BOE BUDGET FORUM 2023-3-27

001Good evening everyone. Thank you for joining us for tonight's budget forum, whether in person or remotely, and thank you to those who are watching this forum later on demand. I will note that all board members are present with the exception of board member Jessica Resnick Galt, who unfortunately cannot be here with us this evening. Also present is Dr. Patrick and members of his cabinet. Thank you to Drew Stewart, Lisa, and your team along with the rest of cabinet for all of your hard work in putting together this budget and the presentations we have seen in our budget study sessions. I will turn things over to Drew for the next item on the agenda, a brief overview of the proposed budget for the 2023-2024 school year. Thank you, good evening. And before welcoming comments from members

002of our community. As Amber just said, we're gonna share this brief overview of our budget plan. First and foremost, this plan supports our mission to sponsor each student's full development, enabling our youth to be effective and independent contributors in a democratic society and an interdependent world. We do this by providing a world-class education that focuses on preparing our students for the opportunities they seek out after high school. We strive to create a school experience that enables our students to flourish by developing a range of dispositions, reflective of the whole child. So what does this proposed budget plan accomplish? Well, first and foremost, it maintains high quality teaching and learning. Our initiatives align with our goals, priorities in the strategic plan. It ensures our staffing levels are consistent with historical and current philosophies. It continues to

003support wellbeing and belonging through enrichment of curriculum and the engagement of new social emotional learning approaches and supports. It provides resources for the second year rollout of our elementary math program and supports the district's commitment to providing the devices, tools and infrastructure necessary for technology supported teaching and learning experiences. It also improves, expands and reimagines authentic global opportunities supports the researching, exploring and implementation of sustainability projects through collaboration across community and schools, continues flexible and needs-based partnerships with educational institutions, trainers and expert organizations to provide exemplary PD, supports all areas of the arts through visiting artists to share expertise and inspires students, and a continued support for special education programs including the eight 12 program and the emotional disabilities programs at the middle and high school. It supports the continued study and development of our

004DEI initiatives. It elevates our focus on social emotional support of students with the addition of mental health counseling capacity at the elementary level and it advances in-district opportunities for students with disabilities, including bringing the extended school year program for our eight 12 students here to the district. And finally, it funds new financial accounting and human resources software, improves and upgrades facilities with a focus on our building infrastructure and the shared field study that we've discussed. And it also prepares for changes in the future through a comprehensive transportation study. And with that, I'll turn it over to Mr Mattie for the proposed budget plan summary. Very good, thank you very much, Drew. So the proposed budget as we spoke about at our last meeting, $177,774,187. It's a budget to budget increase of 2.59%, which comes out

005to a 1.93% tax levy, which is just a little bit below the tax levy limit of 1.94%. Translated into tax rates for the town of Scarsdale 1.33% in Mamaroneck actually down 11.28% due to the application of the equalization rate, in the shifting of the tax levee pie, a little bit more to Scarsdale for the upcoming year. And the budget plan, it's where we look at all the expenditures and the offsetting revenues, so again, you can see the proposed budget on the top row compared to last year, the 2.59% increase. Other revenues, big items here again, state aid, county sales tax, a big driver this year in increasing that 1.4 million for next year is a projected increase in interest earnings. So in total $12.539 million a transfer from reserves, predominantly a transfer from the health

006insurance reserve and then also a TRS and ERS reserve transfer. And then using assigned fund balance of $1.1 million, you take away those revenues from the expenditures you're left with a tax levy and again, just a bit over or almost 3.1 million increase or a 1.93% year over year increase. In the high school auditorium project, as discussed, this is proposed to be a second proposition on the ballot. So again, May 16th is the vote, the bond proposition will be $4.75 million to support the renovations in the auditorium. Also includes reminders, includes inflation or escalation costs, contingencies and soft costs with putting that or constructing that work over the course of that time. And then just a reminder, if the bids do come in lower in just about a year from now, we would only issue

007bonds that are consistent with that work plus those additional things that we talked about for contingency and soft costs. So that would be great news if the bids for the general construction mechanicals, you know came in at 4.25, that'd be $500,000 that you would not need to borrow for. Any unused funds would come back into the general fund over time. And then just down below you can see the contingency cost examples and soft costs. So schedule wise, so we have the board meeting tonight where we have two resolutions, one for the secret determination, which is the environmental review related to that project, the bond proposition itself, what the voters would be voting on. The next item would be on the actual vote day if the vote were approved, that would take us to the preparation

008of the work, the detailed work by the architects taking us through to the fall or to the spring when we would have the actual bids taking place and then construction next summer, finishing up in January of 2025. Okay, and this brings us to our budget timeline. We are at March 27th with the budget forum and review and at the next regular board meeting on April 17th, the Board Of Education would be in the position of adopting the budget to go out to vote and as Stuart mentioned, the vote date is May 16th and I'll just remind people at the back of this slideshow, we do have a link to the previous presentations and we are now at the point of public comment. Great, thank you Drew. Thank you Stuart. The next item on the agenda

009is the opportunity for community response to the preliminary proposed budget. 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 from those participating via Zoom, please state your name and address and if you represent an organization, unlike at our business meetings, there is no limit on time, but we ask that you be mindful of the time so that everyone who wishes to speak about the budget has an opportunity. For those commenting remotely, when it is your turn to speak, please mute the livestream voice, turn on your camera and then unmute yourself. We will let you know if we cannot hear your voice. We would also appreciate everyone mailing their comments to [email protected]. So please come to the podium.. Hi,

010good evening. I'm Nan Mead, 49 Carthridge Road and this is my co-chair. I'm Dalia Khan, one 14 Brown Road. And we represent the portfolio committee for the school budget from The League of Women Voters. So I'll start, I'll read a few pages and then Dahlia's gonna pick up the back half. So The League of Women Voters of Scarsdale thanks the members of the Board Of Education and the district administration for participating in a panel at The League's general membership meeting and school budget information session and addressing questions on the preliminary proposed Scarsdale school district budget for 2023-24, and the proposed Scarsdale High School Auditorium renovation bond project on March 22nd, 2023. The following statement reflects the consensus of The League members at a consensus meeting held immediately following the information session. Positions The League supports

011the preliminary proposed Scarsdale school district budget for 2023-24 and recommends that barring any significant revisions before its adoption by the Board Of Education, the community vote yes to approve the final proposed budget on May 16th, 2023 at the Scarsdale Middle School. Sorry I'm my voice projects. The League supports the proposed high school auditorium renovation bond project barring any significant revisions before its adoption by the Board of Ed recommends that the community vote yes on May 16th, 2023 at Scarsdale Middle School to approve the proposed bond project and to authorize the district to issue bonds up to the total amount of the project. The League offers its comments and recommendations regarding certain budgetary items as well as the budget process which we hope will be considered at as next year's budget is revised and finalized and

012in future budgets. The League further offers comments regarding the auditorium bond project, budget overview and noteworthy features. The proposed budget is $177,620,492 with a budget to budget increase of 2.59% and a tax levy growth of 1.932%. The estimated tax rate increase for Scarsdale homeowners will be 1.35% and the estimated tax rate increase from Americ residents will be negative 11.26%. According to the administration, the budget accomplishes the following, maintains high quality teaching and learning, supports the continued study and development of DEI initiatives, elevates district focus on the social emotional supports of students, advances in district instructional opportunities for students with disabilities, funds new financial accounting and human resources software improves and upgrades facilities with a focus on building infrastructure and funding for a shared field study with Scarsdale Village, prepares the district for changes to our

013transportation system by funding a comprehensive transportation study. What is not included in the 2023-24 budget is also notable. The board voted to exclude the Scarsdale High School auditorium renovation project from the 2023-24 general fund budget in its entirety and presented as a separate voter proposition, in May, voters will have the opportunity to approve a $4,734,581 bond project that also authorizes the district to issue bonds for that total amount. 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 our March 22nd information session, including responding to our written requests and to the questions posed orally during the meeting. The League also appreciates that the administration continues to include The League budget questions and administration responses

014on the district website as a public resource. Comments and recommendations. Budget proposals and proposed reductions. The League appreciates the district's disclosure of their organically and authentically developed first draft of the budget. The League further acknowledges the constraints placed upon the district by the state imposed tax cap and appreciates the administration's efforts to prioritize expenditures that have the greatest impact on students' growth and learning. The League acknowledges and appreciates the iterative process the district took to arrive at the current proposed budget, which included the presentation of multiple budget scenarios. 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

015that really wants that. The League commends the board and the administration for their transparent and thorough discussion of the proposed budgets and in particular for the line by line analysis of proposed reductions. This transparency allows the community to better understand 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 encourages future boards to continue to evaluate and analyze proposed budgets in an open, thorough and transparent manner. Personnel and staffing. The League commends the administration for prioritizing the social emotional health of students and strongly supports the district's plan to hire consultants to support elementary social emotional learning as a next step in the process of determining what longer term solution best serves the needs of that age

016group. As the administration noted its capacity to support students in the ways we feel are necessary and beneficial has been outpaced, outstripped rather by the needs students are exhibiting. The League encourages the district to continue to prioritize the social, emotional and mental health needs of students. The League strongly encourages the administrations who support continued education around mental health and learning disabilities. More specifically to encourage and incentivize faculty and staff to participate in professional development in these areas, including enrolling in the relevant STI and ST@C courses. The League suggests that the administration explore avenues to incentivize and attach greater weight to professional development classes addressing those areas to encourage greater participation and Dalia will continue. Special education. The League has consistently stressed the importance of supporting special education students in Scarsdale, which has only become even

017more important given as the administration explained the significant rise in the number of classified students and the intensity of student needs over the past five to seven years. The League commends the district for advancing in-district opportunities for students with disabilities. Specifically The League strongly supports the administration's effort to have special education students who are eligible for extended school year services stay in district for the summer session instead of being placed in an out of district summer program. The League agrees with the administration's priority of expanding the continuum of services in a financially sustainable manner to educate as many students as reasonably feasible within our own programs. The League appreciates the district's recognition of the increasing demands on the chairpersons and administrators in the special education department. We recommend that the administration continue to prioritize special

018education program review in expansion in future years to ensure that our special education students benefit from appropriate staffing and resources at all levels within the Scarsdale school system. DEI, the League commends the district for its commitment to keep values of diversity, equity, and inclusion at the forefront of its programming, the curriculum, its outreach, its hiring efforts and its planning process and strongly encourages the district to ensure that DEI remains a consideration across all areas of Scarsdale schools. The League looks forward to the DEI survey being developed and encourages the district to be timely and transparent with the results of the survey. Plant and capital improvements. The League acknowledges the completion of the building's condition survey and urges the district to keep the results of the survey and our aging facilities in mind as we budget

019for 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 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. The League also encourages the district to consider the current and future impact of climate change on the physical plant and on future infrastructure and capital projects. The League appreciates the administration's recognition of the need to bring the scarce high school building to a certain level of cleanliness and looks forward to the district's reassessment of such staffing needs in the future. Facilities, security and sustainability. The League appreciates the district's continued evaluation of safety protocols and priorities, including

020its decision to budget for the installation of door ajar sensors, in light of the Uvalde tragedy. We encourage the district to continue to implement security measures and incorporate best practices and also reflect and connect to the values of the entire Scarsdale community. The League commends the district on its plan to proceed with a behavioral energy savings program and appreciates the district's effort to reduce its energy costs. The League encourages the district to consider other sustainability projects that would be beneficial to the environment, the individuals who use our buildings and the physical plant. Advocacy, the League commends the board for its advocacy in conjunction with Scarsdale Village administration to address the persistent gaps in cellular coverage in the village, including in and around the schools, which review as an important safety and communication issue. The League

021strongly encourages the board and administration to continue to work closely with its Scarsdale village counterparts to address dead zones in cellular coverage and also to be leaders in advocacy at both the state and local levels on issues that impact the Scarsdale Schools. Scarsdale High School Auditorium project. As The League has previously noted, the auditorium renovation project was originally estimated to cost approximately $900,000 and was included in a bond proposal approved by voters in December, 2014. Due to cost overruns on the 2014 bond projects, most of the proposed auditory renovation was not undertaken. Since that time, the scope and projected cost of the improvements to the auditorium have evolved into a 4.7 million project that addresses lighting improvements in acoustical overhaul seating and stage floor replacement and renovations to the backstage in dressing room spaces. The

022League commends the district for prioritizing this long deferred but much discussed renovation through a thoughtful and open discussion resulting in this decision to shift funding strategies from the annual budget to a bond. The auditorium is used by all high school students, a significant number of high school parents in various community organizations, and when the project is completed will benefit directly those students who are currently elementary and middle school aged. The League therefore understands and supports the administration's recommendation and board's decision to bond the project subject to a separate proposition in May. At the same time as a school budget vote that asked voters to approve the 4.7 million project and to authorize a district to issue bonds for that total amount. Budget process, community engagement. The League appreciates that the administration makes the budget presentations

023and budget development and staffing recommend 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 board for recognizing the challenges faced by many organizations with a one week turnaround between the last buddy budget study session and the public forum, and for adjusting the budget calendar for the 2024-25 budget session to allow for a two week gap. This added week should provide 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 to incorporate into the final iteration.

