001[Music] just a few quick announcements uh please take not of the emergency exits in the back of the room and to the side of the stage in the event of an emergency please leave an orderly has directed this is a smoke free and a b Free School [Music] District sorry uh smoking vaping on on the premises anyone on the premises this is a hatee poli preschool district um just a couple of housekeeping uh we don't mean to hear a lot for obvious reasons so um we're going to have to experience some feedback we've got a broken speaker since the play so please bear with us if you're in the back and you can't hear us sometimes in this room aren't great just wave let us know and we'll try to address it okay um and
002hard moving on super [Music] all right the administration recommends approval of it I have a motion by Mr second by Mr any discussion none all those in favor motion Carri unan V that's getting progressively worse you sure that's not from actually all right thank you all for coming uh going to begin with my uh superintend support first and foremost I want to give a shout out to loer and the whole Middle School staff who participated in the production of Matilda it was a fantastic play the night I on Friday night we did have some feedback which was a little frustrating for our um especially for me superintendent we're going to be working on our s system but that should take away from the extreme talent and amazing performances that our kids sort of displayed on
003that night it really was a great performance I don't know if I've ever seen that many middle school kids engage and choreograph that that right so big shout out Middle School the cast the staff and our community members who participated and put in this wonderful uh play together I also got to attend thep school curriculum Fair which is really fantastic uh students sort of shared their learning with their teachers it was great to see so many teachers out and students participating in this this course regarding their academics um this picture here we see trusty Hayes being given a little math lesson I think it was about slope uh from two students the students are really enthusiastic especially our sixth grade students who did their unit on Greek mythology uh really fantastic experience so thank you
004all who participated the teachers who participated as well really successful event um I also got to attend the celebration of our English L Learners who achieved a commanding on their Nic lab which is New York state proficiency Test in English um this was probably the most touching celebration I've been at in the last two years this is my third one um the students were fantastic in their achievements and the students range from grades kindergarten to 12 but Melanie um we see here presented actually did a whole PowerPoint presentation about her sort of experience immigrating from Ecuador and in just two years becoming English proficient earning her diploma from delport high school and she really showed her appreci for appreciation for all the teachers who have been impact on our life so big shout out to
005all of our enl teachers Monica tan pulos for her leadership in that regard it really was a fantastic night and the night of a lot of Pride and I was really uh grateful that trusty Hayes was able to join me I also got to stop by quickly through our professional Learning Community sharing day plc's is something that really developed in the '90s as an efficient way of providing professional development because it's teacher-driven so it's kind of peer-to-peer professional development um some of the topics discussed was instructional technology chemistry achievement data driven instruction Multicultural literature for diverse learners evaluating or elevating sorry student writing um so really great um sort of event thank you all and attendance who participated for all the teachers who conducted the workshops really was uh fantastic this is something that was
006initiated uh originally by Beth do and I'm happy to see jaie taking out the rigns some other happenings the sub County school superintendent Association holded hosted a Future Leaders Academy here in South Country uh for inspiring administrators um there actually several people in uh our teaching unit attended this little panel discussion which featured administrators from various school districts get my notes but pictured in the photograph are three superintendent peers Charlie Pro Dr Pro she is from Westampton Leach un preschool district Tony MOA who is from South Union pre district and Dean middleman who is from uh East mares uh Central School District I wanted to thank up publicly for coming by and participating this panal discussion and I was also um featured in The Boys and Girls Club uh Legacy Event uh which was a
007wonderful event uh but an event that made me feel somewhat guilty because I felt very undeserving of the recognition as a valued Ally really the ACC to go to all of you our teachers our school district who provides uh support to the club the club is a great resource U for our community we bust kids there for the after school program they provide a summer program uh for students we really honored to be there among great company including Dominic dorm sou County legislator uh Bine U be the bport village mayor Lorraine who's a um bport village trustee Regina hunt Rodney O'Neal Marcelo Delina Trish Delina and Christina Sullivan representing the a teachers and our security staff and of course Tres Hayes and police who also attended big shout out to Kim lingon who's executive director
008of Boys and Girls Club for the invite and the recognition and um pictured there is uh Bill Port alumni Lisa Anderson Who currently a Columbia professor and a former Bo member of the Boys and Girls Club it's great event very honored felt very humbl it felt very other serving of the recognition I also want to speak a little bit about State assessments which are coming up starting next week in our 3 to8 buildings uh I going read this forba but State assessments are an important part of our Academic Program help us take uh honest look at how we're doing as a district uh more than two scores these assessments provide a snapshot for student progress and guid Us in supporting their continued growth we're encouraging all students to do their best not with pressure but
009with a focus on effort pride and personal growth full participation gives us the most accurate picture of student achievement and ensures that we can keep moving instruction improving instruction and support so the whole idea is to really increase our participation rates and the way the students are sort of challenging these assessments uh when I was at krer and spoke to a math class A Class of the third graders I believe and they were showing off their math grades one of the things I emphasized them that you shouldn't be comparing yourself to other students you should be comparing yourself to yourself to see how much you've grown within an academic year so the idea is not to overly stress students but really they should be doing their best on the assessments and we should hopefully get
