001good evening and welcome to the February 25th 2025 meeting of the spaen kill Union Free School District Board of Education I'd asking you rise and recite the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge alance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all thank you our first item is 2.01 comments from the public on consent agenda items only do we have comments from the public on consent agenda items this evening board discussion comments questions do we need to pull anything okay that said I'll entertain a a motion to accept the consent agenda as written so move a second second by Joan all in favor passes by Z that brings us to 4.01 I'll ask the board for a
002motion to open the public hearing on the senior property tax exemption move have a second I think Sasha won that one all in favor hi I passes 5 Z do we have any Community input on the senior property tax exemption you want do you want to do a little presentation first I'm just going to refer to the slide that's being displayed which shows the current income limits that are that's backing kill offers and on the right side of the slide shows what we're proposing to increase those senior exemption income limits too and that increase will put us more in line with the other school districts in which county okay any Community input okay I'll ask for a motion to close the public hearing on the senior property tax exemption move have second second all in
003favor passes 5 Z so that brings us to item 5.01 which is a vote on the senior property tax exemption resolution do I have a motion to accept senior property tax exemption resolution as written we got Sasha on that one do I have a second second Joan all in favor passes 5 Z brings us to 7.01 a draft budget presentation by our school business administrator thank you good evening this is the presentation of a couple of things including uh the draft budget and the tax proposed tax study the agenda for tonight's discussion will be a recap of the current Year's budget um a preliminary overview of next year budget a preliminary overview of the proposed tax levy to support that budget I will discuss some of the key budget drivers which led to the proposed
004budget along with the budget assumptions in creating that proposed budget and we'll also review the proposed vehicle purchases which would be funded through the capital the equal reserve the current Year's budget of 3 million 938 245 represents a increase of 3.89% over the prior year and the levy to support this year's budget 739 represents an increase of 1.7% over the current year's tax the preliminary proposed budget for 2526 the preliminary budget is 7, 68788 which represents an increase of 5.99% over the current year the proposed tax levy to support the budget would be 33 million 665 757 which represents a percent increase of 1.7% over the current Year's L and that's that falls in line with the percentage increases for the levy over the past several years the proposed tax levy is proposed tax levy
005is a 33 million 665 757 the current Year's Levy is 33 milon 86 739 the maximum in the maximum tax levy for 2026 that the district could impose is 33,98927 again we're proposing a tax levy of 33,6 65757 which is an increase of 1.75% over the current Year's the preliminary budget drivers for this year these are the five largest components of the budget so between salaries health insurance B's Retirement Systems and Debt Service those five categories represent 4 48 million 612 626 or 85% of the total proposed budget of 57,168 7 88 and basically that means 15% it covers equipment supplies and contractor costs of those five budget drivers most of them are contractually obligated the salaries are based on existing contracts and prop and contracts that are ending June 2025 health insurance premiums are
006dictated To Us by uh primarily deck both these costs are our subscription to their services and bosis has increased their costs and we also subscribe to more bosei services ERS and TRS retirement contributions are dictated To Us by New York State and our debt service is existing Debt Service that has been used to fund um previous capital projects some of the budget assumptions gone into this again are the collective bargaining agreements that are currently in place and estimates for those contracts that are ending this June um there's an increase in cost of poce services and also the district is increasing their participation in various poy Services the increase for special ed tuition is just based on historical Trends which is usually around 5 to 7% the estimated increase in health insurance premiums as estimated by
007um our primary carrier which is deck is 6 to 8% for the coming year and our debt service numbers um are given based on the existing Debt Service with no anticipated additional borrowings we're also proposing um the purchase of three Transportation vehicles but again those will be funded using a vehicle Reserve that was previously established some of the other budget considerations our additional instructional and support staff um we're looking to had um instructional support to support the Avid Pro the AVID program in the middle school and the high school we've also over the last couple of years we've increased the monitor hours at the elementary schools previously those were funded using the Federal Reserve um the federal stimulus funds those funds are no longer available to us so those increased hours must be rolled into
