Springs BOE Meeting 2/10/26

001All right. >> Good evening, uh, Springs BOE. We're streaming on YouTube. Phone lines are open. This re, uh, meeting is being recorded. You may begin. >> Thank you very much. >> I'm going to take attendance. Eric Frederickson, Patrick Ray Band, Kate Saris, >> Dermit Quinn here, >> and Emma Field is not with us tonight. Well, welcome everybody. Thank you for being here this evening. Uh, please stand for the pledge of >> allegiance of America stands indivisibley and justice for all. So we often open our meetings with a public comment. This section of the meeting is just for agenda items only. Uh we have two public comments. One for an open comment and one this one being for just the agenda items. And I always like to set the table uh for a public commentary with

002the following. Ladies and gentlemen, we are about to convene into the public comment period of our meeting. It's absolutely crucial for us to hear from our community members about their concerns and issues and appreciate all of your comments. While we may not be able to respond to your comments and questions tonight, we do take them very seriously and want to have sufficient time to process and research issues if need be so we can respond thoughtfully at a future meeting or have the proper staff member get back to you at the appropriate time. I also want to point out that under state and federal privacy laws, we're unable to entertain any comments or questions about school personnel or any individual identities. On these matters, we'd ask you to go through the appropriate administrative channels. Finally, we

003attend that our schoolboard meetings serve as an example to our students that members of our school board and members of our community can deal with controversial issues in a civil manner and demonstrate mutual respect. In that spirit, we ask that all speakers and members of the audience maintain stability and respect for any divergent views that may be expressed. We ask that speakers please address their comments to the board directly rather than the audience at the podium. Thank you so much. And with that, let's open our public commentary number one. Are there any comments this evening for agenda items only? Um, let me know. All right. How about LTV? >> Hey, good evening. This is uh Matthew Chiron calling in on the landline from LTV just to affirm the uh phone lines are working and we

004have no additional callers at this time. >> Public commentary number one. Uh at this time we're going to have our second budget presentation which includes general instruction, special education, tuition, uh ELLL education and other instructional areas. Uh Sam, I invite you to present. >> All right. Thanks. Uh so we're going to talk about the this is our second budget presentation. Um so let's get started. Before we delve into what we have, I just want to remind people where we are. Obviously the community has been extremely supportive of the district, particularly at two of the last three years. The voters authorized a Pearson tax cap. We are not recommending a Pearson tax cap this year. we are going to stay at or under the property tax cap which we're going to get to a little bit

005later. Uh but the budget that we are in the process of uh unfurling for you here this evening is tax cap compliant. Uh the budget is an aspirational document. I say this every time and I think it's worthy of repeating. We have to build in contingencies in the budget because we cannot predict the future. there are unknowns that we don't uh we can't define and we have to look for possibilities things that could happen. So let's talk about academic administration general classroom instruction. You could see we're defining the categories here. You remember the uh the board remember last year we defined the difference goods and services being contractual expenses goods either being equipment or materials and supplies and obviously salary as well broken down into both instructional and non-instructional staff. Here in Springs, we have

006the teachers and support staff who oversee the instruction of our students along with three academic administrators. Uh big item in talking about the uh academic costs of the operation of the district is tuition paid to East Hampton for education of high school student. We talked about a minute ago that the budget is an aspirational document and this is cannot be illustrated any more clearly than in this slide. The numbers that you see there represent what the administration is estimating to be reasonable predictors predictions of what your tuition needs are going to be. Is the tuition currently there we you know currently we have fewer kids than are listed there. they graduate 12th grade, it's roughly the same of the incoming ninth grade. But you have to plan for contingencies because if a student shows up

007and you have not budgeted for that student, you are going to have to cut something else in the budget to afford the ninth grade, you know, the high school education for that student. It's simply not a matter for debate. So, we're recommending these numbers is what you're what we think would put us in fairstead for what is possibility with contingencies for tuition. Uh, East Hampton, there's a 1.8% increase in the tuition. That was a voter approved contract that was worked out last year. 1.8% increase is certainly less than was at the past contract. Uh, if I can put on my Springs hat, we negotiated a very good contract. If I put on my East Hampton hat, I said really got us on that contract. So, but that's where we stand in terms of what we're

008recommending to you as the tuition that you you reasonably can expect to need and have some contingency. Student shows up, students show up. This people come and go all the time and so you need to plan for possibilities. So, this is the proposed budget for academic administration, general classroom instruction. You can see that there's actually a decrease. several reasons for the decrease and the tuition is an examp fewer students. Now, could you make that number lower? Sure, you could go even lower, but I think that we, you know, I've said several times here, you really shouldn't because it's just not smart budgeting to have a budget with no contingencies. But you can see that's where we are in terms of the uh academic instruction. The numbers reflect the fact as well that you've had some