010a nice sample size that truly reflects our assuming B I also want to say that high State T thing is still a part of the educational process uh which includes mandated regent exams AP exams College Board exams so it's essential that students get practice uh as soon as they are able to if they're in grade and multiple career paths require certification exams so I feel like I can appreciate how people felt about over testing children but I do think that the assessments are important part of the educational process so we are encouraging our families to participate and to have their students and your students show us what they know and finally follow follow us on social media there's various social media platforms highly all the great things happening in South C school district and for
011community members who want to stay in touch there is a community portal where you can subscribe there's also a link right on our homepage uh that has all of our social media handles as well as superintendent Corner which is updated on a monthly basis as my contact information my social media handles and access to my update so keep in touch stay informed and I'll say that every board being moving forward I'm super excited to launch our new website uh July 1st which is uh going to be a fantastic and much needed Improvement that concludes my two contendant report thank you for your commitment to South Country Central School District thank okay moving on to uh trusty and advisory committee reports my left hi um I just want to comment I went to the FP uh
012the frankly long art show and bingo night it's great to see as many parents there um supporting the school we of course is awesome except for all the snakes there were a lot of drwings and snakes um Matilda was awesome got to see that on Saturday night uh so many kids involved in it it's it's warm and fuzzy feelings for me uh to see that um and last I was on the panel for the social science committee at baven elementary it was a panel of women and they brought in kids from K through three um all different uh asking questions about how we're going to change the world and the best decisions we've ever made um it was great hearing from the kids and and being on a panel with five other women from the
013dist thank you okay I enjoyed Matilda also and the legacy of that I enjoyed it as the superintendent described it but also wanted to mention that um they had the dance tro performed for the guest at the event and these are kids who go to school yet and I was not timing how long was that it seemed like a minutes at high energy so impressive also enjoyed the curriculum there of the middle school starting out with the math uh demonstrations and I was struck by the enthusias the students who were there to disain the work that they've been doing and what they've been studying from there I went over to the library where I had a tour in ancient grece with the myths and the mask and the pottery and all the displays that they
014had there as um had the PTA meeting atool good to see the number of parents who their time particip in activities onf of the kids at the school I also went to the enl commanding event and I believe one of the numbers were 44 students who qualified for the certif and then just yesterday I attended the strategic planning meeting and we went over the draft of the Strategic plan again we have some community members who've been attending on a regas um enjoy having the input from community members as well as um our Educators who sit on the committee so I believe super of com that's it thank you all right we about start our sixth budget presentation which is a revenue and expenditure update um as many as you know has been a really difficult
015uh budget season and process um so I'm going to get right to it ready in terms of our budget meetings and presentations today is April 2nd where we're going to be going over expenses and revenue updates at our April 23rd meeting we'll give U the board a final budget uh for their adoption we're also going to be updating our staffing numbers in that presentation as well as we continue to work on this budget process this is culminates in the budget hearing on May 7th and budget vote and election on May 20th um so please be sure of your community members to come out and vote in terms of the revenue update not much has changed all revenue represents the general funds which is where we hold our funds South Country state aid M change as
016the state's budget is formally adopted we have no tenative date that's when that's going to come out technically it's due April 1st and obviously has not been submitted yet so that may change U the amount of state aid we receive uh receive that information our proposed tax levy may also change as we continue to look at our expenditures currently our tax levy Max which the cap is at 3.48% and again the tax L represents a contribution made by taxpayers the final tax Library will be presented again on April 23rd to the community and again the tax cap is 3.48% so in other words what that means is if you propose a tax levy that's at or below the 3.48% that requires us a simple majority vote if we propose something that pierces the cap or
017is above 3.84% that requires a super majority vote State a all hold harmless school districts which were one of received a 2% increase in Foundation ages year um so um prior years the trend was that we got about 3% increase in state aid each and every year last year that changed when the foundation Aid stayed flat when we compared the prior year to last year and then we had a 2% increase proposed for this upcoming school year 2526 in essence it's almost like a loss of state aid U because cost of living expenses continually rise year to year so when the foundation Aid doesn't mat those increases it puts us in a precarity situation miscellaneous Revenue includes is not limited to Day School tuition Health Services interest and earnings Medicaid reimbursements eates which we get
018from some technology rental income income and donations then the use of your reserves you see some a little bit different reserves are used to off set expenditures in a very deliberate manner our state mandates and rules that govern how we can use reserves so we can't think of a reserve that's just being a savings account which you use at our at our disposal very specific uses for the reserves and so um due to the reduction of foundation Aid the use reserves are going to be increased to sort of help mitigate uh some of the challenges we have in our expenditures um and the goal is always to replenish them to the greatest extent possible there going to be some years where you don't replenish to the extent you want to but it's kind of like
019a roller coaster depending on the economic climate of that particular budget year so some of the financial challenges that I want to review yet again we did this in our second um presentation is first and foremost was the loss of federal funds I do want to read it verbatim but South Country like many other school districts State lost access to fedal stimulus funds which was provided through the co related relief previously help offset expenditures um and one time expenditures These funds played a critical role in temporarily supporting Staffing construction programs Tey facilities me with that support now expired the financial bring was shifted back to local school districts so as a result South Country along with many others are now facing difficult decisions to ensure long-term fiscal stability while continuing to prioritize the needs of