008general fund budget we've also made adjustments to salaries and our prium rates to reflect not only the increases in New York state minimum wage but in order for our district to remain competitive to attract qualified people we're also proposing in this budget to replace outdated and poor performing facilities equipment for example snow blowers salt spreaders floor floor strippers um maintenance tools that are just need to be replaced and just outdated not performing or just warant we're also proposing some classroom maintenance and repairs we want to replace old and davage shelving window shades and smart boards um the window shades are custom fitted and are usually are fire rated fabric so they have been custom measured and custom fitted for each of the windows and the classrooms we're also looking for um an increase in instructional
009needs to meet the new instructional standards that have been imposed by New York State and now especially with textbooks it's not just the textbooks most textbooks have a software component that goes along with the physical textbooks we're also looking for technology upgrades for data security and increased bandwidth and the data security will hope will helpfully strengthen our ability to resume operations in case we incur a disaster recovery scenario the vehicles with proposing purchase in the seven passenger Caravan um according to a state contract quote would be about $45,500 we're looking to purchase two 30 passenger buses at $999,990 each um we are definitely looking to purchase these buses so that we will have a fleet that hopefully carry us through the next 10 years which is when according to the current timetable we have to
010be fully converted to zero emission Vehicles so we just want to have a current F that will take us through through that process the vehicles that are proposed to be replaced are a 2015 Chevy bus a 2016 Chevy bus um both of those have a little over 65,000 miles but they do have repeated maintenance problems which we have gone to maintenance to try to fix and the problems keep reoccurring and they can't be correctly identified and corrected the 2016 Caravan has over 130,000 miles and it's currently already been taken out of service by DT in order to um purchase these vehicles using a capital reserve it eliminates the need to borrow money for this purchase a voter approval is needed to use money from the reserve so that include a separate proposition which would be
011on the May 2025 ballot along with the budget at the future meetings the next meeting will be an updated budget discussion which would include what a contingency budget would look like if the vote were to fail on the 25th Dr F willing will present the his recommended budget the next meeting would be we be asking the board to formally adopt that budget on May 6th is the required public hearing and on May 20th would be the budget vote the vote on the capital Vehicles proposition as well as the election of one trustee for any Resident who's interested in running for the trustee position there is information that is already posted on the district's website any questions comments anyone questions comments I don't have a question but just a quick comment I appreciate all the effort
012that goes into this as always you know it's a big part of the job and takes a long time we just see it presented in so sort of nice condensed form here but appreciate all the work that everyone puts into this thank you um it's a streamline process appreciate the way in which we're able to going to move through this budget process with Clarity and efficiency thank you all right so that'll bring us to 7.02 secondary Administration update what do we have here sounds like we have some Gerard's coming up I guess I'm on um uh Mr M because you're GNA be here tonight so I'm kind of taking over for him um I just we both really wanted to give you guys an update on what's going on with the Seal of Civic Readiness
013and so if you guys remember uh New York State implemented um or created I should say this initiative about four years ago and we kind of jumped in about three years so this is our third year um with the Seal of Civic Readiness um there's a point system that goes along with it if you remember from a presentation a couple years ago so uh kids have to receive six points and they can get those points from two different categories Civic knowledge and civic participation or Civic action the Civic knowledge part is a little bit easier to obtain because you pass your social studies classes you get a point you pass your regen is you get get a point you pass or you take an AP or an honors course you can get points it's the
014Civic action part the civic participation part that's a little bit harder so we've created projects for students to be able to complete that fit the criteria for them to be able to get the points in that particular category um and for us right now our seniors are kind of the ones that are um burdened or not bured I should say get to have the experience the wonderful experience of getting to do two presentations their senior year so and these girlss don't even really realize this yet there's going to be another one coming up in another week that I'm going to be giving them but they did a presentation um in for government um and it looked at you know giving them the opportunity to research a topic a current events topic within their you know
