001good evening and welcome to the March 25th 2025 meeting of the Spen kill Union Preschool District Board of Education the board will take a vote to go directly into executive session for discussions involving proposed pending or current litigation this anticipated that the board will return to the regular meeting at approximately 6:45 p.m. do I have a motion to go into executive session I have a second second all in favor okay thank you we'll see you in roughly 15 [Music] minutes okay welcome back to the March 25th 2025 meeting of the SPAC and killer Union Free School District Board of Education I'd ask that you rise and recite the Pledge of Allegiance with me I pledge alleg to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation
002under God indivisible with liy and justice for all thank you okay item 3.01 is comments from the public on consent agenda items only do we have any comments from the [Music] public okay any board discussion anything needs to be pulled okay with that I'll entertain a motion to accept the consent agenda as presented have a second second all in favor I pass is 5 Z and that brings us to 7.01 the superintendent's preliminary recommended budget for the 25 26 school year [Music] so uh the second part of this presentation you pretty much have seen we've talked about it a few times but I'm going to go through a first part also talking a little bit about the district so here's the agenda for this presentation of what we're going to go through uh We've we've
003followed this format in the past uh with other budgets so Bic want to talk about you know uh our school a little bit what our responsible decisions some of our district successes talk about the real estate back and kill TT students and get into uh some budget talk and then uh on the budget end a lot of that is what we what you've seen before but you'll see again talking about uh the budget the proposed Levy contingency and uh especially the capital reserve for the bues so these are just some statements want to make just just kind of start off and and set the tone for the budget so we have conservatively budget our state uh revenue forecast our reserves are still healthy and that's a plus and the com fiscal stress report is positive
004so these are all in our favor so talk a little about instruction some some of what we've been doing uh the past few years again we continue with our after school programs analyze gaps in learning really look at the standardized assessments you've seen uh some of that with the uh presentations on the academics and how we're using I ready and other um assessments to kind of see where students are um definitely provide academic support to those in need and summertime um we usually have more requests and slots to really do some summer curriculum plan planning and and work uh to really help modify lessons and get ready for the next year very successful has been our virtual Tech Academy where our teachers um you know come in the summertime uh Marcel burn does a great
005job with this and we really trying to keep up with the rapid changes especially in technology AI um so this has really helped us uh and helped been a big part of our instructional response two others you've heard this before but just you know the talk again about AVID program how that keeps being moving up so now it was it's in the High School this year and it's going to move up to 10th grade next year uh and that's going very well our aage students have been uh heavily involved with P2 we kind of uh aligned them so they go and speak to the elementary students um they've also we're trying to give them experiences to uh a lot of them are first generation uh College possible goers so we definitely have a college visits
006in there uh which have been going very well you see where they they gone including the culinary and the positivity project we've talked about uh this before something that I do want to mention is I think we're going to find out tomorrow but I'm going to share it today is uh we are being recognized with green shield status which which is is quite an honor I think about 20 districts in the country I think are being recognized with this um so they really like what we're doing uh with the the P2 especially at the elementary level that's where Nassau and Hayden are the ones being recognized for that so that is awesome so what are the responsible decisions so we' been trying to do this and we're still doing it you know presenting a budget
007that is under the tax we've been able to do that over the past bunch of years we're still able to I do think there's a time when I don't know if that's going to be sustainable um but we're not there yet so we're we're happy for that uh provide a budget that reduces the possibility of significant negative fluctuations in the future we try to not have really high one year really low another year um and that's been working maintaining a student standard learning environment um we're about to communicate the academic success of the district and we do that also uh regularly and seek additional revenues and our tuition program has really been a big uh proponent for that so some of the district successes and you know it's this is a lot of we're going
008to be prideful in in a lot of what I'm going to say here so uh Niche continues to rank spill as a number one school district in Duchess County and the number one place to live in Duchess County um Todd middle school as the name uh uh US News best middle school or high school you know has been uh recognized by by them also in the top 7% nationally and 108 for stem program this is exciting so we've been contacted we've been nominated and we're in the process of applying to be a National Blue Ribbon school again the high school won in 2018 but we are we are being asked to be recognized again uh for this year um it's a little interesting because this is a award by the US Department of Education um
009and that has been in the news a little bit so um we're proud that we were nominated but I'm not sure where it's going to go um but but that that is pretty cool I don't know I don't think any High School in Duchess County has ever uh won this award and I very few schools I think there might have been elementary school or two that have won it in the county so definitely that's something to be proud of and our students here today be proud of that uh speing graduate graduation rate is number one in the county uh we've been Ed as a a safe School through the UDA National safety award um we do a lot of stuff and physical education class you know we get people being certified in CPR AED um
