001back into order. This is our December 3rd, 2025 business meeting. Um, let's all rise for pledge of allegiance and um could I have trustee 7 to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, liberty and justice for all. All right. Emergency and evacuation procedures. Make note of the exits. Leave the building as quickly as possible in case of an emergency. Um, this is a smokefree and vaping free school district. No smoking or vaping anywhere on district property. It's also a bullyfree and hatefree school district. So after that introduction and uh to tell you that we're sorry to be 15 minutes behind schedule, but we've been running that all evening with some backtoback things that we had to do. So thank you for
002your patience. All right, we're now up to board consent agenda. >> Does the administration recommends approval of board consent items reflected in schedule C1 through C5? >> Is there a motion to approve items C1 through C5? Uh, Trustee Ross, second by Trustee. Uh, questions or discussion? Seeing none, all in favor? Um, it's >> Mr. Ross. >> Yes, sir. >> Okay. All in favor? Uh, it's unanimously approved. Next, we're up to superintendent report. >> Good evening everyone. All right. Good evening. Welcome to our December 3rd uh public board meeting. I'm going to get right to it. Uh first and foremost, we uh had a nice observation of Veterans Day at Belport Middle School, which was orchestrated by our social studies department and Dr. Lindseay Glazick, who invited our veterans. Uh it's always a huge hit for
003our students and also a huge hit for our veterans to do the services of the dogs. One of the things we like to do is have uh veterans that are both community members and staff members talk to the students about their experiences serving our great nation in the various arms of the uh armed forces. I also had the pleasure of attending the curriculum fair at Bellport High School which is basically u our students present different content areas. It's a lot of fun uh speaking to the music um music kids obviously but all the kids and all the different content areas. I really got good time in the social studies department again which was testing my knowledge of emojis as they coded historical events using emojis. I was terrible at that. Um I was okay with
004um recognizing quotes for famous historical figures. But it was a great night just interacting with students who were showing their enthusiasm for the various content areas that they represented. and a big shout out to the high school staff who participated for a fun and informative evening. I also had the great pleasure of attending our national junior honor society induction ceremony at Belport Middle School. Great to see the faces uh the pride in the faces of our parents who attended and a big shout out to our middle school officers who uh participated in the lovely ceremony at Belport Middle School. I always get a kick of reading uh the slide presentations for each of the students who are inducted in the various career paths they're choosing. We have some pretty ambitious students in our school district.
005Along the same lines, I had the privilege of attending our National Honor Society induction ceremony in our newly uh renovated auditorium. Uh the space looks lovely, sound system sounded great. Uh it was just really a great source of pride and something that really um was a long time coming, but a little ceremonial ribbon cutting cere uh ceremony, although the ribbon kind of just fell off the uh the door there, which is a a moment of laughter. But really proud of all of our inductees and what they accomplish and really excited to see what they accomplish going forward. At our next uh meeting in January, January 7th, we will be highlighting some uh academic achievement by some of these notable students. really excited and proud of the achievements of all our students, especially our officers who
006facilitated the entire induction ceremony and a big shout out to their adviserss celebrating student excellence. Um, we also had the center of excellence induction ceremony. These are for first generation collegebound students at Delport High School. A lovely ceremony. U one of the highlights for me was um having a student actually translate live uh some of the comments made by President Hayes as she addressed the students in the audience. Um that was pretty cool to kind of behold. Um she did a great job. Um and it's always great just uh addressing students and talking about things above and beyond academic achievement and things they can do that really promote good uh character and things aligned with our Cleber passion along the lines of like reaching out to community and first responders. had a great event at
007Frank P. Long intermediate school where each of uh three different uh facets of respondents visited the school in their vehicles. We had the Suffach County Police. We had the fire department and different ambulance company come down giving students the opportunity to board the vehicles. They got to meet a K9 unit and somehow the K9 and the dogs are always a hit. Uh but it's great to see the interactions between our students and all of our first responders and I really want to publicly thank them for their uh service to our community. Um, you know, I think our appreciation goes is really uh deep. Um, and one of the things I'm really excited to talk about tonight is really the monumental impact that the South Country Education Foundation has had on the district, not just this
008year, but prior years. Um, I'll call our guest up in a minute. um especially given some of the circumstances we're facing this year. A lot of opportunities that are afforded to our students are possible because of the generosity of the foundation and for that I'm truly appreciative. Some of the things include, you know, from picnics for our kids, grade level picnics to learning how to make pizza in our community establishment, guidance career trips, our cadet corps going for some training, um even trips to DC. We really appreciate support. and some more specific highlights. Uh we'll have some special education students and elementary school students visiting the Suffach County farm to learn about farming, agriculture, and some of the livestock. There we have um the children's scientific picture book and author who's also a South Country
009alumni. Elizabeth Tree will come in person for this assembly uh talking about her book the oddball book armadillos which talks about animal adaptations which is always a hit and we love having our alumni come and really share their sort of experiences and their wonderful art with our students. Um Drums Alive are going to be drum kits are going to be provided to students at Critz Elementary School. Um, I'm hoping these kids aren't allowed to take these things home. Can I imagine the ruckus calls at home, but we want these kids playing these electronic drum sets and I think that's going to be a fantastic experience for our students. Along the same lines of music, we're going to be bringing hiphop to Billboard High School. This project brings a professional hip-hop artist to the high school
010for a two-e residency, providing approximately 250 students with an opportunity to explore the dynamic and culturally significant art form, which is really cool. And maybe some of this will be captured with new Zoom cameras that we recorded to our video department. Um, which is really fantastic. And really the lesson behind that is students telling their stories using uh video as a format. So we're excited about the acquisition of those uh cameras. Uh seed will also be providing uh presentation sloths of rain rainforest friends which is always a hit. Anytime you bring live animals to a school, kids get super excited, especially when they're exotic. Um, I had the um, privilege of seeing sloths in the wild and they are pretty remarkable creatures. Also excited about going to Costa Rica this summer with our high school
011students and we explore the rainforest live. Um, on a grander scale, we also have sponsorship of our student council uh, going on a leadership trip to Washington DC which is partly funded by the South Country Education Foundation. We're excited to send our students to represent the South Country in Washington DC. Students will also be conducting um some art uh with a local artist at Mama's Farm um where they'll be introduced to artist Jay Sylvester and he'll learn about they'll learn about his artistic process which is always exciting. And they'll also be traveling to Port Jefferson to the theater 3 to our kindergarten students to see Don't Let Pigeon Drive the Bus, which is a children's play that's very popular based on a very popular student's book. So we're excited for our kindergarten students to have
012that experience. Um, and the Long Island Aquarium, which is always a hit. Um, you know, I think kids always want to go to the Shark Tank. I don't know if I would recommend that, but they certainly is a great learning opportunity for our students to be exposed to all these things that are made possible by the South Country Education Foundation. In all, just in these four grants, uh, we amass over $70,000 of contributions. So with that, I'm going to call Andrea Fman, the president, Susette Emma Uzi, vice president, Samantha Fman, our treasurer, and Hans Temple just to be recognized. Appreciation. Um, yeah, and I can't tell you how much gratitude we have for the organization and for the generous contributions you made. >> Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. >> YOU'RE WELCOME. THANK YOU ALL
013VERY MUCH. >> Thank you. >> Um you can follow a lot of this action at our website. I explore you know I uh recommend already for our newly designed website which is a lot more accessible to our community members. You can also stay uh sort of in touch or a breast of a lot of the great things happening in Belport um South Country School District or our various social media platforms. I also encourage community members to join parent square the community group. Even if you don't have children in our district, join a community group so you can get uh notifications for the district live and some upcoming events. We're about to head into winter concert season. Really excited about that. I love our music program. Watching our kids perform. Um that all kicks off on
014Saturday with Brook Haven Winter Wonderland which is not a concert but on Tuesday December 9th is the track Tuesday or Monday. >> Tuesday and Thursday we have concerts at Bport Middle School. Wednesday of next week Vern W Chris will present their holiday concert Kramer on the 17th the following week and then Bport High School and our newly uh refurbished auditorium will be doing hosting their two concerts. I really encourage community members to come. Uh, and then that all culminates on December 19th with the Belleport Middle School holiday dance for seventh and eighth graders. So, really exciting things happening in the district uh that we're all excited about. And I want to wish everybody a happy holiday. We won't have another uh board meeting before the holiday. So, I do want to make sure everybody has
015festive, safe, and healthy times with family and friends uh and to enjoy all the celebrations that are upcoming. So, thank you again to the board of education for their continued support. But at this point, we're going to move on to a next presentation which I'm going to bring up um regarding our guys. At this time, I'd love to introduce Monica Pula Fettoan, our director of PLL bilingual world languages programs, Christine Daniels, and Amy Car to the podium. Um, let's see if this works. >> Just use the arrows. >> Uh, yep. >> So, the counter to the down is forward. >> I know. Can I just use this? I think I'm going to keep it simple. Um, good evening everyone. Um, thank you Superintendent Santana and to the board of education members. It's nice to see
016all of you. I'm so excited to have an opportunity to share with all of you all of the great work that we're doing within our English language learner programs. As uh, Superintendent Santenna mentioned, I will be joined this evening uh, during certain portions of the presentation by our ENL elementary chairperson, Christine Daniels, and Amy Karp, our secondary ENL chairperson. I want to thank them uh enormously for helping me create this presentation and for collecting the data that is uh included within it. So this pres during this presentation I'm going to do a really quick overview of our English language learner programs a little bit about their structures. Then we're going to take a look at some English language learner student achievement data. Then we're going to talk about some of the instructional initiative initiatives that
017we feel are positively impacting the data that you look at tonight. We're going to move to um a little review of the dual language program history, its initiation, and its transitions through the years and then talk a little bit about the current structure of the program. And then we'll end with some dual language student achievement data. Exciting. It's all good. I'm really excited. Um, so I thought we'd start with taking a look at how many students are served in English language learner programs at South Country Central School District. We have 823 students served in those programs. And this is a chart of the breakdown of where those students are in all six buildings. Uh 8233 students constitutes about 22% of our overall student population. And uh those students are all served by an incredible committed
018hardworking team of 30 ENL teachers. Uh you're going to see their work throughout this presentation. So we have two English language learner programs in the district and they're both mandated by New York State. The first one is an ENL program and the second one is a bilingual program. Our ENL program K5 uh provides our English language learners with one unit of integrated ENL ELA and one unit of standalone ENL that is for our beginner L's. The integrated ENL ELA is for lack of a better term a push-in model where the ENL teacher goes into the ELA or content area classroom and students receive instructional support through a um co-taught model. Um, our standalone ENL is for our beginner elves as indicated in the slide and that is a pullout model where our beginner elves have
019an opportunity to receive instruction in small group outside of the classroom. Our 6 through 12 ENL program includes both of the uh elements that I just mentioned, but in addition to that, our beginner and intermediate L's receive integrated social studies, math, and science. So, our next program is our bilingual program. Um, I wanted to make a distinction here. The bilingual program is a New York State mandate. The model that we u incorporate here at South Country is a dual language model. The model is not the mandate. It is one of the options that we have in order to meet the mandate. Um, currently we have a sidebyside two-way model in grades K through five. The beginner English language learners in that program also receive the benefit of that pull out small groupoup instruction in the
020standard. So our uh the central accountability measure for the ENL department is our NISLAT. The NISLAT is an annual exam uh taken by all K12 English language learners and it is an English proficiency assessment. It assesses students in all four English proficiency modalities um listening, reading, speaking and writing. And depending on what an English language learner earns on that exam, uh that's what determines the service. So our proficiency levels are entering emerging which constitutes our beginner English language learners, transitioning which constitute our intermediate English language learners, expanding which constitute our advanced English language learners, and our commanding students that are recently proficient students within the first two years of proficiency. The state requires us to provide them with two years of continued support after that point. So here's the first piece of great data. So
021this slide shows the number of students that scored proficient in 2024 and 2025. 2024 38 students were proficient and this past testing season 103 students scored commanding which is really exciting. It's a big difference. Um we have a commanding celebration at the end of every year. I know that some of you have attended that celebration. Well, needless to say, it's going to be a much bigger crowd this year, and we are really excited for that. Um, and this is a very quick look at our K5 slot data. I have three years worth of data here, beginning with 2023 on the left. Um, I want you to bring your attention to the yellow slice of the pie. That was an area of focus for us when we are when we were considering what instructional moves we
022needed to make to improve student outcomes. That uh orange slice of the pie constitutes the percentage of students that actually went back a proficiency level those years. So, um we wanted to really dig into that data, take a look at what our students needed there. And as you can see, we've been able to bridge that gap uh in the last couple of years. and the green shows the number of students that moved up a proficiency level um during each cycle and you can see that that number has grown. The gray is students that remain the same. That does not constitute a lack of progress. In fact, when we dig deep into this data, we know that the raw scores show that our students are improving just within the same proficiency range. It takes three to
023seven years to develop academic English. So, this is like normal trajectory. And even though the nicest slat is our main u accountability measure, we'd like to take a look at how our English language learners, particularly the ones that just scored out, are doing on um bigger assessment scales. And we can look here, um it's circled here for you. These are those students that I mentioned, commanding L's. The state calls them former LEPs. Um those are the students that have been out of the program one to two years. They scored 23% of them scored proficient in the ELA on 2024 and we had an increase to I believe I can't 38% um this past um testing season. So that's an increase and not only is it an increase but you can see that it's up to
024par with the gener gened counterparts. It's also at the it's at the same percentage. So these are English language learners that are recently exiting the program that are you know ready to move forward and are well poised to continue to develop academically. We look at our math data for 3 through8, we see that similar um increase in results um for math this year and in fact if you look at the percentage of former English language learners, students that just scored proficient compared to their general education counterparts, we are outperforming them. So none of this happens by accident. This is happening because we have implemented um instructional initiatives for the past several years to really help increase positive student outcomes for English language learners. I'm going to introduce Christine Daniels now. She's been working on our
025K through5 ENL standard loan curriculum plan. It's one of our many initiatives and she's been at the helm of it. So Christine, >> hello. >> Hi. Thank you so much for taking the time to listen to us tonight. We are so proud of the great work that our teachers are doing and especially our students. As a K3 teacher and a ENL teacher, I would love to have a lot more visual pictures of kids actually so you could see what they do. If any of you ever want to come to see them in person, please let me know anytime because they are working really hard. I would love for you to see what's going on. Um, I just wanted to say that um I have the distinct pleasure of being the chairperson part-time and I also
026have been teaching at Kramer Street for over 20 years and I still love what I do. Thank you so much for this opportunity. So as a department as Mettoan uh was saying that our instructional focus has been to to really enhance and strengthen our standalone program. We really wanted to target this area because the growth that we were showing that we just showed you in the data was for kids who are expanding to commanding also kids that are um expanding commanding in taking the three through eight testing. But the this next section that I'm going to be talking about is really focusing on those entering and emerging beginner students. um we needed to really focus on developing their um growth in in this area. Um I wanted to provide you with a brief overview of
027the plan that we implemented, but I want to just focus on the names at the bottom of this slide. These are the two teams of people over the past two summers with your approval, we had summer curriculum writing and they did an exceptional job creating an um an amazing plan. So I'd like to share that with you now. So the goal of the instructional focus is really to provide a researchbased instructional aligned program based on this New York State standards and the science of reading. We for the past couple of years as a district we have been doing that work and the ENL department has been right in step with what's going on there. And the other goal of the the instructional focus was to deliver a consistent and explicit oral language plan. So it
