BOE Business Meeting 2023-4-17

001Good evening and welcome to all of those attending this evening's Board meeting or watching later on demand. I hope everyone had a nice spring break. Tonight, all Board members are present and we are joined by Dr. Patrick and his cabinet. Earlier this evening, the Board held a special meeting with volunteer and liaison groups. Thank you to the leaders of the PT Council, the Scarsdale Action for Youth, SAY, also formerly known as the Drug and Alcohol Task Force, the Safe Coalition, Maroon and White, Scarsdale Edgemont Family Counseling, and the SSEF, also known as the Scarsdale Schools Education Foundation, for attending and sharing their organization's important work this year. As part of the board school to enhance community engagement, the Board hosts this special meeting annually with the leaders of these organizations to hear about their organization's

002work throughout the year, including successes and any current challenges, review existing engagement opportunities and identify new ones, and discuss how the Board can further support each organization's efforts. This will also help ensure that the Board is responsive to issues as they arise, and that we are proactive in soliciting feedback and aware of community sentiment. The Board values our partnership with these organizations who help support our students and strengthen our community. Additionally, each of these, oh, I wrote that twice, I'm sorry. Additionally, each of these organizations has a board liaison that regularly participates in their meetings. The board liaisons report on these meetings at the start of our Board business meeting to keep the Board, the district, and the community aware of all of the work these groups do in support of our students. We appreciate

003all the good work undertaken by these groups and value our partnership with them. In support of our partnership with the Safe Coalition, you will notice that tonight, all Board members are wearing denim. The purpose of the Denim Day Campaign is to stand in solidarity and support survivors of sexual assault as April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month. As the longest running sexual violence prevention and education campaign in history, Denim Day asks community members, elected officials, businesses and students to make a social statement with their fashion statement by wearing jeans on this day as a visible means of protest against the misconceptions that surround sexual violence. Later tonight, the Board is expected to take action on the 2023-2024 Budget Resolution. This proposed budget is the culmination of a thoughtful and collaborative process. Deliberations and decisions by the

004Board were guided by a focus on students, the district's strategic plan, and with thoughtful input from the school community, including school principals, teachers, students, parents, and community groups. The Board's budget process began, as in past years, with a public listening session in November for the community to share their budget priorities for the upcoming school year. The feedback from this session helped inform the administration as they prepared an initial budget proposal to the Board. Multiple presentations and budget study sessions afforded opportunities to take a deep dive into each aspect of the district. This process allowed the Board to carefully consider each option, and have extensive, thoughtful, and transparent discussion about numerous item expenses. Members of the Board also attend the budget information sessions hosted by community groups and have received and responded to numerous questions regarding

005the budget from the community. Community feedback on the final proposed budget was shared during the Budget Forum on March 27th. Later tonight, each Board member will have the opportunity to share their thoughts on the proposed budget resolution. The vote for the 2023 Budget and High School Auditorium Bond Proposition will be on Tuesday, May 16th, 2023. Drew? Thank you, Amber. Good evening and may I add my welcome to those of you joining us in-person and online this evening. At our March 27th meeting, the Board voted to authorize a bond referendum not to exceed $4.75 million to significantly renovate the Scarsdale High School Auditorium. I'm pleased to report that we've developed a website devoted to the proposed renovations and improvements. And I'd like just to take a moment to introduce the site, which will be able to

006be accessed directly from site shortcuts on our district homepage, as well as from the same area on our school homepages, a little bit later this week. So, bear with me for one second. The tagline we adopted that we believe summarizes the proposed work is enhanced, modern, safe, accessible. You'll notice that Dr. David Graybill, our theater director, is featured throughout the site in the form of video clips that bring to life, the current conditions of the theater that are targeted for renovation. Our hope is that this format provides voters with a clear picture of the purpose for this proposed bond project, enabling everyone to make an informed decision at the polls. And I want to particularly thank Michelle Verna for her work to develop this communication channel and encourage our community members to visit the site.

007So we have a main landing page here that shows a projection of the proposed renovation and the current conditions, and an opportunity to see a video that the Board was able to see at our earlier Board meeting, tour the space, explore the upgrades, the financial information, and a little bit about the history of the space. And I won't play one of the videos, but each of these sections has a video that Michelle has snipped from a larger whole to kind of explain that particular component of the proposed work, okay? So we just wanted to share that. Okay. Onto a few reports of the things that are happening around the district. Boy, spring has sprung. Last week was warm and kids were outside at our elementary schools, engaged in our gardens, hands-on lessons, learning about germination,

008garden planting, proper watering techniques, soil care, and more, in our elementary school gardens. And in addition, last week, some of our walking school buses returned to emphasize wellness and wellbeing in that domain as well. We had an exciting event at Heathcote recently. Mr. Reilly, second grade class, participated in a very special performance and just wanted to give kudos to the students and Mr. Reilly. They undertook a study of world culture and set what they learned to song and a musical. They turned their classroom into an airplane, one in which students and parents were passengers. Students put on a show-stopping musical. And it was heartwarming to see parents, in the classroom, with their students, with their children, singing and enjoying, teaching and learning from that perspective. At the Middle School, our eighth graders enjoyed a visit

009from author Ellen Oh, who shared her experiences as an author and discussed why access to diverse books, something Dr. McIntosh has talked about at this table extensively is important for all students. And once again, congratulations are in order for our Middle School Science Olympiad Team, which competed in states and they brought home 10 medals from the state level competition. So congratulations to them. At High School, last week, our Boys' and Girls' Lacrosse teams hosted the first-ever Able Lacrosse Classics here at the High School. The Able Athletics Program is a local nonprofit created by SMS, students who wanted to help make athletics more accessible to children with disabilities. Although it began as a Lacrosse Program with just four participants in 2019, Able has grown into a multi-sport nonprofit. The Lacrosse Program is co-directed by Greenacres Elementary

010teacher Jeremy Guski and Heathcote PE teacher, James Synowiez, who worked with physical and occupational therapists create a curriculum that can be adapted by age and ability. And when our High School Lacrosse teams learned of the program, they began volunteering and became the driving force behind last week's Lacrosse Classic. It's a fun inspiring day and we're grateful to our students and faculty for their involvement. And as we speak, our seniors in the Science Research Program, in the auditorium just down the hall, are hosting their Annual Research Symposium where they're presenting their completed research, which is a culmination of their three years of work. So that's a few of the things happening around the district. And upcoming important dates at the end of this week, April 21st and 22nd is Eid Al Fitr, also called the Festival

011of Breaking the Fast. A religious holiday celebrated by Muslims around the world, marking the end of Ramadan, the Islamic holy month of fasting. The observance is set according to the lunar Islamic calendar and based on when the new moon is sighted by local religious authorities. So the exact day of celebration varies by region, so we're excited to point that out, which will in the future be a day we recognize as a school holiday. And April brings with it Earth Day, April 22nd. This year will be Earth Day with the theme, Invest in our Planet. Theme is designed to persuade businesses, governments, and citizens around the world of the need to invest in our planet, to improve our environment and give our descendants a better and safer future. Thank you for those updates, Drew, and for

012that website as well for the bond. That's great. Let's turn to Board member reports. And Bob, do you wanna go first? Sure. A week ago, April 10th, I attended over Zoom, a meeting of Safe, which is a community organization chaired by Natalie Ramos from Scarsdale Family Counseling. And the important takeaway from our meeting was that we have a really exciting program. It's actually tomorrow. It's gonna be a virtual interview with an author, Rachel Louise Snyder, who wrote the book in 2019, No Visible Bruises: What We Don't Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us. It will be in a format where there will be interviews by Darlene Rita, who is the Westchester County Office for Women Representative. And a lot of time and effort has been put into this. And it's not too late, we can

