looked at the detail, obviously, more than I have, and if you feel it's okay, then it's okay. It's a small amount. We're talking about $22,000 and $25,000. You know, it adds up, of course, but, you know, when you translate, this is how my brain is working. If you translate $25,000 in terms of how that affects the budget in terms of what I'm going to pay as a resident of Scarsdale, you know, it's probably $0.25. So, you know, to be frank, I... I would lobby to include

172some of these things as a resident who would be prepared to pay for it, but I'm not minimizing that people are watching their taxes, so it's their point. Are there any other comments about the arts or Allen Alley? I just want to comment to Bob. You know, Bob, I agree with you. It is disappointing. But I think the word that you used earlier that kind of resonated with me was it is a bit of a luxury that we have. And I think in a year like this, we need to be very thoughtful when we're thinking about, you know, the 15 minutes on a safety monitor. I think we, you know, this may be the right choice not to include it. Any other comments on the arts? Okay, let me just quickly take stock of sort

173of where we're at, and then we'll talk about this FTE contingency. So at the moment, I believe we have consensus on the half an FTE in math or financial literacy, multivariable calculus, that's $55,000. The elementary AM safety monitors, which is $28,000 offset. by the removal of one of two in the afternoon for those last 15 minutes, which is a $14,000 savings. Just checking. Is that right? I think it's a $14,000 add back. Yeah. $14,000 savings. Because it's half of 28. Then I heard a... Support for the door jar sensors over the cameras. Taking Eric's number, which was about, it's about two-thirds, just to ballpark it, just to put a number out there. We can adjust this. That would be putting back $43,000 of the $65,000 amount. And that would be right now adding back in

174$112,000 to the March 11th budget. So just before, no, let me pause it. Now we've had a thought floated from Bob and Susie about rather than looking at one of these individual items, would it make sense to add in an additional FTE contingency? Drew, how much do we usually budget for that? It's been typically two. Sorry, how much did it? $110,000. So that would be adding $110,000 in addition to this $112,000. I open it up to the board to discuss. Yeah, I got to say, I didn't hear a compelling reason for that other than, well, it seems like it might be prudent to do it. I did hear Drew say that there are reasons they didn't do it this year, or at least there are reasons they were comfortable. Not doing it this year as

175opposed to other years given class sizes that are anticipated in the elementary schools And that's usually in my experience this contingency position is driven by Concerns over maintaining class sizes in the elementary schools. That's historically been the context of the discussion What that I've observed over the years so if that's not the driver of this particular discussion instead the driver of this discussion is Well, maybe it's just better to have another contingency position I would say that's probably not in this environment a compelling reason to do it, but that's that's my view Please Yeah, I have mixed feelings and I'm just you know thinking about this now so forgive me that I'm kind of you know talking through this it wasn't something I thought about before but um, yeah, I I think it's okay not

176to Add a contingency if if the administration feels like we probably won't need it I just you know, I'm really afraid of digging more into our reserves But um, is it okay to go back to something that we talked about before? Yeah, yeah Just It seems that some of our elementary school, after school activities go a bit later. So I don't know. I would be in favor of adding back that little bit of, well, $12,000 or whatever. Just to be clear, there is some one there. It's going from two to one. So we had this year there is someone, there is one person that leaves at 4.30 and one person that leaves at 4. Next year would be 4.30 and 3.45. Okay, and that's for every elementary school, even the big ones, like Quaker Ridge

177and Fox Meadow? Remember, there's only one entrance and exit point. I think for after-school clubs, they might be doing multiple exits. Is that right? Yeah, sometimes they may be doing multiple exits. There's always a staff member that would be, or not a staff member, but a staff member of the after-school club that would be dismissing to the appropriate people. Okay, great. Thank you. I mean, I'll just add it. I think you make a good point. We heard from our elementary PTAs the importance of the safety monitors. Obviously, they didn't know we would discuss potentially shifting the afternoon. But the general theme I heard was when students are in the building wanting that safety monitor, right now we're only at adding in $112,000. I'd be comfortable and supportive of not shifting the afternoon. safety monitor and

178so not having that $14,000 savings so it would be $126,000 increase to the March 11th budget let's put that out there for discussion I'm still comfortable going back to the – because there is still one safety monitor that's there until 4.30 and another one that's there until 3.45. And, again, I'm going to go with it. It is pennies, but, you know, we're out of millions. But I think it shows that we're being fiscally responsible with our taxpayer dollars when we look at exactly how time is scheduled. And as Eric's pointed out, there is one entrance and exit. It's you know, I don't know Quaker Ridge's after-school club dismissal program But I think if if we have that one entrance and exit covered then you know, that's that's what we can agree to Does anybody want

179to change others as if anyone's to change their perspective from before which so I don't hear from anybody we will we will Maintain this shift in the afternoon to save the 14,000 Okay, so does anybody else want to make any comment about the contingency position? As a reminder to the community, we often use contingent. Actually, Drew, could you explain the contingency, just why, so everyone can understand why we're talking about this? Yeah, right now we are six months away from the start of the school year, and the budget gets done as a plan for what's going to happen, but the plan can change depending on. lot of different variables so contingency staffing is to accommodate the potential for new enrollments in the summer that cause enrollment changes to the actual course schedule so that could

180be class size class sections at the elementary level last year it was special education positions based on the mandates within the continuum of services and Latin at the high school due to enrollment, you know, things like that. Thank you. Does anybody want to discuss or is in favor of adding an additional contingency, which is another $110,000? I just have one. In terms of the .5 math for financial literacy and multivariable calculus, I guess right now we heard there were maybe 55 students. If word gets out that we've approved this, is it possible that that could be 100 students, in which case 0.5 might not be sufficient, which is sort of what I'm thinking about in terms of just the notion of a contingency, that it's just like Latin. If suddenly there's a, here's a new

181course, people say, wow, it's fantastic, don't graduate without taking this class. Do we need... That's a good question. I'll start maybe and Megan jump in if I botch this. Well, so course requests are closed right now for next year. That process, it's moved from students entering their request to now beginning to have conversations about sectioning and what do those requests mean in terms of how many sections of this course, that course, and whatever we need to begin to build schedules. However, students have up until into the start of the school year to make changes to make request changes those changes sometimes come after summer or you know during summer or after the school year starts and that that could drive up increase but at that point in time it would be very rare that we

182would add staffing in the high school to the schedule after the school year that's not a practical okay And that number is over two semesters. So one semester it's 33 students and the other semester. So that they really per semester could accommodate upwards of close to 30 in a semester. So it would be 120 students over the course of the year, give or take. Okay. I mean, it's just interesting without even having the course. Someone said well, it's not on the you know, they haven't approved it. Well, we're gonna sign up for it Anyway, we should to me sort of indicates real high interest. I mean Yeah, so can we say a couple couple of things about that? So I think it was five years ago. We added a math teacher to the math department

183So when it we came the we came to this table and in our staffing presentation asked for that and then in the five years A number of new courses were added. We shared in the backup material that in that five-year time period, we've added digital logic as an elective, electrical engineering as an elective, computer science 922, and AT linear algebra. So those were added and students enrolled, and that has expanded. the number of students taking two or more math classes, for example, because of their interest. And that interest has now been pushed to the edge, and that's why the high school came and said they really wanted a full FTE, to your point, but looking at simply the numbers of how they would run financial literacy and multivariable calculus, the pure add there is 0.5.