028wasn't just when students were coming to that standalone plan, they were doing different things in different classrooms, different things in different buildings. Now we have a consistent plan. So the curriculum components include a five-step systemic oral language plan and a writing plan. It has five components that I'll talk about in a minute. It also has um a very detailed scope and sequence. Over the summers, those two summers, the teachers got together and they created a scope and sequence that includes 200 lessons. 200 lessons based on 200 books, books that were already purchased by the district that have been used in um the classrooms across the the K3 K5 buildings and um we've included them in this um plan because they were beautiful culturally responsive texts that we we loved and kids loved. So the scope
029and sequence was um developed with the with the teachers and it is comprehensive and extensive. Um so the other piece of it is the formative assessment that we included. We wanted to make sure that we weren't just relying on the end of the year assessment which is the nicest flat in May. Sometimes we don't get the results of that until September, October. We're already starting. We're already going. We need formative assessment ongoing throughout the year. So, we have studentf facing rubrics so that students know what they're doing when they walk into the standalone class. The teachers know what's going on. Everyone is uh uh aligned with what we're working on. And now um we're having some formative assessment throughout the throughout the school year. And the other thing that we've added is some interactive slides
030that teachers have access to to um create lessons on their own using Canva, which we've been implementing um um with great after school professional development on Canva. uh throughout the district which is really lovely. And finally, we have some videos in the the share drive. Teachers have access to videos modeling the steps of the curriculum plan so that throughout the year if teachers forget, oh, what do I do with this part? They there's some modeling that teachers have provided u with videos. So, this is just a screenshot. But I know this the print is so small for you to see, but um this new standalone plan on the left side really is um effectively integrates the essential linguistic components of phenology, syntax, semantics, and most importantly the discourse. The discourse piece is the most important
031piece that we want students talking. We want students to make connections to the text and and increase their comprehension and have opportunities in the standalone to express their thoughts and ideas with within the teaching. Um, ENL students need explicit instruction and practice producing the phonemes. So, the oral language plan is getting students to produce those sounds, not just hear them, not just manipulate them in the reading class, in the in the classrooms, but really hear them, say them, practice them, and work on that. They also need explicit instruction in syntax, in how the sentence structure works. So, we really developed that. And one of the most important things, like I said, is the final piece is the discourse and the conversation. Um, all of this is visually represented for kids. visually displayed in the classroom
032and consistently worked on throughout the year. And soon after developing the oral language part of it, teachers right away were saying, you know, the the writing pieces is is equally important. That's included in um you know, the need for expressive language in writing. And a lot of the scores we were looking at also show that that was the lowest skill deficit on um our state test. So, we wanted to make sure we had a a writing standalone plan that actually mirrors what's happening in the oral language plan with the phenology, with the phonics and the vocabulary and all the components. So, this is just a small little screenshot, but uh if you ever want to see it in action, please let me know. So, this slide right here I just we added because as Mon
033as Mat was saying, the number of commanding students tripled. That is amazing data. But those are the expanding to commanding like really our transitioning kids like moving up at that higher level. So we needed I wanted you to see some growth for those entering and emerging students. So we have this new uh program link it and I went I dug into this the past couple of months and when we really pull out all the data we saw from last year to this year amazing growth just for those entering and emerging students specifically overall 91% students grew which was really amazing. So because of this standalone plan which is a deliberate instructional plan we really saw an impact in our our student progress. Um so we're really engaging in ongoing you know after school professional development
034on this coaching cycles uh with you know with me as the chairperson it's really helpful to really communicate with teachers about how this is being implemented providing support for them with anything they need and you know we we we look at all this data and it's not just for the great positive things right this we want to show yes look 100% of kids from K to one made growth 100% in four and five this is great but we also want to look at you know where kids are struggling and where kids need more support. So, the link it program that we have and and having some formative assessment uh data is really helping us to really zoom in and see like where do we need to provide more support for for the students who need
035us the most. So, I hope I didn't talk too fast, but uh I think we have a little bit of time, but thank you so much for listening. I appreciate it. >> Thank you, Christine. Uh thank you for your invaluable contributions to our collective efforts on behalf of students. Really great work. We're going to move to 6 through 12 nices slot data now. And it's pretty much set up the same way the K through five was. Again, I'll bring your attention to the yellow piece of the pie, which was our focus. Uh we really wanted to minimize the number of students that were going down a proficiency level, and we've done that. Um in 2023, I think it says 6.2% of students uh were going down a proficiency level, and this past year, only 1.2%
036went down. We're going to continue to chip away at that, but we are definitely bridging that gap. Uh, and again, our the number of students that are going up a proficiency level, that green gray area, that's moving up too. So, everything is moving in the right direction at the secondary level as well. So, again, even though our the nicest slot is our uh accountability measure in ENL World, we also need to take a look at how our students are doing in other areas. This is incredible data. I need you to really take a minute to to to soak this in because uh the the English regions is the greatest obstacle for English language learners when it comes to graduation for obvious reasons. They're learning English and it's an English assessment. Um this these charts show
037the trajectory of um the number of students that English language learners that are passing this exam uh in the past three years. And you can see that it's gone up um 3.8% 8% of L's passed the ELA regions in 2023 with a 65 uh as compared to 28.6% of English language learners passing the regions in 2025. Uh on the right hand side you see a combination of the number of students that scored with a 65 and the number of English language learners that passed with a 55 appeal. Uh the 55 appeal is um an option for only for students that enter US schools at the high school level. Uh so if we combined all of the whole number students that passed the regions and were able to graduate, uh we went from 19.2% of uh
038English language learners who passed the ELA in 2023 to 55.9% that passed in 2025. These are incredible, incredible gains and a testament to the work of our ENL, ELA, duallyy certified teachers at the high school. They just are tireless, uh, leaders and advocates for our students. Um, and they're on the front lines. So, uh, kudos to them. And if we take a look at our global and US history regions results for English language learners, we see the same on the left hand side. uh we see that three-year trajectory in 2023. 45.5% of our L's passed the global regions exam uh as compared to 64.4% of L's that passed in 2025. On the right, our US history regions results take us from 33.3% of L's passing in 2023 to 59.3% of English language learners passing in
0392025. And again, we recognize we have a long way to go when it comes to all of these areas, but we are moving in the right direction. And that's really exciting to us and a testament to the work that our chairpeople are doing, our teachers are doing, and our students are doing. And again, you know, if more students pass the regent exams, more students are going to graduate. And we see that our English language learner graduation rate increased to 50% this year. and that's in line with our regional and state um averages. So now I'm going to bring up uh Miss Amy Karp. She's our secondary uh chairperson and she's going to talk about one of the um instructional initiatives that we've been engaged in at the secondary level because again none of these results
040happen by accident. This is a result of intentional instructional uh development and uh Amy want to come up and talk about our writing focus. >> All right. Good evening. Thank you. Um thanks for listening to some of the um work we've been doing at the secondary level. Um we've been for the last couple of years we've been really focusing on writing. Um as it's come to our attention that writing has been an area of struggle for some of our students. Um and particularly we've been we've been focusing on back to this sentence level back to increasing sentence complexity across all content areas. So, not just in an ELA or a writing block, but across all content areas, we want kids to be writing. Um, if you see here, the the reason that this need came
041about was that um in analyzing some of the data of our student population at the middle school and the high school, if you can see on the left, um, at Belport Middle School, we had almost 50% of of students were comprised of long-term English language learners. Um, a long-term English language learner is a student that's receiving ENL services for more than six years. So, if they entered um in kindergarten and by sixth grade are still not testing proficient, they fall into this category of long-term English language learners. So, it it's making up a large percentage of our population. And it um at the high school, you can see it's about a third to 31%. So, it prompted me to look further as to what was causing these students to have trouble becoming proficient or testing
042out. Um, so on the right you could see some of a sample of some of the niceslat data of our secondary students. Um, and although they're performing very well, these are long-term L's um in the modalities of listening, speaking, and reading. um writing was a was really stood out as an area that was not in proportion with the other scores. Um they were writing at a level more um representing a transitioning or an emerging student versus a expanding or commanding student. Um so it really brought to my attention that they need to be taught how to explicitly it has to be taught in a more explicit manner. Um what's needed to score at a certain level on this exam? um they're really only asked to write a a a long paragraph. It's not a a
043a writing that isn't a long essay or something that is one would think would be a a difficult task per se, but it really brought to light that their ability to write complex sentences um needed to needed some work. So in trying to find go back sorry in trying to find um a resource that we could use to help teachers and students um I came across this book known as the writing revolution um which is really um a way that it's it provides a lot of strategies and techniques that students again teachers can use in a variety of content areas to increase um complexity of sentences in student writing. Um you can see these are the six principles that guide the strategies and techniques in the writing revolution. And the three most important ones are
044that students need to be explicitly taught how to write. Um it doesn't assume that students can are going to learn how to write through just practice alone. It's not enough to write and write and write um without any explicit instruction especially for ENL students. Um, so we really have to go back to the sentence level and and what this book does a great job of is providing a ton of of resources and examples of how to incorporate sentence level complexity across all content areas and using the content of social studies and science and even math which most people don't think you can write in but you know as as I you know I co-e um algebra and I every day I think of a sentence that I can use um in my class. Students can
045write um a complex sentence to explain their thinking, to explain a mistake that was made in in a problem. Um to show, you know, using, you know, just complex sentences to to really show what they know, to assess their content knowledge, not just this is what's really so great about this is that it's not an isolation. It's using the content that they're already learning. Um and that's what really separates this from some other types of writing techniques. Um so in providing a lot of professional development and and really um for the last couple of years on these techniques, we saw this year how the writing changed. Um if you can see the red and the blue, the this year's results, this is representative of many of the ENL students. The writing went up enormously. We
046had I mean 5 to 10, 6 to 12. These are um they went from writing at a trans like I said a transitioning sometimes emerging level of writing to more of an expanding commanding writing in one year. Um and you know it students just needed to be told what to do. They needed to be shown and modeled exactly what they needed to provide. They needed to be shown the rubric. They needed to be conferenced with and shown their scores and why they weren't testing out. We we met with uh students individually. We conferenced with them. Um and we were very intentional about this group of students and trying to get these students to to reach the level that we knew that they could. Um and so we were really ecstatic about the results. Um and
047if you look in general, we had um at the middle school out of the 65 long-term L's that we had tested, 19 of them reached proficiency. Um so 29.2%. And you know these were students had been struggling. They had been struggling to write, struggling to to reach this level. Um so that was just amazing. Um at the high school we had 12 out of 48 reach proficiency. So representing a quarter um of them, 25% and again just um you know we're going to keep we're going to keep doing this. We're going to keep focusing on these this group of students. But um we were ecstatic with the results. So um that's some of the the stuff that we've been doing at the secondary level. So, thanks for listening. >> Thank you, Amy Karp, for your
048continued invaluable contributions to our collective work on behalf of our English language learners. >> Just a just a quick question. Um, so what does it do for the their confidence level? >> Yeah. So, they a lot of these students, you know, I'm actually glad you brought that up. They they feel somewhat, you know, say embarrassed, but they they don't understand why they're still in um in the program or why they need to get services. is they don't understand why they're not testing out. And by showing them, we show them exactly you're doing great in reading, great in listening, look at your score, you just need to elevate your writing because here's what they're looking for. And so when they realize it's not that much of a stretch to test, you know, to test out and
049then they actually do it. It, you know, I can't speak for, you know, um, but I I can only like I I could see the pride that they feel like finally this is representing what I felt like I was for so many years. um and just being able to graduate high school as a proficient English um speaker and across you know um it just I just I can only imagine that it really changes the trajectory of how they feel about themselves and where they purs and what they pursue and they don't have that not that it it's not a stigma you know it's just that you know for a student who's been in the program since kindergarten and is at the high school level is still in it they do start to feel a sense
050of um you know they get frustrated you get a fatigue of taking the test every year. We have to keep them motivated. So, there's a motivation factor as well. So, um they they really are. And if you go to the commanding ceremony, that's why, you know, the commanding ceremony is such a great um you know, I didn't even really realize it at first how important it was and how big it was. But it's um I think that's why you see such great attendance and they really do show up and they they feel that sense of pride. So, yeah. No, absolutely. >> The families are so proud, too. >> Yeah. really are, you know, it's just it's great to see. >> Um, so yeah, so we're going to continue to do that and hopefully, you know,
051see more and more every year. So, thank you. >> Yeah, nicely done. Thank you. >> Can I follow up on this? And it would be for both of the presenters actually. >> Okay. >> Same question. >> Yeah. >> But you're showing phenomenal increases. So go back to the elementary level of um 38 jumping up to 103 >> and then on the high school level you've got this one slide um page 22 >> um showing five different students who just had tremendous growth. >> Yeah. >> What does that say to the entire cohort? Do they do they feed off this too? you know the seeing these students show such increase in their abilities do they does it help them see that they can do it too and that they're actually doing it as well >> yeah
052I mean there are there are students that no longer um go to the pullout program for that are entering emerging they're no longer in that category they're now they're transitioning or commanding you know or expanding commanding so sometimes students are like you know how come I'm not going with you anymore and it's like, well, you made such great growth. And then the other students that hear us talk about that and being transparent and open about that process and naming that is really important. And that's a little bit part of like having what we I didn't get to show it, but like having a studentf facing rubric for K one two kids to say these for these students, this is where you are, but this is where you're going and you're going to get there. We're
053just this is what we have to do to get there. And so yeah, I think that students really um see the growth. And >> yeah, and at the um at the middle school and high school as well, the expanding commanding students are in one class together. So they get to still be in the class with their um with their peers who have tested out so they see the possibility and and again it's important to show them the growth that they've made already even if they haven't reached the um the commanding level. So we always show them the growth. So that's why you know in the slides you know in this is just a sample but we always show them they've gone up 30 points or 40 points so that they've we need to keep them
054motivated so they feel good and they see what they've done. Um there are students who who are one one question away many of them actually so as great you know and you know not like oh my god I didn't like you know and so it's kind of just to motivate them and that's a big part of it. So um so it definitely helps to see their counterparts with who who have reached that level that is possible for them as well. So, um, but yes, for sure. >> Thank you. Thank you so much. >> Great team I've got. Right. You do. Plus the phenomenal teachers that I have. But, uh, yeah, >> you know, we really operate in the ENL program and the DL program from a place of understanding that if we want different results,
055if we want better results, we need to shift our instruction. Right? If we continue to do the same thing and expect different results, you know what that is the definition of, right? >> Exactly. So, um, so yeah, so it's really exciting to be able to showcase our great work tonight. All right, so we're going to move to our K5 dual language program and, um, so we have 240 students in the K5 dual language program. Uh, currently we have 126 English dominant students and 114 English language learners. I wanted to just uh walk everyone through a little review of the um history of the dual language program and how it evolved. Uh there were multiple um iterations of this program um as we got closer and closer to a model that we felt was um the