024The League thanks the board for creating opportunities for public input into the budget at various points in the development process and encourages the board and its community engagement subcommittee to explore additional means and methods of expanding such engagement throughout the year. The League 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 administration and board for consideration of our statement. The lead looks forward to the release of the board's final budget iteration resulting from having considered community comments, thank you. Thank you. Dalia and Nan and to The League for your statement and please don't forget to email that to us. Good evening, my name is Christopher Bach and together with Myra Kirk and Doll Rodriguez, we are the

025Scarsdale Parent Teacher Council budget study co-chairs for the 2023-2024 budget study season. After analyzing the proposed budget, both the PTC executive committee and PTC budget study chairs support this year's budget. We believe that the proposed budget addresses the PTCs budget priorities identified in November. In addition to being fiscally responsible, we would like to thank and recognize Mr. Stewart, Mattie, Dr. Drew, Patrick, and others in the administration for your work on this budget, and we appreciate the questions about the budget from members of the board of Ed, PTC and individual budget study liaisons of all seven schools. We also thank members of the Scarsdale PTA community for their involvement during this entire process. This has been a year of increased parental involvement in the budget process, which we believe strengthens our community and our educational system.

026In our statement from November, the PTC budget study chairs identified four main categories of PTA community requests that the district administration include in the budget. These four categories were one, delivery of educational services and student supports. Two, safety and security is related to transportation traffic and grounds. Three, upgraded facilities to either enhance or replace existing aging items and four, sustainability. Based on the district's responses to our questions, we are pleased to offer our support for the proposed budget as well as for the separate bond issue for the auditorium. The PT Council executive committee and budget study chairs encourage the community to vote yes on both the budget and the auditorium bond on May 16th. With regards to the pillars, first on the community priority of delivery of educational services and student supports, the PTC is

027committed to supporting high quality education for all students as a core value of our district, the PT Council strongly supports continued small class size, robust learning and mental health, students support differentiated teaching and learning, and the development of the whole child. We support and encourage initiatives related to mental health and wellness as well as diversity, equity, and inclusion. Additionally, PTC strongly supports continuing enhancements in curriculum and professional development district-wide to enrich and improve student learnings in all schools. We believe this budget will not only maintain Scarsdale's educational system as a leader in the area, but also will continue to push Scarsdale schools to even higher levels. We respectfully request that the district continue to monitor all students' performance with a critical eye and in a timely manner to always look for ways to support our

028students across schools so that they can have the highest academic achievement and individual enrichment possible regarding safety and security related to transportation traffic and grounds. We are pleased that the full transportation study is included in the 2023-24 budget. As per the proposed budget, $24,000 is designated for a comprehensive transportation study, which will among other areas of focus assist the district in navigating the zero emission fleet requirements of the upcoming years. The traffic study is long overdue and we thank the administration for listening to our request and making it a priority. I'll now turn it over to Myra to complete our statement. Hi, Myra Kirkendal Rodriguez, co-chair with Chris Bach, on the upgraded facilities pillar, we're also pleased that the auditorium project is both moving forward and that it is being addressed via separate bond issue.

029The PTC appreciates that the community can vote on this bond issuance. We believe that the district's interest rate assumptions are presently reasonable. The cost of less than $40 per average household per year is not burdensome to the majority of taxpayers. We also appreciate the contingencies built into the budget so that residents can be assured that there will be minimal deviation from this estimate. The PTC supports voting in favor of the auditorium project, given the initial assumptions presented. On the sustainability pillar. We appreciate that the district views sustainability as a core value of our community and that the district considers sustainability and infrastructure projects. A case in point is the transportation study, which will also review the current fleet of buses with an eye toward analyzing zero emission requirements. For the near future, we respectfully request

030that the budget study process be revised, this year, the proposed budget book was only released at 4:00 PM on March 20th. This is not sufficient time for more residents to be able to fully analyze the budget and to be able to pose questions to the administration. Please consider allowing at least two budget meetings between the budget release and the community budget forum. We reiterate our request from November that the district provide an updated plan and schedule for capital improvement projects across all schools for the next five years. Community members have been passionate in their request for improvements at specific schools that they would like to see implemented. As we share during our statements in our remarks in November, we recognize that some of these improvement requests are identified in the district's capital projects document and

031realize that due to budgetary constraints, we cannot tackle all capital improvement projects simultaneously, however, the PTC would like to understand what the plan and schedule are for investments in capital improvement projects, whether in future budgets or financed via a future bond issue. Since we began the budget study process last fall, inflation has continued its upward trajectory and the volatility in the banking sector globally has made the economic environment more precarious, as we did last year, we continue to recommend that the district consider creating and implementing a long-term financial plan that shows the community how our educational values and infrastructure needs will be financed. We thank you for designing a budget and a separate bond issuance for the auditorium that is respectful of the current turbulent economic environment. We value the financial stewardship that the district

032has shown as exhibited in the district current high credit quality rating of AAA. This rating is critical in keeping the district's borrowing costs as low as possible. We would especially like to thank Dr. Patrick and Mr. Mattie for their openness and transparency through this process, as well as their commitment to receiving feedback and giving us detailed explanations about the budget. By its very nature, designing a budget is not an easy process because there are myriad stakeholders often offering different opinions. Dr. Patrick and Mr. Mattie were always willing to meet with the community, answer questions thoughtfully, make adjustments where necessary, and work collaboratively with the members of the Parent-Teacher Council and the PTC budget study chairs. Thank you for vi for valuing cognitive diversity and discussion. We encourage Scarsdale voters to join us in supporting the

033proposed 2023-2024 budget on May 16, thank you. Thank you Myra and Kristen, the PT Council. Is there anyone else in the audience that would like to speak? Hi. I have a couple of statements to read for parents who cannot be here tonight, so I'll start with that. First I'm going to read on behalf of Kelsa Debreband of Boulevard. I wish to express my support for the Scarsdale High School Auditorium renovation. I support the bond proposal and look to seeing its approval. My daughter is currently in the seventh grade and I'm hopeful that she will benefit from the planned improvements and enhancements. Although I've never had a child go through the high school before, I do reliably attend the plays held at the SHS Auditorium each fall and spring. My daughter's an avid theater lover. She

034participates in the middle school productions and is involved in shows put on by Sandbox, a local theater group twice yearly. It's a real passion of hers and gives her life great meaning and purpose. It has unlocked a level of natural confidence and self-assuredness that I'm thrilled to see. Her love of the performing arts I suspect will only continue to grow, for this reason, having a renovated high quality and high tech theater at Scarsdale High School is a top priority of mine. The Bond Act seems like a sensible way to fund the renovation. Thank you for deeply considering this bond which will provide a much needed renovation. I'd also like to read on behalf of Sherra Tibib of Heath Coat Road. My name is Sherra Tibib and my family and I have been residents of the

035Scarsdale community for most of my life. I attended the Quaker Ridge Elementary School, Scarsdale Middle School, and Scarsdale High School. Seven years ago, my husband and I returned to Scarsdale to raise our family in the Quaker Ridge neighborhood that I grew up in. Coincidentally, one block from the house that I grew up in. In short, I'm a committed and proud Scarsdalian and care deeply about our community. My family and I are in support of the Scarsdale High School Auditorium renovation and are supporters of funding the project by way of a bond. The renovation of the high school auditorium will elevate the students' experiences to a whole new level with the hopes of installing better lighting, acoustics, improvement and equipment, et cetera. The auditorium is also a place for important school meetings and gatherings of students

036and adults from across the community. I feel that it is imperative that our children assemble and learn in a modernized environment that expresses our community's value for performing arts and where presenters can be heard well. Our daughters are now seventh and eighth graders at the Scarsdale Middle School, and our active participants in the community and at school, both have been involved in the elementary and middle school plays and take much pride in their roles on and off the stage. This year, our seventh grader participated in the Scarsdale Middle School play SpongeBob, which played to packed audiences two weekends ago, and it brings me such joy to see how her participation in the program is playing a meaningful role in her development as a confident and happy young woman. The lessons the students learn at play

037rehearsals are invaluable, building lasting friendships, enhancing speaking skills, and challenging them to get out of their comfort zones. Equally as significant, theater has become a place of refuge from screen time, which has become so invasive to both the home and classroom experiences, the list of benefits are too great to name here. My daughters look forward to their continued involvement and participation in future theater programs at the Scarsdale High School. I'd like to note that our family has intended several wonderful SHS theater performances over the years, most recently, Mama Mia. While the Scarsdale High School Theater Program is doing a fantastic job at producing highly entertaining productions, I can tell you firsthand that theater has, from what I can tell, not been meaningfully updated in at least 30 years. As a mother of two middle schoolers,

038I would be so excited to share with my daughters that they will be entering the high school with the facility that will no doubt and improve their social, recreational, and educational experiences. The renovation of the Scarsdale High School auditorium will benefit our community at large and will be a wonderful meeting place that we can all be proud of, thank you. And lastly, I'm Laura Galblum I'd like to read a statement from the Executive Board of Friends of Music and the Arts. The Scarsdale High School Auditorium is a gathering place for the entire Scarsdale community. Every high school student uses the auditorium for school-wide assemblies and for band orchestra and chorus concerts. The auditorium is also home to pre-season high school sports meetings attended by parents and students, SHS acting and theater tech classes, the Jabber

039Fest Student Talent show, the annual senior class play, which brings together class classmates for a culminating bonding experience and numerous annual drama club performances, which are attended by thousands of people in the greater Scarsdale community. Parents, alumni and other community members also gather in the auditorium for various meetings and special programs. Friends of music and the arts has been advocating for repairs and upgrades to this space for many years. We are grateful to the district administration for its development of an auditorium renovation proposal with an up-to-date scope of work with significant professional and stakeholder input that addresses the current needs, including approved acoustics and lighting, new audience seats, dressing room reconfigurations, modifications to enhance students' theater tech learning experience and safety and additions to improve accessibility. This work aligns with the district's strategic educational priorities

040for cohesive community, personalized learning and wellness and wellbeing. Comparable area school districts have recently rebuilt or renovated their aging auditoriums at significant costs renewing their commitment to arts, education and community spaces. Scarsdale has recently invested money in other areas of student experience, but the last major upgrade to the auditorium was over 30 years ago. The current plan to fund the renovation through the issuance of a school bond spreading the cost over a 10 year period is responsible and by using available surplus funds and state funding to significantly lower the total expense to taxpayers to just over $1.3 million, the projected average annual household impact will be just under $28 a year. We wholeheartedly support this reasonable and much needed project. The investment will benefit students' learning and wellbeing and will give all residents a space

041that fosters connection and enjoyment of the arts, thank you. Thank you for that statement, Laura, and to the Friends of Music and Arts, and please feel free to send those other statements to us as well. Is there anyone else here in person who would like to speak on the budget? Okay, let's turn to Zoom. We do have a few attendees, a couple with their hands raised. Please go ahead, Erica. All right. I might go to the next person with her hand up and come back to Erica in a second. Hi, can you hear me? Yes. Hi everyone. This is Rachel Krisberg and I'm the Green Acres PTA president and on behalf of the Green Acres Budget study chair, Gina Fairinkoff and the Green Acres PTA executive committee, I would like to say that we strongly

042support the proposed 2023-2024 school budget. In particular, we stand behind the district's focus on expanding mental health resources and social emotional support in the elementary schools. We also express our overwhelming support for the high school auditorium bond. This has been a high priority for the district for many years as the auditorium is extremely dated and does not reflect the high standards that Scarsdale prides itself on. Further updating the auditorium will hugely benefit the entire community, since the space is used by many groups, large and small, both during the school day and after. Ahead of the May 16th vote, we strongly encourage the administration and the board to engage and educate the community about the need for this important re renovation. We appreciate the extensive work and time the administration and the board have devoted to

043the budget study process. Thank you for your dedication to ensuring that our children's wellbeing is prioritized and commitment to continued educational excellence. Thank you very much. Thank you. We have a couple more hands raised. Hello, can you hear me? Yes. Beth Sukire, I am the President-elect at the Scarsdale High School PTA and I am speaking here tonight on behalf of Chris Marks, who is our budget study chair and also VP of membership. The Scarsdale High School PTA executive committee and budget study chair appreciate the efforts of the district administration and Board Of Education and preparing a budget that is fiscally responsible while addressing important concerns of the high school community. We thank the members of the Board Of Education for their dedication and for giving us the opportunity to comment on the proposed 2023-2024 school