184So there would be no way to add an elective that doesn't exist without putting it in the course catalog. Otherwise, we'd be asking you now to add a position not in the coming budget, but a year from now. And it's not the same board. You can't do that. So the only choice the high school has is to put it in prospectively to say. We hope for the best that this is going to run, see what the interest is. It was consistent with what they thought it would be, two sections each semester and one grouping of multivariable calculus. It met their predicted demand. But there's no other way to do it without you can't rerun course selection after the budget is passed. Does that make sense? So it doesn't line up timing-wise. You're right that that

185feels weird, but there's really no other way to do it. And I would just add one, sort of the second phase of that, which would be because we heard some really great comments from the community about shouldn't every kid be taking financial literacy? And I think, sort of to Bob, your point of what if more want it, you know, this is just a budget for next year. You can envision if there truly was demand and this became something that everybody wanted to take, Then there's a future discussion of, well, is that a change in the course catalog and what people are doing? Is that an additional FTE? But that would happen at this board table. I think as a step one, this makes a lot of sense, this path, to me at least. Okay, so

186I'm not hearing a desire to add in an additional contingency. So I'm going to recap for the board because we would be coming to consensus on the following. Half an FTE in high school math for financial literacy and multivariable calculus. Putting back the early morning security guards at the elementary school. Sorry, the first one was $55,000. This is $28,000 offset by a shift in the afternoon from two to one security guards at the elementary school for 15 minutes. That's a savings of $14,000. $43,000 for the door ajar sensors out of the original $65,000 for a total adjustment of $112,000 to the March 11th budget. Do we have consensus on that? Because that is what, to be very clear to the board and the community, that is what Andrew will then go update the budget book

187and the budget and bring to us on April 8th for us to vote on. Yeah, I support that. Okay. Could I just get an affirmative from everybody, please, or any commentary? I agree. I do as well. I agree. I agree. I agree. Okay. I also agree. Thank you very much to... the board for this discussion drew in the administration for all the work that has gone into the entire budget and andrew and lisa and all of our administrators our building leaders our faculty and staff there's a lot of work that has gone into the original proposed budget from the administration to many iterations to doing this in a very transparent way with the community which all is on top of their day job So thank you for helping us to get to this point and

188for my fellow board members what I think was a very in-depth discussion, not just tonight. If you're just tuning in for the first time tonight and you're looking for some other riveting watching, I highly suggest you watch our other budget study sessions where we go into a lot of depth that got us here. So in case you're wondering why are we talking about these items and not others in depth, well... For this board, we've been doing this since January. So we've had a lot of discussions at this board table. They are all available online with all of the backup material. I have one other minor item for the board before we go into our business meeting, and that is for Insight, our Insight publication, the budget. We do a budget version of the insight publication

189due to timing of when we vote when that is needed to get published We really need to come if the full board wants to sign it come to the board on the April 8th with a draft of that So as we've done in the past Susie and I and anybody else what would like to help is welcome to help draft if the board's comfortable We would bring a draft on the 8th for the full board to discuss and approve so that the full board could sign it. Is everybody comfortable with that process? Yes, thank you for preparing that. I think it would be especially important for the full board to sign it given that we are going over the tax cap. So yeah, I would appreciate that. I appreciate that. So we will – that

190will – I know it seems weird. Why are we doing that discussion the same night that we vote on it? But it's just a timing. There's a lot of timing things that happen in the school year. A lot of stuff is out of our control, and we just have to work around it. Okay. Last item, 2.05, wrap-up. Drew, do you have everything you need and Andrew from that discussion? I think we do. Thank you. Okay, everybody good to just go right into our business meeting? Do people need a break? Good? Okay. Okay, well, we are now moving into our business meeting. And the only comments I have would just be that if you're tuning in now, we just finished our budget forum where we heard from many community members and community organizations. The board discussed

191some updates to the March 11th budget proposal based on that feedback. That new budget is what will be presented on April 8th. It was the March 11th. version of the budget with 112 000 of additional items added back in and i gave an update on the process during the budget forum so that's all i have today okay My turn. Good evening and welcome to anyone joining us in person and online. I want to again thank our community for their input on the budget process and you all, the Board of Education, for such thoughtful and purposeful discussion and deliberation. Given the fact we've been at this for a while this evening, I'm going to postpone my around the district to next time. But I do want to say we have two really remarkable appointments tonight. Our

192two new principals, one for Edgewood Elementary School. And Annette will not be here tonight because they are on spring break, but she will join us on April 8th. And to Chris Coghlan, who's in the audience back there. Currently interim principal, but that will change very very shortly With the removal of the interim something I'm familiar with and it feels good Chris. I'm sorry Amy and your daughter needed to leave but really, really wonderful, good outcome for this district and for Scarsdale Middle School in particular. And I'm really happy and I'm really grateful to Megan for leading such successful processes. So I wanted to share that before we get to those items. And I do, we did get feedback and appreciate that tonight is the start of the Hindu Festival of Holi. uh... and starts the

193beginning of spring in the hindu calendar and we will do our best not to conflict You know, such an important meeting with a holiday that's on our, you know, sort of list of holidays that we note and take care to recognize in our community. So we appreciate that feedback and a reminder that schools will be closed Friday and Monday for celebration of the Easter holiday. Thanks Drew. We have a number of board reports on the agenda. Please feel free to continue with any you would like that are timely, but if you would like to wait till our next meeting, that is okay too. Open it up to board reports. Yeah, mine's pretty quick. So on March 19th board vice president Susie Hahn and I had the privilege of attending an iftar at Scarsdale High School

194in the Learning Commons organized by the Scarsdale Muslim Youth Club the opportunity to break fast during the month of Ramadan was open to all members of the community over 120 people attended from young children to grandparents It was wonderful to be part of this celebration and a testament to the work of belonging that is ongoing in our district in support of board policy 0105. Thank you Amber, and thank you to you and Susie for attending, and for the students for organizing. Any other board reports for tonight? Yeah, please. I'll go. On Thursday, March 21st, Ron and I attended the Global Entrepreneurship Challenge Summit. This event featured four schools from around the globe pitching products and services that aim to solve problems that address the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Two teams from each school, China, Italy,

195and Florida, presented on Zoom with our students and students from a school in Germany presenting in person. Students identified problems such as poor air quality, vaping addiction, educational access for students with disabilities, clothing for veterans, and sports access for students with disabilities. Each group of students tackled these in a unique and different way. It was fascinating to see the students not only present their products, but engage in thoughtful discussion with each other. I would like to thank Brian McDonald, Tabitha Sasso, and Heather Waters for all their hard work in putting this together. I would also like to take a moment to thank all the teachers throughout the world that continue to support programs like this. Student-driven courses such as these are a lot of work because they can't always plan ahead, and many times you

196are learning and developing alongside your students. This is such an innovative way to teach. These types of courses are so important for the students' development towards becoming positive global citizens in our ever-changing world. Thank you so much for inviting us to attend such a wonderful event. Thanks, Colleen. Susie? I had a few tonight, but maybe I'll defer to them for next time. One of them is a PT Council announcement because these dates are before our next meeting. PT Council Speaker Program and Interactive Workshop will be held on Thursday, April 4th at 7 p.m. at Scarsdale High School. It's called Appropriate Discomfort, How Scarsdale Students Learn to Engage in Civil Discourse. In Scarsdale, we prioritize cultivating intellectually rigorous learning environments in which students actively engage multiple perspectives and have access to divergent thinking and ideas. This

197can be, by design, uncomfortable, especially as arguments can disrupt strongly held beliefs. join Meredith Dutra, media literacy specialist, and Dr. McIntosh, Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum, for an interactive workshop in which they'll demonstrate the strategies, methods, and tools that Scarsdale teachers use to have students civilly engage in complex, informed, and sometimes difficult conversations. We are excited to discuss how these tools can be applied to classrooms, boardrooms, and family discussions. There will be a brief high school PTA and PTC business meeting preceding the speaker program. Thank you, Susie. Any other board reports? Bob. Yeah, real quick one. On Wednesday, March 20th, I attended the SAE board meeting that, for all those who aren't familiar with it, stands for Scarsdale Action for Youth, formerly the Drug and Alcohol Task Force. We meet at the public library. I want