009retirements. Uh board I believe has an item on the agenda to uh accept a few additional retirements later on. So we've adjusted down the budget to uh account for those people who are leaving who are going to be replaced with staff who make far less. Special education is the students who need uh specially tailored instruction for uh whatever uh situations they may bring to the school. uh smaller class sizes, one-to-one aids are possible, various support uh supporting instructors, speech language pathology, physical therapy, OT, and in rare instances, students who have to go to other locations to receive their education, residential placements, both these placements. Those decisions are not reached willy-nilly. They are reached with the committee on special education and they design for each student an individual education individual education plan and IEP that governs

010the services that are brought to those students. So that's one area of special of a unique education. ELLL is another area of unique education that we need to budget for. Obviously, there are a number of students who uh are new to this country who need to receive some supplemental instruction in English both for beginners, people who are a little bit way into that process, people who are exiting that learning process. So that's ELLL education. And then we have another area that we have to budget for of special instruction guidance and coun guidance counseling and health. Obviously, anybody who's been through school knows the importance of these individuals and the value that they bring to a student's education on a daily basis. So, for this area of the budget, uh you can see where we stand.

011There's some increases. There are uh that large that increase that you see there in special education, you can see the yellow box at the bottom. We're calling attention to it is because of an increase in salaries. It's just the way sometimes things work out with the teacher salary schedule. But in general, this is how we're planning for this unique area, these unique areas of the budget. One of the best things about spring school is your very extensive co-curricular and athletic activities that you offer for your students. This is a listing of most of the clubs and sports that students can participate in. There's some costs that go along with that, which you can see here. The increases are modest uh but I think they go a long way in providing a complete education for the

012students. It's not only what they're learning in the classrooms but it's the skills and uh knowledge that they gain through some of these afterchool activities. Let's talk about state aid. So we're going to shift off the expenditure budget for a minute and talk about the revenue budget. So the governor has released state aid figures. You can see where the district stands. There's two areas that I want to point out where this district has done very well in increases. The transportation and the building a board will recall last year that we talked about the fact that the uh capital expansion that happened to this building while it came out excellently, the paperwork for the project was never completed, never sent to the state. Thanks to the hard work of Jonathan Leage, that has been completed and

013you can see the beginnings of how the state aid has increased for that. That number is going to continue to move in the positive direction for the district as the state catches up with the filing of the paperwork. But you could see nice increase there. Also with transportation, we've done a great job in how the transportation is organized in partnering with East Hampton for services in providing the services uh both within the district itself. So you can see the increases there. The top line foundation aid you have the 1%. This is what the governor has suggested as the increase for all districts that don't meet certain need categories that are not applicable to us here. Traditionally, there's no guarantee past outcomes are not guarantee of future results as they say on television that traditionally the

014legislature has improved on the governor's proposal when it adopts its budget. We are supposed to see an adopted budget by law by April 1st. The state has had a casual relationship with that date in the past. I'm not confident that we're going to see it again this year, but hopefully they will be close to on time as possible so we can go to the voters with a budget that is that in which the state aid is reflective of the actuals instead of the projected. until we see something finalized by the legislature and signed into law by the governor, we are going to be going with the governor's proposal because we don't have it's too risky to do anything else. That's where our state aid just so you can see just another other another comment on

015state aid the bottom all but the top line are based are aids that are driven based on use. The top line is where the state has the most discretion through its various funding formulas to affect the aid that districts get. All right. Property tax cap has been around now for about 15 years, but it's worthwhile to just review it so we all know we're on the same page about what it says. It essentially says that the levy can increase by no more than 2% or CPI, whichever is plus several exemptions. The common exemptions, none of which apply this year, are capital capital cost and uh pension, excuse me, capital cost applies, but the pension does not apply this year, the pension exemption. So, property tax cap is not straight 2%. It's a 2% plus the

016exemptions capital cost applies that the pension costs do not uh apply. The exemptions do not apply this year. That was clear as mud. But here is a I'm gonna give myself an F on that slide, but here are the numbers so you can actually see how we do the calculation. This is the formula of how you calculate the property tax cap. The tax cap limit for this year is $35.9 million. Uh and so we are designing a budget here that is going to ensure that we stay within that property tax cap number. Remember this is the levy. This is the revenue that is collected from the taxpayers of this district. This is not the expenditure budget. This is not what the bud the public is voting on in May. This is the bulk of how

