BOARD OF EDUCATION

001good evening everyone I'm sorry that we're so delayed we were with um Mr W from E the is going over the interview process day so I apologize I'm just waiting for the other board members to get hand start up but it's nice to see all face James foree all right I Recon meeting at 710 p.m. the board is returning from an executive session were matters leading to the appointment of a particular person and Collective negotiations pursuant to article 14th of the Civil Service law were discussed please rise for the Pledge of [Music] Allegiance withy and Justice thank you please okay I have a brief announcement um upon activation of a fire alarm immediate evacuation to the closed emergency exit is required the emergency exits and assembly areas are located on either side of the building

002of the room and the emergency exits uh outside the assembly areas please exit away from the building so as to not interfere with the fire department and proceed to the evacuation areas please follow the direction C of the school officials and once assembled outside the building everyone must wait for an all clear is given by a school official before re-entering the building will the court please call the role kield Anastasia James McKenna here Robson where are you does the clerk have any additions or deltion to the agenda uh yes person 14.01 a has been added to the agenda okay the board of education's next work session meeting will be held on Tuesday March 19th 2024 at 6:30 p.m. including budget review session two nominating petitions to run first seat on the board of education to

003fill the term commencing July 1st 2024 and expiring on June 30th 202 2028 are now available by contacting the district clerk completed petitions must be returned by 5:00 pm on Monday April 22nd uh Friday March 8th is the end of third quarter progress report marking period the boys varsity basketball team will play in the Long Island championships on Saturday March 9th at 1 p.m. against friends Academy and the game will be held at Farmingdale State College JV and varsity spring Sports begin on Monday March 11 mad pres other item it's not just our schools but we're lucky enough to be hosting the schia Music Festival this weekend at the high school so for the middle level students we'll have um Saturday and Sunday will beia concerts at our high school we're hon sure I'm excited

004again as we had the last board meeting we had several student presentations and several items that involved our students to show you um some of the clever things our students are doing beyond the beyond the bells what we're calling the whole series um that's those are several of our presentations tonight but we wanted to start giving you a little highlight of how we're teaching writing across the grade levels um within our district and we're going to start that with um Dr Fernandez and I think M rard who I haven't seen yet I don't know if she's here there she is perfect so nature and um everybody just have to turn good evening can you an So today we're here to talk a little bit about what prek do grade 12 writing looks like across the

005grade levels and we have little examples that we can share with you so you'll see here this is genres of writing and what this shows you are the different standards that are discussed through all the grade levels we have an argument um one standard is an argument um which is when students are giving a topic and they have to give examples to why they believe that way in the elementary school that might look like um um what they believe or how they're supporting something that they feel the standard two is explanatory or informative informational writing which would include um giving examples of how to do something or explaining something in their writing and then we move on to standards three and four which include a narrative where students would be writing about their personal experiences

006or ative um um experiences and those things we're teaching through sequence and then we go on to standards five and standards six and seven which are taught all throughout the grades but it looks a little bit differently um we go into literar literary analysis and research to build and present knowledge which is standards five would look like students writing about story that they might have read and then standard six and seven um moves more into when students are doing a research project project and then writing about what they've learned so what does the process look like to writing it looks very differently and we start in prek where students really are drawing pictures we're giving students information we're building background knowledge and brainstorming different kinds of ideas then they move on to the expectations of

007what they have to do for that writing where they're going to have the expectations that they begin with having to write a sent sentence how to do um put their grammar and their capitalizations and their punctuations at the end of it and we teach students um in our prek kindergarten how those sounds are letters and those letters make words and you'll see the progression as we show some examples of how students writing literally go from just writing labels and writing picture drawing pictures and writing words to match their pictures to writing sentences um and then they're writing full paragraphs using graphic organizers different kinds of desending starters um and student checklist to help them with that writing process and then we go on to steps five which is peer editing revising and conferencing where students

008are really learning how to go back check their stories and edit their stories so that they really can make um a well-developed story and we do this in prek through 4 and students are learning how to write in both English and in Spanish and then we end in Step six where there's a rubric where again students are looking at their stories and students are doing peer um feedback with each other and then teachers are also giving that feedback to show how they can progress and we're really using students writings to help them develop to get to that next section and it's very um it's very individualized so that students are really getting what they need and where they're at so this is an example of a kindergarten howto writing and this is around January so

009as you can see um there's four pages there's a picture on every single page this is an example of a how to brush your teeth and I'm just going to read a little bit because you might not be able to see that and the students is writing first get your toothbrush and your toothpaste next wet your toothbrush and put toothpaste on then brush your teeth last spit the toothpaste and spit the water spit the water um and this is where in January and the way again the way that we get there is by beginning with that brainstorming beginning with those ideas giving those students those graphic organizers and then helping them with what starts with just a word and then how does that word turn into a sentence to finally become um a a story

010then we have a first grade personal narrative and here is an example of a student writing about something that happened to them again you'll notice more details on every single picture there's more lines more words a little bit more detail is coming we're teaching transition words here and making sure that the story has a beginning middle and end and I'll just read a little bit of this one as well one day my dad and I was on the airplane Mom I'm not going to say the child's name was in front of us when I was on the airplane I was watching princesses then we got off the plane together we saw a lot of people then we had to go on the stairs then we went on the it's a little cut off on the

011escalator then at night I had to go to the man to get my family bags to get to get scan to get scanned then I felt happy finally we went to the the jam maker Hotel I was so happy because I got to swim and if you look really closely you'll see those details in the pictures to match that but you'll notice the the beginning the middle and the end and the progression from kindergarten to first grade of even adding more sentences and adding a little bit more detail as we go on I'll go back one more and before I go on to um some of the older grades this is just another example of a personal narrative but this one is in Spanish so like I said before students are learning how to write

012in both English and in Spanish so this is Toto Familia and the the child is writing all about their family again you'll notice the pictures on each page how very much more detailed they are they're talking about the members of their families they're saying that their family is loud and they like to eat together um I celebrate um Thanksgiving with my family I like Thanksgiving because I get to see my grandmother and then the last page they talk about their favorite their favorite trip May I love my family because they take me places we live together we eat together and I love them on that last page this is an example of this is an example of a third grade opinion writing this is a child that's writing about um a dream that they have

013for the school again you'll see there's more writing on the page now we're getting more details more specific examples on this page again the process still always starts the the same with the graphic Oran izer brainstorming adding more details and the teachers are conferencing and really giving the student what they need at that specific level to help them get to help them grow as writers and each time that they write they're writing a little bit more and the the evidence of the standards is off a little bit to the left so that what is meant for them to do is introduce a topic and organize related information develop the topic with facts um and use precise language and context specific vocabulary so if you read it a little bit more thoroughly you'll see there's a

014little bit more tier tier three words of great specific vocabulary in this story and I'll just read a little bit of it I have I have a dream so that all kids are allowed to have an education so they can learn English Spanish French and many other languages and they would help people that don't know other languages here are some people that help me change the world and then they go on to different people that have helped them change them such as Ruby Bridges Martin Luther King Rosa Parks um and she ends it with and it's important to learn more than one language so we can learn about other cultures and make connections to our own culture and then our last example that we have for you is an argument writing um and this is

015about climate change and the student was tested with writing an argument to support claims using clear reasons and relevant evidence and again you'll notice three pages a title page there's a strong introduction we end with a strong conclusion so in the the time span that the students are here at sces with us they really go from non-writers just drawing pictures to eventually really writing an essay in the claim to get them ready for the middle school and I'll just read a small paragraph from that to give you an example climate change boom bam hear that that's fireworks polluting the air crash that's the glazers falling and melting what is causing all of this Devastation climate change we need to pay more attention to climate changes and then she goes on to different reasons where you

016have a good introduction for each paragraph examples giving um for each one of those introduction statements and then finally with a conclusion good evening um I'm nature Rashard I'm the 7 through 12 Ela department chair and and I'm going to represent and show you what the writing process looks like um from the Middle School to the high school I'm just going to go back one of the slides so I can just go back to the writing process for a moment and speak from there so when kids go from the elementary school back um and come to the Intermediate School um fifth and sixth grade still build up off of those Elementary skills and experiences that they have but still going through the writing process and then I'm going to speak to grades 78 910 and