198to give a shout out to Lisa Tominy who is the chairperson. She really puts in a lot of work and people should. be aware of that we reviewed our financial status for the first part of the meeting and for those that don't follow these things Scarzell has received a very nice grant of 125 thousand dollars a year that has is available for speakers and for programs of which many we were we reviewed the list of the middle school and High school speaker Stephen Held was one of them who came who I happen to have seen a few years ago. He was great if you haven't seen him. And we concluded with a working session coming up with our activities for next year and I think people should keep an eye out for some of the

199speakers that are coming because they're really quite interesting and really important in this day and age where kids are exposed to so many things. their daily lives thanks Bob we'll move to item for the personnel report Megan thank you for giving me a moment to congratulate and welcome our future principals at Scarsdale middle school and Edgewood elementary school and I'll start with a familiar face mr. Chris Coughlin who earlier this evening joked about the endurance needed to go through the hiring process and this is just an extension of your endurance Mr. Coughlin is currently serving as interim Scarsdale Middle School principal prior to this role he was the assistant principal at SMS for four years and before joining us at SMS he spent many years in the Bedford School District as teacher Dean coach and

200athletic director Chris holds an MS in Criminal Justice from Suffolk University, an MS in Education Leadership and Administration and Policy from Fordham University, and a BA in Political Science from Hartwick. Because he loves education so much, he's currently pursuing his doctorate from the University of Virginia. And when you speak with Chris, it is really clear both before and during and after the interview process, I've come to realize he has a real love for Scarsdale Middle School and a commitment to the people who walk through its doors. During his time at Scarsdale Middle School, he's built strong relationships with all stakeholders, and it is these relationships that will enable him to continue the work that is taking place without missing a beat. his knowledge of the scarsdale school community puts him in a position to grow

201the programs at sms which include student learning i'm thrilled to welcome chris to this new role and officially pass the baton to him so congratulations chris thank you megan uh very briefly i'd just like to say thank you to the board of education and to drew and the rest central office um quick reflection about the process essentially i got to reflect on how amazing our students are, how incredibly supportive our families are, and how absolutely world-class our staff is. So it was a joy and a pleasure, and I'm honored, and I thank you all. i'm also equally excited to welcome the next principal of the edgewood school dr annette keene unfortunately for us but fortunately for dr keene she's on a family trip during her district spring break as drew mentioned and we'll welcome her

202in person on april 8th at our next board meeting dr keene is currently the principal of the anne hutchinson elementary school in eastchester new york she's been an elementary principal for 12 years with the last eight in eastchester She holds a PhD in teaching and learning from NYU, an MA in early childhood education from City College of New York, and a BA in history from Boston College. With every step in the interview process, Dr. Keene demonstrated all of the characteristics in the leadership profile. She's a strong instructional leader, skilled communicator, and a community builder. In speaking with some of her references, she was described as someone who cares about all members of her community and an advocate for students. one person simply stated that she is a treasure i feel fortunate that she has chosen

203to become part of our community and look forward to welcoming her in person on april 8th and if you're watching probably not at this late hour from someplace warm congratulations annette thank you megan um now we will do the appointments now at this part of the meeting item 4.01 appointment of principal scarsdale middle school susie It is my great pleasure to move to resolve that the board approve the recommendation of the superintendent to appoint Chris Coughlin to the position of principal of Scarsdale Middle School effective July 1st, 2024 for a three-year probationary period ending June 30th, 2027. Congratulations. Thank you, Susie. Is there a second? Amber? Any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Motion carries. Congratulations, Chris. Our students and our family are fortunate to have you lead the middle school, so thank you so

204much. We will now move to item 4.02, the appointment of the Edgewood Elementary School Principal, Jim. Be it resolved that the board approve the recommendation of the superintendent to appoint Dr. Annette Keene to the position of principal, Edgewood Elementary School Principal, effective July 1, 2024, for a three-year probationary period ending June 30, 2027. Thank you Jim is there a second Colleen any discussion all those in favor aye Motion carries congratulations to Annette and we look forward to having you at a future board meeting in April I believe I hope she's watching We'll move to item 5 cabinet update Okay, Andrew, take it away. So I just have three updates and I will condense them as much as I can here. So last week, several of the board members, including Ron, Susie, and Colleen, Drew Patrick,

205and Lisa Zaretsky and I met with three audit firms who responded to our RFP process for external auditor which is the third auditor that we've done our fees for this year so we're done and we've made the recommendation that PKF O'Connor Davies be appointed as the district's external auditor and that is in the consent agenda this evening The second item that I wanted to share is this Thursday, the facilities department, myself, and the village recreation department will be meeting with CHA engineers to get an update on their progress with the field study. So I expect in April we'll have an update on some of that work. So we're looking forward to that. And then the last item, on Friday I shared a memo with the board through Drew's weekly update about some changes to the

206budget proposals. Two of them are... just changes of budget codes to make sure that we're very transparent about the changes we're making midstream. So those are first to allocate elementary supply material cost equitably across the elementary schools. We want to make sure we did that after some budget reductions that were made that may have altered the building balance. Another one was it came late on Friday for an adjustment between BOCES and contractual costs related to technology spending for our mass communication device. communication tools for next year. And the third one was a more material conversation that I just wanted to make sure we had at the board table, which is our facilities and maintenance budget, which really started in the late October, early November time frame, had a request for two maintenance vehicles at a

207total cost of $130,000. Since November, we've seen that we've had some trouble with some of our grounds equipment, including our big 15-foot wide mowers that mow our large playing fields. One of them was purchased in 1988 and the other in 2006, and the parts for these machines are starting to get very... difficult to find. In addition, we've got some more equipment that is in poor shape. So the proposal would be to transfer about $53,000 in our proposed budget from the equipment line into a lease line that would allow us to purchase more of that equipment that we need in the near term and lock into that pricing for the next five years. We would finance it as part of our larger technology computer purchase. But I wanted to be very transparent that it is a

208lease over a five-year period rather than an equipment purchase for that basically doing without one of the two vehicles we originally had in the equipment line. We would keep the equipment line at that reduced amount for budgeting purposes to make sure we can maintain that in future years if we need to. So, again, I just wanted to have that discussion at the table to be transparent about what we're presenting on April 8th. Let's see if there are any questions from board members. The only thing I just want to confirm for the communities that those changes, and thank you for stating them to everybody, there's no impact to the bottom line budget number. That is correct. No change to the overall budget, no change to the tax levy based on those changes that I highlighted. Okay,

209so there just might be some tweaks within the budget book people might see. Yes. Okay. Thank you for those updates and for working within the constraints to try to address our needs. Other questions? Okay. Are there any other cabinet updates? Anything else you want to cover? Good. Field study? You got it. That's it. Okay. Okay. We will move to item six, hearing from those present. I will read the public comment preamble. 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 set 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

210will 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.scarsdaleschools.org. The public comment period is reserved for comments only. The board will not engage in dialogue. The board reserves the right to respond to comments and questions at its discretion, either during response to public comment or at a later time and place. Response to public comment will take place after the first and second public comment periods. With that, is there anybody in the audience that would like to make a public comment? Oh, yes. Excellent. Erica German, 24 Harvest Drive, Quaker Ridge PTA president. So I was not intending to stay so late, but I

211thought after hearing the discussion that I owed it to Quaker Ridge families and probably some other elementary school families as well, but I can't speak to their protocol like I can to Quaker Ridge. So I understand you thought you were done with the discussion and had come to a consensus about the security issue and cutting some costs by ending the afternoon or ending one of the security... guards a little bit earlier but i want to sort of outline for you what quaker ridge asc dismissal process actually looks like so we've got two parking lots one in the rear one in the front and we have parents who park in each depending upon your assigned club you get assigned a door and there's probably This part I'm not exactly sure. I'd like to say five or