013all be in the comfort of our homes and participate, and I hope everyone will take a chance to see the virtual interview and also try and have a read of the book. You can get it at from the library. You can purchase it in town at the Bronx River Bookstore. Thank you, Bob. Colleen? On Wednesday, April 12th, Westchester BOCES celebrated their 75th anniversary with the reception and ceremony. 75 years ago, BOCES began as an idea based out of the need to share common resources across their communities, tackle pressing and evolving student needs, and come together in a unique way to accomplish more together than they might apart. Today, they continue to focus on those goals with the focus remaining on their mission to serve students and educators throughout Westchester. After the ceremony, they presented on

014their budget for the '23-'24 year. I won't go into details unless you want more budget conversations, but I got to sit in on that meeting. And, you know, just to give you an overview, they're increasing their overall budget by 2.9%. 92% of their budget goes for programming and 8% to support the administrative costs to run Westchester BOCES. And that budget vote will take place tomorrow. Thank you, Colleen. Suzie? Thank you. Just a quick announcement of a workshop being presented next week by the PT Council. It's called, "Are Scarsdale Students Prepared for Success in the Globalized 21st Century World?" A workshop with Dr. Derrick Gay, who is the Scarsdale District DEI consultant. It's April 25th at 7:30, at the Scarsdale High School Auditorium. Students are currently navigating a cosmopolitan world composed of individuals from different backgrounds,

015viewpoints, and experiences. Research finds that intercultural competency, the ability to communicate and connect with people from different backgrounds with respect and empathy, is critical for success in a globally connected world. Moreover, there are strong correlations between student perception of belonging and maximizing academic attainment. In this workshop, Dr. Derrick Gay will leverage over 25 years leading efforts in over 800 schools and organizations around the world to share the latest research regarding belonging and its impact on learning, highlight current belonging challenges in K through 12 schools, share preliminary Scarsdale observations based on this past two years partnering with the district, and provide resources for parents. Many thanks to Chairs Diksha Mudbhary-Sitaula and Dalya Kahn. Thank you, Suzie. And I believe that's it for Board member reports. So Drew, I'll turn over to you for Cabinet reports. Thank

016you very much. And I'm gonna pass it over to Stuart to start. Thank you very much, Drew. Just wanted to give the Board a heads up at our upcoming Board meetings that we're going to be putting forth some bids and renewals. So at the May 8th meeting, we'll have some facility bid renewals. We do these typically for three years, and this will be at some point during the course of those three years. We're recommending renewal. Also May 8th will be the child nutrition, the food service bid, that I've been chatting about for the last month or so. We're opening bids next week. And on May 22nd we'll, have six facility bids for things such as fuel oil delivery, general contracting and things like that. That's it. Okay, thank you. I'm gonna invite Ray to give

017an update on health, PE, and athletics. Thank you very much, Drew. Over the last nine months or so, in Section 1, they've been hosting inside out core training for athletic administrators. As part of completing that core training, I developed a purpose statement. It's pretty concise. And a short description of what our program is about. I'd like to share that with you. I'm here to create and promote inclusive and competitive programs, seeking to maximize participation and work to provide opportunities for student athletes for the purpose of developing self-advocacy, perseverance and resiliency. In the short description of our programs, our interscholastic athletics uses competitive sport to provide student athletes with the opportunity to take risks and make good mistakes in an authentic yet unpredictable environment. Student athletes must leave the cradle of their comfort zone for public

018exposure on the field, court, pool, course or track, and must accept being vulnerable, exposed, and unprotected from public or personal scrutiny. Through that journey of challenges and successes, they learn about themselves. So, of course, both of these things are a work in progress. I'll be tightening those things up over the course of the year. In May, there's an informational meeting on how we'll start to implement this type of training with our coaches. And it's really about developing a purpose-based, educationally-focused athletic program. And ways to implement that in stages next year will be the way that we do that with our coaching staff. When talking about maximizing participation after our spring programs we have finalized our rosters, we're at roughly 62% participation over the course of the year. For a school district this size, that's an

019incredible accomplishment. So we have 908 students who participate in interscholastic athletics. We did see in a little bit of an anomaly this spring with, to use a technical term, we saw that male and female participation was a little out of whack, where with male participation this spring at a roughly 64% and female participation at 36% of the total population, which is not typical. We're usually very close to a 50/50 split, well, within like a five percentage point of each other. So we did a little bit of a deep dive and I spoke with students. And what we found is, students are looking for things a little differently, or not all athletes are thinking the same way about their athletic experiences. Some just wanna play with their friends and have fun. Others want to be really

020competitive. And in the way that we make decisions about team selection sometimes affects whether they'll continue to participate. When I've looked at, so then we, I did a little bit of a dive into the numbers, in two different ways, male, female split by grade. And that, in general, seems to reflect the student population. And I've also looked at this cohort, so current seniors and how that their participation has played out number-wise. So the number of students who participate when they were in ninth grade, 10th grade, 11th grade, and 12th grade. And it looks like we're losing about 10% per year, so it's interesting to know. Right now, we're in the midst of finalizing or actually drafting the RFP for our field study, which we hope to join in with the village for next year, which

021also has led us to take a look at our current resources. We will be skinning the Greenacres field, the larger field in the northwest corner, 'cause that seems to be the most suitable field for softball right now to help assist with the softball. We currently, the district does not have a softball field on our property. And all of our use is on the village fields, it's Supply. And right now there seems to be an imbalance of softball versus baseball fields, and it's been an obstacle for softball, youth softball to expand their participation. So we're trying to do our part in a thoughtful and meaningful way between now and the field study. I just wanna mention that all of our fall and winter varsity teams were recognized as New York State Public High School Athletic Association

022scholar athlete teams. So that's a huge accomplishment as well. The Athletic Department is in the process of developing a new website, a process for activity registration, so that gold card process, and an app to help facilitate that. So it's actually those, all of those things are kind of live in the background right now and we are making sure that they'll be appropriate. We hope to roll those out next fall. In a couple, soon there'll be some Maroon and White gifts that may cross the Board's desk related to scoreboards, some signs recognizing the accomplishment of our New York State Championship teams, and banners in gyms three and four. And some of that you heard about from the Maroon and White report in our last meeting. And then in the beginning of May, we'll have a ceremony

023for our athletes who've committed to play sports in college. Ask you to hang for just a second. Any questions for Ray? Yeah? Did you have any understanding as to the disparity of the gender participation that you mentioned for the spring if that's likely to be a continuing thing or was that a one-off phenomenon? That's interesting. So, you know, female participation in sport at the high school level has been on a decline in Westchester County, in Section 1, for some time. We haven't seen it hit Scarsdale right until this year. It seems to be dramatic in the spring. I don't know exactly what that is. I've just shared the initial outcomes of interviews with students and their narratives at this point, but I think it's something we have to think about. I think the other thing

024is that, we've had an incredible success this fall. I think it was a double-edged sword because there are kids who are not looking for that level of competitiveness. They are looking to play with their friends. They're looking to engage in activities less than six times per week. We saw some kids who played particular sports at the middle school who didn't come out for that sport this year at all, and were seeking a lesser opportunity. And what I mean by that is meeting less frequently per week and at a lower level of competition. One of the teams we piloted this winter, Varsity B Girls' Basketball, had a very high level of satisfaction and the competitive level was much lower. And so I think that we're seeing it, it's happened to show itself, I think with the