015their communities and then through that research offer solutions to maybe combat and solve the problem using the various stakeholders that are there so we thought it might be a good idea for you guys to be able to see some of those problem projects and how they've turned out so these lovely ladies are going to present tonight on the ethical dilemmas of AI and they'll look at it from all kinds of perspectives but education um as well I do want to just mention two small disclaimers for for the girls on behalf of the girls uh the first one is the project is pretty big so it's usually like a 40 minute presentation like it takes the whole class period but we wanted to be respectful of everybody's time here tonight so they did scale it back
016quite a bit um so it won't be quite 40 minutes and then the other thing is they did this presentation back in October so their um memories I'm much better than mine might not be as sharp as they were back in October all right I'm not going to introduce them because they're going to introduce themselves um I'm going to sit down now and be quiet but if you do have any questions at the end you guys need um no I have it so I'm going to be quiet now along with the project we get um like a a packet or website and so we go an editorial an editorial yeah so we get an editorial that we have to use um and we basically just cut it down for the entire class to read quickly
017and we put it on paper and to the back of it like during our presentation we had a QR code with an AI quiz see if you could um distinguish between AI gener photos and real photos so I'm just going to pass this out if you want to take a look but this we didn't write this was just an editorial that we were given to base our project off of you can pass them around um so good evening everyone I'm Trisha uh I'm Rachel I'm M and I'm Tabitha and this is our our presentation on artificial intelligence in um education sure what is AI well in essence AI or artificial intelligence is intelligence exhibited by machines computer systems using a series of algorithm and codes it stimulates human learning comprehension problem solving decision making creativity
018and autonomy the history of ai ai began a concept in the 1950s the idea was to create machines that could stimulate human intelligence a British mathematician Alan turning proposed a turning test in 1950 to see if machines could demonstrate intelligent Behavior indistinguishable from a human in 1950 John McCarthy an American Computer scientist coined the term artificial intelligence at a Dartmouth conference researchers aimed to create machines that could Advanced reason and research overall there was a lot of optimism that AI could solve complex problems quickly but people were unsure of ai's limits in the 1980s to 1990s there was okay yep uh in the 1980s to the 1990s there was machine learning which allowed computers to improve tasks through experiences through experience using algorith GMS which became foundational and companies and researchers invested in these systems
019fast forward to the 2000s when deep learning emerged and company started using access to large data sets which helped accelerate ai's performance in complex tasks and in modern day we use generative AI which is usually what we think of uh which generates human text human like text images music voices and more and it has improved ai's ability to understand and generate language with with increasing use of AI more concerns have arised a main concern is loss of human control over technology um specifically in the entertainment industry there is potential for Creative professions to disappear uh a prime example of this is the writer strike which happened last year not only were writers fighting for better benefits and compensation but they also had a part in the contract where they could not use AI or not
020allow them um to write or AI could not write for them um AI could also mimic celebrity voices produce music uh video and writing and interesting fact in this year's Grammys there was a beetle song which used AI U and I believe it actually won a Grammy um other uh concerns is losses of jobs across all fields and ethical issues such as lack of privacy now everyone has been waiting for AI and education some basic Pros are AI powered educational games adaptive learning platforms automatic rating and feedback systems which is used in things like Google forms um I know Mrs Mr rard uses them but it automatically grades it for you which is a big help um um chat boxes for student support usually we think of chat GPT when we think of chat boxes
021um and intelligent tutoring systems but with bad comes I mean with good good concern excuse me with good um with good comes Pros yes with good comes B thank you um some cons including uh include plagiarizing homework and writing assignments cheating reduced human interactions and uh data and privacy since big uh companies are using data now okay um as for um AI legislation there currently is no formal Federal legislation for artificial intelligence in the United States uh that poses many problems as the technology becomes more prevalent um there's a blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights which was created under President Biden's Administration it's a proposed plan for regulating AI in the US um and it includes five principles that aim to protect people's safety and values including um safe and effective systems algorith algorithmic