056one that provided the most um target language integrity. So in 2014 2015 um the district uh launched a transitional bilingual program at the kindergarten level. The transitional program is a bilingual program that meets New York State standards but it is an all English language learner program. It does not include English dominant students. Um, so we had that for one year and then the following year was the first year that we uh moved to a uh two-way dual language program and that's when English dominant students were invited into the program. We had one class, half of the students were English dominant, the other half were English language learners. We had one teacher teaching in both languages and we had that model for a few years and then in 2018 2019 we moved to a sidebyside two-way
057dual language model and basically that allowed us to have two classes instead of one class two groups of students and then we were able to get one teacher to only teach Spanish and the other teacher to only teach English. And the reason why we moved to this model was because in the standalone uh two-way model, we were noticing that um the integrity of the target language wasn't as refined as we would have liked it. You know, when you have one teacher teaching both languages in a in a community that is English dominant in an environment where English is the uh dominant language of assessments, you know, everything starts leaning heavily towards English. and we really wanted to kind of balance out that um the linguistic integrity in this program. So that's why we moved to
058uh uh a sidebyside and it also allowed us the opportunity to include an additional class at every grade level which we thought was important and that model that was introduced in the 2018 2019 school year is the one that is in effect today K5. It took a few years to roll out obviously because we started with a different model for a couple of years. Um, so now I wanted to address our K uh grade six dual language program that also has gone through multiple uh iterations until we felt we could land on something that made the most sense for kids and that really provided um that language target language integrity piece. Um so the 2016 2017 2018 kindergarten cohorts in that single class with that one teacher with two languages um they they landed in
059sixth grade in 2022 and 2023. So initially we tried out this plan where we wanted to provide those students with an accelerated Spanish class but we wanted to really keep it close to the curriculum because that's what these kids had been used to from K5, right? Um, so we had a grade six ELA teacher co-eing with a Spanish teacher in the hope that together they could meld their expertise and it could be a Spanish class that was closely connected to the curriculum. We tried it for a few years for those single groups. It really didn't work well. And it didn't work well for the same reason the uh standalone didn't work well. We had we had two teachers. the curriculum expert was English speaking and then the Spanish teacher was Spanish speaking but it was
060a Spanish class but there was a lot of English going on in that class so the integrity of the Spanish language which was the target language of that course wasn't really being upheld um last year we got our first double group that went to sixth grade so we had an opportunity here because we now had two groups of students we could alternate so we had a bilingual teacher teaching both groups of students and she taught uh literacy classes of reading, writing and math bilingually in English and Spanish with an alternating pattern. Uh we tried to and it fell short again in part because of that same model. Uh one teacher trying to navigate two languages with a group of students that were used to two teachers, right? So um we tried it, it didn't work.
061Um and you know, we really wanted to try and extend it to grade six because technically grade six is an extension of elementary school. So, we we didn't want to give up on the idea. So, you know, we we gave it a few a few tries. But this year, our sixth grade dual language students are doing um a daily accelerated Spanish course. Um they're the only students at the middle school that take this course. And our seventh grade dual language students are also in an accelerated course, as are our eighth grade students. Um this is just a little chart showing the trajectory of our dual language students compared to our general language students uh at the secondary level. Our you know our goal is for our dual language students to you know get a couple
062of AP courses under their belts um earn the seal of bi literacy with ease maybe add another language at the high school level um so yeah so now we're going to move to our English dominant student data right this dual language program half of our students are English dominant we've spent this entire time looking at English language learner data and that uh kind of encompassed our dual language English language learner. But now we need to take a look at how our English dominant students are doing in the dual language program. And the answer is pretty good. Um, this is our New York State ELA data for 2023 and 2024. The green column represents English dominant students within the dual language program and the orange constitutes their English dominant counterparts outside of the program. And you
063can see that uh in 2023 they outperformed their uh general education English dominant peers except for one grade level. And in 2024 um they overall outperformed their um English dominant counterparts outside of the dual language program except for uh I think it's second grade. And then our latest data shows that our students are actually doing better and better. Um, take a look at that. Grade three ELA data. Our English dominant students inside the dual language program, 75% of them scored proficient on the ELA this past May, compared to about 50% for their counterparts outside of the dual language program. Pretty pretty significant, I think. And then when we look at our math, it's even better. Uh this is 23 24 data. Again, the green column um represents our English dominant students inside the dual language
064program. uh as compared to the orange column which is our our English dominant students outside the program outperforming their general education counterparts across the board in 2023 2024 math and our 2025 data is even more insane. I mean really right you laugh but it's so true. Uh, look, third grade and fourth grade students, 95% of our students that are English dominant within the dual language program scored proficient. Good stuff. Yeah, they're doing really well and we were happy to see that. You know, we know this to be true. The research shows that, you know, dual language students excel and uh often go beyond their counterparts and outperform them. But to to take a deep dive into our own local data after, you know, several years of being in operation and seeing this is incredibly gratifying.
065I mean, again, um and what it says is that bi literacy supports learning, right? It's not something that diminishes learning, it's something that enhances learning. And I just wanted to, you know, I know that at home they're watching just the screen. I wanted to highlight and thank our incredible teachers. This is all about teachers and their their work and their willingness to continue to strive to do better. You know, we're constantly engaging in discourse about what we can do better, what we can change, what we can implement. So kudos to our dual language team listed here, our incredible um elementary ENL chairperson Christine Daniels and her incredible group of teachers. You know, they're the root. You know, when we change things at the elementary level, we're supporting everybody and of course to our incredible secondary
066team. Uh a lot of times we get newcomers at this level and you know the challenges can be can be great but our our teachers at the secondary level rise to the occasion. Could you just sit? >> Could you comment about one thing? >> Sure. >> And that's the seal of biiteracy that I believe our students can qualify for when they graduate. >> Um, could you give us a little history of that and when we were first participating in it and how many of our students are qualified? >> Actually, yes. Samantha Dillo was one of our very first recipients of seal of literacy. I you know I love doing this because it gives me an opportunity to meet students that I normally wouldn't meet like Sam. So um so yeah so basically there there are
067criteria that need to be met. It's a total of three points that you need to acquire in order to um earn the seal and those three points can be earned in a variety of ways anywhere from your score on a regent exam your score on an AP exam on the English side and also on the world language side. So you have to kind of prove proficiency. Three points in English, three points in Spanish. Um there is a presentation component that students are able to participate in. That's a two-pointer. So a lot of our students participate in that. We only started the year before last and we started with seven students that earned the seal. Sam was one of them. And then last year we had, I believe, 32 students that earned the seal. So yeah,
068it grew exponentially in part because we got some teachers and guidance counselors on board to support the process, right? It takes a village. I had done the first uh round on my own and you know it was new to me but very exciting, very exciting stuff and what I love about it is that our English dominant students um are some of our higher level kids. And it's really incredible to see that these kids that have so many honors bestowed upon them already still seek to challenge themselves with a presentation in another language. It was it's really it was really moving to watch and also a reminder of how difficult it is to perform in another language. A reminder that our English language learners do this every single day. So it was just it was just
069magical. And I I look forward to, you know, doing another round this year and getting more kids to earn the seal as as each year passes. Thank you for that question, Miss H. >> In some of the areas where you had lower proficiency in some of the other grades, um how much of that do you attribute to CO? >> Yeah, you know, definitely when we look at where things landed, we were like, "Oh, that was a co year. That was the year after CO." Part of the reason why I didn't look at data that was too far back was because of that because I I you know I wanted to get like a real authentic view of how we're doing. But you know where there are so many factors that go into you know students
070that aren't really um meeting their potential. You know part of it a big part of it I think is are we responding to them instruction right are we being explicit about what their needs are and what our instructional practices are in response to that. You know we looked at lots of things. We looked at testing um environments, you know, um in fact, uh Amy had an initiative at the high school. All of our long-term elves took the exam in a separate location this year because we really wanted to give them a separate space for them to really, you know, give 100% on that on that exam. So, we looked at a variety of variety of things. The fact is that the nicest slat as it it as as it changes in band levels, grade levels,
071it gets harder. So, you know, sometimes when you're switching bands and a kid a a child is struggling already, that might be enough that combination for them to to kind of slip back. So, uh we we're just really trying to be very intentional about what the causes are and how we can support. >> Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> I have a couple questions. Um I know Mr. Megan, you had in your uh data about the eighth grade regions. Um I would still like to see kind of how our dual language data compared on region scores. Uh obviously >> for eighth grade. >> Eighth grade. Yeah. I know we had a cohort go through that at this point, right? Correct. >> Yeah, we have a ninth grade group. So yes, >> I'd love to see
072that. And then also um I know we've had conversations about attrition as well in the dual language program, kids that have started in the cohort and how what percentage them are complete in the full seven-year program, I guess, at this point. uh and what number of those remain in the program throughout. Are we seeing kids go from start to finish? What percentages uh for a yearly basis kind of what's going in and what's staying in the program uh to see if they are attrition? And then my last kind of question um kind of with the dual link program as a whole, the data is is great. I think we see some really really good things going on obviously and I think you know where I'm probably going with this is obviously um >> how do
073we make this grow? How do we make this as a you know if if everything is going as well as it's going in this program and we've had conversations obviously about it um and I think with Mr. Santana as well myself personally if it's such a positive impact on the district what does the board should we be doing to see this grow um what options are there would you present to us to say let's make this a bigger option because if it's doing so well and we're seeing English dominant students in a dual language program scoring as well as they are how come we are not offering that to more students at this point so um I'll leave it at that for now >> we have had multiple conversations and we both agree on the
074value of bi literacy in our community and in our classrooms. Uh to your first question, thanks for uh bringing up the eighth grade regents. Uh I'll get that over to you as soon as possible. I'd like to see it. I'm I'm going to guess it's pretty good, but you know, who knows? Um and then secondly, I know that you had asked for that data. I think uh Mr. Santana had kind of addressed the fact that uh it's kind of elusive. It's elusive data right now. Um, but I'll tell you that, you know, now that we're at a place where we're foundationally more more stable when it comes to our instructional practices, our model structure, um, you know, we will be keeping a closer track on, you know, who's moving in and who's moving out. You
075know, Dr. Raven isn't here tonight. She meant to be here. She's been instrumental in the development of this program. She's been my partner, sometimes my leader uh, in this work. and um you know she she developed initiated a program in another district and um she said she it's very common that when um a program is start starts and is new that you do have more students leave the program. Um so it's true our our older grade levels have less students in them right now than our our earlier grades. Uh but we are we're starting to see those numbers stay intact through fifth grade. So, you know, the anticipation is that they'll continue to remain robust. And uh your last question is I don't think is for me. I mean, I love I love anything that
076has to do with um diversity, right? Linguistic diversity, cultural diversity. I think diversity is good for learning. Um and um dual language program is one example of that. So, and I do appreciate that. First of all, you're as happy as I am to see uh you know what we know and that you know you're an advocate for this for this work because to me it is it is very special work >> and I I'm not sure I'm speaking for myself personally but I would personally I can see it grow uh I think it's something that has obviously benefits um I think we're seeing the numbers grow at the lower levels is clear by the data that people are entering um and we have scores are higher uh so I would like for us to consider
077options for it to continue to grow as well. >> I also want to point out that Christine Daniels directly supports the dual language program as the elementary chairperson. >> Any other questions? >> Thank you very much. >> Appreciate that. >> Um, yeah, there's no arguing the merits of a dual language program. Um I'm a former English language learner and so back in the 1970s Dave myself I was in a dual language program in my public school city. So I still remember my first and second grade teacher's name is Algo. We did loop uh they would loop their students to have a teacher for two years but um really instrumental for me to pick up the English language which I learned in public school and to this day my mom immigrated here in 1962. She still
078doesn't speak English. Um, so, um, just because of our our sort of community in New York City, it's very much Spanish dominant. Uh, but she watches Jeopardy every night. So, I question her, which is a true story. She can't say the word Jeopardy. Doesn't come out of her mouth, but she does watch it every day. >> Okay. All right. Where are we? I think we are up to Oh, trustee and advisory committee reports. We'll start with our exeicio member of the board. >> Thank you. >> I would first like to say I hope that everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving and spend time with their families. Our student council wrapped up our Thanksgiving food drive at the high school. Went great. As we get into the holiday season, we're hosting a district and communitywide food drive
079to help those in need. Our student council reps have been going to local businesses asking if they could put um just a little donation box. And we went everywhere that our district covers. There's we have boxes and places in East Patchog, Balport, Yapank. And this is just a project that means a lot to me and I'm very grateful that we have the resources that we can push this project out. Tomorrow I have the opportunity to attend the board member exopio summit hosted by Eastern Safosies. I'm also very grateful for this and I'll report back with my findings. The student council board has been fundraising and I appreciate all the hard work that my executive board and all the reps have been doing. Thank you. >> Could I just ask you a question? >> Um, how
080are you finding your role as exeicio member of the board? Now, in terms of communicating with your peers in the high school, >> I honestly think that it's going pretty good. I have been seeing a lot of I don't really know what the word is, but um a lot a lot of people just coming to me asking about ideas that we think could change. I know that there's a student in my grade who's looking to change where we come in for school in the morning if we could come in through the side door. He has a petition going on and I just think stuff like that is so great and helpful that we have students coming up with ideas. I know um Mrs. Zulo's daughter sits on the junior board and they had a little
081discourse about what they wanted to do with their junior prom this year and they met as a class and came up with the idea that they want to have a junior prom and I just feel like stuff like that needs to happen more and that's what I'm trying to do. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> Um not much to report except um I saw the Brook Winter Wonderland. I've only heard about it every day since it's been put up. So I'm excited to be there this weekend. Oh, they they covered the doors. >> Oh, >> they had it like all hidden. >> Yeah, I haven't heard anything. Very very good things so far. >> Okay, >> Trusty Russ. >> So, um I have a little bit more than I guess than than as usual. Um
082some people had pointed this out. Um in rooms like this, passions tend to run, you know, a little high. There's none of us in here that don't doubt what our mission is. We often wave a flag. We're not doing it for a check. Clearly, those trustees that are up here volunteer their time as do others well and beyond what's going on. Sometimes, um, like at the last meeting, that passion is poorly displayed. That was on me. Um, the ability to accept and own a mistake is the obligation of a leader and an adult and alike and set an example. Um, so one of the uh pieces we had a conversation in executive session uh I did with trustee Feliz and offered an apology. Um the form of my objection during the last meeting could have
083been handled much better. Robert's rules object to the point make it. And I say these things because from our end I'm a first year trustee. Learn the process. Figure out what's going on. Don't give up your passion, but there can be better ways to display it. And for us to ask for those of you to change, expect or give some people new chances, new life. It's important. So, Mr. Odicon, you deserve an apology from me as well. You know, your objections in your opinion are a valuable part of the public comment periods and the process. However, the rules, as you know, don't allow me to respond. So, my responses fall very short of a professional standard, which I expect of myself. So, for that, I apologize to you. Um, and I say these things because
084we are, as we've all gone through and we all see the money shortages, we see the changes, we're asking a lot. I can't expect for somebody to do something if I'm not willing to do it myself. There's not a person in here, if you know me, that you know you can you can approach me. You can ask me questions. I have no problem in fighting. I have no problem in showing my passion. I also have no problem in telling you the truth and telling you what's there. So from that end, you gota you have to apologize when you make a mistake and own it. So I made a mistake last time. That's my apology. We're going to move on. Go on. And as I told uh Trustee Feliz, I expect her to keep asking questions.