025teams that are designed for female participants, I think it happened to show itself there first, but I don't think it's anomaly across our student population. I think a meeting this week with boys who are interested in playing, boys and girls who are interested in playing squash, it's a different environment, different level of competition. There's a lot of student input and how that structure benefits them. They have a lot of control over what their season looks like. So at a time when we're seeing a lot of structure by Section 1, and levels of competition increasing, you know, our kids have been very competitive at the state level, we're seeing also the opposite trend where kids just want to control their athletic experience and manage that amongst all the other competing priorities. Thank you for this. Very

026helpful. The Girls' Flag Football, that's a spring sport, correct? It is. And that has grown significantly. So in year one, we had 80. We were about 50 this year. So, you know, it's still a very large program, but interest dropped slightly. So I'm just surprised, given we've added that, that we've still seen such a drop. So where is the drop coming from? So we haven't seen a drop in total participation. It's only this spring we see a significant split in the percentages of participation. Right, so what sports for girls are you seeing- Softball. have been dropping? We've seen in softball over time, and we've all seen in Girls' Lacrosse drastically this year. It's probably the first year in my time here where we have only one real team in each one of those sports here

027at the High School. But I don't know if there are other sports that are affected to a minor percentage. And so, just so I understand you correctly, you've reached out to all of these athletes that don't wanna play anymore and their response to you is it's just too competitive? Am I hearing that correct? So I have not reached out to all. I tried to grab the students that I had relationships with to understand why those choices were made, either what they know about, for the kids who remained, what types of things need to be in place for them to stay. And then the ones that I have relationships with who tell me on why they made choices to leave. So, you know, this is a very small sample size, right? And so it's a very

028small outcome. Sorry, we have the narrative is from a very small sample of students. Is there any kind of consideration on reaching out to all the student athletes? Absolutely. Like to get a little bit more data- Absolutely. so we can really understand? So that's the plan moving forward? Correct, I just wanna do it in a thoughtful way so that the information that comes back is good and reliable. Thanks. Just a follow up to that and then a separate question, but just following on what you just said, how soon might a survey or follow up come? Is that something that's sort of in the early thought stages or is that something we could expect to see? Yeah, in the next week or two for this specific reason. Terrific. And then the other question that I originally

029had was about softball. Can you just, I'm sorry I got distracted by the girls' sport issue, which field is it that's getting skinned for softball? So it's the field at Greenacres in the northwest corner. Yeah, it has probably, so those two fields on that, those two fields at Greenacres, have the greatest potential to house two softball games at the same time. And so the one that has a fence in front of the dugout area or the bench area would be the one that we suitable, the earliest possible time. So we're skinning that one first. And so we'll continue to, as a district, transport students from the Middle School and High School teams to those fields at Greenacres or how is that working? So right now we're still, we're using- 'Cause now we're going to Supply.

030Right now we're still using Supply. After that field is skinned and suitable for at least practice, we'll get some students on that field to see what it's like during a controlled practice, and then we'll make those decisions whether we can start having competitions there shortly thereafter. [Member Resnick-Ault] Thank you. You're welcome. Oh, go ahead. You sure? Okay, I have two questions for you, Ray. Thank you for those updates. So you mentioned, I think Colleen had asked about numbers and I think you said 64% of students are participating this spring or was that this year? Sorry. So 62% total over the year- And at least one season in one sport. But the split male-female in the spring was 64% male, 36% female. Got it, and so then the overall number for the spring, that's where I'm

031curious. Did that drop as well given the drop in female? So, it did drop slightly, dropped about two percentage points, we're usually about 31%. We're at 29% of our total population. So what that means is that the number of male athletes increased, right? Because if the percentage is from 31 to 29, but now the split is. Correct. All the numbers. So have we added any sports for boys? It's just that participation has increased in those areas. That's all, yeah. Hmm, okay. That's just interesting. And then my other question was on the Section 1 trends. I think you said in the area, you've seen a decrease, they've seen a decrease in female participation. Yeah, you know, there's no, we have a lot of data right, and dropping numbers for female athletes across Section 1, and there's

032a lot of conjecture, but no one's really defined what that is. Some people believe that Title IXs kind of worn off, right? It's no longer a mandate, right, that girls participate in sport or females participate in sport, and so we're seeing a dropping off. And usually, it's in the sports where skills are required. So if I was to hypothesize on why that's happening, in some shape or form somewhere around middle school, we're telling females they're not good enough to play something, somehow, or that more skill is required to participate at the next level, right? Because kids start to form concrete opinions about what they're good at somewhere around eighth grade, especially in physical activity settings. So my sense is that's the trend or causing the trend and why we're seeing a drop off. You know,

033flag football, we saw a huge increase and that's because it was ground floor for everyone, right? There were no prerequisite skills. We were all coming in with the same level of understanding where I think that the perception is for like a softball, use softball and lacrosse as just an illustration, there's a perception that you have to be good enough before you try that, instead of effort hard work is really what you need to get better, right? So flag has allowed us to reestablish the, I think, the right message. And have you seen any other schools in the district address this with new programs? I mean I think flag football is a good example, but have you seen any other examples that other schools of things they're doing? I don't, you know, we're usually the quickest

034to respond and add new programming. Most other schools will stay with what they've done for a long time. We were very early to start Girls' Ice Hockey. We were, you know, one of nine schools early on that even considered doing flag football. But we've also, you know, for boys we had in the fall when where males have less choices right, or had less choices, we took on Boys' Volleyball, right? So we've been very quick to respond to what students' interests are and what we think the needs are related to balancing participation and maximizing that. Not all other school districts have the flexibility or support from the Board to do that. It's usually a much longer process. Here it's a function of the budget on how we add. In other places, the board has to actually

035approve each individual sport to proceed. So we have a lot more flexibility to meet the needs of kids and we've exercised that more freely. Thank you. You're welcome. So a couple follow up questions on the same topic. So do we have the winter surveys yet? I would have to double check that, Ron. Okay, 'cause I'd be, I don't wanna know. I'd be curious if you know that if there's any indication from surveys from those winter sports of anything that's going on that, you know, might lead to this. It's, you know, it's quite a different split than we're used to, and, you know, something that this Board funds and supports. And my other question's, I think, I don't remember the year, maybe one of the other Board members. I know not like last year, but somewhat

036recently, we had talked at the Middle School about, you know, there was some challenges of finding coaches for female sports. We did make some changes in our ability to, on how we fund those positions. And I'm just wondering if, are we seeing some of the impacts of not having that? Because those girls in Middle School, I'm just, it's not a statement, this is a question, didn't have that coaching, so now you're talking about the skills and not feeling like they were ready and now we're seeing a drop off a few years later? I think that's a possibility. So with the change in structure for funding coaching positions, has absolutely helped us to recruit and retain coaches. So let's start there. We are fully staffed at the Middle School right now, and we have qualified coaches,

037Girls' Lacrosse. So a few years ago, Girls' Lacrosse was, we could not find coaches. So that time, you know, the start time right after will always be an obstacle, but the new structure for paying coaches, it absolutely helped us to recruit and retain people. It also makes it easier for people to understand what they're gonna get paid year after year, which has been helpful. It could be possible that that time period, COVID, that when I look at the students who are seniors now and we look particularly in the spring, that was the spring of 2020 was their freshman year in high school. So that absolutely could be part of this, right? I'm not saying it is, I don't have enough information to say that, but that was their freshman year in high school was the

038spring of 2020 where they had really no competitive experience that spring as freshmen. Okay, and just in terms of process, what do you sort of envision as like a follow up to the Board on this, and you know, if this has implications of how we, the types of programs we offer and what we fund so that we can hopefully address this disparity and meet the needs really of what our students are looking for. So just from a process standpoint, what can you come back to the Board with an update or what is the thought about that? Well, I think I can share when we find out more information, how that information breaks down and then what our plans are for the future. And we won't really know, right, if it's working, for at least a

039year related to the spring. I think if we see a decrease in participation in the fall, that'll be a serious wake up call. I don't expect that. Our numbers are huge in the fall. But seeing what the numbers are like next spring, especially in the sports where we've seen some decreases, I think that would be important to know. We have not seen a dramatic drop in Middle School in these similar sports, we've seen some growth there from last year to this year. but I can't put my finger on exactly why that's happened either. You know, we have the potential of having two teams for both Girls' Lacrosse and Softball down there this year. So, you know, that's just, it's just a question mark. Thanks. All right, thank you, Ray. Much appreciated. We'll go to Eric.