022discrimination protections data privacy notice and explanation and uh human Alternatives consideration and fall back and um there's also the federal artificial intelligence risk management Act of 2024 it's a proposed bill for the regulation of AI in the United States um and if it were to be passed it would provide standards to reduce risks to people on the planet uh give cyber security strategies to improve to improve the security of AI and um to provide standards for AI systems so for State legislation in 2024 45 States and territories introduced artificial intelligence bills and the majority of them also adopted resolutions or enacted legislation some examples included that in Florida they provided grants to school districts to implement AI that supported students and teachers in Hawaii they required that the University of Hawaii implemented a program to
023develop a wildfire forecast system and in New Hampshire they created the crime of the fraudulent use of deep fakes and deep fakes are decep deceptive manipulated images that are created depicting a person doing something that they did not and then AI education there's no formal legislation in the US regarding AI in education but despite that about three and four schools do have ai policies which may consist of the following requiring students to run their work through AI detection programs such as like turn it in.com and considering using AI as a form of cheating or academic dishonesty this means that if students were caught they would face repercussion as AI continues to evolve schools and teachers ually Implement new policies about the use of AI and then there's some statistics the one on the left is
024about um teens from 2023 that know about Ai and it says that of these teens 19% said they've used it for school work this number would be higher because people would not want to admit that they're using AI because it is a form of cheating also um chat GPT has become a lot more popular so a lot more teams do know about it and then on the right it's just possible solutions that teachers are or plan on using to combat the use of AI and writing assignments such as writing assignments by hand or having to do presentations along with their assignments so today AI is being used in many aspects of our life for example in the healthcare industry they're using AI to detect diseases in medical imaging like tumors in MRIs and R companies
025are also using AI for faster drug research which is crucial for understanding diseases and new treatments for example during the covid-19 pandemic they were constantly using AI for vaccination renewal um AI is also been used currently like in our day-to-day lives for example many car companies like Tesla are using AI for self-driving cars that rely on sensors and navigate roads to avoid obstacles cities are also using AI to analyze traffic patterns and this could reduce congestion and improve traffic flow retailers and streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Prime constantly use AI to recommend products and shows based on your watch list and your like history with what you see and all and virtual assistants are also used in many websites um to answer questions I don't know but even like in Educational Learning platforms they
026also have a lot of AI assistance to help out if you have any questions or not and even Banks today are using AI to track um transaction patterns to detect fraud um so we thought it would be really interesting if we got to know ai's opinion of AI so we asked Chad GPT what are your opinions about AI and we found out that it only responded with positive aspects of AI it said that AI could help it could be used as a tool for creativity it could help learn with learning and assisting in all different types of process like data analyzation but it never even merely touched on anything negative and that way you can see there's an immediate bias in the AI we also asked AI um how like how often is AI being
027used in education and whether it would be a good tool or not and once again we saw bias there it said it listed several articles that only focused on how students teachers and Global educational leaders thought that AI could be helpful in grading work assisting with teaching and recommending videos and generating text but it only simply went over in one sentence that it could be harmful and there are a lot of issues regarding data privacy and plagiarism so again AI is super biased and then we wanted to see how how well AI knows itself um currently a lot of professors and teachers are using turn it in in AI detectors to see if students are actually turning in work that is original and not plagiarized so we copied the Articles of Confederation that was written
028at a time where AI did not exist and pasted it into an AI detector and it came out to be approximately 90% AI generated which we know is false so these AI detectors are not also completely reliable so after discussing all this with our class um we believe that AI can be really helpful as an educational tool um there many like benefits you could learn new things and help uh use AI to help you ass I mean use AI to help you in just like day-to-day tasks but at the same time it is really important for all of us to understand like ethical dilemas about AI like plagiarism liabilities lack of privacy and other issues that may emerge so together we think that it would be really helpful if we had seminars where we all
029could discuss how to properly use AI so we are not violating it but using it to benefit us and these were our references thank you so much for [Applause] listening nice job hang on we might be questions don't yet questions from the board I don't have any questions but that was very informative thank you very much I appreciate you guys coming in and doing that I'm sure your classmates found informative as well I would like to agree it'd be nice if we had something to try to go over with students the proper way to use Ai and how to avoid uh in proper use of it thank you for bringing that up thank you thank you anyone else a question uh so uh do you talk much with your teachers about using AI in your