212six different doors around the whole perimeter of the building from which we dismiss. So the security monitors are there. The teachers who run the clubs also bring kids out, but it's like a well-oiled machine. We have about 100 kids, 100 kids on any given afternoon. That's five days a week. There's a lot going on. There are a lot of students who come from our ICT classes where they have additional support and aids, but there's a lot happening. And I worry about a vulnerable time, a drop off with two different sides of the building and parents coming and going from different lots, cutting back on security to save 14,000. I wonder if we can find another 14,000 somewhere that feels unsafe. So I would urge, I know that this, I don't know what the protocol is

213since you thought you'd reached consensus, but whatever opportunity you have to sort of reconsider what I think is a short-sighted safety decision, that would be great. Thank you. Are there any other comments in person? Okay, we will go to Zoom. There are no attendees on Zoom. Okay, well, there is a second public comment period if anybody wishes to drive over here or log into Zoom. We'll move to item seven, the follow-up to public comment. I don't know if, Eric, you want to say anything about that? I think they are a well-oiled machine. I think there is, you know. I think there is ample safety. That's why we made the recommendation. That's where we are. Thank you. We will move to item eight, the consent agenda. The full preamble is available on the meeting agenda. Just

214briefly, a consent agenda condenses some of the routine business of 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 seeing none we will move to the consent agenda colleen thank you there are 10 items on the consent agenda 9.01 minutes budget study session number two business meeting march 4th 2024. 9.02 minutes budget study session number three march 11 2024. 9.03 personnel certified 9.04 personnel non-certified 9.05 stipulation of settlement 9.06 appointment of external auditor 9.07 cooperative bid for coach bus services 9.08 Putnam Northwest Chester BOCES cooperative bid 9.09 resolution and public notice for public hearing on the

21524-25 budget on May 13th 2024 an annual district meeting and election vote on May 21st 2024 9.10 accept the consent agenda I move we accept the consent agenda as presented Thank You Colleen is there a second Jessica all in favor aye any opposed Motion carries. We will move to our information items. Item 10.01 and 10.02, I believe, are Lisa. Good evening. So tonight's reports cover the month of January of 2024. We started the month with $61.3 million in cash, took in a revenue of about $27.1 million and dispersed $40.7 million, resulting in a cash balance at January 31st of $47.7 million. Of that, approximately 62% was invested in earning at 5.26% as of January 31st. Interest earnings to date exceed the budget by about $153,000 as of that date. As noted, approximately $1.5 million was

216received the month of January for taxes. Second portion of your taxes were due January, but that collection isn't remitted to the district until February, so you'll see that reflected on the revenue in February. Any questions? I don't think so. Budget transfers? So the first two are a relocation of funds for the facilities department. The first is to cover heating costs. Again, we alternate between natural gas and oil. So natural gas is the utility used this year, and we're just transferring excess funds from other utilities to that line. Second transfer is to cover HVAC repairs and maintenance costs. Again, excess funds that were available in other lines are being moved to cover those costs. Transfer number three is just another accounting transfer between BOCES and contractual. It's for the elementary gardens for kaleidoscope garden design. We

217are contracting through BOCES so we can generate the BOCES aid rather than going directly through the vendor. Any questions? Thank you so much for both of these updates and all of your work on the budget. This might be a good time to take a quick recess. We've been at it I think close to another two hours. People do want to take... No, no, I'm just looking around everybody. No? You might as well keep going. Keep going. I just acknowledge that we committed to having a break every, close to every two hours. That's for Edgar. Okay, good evening. Again, it's 10.05 Eastern time. So tonight was... scheduled an education report and we're going to deliver on that maybe a little more concise than some but I'm going to start tonight with a little bit of an

218update on the strategic planning process and remind everybody as best I can that the process has been centered on a futures oriented vision for the Scarsdale Public Schools To help our staff and community members get energized for engaging in this process, I noted that the kindergarteners we welcomed this past fall will make up the graduating class of 2036. I asked participants to consider what our rapidly changing world will be like then and what we should be thinking about now to help them for a successful future. Throughout this process, I challenged our school community to consider some of the more impactful forces that have or hold the potential to influence learning and teaching, identify what is valued most about a Scarsdale education, and contemplate new or novel approaches to the work of educating our students. Input

219from the process is helping us to develop a vision statement to go along with our mission, from which learning outcomes and evidence of success will be identified and refined over time. But tonight I'm going to describe a little bit about the work done to date and preview a little bit of what's to come before turning it over to Edgar. So the feedback gathering process for this really began in November, and it began with a World Cafe dialogue involving the full faculty and resulting in thousands of comments, ideas, suggestions, and questions. It continued with three opportunities for community members to participate in the same process that our faculty did. The hundreds of comments gathered in person and on Zoom were supplemented by over 1,000 comments submitted in our online survey that asked the very same questions

220that were discussed in the World Cafe. Since December, a group of about 60 of us have been meeting monthly through an STI course to make meaning of the feedback, to organize it, and begin to identify some emerging themes. images that I'm going to share on the screen here show what this process has looked like. You see green post-its that were one of the categories of questions from the World Cafe. Those post-its were organized, sorted into categories, in some cases cut in half because they had more than one idea on them and they needed to be separated into different piles, and ultimately organized into broader themes. and categories based on similarity of thought that each represented. And there were some diagramming and the ideas became kind of clustered and we even had some interesting diagrams kind

221of result from that based on those clusters. We've taken the step of documenting the feedback so that we have a record that we can share out when the time comes. This particular document shows the summary of parent feedback in this process, responding to the questions, what knowledge, skills, attitudes, and values are or will be most critical for our students to develop, and what competencies are or will be most critical. And the parent feedback, comprising some 937 comments, really fell into six major themes. And those themes were in the areas of academic skills. You'll notice financial literacy is one of them that came up repeatedly on that. Life skills, technology and AI, social and emotional learning, global awareness and citizenship. preparation for future careers and the pie chart kind of shows the distribution of those with

222in the order that I just read them so with the largest chunk there being this category called life skills which include everything from executive functioning to literally cooking sewing and home repairs to demonstration of emotional intelligence communication skills, problem solving, and critical thinking among others. Similarly, we've done the same process with faculty feedback. Faculty in the same two questions. with 1,039 comments. These were organized or seemed to come out in 10 major themes, but you'll see that in some of them there's just a little bit more granularity than the parent feedback. So the themes with the faculty occurred in the areas of critical thinking, problem solving, and creativity, communication, collaboration, and social skills, habits of mind as a particular area, growth mindset, and resilience. social-emotional learning and intelligence, and this went on to a second

223page, diversity, life skills, content and knowledge, technology, and wellness and well-being. So it's really individual comment. At the individual comment level all the way up to the broad theme level, there was a tremendous amount of overlap between these two. So I've taken the liberty of further organizing those themes into a very preliminary and raw set of emerging priorities. And these are just labels I gave them. They might not end up with these labels, but I just wanted to kind of provide a sense of what this might look like. So, for example, one broad area gathers the high-priority mindsets and skill sets that our faculty and community see as essential for our students to master. I've temporarily placed these under a heading learning and teaching. They include things like critical thinking, problem solving, creativity, habits of

224mind, academic content, skills, and knowledge. So in that arena, we would develop the areas of work and emphasis and focus and planning that really emphasize things. How are we going to focus on these things in a plan for the future? Another cluster relates to well-being, social-emotional learning, and belonging. These dispositions were identified as critical in well over a third of all the responses. Life skills, social skills, social-emotional learning, growth mindset, resilience, mental health, diversity, equity, and inclusion. Finally, a third grouping captures a diverse collection of concepts and priorities that pertain to our learning culture and environment. To be clear, environment includes both the physical, such as the makeup of our buildings and classroom space, and yes, our parking lots and things like that, as well as the kind of interpersonal human culture that we create

225together. So those broad areas probably not terribly surprising but very strongly reinforced by the feedback that we need to be focusing on our efforts toward these broad areas and helping kids demonstrate those skills as they go forward into the world. So this slide is titled Emerging Priorities, but I also want to point out that we recognize that there are current priorities that need to merge. So I'm calling this slide merging priorities. And I'm going to just share two examples. Work that's underway that we see folding into this that will continue to happen as we move forward. The first example pertains to our ongoing work to support student well-being and mental health. And I'm happy to share that earlier this summer we applied to be part of a grant-funded cohort of districts who are seeking a