020our students this was anticipated we knew the we're going to end um in fact they end uh this year and next we anticipated this based on a reserve plan so while this was a challenge it wasn't a challenge that we thought would impact certainly Staffing or our ability to run the district the loss of state aid I sort of mentioned a little bit already uh but again we have seen a reduction of both Foundation Aid and building Aid what I mean by building Aid is the school districts get Aid based on Capital Improvement projects what they do if you spend a million dollar a capital Improvement project that's aable that we get reimbursed at a rate of about 76% which is spread over 15 years so what happened is years ago there was a bond
021taken out and so with that Bond you have Debt Service payments typically your debt service payments and your building Aid so don't cat each other out or very lease make that expens less this current year that we're in was the first year that our building a impact drops yet our service payments are still there this is what we call sort of the uh the little disparity in our a in our death payments this too was also anti anticipated we anticipated that this was coming it was predictable we planed for it um so that was part of our sort of a plan in terms of mitigating these challenges but we didn't plan for these unforeseen increases in expenditures and these are pretty unprecedented because um it just seems like way out of control in terms of
022my experience being in education the last year seven years the big biggest Rises and expenditures come from our health insurance plan which is going up 15% we already assume the 5% increase this year an additional 10% will be coming at 25.6 which is not budgeted for um transportation costs are skyrocketing across the islands and special education which I'll explain in a minute these Rising costs are only substan but largely out of our control exteral factors such as provider rates provider rate Heights growing needs and these increases place a significance strain in our overall budget and make it increasingly difficult to maintain programs and services without difficult tradeoffs so again we talk about special ed we're not just talking about special ed students for the services they require and these providers all the expenses across Board
023of this one up now we've had declining enrollment but increased needs which without children demonstrate a later slide but despite an overall decline in enrollment our special education and enl populations continue to grow to me banded services for example we hired in the last 3 years 11 special ed teachers and 12 enl teachers these positions remain essential because our state mandated to meet the needs of these students and not be considered for elimination so again while we're hiring new employees a lot of it result in the changing demographic for our school district not so much um aligned with the defining enrollment and to talk about special education enrollment specifically over the course of this school year that's in 425 school year we've welcomed 68 new students for our class apply is requiring special education services
024so even though our overall enrollment went down by almost 100 students our enrollment of special education students went up 68 by 68 students this increase speaks to the growing complexity of student needs in our district of those new entrance 11 require placement in specialized programs outside of the district due to the intensity of their needs and while we're committed to providing each student with this the support they require these outside placements have added nearly $1 million of unanticipated cost to our budget this underscores a financial pressure the like ours basing ensuring Equitable Services while validating limed resources we always budget consistencies but no we didn't budget for the amount of families moving for our district requiring personal Education Services and additional um outside placements currently between kids who receive Services outside of our building to
025include kids who get home instru not for kids who are home instruction because of suspensions but who require medical attention we have 101 students in our district for an outside placement currently so so some of the strategies to sort of meet these Financial challenges one the use of reserves which I mentioned but again State mandates to control and regulate how reserves can be used and I Ure everybody in the audience and the trustees and we're maximizing the use of our reserves unassigned phone balance the state allows School District to have a fund balance of 4% based on their overall budget left over to mitigate onetime expenses we cannot use unassigned fund balances to pay for ongoing costs an analogy I heard with kind of makes sense is you shouldn't use your savings account to pay
026for groceries because inevitably this creates a financial burden in subsequent years those un assigned fund balances are typically used for things that come up on a year and unanticipated if a boiler breaks down that we need to pay for a new boiler and that's something maybe we predict or could have anticipated transportation we are actively engaged with our transportation company to help mitigate this increased uh cost in our contracts one of the strategies we're using is to see we can offset the cost over the course of the whole leg contract which is 5 years to reduce that initial burden for the 2526 school year so we're in active communication with that we're also working with the consultant to see if we can consolidate bus routes um basically what I'm trying to say is we're looking
027at all angles to see what we can do to sort of minimize the expenditures when it comes to Transportation budget reductions we spend literally hours and days looking through every budget line to see where we can sort of cut expenditures down from everything from textbooks library books certain budget lines conferences anything where we feel when can sort of pull back on we're pulling back on um and so we reality is identify reductions can be made and again this has been a thorough and thoughtful process Guided by our commitment to maintaining the Integrity Ark programs student services while addressing Financial Services the point of this sort of uh talking point is that we're really looking at everything because the last thing we want to do is reduce staff and this is where we get to reducing
028uh Staffing reductions so as we work through the challenge of this year's budget the need to Staffing adoptions across all collective bargaining units has become unavoidable what I mean by that is we initially spoke about reductions in the teaching ranks but we're looking at all of our units to see where s of reduction can be made without having an adverse effect on student programs this includes our administrators clerical AIDS T all of our collective bargaining units uh these decisions are incredibly difficult made only after exhausting all other options we recognize the Deep Impact this has on individuals our schools and the greater South community this is not a reflection of how we value our staff but rather a necessary step to ensure the long-term Financial stability of the district while preventing four programs and services