0171112 and they're in bands that way um when we address them as standards so one of the things that it's really important that I want to point out is that we really want to make sure that we give the students skills to be able to from seventh grade and 8th grade and Ninth Grade to pick up on the process but to also by 11th and 12th grade really know themselves as writers and understand their writing voice and be more fluid through the process so that whether they're going to college or career that they understand there's a process for writing but they do what part of that process works best for them so it's really important to understand that that process really builds them to be ready whether going into college or career so the first

018grade I'm going to go straight to was grade six so grade six we're continuing to build upon students voices in their own personal experiences and that mirrors a lot of what you saw at the elementary school mirroring their experiences not only what they read but in their everyday life and so this right here mixed both narrative writing with research and so this student wrote a story but also researched Henry atax and learning not only through that research how to develop that process but then what that process looks like through their perspective in lens so for this one here they had to actually conduct um research questions and those inquiry questions become really important as they progress through the grade levels because we allow students to be able to have that choice and to think about

019what they wonder and then research that and write about that it's really important that students write about what they're passionate about so you'll notice again that you um I might skip a grade level or two as I continue through because again we're going through bands so um again we're going back to argument writing like we saw at the elementary school it looks a little different students are typing um they're using media and they are able to then still go through that process but we have some student samples here and students were reading a book and it's important that through the genres students are able to respond whether they're reading something and then writing about it or writing about something to defend a position and this included both so students read the giver and then after

020reading the giver having to argue for or against a dystopian or utopian society it's actually one of the um students favorite books in seventh grade it really get students thinking about society and the world in ninth grade um going back to that um the student voice and especially experiences when you're moving from the Middle School to the high school and what that looks like and students um digging a little deeper to start to explore who they are and understand that development um at the high school so this project right here is a nth grade cultural identity research project and students um were able to look at their own cultural identity and when I say culture it's not always ethnic ethnicity um culture spreads in many different areas whether it's um you're part of a beach

021culture or a farming culture or students writing about their own um shinika Heritage which is very specific here to the Southampton School District so this one here um hones in on um students culture identity and they interviewed family members and pinpointed familial traditions students then had to research write and they also created some artifacts so one of the things that's really important when we do the um culture identity research project we start um helping students um learn how to use the library and the tools that they will need for both College and Career again and this one here we use the online databases and online databases is essential for students to be able to use not only in high school but also Beyond 11th grade so you'll see some looping here some of the um

022writing that we do May address more than one standard um so this one here is an 11th grade narrative writing so one of the things that's super important in 11th grade um I also like to just point out my colleague here um Craig tentis um this is actually something that is huge for 11th grade which is really preparing students to develop their voice whether it's college or career and we don't want students to feel like they're just writing essays for college but they're writing essays to be able to um show that voice from whether they're brushing their teeth and going through a process at the beginning when they're young but then what those um processes then start to look like and impact their lives and write about it so this is the College and Career

023narrative writing and that also um starts to um they build off of this in 12th grade so also um in 12th grade this one here is a 12th grade literary analysis prompt and this prompt here uh and you'll see in the writing prompt it says five paragraphs so that's our goal in the end students should be able to have the rigor to be able to um address a writing prompt in a minimum of five paragraphs and through that writing process that um both Dr Fernandez and I showed earlier they're able to do this and be able to grab those different graphic organizers and tools and get feedback from um rubrics and from teachers and other PE so this one here allowed students to look at literature and respond to it um and still continue to

024devel up their voice as a student while they read literature so our hope is whether it's um kindergarten prek all the way to 12th grade that students have a process to go to as Tools in their back pocket so that they're able to express their voice they're able to do research they're able to write stories about themselves other people in the world around them so thank you for allowing us to show you how important it is for us to talk about the writing process and one last thing when we developed um and we were working on curriculum in grades 7 through 12 the first thing we did is not develop units by books but develop the units through writing and what students would have to do at the end of that unit through writing and

025not just reading so writing is really important within every building and we continue to build upon that and please ask your child out there in the community and all of our parents to start to share what that writing looks like and when they bring it home and and tarita to you so that we can continue to help support that student voice would you just stand theree the board has any questions hi I don't have a question I just have a a comment Nicole your decoding skills are A1 any other questions from the board thank you both of you we really appreciate it thanks now again we go back to last board meeting we highlighted some of our clubs that are happening in each of the buildings and we wanted to continue that on this evening

026and so we're gonna invite Dr Nick Epley who's going to talk about two of the clubs he handles at the elementary school Dr Epley thank you very much my name is Nick Epley this is my 10th year in Southampton I currently teach second grade and right now I just wanted to invite my um rotary community service Club students and my Unified sports club students to come up to the podium with me I have some former Rotary Club students here so if you're a former Rotary Club students give a nice I see Michael there James there a nice surprise to see them as well so so um the club first I'm to talk about is the rotary opening act club and um I just want to highlight I just want to give a shout out to

027uh these hardworking students now there's about between 40 and 50 students uh in the club the this the fourth fourth year this club has been happening um so we have about 40 and 50 um students I just want to highlight all the work um that these students have done um over the past four years and this school year as well so you know as an adviser of a club with 40 to 50 kids I have to get very creative and one thing I like to do is I like to do a lot of Saturday activities so I just want to give a shout out to all the parents and the students for volunteering their Saturdays to to do community service so it's really amazing to see and here are some things that uh we done

028so the goal of the club is to help students understand the importance of getting back and helping their Community um and we helped various organizations in in our community um first one we do every year the last three four years we've done an annual Car Wash and bake sale uh to help them the Coalition for women's cancers um so it's a great event every October we've done it um we be raised a couple thousand dollars this past year again this was a Saturday so the kids are out there washing cars for four or five hours selling baked baked goods uh parents came out and they help volunteer too because there's no way I can control 50 kids hes and soap so thank you to all the parents as well for that um one thing we've

029done um annually is a uh a food drive outside stoping shop so this is another Saturday event where students uh they stand outside Stop and Shop they collect cans they talk to people going in and out of the um in and out of the grocery store and um we were able to raise uh get truckloads of food for heart of the Hampton and that was a big success um one thing we recently did the last two years we've uh we've worked with PSI love you day so we've spread positive messages in town and throughout the school um you know we had we spray painted rocks purple with positive messages on it so if you're on a bench in town and you see a purple rock with a positive message on it that's your to keep

030we spread them all over town you might have recognized on a lot of the stores in town that there's positive messages just to spread the message of PS I Love You day you know spreading you know kindness and letting people know that um that they're amazing they're thought of so were very creative and they made really great signs and uh they had a great time walking around town talking to different stores and very proud of of uh the way they handled themselves in the community um some other things every the past four years we've done rotary food boxes um so the Rotary Club uh packs the boxes the older Club the high school middle school rotary clubs packed the boxes so the students have had fun of assembling them so we assembled you know 100

031150 boxes and they had a good time decorating them uh we did a Halloween candy drive for heart of the Hamptons so we decorated candy bags we stuffed candy bags um we helped with the polar bear plch which is a fundraiser far the Hamptons so again they went through town and they hung up polar bear CL uh Polar Bear Plunge signs and town one thing we have on the on our schedule for May is Beach cleanups so uh you know we're going to go clean up the beach in May right before Memorial Day weekend um and uh one of my favorite things uh is we do a lot of cards and letters to the nursing home and uh we do a lot of cards around Christmas time and around Valentine's Day Mother's Day and Father's

032Day and um this is just one card that I have actually have it hanging in my classroom that I wanted to highlight I can't really read over here so I wrote it down it just says Dear Community Service Club thank thank you for your very generous donations of Valentine's Day cards to the Hampton Center my mom is a resident there and I saw the most beautiful pictures of her smiling and holding up a card such a gift um so I just want I I share that with my students to kind of spread the message of you know how important it is to to spread that message of kindness and let people know that they're being thought of around Christmas time Valentine's and I feel like it resonates really well to students that very responsive uh