226comprehensive approach to supporting student mental health and well-being. Tonight, I'm pleased to announce that Scarsdale was one of 15 districts selected by the Jed Foundation and AASA, the School Superintendents Association, to participate in what they're calling the District Comprehensive Approach Pilot. a program that guides districts to collaboratively work to improve our systems of support for pre-K through 12, in our case K through 12 students, emotional well-being. For those who don't know or have never heard of JED, JED is a nonprofit focused on empowering young people by building resiliency and life skills, there's that term, life skills, promoting social connectedness and encouraging help-seeking and help-giving behaviors. We'll be working with JED to strengthen our systems, programs, and policies to nurture a culture of caring that protects student mental health, builds life skills, and makes it more

227likely that struggling students will seek help and be recognized, connected to care, and supported. So what you see on this slide is the cover of a document that was just shared with us. Eric and I attended eight hours of... introductory meetings via Zoom over two days last week, meeting the other representatives from the other 14 districts that represent 14 different states. We're the only state from New York. And thinking about what we currently do and thinking about the model Jed and AASA have put together to think about this. And that model is reflected on the right. You note strategic planning as part of this, so we see this as being something that will be... strongly embedded in our strategic plan and we'll be working with them over the next two years starting with a self-assessment

228to really deepen and enrich kind of our systemic approach to supporting mental health and well-being. Obviously, we'll explain more about this in the future, including probably an education report that covers this. The second example of merging priorities is this. We've obviously embarked on a process with the Search Institute through the Belonging Survey to think about our work with kids and the developmental relationships that we continue. And this will continue as part of our strategic planning priorities. We'll develop our... action steps that we're spending time on April 10th in our faculty superintendents conference day to unpack elements of the belonging survey and begin to develop building based plans going forward to take steps to respond to the feedback and and build from this framework of developmental relationships which is the framework that the survey itself was

229built on so yes there are emerging priorities that we need new planning around but there are current priorities that will be captured within the strategic plan as we go forward. Okay. So as I begin to transition to the next portion of the report and hand it over to Edgar, I do want to make mention, and this was actually mentioned tonight by a couple of our public commenters, of the recent report issued by a statewide Blue Ribbon Commission that was empowered by the Commissioner of Education and the Board of Regents to examine the measures that qualify students in New York to graduate from high school. While we can't predict exactly which recommendations of the many that the Commission recommended to the Regents which will be adopted, one of the major priorities has been around assessment flexibility,

230and in particular an emphasis on the potential for performance assessments to replace more traditional and, of course, Regents exams. Fortunately, this has been an area of exploration for our educators, and Edgar will be sharing some of that work next. So I wanted to make the connection that this, obviously we've had our internal information gathering process that is going to feed this vision and specific elements of strategic planning. We're also influenced by external factors, and this Blue Ribbon Commission is one, and it will impact our lives. for sure, but some of this work is positive and will also be integrated into our strategic planning process. So I'll end my portion with just this quote from Parsi and Darling Hammond that kind of helps articulate where performance assessment sits in our evolution as school district and as

231educators. So the quote is at present There's a mismatch between the knowledge, skills, and dispositions states expect students in the 21st century to attain upon high school graduation and the skills most current summative assessments measure and support. Many states have not yet begun to create new assessment systems to evaluate these more complex skills. Such systems will need to place greater emphasis on performance assessments, that is, assessments that require students to craft their own responses to problems through constructing an answer, producing a product, or performing an activity, rather than merely selecting from multiple choice answers. So I think that that's a quote that helps bridge the strategic planning process I just updated you on and the rest of tonight's education report. So I turn it over to Edgar. I appreciate the opportunity to shift into a

232discussion of performance-based assessments. The theme here really is connecting across all these big ideas. New York State defines it in the following way. A performance-based assessment requires students to demonstrate or apply their knowledge, skills, and strategies in creating a response or product or doing a task. Students' response or performances are typically judged against standards or criteria and a checklist or rubric focused on the stages of skill development and what students can do. To break it down further, performance-based assessments, or we'll call them PVAs, require students to demonstrate the ability to appropriately apply their skills and knowledge, demonstrate or model their proficiency, and work from clear and transparent assessment criteria. As well, there should be an opportunity for students to reflect on their performances and especially their mistakes and learn from them. This type of assessment

233demonstrates a depth of understanding that reflects on both what is learned and the developing skills of the learner. Also, what is often one of the most celebrated parts of PBAs is that the learning can occur during the actual assessment. We've been working on the development, design, and pilot of PBAs for several years, as Drew mentioned. Many of them are already integrated into the assessment practices across disciplines and levels. Some core to certain courses, and some of them represent a movement from past assessments. There are too many to discuss in one press presentation, especially at this hour, so I've highlighted a few across grades and disciplines. We also have an example of how New York State is making efforts in science to better align its assessments with the desired outcomes. Okay, so let's start with application

234and we'll start early. Application is instead of merely recalling facts, students must apply their knowledge and skills to solve problems or create something new. Performance tasks span all grades. Last week at Heathcote, I walked into a writing celebration in which students were sharing their original works of nonfiction with family members. The celebration was the tip of the educational iceberg. This common first grade unit is a true example of meaningful application. Before this day, students studied mentor texts of nonfiction for format and style, chose topics based on interest, engaged in research on their topics across text and media, conferred with classmates and teachers, collected information on their topics, and made critical decisions about what facts and in what format they would display them. This is again first grade. I particularly appreciated how their teacher Ms. Leraj

235had the students describe their process with their families. This is a young example, but research papers as a whole throughout the grades in social studies, science, and English provide opportunities for students to demonstrate critical and creative thinking. Performance assessments require synthesis and application of careful reading, media literacy, clear writing, and appropriate application of craft. The state has begun updating science exams. The Next10 standards serve as a platform for advancing children's 21st century science skills, which include abstract reasoning, collaboration skills, the ability to learn from peers and through technology, and flexibility as learners in a dynamic learning environment. The implementation of these standards has provoked dialogue and provided learning experiences that allow complex topics and ideas to be explored from multiple perspectives. Students are expected to both learn how to think and how to solve problems

236for which there could be many solutions. This is why learning essential science skills this while learning essential science skills along the way. The elementary level and intermediate level science tests are rooted in research-based approach to constructing assessments called principal assessment design. Another essential step of principal assessment design is provided through performance level descriptions. PLDs, lots of initials, provide a structure in which to build tasks that allow students to provide and produce evidence to exemplify knowledge and skills across the range of performance. So remember these? These relics of students relying on rote memorizations to regurgitate vocabulary and facts. I do want you to note that there is a spider on the insect fact sheet. I don't know if you noticed that. So whether designed by the state, embedded in our next-gen science resources, or homegrown, our

237PBAs require students to demonstrate the depth of their learning. Here's a New York State example. It's called Cloud in a Bottle, and it has required students to demonstrate an understanding of how climate and weather works. In this one, students work collaboratively to investigate the weather variables that affect cloud formation. They identify the water cycle processes that lead to cloud formation and the cause and effect relationship between water cycle processes and weather and climate. Students then plan and conduct a modification of this investigation to see how air temperature affects the amount of cloud formation and visibility. Class data from this modified investigation is shared to draw conclusions concerning the relationship between air temperature and cloud formation. This one is famous in the curriculum center. Dr. Kiley was juggling lots of bottles and lots of clouds. Here