029for students so I can't emphasize that enough I look at all your faces in the audience today I look at the trustees none of these decisions are easy so many of our staff members are hired in the last 3 years sat in my office and interviewed with me so this is something that's incredibly difficult to do um we try everything possible to sort of uh let L the impact going to have on the staff uh but it's regard to the point where this is we really have no choice to do this again our long-term plan because the question that keeps coming up is well why hire teachers if our promoter is planning I have two kind of responses to sort of that feeling number one our demographics are changing so we had to hire more
030special education students because part of our mission was to expand our special education program in our district to keep more kids in our community in our community schools um number two looking at the financial projections that were not inclusive of these exorbitant expenditure increases we were confident that we could sort of weather this door and sort of reduce staff by attrition over the next couple of years and what I mean by that is by when people retire people uh we separate from certain staff from other reasons you cannot absorb it as a c and when we looked at the projected retirements over the next couple years we sted made a calculated guess that this is how we're going to level sort of our enrollment I have to say that in the year 2020 we had
031seven more teachers than we have today so there's sort of a narrative out there that we've increased in the last couple years in 2020 we had 437 teachers we currently have 431 teachers but again enrollment and the need for staff aren't sort of directly related because our needs of our students are gr up in terms of special education but this really was how we saw it rather than sort of have an impact on our small class sizes we've been fitted from really small class sizes in our elementary schools to a certain extent in our Middle School we said let's keep this in place and slowly chip away at it for the next couple of years because that's something that we've been founding for many years and we really felt like we could have sort of
032weathered the storm as I said with these Financial challenges but this year was really different first and foremost I wanted to show this and I showed this in the last presentation it's just a 10year cause comparison in certain uh areas you at our overall enrollment in 2014 we had 40 a little over 4,400 students in our district we currently have a little over 3,800 students that's almost 600 students uh 600 student iscl in enrollment but when you look at our costs at the changing demographics we went from a school district that was a little over 6% in the side was Learners to a school district that currently since I put this slide together at 20% think this language Learners 3% may not seem significant in terms of an increase number of special education students those
033students as I mentioned before come with Associated costs so if we look at the costs comparing if just these two areas alone are almost $4.5 million increased cost over the last 10 years then we have so cyber security Insurance mental health physical security are both these programs transportation and other operational expenses which is basically Maintenance and Facilities this represents $22 million more in expenditure despite a drop in enrollment of 600 students this is sort of the reality that we're dealing with more specifically for this upcoming school year 2526 since our March March 5th meeting just a couple weeks ago we just realized that these costs went up at a rate of over $1 million uh these again were unanticipated expenditures in expenditure increases that are not inclusive the salary Corrections Lane changes longevity assessments which
034are typically anticipated by us we always budget for salary increments that all of our Collective markeing units have and for the young seing so these three categories alone went up by over a million dollars not to mention what was shared in our last presentation which is our un unallocated insurance this represents the assessment of our properties have gone up that's our insurance perum went up our special education costs which another went up by a little over 6% or over $600,000 Transportation going up by $1.6 million at of 15.85% this is really above and beyond what's usual and our health insurance which is a little over 14% or 14 half% going up by 2.8 million that represents $5.1 million of unanticipated increases in expenditures that we did not predict or project and this is why we
035find ourselves in this ricent what we've done since March 5th we looking at all these budget lines and this is inclusive salaries and make reductions in our budget to try minimize the gap between what the revenue we're receiving and the expenditures that we're projecting we're able to put a to way about $2.6 million 3.6 almost 37 million from these respective budget lines and we're continuing that process in the next few weeks as we work contining work Vigilant to reduce our budget um and again while this reductions represent staff reductions they don't necessarily represent cust programs our goal is to keep all our programs in place the way we support the programs may change um our class sizes are to increase a little bit but they're still going to be relatively small for Long Island so
036we're try to maintain the Integrity of our academic programs we try to sort of uh manage this uh sort of financial crisis that we so as of March 5th our total expenditures itive expenditures are four major codes which is a th000 code which is all the costs associated with the administration of the school district uh the 2,000 code it's all cost Associated curricul construction this is where you find all of our teacher salaries 5,000 code is transportation 90,000 cost and all the associated with the employee titls Debt Service payments Etc this was as as of March 5th our projected expenditures were at $150 million as of April second we reduced that to $148 million almost $149 million we're moving sort of in the right direction but this total increase of uh about if you look
037at the budget from 2425 the difference in these two proposed expenditures is over $6 million um and so it represents a 3.97% increase when you compare budget to budget not tax levy to tax levy but budget to budget um but right now our tax levy cap is at 3.48% that 3.8% only represents the increase in about 50% of our Revenue as it stands today our revenue or expected revenue for the next coming school year is at about $145 million or 45.5 million but we're still at $148 million expected anticipated expenditures so there's still a difference of three a little over $3 million that we have to try to fix gra in the next couple of weeks this has been extremely difficult um again $6 million of expenses that were impossible to predict and not that
038this makes me feel any better or make this process any easier this is happening across districts all across Long Islands we're meeting a superintendent to see what we can do to try to mitigate uh some of these uh sort of uh challenges um I have a meeting on Friday for example because multiple school districts in my cluster which includes places like U Rocky Point Three Village um and Smithtown are all looking at some pretty drastic Staffing reductions Smithtown alone is looking to uh uh separate from 42 teachers Three Village 31 teachers um so they're tough times and so we're doing our best to maintain or keep as much staff as possible try to stick to our plan where people retire s of do that for rri but this is basically the hand we've been dealt