033to you know the cards and they have a good time and one of my favorite things we did this year was the autism acceptance basketball game that was in January we raised around $6,000 for the flying Point foundation for autism so uh my this club here they did an amazing job of making signs in the gym so if you guys attended that game uh the acceptance and inclusion and kindness signs they were all created by by these guys right here um and also they sold a lot of raffle tickets and uh they worked very hard selling those raffle tickets and also shout out to the parents um irisa is here R's whole family as well as a couple other families they um stood outside uh the gym and they sold um Candy they sold raffle

034tickets and just thank you so much for great job and uh just big shout out to so a couple other things upcoming events that I want to publicly announce uh on April 5th right here in the sis cafeteria we're having a silent Disco uh this year all the funds raised for the silent disco are going to go to our Unified sports programs um so I've been working with Brian tened and the STA to get and also the PTO uh to get sound disco up and running so April 5th mark your calendar it's going to be a great time can I just ask you to tell for those who don't know can you explain what a silent disco is oh of course yeah so silent disco is um there's music playing through headphones so when you

035walk into the cafeteria it's going to be silent so usually school dance is very loud and it could be over stimulating for uh you know um people it could be sensory overload um for people maybe with autism or sensory sensitivity so it's a a fundraiser to raise awareness for um our our special needs community and people with Sensi sensitivity um so as a parent with child with autism you know that's what I I went to an event and it was a sound disco and it seemed like a great idea and last year was our first annual silent disco and U I'm so happy it's coming back and it's uh help raise awareness and it's going to be a great time so April 5th in the uh in the cafeteria right here so everyone come on

036down and it's G to be a good event um also we have done lemonade stands in the past we have one coming up end of April so if you're in town on April I believe 25th the Saturday of Spring Break Stop on uh in town and buy a couple lemonade it's going to go towards flying Point Foundation uh to help kids go to Camp so those are some events and um just a big shout out to these hardworking students do you guys want to announce say your names in the microphone or say any want to say anything say I miss a head day it's actually very interesting because everyone up here is actually in the next club I'm going to talk about too um so they're going to pull double D tonight and hang out

037with me while I talk about the next Club too uh so the next Club I want to is uh the elementary Unified sports club um oh sorry one one other thing before I move I just want to thank the Rotary Club for the for sponsoring the uh so I just want to thank Dr Dino for his support with the Rotary Club um so thank you and then thank you to all the members of rotary club for believing in this club and supporting it and um I really appreciate the opportunity and stud so thank you you're very welcome thank you and uh so I'm going to talk about the elementary Unified sports club and um this club is actually its first year in its existence uh we started it in October um and I've had such

038a great time with this club it's um it's been fun we've had uh Saturdays we have about between 20 and 30 students um in the club and what it what Unified sports is is um at the elementary level um we follow the Special Olympics young athletes curriculum and young athletes is an early childhood play program it's geared towards um children around the ages of two to seven um I've expanded it uh modified it a little bit to open it up to prek through fourth grade students um so it introduces basic Sports skills like running kicking and throwing uh children learn how to play with others and develop um important skills for learning so it's been a great um experience I've had a lot of fun with it um I hope everyone up here had fun

039with it too uh so children they learned to share take turns follow directions um these skills help children in family community and school activities um so it's um through Special Olympics as a speci coach I went through Special Olympics training Special Olympics New York has been a big help with the training process and everything um and uh so what this club is uh we have about like 20 students ranging from prek to fourth grade and we uh we meet most Saturdays we've been meeting most Saturdays since October um so one thing I love about this club is that the students uh we get a lot of student volunteers from the high school and middle school um you see in that picture there we have our varsity basketball team I just wanted to give a shout

040out to them because they have been coming a lot of Saturdays so you know they've been having a great season on the court but off the court I just want to give them a huge shout out for being such helpful community members and they're great with the kids and uh they they have they seem to have a great time so and also in that picture you can't really his brother Madden is there uh the warden Brothers one of the Cook Brothers is there from the high school so you got a lot of high school volunteers coming out which is great you know they're giving up their Saturday mornings to uh come hang out with us and play some sport so it's been a it's been a great um time so hey we're structured we have

041a 5 minute warm-up we work on PO group skill development uh we do some station work and then we have like a cool down and our favorite the parachute as you can see in the picture it's my favorite too so um it's good time so here are some pictures just working on some skills and know building some good friendships and uh having some having a good time so um so I just want to give a special um thank you to Darren Phillips our athletic director for you know believing in this program and you know putting his trust in me to kind of uh you know run it and make it my own and um so thank you so much to Darren and Brian Kennedy who is in has such vast knowledge of Unified sports and

042um his support uh has been amazing throughout this whole process and I learning so much from uh coach Kennedy Dr Dino for your support as well and thank you to the school board for your support and this uh this amazing uh program that I really enjoyed coaching and May 11th we're gonna have a Special Olympics event at the elementary school so you can mark the calendars for that one too so we're I'm hoping to have a good event on that day so um anybody want to share their FA part of Unified sports see is correcting me yeah it might be at might be at the high school might be the school just for the board and for the community um thanks to Dr E's efforts and and Coach Ten's efforts we're one of the we

043are the only District on the eastn that has unified programs in all three of our school buildings so we're thrilled that you were able to complete it by offering it at the elementary level so thank you for that thank you very much kindergarten um um my favorite part is the parachute we do it at the end [Applause] oh it's yeah well um huge shout out to these uh athletes these community service members and just thank you all so much there's also more that aren't here that couldn't be here tonight but I just want to thank everybody for their hard work and you guys are amazing thank you so much thank you [Applause] thank you so much I appreciate [Applause] it now we're going to move over to the um intermedia school and for that I'm

044going to have to ask Dr botcher Mr mango M kavalis and Mr Smith they asked us if you would just maybe stand by your window here because they're going to need the space there I'm going to introduce Miss Martin who's going to tell us a little bit about what the board is going to see and we have to put your now okay so as you can see this was quite a um undertaking here this is the fifth grade dual language class my name is Ellen Martine and these wonderful students um never cease to amaze me in how hard they will work and um and and how much fun they can have with some literature which is what I love to see the best of all um what they're going to present to you today is

045a legend an azte Legend called Los noios I first read this story 40 years ago when I was in lar Strickland class over at the high school um and I never forgot about it I love the story when I got back here um I found the The Legend again and presented it to the kids and told them wouldn't it be great if we could retell this story since it is like an oral tradition passed down from generation to generation and year after year the kids have risen up um this fifth grade class is is really amazing we have combined the two groups we have everybody but three students from the the two classes here tonight so thank you parents for rearranging your schedules and helping to get the kids here uh they haven't practiced this

046this is a true love story that they're going to tell you tonight and we presented it back uh the week before vacation around Valentine's Day um which was perfect timing they're going to do their best to remember their lines they know they can count on me to help them out um and they're going to remember their volume button these mics are all on so you're going to speak as loud as you can to get your yeah and please oh it's okay it's okay but the back the beautiful backdrop that may fall um was also Al created by the students um and it's based on a picture that I showed them that it's a genuine picture I'm not pulling anybody's leg we watched pop the kepit an actual volcano in Mexico um on the webcam of

047Mexico and after a few minutes I said okay that's enough kids and I hit the screen to stop it and with that the perfect heart of smoke was coming out of poo and all the kids were just like blown away so I had that picture I get a screenshot of it and so they created this backdrop this year based on that um this H these two volcanoes po andachi are uh between kind of Mexico City and Pua the other reason why it's so special is once I started telling the story many of our families from Mexico here in Southampton are actually from pedla they know the story many of their families speak naak which is the the Aztec language um yeah any thank you um and so it really became a a special kind of

048story connection um in so many different ways so without any further Ado I'm going to get these guys set up they haven't done this in three weeks fingers are crossed here yes yes oh we are we're creating a bilingual ill uh book of the story illustrated by the kids an electronic version that you'll get um as soon as it's finished they they can do the story in English with their cards but they don't have that part [Applause] spe [Music] speech spe fore [Music] fore [Music] foree speee foree [Music] speech fore speeech [Music] spee [Music] foreign speech spe for foreign speech look for go Mex [Music] thank [Applause] you [Music] thank you so much one of the hard things about last [Music] last all right so our final super presentation is going to be uh from