010you know we do a lot of lot of stuff with that once again Todd sixth grade and Hagen fifth grade Odyssey of the mine teams you know continue to do excellent work uh so back can go on first place gold in the programming contest our varsity baseball team won the state championship um this is now two times in the past three years Todd Middle School chorus band and Orchestra swept first place in the music in the pars which is a a nice event and then this just happened recently and this this was such a great day I'm going to talk a little bit about it um at the end but uh we C celebrated our 160th anniversary uh which is amazing so we had a a little ceremony and Rob rson was our keynote speaker
011he is a graduate of Spackenkill and his father was very instrumental in Spackenkill High School becoming the credited he was pretty good spoke pretty well um and we just talked about that year 1865 right have some a social studies teacher here with her class right what happened in 186 5 at the end of the Civil War um Abraham Lincoln was assassinated and we actually discover that the the train carrying his body stopped in pipy in that year um 13th Amendment and the Secret Service was established we also discover that it wasn't for probably what it's doing now it was really to prevent counterfeiting um and then uh the staff and some many people were Googling what else happened in 1865 any remember any wasn't a book what book came out Alison Wonderland you remember a
012bunch of different things um and then we watched we found this this video so uh one of our teachers has been here for a long time and we asked uh Mr Weezer if he knew anything about this video because there was rumors that it existed and he found it in the back of his closet um so we digitized it a little bit and we showed some uh some portions of it um it was kind of cool uh some people in the audience recognized people that were in it um and it was just kind of interesting from 1987 now when I thought of that year I'm like that's not that long ago you know um however students and some of our younger staff was like that's a long time ago um and then that was followed
013with some uh performances by our students um which was excellent couple singing performances a little sneak peek at The Little Mermaid which is coming up and the Min Hutson news covered the event and wrote a nice article this past Community newsletter superintendent newsletter had all this in it so if you haven't seen it take a look and you can click on the links you can see the video um it'll be pretty cool and the M Hudson News article is there too um one of the highlights is some of the pictures there is we have had the students celebrate um Mr Cohen was instrumental in this in some of the schools there's a 160 that think that's I think that's are elementary kids um putting that together so it was a nice uh event um and
014showcase some of our students that was pretty cool real estate right uh spacking kill seems to be uh in the right place if you're a homeowner inventory is still low and demand is high the medum price in spacking Kill is higher than the medium price in the county um in the number of days the house stays on the market in sping kill is is less than the number of days they stay on in other areas number of units is up in sping kill why it's down elsewhere um and I think I said this Niche has us as one of the best places to live um in touches County all nice accolades you know we still have to um do our jobs and all that but it's great to have those accolades it's really due to
015our kids who are here and the families and our community and our teachers and staff that really um help us get that but we should be in the students area should be proud of that these are a lot of things uh and it's because of of your effort and your um skills in the classroom so good job so they should do a really good job on your project Mr R too um the so which this has been going on now since 2017 and it's growing so uh we're approximately up to about 650,000 as revenue for the district for this and then then the cost of tuition will be 137 next year and we usually goes up roughly 3% is uh we usually tie it to CPI um so it does go up every year um
016to switch now these are slides you've seen before but I'm going to ask B to take us through them again just so that everyone uh is aware of them in case there's any questions at the end sure thank you um this is again a review of the budget that we're proposing for the 2526 school year we're proposing a budget of a little over $57 million which represents an increase over the current Year's budget of 5 99% um to support that budget we are proposing a tax ly of about $ 33.6 million and that represents an increase of 1.75% over the current year and that's pretty steady we've been somewhere in the 1.6 to 1.8% increase over the past of years some of the considerations that went into the proposed budget was the addition of some
017instructional staff we're looking to um add a full-time person to to support supplement added at the middle school and the high school and we've also made a concerted effort during the school year and going forward to maintain a hourly salary rate that would be increased over the state minimum wage um the governor has proposed annual increases in minimum wage so our District's position is to try to stay ahead of that curve we've also in this budget we're going to look to replace some poor performing in um outdated facilities equipment some snow blowers floor strippers um some maintenance hand tools we're also looking to do repairs in some of the classrooms we want to replace some shelving and cabinets that are just old um window shades which are custom designed for each room and we're also