044district budget. We support the proposition separate from the 2023-24 budget to authorize the issuance of a bond for the high school auditorium project. Bonding the auditorium project would spread the cost over multiple years, better matching the useful life of the space to be renovated. This would also eliminate the one time budget impact and tax levy increase that would result from the inclusion of the auditorium project in the budget. The auditorium project has been a priority for over a decade and a much needed improvements were approved by voter support in the 2014 bond. Since then, a standard committee has met to research and prioritize the scope of work that could be completed during these years subject to substantial cost constraints, but it is no longer possible to continue such a peaceful approach. The current scope of

045work for the auditorium, addresses needed repairs, acoustic improvements, continued lighting improvements, audience seating, dressing room needs, modifications to enhance students' theater tech learning experience and accessibility. The auditorium is utilized by all community members including students, teachers, parents, and non-parents. Virtually every high school student uses the auditorium for assemblies, band, orchestra, and chorus concerts, Jabber Fest talent shows, drama club performances and theater and tech classes. The auditorium is also used for parenting community meetings and alumni programs. If the auditorium program project proceeds as planned, there would be a significant benefit to our students and community for years to come, accordingly, we express our support of the scope of work, of the auditorium project and the proposition to issue a bond. We also support the high priority project to repair the deteriorated and leaking high school band

046room roof, which has been included in transfers to the capital fund and the current budget and the requested increased to counselor travel to colleges, universities, and conferences. We understand that the Board Of Education needs to identify the budget initiatives that should be prioritized to help achieve the goals and objectives of the district's strategic plan, while also considering the tax levy limit current economic environment and other fiscal limitations. The following items which are not in this proposed budget impact the daily lives and education of our high school students and should remain a priority and considered for future budgets. First the availability of wifi or cellphone signals throughout the high school fields and parking lots to promote safety. Second, due to the increase of severe weather and flooding in the Northeast, we like the district working with

047the village if necessary to implement a study to identify and remediate flooding the high school, different areas of the high school experience, flooding including Butler Field, the storage room near the auditorium, and the parking lots near the Brewster Road Creek Bed. Third, upgraded furniture in instructional spaces. Fourth, replacement of aging library furniture. Fifth, additional funds requested to support student club activities that were included in draft budget plan number one. Six, the addition of a 1.0 FTE high school custodian and covering late afternoon, early evening, and Saturday coverage to supplement the cleaning staff and improve cleaning and coverage based on recommended standards. We appreciate the time and attention taken to create this year's budget and being given the opportunity to participate in the process. Please not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions about

048our priorities. Thank you for your consideration and is signed by Vanessa Penistapos, president, Beth Sekire president-elect, Chris Marks budget study chair and VP membership and events, Julie Zu, VP programming and volunteers. Jodi Ruda, treasurer, Elizabeth Hoaxster, recording secretary and Atia Malek, corresponding secretary. Thank you so much. Thank you. We have one more hand raised. Hello, can you hear me? Yes, please go ahead. Hi, my name is Erica Rubin and I am the Scarsdale Middle School PTA Treasurer. I'm representing the Scarsdale Middle School Budget Chairs Arena Turner and Julia Lou and the Scarsdale Middle School PTA executive committee. In reading a statement in support of the proposed budget and the proposed bond. The Scarsdale Middle School PT executive committee, budget study chairs and legislative advocacy chair support the preliminary proposed Scarsdale School's budget for 2023-2024, and

049the bond for the Scarsdale High School Auditorium renovations. The broader Scarsdale and Westchester community will benefit from the Scarsdale High School Auditorium renovation, which will allow for continued and increased programming and event hosting in the modernized and approved auditorium space. We support the proposed categories of the proposed Scarsdale High School renovation from practical to aesthetics, which would include improvements to acoustics, aesthetics, rigging, lighting, backstage improvements and water mitigation. Additionally, the budget as related to Scarsdale Middle School includes additional staffing that reflects a .6 FTA budget to budget increase and a 1.6 actual to budget change. Positions were added prior to the start of the year in ENL and one teacher on special assignment. In the 2023-24 proposed budget, the 2022-23 ENL staffing will remain and the teacher on special assignment is removed. The proposed staffing

050is 113.6 FTE. Overall, we support the budget based on its meaning, its objectives of maintaining the high quality teaching and learning, support and development of DEI initiatives, social and emotional supportive students, advances in district opportunities for students with disabilities, funds new financial accounting and human resources software improves and upgrades facilities, funds, a comprehensive transportation study and maintains the Scarsdale Middle School House system. This statement in support of the budget and the proposed bond is signed by Debra Lichtenstein, the Scarsdale Middle School PTA President, Tina Lynn, president-elect, me, PCA treasurer Ye Yang, the PTA directory and chair of directory and membership, Lori Harrison, chair of Hospitality, Rachel Fingeroute Programming. And Sam Carter, Secretary, thank you for the opportunity to speak this evening. Thank you. There are no more hands raised. Okay, great. I'll close the opportunity

051for public comment on the proposed budget, and I wanna say thank you to everyone who spoke this evening. We hope you'll consider sending your comments to the board in writing. I will now turn to the next item, which is a board discussion on the budget, so fellow board members, does anyone have any comments or questions on what we've heard tonight from the public or anything else? I think the only thing that we heard that we have talked about here is just as we go into next budget season, sort of going back and revisiting some of those difficult decisions we had to make and having that discussion again in the future. So appreciate hearing that from the community and our partners as well. Anyone else? I agree with your comments, Ron, and actually one thing that

052jumped out at me was, I think it was Beth who mentioned the flooding in the parking lot, and I know that's something that we've looked at in the past, but it's not easily solved. Is that right? That's correct. That doesn't make it less of a concern or less important, but it is a challenge. Correct, and it's not just, you know, the school district, obviously it would be a multi agency effort. Yeah, it's just something I've noticed recently with I think the parking getting to be more and more crowded for students and we're seeing that in terms of, I guess as more kids get their license later in junior year, the parking gets a little harder and then on rainy days with the flooding, but maybe it's something that we look into in the future is,

053I don't know again where we're gonna find space, but I think that's something that resonates with me. So Jim, anything you'd like to add? Yeah, I just wanted to say that I appreciate the efforts of my fellow board members and the community liaisons who had input with the thoughtful and deliberative process that was followed and the painstaking care that was paid to the expenses and the sources of revenue that exist to make this budget a reality. I feel fortunate that we were able hopefully, to achieve this budget while remaining under the New York state imposed tax cap. I just want to put out there as a marker for no reason other than that may not always be achievable. You know, I just think there might be a tendency on behalf of people that think the

054tax cap is an immutable law of nature, the violation of which brings catastrophe. I think that is a mistaken notion. I think the tax cap forces upon us sometimes, I guess useful, but sometimes harmful choices, and I just really would like us as a community, not just the administration and the board to be open-minded about what kinds of decisions it may impose upon us in the future and be open to reflecting on those things. I appreciate that, thoughtful comment, Jim. Anyone else? Okay, well, with no more questions or comments, let's move on, to wrap up, I'd like to just bring one item to the board's attention, so the district publication insight will be produced in distributed next month after the board firmly adopts the budget. That publication has traditionally included a letter from the board

055in the past. Is the board comfortable with Ron, Susie and myself drafting a letter for discussion with the board after we adopt the budget? Please note the timeline is very short and we'll need to approve the letter if it is to be signed by the full board the same night that we adopt the budget. So are there any thoughts on this matter? No concerns, Colleen. Bob? Great, Jim? Okay, I'll take the thumbs up as yes, so we'll have that as an agenda item in April. Ben, can I please get a motion to adjourn the budget forum and move to the business meeting, thank you, Colleen. Second, Bob, any discussion? All in favor, please say aye. Aye, great. Thank you everyone for being with us tonight. Okay, let's go ahead and get started. Welcome and thank

056you to all those attending this evening's board meeting, whether in the audience via live streaming or watching later on demand. I call this meeting to order and note that all board members are present except for Jessica Resnick Galt, and we are join Joined by Dr. Patrick and his cabinet, the board recognizes that student achievement, district progress and community satisfaction with the schools are all in large part affected by the superintendent's performance. The board also recognizes the superintendent cannot function effectively without periodic feedback on performance. The board is committed to ensuring that the superintendent is evaluated annually as required by the commissioner's regulations and in accordance with the superintendent's contract. On March 11th, I attended a superintendent evaluation training hosted by the New York State School Board's Association. Materials from this training were shared with the

057full board and with Dr. Patrick, and last week the board met with Dr. Patrick in executive session to discuss the process and template to be used in this year's evaluation. Although the details of our discussion remain confidential, the public is welcome to view the assessment tool used in Dr. Patrick's evaluation on the superintendent's webpage, which also includes Dr. Patrick's goals for the current school year. Before this meeting, the board held its budget forum. The budget forum provides the community the opportunity to opine on the proposed budget for the 2023-2024 school year. We appreciate all of the hard work Dr Patrick and his team have put into creating the proposed budget and would like to extend a special thank you to assistant superintendent Stewart Mattie, for whom this will be his last budget for Scarsdale and

058treasurer Alisa Zaraski, who has just completed her first budget book for Scarsdale. Thank you for all your efforts. We would also like to extend thanks to The League of Women Voters who held a school budget forum last week, which provided League members and members of the public the opportunity to ask questions about the budget and proposed bond to the administration and to board members. We also thank the PTC for inviting the administration to speak to their budget study chairs. The board appreciates the work of all the individuals that sent us questions and comments and spoke at our budget forums and business meetings, and we thank the many organizations who provided the board and administration with thought-provoking questions and comments, including the Friends of Music and Arts, the PTC, the Edgewood PTA, the Green Acres PTA,

059the Scarsdale Middle School PTA, and the Scarsdale High School Executive Committee, PTA and The League of Women Voters of Scarsdale. Thank you all for your participation in this important process. The board is expected to take action on the proposed bond later tonight in order to meet statutory requirements to place the bond on the ballot in May, and we'll take action on the proposed budget at our next business meeting in April. The board is also expected to take action this evening on the appointment of the new superintendent for business, Andrew Lennon. With that, I'll turn it over to you, drew. Thank you, I had my good evening and welcome to those of you joining us in person and online. And I apologize in advance for the length of my opening remarks, but a few things I

060wanna share this evening, but before getting to the bulk of my remarks, I do wanna offer my condolences to the students and families impacted by yet another school shooting. Today's events in Tennessee are woefully familiar. Like with past events, we will engage with our partners to learn whatever we can from this and integrate that learning into our current safety and security practices and into our decision making structures. As I expressed last May in the wake of similar tragedies, our strength lies in the community we construct together every single day. Our faculty and staff cherish their responsibility as trusted adults in the lives of the students in our care, not just when tragedy strikes, but each and every day. While no community is immune to tragedy and violence, we have the good fortune of sharing deep

061care and concern for one another for our schools and for the importance of our work as partners and the lives of our community's children. With that said, I'm delighted to share a sampling of the great things happening around the district, starting with some of our elementary schools. Students at Quaker Ridge this week are preparing for an author visit from Janae Marx on Friday and had a cupcake contest inspired by the character Zoe Washington in her dream of being on a competitive baking show. Working alone or in pair, students came up with a theme, a recipe, and a design for their cupcakes. A celebrity panel of judges, including Dr Gill and Ms. Hefner judged them on design flavor, the best part, creativity and best overall. The winning students will get to have lunch with Ms. Marks

062when she visits later this week. Fox Meadow celebrated Pocket Day last Friday, a mathematical engagement and a fun school-wide event where students and staff try to wear as many pockets as possible and compete to have the most accurate estimate of pockets in their grade and in the school. I understand there was one student in Ms. Dato's class who wore 36 pockets, an even three dozen I might add. Scarsdale Middle School hosted its first Women's Symposium last week, the result of a collaboration between the school and the SMS PTA DEI committee. Over 50 local women visited homerooms to talk about career opportunities, their personal experiences, and the history of women in their positions. It was a wonderful event and we thanked the committee for all the hard work that went into planning such an extraordinary event.