049the high school and it's Mr T's going to talk about our journalism and newspaper program and he's brought some students with and he'll intr students so we'll turn it over [Music] to put the microphone pleas that little good evening uh my name is Craig tentis I'm currently 11th grade English teacher and a journalism teacher at the high school uh last year I was given the opportunity to take over the journalism class I wasn't quite quite sure what I wanted the class to be or what it should look like uh the class has been through two iterations before me I was thinking it could be a history of Journalism the impact of jour jism how to write for journalism or just a school paper I decided the best way to figure this out was to just

050ask the students last year became very clear very quickly that the students wanted to produce a school paper so that's what we did we decided that we would produce a monthly School newspaper using Google sites called Rip Tide news from this point forward it become a very student- centered class allowing the students to control what we did and how we did it originally the monthly issues would be released at the beginning of the month so because of timely and relevant topics this year issues are released at the end end of the month for the following month last week March issue was released we've completed 15 issues and are currently working on our 16th students write anywhere between three to four articles for the issue which gives the paper 15 to 20 articles each time for

051each issue the students have chosen a monthly topic they will write about each time this ranges from Entertainment Sports culture School happenings politics world news Etc additionally they have a choice article which they can write about whatever they would like and lastly students have a topic that changes on the uh we are in based generally it's about what's going on around us or just the month itself the freedom in the writing has produced countless well-written inform art informative articles students that have been taking this class have really been showing off and putting their best foot forward it's been a great learning experience not just for them but also for me and I've enjoyed being able to read all these interesting articles one of the best parts about this uh class is and the paper is

052how accessible it is WR I'm going to ask you to be my Vanna White the paper can be found in the high school's website so if you go to the district to the high school then on the right hand side with a couple of the links it's a little ways down it's the Rip Tide online newspaper it's also sent out to the whole community on P Square by Dr Zan um and with that I have two students here that are going to talk about their experiences they're both seniors one former journalist for the first semester Jerry Hy and another current and who actually has been with me the entire time and is a current co-editor Ronan Brady first r uh hello board members and uh all of those who are here tonight uh for those

053who don't know me uh my name is Ronan Brady and I'm a senior here at shs I've been thankful enough to have had a phenomenal experience with the entire English Department here at shs um however I was very surprised to find my favorite experience in the journalism class uh which I've been taking for two years now journalism has taught me not only how to be a stellar journalist thank you to Mr tentis but how to network for myself write and interview alongside all of these valuable skills I have been privileged enough to be a part of a journalism family as we are always collaborate our we are constantly collaborating supporting and helping each other my compliment of the journalism class and its advisor Mr ttis could go on forever but I would simply like to

054thank you for this opportunity to present my experience in journalism and I would especially like to thank Mr tendis for giving me one of the best experiences I've had in high school and throughout my life thank you so much good evening Bor I'm Jerry Hy I was a journalist last semester for the journalism course and I wrote about 18 articles during my tenure I wrote various topics and what I really did enjoy about the journalism class but it g is that it gave the students a platform to write about what they want usually in our day-to-day English classes we only really write about books or current events but I got to write about things that made me happy which really made me happy as a writer when I think nature said earlier when you write

055about what you like you like to write and I think that that really showed in this course in particular and I think that it really drove me to pursue writing for my future um I always was convincing myself that I was trying to be a science major but it never really worked out I always like writing better so I think that this course really gave me an opportunity to pursue what I like to write and figure out why I liked to write in fact I actually interviewed Miss Proctor for one of my articles back in October and it's just been such a pleasant experience to really work with Mr tentis and also the English Department as a whole for the newspaper this question board members any questions for Mr no but I wanted to just

056say thank you to Jerry R for sharing your experience um I I read the I read it all every time I get it um I love reading the Articles and ran how are you a senior still like that in my mind so congratulations on being a senior and Jerry thank you for your contributions thank you for coming tonight and I do have to tell you Mr ters and students I like the whole shift like like years ago the paper was just about things that were happening in the high school I like that it's about relevant topics I like that student choice I really think and the the how the additions come out so so frequently it really is helpful too so I really appreciate all the work you're doing and all the thought you put

057into it so thank you thank you so much we appreciate you being [Applause] here okay so now for our dessert for the evening is our budget presentation just to give a little bit of overview Mr Migo is here tonight to present the first version of our budget this is not the final version of our first draft this is really um an overview of the budget and what we believe the budget has to be we're still going through the process of identifying the staff that needs to be in place next year the programs that need to be in place that will be talked about in dep at our next sorry power sorry iiz [Music] sorry so with that we're tur over to Mr again as I said we're going to go detail about programs and Staffing

058next budget cycle and we're going to talk about again where we are and how how how we've changed over the past 10 years in the next budget Pres sorry about the microphone yep um maybe it's me but I I think I'm being set up every year you know we usually have student presentation and then here here come Jean Bard them with the with the numbers um as Dr Dino mentioned this is uh still in draft form um the budget is still being developed um I'm going to highlight some of the major U points in the budget but uh in my next presentation I'll go into more details uh so the first um aspect of the budget that I usually look at is the tax cap um I've presented on this many years and you know

059in some aspects things haven't changed um so districts are restricted to um schol school districts are restricted to um a 2% tax cap every year and that's set by the the governor um the tax cap dictates how much money the district can ask the taxpayers from year to year without having to um get a super majority vote uh the tax cap limit may increase 2% and um that's the maximum we can ask the other um factor is the uh local growth factor and for 2024 it's set at um 1 point I mean 0.10% so that's the other um aspect of the budget that allows you to grow beyond the 2% based on the um 2% tax cap and the one .17 growth factor the maximum that we can tax for the district in 2024 2025

060is 63,9 40,3 31 uh without having to ask for a super majority vote of 60% or more um again Statewide the the the growth fact is set by the inflation rate so typically the um controller's office set the uh growth rate or the tax cap level based on the inflation rate throughout the year and this year because of the high rate of inflation we get to go to the maximum of 2% this is uh graphic or or the the um this is actually a table that shows the maximum amount that I'm requesting for the budget for this year uh the total budget is set at 79 m937 to1 um this year this current year 2023 2024 the total budget is 76 M 899,000 and the difference from year to year based on uh what I'm

061proposing for next year is 3, 03821 which translate into a 3.95 year-over-year growth percentage um you also see the different components of the budget or the revenue um these are the sources of revenue for the district so we have state aid which uh for this year is being reduced um specifically the foundation rate aid for the district is being reduced by uh $477,000 which translate into a um negative 15.53% reduction we also I also calculated or projected the U tuition that we received from tuckaho at 6,109 197,000 uh approximately a growth of 16.4% uh based on the five-year contract that we have to witho and the the number of students that are currently attending uh the Native American um tuition is projected at um 5,186 516 um again there is a growth there and that's

062primarily based on the uh rates that I recently received from the New York State um head office and the other um items in the budget which which is a variety of um Revenue sources amount to about $2.1 million uh and that's what makes up the the 79937 20101 um total budget being uh projected for next year in building the budget I have to take many things into consideration um again this year is um especially challenging in building the budget um first we have the reduction in state aid then we have the different areas of growth or increases in the budget in particular and I'll speak to that in the coming slides um in the terms of the health insurance um cost for the district so we look at basically the retiring staff and um Dr

063Dino and Dr Bacher and I we have conversations and see if in some cases if some of the positions um can be um well in some cases do they need to be replaced and in some cases we have savings because of the retiring staffs we usually hire them their Replacements at a lower rate so there are some savings there as well um we look at um what's being budgeted for TRS and ERS um those are the retirement um systems that our employees subscribe to uh the distri don't set the rates for those retirement programs they are dictated by the state um and in later slides I'll show you the rates for the upcoming year um we look at the capital projects and um in most cases um capital projects are funded with our reserves in

064particular the medical insurance um this year is a bit problematic in terms of the year-to-year increases um again these are some of the rates um in the with the night ship which um all the employees in the district are under the N Ship insurance plan except for the teachers so the individual rate uh is going from $15,700 to1 17348 and that's a 10.5% year-to-year increase the family rate is going from $ 37,7 to$ 40,45 9% increase the individual Medicare from 5,560 to 6,587 uh 18.5 family Medicare Prime with one member 15898 to 19859 um almost a 25% year toye increase and um the family Medicare Prime with two um members under Medicare is going from 14503 to 17976 almost a 24% increase um it's important to note that those rates um are based on the