238is a homegrown middle school example in which they demonstrate their learning. It's called Shoots and Splatters. You'll understand Splatters in a minute from their unit on experimental design. Students design, construct, and test parachutes. They're tasked to bring raw eggs safely to the ground using collaboratively designed parachute canopies. They gather drop-time data and write an authentic scientific lab report to demonstrate their learning. This year's lab report data was shared with Dr. Alan Eustace, current world record holder for highest skydive. He zoomed with a group of lucky students at the outset of the unit to create a real sense of purpose. Skydiver as precious cargo, important to protect. Assessment criteria should reflect the expectations and standards against which the work will be evaluated. These criteria should match the assignment. This one includes clarity of thesis, depth of

239reasoning and analysis, critical application of knowledge, and quality of presentation of information. Here's an exciting evolution of a long tradition. The middle school speech contest is... getting a makeover instead of reciting a memorized piece of writing original or an interpretation of another's writing think more the moth story hour the goal of this unit this new unit which we're piloting is for students to develop skills and crafting and conveying compelling personal stories This oral storytelling unit in Popham sixth grade ELA class employs a performance-based assessment that evaluates both the story's composition and the student's live performance. The composition aspects looks at structure, language, and creativity, while the performance considers skills like voice, expression, focus, characterization, and state presence. When we imagine the skills students actually require out in the world, memorizing a speech is rarely one

240of them. The advantages of this shift include increased authenticity and connection, enhanced creativity and critical thinking, adaptability and improvisation, and an opportunity for personal growth and reflection. You see a student storyteller bravely performing his story, and there's also a reflection up there from another student emphasizing the pride in doing something scary and in perfect middle school language, not freaking out. and also describing how she didn't feel judged by her classmates, so facing her fears. You'll see this rubric matches the skills being targeted, including characterization, use of space, and vocal mechanics. Imagine the pre-writing, practice, iteration, creativity, and vulnerability that went into that experience. Okay, let's move up to the high school for some engineering and design. Math 423 students established their own packaging and shipping companies by bringing to the marketplace unique packaging design using

241platonic solids. They applied their 3D geometry skills and minimized the empty space between their package and the interior item. In a shark tank format and judged through detailed criteria, Students teams pitched and provided their designs and the winners sent their product to the design lab for production using the 3D printer. Okay, so we're going to move out of the STEM realm into world languages where the high school department has made the design of authentic performance-based integrated assessments a priority. This is a good place to highlight the importance of reflection. I'll let Ms. Moscaso and her student Ashley tell you firsthand about the integrated performance assessment or IPA that they are using in their Spanish class. As you can see, I'm just going to show up. This is what we did in class as a reading

242comprehension and a listening comprehension. And we also have a piece about interpersonal mode where the students have to talk between one another and just say what they have learned throughout the whole unit. And for this, I would like to know actually what you felt about that, what it was your perspective, and what you learned when you were doing this activity. I think the IPA is very helpful compared to like a traditional test or traditional note-taking because You get to learn all the skills overall. It's putting everything together, listening, reading, writing, and also making presentations like this and reinforcing everything that you learned before. So it just helps all skills. I think it's very beneficial to the students and teacher. Perfect. And adding to that, what we did, what Ashley just showed you, was the final

243piece, which is the presentation mode. where the students have to create a presentation based on the topic that we have studied in class. And Ashley did a wonderful presentation showing all the skills that she had learned throughout the unit. How do you feel about that, Ashley? The presentation was very good and it was enjoyable and I think the majority of students would like to do a presentation rather than taking a test. I mean talking about a test, what do you feel about the IPA being more better assessment than a traditional exam? Do you feel that it's more beneficial than a traditional exam and why? I do feel it's more beneficial because with tests you're not allowed to make mistakes but with the IPA you can make mistakes and learn from them but with the test

244once you make a mistake that's it. It's very good to learn from them. Perfect, thank you so much Ashley. Thank you. Okay, I have to thank Department Chair Mary Leach for her excellent videography here, and you can hear her whisper excellent at the end. It was caught. And also for her dedication to the power of the performance assessment and for leading her department through this work. As we think about the important assessment work, we think it's important that we're always checking back and we're measuring what's important, that we're checking for depth over the speed of coverage and flexible understanding over rote memory. The next generation standards do a good job of articulating this and the value of practices that will lead our students to the outcomes we want for them. When considering students' mathematical understanding,

245we know that developing fluency and conceptual understanding is more important than memorization and reliance on an algorithm or a quick jump to automaticity. This was illustrated beautifully in a third grade classroom when students were practicing the division by fractions. Some students were familiar with the trick keep, change, flip, meaning keep the number, change division to multiplication, and flip the numerator with a denominator. Six divided by one-third is clearly 18. Some may still remember this trick, but the question becomes for the students, why does this work? The teacher in the classroom provided them an opportunity to explain their thinking and use models to demonstrate how dividing a number by a fraction didn't produce a smaller number, which some of them predicted it would. She provided number lines, strips of paper, and time for them to describe,

246disagree, and demonstrate why the shortcut works. Interestingly, it wasn't the speediest of the mathematicians who came up with the clearest model. And like PBAs, so much is about asking the right questions and allowing the space, resources, and time for students to demonstrate their thinking and learning. This leads me to another important point. We must be using the pedagogy, resources, and tools that will get us to the outcomes we want for our students. We rely, for example, on nonfiction units of study and expert instruction in first grade that allow our students to explore, learn, make choices and connections, and reflect on their learning throughout the process. We have specifically chosen science materials and progressions from Smithsonian and Science 21 because they are aligned with the practices reflected in the Next Generation Science Standards and include experiential

247opportunities for students. We chose Reveal Math because it was one of the products that prioritized the essential mathematical practices in the Next Gen Standards responsive to skills and dispositions needed for our students. Curiosity, exploration, fluency over automaticity, and understanding why the algorithm works before using it as a tool rather than rushing to it without understanding and using it as a crutch. For those who have seen past educational reports dedicated to curricular change, the rationale for this change was outlined, including a rigorous and collaborative process to choose this research-based current math resource. We celebrate the increase that is being reported in student discourse in math while recognizing that every change requires teachers, administrators, and coordinators to develop together and continue to use professional opportunities and structures like program improvement days to responsibly adapt curriculum and professional

248workshops to refine our instructional practice. I look forward to sharing meaningful metrics reflecting the values we've described at upcoming educational reports. Teaching to the test is not a bad thing if the knowledge, skills, disposition, and practices we value are embedded in the daily learning and the assessment. In other words, high quality pedagogy and curriculum is our best test prep for high quality assessments. Speaking of which, I would be remiss if I didn't point out that our colleagues, the educators in the arts, physical education, performance, and music have been engaging in performance assessments all along, application, demonstration, criteria for success, and reflection. And that we have courses that center creation, demonstration, and research, rely on PBAs, and nurture the dispositions and skills our students will thrive with. A rich collection developed over time with robust representation

249of STEM courses. Beyond these courses, we look to continue to expand PBAs across the grades. We know they measure critical thinking, problem solving, power skills, and encourage iterative and active learning. They're particularly useful in subjects where practical skills, collaboration, and creativity are paramount. A quick look at the profile of the graduate, and you'll see many of the outcomes we desire for our students are brought about by instruction and curriculum that value it and assessments that measure it. And I don't have an any questions slide. So we'll just end on the profile of a graduate. Questions from the board? Bob, yeah, please. So as you were presenting the material, I was thinking about the Scarsdale community. And the Scarsdale community very often focuses Not so much as a Scarstel graduate, but the next step after they

250graduate, getting into college, having a quote-unquote successful life. So I'm just wondering how we go about integrating. this philosophy with the world out there. In other words, their education isn't ending typically. They're going off to a college or a university or somewhere next step. And do you feel that this style of assessment is consistent with the way the world is changing? Are they going to graduate and find out that... They're going to have to take two tests a year and they better do well on it because that's what their grade is. My thinking is I remember for many years I lived in the UK in Oxford and in the UK system their whole evaluation was based on essentially one exam. after three years, which is very extreme, but that was the system. So I'm just