018looking to replace some of the original smartboards that were installed in those classrooms there also instructional needs that we need to have that will help us meet the new instructional standards so we're looking at you know more textbook more software more hardware and one of the things that we've noticed the past couple of years is most of the textbooks have a software component with them so that adds to the cost of purchasing texbooks we're also looking to do technology upgrades to enhance our data security and to strengthen our ability to um recover in case of any kind of disaster or power outage and we also want to increase the band to have our performance increased there are three five things in particular that drive the budget that compose 85% of the budget that salaries health
019insurance exposes our contribution to the retirement system and de service um historically year toe that has comprised 85% of our budget and that's the case for this proposed budget which leaves 15% for the district to cover equipment supplies and other contractual costs we are required by the state to present our budget in three parts administrative program and capital of the administrative budget covers things like tax collection our legal and auditing costs our school board costs um and some of the admin cost for bosies that represents approximately 10% of the overall budget program is the heart of the budget it's all of our instructional supplies exposes Athletics special ed transportation that is usually 75% of our budget capital is for debt services for ities insurance and the cost and benefits for our custodial staff and that
020represents about 14% of our overal budget the tax levy has to be calculated every year we calculate what is the maximum tax levy that the district can impose legally um this year that maximum Levy is the 33941 which would represent an increase of the taxil of 2 59% what the district is recommending to support our proposed budget is a tax levy of 33 m665 757 which would be an increase of 1.75% over the current year so we are under again we are under the tax the tax maximum tax by law we're also required to present a contingency budget a budget comes into play if the voters vote down a proposed budget if that were to happen the board would have two options we can revote on either the same budget or a modified budget or
021we can go directly into a contingency budget should the board decide to have a revote and that second vote fails we are obligated to go into a contingency budget and what a budget would look like for Sping Hill is we would have to maintain a levy that is equal to the current Year's Levy so for us that would mean that we would have to reduce our proposed budget by at least $579,900 $50,000 in order to meet um the legal requirements for a contingency budget that contingency budget of 56 mil buses and those uh numbers were represented by uh quotes that we've gotten from State contract vendors uh this is the verbage of the proposition as it will appear on the ballot we will be asking the voters to authorize the district to purchase those vehicles
022that a cost not to exceed $245,500 for those three vehicles and we will fund that expense from the existing transportation capital reserve fund so that was not a part of the budget but is a separate proposition that will appear on the ballot we are coming to the end of the budget calendar at the next meeting we will be asking the board to adopt this budget that we have been proposing on May 6 we will conduct the public hearing that is required by law and on May 20th will be the actual budget vote which TR the election and also the vote on The Proposition um for anyone who is interested in running for that one trustee position all of the needed information is currently on our website um all of the past presentations and um more
023budget documentation detailed budget is all listed on the website and that's the link where you will find everything that's been proposed presented this year as long as as well as things that have been presented in the past thank you any questions no okay all right that'll bring us to item 7.02 secondary Administration update [Music] good evening everybody sorry about that little phone malfunction before um thank you as always for having uh me come tonight uh tonight is uh kind of special it is uh uh we do our play yearly our drama drama production uh this year uh like every year was wonderful um so I wanted to show a couple of clips from the pl but um seeing uh the current seniors made me think about their eighth grade which uh you know seeing them
024uh I was able to pull up on my phone and um I show Miss Gerard so I have which I'm going to share I I'll share with their advisers because they are the um hybrid cohort year that's when they were in grade so for drama that year and there's probably some people who were in drama what what what they did was they they they did what's called a night of Hope and humor so yeah so they so cuz we couldn't we couldn't meet well we couldn't have a drama club you know we were doing cohort a cohort B and they um so they did these um I'm sure Mr shank still has it there was all all kinds of videos that they made over the course of the year and then we had two nights
025of Hope and humor right cuz you had to have two nights and they actually came here to the to the dining hall so we kind of watched it and that was in the time where we needed like space and I don't know if they remember their eighth grade dinner dance but I have a bunch of videos cuz they're dancing out there because we could not because they had a thing where you you had to dance in like boxes and stuff there was like all these like dance rules that we were that we had to do um which I can't believe was four years ago but so we were out there dancing and so it just brought all that back and um yeah how many were in drama who were who were here you can raise
026your hand how yeah so there's yeah there's about yeah it looks like there's about eight hands up so um you know every year uh as uh a drama is usually uh you know there's many people involved in drama many students this year we had about um 80 students involved in drama we did a double cast uh which is great for the kids um and for the families and um it's it's a lot of work though because you basically have to kind of run two plays uh which is what they did um they uh this year was Annie Jor there were over four nights there were over 700 tickets sold to the event which is that's a lot of seats uh the um there were there's a number of people that I just want to mention