040Thank you, I have two quick updates. One on Day Automation. We have tested the system as far as allowed with the exception of in our latest meeting with Select Telecom. The solution to integrate our PA systems into the Day Automation central system would have created a situation where if an unknowing technician was working on some of our phone boxes, they could inadvertently cause a lockdown, we've decided to safeguard against that with a separate controller, which has been ordered and will be installed as soon as it arrives. We're not expecting a particularly long lead time on it. So that should be done in the next couple of weeks, which will have the system fully-installed and they will continue testing until we start training over the summer and into next year for its implementation. And the second

041piece is, we will be sending out an RFP for a district physician. We have hit that timeframe. So we're gonna be sending that out either tomorrow or the next day, and it'll be posted on our website and being sent to local doctor's offices, hospitals, and health groups over the next couple of weeks. Okay, that's all. Questions for Eric? Okay. Unfortunately, Carol was unable to be here tonight. I'm gonna give the personnel cabinet update. And first I wanna start by acknowledging the news from last week that Dr. Tashia Brown, principal at Edgewood Elementary School, will be leaving us at the end of the school year to pursue new educational leadership challenges. I want to express my gratitude and the gratitude of cabinet to Dr. Brown for her leadership over these past four years. As some of

042you know, she succeeded a principal there of nearly 30 years. No easy task. But Dr. Brown did so with enthusiasm and excitement. Just months into her new role, Dr. Brown was confronted with the challenge of leading Edgewood through COVID-19. She rose to the challenge with compassion and grace and help the Edgewood community navigate an unprecedented time while keeping students at the center. I hope everyone will join me in conveying both gratitude and best wishes for success to Dr. Brown. And as I wrote in a communication to the Edgewood community, I want to assure the community that we will thoughtfully and diligently act to find a successor to lead Edgewood Elementary School. In my communication with the faculty, staff, and parents last week, I described two possible pathways for moving forward and noted that both are

043being weighed against the potential opportunities and challenges each may present. So one path forward would be to initiate an extensive and robust search for Dr. Brown's successor at Edgewood. This process would involve a thorough recruitment phase, along with the selection phase that would include faculty, staff, administrator, and parent participation. The result of this version of the process would be a recommendation to the Board for a probationary appointment of the selected candidate, that hopefully would result from a consensus endorsement. Second path forward would be to concentrate on identifying potential candidates to fill the vacancy on an interim basis for one year. This process would likely occur more swiftly and with the participation of a smaller group of stakeholders. This difference is due to the narrower pool of potential candidates and the unique circumstances that come with

044serving as an interim leader. Appointing an interim leader would create time and space for the kind of search I just described in pathway, the first pathway, but that would take place starting midway through next year, about January of next year. So there are a variety of pros and cons to each possible pathway. And the chief considerations revolve really around the timing and the potential for achieving a really strong candidate pool. We want the strongest pool possible. Mid-April is a difficult time. It would give us at least two months to complete the search, but it's challenging to do that at this time of year when other positions have already been posted for these types of leadership roles. On the other hand, we do know that Scarsdale is a desirable district, and we typically experience a high

045level of interest from sitting and aspiring building leaders. So the determination as to which path we'll take rests with me. That's my responsibility. And, of course, I will consult the administration, union leadership, you know, bringing it up here at the Board table, and we will provide information as timely and as timely a fashion as possible as we move toward a decision of which pathway and then ultimately what happens from there. In addition to Dr. Brown's resignation this evening, the consent agenda includes a recommendation to confer tenure to Dr. Brown. Since it doesn't make sense to take this action after accepting her resignation, I'm asking the Board to act on that recommendation this evening, so that it makes more sense logically timing-wise. Okay? And then before I turn it over to Edgar, I just want to

046acknowledge one retirement that's on the agenda tonight. Pat Gaffney, who was my assistant before assuming my current role, she'll be retiring from the district in June from the Human Resources Office. And I just want to extend my thanks to Pat for her excellent work, both in HR and in supporting the Performing Arts Department in the years prior. And she will be very missed. And, Edgar. Thank you, Drew. So high school principal, Ken Bonamo, high school social studies teacher, Heather Waters, and I attended the Global Education Benchmark Group or the GEBG Conference this weekend in Washington DC. The GEBG is a leading organization of international K-12 schools that researches and establishes best practices in the field of global education and prepares students to thrive in increasingly interconnected world systems. The GEBG supports member schools through in-depth

047professional development, collaborative student and faculty travel, curricular development conferences, institutional evaluations and endorsements, resource libraries, and a supportive network of member schools across the globe. This network helps schools enrich structures and programs that enable students to develop the knowledge, skills, and empathetic orientation required of global citizens. So connected to what you were talking about Suzie and Dr. Derrick Gay. The conference ended with the awarding of the Global Expression and Thought Prize or the GET Prize. This prize was created to emphasize the importance of faculty curriculum and design that intentionally and meaningfully engaged with global education goals and objectives. So we were surprised and delighted when first prize went to social studies teacher, Heather Waters, for the design of our High School Global Entrepreneurship Challenge, an innovative project in which we're partnering with schools from Italy,

048Argentina, Indonesia, Shanghai, Florida, and Virginia. The international piece of this challenge ends on the morning of April 28th when teams from schools participating around the world will join us virtually and in the auditorium to present their final projects. Very exciting. As well, I handed some folders off to the Board. Vivian Robert and Nancy Pavia have been leading a series of elementary parent workshops to both describe the instructional shifts happening in classrooms as well as give tips for helping their children with homework. They also talked about ways to infuse mathematical opportunities and math language in everyday routines. I've shared these article resources and these are all being distributed to the families that are attending. And there's also a very challenging math activity for anybody who wants to dig into that after the Board meeting. Thanks. Thank

049you, Edgar. Any questions for Edgar or me? I realize I didn't leave space for questions for my report, so I apologize for that. I have a question about the math problem that we've been given, Edgar. Is the answer in the packet too or do we have to? It is not. Okay, challenge accepted. Gauntlet thrown. I know you are an engineer so I'm confident. You know I love that kind of stuff. I'm looking forward to it. I love that. All right, thank you for those updates. So now, we'll move on to hearing from those present and I'll read the Public Comments 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 state your name,

050address, and if you're speaking on behalf of an organization. For those commenting remotely, please mute the livestream voice, turn on your camera and then unmute yourself. Speakers will be asked to conclude their remarks after four minutes, and will be given a verbal cue at the three-minute mark. If at this point a speaker has additional comments, they may send them in writing to the Board via email at [email protected]. The public comment period is reserved for comments only. The Board will not engage in dialogue. The Board reserves the right to respond to comments and questions at its discretion, either during response to public comment or at a later time and place. Response to public comment will take place after the first and second public comment periods. And with that, I'll open up the first public comment period