251wondering how all this fits together with the college experience. It's interesting. On Saturday, I was at a dinner party with a recruiter who was talking about actually having conversations with potential people to hire for his technology. company and he was saying that he was asking a bunch of kind of non-standard questions with multiple ways of answering them and he was kind of struck by the fact that people were kind of caught in the headlights by it that they didn't necessarily know how to answer these questions if it wasn't kind of a clear he was kind of he was trying to see how they thought and see how they could actually be creative and engage the way of the world is actually much more like a performance assessment than it is like a test and what's

252happening and what we see by even evidence by the flexibility that New York State is showing and some of the tests that are out there as they're evolving, they're trying to get to some of these dispositions and these skills that are very hard to measure by bubbling in circles. Bubbling in circles is very efficient, but it doesn't necessarily get you to the best student or the best problem solver. talk to our community we know that there's a big concern about getting into college and checking the boxes and you know the things that perhaps motivate people to move to Scarsdale so you know I think you know there's gonna be a learning curve with integrating this I think so I think if you I think what what research tells us is that you can go from

253some really creative and critical problem-solving of some messy problems to a standardized test and figure things out but it is very hard to go the other way where you're about drill and practice and memorization and when I was talking about learning the algorithm it's interesting if there are kids who know the formula without knowing why the formula works they're the ones who are in big trouble rather than the ones who are ready to just attack it and see what they can figure out. Other questions for Edgar? So I have a question, which is I'm just trying to understand, like, how does this integrate into what, how students are being, I guess, measured? You know, because what I keep hearing is that the experiment of moving away from standardized tests is now reversing. and all these

254hard to get into schools that for two or three years said we don't really need to take standardized tests are now saying actually you do need to take standardized tests. So this seems to be a movement away from measuring through standardized tests, and I'm just thinking are we heading into headwinds on this, or am I just misreading what the news is telling me about how... higher education is repositioning itself towards using, again, relying upon standardized tests. Well, I mean, I was reading similar articles, and I think that our goal is to teach kids how to think. And so that performance-based assessments get to both the skills. that they need to be able to do well on a standardized test, but also beyond that. So we're not losing anything by adjusting our test to actually get

255kids to demonstrate these other skills and dispositions. It just doesn't look like you need to just memorize this and get to the other side of it. And also, you know... It's not just about the access of sitting down and being able to sit for an SAT or an ACT, but also being able to negotiate your way through a conversation with the person you're interviewing. When you think about some of these, not just performance-based assessments, but some of these experiences that we want our kids to have. you're building in these power skills in which they're going to be more successful with the kind of access that I know that our community is interested in having our students have. I think we think of it in a balance. Like there's obviously we're aware of the moments when

256having the skill set to sit down and be successful on a standardized test or something like that is still with us. It's not gone away despite maybe some of them. claims of what was to come. So there's a balance between that and the opportunities for the most engaging learning. I think the other, the point Edgar made at the top about how performance assessment is well suited as a vehicle for learning, not just a measure of learning. The experience, a well-designed performance assessment is in its experienced, as it's experienced by the students as a learning experience. So it's making more valuable use of the time spent on assessment and it's also creating opportunities for those other types of skills to be developed. But we're not here saying that every assessment is a performance assessment. No. We're

257just not there. Sometimes, yeah. And even in the New York State test, there's certain areas that are just call and response, multiple choice. There's certain content, certain facts that the students need to know, and then other opportunities to demonstrate and apply them. So it is a balance. It's not all. It's not all one thing. Susie, please. Thank you, Edgar, for this presentation. I think it sounds great. I think the process of doing a performance-based assessment, I can see it being a creative process, and I think any time a student is creating, there's going to be just more joy. And I think that... We want to introduce joy into our learning, and it will develop creative skills and these life skills. I think it can be really nice. There are some students out there that just

258aren't great test takers. I think having different assessments for different kinds of learners is beneficial for our students. Thank you very much. Thank you. Other questions from the board? Colleen. It's getting late, so I'm not going to. Keep you, because you know I could talk for hours. Thank you for this. I love performance-based assessments. I agree with Susie. Creating not only brings joy, it actually brings more learning. So I love that the district is moving towards this. I'm going back to in the video, Ashley said, you know, it was really helpful to make a mistake and learn from it. And the way that these are so effective is to go through the application demonstration assessment and reflection. And that actually requires teachers to really be able to provide feedback and give these assessments fairly quickly.

259And so I was curious. to the teacher feedback on, you know, if you have 80 students, let's say, doing performance-based assessments, that can be challenging to be able to provide these assessments and the feedback on them so quickly. And so do you feel like, how are the teachers feeling with these types of performance-based assessments? Well, you know, sometimes it does depend on the assessment. And the format, because when I think about a research paper, you're correct. If you're going to give meaningful comments and you've got 80 to go through, that's one where there isn't necessarily going to be immediate. immediate feedback in which the student can then take it and then apply it immediately until they get that feedback back. But if you're thinking about some of these other ones where they're kind of learning

260and iterative in real time, the actual assessment is providing their feedback. And the teacher can, you know, using a rubric, if it's a performance. It's something where they can get some really immediate immediate feedback. So it depends the reflection part of it is really important I know she was being led a little bit because you know She had things to actually have things to say but she was what we really struck me is when she was talking about this integrated assessment being something where she was like well you can just make a mistake and then you Learn and you correct it and then and then it actually has you think about really what is the purpose of all of this is that since she's gone through this process, she now knows and understands this. Whereas

261if it was just a test, it would be like, oh, I got an 87 or a 42 or whatever it was. It's kind of the end of it. Yeah, I think teachers who go through the process of creating these, it's a really powerful experience as well because it gets them to really think deeply about some of these, the profile of the graduate, some of these dispositions, some of what they want to cultivate, and has them measure what we ultimately value so much. Any other questions from the board? Okay, well, thank you so much, Edgar and Drew, for those updates. And I know we all look forward to continuing to hear updates on the strategic plan. It's very exciting. We will move to item 10.04. This is Bob who's going to lead us on this. Yeah,

262so I haven't done this before, so bear with me. I, as the BOCES liaison, the school boards within Westchester have a responsibility to both vote on a budget for BOCES and also elect the board members that are on the board for BOCES. And hopefully people have had a chance when they went through the agenda to review. those two components. So the discussion, and hopefully we can do this relatively quickly, is we have a budget that has been presented to us. It has increased by around $400,000. It's a total budget of $231 million, so $399. of increase is relatively modest. So I don't, we obviously have the option of not approving it or approving it. I don't know if anyone has had a chance to look, maybe Ron or Susie, with any comments about it, whether

263there anything we should be flagging to BOCES before we. Offer our vote. Is there any I would just add that um the 230 million dollar budget right right right is is the whole BOCES budget right most of that's funded Through programs that school districts are contracting them to use. Yeah, I gave the wrong number. You're right on the 13 Yeah, it's the third. Sorry. It's the 13 million my my I jumped to the wrong number. That's why I kind of I didn't think it was. I knew it was 13. Yeah. So it's 13 million. That is our share, to be clear. Right, right, right. That is the total BOCES. So we do contribute, you know, we pay to contribute to BOCES. So I think, you know, I'm more than happy to provide feedback to them

264if anyone wants to comment. Is this within what's budgeted in our budget, the contribution that they're seeking? That's a good question. Yes, the proposed budget for BOCES was also allocated out to each of the component districts and we carry in our budget an administrative line and a BOCES capital line that's in this budget. So this is within what we've budgeted? Yeah, so I'm assuming that unless there's some major concern. And then the last component, again, if you've had a chance to look at it, there is a gentleman, John. Filiberti, who is running to be on the board. He's on the board now. I think he's running maybe for another term. So, again, there's no red flag to me personally, but if anyone has any comments that they know about that we should know about him,