063Also at the middle school, as we've come to expect, our middle school Science Olympiad teams did an incredible job once again. This year we had three teams compete at the Lower Hudson Valley Regional competition on May 4th, once again hosted by our own middle school. Our top team finished in second place earning them a birth to the state competition in April, and the students finished top 10 in many events earning a total of 26 medals. In many of the events our teams earned first or second place, and in some all three teams medaled, we won gold in botany, can't judge a powder, quiz bowl, and wheeled vehicle. Congratulations to our competitors, to all competitors, and thank you to the science team for not only coaching, but hosting this event, and a special thanks to Jay

064Gandleman, Lori Checoni, Ken Raff, and Ben Turner. I was delighted to attend Scarsdale High School drama club's performance of She Kills Monsters, this past Saturday. The performance was outstanding, with the acting set, music and production all bringing the story to life. The play is a drama comedy, which tells the story of Agnes Evans, an average woman who loses her little sister Tilly in a car accident. Agnes having been a popular cheerleader while her sister Tilly was a nerd, regrets not having been closer to Tilly when she was alive, so she embarks on an adventure to get to know her sister better by playing a Dungeons and Dragons module that Tilly had written. Many of the technical elements in the show were designed by theater tech students for the first time, providing a new degree of

065challenge and collaboration the SHS Drama Club has not previously attempted. The bullies in the play, characters, use a derogatory term to the LGBTQ+ community. In preparation for the show, the cast spent time with Center Lane, a local LGBTQ+ community outreach organization in order to understand the term as well as the history of the LGBTQ+ community in our nation and across the world. We commend the courage of all involved to undertake this important work, and it was nice to see the organization have a presence at the play. To the high school, speech and debate has reached the end of the regular season. The post-season is ahead, March Madness and Beyond. We've had 51 students qualify for the New York State Speech and Debate Championship, which will take place at the end of April at Bronx High

066School of Science on the Saturday with elimination rounds here in Scarsdale, on Sunday, we have six students that qualified for the Tournament of Champions, which will take place the third weekend in April in Lexington, Kentucky. In the Public forum debate, Jan he Lee and Rick Yang, Andrew Lou and Eric Lou all qualified in the Lincoln Douglas Debate, David Wong. Program, oral Interpretation and Oral Interpretation. Of Literature, Carly Galles. We have four students that qualified for the National Catholic Forensic League National Tournament, which will take place over Memorial Day weekend in Louisville, Kentucky in oral interpretation of literature. Abigail Undervisors, Natalie Beldner, and Carly Gilles and Extemporaneous Speaking Laden Kennedy. And we have nine students that qualified for the National Speech and Debate Association National Tournament, whoo, which will take place the third week in June

067in Phoenix, Arizona, in US. Extemporaneous Speaking, Laden Kennedy International, Extemporaneous Speaking, Anjulie Schultz and Aria Gowal Public Forum Debate. Andrew Lu and Eric Lu. Lincoln Douglas Debate Lana Weiser and David Wong. And Program Oral Interpretation, Carly Gilles and Natalie Beldner. Congratulations to all of our speech and debate participants and coaches, Jovan and Will Maldarelli. That's an incredible accomplishment. And next, this evening, I'd like to take this opportunity to provide the board and the public with some background information regarding a proposed addition to the regulations of the Commissioner of Education first introduced in December that the New York State Board of Regents is expected to approve in April next month. The proposed edition is entitled Use Of Indigenous Names, Logos, Or Mascots, Prohibited. And states, and I quote, no public school in the state of New

068York may utilize or display an indigenous name, logo, or mascot. The regulation would require boards of education to, and this is a quote, commit via resolution to eliminating use of all indigenous names, logos, and mascots. By the end of the 2023-2024 school year. Such resolution shall identify a plan to eliminate all use of the prohibited name, logo, or mascot within a reasonable time, which shall be no later than the end of the 2024-2025 school year end quote. While the regulation makes no mention of specific names, logos, or mascots in recent remarks to Bosi superintendents, the Senior Deputy Commissioner of Education specifically identified the names, Warriors, Raiders, and Red Raiders as examples of names that will be prohibited. At this point in time, while there may be reasonable disagreements to be had over whether or not

069our own Raider name has an indigenous connection, it is prudent to begin contemplating a path forward should the regulation be adopted and upheld. I reached out to the department and learned that they will be crafting guidance once the regulation is enacted and that they will provide assistance to school districts through an Indigenous Mascot Advisory Group. While it is important to monitor how this will fully unfold at the state level, I've started to have discussions with our administration, including Ray Palardy and the Athletics Department, as well as with the leadership of Maroon and White, our athletics booster organization. If we do head down the path of a name change for our teams, I think it will be important to have an inclusive process that empowers, in particular our student body and alumni to the extent possible,

070I will keep the board in public up to date on the board of regent's action, and we will include an information item at a future meeting, so as to invite board discussion and public comment as appropriate. And finally, important dates, April 3rd through seventh next week will be the school's spring break, so our schools will be closed. Passover starts at sundown on April 5th and continues through sundown on April 13th. And April 9th is Easter. Thank you Drew. And thank you for providing that update on the potential situation with the Raider name and for following up with the organization to keep us informed of options, so we appreciate that. And also, as always, do appreciate the updates on the students activities. That's still my favorite part. Okay we have a number of board updates this

071evening. Who would like to give the first report, Susie. Thank you Amber. As the PTC liaison, I'd like to report that the PTC hosted another successful young writer's workshop on March 11th at Green Acres. Around 203rd through fifth graders were in attendance. Second graders joined virtually for the keynote speaker, Elisa Broach. All attendees were happy and engaged, participating in workshops ranging from art to sports writing. The morning run smoothly, many thanks to Laura Chaston, Amanda Gladstein and Lauren Rubino for all their hard work sharing this wonderful event. Also, this past weekend, the PTC held the annual Sports Swap, which is a community favorite. As usual, many community members donated their used sports equipment and accessories, and the swap was a huge success. Thank you to the sport Sports Swap chairs, meg Simon, Danielle Schoff, Stephanie

072Stern, and Sarah Farnsworth. Also as the board liaison to the Westchester Putnam School Boards Association. I've been asked to be a presenter at West Put event June 12th for newly elected board members. I look forward to speaking about the first year board experience and welcoming and providing support for new board members as they embark on the important work of board service in their school communities, thank you. Thank you, Susie, Bob? Sure, so I'm the board liaison for Safe Coalition, which is an organization, a group that focuses on domestic violence. And we met on March 13th over Zoom. And the two takeaways from that meeting is just to remind the community that on April 18th at seven o'clock, we're going to have our annual book read, which is being organized between Friends of the Scarsdale Library

073and Scarsdale Family Counseling. I'm trying to think of if the advert has gone out yet, but if it hasn't, everyone should keep an eye out for it and if time permits they should, I think, register, it sounds like they're getting the author, Ms. Snyder, who has written a book that the group feels will really add some insight into the, to domestic violence in society. And I guess the last thing I wanted to mention is that there has been and will continue to be a social media campaign with articles that we are publishing by an organization called One Love and Safe Coalition and Scarsdale Family Counseling Facebook posts. And we've been tracking it and I'm happy to say a lot of people over 200 people have been clicking on and looking at the posts and I

074think that's great. So keep an eye open for that please. Thank you Bob, Colleen? On March 15th, I had the pleasure of attending the STI policy board meeting. I would like to thank Annemarie Nane for all of her hard work, preparing, planning, and executing this meeting. During this meeting, teachers presented on their work using the mini grants that were granted to them by the STI. These grants are designed to support teachers in innovating innovative ideas within their current academic focus. After being awarded these grants, teachers turn their ideas into realities and then share the experiences with the board. We were able to hear about two amazing programs that were implemented because of the support of this STI mini grant program. The first program was called Peer Buddies. It was presented by Jenna Mozilla from the

075Edgewood School. In this program, general Education Peer Buddies worked with students in the eight to one to two classroom on socialization skills, assisting the learners in communicating, following directions, and using cooperative play skills. These activities were conducted through various mediums such as art, science, sensory activities, and music, and were a clear success. The second program was called Artistic Geometry, was presented by Janna Johnson and Monica Palakar from the Scarsdale High School. In this interdisciplinary collaboration, students discussed the work of MC Escher for both the math perspective and the artistic perspective, and apply these concepts to design and build 2D and 3D models. It was an honor to be able to see the results of these teachers innovative ideas, and I would like to thank them for putting in the extra time and work that it

076takes to make these ideas a reality. It was clear from these presentations that their dedications, their dedication, had a huge impact on their student learning. I would like to thank the STI for creating such an amazing opportunity for our teachers as well as the teachers that use this program to expand the experience of their students. Thank you, Colleen. Ron? Thanks Amber. Last week I attended the district safety committee meeting, which Eric is gonna give an update during cabinet update. So I'll let him do that in a little bit. Thank you Ron, Jim? Thank you Amber. Recently I attended a part of a webinar put on by the Westchester Putnam School Board Association on the topic of education law, was put out on March 16th and March 23rd, five hour program approximately total. And I attended

077the second half of the program via Zoom. The program was provided by leading practitioners in education law in local firms in the Westchester County and New York State. And the topics that were presented included things such as social media, privacy, rights and accountability, legal aspects of executive session, removal of board members, collective bargaining highlights, competing roles, superintendent and the Board Of Education, first Amendment issues in schools and legal limitations on Board Of Education relationships with PTA and booster clubs. It was a very informative session, at least the half that I attended. And the actual PowerPoints that were used in the presentation are available, the website of the Westchester Putnam School Board Association, which is WPSBA.org under the category of programs. Thank you, Jim. I appreciate that you and Susie attended that training. Okay, that is

078it for board member reports. Our next item I have is the personnel reports. Thank you. So it is with great pleasure that I introduce Andrew Lennon, who is recommended for appointment as the district's next assistant superintendent for business. Andrew has had varied experience in the area of school business administration, currently serving as assistant superintendent for business in the Chappaqua Central School District. Prior to his time in Chappaqua, he served in both the Mount Pleasant Central School District and Austin Union Free School District. Andrew began his career with IBM before moving into the public sector, wisely moving into the public sector. He completed his undergraduate degree at Marris College and graduate degree at Pace University, so Andrew, we extend a warm welcome and wish you a long and successful career in Scarsdale. (audience applauding) Thank you,

079Carol. And the board looks forward to taking action on Andrew's appointment later this evening. Cabinet updates, Drew? I believe you're gonna take action now on this appointment, yes. That was sooner than I expected. We waste no time here. Okay, great. So Susie, it looks like you have the action item. Sorry about that. Be it resolved that the board approved the recommendation of the superintendent to appoint Andrew Lennon to the position of assistant superintendent for business effective July 1st 2023 for a three year probationary period ending June 30th, 2026. Thank you, Susie. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Ron, any discussion? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay motion carries, congratulations (audience applauding) And now I guess we'll turn it over for cabinet updates. Andrew, thank you so much. We look forward

080to working with you. You have big shoes to fill as you know. You know Stuart well, but we're happy that you're going to help continue a great legacy that Stuart has helped to develop here in Scarsdale, so thank you. Before turning it over to Stewart, I just want to, we did plan on having an update on the winter athletic season and some other athletic related items. Unfortunately, Mr. Peplar is not able to be here tonight, so we will get that report at our April 17th meeting. And with that, I will turn it over to Stewart. Very good, thank you very much. So I'd like to give the Board Of Education and community and update on our corrective action plans related to the different audits we've had over the last, oh, I guess going back almost

081a year now. So I'll start with the New York State Comptroller's report. So that audit, if you recall, was conducted during the course of last year with the report being issued in the fall in that report, if you recall, also focused on overtime expenditures primarily in the area of facilities. So recommendations primarily called for the implementation of procedures, which will result in better monitoring, and supervision of overtime hours. Although we have put in place internal controls in response to these recommendations, we're still formalizing these with written protocols being written up in the upcoming months with a focus on getting those done before the end of the fiscal year. The payroll audit report, which was the intensive review of agreed upon procedures, pertaining to internal controls over payroll withholdings. That was a report done by Naroaci

082and Smith. I'm happy to report that Lisa has completed the corrective actions as described in the corrective action plan to the extent possible where our existing financial with our existing financial sys software system. The narratives explaining these procedures will be formalized into a booklet of procedures once the new accounting system software is in place and these procedures are revised or added to where necessary. So if you recall that financial systems, the funding for that's included in next year's proposed budget. And the external audit, there were two auditor recommendations related to the fiscal year end 2022 audit. The first one was noted that we need to modernize the district's accounting software. And again, we've included that in next year's budget. And the other was regarding billing by the athletic department. Procedures have been put into place,

083which calls for the treasurer's oversight of invoicing by this department, which will be further remedied again with the migration to the new accounting software, you know, a lot of these are really sort of key to that switchover. And it will be sort of like flipping a page in a new book, starting a new chapter, allowing not only, I think the day-to-day life of both Lisa and Andrew much more easier, but also individuals in the office and also allow us to be more transparent and timely with reporting. So I know Lisa's very excited about that adventure. Any questions? Great, thank you. Thank you very much, and Eric? Thank you, Drew. Both of my updates have to do with SSEM, but I'd like to take a quick second and extend my condolences in sorrow to Nashville and