030classes is it become part of or kind of subject matter in itself are you talking about the way it works very informative you've dug into this yourselves but do you talk about this with your teachers in different courses how to use it how not to use it does that become a topic in itself I guess is what I currently in AP Spanish like today and yesterday we were doing a writing assignment that was about the uses of AI like positive and bad but in Spanish the topic that we talk about in classes MH MH even during the beginning of the year we're all like um told that we should be restricted with our use of AI and know that and make sure we're not violating it and not plagiarizing and even in like our government
031class and my H US history class we do go over Ai and how it's an ethical dilemma and yeah and for your uh research papers what did Miss Oakley have you guys do we use we used turn it in for our research papers and it basically says how much like what percent of it is is AI or forged basically um and most of people are in the green but some people do turn up red which means that you've plagiarized a lot of it or used AI um but miss Oak herself is pretty good at knowing like what's what what the student actually wrote and what they got online I don't think anyone's gotten seriously in trouble for it um I know one of the Math teachers um has her writing assignments put in AI um
032cuz she's worried about forging that you can probably talk um mean the the the work that you do as students Yes she'll run it through um the discussion in our classes is more surrounded around like don't use AI to plagiarize like just the ways you shouldn't be using it in class there's not so much um discussing how it works or um how you can use it to benefit you instead of not using it for all the reasons that it can harm you and your reputation and Stu yeah I mean kind of a forbidden fruit yeah yeah but as we all know that can sometimes prompt curiosity yeah about that forbidden fruit so I'm wondering if that might change over time I'm an educator myself and so I've been trying to do a little bit more
033in terms of um confronting it you know confronting the ways in which AI is used it's around it's not going away and and the ways in which it might be utilized in ways that are more productive uh I think one of the effects of that can be to demystify it a bit make it a little bit less a forbidden right kind of thing realize perhaps there are ways in which it's appropriate m well we're going to get to a project um their final where they are going to have to create a product come up with their own product and so one of the things I do say to them which we haven't done yet is this might be a good opportunity for you to use AI to help generate the idea but then you do
034all the rest of the steps on your own so you know it's hard to come up with like oh what product can I just create right like you started start so it gives you it might create a list for you and then you take it from there sure yeah I particularly like the way in which you turned it around on itself and had it evaluate its own work in a way uh or work that you knew wasn't AI generated and which it mistakely assumed it was term that it was that's clever uh that's a way of demystifying it and kind of exposing some of its uh problematic but and I and I like the word simulation that came up that's the way I talk about it with my students sometimes it's a simulation it's not
035really thinking it's it's a simulation of thought and uh in that respect bit different from other kinds of plagiarism where you're taking ideas fully formed from someone else here no one's forming these ideas really they're getting constructed in a sort of simulated way and and that's I think a useful distinction to think about but very very very nice thanks I appreciate your approach your approach great job thank you yeah I think to Richard's point I mean it's a great tool right but you can't always trust a tool you have to have the user input then you have to have some oversight of the the output so it's really important to always make sure that you know if AI could be pulling from uh skewed sources or some other kind of false sources too so it's
036a it's not always going to be perfect so you're going to have to always do your own oversight as well so make it your own but it's a good tool to get something started like that I think that's a great great idea to to get something started we used it uh recently my website is just extremely old and so I just put a couple pages in and just had it output so that's a much nicer way of saying this so hopefully someday I'll actually Implement that and put it on the worldwide web but um but yeah it's a great tool so and we appreciate the time coming out and explaining all this and and it was very informative appreciate it thank you thank you if you want to go you can go because you probably
037have work to do uh Mr farell is going to take a picture of you guys outside if you don't mind sure um and thank you for coming job is Gerard getting the picture you're going to duck it great good job good evening everybody uh just to kind of add on to the ai ai uh discussion one thing that AI is great with is for teachers and instruction and lesson planning AI is amazing so I mean it really is so I mean teachers are just starting to really work with it but you can do me so AI is even though for students were like keep away cuz you know but for teachers AI is incredible it does many things that um are amazing in terms of as as a former teacher things that would take me