051to those that are in-person. Seeing no one come to the podium, we'll turn to Zoom. At the moment we do not have any attendees. We will give everybody a few seconds. Great, thank you. Still no attendees. All right, then let's go ahead and close this public comment period and we will move past follow up to public comments since there was no public comment, and we will move to written communications. Ron? Thank you, Amber. I'll start with the preamble. Please note that the Board of Education email is also viewed by the Superintendent and District Clerk. Open Meeting Law requires all Board deliberations, which may lead to action or policy changes to occur in public. Therefore, your written communications and emails will be reported at an upcoming public Board meeting. A Board member will respond at the

052earliest convenience. Since our last report on written communications, the Board has received seven communications on district matters, and 13 invitations, publications, board meetings, or highlights, emails about those topics. Great. Thank you, Ron. And now we will move on to the consent agenda and I will read the preamble for the consent agenda. There we go. The Board may conduct some of its business using a consent agenda in an effort to achieve greater efficiency at Board meetings. A consent agenda condenses some of the routine business of the Board of Education into a single motion. The consent agenda is prepared by the superintendent of schools in consultation with the president and/or vice president of the Board. Items are selected for the consent agenda when the officers of the Board and the Superintendent believe there is no controversy regarding

053them. The items on the consent agenda will have the same background material as ordinary items on the Board agenda. If any member of the Board feels that any item on the consent agenda requires discussion prior to action, that Board member may remove that item from the consent agenda merely by requesting same at the meeting. The exempted item then moves to the regular agenda. However, all non-exempted items would be moved, seconded, and voted upon without discussion in order to provide greater efficiency to conducting the routine items of business of the School District. Is there anyone who would like to remove anything from the consent agenda? Okay, not hearing anything. I will turn it over to Jessica. [Member Resnick-Ault] I wish to present tonight's consent agenda for consideration. It has nine items. First, the minutes from our

054meeting of March 27th. Second, tenure recommendations. 8.03, personnel certified. 8.04, personnel non-certified. 8.05, claims audit report. 8.06, network cabling installation services bid award. 8.07, audio visual services bid award. 8.08, SEQRA Resolution in the High School band room, roof, and Heathcote chimney. So I now move that we accept the consent agenda as presented. Thank you, Jessica. Is there a second? Thank you, Suzie. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, the consent agenda passes. Thank you. Now, we're going to move to item 9.01, which is the Board Budget Insight Letter. So just as a reminder to the public, at our last meeting, the Board agreed to have Suzie, Ron and I draft a potential letter for inclusion in the Insight publication. And I'd like to thank Suzie for taking the lead on this effort,

055and turn it over to her to present to the Board. Thank you, Amber. As Amber mentioned in her opening statement, the Board is expected to take action tonight on the proposed 2023-'24 Budget and a High School Auditorium Bond Proposition. Should the Board approve these items, the next edition of the district newsletter called Insight, will be devoted to serving as an informational guide to the community on the budget and bond. Traditionally, the Board includes a letter in this publication, a draft of which is included in the agenda tonight. This letter has been reviewed by all members of the Board as well as members of the Administration. In crafting this message to the community, the Board describes some of the goals and achievements of this budget and bond as well as its process. Thank you to Michelle

056Verna for all her work on this newsletter and to the Administration for inviting the Board to include a letter, as a transparency and proactive communication are always goals of this Board throughout this budget process and in all its work. I don't know if there are any questions or discussions to be had on this letter. If not, that's it for me. Thank you. Does anybody have any questions for Suzie? So then is everyone comfortable with the letter as presented that will be filled in after we vote tonight? I'm gonna take head nods as consents and we got consensus. All right. Fabulous. Thank you again, Suzie, for taking the lead on that. All right, let's move on to item 9.02 and Behavioral Energy Savings Program. And, Drew, I'm gonna turn it back to you. Thank you very

057much. So tonight we have as an information item and then later an action item, to award the bid response to our RFP for behavioral energy savings. The program that was presented during the budget process with Cenergistic, they were the only respondent to the RFP. And the information about the program, the goals of the program, and ultimately the projected savings and costs are listed in the information item. I'd like to thank Mary Ellen for being in the room, our contact from Cenergistic to be here tonight. So without much more ado, I'd leave it to any questions that you might have. Otherwise, it's as we presented some weeks back. Just a quick question. Since it's on the agenda to approve tonight, can this work get started before July 1st? It can. There's no cost for the first

058three months of the program, so that would put us into the next budget year. So we could begin this, sign the contract after if the Board approves it, and begin right away. Sounds great. Yeah. Thanks. Anybody else have any questions for Drew? We'll be taking action, as Drew noted, later tonight. Okay, great. Thank you so much. And I will again turn it back to you for the District-wide Safety and Emergency Management Plan. Yeah, this is something we review annually, in advance of a 30-day comment period. So I'll turn it over to Eric just to remind us of those. Thank you, Drew. State regulation requires that each district appoint a district-wide safety team that must develop and annually update a district-wide school safety plan or emergency management plan. That plan was brought up to that team

059in January for review from last year's plan, along with any state-mandated changes to it. We also inquired with that group to review and suggest any changes they might have. In our last meeting, the Safety Committee accepted that plan for its submission to the Board that there is a required 30-day public comment period and one public hearing at the end of that period. That 30-day period will start now and it will be open for the community to comment on anything in the plan. And then prior to our May 22nd meeting, we will have a short public hearing prior to it and then discuss it on the information and then action items of that meeting to hopefully approve it for submission to the state. The plan must be approved by September 1st. There are actually only two

060major state changes in our plan this year. The first is the addition of remote learning annex, which is not a change in what our planning has been. We've always had plans in case we went to remote learning. They mirror the steps we would take on a remote learning day for weather days if we've run out of snow days. And then the second part is, we have added an annex outlining the district-village cooperation on safety, security, and emergency management matters. And that lists and outlines all of the different ways that we communicate on a yearly basis to coordinate and train. Other than that, all of the state mandates for this year were already in our plans last year. And then just so the community and the Board knows, building emergency level plans. So the district emergency

061plan is really a high level overview of all of our procedures and tells the community what we have in place. The building level emergency plans tell the building staffs and our emergency response teams how we do everything. They're much longer, much more in-depth plans of hundreds of pages. They are not available to the public and they will be brought up to the Board for later acceptance, but those would be in executive content so that you could review those plans. They outline all of our staging areas where we gather things that we would not want out in the public. But those are also approved by the state, so they'll be submitted shortly after the acceptance of the district plan and then we'll bring the building emergency plans to the Board. Happy to answer any questions on

062the emergency management plan. I have a question. If the community has feedback, are they emailing the Board of Ed? Is that how do they provide feedback? They can email the Board of Ed or myself or Dr. Patrick, and we will all share those emails and respond. Great, thank you. Does anybody else have any questions for Eric? All right, let's move on to the treasurer's report. Hello, everybody. So for February, as you can see by the revenue report, we've received the majority of our tax money. There's about 10 million still outstanding, which will come in between March and then were made whole in April. So at the end of April, we had close to 80% of our money, of our cash balance invested, and it was earning between 4.4 and close to 4.6%. So the interest

063rates are great. And on the expenditure side, you'll see a lot of the negatives have been moved. So we've done some transfers in the next spot, you'll be reviewing and approving some transfers that exceed the 25,000. So we're starting to get that moved around to make everything clean. That's about it. Any questions? Does anybody have any questions for Lisa? Thank you, Lisa. I appreciate your getting these reports to us, especially having just wrapped up all the budget stuff, I'm sure you've been busy, so thank you so much. We appreciate that. All right, let's move on to the budget transfers, which is I think Lisa or Stuart or Drew can go through. So basically we're presenting two large transfers. The first one is just a transfer of salaries. What it is, is just moving, and as