065calendar year so when I'm building the budget basically I'm building it with a projection for six months because I don't know what the rate will be starting in July so for instance last year the rates were pretty high at the beginning of the year but went down a little bit um when we got the July rates but based on in my projection I can only go with what I have for now um East End Health Plan is the other insurance plan that we subscribe to and um the it's mostly the teachers actually I believe the teachers are the only group that remains on the East End Health Plan um they haven't finalized their rate yet but based on you know experience the increases are probably going to be very similar to what we received from

066Nicha uh I expect to receive um the rates in the next couple of weeks again that's why I mentioned at the beginning that um the budget is still being developed because I still I'm still waiting for some of the information this is a historical view at the nship premium um leading back to 2007 and and going back that year the individual rate was $677 in 2024 it's up to 17,346 I'm not going to go read each rate um change over over the that period but um the increases are pretty um significant um the items highlighted in yellow shows you the growth over that period of time from 2007 to 2024 uh where the individual rate has an increase of 156% uh the family rate 181% Medicare individual 65 uh Medicare family with one member 71

067and Medicare family with um two members 104% over that time period this is an aspect of the budget that again the school district have no control over um basically we react to it and it's growing year by year and it's taking a bigger and bigger portion of the budget as I develop it every year um this is not unique to Southampton every District have to deal with the same thing um basically again to continue with the insurance aspect um the budget cost of the insurance benefits for 2024 2025 currently is budgeted at 11,631 966 um as compared to this current year where it was budgeted at 10,586 607 that's a net change of of almost $1.4 million that I have to make up in the budget um the projected year-to-year increase is almost 14% 13.65

068um again insurance cost makes up about close to 15% of the proposed budget for um the coming year and the increase based on the numbers that I have now represent about 4.97% of the total budget increase that are projected for next year so it's almost half of the increase from year to year is coming from the inflation and insurance um District contribution to to Retirement Systems again we have two Retirement System systems that we primarily subscribe to TRS which is the teachers retirement system and ERS which is the Employee Retirement System the TRS um the ERS is for all the other employees in the district um except for the teachers so the rate went from 9.76% in for this year to a projected rate increase of 10.25% for 2024 2025 I just have to adance

069the slide oh sorry um ERS is growing from 13.1% um for this current year to a projected growth to 15.2% um because of a growth year-to-year greater than 2% um the state allows it to be um excluded from the tax cap calculation and that means a total of 11,7 $75 is being excluded from the tax cap calculation it's one of the items that can be excluded from the tax cap um other items that will be um submitted to the voters this year are the capital projects that we do from year to year and those reserves are built from the uh fund balance that we usually have at the end of the school year um the capital reserve 2027 um currently has about $5.5 million uh in May of last year uh vot the voters approved

070about $3.9 million in projects for this current year some of the projects are being executed now uh but the majority of them will be executed over the summer period um the capital reserve for the district office if you recall we took money out of that Reserve to purchase the uh do across the street and last year we asked the voters for 3.5 million dollars to renovate that space so we can move in um the project is ongoing uh at this point we waiting for the state to approve um the project and we're hoping to get that approval within the next couple of months so that the renovation can start over the summer um period we also have the capital reserve for The Bu Fleet replacement which currently has a balance of about $1.9 million um

071the capital reserve for techology equipment $6,000 and the repair Reserve that we have been using for many of the projects that were presented by the director of facilities um is um The Reserve currently has $726,000 um as far as the next steps will continue to work um to refine the budget uh the projections on both on the expense and the revenue side um we'll continue to meet with the directors and principles to um finalize their their parts of the budget we had initial Mee meetings with them um throughout um February uh if necessary we will continue to meet with them uh to address some of their concerns um um I met with the audit and finance committee um couple weeks ago to um give them a a a brief U presentation on the budget and

072um I'll continue to do that uh prior to the next um presentation I'll definitely meet with them uh to present some of the changes um over that time period and uh we'll continue to have discussions about possible course savings opportunities uh before we have the final budget for the board to adopt um at this point I'll be happy to take any questions if you have yes if you can go back to page I think four of the proposed budget for [Music] yep is that it or no the shows the total budget yes there it is right there y so our total budget is 79,900 almost almost $80 million and 63 million of that is the tax levy so some of the other numbers look small in comparison but you're looking at you know approximately $17

073million coming into the district outside of the tax Lev correct so when you look at a number like you know the state aid is 2 and a half million 6 million from up native americ 5 million and you have other 2.1 million we proposed 2.1 million is almost double what last year's 1.2 million is to me $2 million isn't anything that sne that it looks small in comparison to the total budget but what is other and you give me some examples of what other might be for $2 million other is um um number of categories so the interest that we earn with our funds right now we earning a significant amount of Interest with uh from our deposits with um dime and N class so um I projected if I recall about 650,000 in interest

074income for next year uh another category is um tuition from other districts so other than Taho we have students um who receive special ed services um I believe currently we have about five students so that generate about 400,000 uh we have health services for other District we have um olh so because we are the District of residents we provide Health Services to the students at olh and we build the sending districts for those services so that's another source of revenue for the district and we provide uh fuel for sag AR it's a number of smaller categories that can vary anywhere from 10,000 to $50,000 that make up that thank you I have it more in detail if you want I can share you share those details with you for category and what I project for

075them thank you a question about the uh the health insurance rates and um when you talk with other business officials what it just seems so seems unsustainable in the long term like are there any other options for school districts or what are your thoughts about that I don't believe there are many other options out there um because um health insurance in general it's not restricted to school district any business that have to deal with those costs you know they have to deal with the exponential increases year to year um so it's not isolated to only school districts um and I believe actually we are in a good position in the sense that we can pull our resources as through the eastn health plan and the N Ship other otherwise if we had to go and

076you know get health insurance in isolation as a district I believe the cost would be even higher so um it's not something that I think any school district have any control over just have to react to it unfortunately thank you for making this presentation for us and making it so that I understand it okay I'm glad you were paying attention I always pay attention to you okay I didn't put you to sleep any ask any questions thank you Mr Mr M no question okay we are on to the public comments portion of the meeting public comments will be heard on agenda items only at this time Board of Education encourages public participation on school related matters at board meetings any group or organization wishing to address the board must identify a single spokesperson presentation should

077be as brief as possible no speaker will be permitted to speak for longer than three minutes the board will not permit in public session discussions involving individual District Personnel or students all speakers are to connect themselves in the civil manner obscene language liess statements threats of violence statements advocating racial relist or other forms of prejudice will not be tolerated person making persons making presentations at the board meeting will address remarks to the president and may direct questions or comments to board members or other District officials only upon approval of the president anyone like to come up and make okay thank you we're moving on to superintendent reports okay thank you m president I have um a few items that I did want to go over Ron I don't know if you're going to go up

078to the screen please the first item R getting is the district calend and again I apologize I have this head side of been going on but the district calendar I presented to you for next year this a tenative one I submitted several weeks ago and now as finalized and I'm asking you to approve this calendar the big change is the additional staff work day that will happen it's listed on two separate dates um staff will have a choice either to come in on Thursday August 22nd or Thursday August 29th for a full day of Staff Development prior to the year starting that will then equalize to or bring us to 184 work days for staff and 180 instructional days for students of all the other holidays and the other um days off or days on

079are as was listed on the previous versions so with that change I'm ready to recommend that to you for approval for next year so that is on the consent agenda for this evening are there any questions related to the calendar before I go to the next I'm sorry the staff will have the choice of Dr Bacher and I are doing parallel training so it'll be the same trainings on both days and staff will choose which work for their summer schedule which day to commit so individuals will choose individuals yes yes and we'll have it through my learning plan they'll have to it and put it in the way they would to select a confence if you will the next item I wanted to talk about again it's that time of month for me to give