038hours literally it would take me a weekend to do you can do in a half hour uh so it's it's pretty amazing and and the work it does in terms of that is great so just something foray ey at this um so I'm going to talk tonight about well first thank you as always for for having me here and I thought I would talk tonight about The Sparrows Nest volleyball tournament which happened on Friday um and uh but I wanted to first talk a little bit uh the first slide which looks very small I know I didn't want to do a slideshow but it's actually smaller than but I think if you do the slideshow the picture is going to get cut but sorry that it's so small but um back in January uh so
039everybody knows that Sparrow's Nest is a nonprofit in the area that supports families uh who uh have cancer in the family by by giving them meals and uh Todd Middle School along pretty much with the spill district has always been uh a big supporter of of sparrow nest and we've been doing the volleyball tournament here for started maybe in 2018 I want to say 2017 2018 and um so it's so most of this is going to be on the tournament but before that I just want to talk briefly because through the tournament um the Avid students uh the female Aid students in uh the seventh grade Avid class got to do a radio Podcast with uh Christa who is the founder of um Sparrow's Nest and that picture that you can see even though you
040can't really do justice from here but those are the girls gathered together at the end of the podcast which you can listen to uh it was in the Todd blast back in January so it's an interview with them about social media and and the impact on that but it was a it was just a wonderful opportunity a great um experience uh they got to see how podcasts work how to do edits I mean the whole thing you know John Shanks uh was with them and it was just a it was a great thing and Christa was very impressed and like I said if you want to uh you know on your local uh apple or whatever you use Spotify you can go back and listen to it it's about an hour long and uh it
041did a great job and that picture is them kind of together at the end cuz it was an emotional thing and uh and it was and it was you know they just did an amazing job and you know part of the AVID program is is giving kids learning experiences and opportunities like you know they go to colleges and that was just one that they had which was very unique and I wanted to share that because there was a connection with Sparrow's Nest um can you yeah so once you so I want to talk a little bit about the tournament um kind of what's involved and what we do yet they can see them a little better uh close up but uh it was it was it was a great opportunity for them so The Sparrows
042Nest uh spiking for sparrows like I said it's been going on for about seven eight years um the slides you're seeing are kind of the slides we used at a P2 virtual uh for the students just to kind of see what goes what's in behind it um so we uh what we do is we have uh the students sign up there's actually 16 teams that play So all the grades 16 teams and uh they sign up by during launches they can have a Max of 10 students on the team and there's a suggested donation because all of the money raised uh by sparrows for the uh tournament goes to Sparrow's Nest uh that was just a big thank you that they gave out to everybody so it's important that so everything's volunteer so anybody who
043stays after school it goes from 2:30 to about 6:37 so it's 5 hours and uh it's all volunteer there are probably I don't know maybe 20 to 25 staff members here uh and we all just volunteer our time and it's for a great cause um there's a little bit that we share about it like I said it's a charity organization it supports families we don't have time to cook um and it gives Comfort to families and it's just it's a great local charity that you know as we all know uh has got a great reputation in the area again there a little bit about the teams they were um they oh they made it that they could you couldn't load a team up with too many volleyball players so you can see that two modified
044players per team only so you couldn't have you know the entire volleyball team on a on a on a uh on on one team so uh the uh and you can have mixed grade levels which we did uh there's a sportsmanship pledge uh there was a su donation and then kind of the first 16 teams to sign up and get the money in or the ones that we go with which usually uh you know probably everybody I think anybody who wants to play ends up finding a team one way or the other uh and this was just some of the paperwork that we used and then this was how it was run which was if you so we used to have it open to the public and to be honest with you it was just
045it's pretty mayh him it's a lot going on so um we had to we had to kind of not have the public here because there was just too many people cuz it's so much going on CU you have two courts you have two games going on um you have them kind of going there's like this kind of bracket system that Miss Papo uses that they would use in other sports tournaments um and you can see that you know there's a there's a time limit because you have to get through so many games and the games are mostly being uh the referee for most of these are Maris students which I'll show you pictures in a little bit cuz they come um um we do allow uh people to come to the event who are if