084the Covenant School community. Tonight really two updates. The first being the safety committee met last week to discuss the district safety, security, and emergency management plan. Each year, the safety committee is charged with reviewing the plan before it comes to the board, which will be next week or next board meeting, April 17th, where it will, we will open a 30 day public comment period and have a discussion, an opening discussion about the safety security emergency management plan. There were a couple of state mandated adds this year, most of which we already have in practice, but have been required to be added to the safety plan. There is one new requirement of email or written notification in the form of an email at the beginning of the school year to all parents giving an overview of

085all those security procedures in the district. We will add that to our process, and that will go out before October 1st, as you know, required by the state. The meeting also focused on an update from Day Automation, and I will give you that same update in a moment. And finally, the status on the parking brochures that are going out to the elementary schools to help parents understand all of the appropriate and inappropriate drop off and pick up spots around each of our facilities. So we've had certainly a little bit of a difficulty this year in new and inventive ways of dropping off and picking up students at different schools. So we'd like to just set an expectation of knowledge amongst the parents by providing kind of a good one sheet guide for each school and

086hopefully help parents understand the way traffic flows and where the safety concerns are when dropping off students. My last is the Day Automation project update. At this point, all of the switchovers to our new swipe card systems are completed. I am meeting for a update tomorrow with Day Automation. They were finalizing this past few days the integration of our PA system into the lockdown system. And I'm hoping tomorrow to get the full schedule over spring break of the lockdown testing. So over break, various communities around schools will receive emails when we are testing the lockdown systems to make sure that the community knows, they may hear the outdoor PA system play a lockdown over a couple of days while we're testing those systems and making sure all of the, all of the bells and whistles

087are functional. So we're in good stead and we should hopefully, knock on wood at the end of our April break, have a fully functional integrated lockdown systems. As we discussed previously, the training and implementation of those processes will actually happen for September and we'll do some staff training towards the end of this year, but we think it's more prudent to get the school up and running with the new system next year, rather than training with only a couple of months left. So that's where we are. Thank you for those updates. Let's move now to hearing from those present and I will read the public comment preamble. Members of the public are cordially invited to speak on district related items or other non-personnel related matters during two separate public comment periods. When it is your turn

088to speak, please state your name, address, and if you are 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 the 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,

089I'd like to invite members of the public who are here in person to come to the podium if they would like to speak. Oh. Good evening. I'm Andrew Lennon and I'm your most recent hired employee. So nice to meet you all, again, I just wanted to say thank you very much to Dr Patrick and the cabinet team and the Board Of Education and the interview committee that took me through a very extensive process of both getting to know me and helping me get to know Scarsdale. And I'm very excited for the future ahead and the team that I will be having the privilege to work with in the future, so thank you very much and good evening. Thank you. Is there anyone else in the audience? Okay, let's turn to Zoom. There are currently no

090attendees for this public comment period on Zoom. We'll give them a few seconds in case they wanna run to their computers. Nobody's joined? Not yet. Okay, then we'll go ahead and close our public hearing from the public comment period and address matters raised during public comment. Welcome Andrew. I don't know if there's anything you wanna add, Drew? Just excited, thank you. Glad you got to say a few words and looking forward to it. Great, thank you. Let's move on to written communications,. Don't feel like you have to stay, you have many late nights. (audience laughing) Ron. Thanks Amber. Written communications the preamble. Please note that the Board Of Education emails 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

091in public, therefore, your written communications and emails will be reported at an upcoming public board meeting. A board member will respond at the earliest convenience. Since our last report on written communications, the board has received seven communications on district matters, seven communications related to the 2023-2024 budget, and two related to board invitations, publications, board meetings, and highlights. Thank you, Ron. And now we'll move on to the consent agenda and I will read the preamble. The board may conduct some of its business using a consent agenda and 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 and consultation with the president and or vice president of the board.

092Items are selected for the consent agenda when the officers of the board and the superintendent believe there is no controversy regarding them. The items on the consent agenda will have the same background and 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-exempt 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. Would anybody like to remove any items from the consent agenda? Okay, seeing no one, I'll turn it over to Jim.

093Thank you, Amber. There are 10 items on the consent agenda this evening, including the acceptance of the consent agenda. Item one are minutes of the board budget study session, business meeting on March 6th, 2023. Item two are minutes of the board budget study session number three, March 20th, 2023. Item three are minutes of the special meeting executive session are March 21st, 2023. Item four is a report of personnel certified item five, personnel non-certified. Item six, election inspectors, budget vote and board elections May 16th, 2023. Item seven, drafts of the 2023-2024 Board Of Education meeting calendar. Item eight, contracts over $20,000, special education consultant and placements. Item nine, independent hearing officer appointment. And finally, item 10, which is acceptance of the consent agenda. And I propose and resolve that the board accept this consent agenda as

094presented. Thank you, Jim. Is there a second? Thank you, Susie. All in favor, please say aye. Aye, great. The consent agenda passes and now we are onto the education report. And do you wanna take a break now or do you wanna do the report first, it's up to you. I don't know how long your report is. Oh, then let's go for it. Okay. If I can just frame this quickly before turning it over to Edgar, I just wanna remind the board and the public. We've organized this year's education reports a little bit differently than the past few years. And those that organization is around themes that we believe can meaningfully articulate our priorities for teaching and learning, and illustrate how our approaches to the work are visible across programs, disciplines, and levels of education. Tonight's

095presentation is entitled Inquiry and Innovation, A Scarsdale Approach. And Edgar McIntosh, Jeanie Crowley, William Yang, Megan Troy, and Meredith Dutra are all here to illuminate these compelling aspects of teaching and learning in Scarsdale. So without further ado. Thank you so much Drew. So welcome to our educational report tonight. Our theme for this presentation, as Drew said, is innovation and inquiry. I'm excited to co-present with Jeanie Crowley, our Director of Technology and Innovation, and William Yang, our K-12 coordinator of Digital Learning and literacy. Those two join me as co-directors of the Center For Innovation. We are also joined tonight by Meredith Dutra, our technology inter integration specialist at the high school. And Megan, you weren't officially on the roster, but we might call you up later just to answer some questions. In past years, the educational

096report spot, this particular educational report spot has been dedicated to a technology presentation. The focus was on the wonderful technological resources, instructional applications and plans. Some of the were hands-on and interactive thanks to the coordination efforts of our recently retired colleague Jerry Creci. For tonight's presentation, we're gonna look at the theme of inquiry and innovation, including and beyond technology, and examine factors that drive and inspire change. The pathway of some Scarsdale inquiry growing from a question to a systemic change. William and Meredith will look closely at one area in which we are a mid growth, specifically embedding media literacy learning throughout our curriculum, and finally, Jeanie will describe our process of looking carefully and critically at one successful incubation structure, the Center For Innovation, through this purposeful inquiry, we'll explore ways to widen its impact

097to even more being more inclusive, responsive, and aligned with our vision, for a Scarsdale graduate. About a month ago, I got a very straightforward and important question related to the curriculum budget from a member of a community. She asked what exactly drives curriculum and instructional change? The first reason is the least nuanced, it's compliance. We are directed to include certain content into our curriculum. This may include health or safety topics, and sometimes involves taking instructional time to dedicate to mandated testing or an educational process. Compliance can be done creatively to maximize its positive impact on students and minimize any negative impacts on time or resources. The next broad category relates to external drivers of curriculum change. This comes in the form of changing educational standards, national or state that inspire adaptations to existing practices and

098pathways for student learning. An example of this change we've made in response to next gen educational standards in science, one significant change is engineering learning standards now beginning kindergarten and weave their way up through the grades. We've also incorporated research and education that reflects advances in the art and science of teaching and learning. We do this through engagement with various universities, content focused councils, noted research, and educational networks. As well, we take advantage of our learning network, the Tri-state consortium, to provide structured feedback and areas of district identified growth. Recent feedback on multi-tiered systems of support, wellbeing, and most recently in advanced topics have had direct and meaningful impact on our practice. Finally, we make changes through a process of inquiry that invites innovation, a process that involves us asking the important question, how can

099we as a community of educators, make the learning experience better for our students? And by better, we need richer, more engaging, more relevant, more important, and ultimately one that better prepares our students to engage meaningfully, sustainably, powerfully, collaboratively, and ethically in a dynamic world we live in? Inquiry involves both external and internal research. It utilizes the wide field of education, but also the lab sites of individual classrooms and the way it can both be big and small, but as we'll describe the big starts with the small. It also reflects the needs of Scarsdale. And because it relies on a constant cycle of inquiry, data collection and analysis and reflection, it is iterative and flexible. We benefit from a culture of innovation in Scarsdale. If you walk through our classrooms, auditoriums, laboratories, art studios, gymnasiums, gardens,

100outdoor learning environments, from nature trails to high ropes, you'll see the evidence of student learning that grew from a question, questions that research were research ideas that were nurtured, and then in many cases have expanded to practices that have become part of our fabric. And for every success, of course there are and should be stories of failure or ideas that had their time, and for reasons of relevancy, technology or redundancy, released from our curriculum or instructional practice, none of which we will be highlighting tonight. It is exciting to look at some of the history of the process of inquiry of to innovate change. And while technology is involved in much of the innovation, we are leaning on some unplugged metaphors and looking at how our seeds of inquiries grow to robust and thriving forests of

101positive systemic change. Here are a few examples of the evolution of practices and curriculum that have undergone an inquiry process. And because everyone loves an alliteration, you'll see our favorite I words at the top, inquiry, investigation, iteration, innovation, and integration. Each change starts with question. For the advanced topics course educators asks, how can we create college level courses that inspire authentic student engagement and agency? For elementary math, how can we best harness our teachers' expertise to choose and adapt math resources that reflect both the enriched mathematical practice standards and the unique needs of our students? ST@C classes came from the question, how do we provide the most responsive, targeted, easy to access and meaningful professional development within our learning community for linear algebra? What would a student-centered high school math class look like if it

102was built around student choice and the meaningful application of complex mathematical ideas? The huge changes in space and furniture came from many big questions including, what learning environment design inspires the type of learning we value? We are near the beginning of our journey in exploring the question, how can our grading systems best support and inspire our students? The Center For Innovation sponsor to visit from Thomas Guskey, a well regarded researcher in the field to meet with administrators at the cabinet and secondary level and the entire high school faculty. We received guidance and Scarsdale specific feedback that will lead to further investigation and meaningful adaptations. Here is an exemplar of seed forest, the evolution of the middle school keystone structure and the news show grew from the question, what structures in middle school best support students'

103wellbeing and need for connection? Initial inquiry research and experimentation led to the CORE program. After further reflection and iteration, this evolved into the current model of the Keystone program and more frequent check-ins, enriched content and extended workshops. Mirroring this. The Scarsdale Middle School today started with teachers guiding much of the content. And then after additional research and reflection and collaboration, SMS today became a student run program in the Great Hall Media Lab with increased student content and participation, updated technology and in community engagement In its current iteration, Keystone supports the in the moment and responsive needs of the middle school community, diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging, social emotional learning, meaningful application of technology, global connections, but also appreciate that the reflection, experimentation, adoption process will continue. Megan Troy is in the audience tonight. Thank you

104to her and her talent collaborators, middle school students, families and educators through the exciting journey and outcomes. And this is where I say speech, speech, but I won't. It is now my pleasure to hand the clicker over to William Yang and Meredith Dutra, who will describe an inquiry that is very much in process. Thank you, Edgar. And thank you to the Board Of Education for your support and opportunity to share our inquiry into media literacy. I want to take this opportunity to acknowledge the work of Dr. Susan Left Paul Towazela, Meredith Dutra, who you'll hear from shortly. Our K-12 technology team and K-12 librarians, along with the many K-12 teachers in our district, kept contributing to this work in media literacy. Like so many examples that Edgar shared, media literacy has been an inquiry that

105has taken time to nurture and develop. Like the pictures you see on this slide are of bamboo seeds. It can take up to five years of constant watering and fertilization to see any progress or growth in the bamboo. However, once the bamboo grows, it can grow as quickly as 50 inches overnight and some species up to 90 feet over the span of five weeks as you can see on the right. I think this is a great metaphor for how inquiry and innovation can grow. A few years back, a seed was planted by individual teachers who began asking questions when they researched that students were increasingly encountering many types of media texts in their lives, questions arose around the need for our students to assess the varying quality of information, entertainment, and persuasion that surround them.