080you an enrollment snapshot so Ron if you wouldn't mind pulling that up we actually are pulling that up just to give you a simple overview because I know it is getting um we are up six students as I mentioned the last time we did this um back in February 1st we were down um a typically lower than we usually are in February we've now made up for that and we have six students that six new students that arrived during the month of um between February 1st and March 1st uh we gained a student in kindergarten we gained a student in first grade we gain two students in e8th grade one in 10th Grade and one in 12th grade so we're up as I said we have a an enrollment of 1323 which is up six

081students from the February 1st Ru the next item I'm going to try to be brief but I didn't want to explain it to you because I think it's fairly important we've talked a lot this year about um our concerns about disparity and especially now um the area of special education and the state does a metric they do something called indicator 9 and indicator 10 each year where they go through a series of um looking through our data it's the data that we um upload to State Ed and they look at it um from our special ed Department submitted by our special ed department and they do something called a disparity report I'm just hoping Mr ESO is going to get back to the computer so he can put it up for you so I didn't

082want to explain to a little bit about this disparity report just to tell you that there that there is no dis disproportionality but I did want to um kind of go through the metrics just give you a simple overview of what the state looks at when they're when they're grading each of the districts about the disproportionality it does say indicator 9 indicator 10 I know it's on there okay so again as I mentioned is indicator 9 which talks about the disproportionality in special education by race and ethnicity so it's look looking at students who are classified or receive Services um any disproportionality in that area that's indicator nine indicator 10 is looking at the disproportionality in each of six different classification areas so those are the two things that the state commented on and that's

083what again I'll go through a little bit so Ron if you go to the next um the next page it looks at our students age five through 21 who are identified for special education or related services and it looks at um students who are in our database in seven different racial and ethnic categories which are American Indian as Alaskan native Hispanic Latino Asian black or African-American native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander white or two or more races so with our data from our um our our both our special ed department and our student management system R if you could go to the next page it it considers these it puts them into these risk categories and then it goes through a formula that it checks so it's looking at those students as I men who

084are in our student information repository system which is called s it looks at those who are with and without disabilities as identified by race and ethnicity and it looks at the our enrollment at a specific point in time which is bedday which is the first Wednesday in October so that's how they consider the data what they consider when they're doing their formulas they're running their calculations is we have to have at least 10 students in each of in this for indicator night being each of the different r raal categories there has to be a minimum of 10 students for them to do a calculation then the norm there has to be at least 30 students with or without disabilities of that race or ethnicity so we have to have the smallest size of 10 who

085have the disability and a grp size of 30 within the District of within that racial category it looks for what they call a relative risk ratio of new of 2.5 or higher and I'll tell you how they get there that's on the next page they look at the focus F grip focus group risk ratio which is that number of students with disabilities of a specific race with a minimum of 10 students and they could put that over a comparison group risk ratio which is the number of students in all Races and ethnicities and they come up with this risk ratio hours and R if you can go to the next page there's several pages of how they rant in the next one there's several pages of how they ran it but if you look at

086the bottom line here we get a report from stad that spits out that our district does not have significant dist disproportionality now what I want to warn you is we've been concerned about over classification these results on indicator 9 and indicator 10 don't help us in that regard to to say as we as a district are we classifying too many students it doesn't help us address that issue it just says that of those were classified there's not an issue by race or ethnicity um disparity between so I just want to make that clear because we are concerned about over classifying students as well when we go to the next indicator that's indicator 10 and again you go to the next page it looks at students who have these classifications autism emotional disturbance intellectual disability learning

087disability other health impairment or speech or language impairment it collects the data from the same spaces it has the same calculations you can go the next one around the same calculations into the formula the next one R please okay and the difference is and need to go one more on the difference is again in this one it looks at each of those different classification categories so it looks at the ratio and ethnic group but only Compares them to students with that one of six classifications to see if we're over classifying with racial disparity or ethnic disparity in those certain areas in those certain classification areas again they use the T same type of um formulas when they're calculating them and they come up with the relative risk ratio in this case it's e e and

088racial group for each of the six classification areas so it came up with this very a large number of numbers if you will however I will tell you in many of the cells our sample size was too small for them to do calculations so just know that as well because of our small numbers in some of the ethnic groups and our small numbers of students in that classification area they didn't do a calculation because the sample size too small so I just wanted you to be aware of that but again it came up with the same result there is no um significant disproportionality now what do we do with this information and that'll be the last slide run it just addresses one of the questions we had going into this year but again we still

089have to continue to review our referral process in the protocols we want to make sure we embed culturally responsive and sustaining education framework in our practices especially when we're considering intervent considering interventions prior to classification um we focus all year on mtss we want to make sure we're considering all the tiered interventions within the classroom and while we're going through the classification process um we had um Tri States come in and look at our ftss process so we'll be reacting to that we also want to make sure we're standardizing our processes in each of the building not making them the same in the building but making sure we're looking at the same elements through the developmentally appropriate lens for that building and again we're consistently going to review classification rates protocols and practices to make

090make sure that this stays within the disproportionality but we have to address that over classification number so that's kind of this document in a nutshell if there are any questions from the bo I'm gladly take them okay and then the last thing go ahead initiated by the state or is it something that you looked into yourself like the district like how did this come about how this the state does this each year oh okay they do each year is part of their special review if you will so it's part of the regular thing just typically the results don't come out this early in the year it's usually in the summer after the school year is over so I'm surprised that we got it this early so that's why I was I had the time to

091look into it okay thank you answer any question okay thank you and then the last thing I just wanted to say is you know we've we've been talking a lot about some student things and we've been talking a lot um it's been a very busy time of year but I just don't want to overlook some things that I think are really nice for the district and again we talked about the basketball playoffs and I just want to tell you I've been attending the playoff Gam not only is our basketball team doing extremely well but our crowds have been extremely respectful they've been very spirited they've been respectful and I'm just proud of everyone who's there representing Southampton at these games so um I'm hoping that our we'll continue in the playoffs there's one on Saturday

092and I'm hoping we'll do well and go further but I just think we as a district should be really proud of our representation um both in basketball and our fan base that attends the games um I mentioned the schia concert and that's a big deal typically schools our size don't often host um a scabia concert and it's a big undertaking that our music department was willing to do just to kind of um show our our our setting and to let the sou County Music World know that we're committed to music so it's really a big undertaking that's happening this weekend and Mrs Kane and her Department are really working hard to pull this off we'll be here on Saturday night again I'll introduce the concert on Saturday night as well as Sunday afternoon and I

093just think it's again it's another point of Pride for the district and the community um at the high school they're doing a fundraiser for the first time in several years a variety show which staff and students will get to show up their talent in the hopes to raise money for I think it's for the hug trip is it M Mitchell yeah Dr Mitchell so so that's happening in March so if anyone has any talents they want to show off use you the audience feel free to do it I know Mr Doos is looking for people to perform and again I think one of the other things we were really proud of and you've heard a little bit about it last year and again it continues this year and I'm glad Dr Mitchell's here because she's

094a big proponent of it is our robotics compy competition our team is going to we finally have a team our own team and they're going to a competition what's two weeks from now you want to talk a little bit um the as you know like um we actually do have 45 students currently in the high school on the first robotics team um it is the first time we're having a team in the high school our hope is that we will be able to grow the team across the district over the next few years um the Southampton Education Foundation as well has been a huge supporter of the team um they were able to help the kids get a lot of the supplies they're going on March 21st well 20th to set up and then the

095competition is March 21st 22nd and 23rd at hopster University they're one of 50 teams internationally competing together there are multiple teams coming from France Mexico Canada Taiwan Dubai Japan um and of course uh New York and some other states in the country here so the kids are super excited they're actually every single day in room 150 um we're going to be practicing in probably next week we're going to start practicing and something actually quite beautiful um happened out of this when a team gets ready for competition it's very important that they're able to practice it's not battle dots it's a 250 pound machine that the kids designed buil coated Dy everything um on their own and so they have to practice and in order to practice they have to set up a field and the