027real quick one the first is Tom kersen heider who's been in drama for many years he does all of the backstage work uh Natalie bu and James Lano do the front of the stage work uh Terry DeMarco who uh is going to be retiring at the end of this year uh did double cast costumes so there's a lot of costumes to make she did an amazing job she's going to be very much missed uh not just by the drama department but the entire Todd Middle School uh Andy Vlad helped out uh Serge Young Chris rolls uh Albert scandin um and then of course you know the uh person who this is his first year not in drama but he was a big force behind it over the last you know six or seven years as
028John Shanks so I just wanted to mention all of them cuz all of the work that they did um is huge and you know anybody who goes to Middle School drama Productions when they come to this one they see you know it's special you know not just the fact that you know they they really they for for for a cafetorium that's what that's called by the way uh cafeteria in an auditorium it's called cafetorium you know you don't get Productions in cafetorium that have spotlights and you know uh set in the middle of the floor and all kinds of things and and they do an amazing job so I I wanted to just give a big shout out to all of them involved and for what drama club does because we know that the drama
029club up in the high school they do great Productions and we're so proud that we're able to kind of start them off here uh at Todd so uh with that we've got two clips from Annie uh the first one uh and both of the songs you should know I'll maybe wheel this out of the way so good so you have to see uh so the first one is going to be uh want that one first yeah what do we got we've got hard hard luck uh hard knock life let's do Hard Knock Life which you should know hard can make that [Music] blanket empty bellies [Music] empy belly full of star no tomorrow [Music] when you're in you st shes like the top of building CH with the [Music] Dr [Music] work [Music] the it's
030a for us it's for us no one cares for you usch when you're in it's the life it's the [Music] [Applause] of yeah so you you know just you know just seeing them like in the middle you know they're in the middle of everybody and you know the the the singing so you know just so loud and proud it's just it's a great and it's it's such a and and not only you know you're seeing the production but I think the um they you know they did the tryy outs in November I think they picked the cast in December and they're going basically January February or March and they they they rehearse from 3 to 5 you know so it's it's quite a commitment for the students um you know and for the staff involved
031and now we've got uh the uh I think the reprize of tomorrow which of course is [Music] know thinking about tomorrow [Music] [Applause] [Music] Tom you hang on tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow I love you tomorrow you're always a day tomorrow love you Tom [Music] [Applause] so those clips are were were both from uh Sunday's performance so uh you know that's after you know they did they did a Friday night they did a Saturday afternoon they did a Saturday night and then they did a Sunday afternoon so um it was quite a weekend and um I wanted to share that with everybody so thank [Music] you thank you okay item 8.01 is board correspondence I have none so go to 8.02 comments from the public on non-agenda items any public comment on non-agenda items 8.03 is comments
032from the board any comments from the board I'll just make a quick comment uh I once again thank everyone who's worked so hard on the budget it's a long grueling process over many months appreciate all the work that you put together to keep things so well focused uh and in ways that the community can understand uh so clearly as well as the board so I appreciate all the work that's going to that the whole team anyone else yeah I just U want to see we have CPL coming to the next meeting um is there we've spoken about having them come to speak about the The Bu or the electric buses um or what they come up with on that is that still that's still in the work I've done a couple of more meetings with
033them to get them to the point where they they're ready to present to you all right thank you anyone else okay with that I'll move on to 8.04 comments from the superintendent couple things want to uh make everyone aware of uh because of the 160th uh anniversary we had we have a couple proclamations which is kind of nice Rob rson and Sue Sereno um you know uh and some definitely some nice things set set on here there's one he was very proud of Spen kills uh whereas Spen kills Educators administrators and staff have played a wi role in the shaping of generations of students instilling in them values of hard work perseverance and intellectual curiosity um and and there's there's a bunch on here but to to be recognized and to really uh you know
034100 160 years it's it's a long time when you think about it so we're definitely proud of that um I don't think people realize that that we're that old um but definitely something to be proud of and something else that the uh kids in the room might be happy is we didn't really use a lot of snow days this year um so we are going to have uh two additional days off for students uh this school year uh their pens are getting out and U correct if I'm wrong but April 11th is a Friday uh that is the day before our uh spring break begins so it would be extended by a day would start on the Friday and another day that we will uh not be in session is the day after Memorial Day
035uh which is a Tuesday which I believe is May 27th so that will go out to the community in the Friday newsletter but if you're here you hear it first spread the word unless you want to come to school on those days um Mr Gerard you can have something for them right sure can so we'll leave it up to you and your teacher but uh those days uh will be added uh to the two recesses the spring recess and the memorial guess it's a good thing you didn't have too much sow this year yeah yeah not over yet and that's all thank all right thank you item 9.01 I'm going to ask for a motion to adjourn the have second all in favor pass 5 okay we'll see at the next meeting