039what we've been dealing with is it awful it is it's not an easy it's for not easy for me as someone who's got to know some of our employees are going to be affected by this and do that take for granted the impact this has our families and our community open our and that concludes my presentation on April 23rd we'll be back with our finalized budget and a staffing update will include some additional cuts and our Collective baring units um again this com our budget hearing i7 and the budget vote and on mayth at this point I'll open it up questions yes can you try to put on blinders for this question and the only thing to look at is staffing needs to provide the programs that currently providing and that are already in the
040works for next year that um would improve options for our students the Staffing levels that you have looked at so far permit that yes they do so one of the things that we have to look at is the U for example reduction of coordinators who support Ser programs we're looking at other ways to sort of support the programs or perhaps sort of U bring those positions back but in terms of what we offer kids that's not going to change the students and teacher ratio may change in some classrooms right now we're looking at average class size in elementary schools at about 22 23 where we C it but we're still maintaining all of our programs through language program electives after school programs everything remain intact thank you Mr chair um so we spent a lot
041of time uh talking and meeting this week and uh I appreciate the time that you that you gave to me I don't know how many how much time to get trustees who asked but um as you know my my prior life I spent as a union leader I spent with suff County government and I live through layoffs with with suff County government and this is not this is not an easy situation for anyone to be in and I don't I don't want to minimize what what you're going through and um and certainly I admire the barging unit and the solidarity that you're showing here today uh it's what you need to do with with your unit to support your bargain unit and um and it's hard for me to be on this side of this
042equation right now when I was in the county county politics is much different than than the school and that that I can tell I can I can tell this bargaining unit right now the county used to used to uh wave layoffs as a as a um as a weapon to to weaponize and punish their employees that's not what's happening here and I want to assure the bargaining unit of that this is something that is very painful for the district um and something that we're taking great strides and to try to minimize and I've taken great strides I met for and I and I've been doing so for quite some time with the with the business unit with the business office in going through the treasur support in understanding every nickel that we spend um and
043to make sure that when we approve a position that we that we have the money to sustain those positions because what I want to make sure that I've done in my role here on the board is that we've done our due diligence in finding a position that we have enough to sustain that position and I'm having a hard time just accepting these expenses came you know just just grew unexpectedly I understand where they came from I'm not I'm not saying that they that they are imagined or unrealized they they're true in what in what you're presenting but in going forward every position that comes to us now in the Personnel report I I'm going to dig further and I'm going to ask Administration and I'm going to ask cabinet to really prove to the board
044that we have enough to sustain going forward and that we have enough backup for health insurance for transportation for these un unanticipated expenses so that we're not faced with situations like this going forward where we have to look to Staffing positions to to balance a budget I've always believed that employees are assets to be developed not cost to be cut and that's the and as and I appreciate what you're going through and what you're going to present the board with prior to in the next two weeks and we're losing sleep over it and it's not going to be easy so we really do when when you I appreciate that you took the suggestion of looking at conferences County used to used to use the word um joints they're not joints I understand they're meaningful and
045I understand people gain a lot from them I've been on them I've participated in them and I gained a lot from them too but you know what sometimes we can't we can't do we can't participate in all of them we have to and for all of all of you that go on and benefit from them we're all going to have to cut back just a little bit because that's just the way it's going and let's not talk about or let's actually let's think about what's going to happen from the federal government because we don't know where those cuts are coming from and how that's going to affect our Learning System here in South Country so um what I want to say to you and I've given you a hard time over these last couple of
046weeks I have because because this isn't easy and I don't I I really thought we were going at a very good clip these you know these last couple of years and I think we were so this is very very difficult not because you're not doing your job but because these are lives and these are lives that are protecting our little ones and our big ones and we don't want to lose a single life of you know in our in our Learning System so we have to be very diligent in how we go about this and we can't leave one single stone unturned as we go about we have to be very surgical in what we do and I hope you understand that the hard time I'm giving you and your cabinet is not personal but
047it is it is personal for the students and it is personal for the staff because we have an obligation to protect all of them and so that's why if I give you a hard time on what I'm looking for it's not because it's going to take you some time and it's going to take time away from the work that you're doing it's because I want to make sure that I have every bit of information before I make a decision on what we have to do with this budget thank you you're very well said uh [Applause] the comments everything you said was accurate um but the burden Z the superintendent of schools and so you know the board the trustees they do their due diligence all of them to ask questions to pressure us to challenge
048us when we're making decisions um I've had multiple meetings and conversations over the last couple of weeks when all this start start happening during the budget process because these were truly unanticipated expenses we started panicking surely I look back and reflect on the last couple years and some of the great things that we've started and initiated and to your point we were on a great trajectory a lot of people we've hired in the last couple years been fantastic so this espcially hits me hard and I do take it personally because of course H side is 2020 so we have not had these initiatives we not proceeded in the course that we proceeded but we proceeded with confidence because again when we looked at our presal challenges was namely the drop of building Aid the anticipated