085>> Trusty Feliz. >> Thank you. And thank you, Trusty. I do appreciate your um your acknowledgement and I accept your apology and uh for whatever I said or did in that in that moment that made you feel uh anything to react to what I was saying. Um and I accept my responsibility too. Um, I'm very passionate about what's happening here and what my role was and my responsibility, which I said from the very beginning. As soon as we knew what was happening financially, um, that's just me. It's like I wanted to know what I could have done better to to um to to find out what we what what went wrong. Where did we go off the rails? where could we have where could we have found out better? So, I tend to get a
086little overpassionate and and some people took offense to that I was being accusatory. Um and um and that wasn't that wasn't that wasn't the case. That wasn't my intention. So, if that's the way it came across, it certainly wasn't my intention. Um, we're at the point right now because we finally had the audit to pick up the pieces and move forward, but we have a lot of pieces to pick up. Um, and so I am committed on working with the board um, in in going forward. And so I will get passionate and I won't stop asking questions. So, uh, I had planned on coming to this meeting tonight, not expecting your apology until last night when we did meet, but I had planned on coming to this meeting tonight to say to you, I'm glad
087you're here because I do know your passion and I enjoyed your passion the first time you ran and I was sorry that you didn't win the first time that you ran, but I enjoy you being here. But I was going to ask you, please don't ever talk to me like that again. But you you came you came to your own devices and I do and I do appreciate that because you're right in these meetings at these times with what's going on you know we have those those slip ups and for the times that I get overly passionate and um and offend people in in my tone you know I'll I will own that responsibility too. Um I'm the I'm the second in seniority on this board. But I'm in my ninth year in this board
088and I have a lot of family and friends that um that rely on my presence here because they have their you know their children and grandchildren here and I take I take that to heart because they love it here and they want their kids to have the best experience. And the one the one issue that you and I and the rest of the board have to have to take note of and I hope our student representative is enjoying this conversation because we have to be mentors. Like our meeting told us last night, our financial training taught us last night, we have 3,800 students that are relying on us to get it right. And we have to we have to teach our you know uh Miss Aruda here how to get it right. And so our
089apology goes to you too because we have to show you how to do it better. We're the adults in the room and we have to we have to show you just how it has to get done. But we also have to show them just how important we take this role and just how how you know this is how much money we get for this role. It's a volunteer it's it's the it's the most important volunteer work you'll ever do. I mean we've all had different careers. We all came from different backgrounds. And it's the it really is it's the best work. And I I was taught by um a superintendent who was a village trustee. Um he said whenever it gets really tough, go to an elementary school and go sit in an elementary classroom.
090And I don't think I and I haven't done that. And I think that's where the problem is. We need to go back to the schools and we need to look at those 3,800 stakeholders and remind ourselves what we're in this for. Now, I could tell you I could bore you to tears with what happened at the health and safety meeting the other night that that Mr. Huntsman did a wonderful job leading, but I don't think we want to talk about that right now. And I'm so glad that you brought up what you did because I think this is the heart of where we're at right now. And um and and the value of our of our community that has the right to speak up regardless of how they want to present. It's so it it
091is important because we're all in this together and we and we have to get it right. And for the few times that I was critical of the superintendent, I'm going to continue to be I'm going to continue to hold him accountable, but I can be a little less harsh because he's a human being, too. Um, and we and we'll get it right. We will get it right. Um, I appreciate the president and the vice president for putting together the training that you did last night. I think it was a very valuable lesson that we uh that we put together and I look forward to what we're going to do together. But the one the one message that we walked out of there with was if we don't do this together, we're not going to get
092it right. I think that's the big the biggest message that we got. So, I accept your apology and I agree to go together together. I I agree to go forward together and uh tonight we hit the restart button. Thank you. >> Next, Trusty Dilla. >> Um I'm going to piggyback on what Trusty Feliz just said. Um, I was lucky enough last week to spend time in an elementary classroom. And there is nothing as wonderful as building a log cabin out of Lincoln logs on the floor or making a pumpkin pie out of Play-Doh and roasting it over a stuffed fireplace. Um, so it really is spend time with your kids when they're little. You're like, you don't appreciate them because you're rushing through everything. I could say that. I have three. you rush through, but
093take the time to make the pumpkin pie out of Play-Doh. It's a lot of fun. Um um I just want to say as a followup, um I mentioned that Brook Haven was doing the food drive. Um I spoke with Dr. Raymond. She said they were able to give 30 families Thanksgiving dinners in conjunction with Long Island with Island Harvest. Uh families were given turkeys and gift cards so that they could supplement their meals, which I thought was fantastic. Um any monies left over are going towards a coat drive that's going on now. So all good things. Um staying at the elementary level. Um this is me being a little little me. Um Friday at parent teacher conferences um for the K through five. I encourage every parent to reach out to their teachers and talk
094about their kids. Find out what's going on. Find out why your kid likes the teacher and why your child doesn't. Like there might be something that they're coming home and saying and you're just not seeing it until you sit with the teacher. And the only way to work through things is communication. And this is the the greatest opportunity you're going to have to do that with your students, your child's teacher. So please um also Brook Haven is hosting their winter wonderland on Saturday. Um there are vendors crafts and there's also character photo ops for the kids. So if you have time on Saturday morning or caven is open for that. Um and finally I want to thank all those who made the high school auditorium possible. Um it was wonderful that our first event in
095there was the national honor society induction. uh recognizing our students academic uh prowess. Fantastic. Um special thanks to Frank Piro and Erica Del Rosa for their collaboration on um just the whole layout, the chairs, the fabrics, the colors. It's warm and welcoming. Um and it's just such a difference from what it was. It's a sense of pride now. Thank you. Well, I'll start on the fun stuff and then I'm going to go to the business stuff because every trustee up here has an opportunity for both. Um, I appreciated the superintendent's report because you gave an outline of a lot of the um events that I was able to go to. The high school center of excellence, again, first generation collegebound. These are very high-erforming students. Very It felt so good being in that room with
096those students. And it was a terrific event to have Emily be there doing live translation for me. And I have a feeling she made my words sound better when she put it into Spanish than they came out of me in English. Um the curriculum night later that night was also a great event um with a I thought a very good turnout of students and parents. I also went to the middle school. They had a students of the month uh ceremony of a number of students who were given certificates for their participation and again the families and the students were so uh glad to be there. I went to the junior honor society induction at the middle school and also the high school national honor society. And to top off what you said about the auditorium,
097just walk in there and just see the difference in lighting where it's kind to your eyes. Compare it to this that is like really harsh, but you walk in there and it is just jaw-dropping beautiful. So, if you haven't had a chance to go to an event at our new auditorium, take advantage of it. And then today I uh spent uh seventh period at the high school with Mr. Green's AP social studies class who um are starting their civics project where they're trying to trying to determine exactly what's the issue that they want to address and how do they want to address it. and I'm gonna leave it up to them to come back and speak in public at some point about what they decide to choose. That was my It wasn't elementary school, but
098I really enjoyed being there for the 40 minutes and having the interaction and discussion with the with the students. Okay, so that was the fun part, but there's also been a lot of work. I know that um uh Trusty Feliz and uh Dilo had mentioned um some of the the retreat meetings we're having in order to have um what appears to be a more cohesive functioning board as opposed to having loud voices from one side of the room to the together and as opposed to having um a board president who is struggling to try to get control. So to the extent that I wasn't able to help at the last meeting ease this adjustment period that we're all going through. It's something I will need to be working on and it will be something I
099need to work on too. um you know to make it clear that when if we have standards for speaking both at the board table and community speaking that if we've got a rule there that there's not going to be inter interaction we all need to respect that and I will work harder I will work harder on doing that I've also been one of the trustees who um throughout this it and looking back and saying, "What could I have done better over the last year? What could I have done differently?" And it I'm sort of saying that as um almost a rhetorical question here because it's not one that um I'm going to answer tonight. But I can say that because of all the groundwork that this board set right after the news came to us
100at over Labor Day weekend to establish a path for determining what exactly had happened, how it happened, and how are we going to how are we going to make changes so that we um can avoid a repetition of what had gone on. And we've got a lot of the pieces were that are coming into place because we did finally get the um finalized external audit report that and we'd had that presented at a meeting. We've also hired our um interim assistant superintendent who is um making changes in the business office so that we're going to end up with a business office that we're going to be as proud of as we are of that high school auditorium. So, we're going to want to come back and and um be able to talk in great detail
101at some point about all the good professional work that is being done and we're starting to see some of the um the results of that. So, I can sit here tonight to say we're starting to see progress that's enabling us to move forward so that we can go into this next season that's going to be um require a lot of work of everybody uh as we go into budget season. But I'm glad to know there's a team here that's up to it and committed to it and with um administration and the board and a supportive uh you know our our committed staff and employees and also our supportive community members and voters and stakeholders. I'm confident that we can get there and that what we're providing to these kids, the good stuff that, you know,
102we've alluded to tonight. Um, we're going to see more of that. And so, I thank you for listening. And now we are guide to board meetings. Any comments? Thank you. Okay. Um, for public commentary, we we offered the opportunity for uh comm for members of the public to speak to us where we listen and we don't respond. And the comments um at this portion of the meeting are supposed to be for agenda items. Um okay, two of these are not agenda items and they're these are generally done at the end of the meeting and I'm looking I'm looking out at the audience. You're planning to stay, aren't you? >> Yeah, but it really is agenda. Oh, you really that one you do mean for agenda. Okay. >> Doesn't mean you have to call me first.