265feel free to speak up or let me know before we get back to BOCES that we're... fine with his nomination and this is that this is that we are Tuesday 9 a.m. meeting that we have in April we actually do the vote on this for like two minutes or what yeah so this is right okay we we're not taking the action tonight anybody's welcome to join us at Tuesday at 9 a.m. sometime in April I think it's April 16 Did BOCES ever, didn't we talk about this, was BOCES not going to consider maybe making that more flexible? Am I remembering incorrectly? Like I thought, do you remember that, Ron? I do. I think it's a... State law. Is that what it is? Yeah. Just to be clear, everybody, we don't want to meet Tuesday at

2669 a.m. for this vote. But, yeah, we're given that day, and they did talk about it. But I can't remember. It's a state law. Something had to change for it to happen. Okay. All right. But that is a question you can ask Bob. I will do my best. I doubt they're going to. pivot for us but you never know I think many districts would be appreciate many boards would appreciate not having a 9 a.m. vote on a Tuesday so yeah that's that's BOCES so look let's all look forward to getting up early that's a great day by the way that's my birthday so tie it in with a celebration any questions or comments before this will come back as an action item not today Okay, and just a reminder to all those still watching, we

267get a lot of value out of our BOCES, including being able to run things through them and getting additional state aid back. And so it's a very valuable service to our district, both from a services standpoint and a financial standpoint. With that, we will move on to the 2024-2025 draft board meeting calendar. Okay Thanks goes to honor a for preparing the graphic view list view and the designated groups but this would be a chance to take a look at the proposed schedule for next year's board meetings including holds for potential special meetings or executive sessions We added those to try to help like we did this year to try to help board members plan accordingly and uh we they can always be cancelled if there's no business to to take place um not much else

268to say uh is there any opportunity to comment on the dates no there's that opportunity okay right there's only one date that personally i'm i'm not very happy about which is july 2nd uh it's a july i just want to post it that is one while we did not officially approve it knowing that a lot of people have plans we earlier this year tentatively put that on the calendar. I know, I know, but I'm just saying I know we need to take the vote and we need to install and do all that stuff, but if there is any wiggle room to do it another day it would be appreciated because it is really inconvenient expressing my own feelings. July 4th is on a Wednesday. It's just in the middle of everything for anyone having any

269holiday plans. Any other comments or questions about the calendar? I just have a comment. Just because of tonight, actually, I was looking at this, and I see that we have another education report scheduled after a budget forum. And while I hope next year we are not... Sitting here for three hours at a budget forum. Unfortunately, I feel like we will be and I really It's it just was not ideal because I think a lot of the points that were made tonight were questions that we get from the community and unfortunately the presentation started after 10 and I don't know if everyone is gonna go back and watch I hope they do because you addressed a lot of concerns that have been brought up through this budget process But I would like to propose that we

270move the education report to a different point so that people so we can get the attention it deserves second maybe April 7th maybe I think that that meeting would be yeah I agree out of respect for the work that you do to put together those educational boards I think it would be nice to have also I feel I'm fading at this point so you know yeah I agree with that thank you that's a good suggestion I wanted to ask I know we heard today about having the budget forum on holy did we double check the dates for these and our expanded calendar list I believe we did those right great thank you my only other it's more out of a convenience the August 26 I know we normally meet on Mondays but I don't know

271would there be any wiggle room to move that week is it it's a big travel week for families and so mine included and so I'm just curious as to I don't remember what we do on that meeting if it has to be at that so the purpose of the meeting is to tie up loose ends and hiring and before the school year actually starts business like that so you know okay the There is a resolution the board has passed that allows us to on an emergency basis point appoint people if there's not time for a business meeting so it's it's You know the the issue with that is we know that emergency will happen Because we only meet once in July. So is it truly an emergency? Do you know what I mean? I understand.

272I was just curious. I couldn't remember what we did at that meeting this year. The only other thing from a business perspective I can think of is we anticipate having our external auditors in the week of the 19th. And if during that process they uncover the need for us to have a reserve resolution or a budget transfer resolution that requires board approval, it is helpful. for us to have that done the following week so that we can get our financial statements produced in time for you all to accept them and report them to the state. Okay, I'm just curious. Is it helpful to board members if it's like on the 28th, on a Wednesday? I mean, that's me. Okay. I'm not going anywhere, so you can have all these meetings whenever you want. Monday, Tuesday,

273and Wednesday? We can do a lot of work and get ahead. So I'm hearing we will move the education report that's scheduled on March 24th, 2025, to April 7th. We are not, just to be clear, we're not voting on this tonight. So if people wanted to take some time and look over it. But it will, I think we, do we adopt it? April 8th is the plan for now. Okay, so this will come back as an action item. yep thank you honoree for putting this together and reviewing all the dates anything else on this no I don't think so thank you okay we'll move to item 11 action items we are in the homestretch item 11.01 budget transfers Colleen be it resolved that the Board of Education approve the attached budget transfer as presented thank

274you is there a second Jim any discussion all in favor aye Any opposed? Okay, motion carries. Item 11.02, proposed new textbooks. Amber. Thanks, Ron. I move that the Board of Education approve the proposed new science textbooks for the A school, Scarsdale High School, as presented. Thank you, Amber. Is there a second? Colleen? Any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay, the motion carries. We will move to item 12. We have four gifts on the agenda tonight. 12.01 is Jim. Thank you, Ron. Be it resolved, the Board of Education accepts with thanks the gift of $9,281.21 to Edgewood Elementary School for the innovation grant to purchase the Glowforge laser cutter as presented in the attached letter. Thanks, Jim. Is there a second? Jessica? Any discussion? All those in favor? Any opposed? Motion carries with

275thanks. Item 12.02 is Bob. Be it resolved that the Board of Education accepts with thanks the donation of tickets to a Jazz at Lincoln Center performance valued at $220 and will accommodate 20 students and two adult chaperones as presented in the attached letter. Thank you, Bob. Is there a second? Amber, any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries with thanks. Item 12.03, Jessica. Be it resolved. Be it resolved that the Board of Education accepts with thanks the gift of $6,820 to Scarsdale High School for the purchase and installation of a decorative sign acknowledging Scarsdale's championship teams as presented in the attached letters. Thank you, Jessica. Is there a second? Jim, any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? The motion carries with thanks. And the last gift action item is Amber.

276Thanks, Ron. I move that the Board of Education accepts with thanks the gift of $3,900 to the Scarzell High School baseball program for the purpose of purchasing a pitching machine as presented in the attached letters. Thank you, Amber. Is there a second? Colleen? Any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? The motion carries with thanks. We move to item 13. This is the second public comment period. The same preamble holds. Anybody in the audience? Seeing nobody. Seeing somebody that waved. That might mean she wants to come up and speak. We will move to Zoom, Susie. How many participants do we have still with us on Zoom? We outlasted everybody. There's nobody on Zoom. Okay, well, there's always, community can always reach us at Board of Ed at Scarsdale Schools. There is no follow-up to

277public comment. Wrap-up items. I think you have everything you need for the budget. Yep. Produce an updated budget book as soon as we can and get that out. Thank you for all your work on that. Any other wrap-up items? We will go to item 16, meeting dates for the coming month. Susie. Thank you, Ron. On Monday, April 8th, there will be a meeting with a designated group at 5 o'clock in the High School Learning Commons. There will be a special meeting and executive session, if needed, at 6 o'clock in this room, followed by a business meeting where the board will adopt the budget at 6.30 p.m. On Tuesday, April 16th, we'll have that special BOCES vote at 9 a.m. here in this room. And on Monday, April 29th, there's scheduled a special meeting or executive

278session, if needed, at 6.30 p.m. here in this room. Thank you. Thanks, Susie. So are we adjourning for the evening, or are we... staying for the evening. If we adjourn, then we have to meet another time, right? When do we have to meet by? This week. Prior to April 3rd. Oh, so I guess, so we probably need to stick around, right? I mean, unless we can find another time. Well... I'm going to quickly put us into executive session and then we can figure it out from there. Could I have a motion to return to the executive session that we began earlier this evening? Colleen? Second. Jim? Any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Okay. We're back in executive session.