049drops of foundation Aid we looked at the sort of attrition rates are coming in the next couple years retirements and so forth and we really were confident that we'd be able to ROR so whether or not you want to characterize that as a miscalculation or we did the best with the information we had at the same at the same time I do take it personally and the trusty you should be given to our time because we are talking about people's livelihoods people I care about and it's not easy Surly we want to continue proping this District forward we continue growth and achievement I I certainly value everything everybody in this room does when you look at my superintendence report I'm a lot of pictures I'll admit that who who am I really reporting that it's
050teachers it's our security officers our administrators you guys are in the front lines doing the work forging relationship with kids helping Propel the school district forward so I don't think this easily I don't get any Joy from reducing staff and sometimes you have to make difficult decisions part ways with certain staff members even that's not easy for me so this whole process has been extremely difficult I heard about other school districts in PRI years engaged in this processes processes I've been on the receiving end of these processes but never have I ever been at the hill where really falls on me and I will take the burden of this responsibility not my cabinet not the trustees but me a superintendent my cabinet Works diligently and try to do their best to find ways to avoid
051staff Productions Miss sige has not slept has coming on weekends and on Sundays looking at every budget line to see where are we could sort of make little Cuts Jackie O Hagen is regretting taking his position just kidding but I'm trying to add some levity because the feeling is so bad and uh we're really doing our best to sort of mitigate these unexpected expenditures and the trustees have done their due diligence especially charl F who yes he's been Authority at my side I'll say but rightfully so because she cares about the district as all the trustees here so we're going to continue pressing forward um when I commiserate with some other superintendent in this situation we all feel the same way and I see the people's faces when we talk about sa reductions you know
052long Beyond this meeting here looking at you live I think about these things and I I don't want anybody to have any empathy or or feel badly for me because I took on this road knowing it wouldn't be easy but just so you appreciate that this is not just done in terms of hey let's be more economically efficient we're not a private Enterprise we're not a for-profit organization but we're in a position where we have to maintain the financial stability of the district moving forward if we want to maintain those programs we have to make these hard decisions that's where we're at today I I just I F A second so um this isn't easy right we know that but it's a lot harder on you and don't think that that's not recognized here we
053can tell you how bad we feel how hard we're working and all those things are true but when you really don't know if it's you or not we can't I mean I've lived through it in different Industries I've been out of work before I'm out of work now I I get it it's really hard and and and the world today it's even harder so it is difficult but please don't think that we don't recognize how difficult it is on you and even if not you that's that's in the crosshairs you know there's there's they're your colleagues they're your friends my wife teaches in Smithtown Smithtown they're losing 42 teachers she has friends she has people colleagues that she's worked with that that are faced with possibly being abcessed as well so so we get it
054this is my 14th budget but a lot of people I've been here a long time we went through this once before about 11 years ago and it's completely different those were the days of Gap elimination those were the days of Bank bail out and the economy it was just it was different when you look at this and for all the budgets that I've been through to see these unanticipated costs and how big they are is like nothing that that we've ever seen and a lot of it you know when you look at insurance right we're part of a Consortium with three other districts all three districts are laying off at a bunch of people SM down so it's hard but the work doesn't stop and I know it doesn't make you feel better there are
055things happening behind the scenes there are negotiations taking place and there are cost savings that we're looking for it just feels like and I've never seen this before I walked into central office and the superintendent got out of the meeting with poies and we understood the increases there like it it's it's hard I know it's not going to make you feel better but the work doesn't stop we are doing everything we can the administration is working tirelessly to see if we can if we can get there and what we can do so again it's not an attempt to make you feel better just to make you understand at least where I am and I believe the rest of the board is in all this so I I just wanted to comment uh specifically about at
056the very beginning and if you tuned into any the you award meetings youve heard me say um we are the only um School District on Long Island who's facing a decrease in state aid uh this year um we have these addition expenses that I think they went over in great detail this is not something where anybody is is targeting anybody but again we've got to put the students at the uh at the greatest height in terms of their success and what their needs are um and it's not over anybody else in doing that it is ultimately trying to make sure that we can present a reasonable budget to our community and ultimately um make sure that we're providing best education possible for this okay so we voted so we're moving on to comment are we
057not streaming B technology got give me thumbs up we're streaming okay can you maybe just take a look at that make sure there's not an issue somewhere he says we're streaming okay at worst case scenario can you confirm we're recording so can least be posted got thank you okay so moving on to um public commentary am I read this paragraph or just extremely thank you all right so um comments from the audience on the agenda items we heard I'm sorry it's just it's a little out Bo here that you have three minutes to speak you'll be given a warning no Personnel no names I'm trying to we have to have organizers a little bit there's so much year read so uh member wish speak must be a comment card found the Mir of the room
058which is over here tonight comments from each speaker limited to 3 minutes there will be no sharing of minutes public sessions are limited to 30 minutes total uh and will continue as long as they are conducted in orderly fashion all questions must be directed to the board of education and be relevant to school district matters with that we set up the microphone thank you when you called up the microphone is to my left here no that's C uh Patrick Ray Mr [Applause] [Music] R good evening superintendent Santana president Board of Education trustee and the South Country Community First I want to thank you for changing the location I am Patrick Brady High School special education teacher and president of the B Teachers Association I do not usually speak at Board of Education meetings but the