096field is the size of this room um and there are huge components that go into the field to play and so the students in the Bose's building program in the morning with Mr Diaz were amazing and we were able to hand them the actual specs and plans for each field component and they built them all from those plans um so we also have several students from the carpentry program in the morning that have officially joined the team and are joining us at the competition um so it's incredible they'll be able to come present here we'll have to move some things so they can actually demonstrate what it does um hopefully you can watch the live stream I'll share it with the district um because the competition will be live streamed over the next couple of

097days so um wish the kids some good luck they're called the marinator by the way that was their choice that was their choice and the whole thought is like let them cook meaning like Let each individual kit on the team do their best um and so cheer for the marinator and I think um thank you Dr mention I think you know when I think about other districts I think our team is so young meaning kind of year two or really year one of our year one we're officially year one we're a rookie team and what a great size team we have as our as our kickoff team and again I like the diversity of male females on the team and I think it's just really when I look at the students involved it's a cross-section

098of who we are and I love that aspect it's a definite cross-section the cool thing is we've had kids learning the coding we were able to get a mini robot from Wester poly Technic Institute um that call it little chef but it's a little mini robot that the kids can work on coding so we've had students learning coding for the future years um so they're all learning different components and kids come do the artwork the business it's truly running a business so it is definitely a cross-section of kids across the district it's not like a very select group of kids um we just had a student joined who just literally came to the country like three weeks ago um he's he did engineering where he came from so he's really excited so i' for everybody

099to stop in it would be great I'm sure the kids would love to see everybody great and just two other things and you sparked one thing that I didn't want to mention I was going to mention it but I it just reminded me of it um you mentioned the Southampton Education Foundation again thanks to Dr and Mrs Gua as well as Melissa Mitchell who are members of the board of the foundation they've really been advocating to make sure that the foundation will will support some student some student things that our budget doesn't support and they the foundation was able to give thousands of dollars for these kits for the robotics team which I think is a wonderful um It's a Wonderful contribution to our team to help it succeed in addition to that um there's

100a proposal from a teacher who works with the ocean lifeguards and was able to um the foundation donated money for any of our students who wants to become a lifeguard that will cover all the fees of the training and the licensing that they would need to do so there's not a financial block for any student who wants to become a lifeguard to help our community so those two things just happened recently and thousands of dollars that the foundation was able to give to support our staff ideas for our kids in the district that will help the community so I think that that's really cool and then the last thing I did want to mention when I mentioned events we didn't cover it at the beginning is um again I think Dr Z has talked often

101about how excited he is to finally have a PTO in his building and there is a PTO at the high school as well as the other two buildings but the high school PTO the intermediate school PTO have joined together and they're sponsoring they're having a fundraiser at um Union Union Burger um soon Friday the 8 Friday o00 this Friday the 8 and 6 o' and I think there's a special for anyone who wants to know there's a discount rate tomorrow that's right it was res from previous day so if you can if you want to support um the pto's with having a great burger think about going on Friday nights we'd appreciate also be dancing and Raffles so great and that's it with the superintendence report unless there are any questions thank you all appreciate

102it thanks Dr Dino okay moving on to the administrator's reports Jean do you have anything new for us okay just making sure um assistant superintendent for curriculum instruction Dr buter okay thank you I have just a few things um so we are entering uh 3 to eight testing season State Testing season um that begins in April and building principles are sending out letters to parents by building because this year we did have to reorganize some of the days so we have scheduled the assessments by grade bands of 3 four 5 6 78 um the reason for that is because we are um participating in CBT testing for the intermediate school as you know we've been discussing this a few years but the state is requiring CBT testing just for the board CBT is computer based

103testing computer based I'm sorry computer based testing yes so um we're doing this in phases so we've agreed uh building principles uh sis has has participated before so they felt confident we also um did a trial we participated in the trial that the state was giving so um they will be fully CBT this year and then next year we will transition SC into computer-based testing um so that's why two different letters are going out this year by building um the second thing is we completed our Tri-State visit as you know I shared with you last time that Tri-State visits every 3 years they study um a topic in our district and give us feedback so last month we had our Tri State visit they visited with uh stakeholder groups they visited classrooms they reviewed documents

104um and we have received a draft a very very rough draft of our report that I'm currently reviewing for edits and names and things like that um and once we receive the final copy we're hoping to share this with the board and the community in addition as Dr Dino mentioned we're looking to implement recommendations that are made from chy we're also excited about two potential Partnerships coming up first um the first partnership is with Miss Stephanie Autumn um Miss Stephanie Autumn uh was recommended by Miss Williams as a restorative justice trainer um and uh Circle uh resorted Circle practitioner um she has been doing this for over 40 years around 40 years we have met with her the administrative team along with Miss Williams and some members of the shinok nation um to engage in

105the healing Circle for the district with um administrators in the district as well as leaders of the shinik nation to get together for two full days over the summer and really spend some time in a healing circle with Miss Autumn so we're excited about that potential partnership as well as um another recommendation from Miss Williams was reaching out to Dr cutter of Yale University so when we did reach out to Dr cutter it was um to understand what he can offer Us in terms of trauma informed practices for our school district um and we had a great conversation and in those conversations it became a larger conversation about what Dr cutter does and his work with um different nations across the country he's one of just a few um professors or um Scholars that study

106Native American tribes he's also Native American um and he works with a lot of tribes and does some um significant work with them so what he proposed to us um was conducting A needs assessment survey with both the district and the tribe the nation and based on those results he would provide us with some tangible recommendations for the district didn't feel necessarily comfortable saying you need trauma informed practices um it could be one of the menu items that he recommends to us however this would be an ongoing support for a few years so we'd start out with A needs assessment he would run some focus groups um and he's already visited us on his own accord so he's taken some time him and his partner Dr bitel have come and they visited um the shinok

107nation and met with the council um and as well as some other um shinok members as well um and we also met with our administrators along with um Mr Smith and Miss Williams we had a meeting together to discuss what this potential partnership could look like with Y University uh we understand that next steps with Dr cutter and Yale is um they're going to talk about developing an Mo MOA with the shinik nation as well as a contract with the school district and what that would look like and what are some of the things he would need supports from us um in order to make this a reality so we're waiting on that information and we look forward to seeing what you know what he does offer thank yes please do I'm sorry and I

108did forget one item I think I spoke too quickly as I looked at my list I skipped over one item just a brief item um based on where we are in the world with the world of Co I just wanted to let the board of the community know that as you know the CDC changed the their recommendations for isolation or the need to there's no longer a need to isolate after a covid diagnosis so um that means that the state has the state is changing their recommendations and their guidance for schools sou the county health department has is just issuing it this evening on what our what the protocol should look like for schools so we we will be sending out a change in protocol for schools um should a staff member or student become

109you know um in a positive covid test what they need to do in order to keep the rest of us safe also um a reminder that we are one of the few school districts that still does provide Co lead for staff um it is in the state budget that Co League will expire once the adoption of the new budget happens so we just have to again there'll be a change in our covid practices for um staff who test positive and their allotment of days under the Old Co laws laws once the new budget gets adopted so I'll be issuing both Rec both um memorandum to to the staff on both items once everything that's finalized but I just want the board of the community to know that thank you okay moving on to the Committees

110um audit and finance met on February 28th I don't is there okay facilities met on February 29th M there's nothing to talk [Music] about um for facilities uh we met last week just like it's the hours late and we went through lots of items so just give you the highlights um it seems like that he Marcus wanted to you to know about a correction I guess the that steam line down at East um I'm sorry of my I was over there yesterday um at the elementary school here and um uh it's not complete I think it was report as being complete um it is um I guess there was SE that was coming into the building and it wared the floor so they were able to turn that off so that's done um uh the

111insurance is going to cover the the floor um the um I guess during the summer they're going to be able to very ingenious he said to dig because of the gas and the lines there he said you have dig like with a spoon so they're going to run a 6 in tube through the 12 in tube inside to get it from uh get it into the building so I guess that's going to be done during the summer and um he seems to think it'll work well so that's the update on on that um the media board at the high school I guess has been an issue with the um purchasing purchase order with the company so that's kind of Marcus been playing some uh you know he's been back and forth with them trying to