103>> All right. And um I think the other one's not though. Okay. You're you're planning to stay. Okay. And then um looks like you've got a combination. you'll speak about one and then you'll speak about the other at the end because that's not agenda. So, um three minutes a person. It's not an opportunity to make comments about individuals and um we will now call >> Cheryl Moon who says she has an agenda item. It's semi-aggenda. Okay. >> Oh, wait a minute. Semi-aggenda. >> Something that's been discussed tonight. >> Not a bad thing. It's not a bad thing. First of all, my name is Cheryl Mooot. Um, I am very vested obviously in this district. I had three children, one grandchild, and myself go through kindergarten to graduation here. I still have one in the high
104school. My husband, my mother all worked for the district. My husband was on the board for several years and I have two children who were teachers. So, I kind of see everybody's perspective and I just want to say I was very touched tonight by Trustee Ross and Trustee Feliz. And it's nice when people can admit, you know, what they did. Anyway, although this has to do with the budget issues, okay, it really has to do with communication. Um I just think we missed an opportunity when we had this budget crisis come up and not everybody has um the ability to get all the information that you have out there. I know. Yes. Now there's the parent what do you call it? Parent square. I keep calling it patient portal but in the hospital but um
105um the parent square but there's still a lot and now I this is going to sound funny because I said I have elderly neighbors who do not do electronics and I know to some of my mother other neighbors I'm the elderly neighbor but we won't live it. I just wanted to say I was so excited to get this and which Dr. Santana spoke about up there too. But I just felt that there was a missed opportunity that there wasn't some kind of a notice about what we're going through, what we're going to go through because this goes to postal patron, you know, it goes to everybody. And I just thought that it would be um beneficial when we have good things as well as the bad things that should be available to everybody who lives
106within the district, not just the ones who I don't know how you do it with the tax roles or how you know well you get some things and not the other, but that was all. And I just um a merry Christmas. Thank you. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> Okay. Um, Kimodo. >> So, I'll just speak about dual language, not the budget. Is that >> going to say? Yes. >> Yeah. Um, I'm a dad of two kids in the dual language program. Um, you know, Trustee Hill um mentioned about the great work um that we heard about today. How can we make this grow? And I want to talk about the harm that our district endured just a few months ago where we laid off the sixth grade dual language teacher. We excessed them. We
107access the uh dual language coordinator. Um and as a parent, I had reached out and I had asked for, you know, um to see kind of what would the assessment of the sixth grade dual language program was that led to those changes. I didn't, you know, as is often the case when I ask a question, I don't get a straight answer. Uh, I went to a meeting, I didn't get a straight answer. I did a freedom of information request for any documentation regarding program evaluation and I was told there was none. Um so I'm just think you know as we make kind of radical changes to a program I think um having some sort of uh you know tactile program evaluation that we can refer to having parent engagement in those discussions. Um and to
108me it was you know I just remember the you know the three days before I heard that my sixth grade uh son's teacher is being excessed I was at a meeting with you know Miss Hayes and Mr. Santana and we were told that no dual language teachers would be accessed um outside of the dual language coordinator. And then days later we I hear not from the board but from uh you know other people in the community that that's not the case. And so I just want to say that there was great work that was being done in the sixth grade dual language. Um and I think we have to be clear that um as we uh try to think about how we move forward as a district that we don't uh you know uh take
109away the tools that allow us to do that progress. Um and it's it was a real cost I think to the district and I don't think that we we couldn't even talk about it honestly and that's what was so frustrating as a parent. Thank you. >> All right. So he'll come back. Um so now we're going up to F items for discussion in action. >> Thank you, President Pays. >> Are we going to carve out? I think I I would suggest we carve out five, six, seven, and eight and have that be more in the form of >> like speak to it. Yes, that's the plan. That's why we moved it. So, typically treasures reports are part of the consent agenda. We moved it to the uh items for discussion um so we can speak
110about it separately. So, all of these items we're speaking about one at a time. >> All right. So >> u before I begin I just want to sort of echo some of what some of the trustee said in terms of um you know the challenges that we face and the the importance of having a unified front as we meet these challenges. I think one of the things I've gained a great appreciation for is a passion that's been sort of uh exhibited by all the trustees. I don't think any of us um sort of reacted u any different matter when we learned the news of what happened in the you know 23 24 budget and some of the hard decisions that we had to make even coming into the school year. You know we're going to
111have to make some continually make some hard decisions and then we have to be well Dr. Monica's point, we really have to think them through, think about the impact on students because, you know, really quickly before I talk about district credit cards, you know, the reason I I sort of engage in this work is because, you know, I kind of owe my life to public schools, my public school education, whether it's my acquisition of English opportunities that have been bestowed upon me in my public schools. I feel like I've dedicated my pretty much my entire adult life to the service of uh students and kids. And u and really that's what drives me. So when I hear about the importance of visiting uh students and interacting with students, that's really what keeps me going. Um
112I don't really appreciate my title or what comes with my title as as a person on a personal level, but I do appreciate the potential impact I could have on a whole community of children. Um and I do care about the children. And so you know, sometimes I get some flack for taking pictures with them and and sort of I hear some feedback that maybe I should do some other things. But to me, that's equally as important is to my interactions with students. Um, I've known students now for over three years. I feel like I forgively a lot of students in our school district, and I appreciate their input and their ability to speak candidly with me when I see them in the hallways. I want to continue that practice and really sort of um
113led to my dedication to making this right. You know, I think as much as the board members feel passionate about this, I feel extra passionate about it because I was at the helm when all this happened. And to President Hayes's point, you we all reflect uh you know, hindsight is an amazingly powerful tool. Um one of the things I I sort of tell students and my own kids, um is that wisdom of often comes like a second too late. And so I'm hoping to gleam a lot of what we've learned from this process. I really appreciate my time working with our interim or acting assistant superintendent. He comes with a wealth of knowledge. I've been certainly learning a lot from him and I want to continue doing that work. You know, I have no other
114ambition than to make this right. And I want to give that pledge to Madison as a student representative, our teachers, and all the members of this community that I really do cherish. You know, this really um um I had no ambitions of being a superintendent when I was a high school principal. I love my interactions with um my students, the day-to-day just feeling I got from them, you know, because really we when we talk to young people, they create a sense of optimism and the future is bright. You know, kids are pretty great. And so what happens in our adult lives where we get cynical and sort of negative. And I loved what I saw in terms of our trustees talking to one another, acknowledging certain things and we all have to do the same
115thing. And I also want to say publicly that I appreciate diversity of perspective and diversity of opinions. You need that. You need it. You need opposing views. Sometimes I certainly don't like hearing certain things and it's hard not to take things personally, but I have to reflect and and sometimes it forces you to pause and really think things through. So, I appreciate everybody's input. Um, and I just want to keep moving forward to make sure that we we sort of continue supporting the nearly 3,800 kids we have in our community um to make sure they get the best possible experience. That's that's the end of my little spiel. Now, I'm going to talk about district credit cards. The reason it's on the agenda, we do have a board policy that speaks to it. >> Um,
116one of the things that we get cited a lot from our order reports is the fact that, you know, employees use their credit cards to make certain purchases or to secure certain uh vendors. there are vendors that we deal with that only take credit cards as a form of payment. So a better in a mechanism to have better controls over that is to have a district issue credit card. So we're not reimbursing uh person people uh who use their personal credit cards. So I just wanted to bring it up or bring it up to the attention of the trustees that that's something we want to pursue that obviously there'll be tight controls. Uh people sometimes have the notion that this is a credit card that I'll carry around in my pocket. No, that the credit
117card would be out in the business office and anytime we come to a vendor or an activity that we want to participate that only takes a credit card uh as a form of payment, we can really uh take advantage of that. And sometimes that comes with terms of paying for certain activities that have certain deadlines, especially when it involves travel or or kids moving around. So I just wanted to bring to the trustes attention that we do have a policy that speaks to it and that's something that we want to sort of pursue in the proposal. >> Can I just ask you because looking at this policy at the very end it says that the superintendent of schools in conjunction with the assistant superintendent for finance and management service shall establish regulations to implement this
118policy. Is that what you're referring to? That there will be standards in place so that the credit card would be responsibly used through the business office only. >> Um I think that's a must, not even an expectation. There's no other way of doing it. So it's um something that really should be closely monitored. Certainly should come, you know, with the approval of the assistant superintendent for business. Um yes. And in the event that to make this work there needs to be any adjustment to the policy, it'll get referred over to the policy committee that's already in the middle of trying to >> correct >> update various policies. We haven't gotten to something like this yet, but you would bring it back to the committee. >> Absolutely. >> Thank you. Next, um, we have I'm going
119to go for a policy uh 8330 and policy uh 015. These are second readings that the board have had the opportunity to look at these policies. Again, I want to reaffirm that our policy committee looked um at these policies, made revisions based on recommendations from NISBA and we're looking to adopt these policies as we're updating all of our policies. >> Okay. So, is there an action we need to take since it's second reading? >> You'd adopt tonight. >> Okay. So, do you have a recommendation to adopt those two policies? >> Uh, the administration recommends the adoptions of policy 8330 and policy 0115. >> Is there a motion to approve acceptance or to authorizing policy 8330 and policy 0115? Trustee Dilo, second Trustee Ross. Questions, discussions? All in favor? Unanimously authorized. >> The next policy up
120is a first reading. So, the trustes have an opportunity to read over the policy. Again, this policy was reviewed by our policy committee that's made up of community members, uh, teachers, and board members, trustees, myself. Um, so it's just there for a first reading. We'll present it again on January 7th for second reading and adoption >> and we're really moving through our whole uh sort of our repertoire of policies. Uh next are our treasurers reports. You know, we have quite a few treasurers reports on the agenda tonight and I want to invite Mr. John Belmont up to speak to the treasur's reports um to sort of give uh the trustees an update of the status where we're at with our treasuries report and talk a little bit more answering questions that trustes may have. Before
121Mr. Bill Monte starts. Could I just preface this and say I'm hoping that as you present these reports, you'll be demonstrating to us the um best practices or professionalism that um you are bringing to this position and that will help us better do the job of oversight that we're supposed to be doing. >> Yes. >> Thank you. >> Heavy burden on you. >> Yes. Not too much pressure. Um, first I would like to start out by thanking our ELLL professionals. That was that was one heck of a presentation. And >> thank you so much. >> It over the years it reminds me that what we do is really all about the kids. So, thank you for that. >> Thank you so much. And that's uh and that's really sincere and um thank you to the
122board of education for your remarks today. Um I know that we're going through a very difficult time and it just again reinforces the commitment that this board of education has uh for the education of our students here in this district. So thank you for that. So, in getting into the treasurer's reports, um, as you know, we talked about previously bringing the board up to date. Um, you do haveformational items on the June, July, August, and September treasures reports. They're basically all in the in the same format, if you will. But um to go forward, I think it's um we should start with the June report because that was the report that we kind of we held up. And I would just like to say that that particular report reflects the end and closing of the
1232024 fiscal year. It reflects what was presented in the financial statements as well. So with that, rather than go through uh 3,000 sheets of paper, I think it would be beneficial if we look at the September report because your treasurer's report is really an accumulation of financial data from the first day of the fiscal year through month after month after month. So, by looking at the September report, we'll get a good idea and a good understanding of what's in the reports, what what we should be looking for, and questions the board may want to ask. And um I know this is not the most exciting information, but I'll do my best to uh make it a little bit exciting. So the first section of the reports is the um in the treasures report is the
124actual treasurer's bank statement and the trial balances. So if the board has access to that and they can bring it up on their screen, it's basically pages one through pages six. And when you look at the treasur's report, the first page on page one, it shows you every bank account that the district has and it reconciles it with the bank statement. And I think what's really key in this report, if you look over to the far right column where it says net balance, that shows the board what the balances are in the accounts as of September 30th. Now, this these balances on this report match what's in the district's financial system. >> I'm sorry, you said September, but we're looking at June, right? >> Uh September. September 30th report. >> Oh, we are at the
125September 30th. Okay. >> Is there a way to Is there a way to put this up on the screen so we can all see it? >> I don't know. Were they attached? >> I don't know if they were attached. Tony, >> they were It's under threeear plan format dots. It's not attached here. This is why it's attached only. Is it under? So if you go in public instead of you, >> right? >> So just sign out. The little man is there to the right >> right next to the magnifying glass down a little >> right above policies. >> See the little house and then Yeah, the little man. >> Just log out. >> The third one. Yeah. >> Look at scroll. Bring it up. >> If you refresh it, it should come underneath this iPhone.