106They also observed that media is continually evolving and how some formats which are widespread today did not even exist 10 years ago. Students will need to learn how to access, analyze, evaluate, and responsibly create with media texts. How might we support students in this area? Many of us have identified media literacy as a field in education that can help prepare our students with the skills, strategies, and dispositions needed to think critically and communicate responsibly in the media saturated world. Like most inquiries, the development of media literacy began as our teachers move from individual inquiries towards a community of inquiry through professional learning. An example of professional learning was through our district focus group that convened last spring and facilitated by Paul Towazela and Meredith Dutra. This K-12 focus group consisted of administrators, teachers, librarians, and

107technology specialists who convened to examine this topic and to learn how we can collaboratively engage in learning more about this field. Further investigations from members of that focus group and teachers interested in studying this participated in various STI coursework as well as ST@C opportunities within our district. During these courses, teachers learn together and develop lessons and units to implement in their classes. To broaden our perspective, members also participated in local and national conferences to help further our understanding of the field. At these conferences, our faculty share ideas and receive feedback to gain new knowledge and perspectives on how we can support students. Finally, we also partner with expert organizations in the field to align our practice around media literacy. These partnerships lead to additional opportunities for our faculty and our community. All of this professional

108learning in our district directly contributes to student learning as teachers across levels are currently researching, collaborating, and developing lessons to support students. One area of focus in media literacy is how we determine the reliability of media and how to critically analyze information in multiple formats. This research can range from teaching students how to avoid clickbait on sites to teaching strategies on detecting an author's bias and intent in media texts. In addition to critically analyzing media, we're also understanding that students need to learn how to communicate with various forms of media. Students across levels engage in projects integrated with curriculum to share their knowledge in a variety of media formats from podcasts to video editing. Similar to the SMS news we learned about earlier, teachers are also experimenting with integrating media authoring and content area studies

109so that students can share news and stories from their school community. Through the process of creating media to an authentic audience, students not only learn the techniques of media authors, but also how media authors use their craft to effectively present information to an audience. In support of classrooms, our wonderful librarians have been an integral part of media literacy for many years. Through their work in information literacy, they have begun to curate resources around this topic for faculty, parents, and students through sites, books, and even facilitating book talks around topics in media literacy. To take a close look at the cycle of inquiry in media literacy and how it is growing in one school, it is my pleasure to introduce the recent recipient of the 2023 Technology and Leadership and Learning award from the Lower Hudson

110Regional Information Center, Meredith Dutra, who will share how media literacy has grown at the high school. Hi everybody. So I'm gonna take us on our journey at the high school from inquiry to reflection. I started my inquiry at the high school during the pandemic when my personal social media intake had changed. I could not take traditional news anymore, and if my intake of social media was changing in the way I was getting information, I was reflecting on how that was changing with our students. Before becoming a technology specialist, I was a social studies and history teacher, so I really could see those connections. And I started questioning the climate and information that was coming at our students at such a rapid pace. And I thought it was important to bring it to the high school

111where I partnered with Heather Waters and we drafted a CFI grant to bring in experts. So we were able to bring in Moshwa Nunu, who was a CVS executive producer who now runs his own Moe News social media account, and has done TED Talks and has actually won a national press award, and he came to speak to our students last year. And we had Vanessa Arturo who developed Advantis, which is an awesome resource that our students now have access to to look at bias and reliability in their new sources. So last year we focused on confirmation bias lessons and collecting data around our student social media usage around consumption and seeing exactly what they were using social media for and what information they were gaining, from that. Last year, I collaborated with two to three

112teachers on this particular topic. And by June I visited every department to let them know what I was getting into and that I would like to partner and collaborate with them in the coming school year. This year, our lessons have grown tremendously. We are now looking at algorithms, ethical AI, generative AI, and I've worked with about 10 to 12 teachers on these topics, specifically in English and social studies classes. We've expanded throughout the building with teachers that are beyond even me working collaboratively with them directly, but just being thought partners with one another. And we began looking at our work ahead. And I have here some examples of student work as the top one is from, it was done in Kendra Clauson and Steven Monkal's. AMSTU class, and I've come now once a month on

113Mondays to look at different media lessons. And for this particular lesson, they were focusing on women's depiction and artwork in the late 19th century, early 20th century. And I had the students look at memes and they created memes of old artwork with current topics. So they're learning how to create this message. The second one is looking at ethical AI. And it was a lesson I just did with Cammi Wright and Kinder Clauson in their at international relations class and looking at our government's response to TikTok. And that's a site called All Sites where they're actually comparing the different media sources, looking at their different headlines, and then photos depicted in each headline and resource so the students can really dive into a topic deeply and compare the information that's coming at them. So this led

114to our last reflection cause this is a constant process that we're looking into and we're documenting where aspects of media literacy is actually being taught just through conversation, I discovered in a French class, Zoe Calhoun, who actually is taking her media lesson that's in her French curriculum, and putting in some recent current media lessons into French. And then we were also thinking about some current questions is how can we grow this conversation vertically to reach the most students because it is growing. And I would like to build on these concepts from ninth to 12th grade and to allow for a deepening and understanding in being reflective in their practice. And then how can we bring more student voices into the conversation? And we're actually gonna start inviting students into the technology committee at the high

115school so that we actually hear their perspective and how we could best meet their needs. Thank you, Meredith. As we enter the spring of 2023, we are starting to reflect on some new questions we have. How can we further build capacity and develop assured experiences with media literacy for our students? And how can media literacy be a helpful approach to develop critical thinking around new and emerging media in the future? As Meredith mentioned, we know that generative AI has arrived and wonder how we might apply concepts from digital media literacy to help guide our thinking around its use and the information generated from these new questions. We've developed actions we can take to further investigate and grow media literacy in Scarsdale. We will curate all of the lessons and ideas from teachers across the district

116and articulate cross-cutting concepts and assured experience to align our work across the K-12 spectrum. We plan to continue to build our capacity of faculty and develop a workshop series geared for families so that our students can be surrounded with support in the community. Our community of inquiry also helped to make media literacy a priority in our new technology plan. It is one of the many inquiries our department is engaged with, and it is one of our main goals in the plan. While we've moved from seed to tree with media literacy, it's one of many evolving fields in education in our century inquiry that leads to innovation is a promising approach to not only position Scarsdale at the forefront of researching and developing these new fields, but more importantly to adequately prepare our students for an

117ever-changing and complex world. And on that note, I'd like to turn it back to Edgar, who will share our inquiry into the Center For Innovation and how we might further grow in communities of inquiry. Thank you. You can just, okay, click to the next one and then. Thank you Meredith and William. And now we'll shift our focus to the Center For Innovation. A mechanism for launching inquiries that have led to improvements for students. Many of our current highest impact innovations, in fact can trace funding back to the Center For Innovation. We have, however, reached an important benchmark and have a great opportunity to reflect and iterate. The center is in its 10th year, as I mentioned, we welcome two new co-leads of the CFI in Genie and William with new perspectives, new ideas, new experiences.

118We're using this opportunity to examine important data about the CFI. This analysis is helping us determine our needs and our next steps. We're looking forward to the next 10 years of the CFI and how we can continue to support inquiry and innovation across the district and across disciplines. So Jeanie now has the clicker and we'll start her portion. Awesome, and before I jump in, I'm gonna belabor the metaphor for a second and say, how do we even know what seed to plant? And I think, you know, going back to Edgar's question earlier about asking the right question, you can't just jump from question to action. There needs to be a period of reflection that you engage in. So in this 10th year, as Edgar mentioned, this is a very natural opportunity to gauge in that

119reflection. And how we did that was we worked with administrators, we worked with former CFI ambassadors, we worked with recipients of the grants and non recipients of the grant, a small pool. But we're very much in trying to figure out what seed to plant and presented data for reflection as an opportunity to anchor, and as I go through these data points, I encourage you to, since we're still in this process, write down your questions. There'll be an opportunity later to ask them. And your reflections can be folded into this process. And for those of you who aren't that familiar with the CFI, you know, an easy way to think about it is it's a grant program for small groups to make big leaps in education. All right, so the first one, this is just an

120overall where we are. So in the last 10 years we had eight grant cycles. We had COVID for two years. We had 42 funded projects and 113 unique grant recipients. And so as we looked at this, and I'll externalize some of the questions that came up during the initial reflection, you know, they said that's a big number. Could it be bigger, right? 113 unique participants. When you think about the size of our community, how do we grow that number so more people are participating? Here's a broad overview of where we're hitting pretty evenly distributed, roughly a third in each the elementary schools, middle school and high school. One thing you'll notice down here at the bottom that generated some more questions, PD or K through 12, how do we have more projects that are focused

121on perhaps K through 12 alignment assured experiences and learning opportunities for educators? We did a little bit of a deep dive on the three year period. We had a little bit more data, and here's the funny thing about doing data reflection. Until you start the process, you don't know what data you don't have. And then you're like, oh no. So really part of this reflection was thinking in the Ford, what would we collect in the future if we did this again so we can have more robust inquiry 10 years from now. So looking at it from 2017 to 2020, we had about 33 applications, 50% were awarded and the applications really focused. You know, you'll notice I got this question. So when answer it for you, the numbers on the bottom, don't add up to

12233. That's because you can have multiple themes. I just wanted to answer that. And the themes really went around project-based learning, design thinking and personalized learning. So what this really said to us was, you know, There's thematic calls for grants at this time and it showed that the Center For Innovation was a place where we could support district in district initiatives through the grants that we are rewarding. So how do we bring together the support of the community towards one cohesive direction? And the Center For Innovation has done that in the past and there's a robust opportunity for us to use those mechanisms in the future. And here's the content area. I'm gonna pause for a second 'cause this was one slide that generated a lot of questions, so I'll just give you a second

123to look at it. Now what you'll notice at the top is we had a lot of applications from math, STEAM, technology, and then towards the bottom we had less applications, fewer applications from science, PE, social emotional learning. And one question that popped up is, why is that? You know, why do we have maybe a skew towards certain applications and certain subject areas in a Center For Innovation and less in other areas? Some of that could be the themes that we put out. Project-based learning, design thinking, personalized learning, could have been more inviting for some subject areas. So this is an area for us to explore a little bit more. How do we get more individuals across groups and across subject areas to apply for the Center For Innovation? And this one generated the most conversation.

124So this says total number of recipients. So if you look at the left column, it's total proposals by an individual or you know, group of individuals. Sorry, take that back. Let me clarify 'cause this one we ended up having a lot of questions about. First column says, so we have 86 individuals who submitted one proposal, doesn't say they were awarded, just submitted one proposal and didn't come back. So about half the people, and we don't know why we didn't collect that data, we didn't do exits tickets. And that could be because their project became, you know, a keystone, it could become a fully fledged project. They didn't need to come back to the Center For Innovation. We don't really have data about why individuals didn't come back. But we do also have data that about

12550% of individuals did two or more, you know, a full third submitted three or more proposals. So something about the Center For Innovation really pulled in that third of individuals. And what we really wanted to know is why, right? What made the center of innovation feel like a place where those individuals belonged and got pulled in? And what made the center of innovation, a place where maybe others didn't necessarily return multiple times? Which leads us to our seed. So the question after this reflection is we wanted to know how do we support innovation in inquiry for everyone? How do we play a space that has a sense of belonging for all members of the community to come in, not just a subset of the community. We did this little activity and I'm sure you can

126already anticipate some of the answers not matching up. And we asked people to say for the center innovation, those of you who either applied or haven't applied, you know, list some of your supports, things that make you feel like this is a process I want to engage in and list some of your frictions, some of the things that say, no, not for me. And not surprisingly, we ended up with the exact same answers in both columns, right, and so some people said teamwork, love it. Some people said teamwork, hindrance. Some people said themes, those pull me in, give me focus. Other people said themes they're too restrictive. You know, I want to go further. Some people said I love the open structure cause I can do whatever I want. Other people said I need so

127much more support than the open structure provides. And so there's just, this didn't really give us an answer, right, just gave us more areas for reflection. But luckily we don't have to figure this out on our own. So for our next steps, we're exploring a partnership with Project Zero to learn from their own work creating centers for innovation, which they actually rebranded as Centers for Inquiry. Having gone through this process themselves, so we, you know, we don't have to reinvent the wheel. We can partner with individuals and groups that have done this work in the past to learn from and accelerate our own process. We wanna develop a community, a common framework for in inquiry that's accessible to the broader community, and finally, this is really, this is a really big initiative that Edgar, William

128and I are looking at is changing the way we look at innovation. The onus of large change isn't on a few groups or individuals, it's a systemic change resulted from the coordinated seeds of inquiry. So that's it back to the forest. And then thank you on questions that ends our education report. Pass it back to you. Well thank you Edgar and William and Meredith and Jeanie for that detailed report, it was really very interesting. So I'll open it up to my fellow board members for questions. Okay, well I'm gonna get, oh, sorry, go ahead Colleen. No, no. Well I have one actually Jeanie, so I was just thinking about this when you were presenting the slides in terms of, you know, you had the area, so in terms of elementary, middle school, high school, and