059seriousness of the situation could help over the next few days I will be engaged in 43 individual meetings with my fellow members who may be exit to budgetary issues continue to grow of the 43 I anticipate 25 F of service additionally the dual language and restored practice coordinators labeled as administrative and supportive deductions are actually deeper cuts to the BTA these roles represent the dedication and Innovation we bring to education included in the 43 of seasoned veterans and recently hired VTA members individuals who have chosen South Country even if that meant leaving tenure positions this raised a serious question about our commitment to those who have chosen to dedicate themselves to our community many of whom also live here the BTA works with the district to minimize student impact whenever sta reductions are necessary however
060in my years I've only witnessed administrative positions grow that decrease this imbalance this imbalance needs to be addressed the PTA has always supported strong leadership prior to AP we successfully utiliz PTA members as Department chairs in all academic areas a cost effective system that worked for decades given the recent Financial challenges I hope this option has been seriously considered AP regulations have changed giving districts more flexibility and we are open to a model that reduces administrative burdens while fering collaboration most importantly we need to discuss how to reduce the impact these cuts on our students our middle school has been facing serious challenges for many years these Cuts will only amplify the con's issue excuse me issues at the high school level the loss of co-taught forensics chem chemistry and connection classes special education has
061a potential adverse effect on our students and graduation the reduction of Elementary and special are teaches will increase student to teaching ratios while the reduction of a full-time librarian at Kramer and chis will hinder the district's NPS initiatives all these situations will impact our ability to address the social emotional and academic needs of our students the district response so far are troubling we are pushing away talented Educators after years of encouraging them to invest in our community this is a betrayal of the trust they have placed in US BTA members have consistently gone above and beyond organizing book and backpack draws volunteering Community initiatives and supporting District events this dedication has been recognized at the state level for our out understanding community service unfortunately BTA members are being disproportionately affected compared to others uness action
062is taken by central office administration and the Board of Education I urge you to consider the long-term effects of these decisions and I continue to be open to all conversations that will help mitigate these cuts that will neg negatively impact our students the BTA is the back of South Country and we will continue to do so thank you good evening and welcome I just judging by the subject I just I know may somebody just want to make sure you CAU any name got so evening thank you very much for the opportunity to speak to you right now MERS we appreciate this time my name is teach at El school as teer yeah little no don't worry about the time point of order could we shut the time clock off please yeah I got thank you
063Mr thank I'm GNA Flo down my name is Christine Daniels I've been teaching at CR Street Elementary School for 23 years as a DNL teacher and I have the added privilege of serving as the elementary chairperson for the K5 you know Department I'm coming here to speak to you tonight tonight as a member of the BTA at of concern for the devastating LS of teachers that is projected and its impact on our students I truly appreciate your hard work and considering this as you move forward and I really appreciate Pat for speaking on behalf of the entire barbing unit and this Lis I really appreciate your comment earlier that you really are deeply thinking about this I know you all are specifically right now I would just like to speak specifically about um my professional
064opinion in order for you to reconsider reinstating the Dual language coordinator position the coordinator position has a direct impact on the forward progress of 315 dual language students the Dual language coordinator is an integral part of the leadership team servicing 871 enl students in our district and I have the honor of teaching these hardworking and beautiful students and I know the direct impact of this position the loss of this position will have on these students I have immense pride in working in the South Country School District as a teacher and now a leader for these multilingual Learners and like many of the hardworking dedicated teachers I am proud to work in this District that values bilingualism as an asset and as in a district that values the growth of the enl and dual language programs
065because we know that the Dual language and enl programs will take our students to Greater Life outcomes with the support of this board over the years we have been maintaining teacher leadership positions in our district that has allowed for the growth of the enl and DL leadership team and it has developed collaborations with teachers teacher leaders building and District administrators ERS and the community all of these collaborative relationships have supported direct student outcomes and growth and we have built Collective efficacy I believe that this collaborative model should continue it should be strengthened and it should not be disrupted or dismantled in order to help you understand a little bit of my concern for the loss of the coordin position I was hoping to speak a little bit personally about the person who holds this position
066but and I cannot at this time I was going to print an incredible sample highlighting the work of the Dual womage coordinator however out of respect for the budget constraints I respectfully ask that you access our Google Drive instead of me printing it out for you there will there you will find over 100 digital documents that have been created and shared by the Dual language coordinate which provides students teachers and administrators research-based best practices and curriculum support for language learning please reach out to me I will sit with you personally to go over those digital documents they are incredible they are needed to be an ongoing process because they exist there today does not mean the work is done it is an ongoing process that needs to continue the outcome of the Dual end coordinates
067collaborative efforts which was presented with Dr Raven at the New York state border of regions underscores the direct impact on student achievement and increased teacher efficacy under the leadership of the DU langage coordinator teachers participate in cycles of instructional best practices the coordinator facilitates districtwide after school professional development and plc's and supervisor summer curriculum right a specific example of the coordinator curriculum uh contributions is the their leading role in summer curriculum that resulted in the merging of Ela and social studies and instruction in grade four the coordinator work addresses a challenge that we face as a district in providing Creative Solutions maximizing learning during the school day as Pat mentioned the chair people and the coordinators and the district leaders like read coordinators all support this work the Dual language coordinator is instrumental in creating