046if they're not playing they do come to the event they can come until 4:00 we have concession stand uh can cheer on and then like I said we have Maris college volleyball players for a halftime spiking show and they are also kind of guest coaches slrs which is great uh and you can see bottom there I watch the teachers beat the students which did not happen this year we'll get to that um so here are the past winners uh you can see there was a gap in 21 and 22 during the pandemic um and then these are uh the volleyball these are some of the volleyball players that come from Maris which is great um you can kind of see them coming from a mile away kind of like the way you can see Dr
047fui coming from a mile away they're a bit taller than the middle school kids uh and they do a great job they do a great halftime show uh the kids are really excited they have a great time the Maris students themselves they have a great time coming here too um uh the staff like I said the staff does a great job of of um of attending too these are some pictures from uh from past years and then this final picture is going to be the picture of the winning team uh along with the losing team uh the winning team was Ryan's Raiders which I think was named after uh Mr Hanigan so uh we raised uh $2,226 uh which will feed 325 families for a week so just for this one event and then here
048is the picture that's pretty much done every year uh if you look close you'll see the winners and losers identify themselves by their hand uh positions uh and and uh so yes uh the ra the Ryan Raider did beat the teachers so the teachers went down in three games um which has happened before so it's not the first time the teachers have been beat uh but it was a great a great ending to a great tournament and uh it talks it says a lot about the community um about students uh staff and and everybody involved I thought it would be nice to share that with everybody thank you great you very nice I didn't see in the picture uh yeah I'm not in there well you know the teachers are they they take it very
049seriously I mean they they practice everybody practice so uh when I say they when I say they lost to the students they lost to the students uh cuz they're not trying to lose so to answer your question I'm not picked for the thank you everybody thanks a lot thank you thanks okay that brings us to item 8.01 board correspondent don't have any don't know if any other board members have any uh 8.02 is comments from the public on non-agenda items any public comment on non-agenda items okay 8.03 comments from the board anyone I've got a couple um one first I guess I'd just like to acknowledge uh you on the content agend today the prospective retirement of uh Mr maler I'm sure we'll have plenty more opportunities to talk about him and with him look
050forward to that you know I read his letter it's characteristically tur to the point but uh certainly uh can't f under the radar you know as much as he might try you know this respect he's going to try yeah I know I know I in fact even took maybe his absence here today as part of no he did have something that was not my design yeah he not going to be not my design not going sound like I just want to acknowledge it you know he me a lot to the district so much to the district so much especially the students uh throughout the district and at the high school for such a long time so just wanted to offer my congratulations you know it's well in advance but congratulations and opportunity to to celebrate
051opportunities I hope to celebrate this as we go on so that's the one thing I wanted to say and then the other thing I want to say is that there's a a upcoming next week another meeting of The Duchess County School Board Association that uh I'll be attending and the agenda is going to include a discussion of uh two uh items that the uh people who come to the meeting are are being asked to share with the rest of uh the attendees at the meeting the budget status first of all for for each uh District um or each School rather you know in the the county each district in the county so I'm you certainly can offer the highlights based on the presentations that we've gotten about that and offer a positive uh sort of
052picture of that but then secondly cell phone policies so they're interested in getting a little bit of a discussion going about what districts are thinking about cell phone policies so again I have a rough sense of that we've heard uh a bit about that that all along but I thought i' give you this opportunity to May frame that a little bit in a way that I can take to the uh to the others at the meeting sure um you know one of the goals this year is is to to look at that really through the the lens uh we doing a few book reads one with the anxious generation uh hidden Focus or stolen focus is another book um and we're actually the principles will report on that as we get uh later in the
053school year but you know it's they're going to recommend um practices for next school year now obviously the governor has um you know stated which which you would like so we're going to try to analyze all that and put something together and we'll have that before the end of this school year so again that next school year this cause a little bit of Buzz um you know with the word ban what does that mean um you know so we got to we got to sit through that a little bit um could be you know we've had a lot of success with off and Away um but a ban could mean more than off and Away um so you know we're looking through that and we'll make recommendations um it's a high item with the superintendent