126There's going to be a thing called Winter Public. Go down to that. So, if you go down to that item, >> treasure is September right there. >> Thank you, Mr. Clerk. I'm >> glad you came back on vacation. >> Okay. It's a little bit difficult to see, but nonetheless, um, so this is the treasurer's report that reconciles all the district bank statements as we indicated. Um, when we look at this, we want to look at the column all the way over to the right. You want to make sure that none of your cash accounts have any negative balances, if you will. And um, and the rest is pretty straightforward. And the most significant piece of this report is that the numbers that you are seeing matches the the trial balance that's also provided to the
127board. Trial balance is the next set of documents. So if you could just scroll. I don't know. Do I have the ability to do that or no? >> Just direct me. >> Okay. >> Feel like that interrupt you >> before you get to that. >> Sure. this the page you were just pointing out to us with the various bank accounts. >> That's for the general fund only. That's not for any of the reserve funds. Is that correct? >> This is for all of our operating accounts. You have the general fund, the cafeteria, the special aided funds, and the capital funds. Okay. So the beginning in the treasures reports and the trial balance again it gives the board assurances that number one the accounts have been reconciled the expenses and revenues have all been taken into
128account and matched back to what's in the financial system. Okay. So that's the first real indication of monitoring uh the bank accounts and the activity. And when you look at these reports from month to month, you should try to notice trends. Try to notice the amount that it's being dispersed from maybe general fund or maybe some of the other um bank accounts and see if there's any thing that may not look consistent. Is there anything that looks like in one particular month that there's large dispersements or um or if there's even large receipts, it could be for various reasons. Those would be good things if you wanted to ask a question as to what those what those pieces may end up being. So the next set of um reports that kind of complement the treasurer's
129report is the revenue reports and they begin on page seven >> just which is eight on your slide. >> Yep. >> It's number eight. That's fine. >> If you're looking up there, there it is. >> There it is. Okay. So, this represents the um the general fund revenues. Um if you look at on the left hand side, the letter A, the letter A signifies general fund. So, this is your largest fund with your amount of revenue. So, this is really the budget that the taxpayers vote on. Okay, this is the revenue side of the budget. You can see the different categories of revenue. And what's important here is if you look at the budget column, the budget column on the U in the middle of the page matches the $147 million that was approved by
130the taxpayers in May. And this is gives you a good idea of the revenues earned and the revenues coming in. So when when you see this and we get closer to the end of the year and you go over and you look at that revenue earned column which is the second column from the right and you'll see that you know how come we're not collecting all of our revenues. It should send up a little bit of a flag to say let's look at this a little bit closer. What's happened? What's happening on our revenue side? Are all of our revenues coming in? Did we budget appropriately? Did we underestimate revenues? Did we overestimate revenues? And the reason why this is important because when you get to the other side of the balance sheet, the expenditures,
131you want to make sure that you have enough revenues to cover what you're spending. Okay, any questions? I don't want to just go through this or um >> well, for example, you you mentioned about the negative balances. So the negative balance in this case means we just haven't received the lottery aid yet of $6 million. >> Correct? >> Okay. >> And the reason why that is negative, if you look at the budget column, budget column is zero. >> So when the district originally budgeted for this, they included lottery aid in the basic formula aid above it and it wasn't broken out. So, >> oh, in the line above it. Okay. I see. >> In the line above it. So, >> um, from my perspective, that that's not a best practice. >> Okay. >> So, what
132the district is going to do, the district is going to reallocate that. So, it eliminates, we will move from that 46 million. We would move 6.2 million down to eliminate that negative >> because there's no reason for that negative to be there. >> What the board is going to see as we go forward, we're going going to be much more conscious in budgeting correctly both on the revenue side and on the expenditure side and making sure that if we know that we have a revenue coming in, we're going to have a budget amount there for comparison. >> Okay. Any other questions on the revenue? Okay. And then the other sheets that follow are the revenue funds for the capital fund, the F fund, which is the special edited fund and the capital fund. Okay, that's
133the cafeteria fund. That's the the federal grant programs. Now, with the grant programs, um, suffice to say that there's usually a timing difference with grants in recognizing revenue because with many of our grant programs, you have to spend the money, then you have to file certain forms with the state to receive payments, whether the payments are monthly or whether the payments are quarterly. So when you look at this grant um schedule, what's key here is to see over a period of time that you do have revenue coming in. If you don't see revenue coming in, it means that the district is not filing the forms with the state to get revenue in. And at the end of the grant term, we always file a final project with the state to get our final aid payment.
134But you never want to wait till the end of the year. You want to keep your cash flow as current as possible. So that's another internal control. It's another management tool that is going to be put in place to make sure that the district's receiving its revenue in a timely fashion. Okay. The next report is the appropriation status report. And um I think this is probably the most the largest and the most important report for the board to focus on. Why? Because this is a detailed report that gives you every budget line and every expense, every incumbrances and the remaining balance that may be in that code. So, let me just walk the board through how this particular report works. We always start out with the first column, budget. That budget column is the voter
135approved budget. Okay? So, when you you go down to the end of that report, and I know it's quite a few pages, it goes through page 33. Goes through page 34 and you'll see the bottom of the report. Oh, you went too far. >> 35. >> Go up. Go up a little bit more, Tony. The other way. >> There you go. >> 34. >> 35. >> Yeah. Well, that's at >> Oh, it's page numbers are at the top on the black part next to charger support. >> You want to go to 34? >> Yeah, >> it's page I'm sorry, 267. >> 27. 27. >> 27. >> That was all of them >> here. >> Okay. Yeah. So that's it. So that first column represents the voter approved budget. That's 147. The significance of that is
136that when you looked at the revenue sheet that we just talked about, it's the same 147,000. >> The left side. >> This is the report that makes us passionate. >> Yes. Yes. This is a very very >> very passionate report. >> Passionate report. Yes. Very important report. So as you go through the columns, the second column is just a budget adjustment. So you'll see in that column when we do budget transfer from one code to the next, you'll see monies in there. And most of the times we'll be moving monies from one to the other, but we will not touch that budget approved column. That budget approved column will always stay at $147 million. Okay. The um the next important column is the expense column. Okay. And that shows what's been expended. And of course,
137the column next to it is the encumbered column. And the encumbrance is a very important tool for managing expenses. What does that mean? It means that with an incumbrance, we're able to create a PO. We're able to earmark monies. We haven't necessarily spent it yet, but we know we're going to spend it. Okay? It could be we audit something. We sent we sent a PO to a vendor. By creating a P po PO, we're eararking the money from the budget. It's taking it out of what's available. And in that far right column is the column that says available. So that's what you have left. a good budget management control is to encumber as much of your budget as possible as soon as you can. Now, I can happily say that as of yesterday when I
138looked at this, we had over 55% of our total budget encumbered and that is significant. The board knows that we gave them a very large transfer to cover negatives. And why is encumbering important? Because at the end of the day, we know how much money we have left. And this gets monitored on a daily basis, a weekly basis, and a monthly basis. So when we see something that may be in a salary code that presents a negative, okay, we will now our new procedure is to process a budget transfer and to make sure that we have money to cover that negative. It's not acceptable that we wait till the end of the year. We don't do that. We shouldn't do that. That's not good budget control. That's not good budget practice. Okay. Um over the
139last couple of weeks, we have implemented significant budget controls to put in place to monitor these reports. Um this report, we're happy to say, has no negatives and it's only September 30th, which is good. the October report which the board will get at the next meeting is we had to cover a significant amount of negatives in the area of payroll. Okay. >> Which is why you given us a budget transfer for tonight. >> Correct. Correct. Now, just to give the board an idea of the magnitude of those transfers, we had a transfer up to $2.9 million of monies between salary codes. because it just maybe wasn't in the right place. People move whatever the situation is. The one thing that we should pride ourselves on going forward is that when we get done implementing the
140budget controls, this budget document should be credible. It should bring credibility to the district. And what do I mean by that? If anybody picks up this budget, whether we're in negotiations, whether we we want to know what our English program cost, what our ELLL programs cost, you're looking at data that you know is true. Okay? You you're looking at data that you know if you're looking at the English, it doesn't include two math teachers. Okay? It is so important to budget appropriately and to budget in the right areas and the right programs because then you have control and know what your true costs are for those programs. It's easier to manage and once it's in place it's easy to do. It's like it's like walking. Okay. And that's the processes that we have put in
141place to add credibility back to this budget document that was lacking in the past. Okay. So, Mr. Belmont, just from I guess for a plain English translation because we mentioned 2.9 million as we're moving monies around, it's a little close to what we were all missing before. Those were all corrections so that our budget is now ringing true. Is that correct? That is true. >> So that if I had teacher salaries, and I'm going to make up a number for the moment. If I had teacher salaries for a total for the year of $85 million, but it showed that I had 75 teachers at Brook Haven Elementary and 14 teachers at the high school where that really wasn't true. There was 50 teachers at the high school and 25 at Brook Haven. That the codes
142were all messed up. So as you're identifying, I couldn't tell who was working where. I had the correct amount of salaries paid out, but it wasn't allocated to the correct place. >> Part of the process that we're also embarking on, and thank you for that. That that that's that's clear. I don't want anybody to think that we've overexpended salaries by 2.9 million. That's not the case. Okay. We happen to be in enough trouble, so I don't want to go down that road. Um but as we embark on the 2627 budget development process, one of the things that we do, one of the things that I do and I will do with the business office and I will do with the personnel office and Jason is I always budget person by person and I budget code
143by code. And what does that mean? It means that when we put together the 2627 budget between Jason and myself, we're going to know where every person is, where they work, and what's their proper budget code and where they should be. So when we present that budget to the board and to the community, I know I'm confident we have a credible budget document and I know that's going to represent our teaching staff and all the inscillary costs that go along with it. That's the importance of looking at these reports, monitoring these reports, and having those internal controls in place in the business office. Very, very important. You know, and I go back to why is this so important and why am I so passionate about this is because I truly believe we are here for
144the kids. And we we've heard that tonight. And the problem is is that again, and I'll say it again, this is your educational foundation. It's cracked. You can't have a good instructional program. If it crumbles, you don't have an instructional program. Okay? You need to have a solid fiscal base to be able to build your instructional program and to provide the students the opportunities that they deserve here at South Country Schools. Okay. So, that's part of the reason that's what motivates me to do this because it is about the program and the end result. >> Well, Mr. Bill Monte, one of the one of the first uh items you identified when you when you uh first came on board with us was about not having negative balances in the in the treasures report because that
145was one of the biggest frustrations. >> That's correct. >> We should know what our salaries are in in a school district. That's and so when we >> Absolutely. when we started to see uh negative balances in this in the salary line and then the then the reasons were well we have positive balances in other lines and we'll just move them around. Well, don't we need those B don't we need those that money and those lines too? It just didn't make sense that we should know what our salaries are. We know how many teachers we have and to your point shouldn't we be encumbering that money >> to get us to the end of the year? So to your point that we have a budget amendment tonight to encumber the money to get us to the
146end of the year and what we should have been doing last year that that to me was the most satisfying information you could have given us because that made sense. It just didn't make sense to trust well we had we had we had money in other budget lines and we'll move it around because you know in the end we didn't. So this makes sense. >> Thank you for that. And I I hope that as we go through this that we give the board um a skill set and um some knowledge about the right questions to an to ask and don't be afraid to ask. You're not going to insult the business person. You're going to what gets noticed gets changed. And if there's something that's not right and not being paid attention to and the
147board sees it, bring it up. >> Well, now >> how I would respond to a negative is I if I was a board member and I was sitting there and I saw the negative and somebody said that to me, I would say to them probably, >> well, you know what, I'm a little uncomfortable with that. Why don't you go back and make those budget transfers for so we know that there are sufficient monies at the end of the day? >> Because whatever sufficient monies you have at the end of the day, you might be able to use for something else. Okay. >> Okay. And it's a lesson that um the superintendent and I we talk about all the time. And I think it's one of the first things that I imparted was trust but verify.
148Don't be afraid of verify. >> Okay. >> All right. Thank you. that the board has a fiduciary responsibility and that's a very important responsibility. >> Okay. >> So, okay. So, that was done. So, that was the uh the revenue and the appropriation status report. So, the board can go through that. You can see the volume of codes. You can see that it covers uh many program areas. It has good description. And um following this in the general fund, you have the other funds as well, the cafeteria fund, the special aided funds, and the capital funds. >> Can you just talk about the what's on the next page on page 28? >> Did we go over budget here or is that is that uh is that okay? Are we okay on this page? >> 28. >>
149On page 28, we're Yeah. code C. I think this is I think this is the uh >> sorry it's really page 27. >> It's really Yeah, it's really it's handwritten page 27 but slide 28. >> Trusty police. >> So what's that? >> Uh yeah that's it. >> Okay. So if you see the on the far left side the letter C >> the letter C is cafeteria fund. >> Okay. And working with these numbers for so many years you kind it's kind of ingrained in you. So this is the cafeteria fund. So when you see this, this represents our cafeteria budget. It represents the same approach when you're looking at the general fund. What we have budgeted, what we have expensed, what we have encumbered. Now in this particular case, you can see we have a
150$2.9 million budget. But we have encumbered 2,721. So this makes me happy. Why does it make me happy? because we have a lot in cumber. I know that we have a significant amount of our obligations covered under this budget, okay? And we're monitoring it. So, if anything changes, anything goes out of whack, we're going to know early. There's going to be early early signs that, hey, something's wrong. Wait a minute. Let's take a step back and see what's happening. Okay? Okay, >> you may have problems on the expense side, >> but when that happens, you have to look on the revenue side. And the question that we usually ask, okay, we know that we're a little close on expenditures. Do we have excess revenues to cover it? If you have excess revenues to cover it,
151you're okay. >> And the reason I asked the question the question is because because of what you've encumbered, >> you know, there's it's a what? Well, they adjusted the budget to for a $3 million budget. So, you have just $400,000 left to the end of the year. So, you're satisfied that that has that there's enough there because of what you encumbered to get. >> There are certain things that don't get encumbered. >> Okay. >> And that's and things like time sheets. >> So, when someone has a time sheet for overtime because it's so it's so frequent. I mean, there's money in the code, but we don't encumber that. So as as those things come in, they get paid and they get monitored a little bit differently. So those unencumbered balances um we look at them
152very closely because that's how we monitor our overtime codes, our extra paid codes, um bus matrons, aids, etc., etc. A lot of that is based on hourly. What you see encumbered is mainly contractual expenses. We will encumber the salaries and the longevities of administrators, of teachers, of clerical people. And when you think about salaries maybe being 60 70% of your budget, if you get that encumbered, you're already threequarters of the way there. and you know that you have your approved salaries and expenses encumbered. Okay. >> Okay. So, so then at the end of the treasures report we we show some collateral. Um the district is required to have our accounts collateralized and it's really nothing more thanformational for the board and to let them know that we do have our accounts collateralized at I believe