129then you had sort of the breakdown in sort of subject area, yeah, I was wondering in terms of teacher tenure, did you, have you thought or did you explore like are there veteran teachers that are applying for these proposals? Is it new teachers, is it all over the board? I was just wondering if that was something you studied. So it's a good question and we don't have that data linked right now, and that is an opportunity for further exploration. So we have the names of the teachers who, you know, applied. We don't have it yet linked with their tenure data. But I do think it's worthwhile because that's something that came up during our group conversations is how established you feel you are in the community gives you permission of whether or not you feel

130ready to take risks, yeah. So I think it is a very viable avenue for exploration. Thank you. Sorry Colleen, you wanna go ahead? I just had a few questions. Thank you so much for this report, it was wonderful. I guess I just wanted to circle back to, I think it was slide 25, the whole tech plan a little bit. We've talked a lot about media literacy and the importance of that and appreciate the work that's going into that cause it is a huge component of our children's lives these days. I think the other question that we've been hearing a lot from the community is really about the health and wellness and the how much is too much in terms of screen time. Yeah and just, I'm sorry if I missed this somewhere along the way,

131but the plan to maybe circle back and look at the usage of screens in terms of when you use them and just some of the examples that have been presented to us are, you know, the middle school, they use their iPad a lot and they are jumping between different apps and trying to do an homework assignment. And for some of the kids they get very overwhelmed by that. And is there a way to kind of take a step back and look at, you know, do they always need to be on a screen? You know, I think some kids they're, instead of having a book, they're actually reading it on their computer. And how are we taking time to, in addition to making sure that they can code and they're media literate and they're using technology

132appropriately as a district, do we have any kind of ideas to reflecting on, well do we really need to be using a screen for this standard or this goal that we're setting out for our students. So when start, thank you for your question. This is an area that is very near and dear to my heart. Like I love talking about data measurement in the impact of screen time and students, and I'm not being sarcastic. I actually really, I think this is a really important topic. You know, some type of people will talk about data and they're like, oh, more data, love it. So with that context, we don't have data. And I think the very first part I, you know, as I work with each of you more, you'll hear me use the term measurement

133a lot. And what that means is reducing the window of uncertainty around what's happening. So right now we know in the classroom it's somewhere between zero and eight hours that they're on their screens and we have no more nuanced data than that, so our first step, we've been in conversation with the elementary principals to do a screen time survey to get us a range of what's actually happening so we can anchor the conversation in real data. And we're hoping to do that later this year. There's no centralized way to collect that information. So we're in the process of developing what the actual way is to collect that in a way that's not overly burdensome for teachers and students, but yes, it's a priority, yes, we're making movement on it this year. And then once we

134have that measurement we'll be able to say, okay, now that we know what's happening, let's break that down and just say, you know, is that too much, is that not enough? Does this reinforce our assumptions? Does this challenge our assumptions? So I think that's really the important first step to get solid data to work with. Yeah. Add one more thing, I would also say that their, that media literacy and digital health and wellness and coding are not mutually exclusive. They're all integrated. So part of being middle media literate is no, is having a healthy media diet. So a lot of these concepts actually overlap in thinking of them as not separate but part of the same study, so. Thank you. I mean, one of the things that I think is always helpful when possible when

135looking at data is what I would refer to as benchmarking, meaning it's very common for us to, it's fine to know what we are doing in Scarsdale, but a very natural question is what are other people doing or other districts? And I'm just curious if there is any attempt at a national or at an international level to give some rigor to the notion of what you gather data on and what you call it so that when you refer to something, it's using the same jargon or definition as somebody else. 'Cause otherwise it's very hard to benchmark, right? Because people may be defining something differently. I don't know if they're, if districts or schools are developing some sort of framework perhaps to gather data, is there like a group of people like you that are out

136there that meet and say, let's collect these three silos of data. So at least we can compare each other, just curious. Yeah. Most of the benchmarking is happening with the American Pediatrics Association, even theirs is not terribly nuanced. It just says screen time as a whole. And you know, there's questions within that does looking at the smart board count of screen time. So even the definition of screen time is not universally agreed upon. And I think in absence of external benchmarks, what we can do look at is, you know, unfortunately internal benchmarks or what I more accurately call baseline data, so that way know our interventions are actually doing something. And I think that's one of the hesitance to jump straight to an intervention, we have no baseline data right now. So at the very

137least in absence of an external community, you know, it's quite frankly it's an exciting challenge that we could be the ones developing this for use by others. And I think just the model, you know, of how we measure it, how we define it, and spreading that to other schools in our area, that's not something that's cohesion around that we could provide leadership in that area. Hi, thank you. Thank you so much for your presentation, it's very helpful. And I think digital health and wellness and media literacy is so important with our generation. Taking it down to maybe a more pedestrian level, technology is a tool and I was wondering, and I've gotten some feedback from the community wondering, you know, how do we evaluate maybe the student like software that we use, you know, like

138whether it's Google Classroom or Schoology or you know, that it's not always the same at different levels and there might be reasons for that, but I was just wondering like how you evaluate those different systems. Yeah, so part of what we're looking at is, you know, we've been discussing a survey with the parent-teacher council on for parents about how technology is used and the education they like, there, there's an initiative for a parallel survey that we'd eventually like to do with teachers as well as like how they make decisions around technology and what comes into the classroom, now that's individual decisions, that's different than the district level decisions. That's Google classroom or schoolology. But the really big thing is this is an opportunity to revisit, I, you know, I was using with somebody the term

139the other day, the great revisiting, right? Like, we've gone through the pandemic and we have all of this stuff, now's an opportunity to say, okay, why? And so that's a, that's a long way of saying we need to go back and look at those decisions to see if they still make sense. And that involves a community process, so it's not me just saying, oh, change it. It's much more like, how did we get here and then what's our plan for the next five years moving forward, yeah. Since Jeanie, you're already up, I'll just start with a question for you, just to follow on onto the data collection, which I think is great and will help the administration inform any decisions. Is there a way to collect similar data for school-based technology usage at home. That

140may not be applicable to every grade, but for the kids that do use school technology to do homework, can we add that into the data? So the main mechanism that we probably use to collect data is the Apple Screen Time measurer. Unfortunately that's only measures on that device, but it will measure it on the school device and then it breaks it down by different apps and whatnot. So really that it is possible, it's just we really need to figure out, and this is what I'm in the process of trying to noodle, how do we take an individual report from every student and get that to a central location, if that, does that make sense, yeah. Then we don't have a central way of pulling all that data in, it's gonna be a manual process, but,

141so yes, it's possible. We're trying to figure out how to actually collect it. And I understand, or I wanna confirm. I understanding that for certain grades, so for example, in the middle school, they have school issued iPads that they'll do their homework on usually, but for high school they may do it on their own. Yeah, device. So we won't be able to get that data. Right, and that's one of the reasons I kind of started with I would consider the easier process of starting with elementary 'cause it's school issued devices that we know about. And then once we work out the kinks of measurement, moving up through the process from there. That's why I didn't start with high school 'cause it is a little bit more variables and a little bit more nuanced. Appreciate that,

142thank you. And then a CFI question for you and William, I think as you talk about sort of expanding the breadth of who might apply for a grant, which is fantastic, it sounds important to expand that. Have you thought about sort of long-term on what that means in terms of funding for those grants and capacity within the administration or the three of you to determine grants and just thinking about future budgets as well? I can answer part of it and probably Edgar can answer part of it is I don't think all innovation requires funding per se, sometimes it requires networking, sometimes it requires mentorship. And so really thinking it's not only, you know, money is not the only award to be granted, and it could be connecting people with, really what we're trying to look

143at is how do we create a cycle of innovators that can then help the next cycle of innovators? So almost the expertise is the grant for many of them. So that's, it's, we have been thinking about like, how do we make the most use of our dollars? It's not necessarily giving people stuff, it's giving them opportunity, mentorship and training in a common framework for inquiry that they could then go over and over year after year. Is that? Yeah, and I think, and some of it is, and when you widen it, you're also giving permission. So for some people who haven't usually been part of the process who might think of it just in terms of technology and things that you plug in as to things that are just about ideas that are innovative, even though

144they don't necessarily, they wouldn't necessarily be part of a technology presentation, I'm gonna give you one example. Some of 'em actually came to the CFI as grants and were not awarded in past years. But now as we think about it and we look at it and we widen our definition of it, if I could take a time machine back, I would've argued for them more, but I, you know, one example is a French teacher, a group of French teachers at the high school came and said, we want to get a bunch of novels in French, a range of them for students to do independent reading. Knowing that the science around choice and voice and volume of reading is something that builds, it builds, you know, passion, stamina, and vocabulary. This is something that we want

145to try. Now, they didn't get it through the Center For Innovation, but we found the textbook money, so that did go forward, but it really connects back to what Jeanie's talking about, which is giving those permissions and really nurturing and environment of innovation. Yeah, one area we'd like, we'd love to see expand is the Center for Innovation, also serving our students, so we've seen a nice revival in the social entrepreneurship grant this year in terms of students applying for that. So we would love to see how we can use the Center For Innovation as a vehicle for supporting student innovation as well. That's great. And the numbers we looked at before the grants awarded, were those all financial grants or some of them? Yes. So some of the idea going forward is to sort of

146create two kinds of grants. One being financial and one being sort of the other pieces you were talking about, expertise and connections and all of that. I would say we're still trying to decide what seed to plan rather than necessarily that's, there's a little bit more of a tree phase and we're still in reflection and seed phase. Thank you, I appreciate that. I just had one other question for Ms Dutra around the media literacy, which is just such a fascinating topic. I'm just curious, and I don't know if you can answer this question, I understand your focus at the high school, but do you see the kids of different ages, especially this generation that's coming into a world bombarded with news from different sources, not always accurate sources, versus many of us that sit at

147the table here who grew up with an encyclopedia that was like, okay, you could always go check it. Do these students even understand the scope of the issue they're dealing with? So that's a great question and I would say that they might but that's where the parent, they might not, but that's where the parent outreach is so important and partnering with Dr Lough and Paul Towazela and the other computer teachers and teachers to really build that capacity in the parents, like, my children are in trouble because I know too much about it. So I would wanna build the capacity in the parents who are, you know, being able to instill that in our students. And there's different controversies with things that they don't even realize, so if you look at that, miss Rachel, that was

148just on YouTube, I don't know if you're familiar with that YouTuber, but she's does early childhood intervention that was doing like speech therapy. So there's like all these new articles that are very nuanced and research based, right, in quotes, and that are very flawed, right? So there are people who may not realize that research is flawed, that we need to help build that capacity in our, in the community so that they can then help their children. And that's what William was stating in that wellness piece and all of those other pieces so that we can show our students the. And I also talked to the high school students and they think they know everything. And so when I was with a group of seniors the other day, we said to them like, we're not trying

149to teach you what to think when it comes to social media, but how to think about your social media, how to be critical of the information you're taking in. And when they said that, the students were like, oh, okay, so there isn't a right answer, and we're like, no, there isn't a right answer, but we're trying to have a healthy media diet, right? You're gonna have some junk food, but we want you to have the good stuff too. Thank you, appreciate that. Are there any other questions? Okay, great. Well thank you again so much. That was a really wonderful report. If I can just remind us, the next education report is scheduled for May 22nd and that will be entitled Optimizing Learning and include a report out on the advanced topic study and review the

150expanded programs in special education. Wonderful, we look forward to that. Thank you Drew. And thank you to our presenters. Yes, thank you everyone for being here this evening. All right, let's take a five minute break. So we will be back at 8:53. And actually it's 8:53. So we are back and we'll get started with item 11.02, the high school auditorium SECRA resolution. Drew, I'll turn it over to you or Stuart, whichever one. Yeah, do you wanna kick it off, Stuart? Sure. As part of our process for putting forth the auditorium proposition to voters, that's necessary to have the SECRA review State Environmental Quality Review Act. It requires a, any agency across the New York State municipality, whatever it may be, if there any capital work that there's an environmental review done. And it has to

151be done before the bond proposition is adopted by the Board Of Education and before it goes to the voters. So there are three types of actions that these environmental reviews can take. It could be a type one, type two, or unlisted. And there's certain thresholds as described for each one, and the auditorium, after looking at the auditorium work, both BBS architects and the school's attorney have reviewed the information is provided for the scope of the project and determine it would best fits the type two action. Basically, because simply put, we're not changing the use of the space. It's replacing like work with like work. This is not an expansion and not an expansion of the facilities either. So therefore it's simply a type two. And then there's the attached resolution declaring such as repaired by

152the attorney. Thank you, Stewart, do board members have an, or did you wanna add anything, Drew? Just if the board does have questions, we can direct them toward Mr. Schooner as well. Absolutely. Thank you, and I appreciate Mr Schooner's being here this evening to answer any questions we might have. So board members, does anybody have any questions on this? I will say I appreciate the explanation of the type one and the type two and it seems logical to me reading this and memo that we are a type two based on the work and the scope that we've provided, so I certainly feel comfortable, I don't know if anybody has anything to add. Can I just ask, I just wanna make sure that I understand. Is it the recommendation of the district or the architect or