064you can see, they're all salary budgets that are just being shuffled between accounts. The majority, the reason for a lot of this is, New York State requires us to report all expenses broken out by buildings. So whenever we have movement of staff between a building, we also have to change the budget code. So, you know, at budget time, we may have an aide placed in one building that by the next year gets moved, and that in turn moves the expense around. So it's really just a shuffle between salary codes, just moving the money where it needs to be. The second transfer request is a curriculum. And again, this is more of an accounting change. The vendor that is being utilized is being contracted through BOCES. We're required to record BOCES expenses in its own unique

065BOCES account. So it's just moving money from a contractual code into a BOCES code. Great. I will say that garden looks fantastic over at Fox Meadow. I haven't seen it, but I think I need to go make a trip. So any questions for Lisa on the budget transfers? Again, we'll be taking action on this later tonight so. Okay, great. Thank you so much, Lisa. And I believe the next one is Edgar. So this is a book being recommended for eighth grade English. It is called, Pride: A Pride and Prejudice Remix. Instead of being set in 1813 England, this one is set in modern day Bushwick in Brooklyn. The teachers are planning to use it as a comparative text to sections of the classic original. But they're using it to teach into perspective critical thinking. At

066its core, Pride and Prejudice tells the love story in which people need to overcome their biases in order to end up together. Throughout both of these novels, both characters learn and unlearn their pride and prejudice so they can come to accept the others' goodness of character. Very engaging. If you start to read a little of it, you can find yourself getting caught up in it. Also incredibly relatable. And also a really great example of what we were talking about before, which is making sure that when we're teaching books, that we teach books that have plenty of Black joy in them. Thank you, Edgar. All right, I guess we'll move on to action items. And the first one is the Budget Resolution. And looks like, Colleen, you have that one. I recommend that the Board adopt

067the Budget Resolution set forth for the budget for the, oh, I'm supposed to read my statement? No? Okay. All right, okay. I recommend that the Board adopt the Budget Resolution set forth for the budget for the '23-'24 School Year as presented. Keep going? You wanna read the resolution. Be it resolved at the sum of 177,774,187 shall be appropriated to meet the estimated expenditures for the school purposes for the School Year '23-'24, and that the Board of Education be authorized to levy the necessary taxes to meet the same. Thank you, Colleen. Is there a second? Thank you, Suzie. Okay, I'll open it up to the Board for discussion before we vote. Would anybody like to share their thoughts first? I'm happy to kick it off. Thank you, Ron. As I was thinking about my comments for

068this budget vote, and I really reflected back on this process and we've had such thoughtful and detailed comments that I feel like that stands up for so much of what I would've said tonight, so I'm gonna keep my comments actually much shorter than I think I usually would because I think our process was just, went into such detail. And I usually don't like to say this to people of, you know, go watch the meetings, but I think for this budget process, this is actually one that would be really valuable to spend the time and go back and really understand how the Administration and the Board got where we are, both with the budget and the bond. So just a few very brief comments, and I'm really gonna just talk about some themes, 'cause all the

069details we spoke about, I think this budget continues our focus on educational excellence and our focus on our people. We are enhancing our operations through thoughtful investments. This was a very thorough and transparent process. And I think the place, even though we already voted on the auditorium, I think it's a part of what we're funding. And I believe that where we landed on how to fund the auditorium and the scope of the project went through a same deliberate and transparent and thoughtful process. And I think about that, since it will be the same night of this vote somewhat together. And just thank you to the Administration, our faculty and staff. Stuart, this is your last budget, so thank you very much for all your work on this. And Lisa and your whole staff. To the

070community. The community and our organizations brought a number of wonderful ideas and feedback throughout the process. And also to my fellow Board members for the very thorough and spirited deliberations throughout this process. I think it brought us to a great place, so I'm very excited to support this budget this year. Thank you, Ron. Would anyone else like to share their thoughts? Suzie? Thank you. I enthusiastically support the 2023-'24 Budget as presented. I believe this budget provides the resources needed to carry out Scarsdale's vision and mission of excellence in education, while addressing today's unique challenges and best preparing our students for today's changing world. In this budget, what especially resonates with me is the continued focus on the whole child, providing support for the social and emotional development of our children and the mental health needs

071of our students in this critical time. Sadly, the need for strengthening our school security system and program is the reality we live in, and we continue to address that in this budget as well. Providing additional funds for our college advisors to visit college campuses will help our students navigate the changing college landscape with greater success. Finally, I'm excited to see what studies will reveal in terms of our transportation services program and what our future work and diversity, equity and inclusion will look like. Like Ron mentioned, I especially appreciate the collaborative process of this budget, of the many budget scenarios presented by the Administration and the openness and transparency with which the Board and Administration discussed many items up for consideration. Crafting a budget that furthers the goals of our schools while balancing our financial responsibilities

072to our taxpayers wasn't an easy process, especially considering the economic environment we're in. And I'm very happy with where we ended up. I will, however, echo Jim's sentiment from our last meeting that should we need to go over the tax cap in the future, my hope is that the community can be open-minded in hearing why that might be the case. I also wanted to mention as one who loves getting into the numbers, I appreciate the newly-imagined budget book put together by Lisa and Stuart. I do appreciate that. That was a big project. And I also wanted to thank Stuart as this is your last budget cycle for Scarsdale, for all your hard work for our schools. Thank you, Suzie. Bob, would you like to go next? Sure. So for me, I kind of broke my

073own mental gymnastics into two criteria for my wholehearted recommendation to accept the budget. The first, and these are things that everyone has been touching on, but I'll repeat myself a little bit, was just the process for reviewing the budget. I feel this year has been particularly collaborative. Not only has had an extensive series of dates to review the materials, but the introduction of budget options that I believe has helped to increase the transparency and clarity of the review process and the discussions that followed. So I would encourage us to continue with the notion of options. I know that's a little work, but I do find it personally very helpful. And I think that the second is that the budget, you know, people have touched on a lot of different details, does improve throughout the district

074our delivery of services, but it also realizes that we can't always have everything that we want at the pace that we like. But nonetheless, I really feel very confident that all the programs that we talked about are moving forward, facilities are getting improved, and while at the same time, we had to make some shifts in the numbers to keep the numbers within the cap, I think to me the process was very respectful of the economic situation within the community. We have lots of different constituents including empty nesters like myself. So I fully support the budget and I'm very proud of my own role as a team participant and in developing it, and the great teamwork that I see has been created by the Board, by the Administration, and the community. So I think, you know,

075it takes a team and we approached it that way. And, of course, for Stuart who's sitting here thinking, oh my gosh, it's over now. You don't have to do this again. Well, pretty close. You know, really, thank you. No one underestimate the level of effort that you and your team has put into this, so thank you very much. Thank you, Bob. Sure. Colleen? I just wanted to take a moment and thank everyone for all their hard work and dedication to creating this budget. It really was a team effort and it just continues to demonstrate the amazing team we're so fortunate to have in our district. For me, it was an honor to work with all of you on my first budget. I appreciate the thoughtful and transparent and open dialogue around each line item so

076we could really make educated and informed decisions to get us to a place where we all feel comfortable. Stuart, I know this is your last budget, so I just wanted to thank you for everything you've done for the district. I'm glad I got to at least do one with you before you left, and I hope you have an enjoyable and restful retirement. I feel confident that with the proposed budget we can continue to meet the goals we set for ourselves as a district, and continue to keep the whole student at the center of every decision we make. So I vote yes to the proposed budget. Thank you, Colleen. Jessica? Sure. First of all, thank you to everyone at this table. I realize that other commitments have kept me away for two key budget meetings. So