153about 102% of what our balances are and that's just the requirement for school districts. So the board does have a very very comprehensive set of documents here. Okay. And what we are proposing and we talked to the board um in the last meeting is to kind of break this down a little bit and you know hopefully it'll be easily um digestible and to kind of take the treasurers and trial balance section put it in oneformational section. Take the revenue reports, put them in another, and the appropriation um and the cash flow reports, put them in a third. Okay? So, you can first of all, they'll be separate. I think it'll be much easier to to visually see instead of seeing a stack of 55 pages of paper. Um it's easier to go through a small
154stack and knowing what what you're looking at for each section. you know that when you get to the revenues, you're looking at the revenues, general fund, capital fund, special ed funds, and capital funds. Okay? And the same thing with the appropriation status reports. So, it just may be helpful and easier to understand. So, that's the format of the treasures report. I you know I thank the board because this is new in the in the process and to allow the finance person to get up and to do this type of presentation for the board. It's it adds to the transparency and the controls that the board is putting in place going forward to have a better understanding of what they're looking at and what they've been given. And I always encourage the board, never ever ever
155be afraid to ask the question. Ask it. Ask it. Ask it to the superintendent. Okay. >> Can I ask you now? >> You have a question. >> You can go first. >> I'm sorry. >> Okay. Um, handwritten 32, >> which would be 33 >> on the slide number. And this is in the capital >> capital work. >> That's Yeah. >> Down in the middle. Unallocated >> the the age fun. >> Yeah. Right in the middle unallocated. >> Mhm. >> And on the right hand side a negative >> and then there's numbers underneath it that are bolded. So, so let's just stay with that on for that thing. If you look at I believe the code that you're looking at in the unallocated, it has a budget of $96,000. Okay? So, that $96,000 is what was
156put there. That minus 30,000 in the adjustment column represents monies that were transferred to another code. >> Okay? Remember what I said earlier? We use that second column for budget transfers. What are you referring to? >> Okay, you're you're a page ahead of me. >> So, either I'm going to have to catch up or you're going to have to go back. >> It's is handwritten page 32. >> Handwritten. >> Yeah. The on the bottom it's slide 33. >> Yeah. Okay. >> It's towards the right. >> It's right in the middle. >> You look at the screen. >> Yeah. the um the one that has the >> budget of 234 >> 34,000 >> and then there's an adjustment >> an adjusted budget and now on the right hand side it says available negative 380,000 apologizing I'm
157>> looking at my my sheet here it's the capital fund Vote H 999.99 >> 99939 >> 99.99 >> I just need help in reading this. Okay. So in this particular code, the capital funds work is sometimes when a capital project is approved, we we put monies in a holding code like if you bond and then projects are approved by the state. You take money and you allocated from that code. So what that tells me is they started out with an unal unallocated amount 234,000. They transferred 615,000 out of that code to other codes within the capital. Okay. To cover project cost, okay, and their their budget is at this point it shouldn't be minus 380. Okay. Because that money was transferred uh other places. That could be part of the um the energy performance contract
158work. and stuff that still has to be filed with the state. >> Okay. I guess it's the use of the language unallocated. It I wasn't clear on what that would refer to. >> Unallocated, especially in this area. Again, it's more like a holding code. Like for instance, if the community, for example, if the community passed a $97 million bond referendum and the district went out and bonded the $97 million, but we we only have approval from the state for several projects that total $40 million. When we set up those projects based on the approval of SED, we will take that monies from that voter approved bond that we received and we'll move it as the budget to the project. Okay. So, it's just a um I want to say a holding code for capital projects
159and that's that's very common in this area. We good? >> Okay. >> Um, there are a couple of pages that we used to get that aren't here uh specifically for the clubs, the extracurricular paid uh funds. >> Yes. Um, we actually had a a meeting today. If the if the board recalls the management letter we received with the audited financial statement, management letter had a lot of uh comments on co-curricular clubs. Yeah. And um today uh actually this afternoon I met with the two advisors at the high school and middle school and we went through those um management letter comments. We went through corrective actions. We put procedures in place for them to uh update and work with the the club advisors and to bring their reports up to up to speed. So, you're absolutely
160right that the co-curricular is something that we are working on in the business office. I think it's really important to keep in mind that in this district, the business office does not control or write checks for the co-curricular clubs. That happens at the individual buildings. Okay. business office is taking a very um expanded role if you will to ensure that those comments that were given in the management letter are rectified. So I'm happy to report that as of today and as a matter of fact when the audit committee met um that man the piece that we didn't get to was the management letter and the corrective action plan that refers to that specific situation. >> Right. Okay. So, one thing we have to do is besides what we're doing in the business office, we're also
161cleaning up what's in the buildings as far as the co-curricular stuff. >> Okay. So, it's um >> a work in progress right now. >> Yeah. Just keep just keep turning all the rocks >> or peeling onions. >> Peeling onions. Peeling the onion back. Well, any other questions on the financials? That's good. Okay. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> Thank you for that. I I think I might be up again. >> I think you might be up again as well. So, um so at this point, I don't know if we want to have a motion to make the verbiage. Accept the treasures reports before >> accept receipt. >> Acknowledge acknowledge receipt. >> Uh I think it says receive and accept. >> All right. what it receives and accepts. >> Is there a motion? >> Okay. Is
162there a motion? Oh, you just clicked out. >> It's receive and accepted. >> We had it up. Okay. >> Do you do you want to make the recommendation? >> I think you have to ask for a motion. >> Okay. Or is there a motion um is there a motion for the board of education to receive and accept the treasures report of September 2025? >> Well, they have well we have to accept all of them. >> Yeah, we should >> want to do all of them. >> Yeah, do all the >> All right. So, I strike that. Is there a motion? >> Sure. Administration recommends the acceptance of treasures reports dated June 2025, July 2025, >> August 2025, and September 2025. >> Okay. Is there a motion to approve? >> No. No. Or a motion to
163uh receive and accept the treasures reports for June, July, August, and September of 2025. Trustee Felicetta, Trustee Ross, I'm looking to my right. Um questions or discussions? All in favor? It's unanimously approved. The motion is approved. And next Oh, this is a good one. >> Sorry. >> Okay, >> now we get to the exciting stuff. >> I have to take my mother to a doctor's appointment at 8:30 in the morning. >> Okay, we'll be done by then. What time you have third? What time you have to period? >> Oh, okay. >> I'm retired. >> I'll advance if you want. >> I'll advance. That works. The down arrow makes you go forward. >> Oh, okay. Well, this is um this is something that we've been working on for the last couple of weeks and um it
164gives a comprehensive update and a plan forward as to uh where we are and the corrective actions and steps that we are putting in place to restore the fiscal stability and ensure the long-term sustainability uh for the school district. So uh with this and the one thing that I really want to mention as we begin this discussion is please keep in mind that this is a plan and with any plan because we know it's covering multi-year okay it needs to be flexible. There's a lot of things that happen in a school district in one year. There's a lot of variables that change and sometimes if you know if you get hit on the left you may have to move to the right. So, I don't want anybody to think that this is a plan that's
165written in concrete and it's for three years and we got to do A, B, C, and D and it's all going to happen. There's a lot of pieces to this from the budgeting side to the revenue side to um to looking at programs to looking at staffing to looking at contracts. It's a very very comprehensive process. So first and foremost is understanding the challenge um as we say so the financial reality as to where we are and I think it's always good to start with that and it may not be the most happiest news but it is reality. So we know that we are facing significant financial challenges stemming from the 2425 school year requiring us to immediately and um to implement sustained corrective actions. Okay? Because the magnitude and the significance of what have
166happened is great and I don't think we can minimize it. I think as we learned last night, I think we need to own it. I think we need to talk about it and I think we need to resolve it and I think collectively we can all do that and this is going to involve many stakeholders not only the board not only administration but people in the community to understand that we're trying to preserve and keep the best opportunities for our students. So I say that so the challenge we know that there was budget overspending. The voter approved budget was overexpended by three and a half million dollars. We know that the designated revenues um depleted reserves, I'm sorry, was significantly drawn down to the tune of $16.2 million. We spent down over 51% of the
167district's savings account to fund a significant portion of the district's program. And suffice to say that and some of the board members and some of the trustees pointed this out. Even though you overexpended this monies, it went to the kids. It was not monies that were stolen. There was no fraud. Okay? It was pro. It was money that went to the kids. It doesn't make it any better. It wasn't managed appropriately. But be that as it may, it still um you know it still went to benefit the kids of the school district. So having said that we also have the revenue constraints on um not receiving the amount of revenues that we may have anticipated in budgeting. Again the revenue piece is a very very important piece to manage. We want to bring in as
168much revenue as possible to minimize whatever impact or any additional reductions we may have to make on the expenditure side because the more revenue that you could bring in the less you have to cut on the expenditure side. So you can't talk about one without the other. So we envision that this is going to be a a threepillar for lack of a better term a three-pillar recovery strategy. Um the first being expenditure controls. Uh the board has heard a lot over the last couple of meetings about that we have begun imple imp implementing rigorous budgetary oversight and spending restrictions. Those are things that are in place. They're happening on a daily basis and we're building upon them on a daily basis. revenue enhancement and maximizing additional revenues uh and sources and pursuing new opportunities. And
169we'll share with the board later on some of those things that we were able to do with our strategic partners which uh really benefited the school district. And then the the third component of the pillar is structural adjustments. Okay. When I say when we say structural, we mean long-term systemic changes to ensure the sustained health of the school district. You don't want to go through these exercises just to fix this problem. You should ask yourself anything that you do going forward. The one question that should be asked that I know is probably hardly asked, do we have the money for this and is this sustainable? Because what's the sense of putting a program in for a oneshot deal and then not having the monies next year or the revenues to sustain it? It's not a
170good It's not a good image. The the kids, the community, they don't react well to that type of approach. So, I've talked about what my approach has been over the years that when we talk about building a budget, and we're talking about building the 26 27 budget, my head is at 26 27 27 28 and I'm already at 28 29. I'm looking at debt service. I'm looking at state aid. I'm looking at what's falling off. We're going to build a budget. We're going to have a long-term vision and a long-term approach. That's the way you do it. That's the recipe for success. And that works. It's proven success. Okay. Okay. So with that pillar one, expenditure controls and assessments. So one of the things we did early on in strengthening the internal controls, uh we
171partnered with leading auditing firms and identified the weaknesses and we implemented robust fiscal management systems. Okay. And that was through our external audit which we talked about, we mentioned um through Cullen and Dowski. And um we know that we have their report. We know the material weaknesses. We have the the management responses to the district's responses to those material weaknesses. They have already been filed with with New York State. Now, our obligation to the state and to the community is to follow up on that corrective action plan. You cannot ignore it. It it's in it's there. Um, you know, I I I came across a very interesting article this afternoon and it was a news article on Montlair School District in New Jersey and apparently they had some fiscal wos where they overexpended. I believe
172it was somewhere 19.2 million. Okay. And they are in the process of trying to pass a um a tax referendum to resolve their financial laws. However, is in the article goes on and I sent it to the superintendent and hopefully he can send it to the board. The article goes on to say is that if they're unsuccessful in what they're doing, the state is already planning to come in and take over the district. Okay. So, when I say we should do it and not let somebody else do it, that's what I'm referring to. And I I think that's a good article to read to put things in real proper perspective. Okay. Um the second thing we did the internal audit review. internal audit is a little bit more deeper than the external audit. We get
173to go in and we look at specific areas and um we we get a good indication on the district's controls and what areas we may need improvement on. The last internal audit function besides the updated of the risk assessment which is really policy um adherence type of things. We looked at the payroll cycle um and that was very important because looking at the payroll cycle interim report it indicated uh a lot of things that were eye opening. Okay, as far as spending and payroll and would have really helped us in the internal control piece. So all of these pieces together help you determine whether you have a problem or whether there should be red flags going on. Okay. The third piece is we did an audit committee review. Um that was today and um the
174we had the auditors from the auditing firm there explaining those two reports to the committee members and we will be adopting them at the next meeting. And then finally, uh, the board had the wisdom to appoint the forensic auditors, and they were contracted on September 9th, and they're continuing doing their due diligence and trying to get to the root causes as to what happened. I think for the most part, we have a pretty good idea. Uh, we really have gone into significant detail. Um, but nonetheless, the more eyes that you have looking at this, the better off we will be. Even during this three-year recovery process, it's my plan to use those resources to get an extra set of hands and eyes on the problems and the suggestions. So, we make sure that we have
175buyin for the people that are looking and have oversight over us, that we're all on the same page, that we're not doing this in a vacuum, that when we do something, we have strategies. Whatever the plan's going to entail, whether it's borrowing, we need to get everyone on the same page, and we need to get them all moving in the same direction. So some of the things that um that we talked about that's already been done real time monitoring um that's happening like it's never happened before here um zero negative balances we adopted a no tolerance policy if you will internally for negative balances and more importantly we enhanced our purchasing controls and I mean that from that perspective we talked talked about encumbrances and those are our purchasing controls. We are it's our goal
176collectively in the business office to get as much encumbered as we possibly can because that gives us greater control of the available funds that we have remaining for this school year. And um suffice to say that we do have issues for this school year and that's why we're monitoring things so closely because we have to know what those issues are early. We cannot wait till the end of the year. Okay. Uh we implemented payroll and reporting improvements. Uh the payroll function was completely overhauled. The salary codes are now properly encumbered and um in all the codes. Not only that, we talked about the budget transfers. Um this is this is one area again credibility, accountability, people are going to be in the right place. Okay. Uh treasures reports current. We did that tonight. Um the
177board was not receiving their treasur reports on a timely basis. Okay, that should not be okay. There should be really no excuse. If at best you might be two months behind because of timing difference like the month of December we have one report so it's difficult for us to complete the October report to get it for December but in January you'll get those reports and we have a business meeting later in the month and we're able to get the bank statements earlier in the month do those bank reconciliations the board will get their treasur's report on a timely basis. Um identifying budget gaps. Um that is really important because one of the things that really scares me is that what happened in 2425 how do I know what's in 2526 currently? So yeah, so we
178started peeling back that onion and I could say um well not happily but I could say that I know that we have issues in transportation. I know that we have issues in special ed and I'm not you don't you have to say it, you know, it's not something that's going to be u swept under the rug. We have sign significant issues in those areas um for various reasons. transportation. It's just that we have a new bid and number of buses, but we are working with the transportation consultant and looking to save monies in that area. It's not that that we identified a problem and we did nothing about it. We identified a problem and we are doing something about it. Okay. And I think um after December and the first of the new year, we
179may be making some transportation um changes to save some money on the transportation side. Um, we're not going to deprive children of their eligibility for transportation. Uh, we're not going to tell kids that they have to take an Uber or anything like that. If they're entitled to transportation, we will provide the transportation. The area of special special education continues to be a very challenging piece. Um, I threw out some statistics last time. We have um you know everybody should be aware we have 54 new entrance since the beginning of the year in special education. >> Okay. >> So so new they're brand new to our district. >> Brand new that came into the district. 54 new entrance in special ed. Well I shouldn't say came into the district. They may have been in the program.