153both that this is a type two? It's the district, the architect, and the school's attorney Okay. That's all, just wanted to get, make sure that was where that was coming from. Thank you. Okay. I think that's it, that's great. Ken, we're gonna let you go. Have a great night everybody, thank you. Thank you Ken, appreciate you being there. Thank you. You're welcome, have a good night. You too. All right, great. Let's move on to our discussion item, which is the bond proposition resolution. Okay, this next item is the actual bond proposition itself and all of the wording, it's actually six pages, but all of it is part of the approval needed by the Board Of Education. This was prepared by the school's bond attorney, who's Dan Birmingham, who works for Hawkins Delfield. They've been the

154bond attorney at least since I've been here. And I believe prior to that they're I believe probably the most or the largest firm in the region for providing those services for school districts and municipalities. And this is really falls into honoree's sort of lap as district clerk as we prepare for the vote. So board members, we're taking action on this later tonight and we can offer our thoughts on the actual at the time of the vote. But are there any questions at this time on the proposition or the language? Anything we wanna raise, questions or concerns before we move forward to take action later? Okay, fantastic. Then I believe we will move on to, I think next is Lisa, is that right? Okay, so this month you'll see there are two month's worth of reports,

155there's December and January. I went over it before, but I just wanna go over it again. In regards to the past couple weeks, with the banking industry as a municipality, our deposits are 100% secure. We are required to have all of our deposits secured by separate collateral. FDIC covers up to $250,000 worth of deposits. Anything above that, the bank has to provide separate securities that in the case of a failure we would be able to get our money back. So on the bottom of the treasurer's report, every month you'll see there's a summary by bank showing the amount of collateral that's held, they're required, they send us, some banks send us weekly, some banks send us on a monthly basis, we get a schedule of, a detailed schedule of the securities that are being held

156in our name. So every month, you know, it's reconciled to make sure that a sufficient amount is held. We did not have any money in the banks that did have failures. The other question is with the investment rates, which again, the Fed just moved them up again. So at this point, again, this is the details through January, our current investments were at, the majority of our money is sitting in NYLAF. We're at between 4.66 and 4.7% on our regular accounts. We do have a small amount in t-bills that are currently at 4.82. We'll see what happens in the next couple weeks, whether we need to purchase more on t-bills with the rates fluctuating so much, they're advising us to hold out and see what happens with the rates. So at this point we're in a

157good spot. The other thing is on the appropriation schedule for the April meeting, I will present you with budget transfers. The majority are salaries, just reallocating the money so it matches to where the actual expense is. So you'll get those at the April meeting. Thank you, Lisa, are there any board member questions? Just have one quick question. The collateral that's held in the district's name, can you just give us a sense of what those types of securities are that they're holding? You know, I would have to go back and look. I don't have it off the top of my head, but they, it are, it is regulated by law. It's mandated on what it has to be held in, it can't be in, you know, the stock market. Typically it's the same qualifications as districts.

158So a lot of times there'll be investments, they'll be holding other municipal bonds. So very safe. That's what I figured, I just, I wanted to ask that. Thank you. Anybody have anything else? Well, thank you Lisa and I appreciated that information about our assets. I didn't realize that banks had to hold that collateral for our funds, so that's nice to know. Yeah, I think legally it's 102%, I believe. Oh really? Even more interesting, great. Thank you so much and thank you for that report Lisa. So item 11.05, new textbooks. Great. So for Ron Whitlock's Constitutional Law class, he's proposing to use 2020 twos with liberty and Justice for all by Steinbach Marcus and Cohen is a textbook resource. I had a chance to speak with him last week and he described the reason for choosing

159this book, good design, user-friendly, organized thematically. And each section is framed and launched by a modern constitutional scholar in clear, relatable language. It also highlights key primary documents. And as a resource for both Ron and his students, it has elegantly designed discussion questions to help generate complex and engage debate in his classroom. The next book up for discussion is called "Hell Of A Book" by Jason Mott. It's being proposed by Kathleen McGreal for her 11th grade honors English class. This novel won several literary awards including the 2021 National Book Award for fiction. And while the story is fast-paced and highly engaging, it is one that benefits from careful facilitation by an invested educator to unlock all the mysteries, subtleties and genre defying complexities of Mott's work. To the to this, Kathleen has curated several complimentary

160non-fiction resources. A little history of our introduction to Jason Mott's text. Last year the curriculum department was contacted by the Scarsdale Adult School to co-host Jason Mott on a virtual book tour. We were able to coordinate this session to fall on Global Citizenship Day in October. Our educators were provided access to Mr Mott's interactive presentation and students were able to meet with him and ask questions about the text and his process as a writer. As part of a pilot, we secured copies of the book for educators to preview and then students to read before his talk, the authors visit and the text provided powerful learning opportunities and inspired Kathleen to request it be adopted as a core cortex for her course. I do need to hold up a copy of her book and I saw

161as I was reading through it, there are marks throughout it, throughout it with all these exclamation points and words and scribbles across it. The definition I think of a real engaged and passionate educator. Thank you, Edgar. Does anybody have any comments or questions, for Edgar? Okay, great. Now we're onto our second read of this policy. Okay. This is an exhibit 8635E and this is a recommendation from the district's attorney to combine our parents' bill of rights for student data privacy, and security with the document that we send to contractors, vendors that might intersect with student data. No changes from our first reading and unless there are questions or concerns, this would come back on the consent agenda on April 17th for approval. Anyone have any questions for Drew? Okay, great. Let's move on to item

16211.07, the BOCES preliminary discussion. And Colleen, you are our BOCES rep. I'm not sure if you're ready to, if we've got your name here. So presented by I wasn't sure you were either, but that's what we've got down there. So I guess we're turning to you to lead this discussion, Colleen. We're happy to help out as needed. So yeah, so just to remind the board and the public, we are part of BOCES, the Board of Cooperative Educational Services in the southern Westchester area. There's a responsibility, sorry I couldn't seek the word, find the word, that the board has to weigh in on their administrative budget and then also the nominations for the board that serves at BOCES. So there are three board candidates. So there's a budget summary notice totaling the budget and the three

163candidates for three positions who are, I believe all incumbents. And I know we vote on their budget on April 18th. Do we also vote on these candidates on the 18th? I believe you do. Okay, good. So we have their bios here and board members can do any homework on these possible candidates and we can vote on the 18th unless anybody has anything right now. Okay, fantastic. Let's move on to our action items. And the first action item is Bob. Okay, so based on information provided, it is a recommendation of BBS that the proposed action should be classified as type two as Stewart had mentioned. As such, no further environmental review is required. We therefore recommend that the board adopt the attached high school auditorium SECRA resolution. Thank you, Bob. Is there a second to Bob's

164motion? Thank you Susie. Any discussion? Okay, all in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, great. Motion passes. Next one is the bond proposition resolution. Sorry about that. All right, I move the board adopt the attached bond proposition resolution as presented. You want me to read it? You read this start. Read the whole thing? No not the whole thing. I was gonna say if you want to read the first line or so or not well, but not the whole like. Resolution of the Board Of Education of the Scarsdale Union Free School District New York adopted March 27th, 2023 directing submission of a bond proposition at the annual district meeting of the qualified voters of said school district to be held May 16th, 2023. I'm prescribing the form of such bond proposition to be inserted

165in the notice of such annual district meeting and election. Perfect thank you, is there a second? Thank you Jim, is there any discussion? I don't have discussion necessarily. I just wanted to share a few concluding remarks after a long, many long discussions in deliberations about this exciting project on why I both support the project and support funding it through a bond. As we've talked about, the high school auditorium is a space that has been and will continue to be used by generations of students and members of our community. And this space, the auditorium supports our teaching and learning. I think it's always important we bring back our spaces to students and teaching and learning and this space does that, even though it's not a, may be considered a traditional classroom. The auditorium is a place

166that also supports building community, the wellness of our students, and many other important benefits for our school community that we heard many of our community groups speak about so eloquently. So thank them again for sharing many thoughts that I don't feel I need to repeat, but they said better than I could. And it's also a space that has gotten significant use since the last major red innovation decades ago. And it is my opinion as we've discussed time for it to be refreshed. And it is time since it's has not had work for many decades to do significant work on it. And I just want to end with my appreciation for the work of Stewart and the administration, our faculty and our staff in the theater and music departments, the parents and students that were involved

167and also my fellow board members. I think we had a lot of really detailed, thoughtful deliberations on the project itself, how to fund it for quite some time and really happy with where we ended up. And I'm happy that we're gonna be bonding it to match the timing of the project more in line with a long-term bond. So just want to share those thoughts. Thank you Ron. Does anybody else have any comments on the bond before we vote? I'd just like to echo some of Ron's points. I think it's been a number of years since this space was last renovated and I think it's something that's been talked about for years. I really appreciate the process that was undertaken and to involve the stakeholders, FMA, the teachers, students. I think that was really the right

168way to get to the scope of the project. And you know, looking back, I think we've talked about this again for years, there've been things that have been deferred. I think this is the time now for us to take action. I appreciate the consideration to move this to a bond. I feel like that's appropriate and I've seen firsthand how valuable having that community building is in place. And I think this is a real opportunity for us as a board to help build community here. So I look forward to voting yes on this bond as well. Anybody else before I call for a vote? Okay, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye, aye. Any opposed? Okay. Proposal passes. And we have a resolution now, this one is Susie. I'd like to recommend that the board

169adopt the following resolution as presented, be it resolved that the 2023-24 reorganization meeting for the Scarsdale Union Free School District shall be held on July 6th, 2023 at 9:00 AM in room 170-172 of Scarsdale High School. And hereby directs the district clerk to provide and distribute the appropriate notices of same. Actually, I think you were 12.03 Susie? That was 12.04. (laughs) (indistinct) I don't know if we can break rules like that. I don't wanna mess with the rules, so let's just follow and no worries at all. (indistinct) 12.03? I recommend that the board adopt the resolution. Oh sorry, my iPad is not. Board adopt the resolution and accept the meeting notice as presented. For background, the state law requires school districts who adopt a resolution each year regarding the details of their budget vote and

170an election. The law also requires that this resolution be published at least four times prior to the election. The proposed resolution is similar to past resolutions, contains all required legal information and reflects the, it went off my iPad, of the 2023-24 budget vote and the election of two board members. Additionally, in accordance with section, it's goes off my page. It's 203. 203, thank you. Of the 2023-24 budget vote and the election of two. The Voting Rights Act, voting materials, including the attached resolution and notice will be provided in Spanish. Thank you Susie, is there a second? Thank you, Bob. Any discussion? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Great the motion carries. Now, Jim. Okay. I recommend the board adopt the following resolution as presented be it resolved that the 2023-2024 reorganization meeting

171for the Scarsdale Union Free School District shall be held on July 6th, 2023 at 9:00 AM in room 170-172 of the Scarsdale High School. And hereby directs the district clerk to provide and distribute the appropriate notices of same. Thank you, Jim. Is there a second? Thank you, Colleen. Any discussion? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Great, the resolution passes. And now we are on public comment again. So members of the public are cordially invited to speak on district related items or not other non personnel related matters during two separate public comment periods. Please state your name, address, and if you're speaking on behalf of an organization, if you're commenting remotely, please mute the livestream voice, turn on your camera and then unmute yourself. Speakers will be asked to conclude the remarks after four minutes

172and will be given a verbal cue with the three minute mark. 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. So with that, I will open up the second public comment period to members of the audience in case anyone would like to come to the front. Seeing no one, I will turn to Zoom. Since your last invitation for people to run to their computer, nobody has. Okay. We'll give them a couple more seconds in case they're slower. No one? Still no attendees. Okay. Then we'll go ahead and close this public comment period. And I don't have anything to follow up on

173unless you wanna follow up on any public comment from before, Drew? No, I don't think so. I'm just grateful to participants. Wonderful. So thank you, let's move on to wrap up items. I don't think there's any wrap up items either. So we will turn to Ron for meeting dates. Well for the first time in quite some time, we only have a few meeting dates upcoming in the next month. The next meeting will be Monday, April 17th. A meeting with the designated group at 5:00 PM at the high school learning commons, followed by the board adopting the budget at 6:30 PM in the high school room 170-172. Immediately following that will be a business meeting in the same room and an executive session if needed. And on the following day, Tuesday, April 18th, the board will

174hold a special meeting for the Southern Westchester BOCES vote that we discussed earlier at 9:00 AM in the high school room 170-172. Thank you, Ron. Okay, with that, could I get a motion to adjourn this meeting? Thank you, Colleen. Is there a second, thank you, Susie. Any discussion? All in favor, please say aye. Aye, all right. Goodnight everyone, have a nice spring break.