077I had the chance to go back and watch those videos that Ron was talking about before. And the level of discussion was very impressive and the depth of consideration that went into this process is very easy to see, as people went through the most specific line items that we might have glossed over in another year. So I think that the depth of attention and consideration that this process took was extremely impressive, and I appreciate particularly, my fellow Board members' attention to it as well as that of the Administration. I think that at the end, the budget that we reached was one that was truly reflective of the district's priorities in terms of student resources, faculty resources, and staff resources. And I think it also was considerate of taxpayer resources. I feel like we really did

078meet our fiduciary responsibility in proposing this budget or in accepting this proposed budget. And Stuart, thank you again as everyone has said, in working through the end, and I probably shouldn't say that yet, since I know that you'll be out there addressing community member questions in coming weeks at neighborhood meetings and of course at PTA and PTC meetings. So thank you for all of your efforts in particular. Thank you to the Administration and to my Board members. I'm very happy with the final results of this budget. Thank you, Jessica. Jim? I just wanna say, again, thanks to everybody for their efforts here, especially the Administration and the Board, and the community members who have had input and have supported this process throughout. A budget is an expression of values. I do think this budget expresses

079Scarsdale's values well. And I think Colleen mentioned the whole student, I do think the budget puts the whole student in the center of things where it should be. And so appreciate the efforts of everyone to do that. Do wanna underscore what I mentioned in the last meeting that I think the, you know, state-imposed budget cap is a hard, can be a hard thing to wrestle with as we go through this year-to-year. Of course, mindful of our fiduciary duty to taxpayers, but it is, you know, in some respects, an arbitrary state-imposed limitation on our ability to, in my view, truly consider unfettered the needs of our students in our district. So it is with sorrow that I say that this budget is, you know, with the constraints that we have, the best we have to put

080our students first. But the sorrow that I feel is just from the fact that the state passed an imposed budget cap years ago, that I opposed then that I continue to feel is not the way to run a school district. Not because I think I wanna spend people's monies wantingly and without consideration for any limitation, but just because the needs of the students should be paramount. Thank you, Jim. And thank you to all of the Board for sharing their comments tonight. One of the things I enjoy most about budget is that we all sit through the same meetings, but when we share what appeals to us or what stands out to us in this before we vote, we all have sort of different ideas about what resonated with us, so it's really interesting to me

081to hear that, so thank you for sharing your thoughts. I'd like to begin with thanking Stuart and Lisa and Drew tonight for presenting the budget. I know that, you know, Lisa was doing it for the first time for Scarsdale, and Stuart potentially for the last time for Scarsdale, and Drew really taking on a new role, so I recognize the challenges that you faced and you really rose to a level that I exceeded all of my expectations, so thank you. Ron mentioned the process and it was thoughtful and deliberate and others mentioned that as well. And I thank my fellow Board members for their attention to detail over the past several months and thoughtful consideration of a multitude of issues and input. There were three areas that jumped out to me as really being critical in

082this budget. And the first was wellbeing and belonging. And I think that we accomplished that with a number of things that we do in the budget this year or that we've proposed. The new social emotional support for elementary school students, the continued commitment to DEI initiatives, and advances for in-district opportunities for students with disabilities, those were things that were very important to me. This budget also has funding for new financial accounting and HR software in it. And when we brought Nawrocki Smith in, and they came and presented their findings in the internal audit in October, they first sort of brought the smart system to our attention and I really appreciate how quickly everyone moved and kind of came up with this new proposal for this new software system. And the two studies that we've included

083to help us look to the future, the field study, which we will hopefully be conducting together with the village to provide a holistic review of our fields today and help us plan for tomorrow, along with the transportation study, which was first brought up on the PTC budget statement back in 2017 when they mentioned traffic issues, and then was again brought up in 2018 and I'm sure in subsequent years as well. So it's really exciting to me that we're proposing, including that as well in our proposed budget tonight. So with that, I would like to call for a vote. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Great, the Budget Resolution passes, 7-0. Congratulations on that. All right, let's move on to our next one, which is the Property Tax Report Card. And that

084is Bob. That's mine, yep. So I'd like to recommend that the Board adopt the 2023-'24 Property Tax Report Card as presented. Thank you, Bob. Is there a second? Thank you, Jessica. Any discussion? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, great. The Property Tax Report Card passes. Budget Transfers, Jim? It is recommended that the Board approve the Budget Transfers as presented in the attached document. Thank you, Jim. Is there a second? Thank you, Suzie. Any discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, great. The Budget Transfer's pass. The RFP award, and that is Suzie. It is recommended that the Board approve the resolution to award the agreement with Cenergistic for the behavioral energy savings program as presented. Thank you, Suzie. Is there a second? Thank you, Bob. Any discussion?

085All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Great, that passes as well. Proposed new textbooks, Jessica. It is recommended that the Board approve new textbooks for the High School as presented. Thank you, Jessica. Is there a second? Thank you, Jim. Any discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Great, textbooks passed. And 10.06, the Heathcote renovation, and that is Bob. It is recommended that the Board of Education award the Heathcote main office renovations project bid to Pro-T Corporation in the total amount of $524,490, base bid only, as presented. Thank you, Bob. Is there a second? Thank you, Colleen. Any discussion? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, great. That passes as well. Now, let's move on to gifts. And there's a proposed gift to the Middle School, Colleen.

086It is recommended that the Board accept with thanks the gift of $239.98 to purchase two-block cello straps for the Middle School. Thank you, Colleen. Is there a second? Thank you, Suzie. Any discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Great, the gift passes with thanks to the Middle School. And now we will move on to public comment, and once again I'll give the highlights of the 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 state your name, address, and if you're speaking on behalf of an organization. Speakers will be asked to conclude their remarks after four minutes, and will be given a verbal cue with the three-minute mark. The

087public 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. And with that, I will open up the second public comment period to anybody who would like to speak. Hi, good evening. My name's Liza Lee, I'm at 4 Westview Lane in Scarsdale. Hopefully, after this comment you're able to elaborate on how the '23-'24 Budget will support the security and safety of our school children. We are here today to discuss the safety and security of our school district and especially in light of the recurring events that keep happening in our country with mass shootings in schools. So we are just wondering, for this proposed budget,

088have you considered, for '23-'24, SROs on campus? I know that there have been a lot of studies to suggest that SROs don't improve the external security of schools. However, with the latest Nashville shooting, we finally have evidence to suggest that there, that school SROs or security on-campus are actually deterrent in light of this event. It seems like the shooter went to the other school because there was a lot more security at the first school that she was looking at. So this really concerns a group of us parents. My friend and I are here on behalf of everyone to discuss these concerns. A few other comments. It looks like, well I looked at the budget for this year, and it looks like I believe I did it correctly, the safety and security budget was roughly $1.23

089million and there was an asterisk that suggested that the budget was cut by $159,000, which was lower than the last year due to decreased in funding for purchase of security-related supplies and equipment. So we are just wondering why there was a decrease and why are we not building a security reserve? I attended the November Security Committee event at the Middle School, and I believe we discussed there was a locking system that we were hoping to work on and I was just wondering what the progress of that is. It doesn't seem like that has started yet unless hopefully I'm incorrect on that. So I'm just curious why we had such a decrease in the safety and security supply and equipment budget if that was something that we were working towards for this year. We feel that