112get that straighten out so we'll keep you briefed on how that's that's going to come about at uh they're doing some work they're planning for the in the uh Elementary School um the sign on the corner so that digital sign they're making some plans on that and hopefully that'll be done soon enough and when he mentions the unit ventilation at the Intermediate School we took at the air conditioning genam right corre the that uh that probably won't be done till the end of 2024 um there but there they you know they're uh they're doing some ripping out of some things and installing things so again that'll be done during the summer and should be finished by the by the end of uh 24 um the Gen had mentioned a little bit about the future district

113office um that uh be honest with you we're looking at like a year from now when it's all said and done so while this you know we'll get the uh approvals to do the work orders and then it'll be done but we're looking about a year from now before it's actually actually we done um trying what else there so many different things um we we did have a discussion about the the propositions that have be coming up um the the primary proposition uh for this year is going to be the second floor of the high school um which will run at about $2 million um and then there's some um there's some roof drains at the high school I guess the water the more water than they used to have draining in the front so

114it's going to require deeping up the front of the high school and they talk about putting a couple catch patients in might be required deing some holes in the driveway in front of the uh in front of the building but I guess it was water build building up and coming in the hallway there so it is a safety issue that has to be done um we're looking at some uh issues in the library uh with some ripping up of the carpet I guess there's been some uh issues with the bookshelves so that's being discussed and um the playground at the elementary school that equipment uh the call that some of that I guess that's an old unit that's got to come out and then they're also going to be doing the sub the surface so

115that's all going to be part going to be part of that and so we're we're looking at you know $3 million being that the number we're kind of coming in yeah two and a half to so again so the the uh the board has briefed on what's what's coming you you you'll hear about the finished product soon um that's enough we went through all kinds of little issues along the way but that I think they the big issues can I just comment on the purchase order um with the board scoreboard it's not a problem on our side with the purchase order it's a problem on the um the vendor side all of a sudden he wants moneyy up front to order the equipment but we don't do that with the purchase order so I just

116want to be clear that everything is fine on our side with the vendors being changing things s yeah I mean as a school district we can't prepaid for services and that's what he's requesting and this afternoon I saw an email from him and I was CC on it where he claims to Markus that he has to mortgage his house in order to get the pro project going that was a bit dramatic but yeah that's what we there's no we're going to stick with that vendor though there's no we works with schools all the time so him asking for money up front is just so atypical from a business perspective that we don't understand what's going on so I mean we'll address it if we have we just giving him some time to work it out

117but he's the only vendor on island that sells the state product that we could use I could just clarify just so to make sure the community understands what Dr Mr McKenna talked about doing the second floor of the high school he talked about the air conditioning adding air conditioning to the second floor of the high school as a project so that's what's expensive about um go to the second Flor I think so they the picture so now the elementary school is fully air conditioned the Intermediate School is fully air conditioned and the game plan it will be sum we'll be after the summer you said by The End of4 by the end4 get and then they're going to do the second floor of the high school and hopefully a year from now will bond for

118the first floor and then it'll be done and then hopefully in 2028 all right thank you we have no new reports for communication special education Wellness or policy however we do have oh personel oh I'm sorry person's on here so we don't really have anything but communic everyone do we show this this last time I don't know okay so if everyone got this anchor yeah so that's the work of the communications committee and we have a meeting next week that's it I got just to that now they're working on the elementary version the next version will highlight the elementary school so I know that Dr Fernandez is working with them on getting that on okay communication special education wellness and policy of no new reports however we do have uh policy for final reading which

119is policy 8130 school safety plans and teams for a third reading into ad up so may I have a motion to review policy 8130 school safety plans and teams for third reading and adopt as presented second please all in favor all any opposed no okay so carried we have policy 1500 which is public use of school facilities which is currently under committee review and policy slers policy slated uh for review are policy 1900 which is parent involvement and family engagement policy 5205 in its regulation which is eligibility for extracurricular activities policy 5300 code of conduct policy 5710 school safety and educational climate reporting policy 6020 fund balance and Reserve funds policy 8414 point6 idling prohibition and buses four buses and other school Vehicles policy 9240 and its uh regulation recruiting and hiring selection regulation I

120do not have 6700 on here okay so policy 6700 is also purchasing I'm okay thank you here here okay we're moving on to consent agenda items umor okay are there any consent agenda items 12.01 through 12.24 that any member wishes to discuss or has questions about as presented in agenda actually may have a motion to PLL 1223 um uh to table it for executive session all in favor any opposed okay are there any okay so then are there any consent agenda items 12.01 through 12.22 and 12.24 that any member wishes to discuss or has questions about as presented in the agenda sure English what is this for no this is for the uh the carpentry program oh okay there was an issue with the wording of the original lease agreement so we had to reive

121that and the this are there any content agenda items 12.01 through 12.22 and 12.24 that any member wishes to hold that for separate action as presented in the agenda if objection objection consent agenda items 12.01 through 12.22 and 2 12.24 are hereby approved as presented in the agenda moving on to financial does any member wish to discuss or have questions about financial items 13.01 through 13.09 as presented in the agenda does any member wish to hold out for separate action any Financial items 13.02 through 13.09 as I'm sorry 1301 through 13.09 as present in the agenda if without that objection Financial items 13.01 through 13.09 are hereby presented to the agenda personnel does any member have any questions regarding or wish to discuss personal Personnel items 14.01 1-10 or a as presented does any member

122wish to hold out any personel items 14.02 1-1 or a for separate action point got it okay so what number okay so may have a motion to pull uh I'm sorry 14.01 10 um for the to table second okay all in favor any opposed no thank you just okay okay so then all right if without objection Personnel items 14.01 1-9 and a are hereby approved as presenting the agenda thank you everyone okay thank you okay moving on to app approvals of appointments tenure and Sal salary changes does any member have any questions regarding or wish to discuss personal items 14.02 11-42 as presented are there any personal items 14.02 11-42 that any member wishes to hold out for separate action as presented in the agenda [Music] 239 thank you okay if without objection personel items

12314.02 11 through 38 and 40 through 42 are hereby approved as present in the agenda may I have a motion to approve personal item 14.02 39 second please all in favor I I any opposed no abstain one so carried okay moving on to the other minutes U may I have a motion to approve the minutes of the February 5th 2024 special meeting February 6 2024 regular meeting the February 7th special meeting and the February 27th special meeting as presented jaie okay all in favor okay any opposed no so carried unfinished business may I have a motion to include the following proposition on the May 21st 2024 B bot resolve that the Board of Education be authorized to contract with the parisar museum in the amount of [Music] $446,900 Ro car conin meanfield yes Anastasia Gales

124yes James McKenna yes onique Proctor yes jacn Robinson Su Sherwood Dudley yes and Jermaine elith yes okay so Carri may have a motion to include the following proposition on the May 2024 May 21st 2024 ballot resolve that the Board of Education be authorized to contract with the Southampton History Museum in the of 285,000 for the 2024 25 school year for the Youth of the school district and the ne necessary tax be ly therefore with a roll call vote motion please second please forther discussion anyone okay with cl please call the RO car mfield yes Anastasia cabales James F McKenna yes Monique Proctor yes Jaclyn Robinson yes with yes and J Smith yes so carried okay we're on to public comments public comments will be heard at this time the Board of Education encourages public participation

125on sco related matters of board meetings any group or organization wishing to address the board must identify a single spokesperson presentation should be as brief as possible no speaker will be permitted to speak for longer than 3 minutes the board will not permit in public public session discussion involving individual District Personnel or students all speakers are to conduct themselves in a civil manner Oben language liable of statements threats of violence statements advocating racial religious or other forms of prejudice will not be tolerated persons making presentations at the board meeting will address remarks to the president and may direct questions or comments to board members or other District officials only upon approval of the president anyone like to come up okay okay uh let's see this month is National women system and considering the fact that

126there are more women in this world than men I just want to say Happy women's History Month the being for National History women's history month is women who advocate for diversity equity and inclusion so I would very much appreciate the women getting together and be the true advocates for diversity equity and inclusion so let's get the job done okay that's it thank you okay we're on to new business does anyone have any new business okay all right um may I have a motion to return to an executive session for discussion of the employment history of a particular personia and all in favor please all in favor thank you any oppos no so carried executive session has begun at is that 910 910 912 p.m. okay yeah