054uh or with you know a governor mandating something sure it's definitely an interesting time but we were ahead of this you know we started uh you know having the discussion I think the book really gave us kind of a mechanism to have discussions there's since the books come out there's been the opposite argument coming out and challenging some of the books uh findings and and we're also looking at that um so we look at both sides but I do think the consensus has been so far that you know we we we definitely want to limit it during uh school time want to find the best way to do that there been chatter bubbling up from the students said there's a bit of a buzzz as as the I think the students are understanding um you
055know uh Mr D is still here but you know it's more high school but I think it does creep into the middle school um I think they've been you know you don't have to talk down because I know you've told me but you know they've been kind of accepting of it here at the middle school um I think they know but it doesn't mean they still don't have the urge to look or to to be part of it I think everyone here has kids um or even ourselves so um you know we got to try to find what's best you know for our kids um you know looking at the brain development of an adolescent that sort of thing Dan do you want to comment at all or did I cover it yeah no I'd
056say so I'd say just in terms of say students talking about what the governor's saying yeah no no Middle School doesn't really get down to middle school students but they know you're talking about it too they know they know the administrators are talking about yeah I've been talking about it for a long time and so myself the the parents and the kids we've been talking about cell phones for at least a lot since this post pandemic yeah because so we and we've also kind of continued to get more restrictive uh over time each year so certainly the idea that that I think everybody I think any student say you think Mr cell phon School a good idea I don't think I'm going to find a student say yes or parent you it's in know it's
057in the class and stuff so but in terms of the students kind of like hearing about the bigger picture on Middle School level good thanks I appreciate that Richard you know I believe W Ander had that pilot program that they started so it' be interesting to see how that's going they in that pilot they're going get to you that well I'm sure the is always there so I'm sure'll beagers they tried the the Yonder pouch after students violated uh their protocol yes y pouch is that pouch put it inck the magnetic pouch yeah so I'm sure there'll be some discussion it should be a hot top be interested what the Yeah follow good thanks thank you anyone else ditto on Mr mire that'll be a that'll be a loss for us for sure but um
058I guess there's probably be more to come on that at some point uh I have nothing else right now so that'll bring us to 8.04 comments from our superintendent just some nice presentations tonight uh just to highlight them I mean uh sparrows n it seems like uh spectacular is adoped them there's always a lot going on with that we definitely have some of our teachers who do the run uh to raise money um but just to see the enthusiasm and the kids wanting to give back and and do something um for a good cause it's it's just it's kind of what we we see at Spen Hill so it's it's just kind of nice to have it thank Dan for for presenting on that today kind of see it it is a little bit of
059Controlled Chaos um but but it is it is control um and then the Seal of Civic Readiness I don't know if Dr Mulford wants to jump in but that was something three years ago now do you want to talk about a little bit because I know well Dr Mulford was very instrumental in us being really one of the first schools in Duchess County to do it but you want to talk a little about that I mean thank you for that but Jody Gerard is really the one who really set it in most and um I'm just so pleased to see how it's grown over the course of the last 3 years but you know there's initiatives from the state and sometimes we think well just it's a mandate or we can do this or not
060do it but she really took it on as something that would benefit our students and you could see the evidence of that tonight so I'm just really pleased to see the evolution of it over the last few years so thank you also uh on your place area there's a magnet um which we talked about before so very as we know this year is the 160th anniversary of the beginning of spacking Hill as a district on March 14th at our superintendent conference day the board is definitely invited uh for about 8 to 9:30 uh we're going to be talking about our 160th anniversary um we hope to have a a speaker or two come uh and talk about what it is and we hope to have a a student performance or two um just to kind
061of make it festive um should be a good time uh we have some Drone footage uh I think that's going to be part of it um and just just to just to market you know not a giant thing but just enough to really really talk about mean 160 years it's a long time uh you kind of drive around and you you see signs hey 100 years old or this but then when you think 160 years um you know times when people think it's backing go I don't think you know 1865 but uh that's when we started so uh Civil War yeah the Civil War so uh we'll look for that uh next month that's all all right thank you so that brings us to 10.01 do I have a motion to adjourn the meeting have
062a second any thank you all in favor I pass is 5 Z thank you and we'll see you on March 11