180Maybe they were classified and now receiving special ed services. Okay. That's a significant number because keep in mind there was no budget provision for those kids. Okay. So that's a problem. That's a problem that we've identified. Now we have six uh Boseies children that um are in um high cost BOSIES programs. That's upwards of almost $800,000. Surprise surprise. So as much as we we addressed the issues prior year, we have the issues this year. When we build the budget for 26 27, it's going to be reflective of our program costs in the children that we service in the area of special ed and the transportation that we provide. and there will be options or decisions or things to evaluate um that we might be able to reduce cost but we'll get to that down the
181road when we start talking about budget okay so those are the things identifying budget gaps um I've already looked at uh debt service debt service were good I looked at many areas of the budget um I've dissected many areas of the budget and um suffice to say we're not in We're not in a bad place, but we do know that just the on the revenue side, we know we're shy of that $5 million that was budgeted in 2526, that's not there from last year. So that plus the 1.8 million negative appropriated fund balance, unappropriated fund balance that we don't have. So we have zero. So when you think about the challenge with the workers the um you think about the challenge with the special ed area we we have we have no pot of money
182to go to we have no savings account left because it's negative 1.8 8 million. We depleted it last year. So, we have some we do have some challenges and I you know I don't want this to sound like you know it's doom and gloom but it's bringing the information to the board. The thing that I am confident about and um I don't want to say happy but it's early in the school year. We're halfway through the school year. It gives us time to plan, adjust, do things, which brings us to the next slide and why we're doing some of the things that we're doing. Immediate spending restrictions. We did that on November 14th. We cut off spending. We said, "Okay, there's going to be no spending only for essential expenditures that are necessary for the
183core instructional program and support programs and for health and safety. and we're monitoring that very closely. And I have to say honestly the the buildings and the staff, they have been very very cooperative. And I'm very thankful for that because the things that we just talked about, our goal is to take that $147 million and ring it out as much as we can for the purpose of generating as much as we can in that budget to use for those things, special ed and transportation that we haven't budgeted for. So we have that running room to do that now. And that's one of the things that we do. On November 21st, we issued a um a memo to the buildings because I found out that there was a lot of invoices that were sitting in the
184building not being signed and not being paid. We talked about budget control. We talked about incumbrances. By doing that and having the buildings get those invoices off their desks and into the business office so we can pay them, we got a good idea as to what our obligations are and how much money do we have left. So, we're being proactive. We're managing that. Okay. And again, very very pleased with the cooperation. Um, I really I cannot say that we've gotten any push back. You know, people um that need stuff, they come, they talk about it, and if it makes sense and it's the right thing to do, we process it. Okay? We don't just know. And in those situations where we may say to them, look, you realize the financial situation we're in, we look
185to give them other means to financing things. if it comes to transportation field trips and we say, you know, we really can't afford this because we don't have enough money to pay our contractual transportation to take the kids back and forth to school. How am I going to justify paying for field trips? Okay. So, but we're giving them alternative means and suggestions to fund those trips. Um, they're talking to the educational foundation. kids are doing fundraising and things are happening by that way and everyone all the stakeholders are really I think they understand it they embrace it and they're they're working with the district. So I I'm very happy about that. Um the midyear review that's about comprehensive staffing analysis and what we have to do in the budget and whether we're going to make
186budget reductions. We're we're looking at that. It's not an easy decision to make. We know that all our programs have value, but again go back to the crisis and the fiscal situation that we're in. uh we need to we need to do something to begin to bring us back into check. Okay. Now, suffice to say that at the end of the day, there may be a conversation on borrowing and what that means to kind of fill the hole and what those implications are, the pros and the cons. Okay. So, pillar number two, revenue status and enhancements. Um, and this is something that I'm I'm really happy to talk about because this is when you're facing the reality and we have multiple revenue shortfalls. Um, I talked about this. The two most obvious is the 6.8
187million that we have in front of us from last year. Okay. So, that we know is there plus the things that we mentioned. So what have we been doing in the interim and what do we do on a daily basis? First thing summer transportation aid is the first bullet. Um one of the things we looked at is stat forms and we want to know has stat forms been filed timely and that's a really a form to the state education department that allows them to pay us money back and early on lo and behold comes across my desk. I get many stack forms for the summer of two 2023 that they're asking me to sign that we can file with the state that hasn't filed. Okay. I was happy to do it. Why? Because I know
188by signing those forms, we just received $169,000 more in transportation aid that the district didn't know about. Okay. Really interesting process. So, we're working the expenditure side, we're working the revenue side. Second things, record retention, savings, and I I need to shout out to Jenner Restivo. I think she is she is a gem to work with. Um, the board named me as record retention officer and I know that Jenner in her role as guidance counselor is very active in trying to digitize student records that go back many years. We had a little issue with the company that they they did not um they did not come through on their estimate correctly and they came back to the district and they wanted to charge the district $91,000 more to do the work that they told us
189that they were going to do. Well, after Jenner and I spoke and Jenna went back to the contractor, um, she was successful and I I I sat on the sidelines and she was successful in having them agree to do what they were supposed to do and not charge the district an additional $91,000 and still get the records digitized. So, we saved $91,000 in that area. um EPC contractor. I first came here um they walked into my office and they handed me bills for the EPC contract that was um that was set. It was bills from bond council fiscal adviserss in printing total about $32,000. I said okay. I says let's let's cut a PO. And they said to me we don't have the money. It was wasn't budgeted for. That was my reaction. So what
190I did was because we have relationships with um with ESG and uh I know the principles there very well. I picked up the phone and we had a conversation and I asked them if they had any room in their project to absorb this and they said, "John, you worked with us for a lot of years. We'll absorb this for you. District doesn't have to worry about it. We'll pay the bills." And I was like, "Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. they step to the plate. So, these are these are your stakeholders, people that work with the district that understand the financial implications of what we're going through and stepping to the plate. I was up at um I was up at the Asbo up in Saratoga and our bond council, who I know Bill very
191well, I've done work with Billy years, and he came up to me. He said, "John, you know," he says, "I I understand what South Country is going through." He says, "Um, you know, I feel really bad. We had the double tan borrowing and you know, I I cut back the fee." He says, "But I'm willing to do more." He says, "I want to cut the fee another $3,000, you know, is that okay?" And I'm like, "Bill, thank you." You know, and I and I gave him a hug. Okay. So, these are the type of things that are happening that that makes me feel good because these are people that work for the district. these are these stakeholders, I call them strategic partners that work with the district that they're stepping to the plate as well.
192So, I I applaud them for that. Okay, pillar three, we're getting to the end. Uh long term, and this is, you know, it's pretty important stuff, so I figured it's maybe worth the time. Love the fact I love to hear myself talk because when I go home, my wife tells me, "Shut up." Okay. So, um the financial stability roadmap that we have um we know that we have a multi-year financial plan. Okay. Um we know that it's going to be three years. Uh we know that we're putting in cost retainment measures. We know that we talked about the revenue enhancement initiatives and the reserve and fund balance policy. That's going to be key. I talked about that negative 1.8 8 million that we have nothing in case we need it for unexpected whatever. We need
193to rebuild that negative $1.8 million. We need to build that back up. So within this particular plan, we need to sp pay special attention to our reserves and our fund balance as well. So you begin to see that there's a lot of pieces to this, right? It's like many spokes of a wheel. that we're working on at the same time and commitment to accountability um transparency and process. What we're doing here tonight speaks to this particular slide. We recognize that restoring the trust requires consistent communication and demonstrated and demonstrated results. That's what we are trying to communicate here this evening. Um we believe that every stakeholder deserves a clear visible um look into our financial position and recovery efforts and they need to take part of it. We also know that our monthly reporting will
194rep will provide real-time updates. Okay. And business office is committed to implementing the best practices in financial management and we won't be doing it alone. We'll be using our strategic partners as well. We'll be talking to bond counsel. We'll be talking to legal counsel. We'll we'll be we'll be covering the bases. Okay. Um in doing this and to the sake of accountability. Okay. So in summary, the path to fiscal sustainability um we were already on the the first item uh immediate stabilization um strategic recovery. We talked about those things we're going to do. And then that long-term vision. We have to restore the health of of the district because you want to be able to maintain and sustain your programs and your opportunities going forward. Okay? And that's what this is all about. I'll shut
195up if anybody has to ask a question. >> I left everybody. >> Thank you very much. I want to thank you for uh doing that PowerPoint and showing the various steps that are being taken primarily through the business office but in conjunction with some of the other resources that we had brought in to help through >> absolutely >> identify the problem and figure out exactly how to deal with it. So, um, I appreciate very much hearing that. >> Thank you. >> Move on to curriculum items. >> Yes, Chief. >> Yep. The administration recommends approval of curriculum items reflected in schedule G1 through G4. >> Is there a motion to approve? Uh, Trustee Dillo, Trustee Melisetta. Questions or discussion? I have one on the field trip. The jazz ensemble field trip is this one where there's
196fundraising going on. >> The South Country Education Foundation is doing a large part of that and then the kids are going to fund raise for the rest. Okay. >> I think there's about $1,000 balance. >> And again, the reason that um both these field trips are here is because they're either overnight or um >> That's correct. >> Out of state. >> That is correct. >> Okay. So, we have a motion and a second. All in favor? Uh, unanimously approved. And now we're to H. >> Administration recommends approval of personnel items uh located in H1 through H8. >> Is there a motion to approve items H1 through H8? Uh, Trustee Ross, Trustee Felicetta. Questions, discussion? Seeing none, all in favor? This is unanimous. >> I'm falling asleep. >> Sorry. Yes, I'm in favor. >> Okay. >>
197Get out. >> Sorry. >> Um, number I or letter I. >> The administration recommends approval of business items reflected in schedules I1 through I6. >> Is there a motion to uh trustee Dilo? Second. Trustee Felisetta. Questions or discussion? question has to do with this budget transfer. Again, um these are the salaries, the salaries that you spoke about of uh almost $2.9 million and it's to get the codes fixed. They were not they weren't listed in the appropriate code and they're being moved over to the appropriate one. >> That is correct. >> Okay. Um, and down here too, um, a question about the workers comp reserve fund. Um, does that one need to be different? Because we've got um a re you're making a different recommendation here. >> H five. Do we need to do that
198separate? >> It's I5 or 85. >> I5. >> Why does it have to? It doesn't need to be separate. Doesn't need to be. Okay, good. Um, so again, I sort of know the answer because I called Mr. Bill Monty this afternoon. So, see if I get it right. um that we have the workers comp reserve fund and um we're taking some money from that to put on in the general fund in order to cover uh some worker comp expenses. >> And this says um the amount that is at issue here is $750,000. Correct. >> Okay. So I got I I retained that information. Okay. So anybody else have questions about I one through I six? >> No. But thank you for making that clarification. >> Okay. So motion we had that right. >> Yep. >>
199I'm not even going to try and raise my hand anymore because they're so quick. >> I know. Um, so there are no other questions, no discussion. All in favor? It's unanimously approved. And now we've got public commentary. And we have one deard Jill Gash. I'm not sure I pronounced your name right. >> Hi. >> My name is Jill Gash. Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak. and thank you Mr. Bonti for your presentations. Bill Monty and I have worked together uh more recently and you couldn't have a better person in the role. Um I have a couple comments to make. Um at the last board meeting um Mr. Santana presented the strategic plan and within that plan there was benchmarking um for reporting out and one of the items was um in the
200spring to report out on budget items or resources needed based on the findings of the progress. So I just ask that that be done in a timely manner. Spring is a big window and as your budget process unfolds, I ask that it be done sooner than later if there's needs for the kids throughout that. Um, I know the board is very well aware of the open meetings law and you're not following it. So, the budget present the presentation by Mr. Belmonte should have been posted within 24 hours prior to this meeting and it wasn't. I know there's emergency circumstances that may occur when items need to be posted later on, but the public should be seeing those items ahead of time. So, if we have questions ahead of time, we could review those documents. So,
201I ask that the open meetings will be followed in the future. At the last meeting, there was no budget. Uh there was no agenda available to the public in a paper form. Yes, it was online, but I asked that a paper copy be made. It was Mr. I spoke with M trusty Ross. I see that there is a paper copy. There's one available, but I asked that the backup to all of that is made available. Just like tonight, we were not going to see the items that Mr. Belmont was going through unless somebody spoke up to ask that that be made public. If it was in the document, we could see that or any community member could refer to that. It's very hard for us. You have a a tablet in front of you. We're
202reading things on our phone at the same time. So, I appreciate it being p publicized on your screen for the community to see. Um there was discussion at the last meeting about the treasurer's report and whether it needed to be accepted and it was asked of the attorney and there was some dialogue back and forth saying that the conversation needed to be taken uh privately. There are certain items that belong in exec session and there are certain items that belong in the public. That was not one of them. The attorney should have been able to answer that question right then and there. So, I ask that the rules be followed. You mentioned your rule about not responding to the public. It's not an exchange. I ask that you reconsider your rule about responding to the
203public in the spirit of transparency. If you choose not to respond, I ask that the answer to that community member, which was I assume followed up on, be shared at the next meeting so all of us could hear the answer. Thank you for your comments. >> Any closing remarks? >> I have a few. Anybody else? I uh I I didn't mention uh in the report before, but I just wanted to mention that I did attend the um Boseies um uh workshop with uh the superintendent uh two weeks ago um about their shared services and advocacy. It was a Saturday morning. It was a two-hour seminar and it was very very very informative on all the services that they provide and many services that we could avail ourselves to and should look to uh do so
204in the future. Um uh that was one of them. And then also um if we could uh post the notices of our concerts to the free service that the Long Island Advance um provides. Every time I go to a concert, I get comments on my social media. Oh, I wish I would have known about that. I would have gone. And I know we we we have them in our calendar. Everybody in the district gets it. Somehow they don't read that. But um in the advance they do allow for community notifications free of charge. Um, and perhaps we could promote our uh concerts that are upcoming that are wonderful and people would perhaps enjoy them and maybe we'll give it another shout out and and people could avail themselves to it. >> Okay. Um, and that's
205okay. More comments? >> No. Then a motion to adjurnn. >> I'll make that one. >> Trustee second trustee. All in favor? I unanimous.