090the mental health efforts of the Safety and Security Committee and the program at school is obviously very important. It's incredibly important, but we feel like a few programs need to be done simultaneously, including hardening the schools just a little bit. We feel that SROs on-campus are deterrent, even if it's just a police car that's outside the schools and the police officers in the schools designated to look at the CCTV. We feel like the burden of our children's safety is falling on the wrong shoulders with our security guards that aren't police officers, our teachers. So we would like to hear about that if there's any consideration on that. The last comment I'll make about mental health efforts, I know that those are in place for current students, of course, in K through five. I wouldn't say

091that those are our biggest threat with school shootings in the elementary schools. It's past students, people we don't know about. I recall earlier in the year, there was this very brave Scarsdale mother who turned her own son into the Scarsdale police because she found AR guns in the home. And so if it wasn't for that brave mother, what would've happened? Who's looking out? Who's tracking students from 10, 15, 20 years ago? I believe that was a student from Scarsdale. So thank goodness for her. Let me just see if I'm missing anything. I think that is it. So hopefully, after the comments section, if you're able to elaborate on the budget for next year and the safety and security, that would be greatly appreciated. Thank you. Yes, and there is a response to public comment at

092the end. Would anyone else? Yes. Hi, my name is Claire Kusnetz. I'm at 151 Griffen Avenue in Scarsdale. I just have one point to add onto Liza's question, which is have you retained a consulting recently on school safety? If so, what firm? Was there a study? And can you send the results of that study and what their recommendations were? Were those recommendations carried out? And if not, I'd like to know why not, and maybe what certain goals are then in the future if we weren't able financially to carry those out, what other goals we might have and what the timeframe may look like for those goals? That's it. Thank you. Is there anyone else in the audience who would like to speak? Okay, we'll move to Zoom. We do not currently have any attendees. Just

093wait a minute. Still no attendees on Zoom. We'll give them like 10 seconds to log in. Still no one. Okay, all right. We'll go ahead and close our public comment period and we will move on to response to public comment. And I'm gonna turn it over to Drew and Eric to answer some of the questions. But I would also encourage you to share your questions via email if you don't get answers to everything because sometimes it's a little hard to write down all the things to cover. Yeah, this is probably not the best form to follow up in with thoroughly, but Eric and I would both be happy to have a conversation, which we do often. (audience faintly speaking) If you write to us, we can reach out to you. So just generally speaking, I'm

094gonna, I'll start with the SRO question and then I might ask Eric to kind of look at the budget writ whole, writ large. So in the budgeting process, the answer, the direct answer to the question, have we considered SROs in this budget process? No, the Administration did not come forward with that as a recommendation. So that was never discussed by this Board at the Board table. The vehicle we have used, since kind of Stuart put our safety and security work on what I would say very sound footing a number of years ago has been to use our District Emergency Response Team as the group that really, along with our consulting firm, so yes, there is a consulting firm, it's Altaris Consulting, to kind of shepherd our process of looking at improvement opportunities, weighing the pros

095and cons of those improvement opportunities, and then ultimately making a judgment about what do we recommend for our schools. Probably, the largest, most visible outcome of that process was the development of vestibules at all the schools a number of years ago, the schools that didn't have that, yep. And then the addition in those vestibules of safety, what we call safety monitors through our consultant, Altaris. And that's a big, big part of the budget. The District Emergency Response Team has discussed and had thoughts and conversations about school resource officers. Many of us know districts that have SROs. I came from a district that had a single SRO. It's a great program. We believe in the SRO program, and for what it's designed for. So far, we have not reached a consensus on that District Emergency Response

096Team that we see SROs as the best next investment for the purpose of hardening our environment. We see the purpose of the SRO program as being different from the hardening conversation, though I understand the argument around deterrence, just so far we haven't gotten to that point. I think it's also important to recognize that we meet and work regularly with SPD, and they do regular walkthroughs through all of our schools multiple times a week. They also have a practice of whenever patrol cars are doing paperwork, taking a break or whatnot, they park in school parking lots to be visible around the schools. So those are situations that have been in place prior to Tennessee and for the last few years. It was reinforced again after each one of these incidents, to have police officers be visible

097in our schools, be walking around our schools regularly. As they walk around, they check doors, they check windows, you know, they keep a line of communication open to us, to the things they see. We appreciate that very much. You know, in talking about the budget generally, you mentioned the new lockdown system. The work is almost complete. My update this morning, Day Automation is the, or earlier in the meeting, Day Automation is the company we're using to install that. We're waiting on one piece to complete the integration. The drop in the pricing from last year to this year is because that project has been paid for at this point. Looking towards next year, the main focus on purchasing is for door ajar sensors. And we will be, that had a different price tag to it than

098this year. None of our programs or procedures have changed from year to year. It's just the improvement from a technology hardening standpoint that we're doing this year, doesn't carry the same price tag as Day Automation's integrated lockdown system. You can see some of those yellow buttons over in the corner there. The other questions that were there were, did we cover them all? Say a little about Altaris. Yes, so Altaris has been our consultant for eight-ish? Seven. Seven or eight years at this point. They're one of the leading consulting firms in school security, especially in this area. I believe they work with somewhere north of 60 some odd districts, most in New York State, but also from around the country. They have completed a safety audit. If you go to the safety and security part of

099our website that's there. I'm happy to kind of have a deeper discussion with anybody who would like about that. We've been working for a number of years to complete the vast majority of those. Some of the, I think it's important to recognize, some of the recommendations that are made have to be weighed with school culture, with the social emotional health of students in mind. So there are a few things that on that list that we have decided not to undertake, and there are some things that we have decided to take in piecemeal and do over extended amounts of time. So window mitigation would be one of those. The window mitigation program where we would mitigate the vast majority of all the windows on the first floor, is a very financially burdensome task. We have done

100phase one of window mitigation. We obviously don't give out where we've mitigated windows, but we've done all of the priority areas in our buildings for window mitigation already. Phase two and phase three will be considered kind of in the future. So those are pieces that we have up and running. I think that's as thorough as we can be off the top of our heads. I would encourage you to, you said you were at the November, if you haven't watched, if you weren't or you hadn't watched the video again, I would look at that. It kind of goes through the history of where we've built our safety, security, emergency management from. Thank you for those responses, and again, feel free to email your questions. All right, I do not believe there are any wrap up items.

101So Ron, I'm gonna turn it to you. Thank you, Amber. Meeting dates for the coming month. We will meet tomorrow, April 18th, for a Special Meeting for the Southern Westchester's BOCES Vote at 9:00 AM in this room, in the High School Room 170-172. Followed on Monday, May 8th, the Board will meet with a designated group at 5:00 PM in the High School Learning Commons. Followed by the Statutory Budget Hearing at 6:30 PM in the High School Room 170-172. Followed by a Business Meeting in the same room and an Executive Session if needed. On Tuesday, May 16th, there will be the Public Budget Vote and Board Elections, and it's also the vote for the Bond, from 7:00 AM to 9:00 PM at the Middle School Gym. And then that same evening at 9:30 PM, the Board

102will convene a special meeting to certify the vote results in the Middle School Gym. On Monday, May 22nd, the Board will hold a Special Meeting Executive Session at 5:00 PM in the High School Room 170-172. Followed by an Education Report and Business Meeting at 6:30 PM in the same room. And lastly, on Wednesday, May 31st, the Board will hold a Special Meeting Executive Session at 6:00 PM in the High School Room 170-172. Thanks, Ron. Could I please get a motion to adjourn this meeting? Thank you, Suzie. Is there a second? Thanks, Colleen. Any discussion? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Okay great. Have a good evening, everyone. Thank you.