068and maintaining the Bilal book rooms and the Multicultural Resource Centers in two of our two language schools please visit these beautiful spaces I know miss you have I don't know I Mr Sant you have if you haven't yet gone please go and see these beautiful spaces that the Dual end coordinator is responsible for maintaining and it is an ongoing work in progress I do not know who will take care of that it will be a waste of resources and a waste of space that we have spent bunny on also those faes have direct impact on student learning and teacher learning the work of the Dual language coordinator creates a cultural environment where students and her colleagues ride the Dual language coordinator supports initiatives that guarantee students and families receive what they need to be successful
069in and out of school our students teachers and administrators continue to need the leadership of the Dual language coordinator so finally I ask that you continue continue to do this hard work of looking CL at the impact of the loss of teachers and specifically the Dual language coordinator I ask sincerely that you please continue to place value in our hardworking dedicated and loving Educators and the Dual language Boer position as we must collectively build Pond and strengthen the Multicultural assets of this community thank you so much I really appreciate your time good evening and welcome good evening uh my name is k oon I'm a parent of a fourth and sixth grader in the district the cuts proposed by the superintendent and being um entertained by the Board of Education are Draconian unnecessary and will
070destabilize our children's education while these budget constraints are presented as a surprise they are completely expected if we look at our prepandemic 2018 2019 curriculum net of instruction budget we see that the District budget is 60 million $66 million and then we look at our current proposed budget with a 3% increase um and it looks like a substantial increase but if we factor in the inflation that's been going on every year since 2018 um which is 29% uh according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics in real dollar terms we are $10 million short just to stay where we were compared to 2018 uh you know we've routinely you cut in 2023 you cut the instructional budget by $2.4 million um and then we wonder oh where what are we doing right now uh it's really
071and presenting it as a surprise all right uh so on the one hand we're not keeping up with inflation then we're in shock when inflation hits us hard um you know our district cannot and and also I should note that we keep on talking to where we were 10 years ago and it's interesting because in October when we talked about our assessment scores the The Narrative of that um by Dr Bo was that we are the needs of our school district are much higher than they were 10 years ago and the entire presentation was a comparison between where we were 10 years ago and where we are now so this idea that you know we we have less need of teachers than we did 10 years ago should be completely challenged um you know our
072district cannot afford a reduction in teachers and I wanted to mention that last budget meeting there was a gentleman who prepared the presentation about the FTE um and he stated I quote uh despite proposed Staffing reductions there will be little to no impacts on our middle school programs like in what world does cutting teachers have no impact on program parents croud lying to us as a community again in 2023 when this board of education cut $2.4 million from the curriculum budget um superintendent Santana I asked you afterwards if you didn't think you could improve outcomes in our district with that $2.4 million restored and you told me no and at that time I asked I asked Pap Brady to come and listen to you say that and you refuse to allow that and you can
073deny that all you want you know in October this past year we saw our New York State assessments again demonstrated need in our community okay South Country our school district had only 21% of students that were noted to be proficient in English the lowest ranking in all of long all right no other school district rank less than us so when you compare it to Smithtown and compare to Three Village you are comparing apples and oranges right it's not fair 40 a 40 teacher ruction town with 8,000 students is a lot different than a 25 teacher reduction in South Country School District with 3,900 students um and you know if we look at our m test course only 29% of our students are proficient uh this is the second lowest ranking in Long Island after wiing
074and after 23 when you cut our instructional budget and I came to you guys a lot of you said oh you know we're going to see what happens with this and see what well we saw what happened we went down relatively speaking our kids are underperforming it's not because we don't have good teachers it's not because we don't have good kids they need more [Music] support no reasonable person would assume that our kids need less support okay uh this was and we've had this and we had discussions in October about our assessments at no point Did anyone say oh you know based on this assessment we should be cutting the number teachers in our district uh we also had uh this like meeting at the high school with all these parents uh with all these
075teachers administrators not once did we talk about what our you know how we're going to deal with our instructional needs if this is all a surprise to you it's really terrifying as a parent about you know what's the the handle that we have on our school budget um and I have a lot to say um and yes I have a question where is the shared sacrifice all right we're asking our teachers and our children to tighten their belts and bite the bullet but there's no accountability for our superintendent we have the lowest New York State assessments declining graduation rates all right you can say all the New York State assessments are not that great our graduation rates are declining from 93% to 83% doeses that sound okay to you oh let's cut teachers that's it's
076Bonkers I feel like I'm in a Twilight Zone but in all of this our superintendent is held harmless uh you know it's time for the Board of Education to hold our superintendent responsible uh this is under his watch you know another thing I want to say is for years I've been saying that the KE his power plant which generates $500 million a year is coming onto the tax rols in 2029 and the town of Brook Haven refuses to assess it properly we are assessed at roughly a third of what the P jeffon power plant is assess that and we generate four times the power and that's after they reassess that plan so in 2029 when that comes off there should be tens of millions of dollars coming into this district and we have no idea
077and we were I talked about this years ago stand there's a refusal to understand how much money that plant is going to contribute to our school district and that's part we're in that window right now that's only four years away we need to start planning for that especially when we're talking about cutting uh teachers and the last I'm going to say is you can either pay to educate today or you can pay for the failure to educate tomorrow and it's up up to you guys thank you thank [Applause] you that open the floor for a motion toj motion to Second by Mr all those in favor motion carries have a good night every you going to cut the mics