017you fund the expenditure budget which is what the public is voting on in May. There's an item on the agenda later on this evening in which we are asking the board to approve this calculation and then hopefully tomorrow morning if not by tomorrow afternoon we will file this paperwork with the state so that we can go on record as saying that we are planning to stay within the property tax cap uh this year. All right. So next step the budget we're going to continue to roll out some additional expenditure areas. Next time we're going to be monitoring this legislature to see what they do in terms of hopefully improving on the governor's proposal. This is an election year. So hopefully they are interested in improving for all of their constituents. And the budget presentations are

018going to continue on the following schedule. See what we're talk about next time. Transportation, benefits, debt service, and revenues. In the end of April, we're going to do the budget overview and the board will be asked to adopt the budget this uh that evening. It's going to be there'll be a budget hearing on May 12th and the public gets their say on the budget on May 19th. All right. >> Thank you, Sam. >> Okay. >> Thank you. >> Board have any questions uh on the presentation? >> Clearly, that was very clear. Thank you, Sam. Really appreciate that. Um, all right. And so now let's move to our consent agenda. Uh, I'm going to ask for a motion to approve items 41 to I believe 48 on the consent agenda. Do I have a motion? >>

019I think I heard a second in there. All those in favor? I. Any opposed? No. Motion carries. All right. So, we're going to move to our business item section this evening. And, uh, right here we have 51 to 58. I ask for a motion to approve 51 through 58 under business items. Do I have a motion? >> Second. All right, Jonathan, you take it away. >> Thank you. Um, so we have um the first few items, the January reports. Um, I just want to highlight in January we started to receive um tax payments from the town. So, we've been moving money around so we can earn most interest on that money until we need it for cash flow purposes. 5.4 4 is the adoption of the tax cap calculation as Sam just presented. Um the

020tax cap over the prior year it's 2.25% is that calculation where that falls in the revenue budget we will discuss during the next budget presentation. Um following that we have a series of contracts. Um one is for health services, the other is for special education services and as well we're asking the approve um two RFPs that we went out for. The first one is for external auditing services. Um we plan on going with our um current auditor whose um contract was up this last fiscal audit. um they came in best priced as last time. And then we have a RFP for the electrification of the fleet study that the state has been pushing districts to do. Um we are going with Wendell which is um the company that's been doing a lot of districts in

021the east end. Um and I just want to say that 75% of the costs will be covered by a grant. The district only has to pay for 25% of it and that is it. Any questions? >> That was that was one that they left. Correct. >> Yes. >> I look forward to seeing the study. >> Me too. >> Yeah. I mean it would be nice to you obviously try to save money anyway you can, but every school really needs to do their own study. >> Yes. >> Um >> we can't piggy back ones unfortunately. It's a huge infrastructural change to move to electric. So, it's a very necessary thing to conduct a study to see how feasible it is and looking forward to seeing the results of that. Yeah. Any other questions, guys? No. All

022right. Well, let's move to our uh voting here. Uh I'm going to ask all those in favor of approving items 51 to 58. I >> any opposed? Motion carries for all those business items. Let's move to our principal report now. Take it away, Mr. Kell. >> Thank you, sir. >> All right. So, we are going to share our school report card. This is officially released. You can find it on the NISD website. Uh I'll talk about this is based upon last year's test scores. We'll touch on that, where we stand currently, what we're doing to improve, and then also a little bit of the future of where the state is going. We're going to touch a little bit on on that as well. So, some key takeaways, you see this on our slides fairly regularly,

023is that students who leave us here at spring school, our eighth graders going to high school are very prepared to be successful, as evidenced by their scores right there. So if we look in ELA, we're 21% higher than the state average, 22% higher in math, and then 24% higher in science with both our algebra 1 and earth science regions uh scores being 100% of our students are proficient or higher. So that is fantastic. If we look at some comparisons in a nutshell here, we could just say we grew in every single subject. U ELA since 2023 24 to last year was 2% as well as math science we took a big jump up was 17% higher. If we compare ourselves to the state average, we're 2% higher in ELA which was our main focus last

024year. We are 1% below the state average. But again, if we're looking at growth, that's really what it's all about. And then 17% higher in science as well. So, very proud of our teachers, their hard work. And as always, we're trying to get better and better every single day for our kiddos. So, um, wonderful job there. And we're just going to go over the graphs. I'm not going to talk bit by bit, but you can see the comparison from each right there. So it has all of our grade levels third through eighth. This is ELA. We'll have where both school and district. So the the orang-ish and yellowish um compared to the blue which is the state and you can see each grade level but overall at the very end you can see the cumulative

025scores that we are 2% above the state average there. >> Yeah. No, it's fantastic. >> Thank you. Awesome. And then math, the same. We'll just go through math and science as well. Here we go. By by grade level, you can go ahead and take a look. As you can see, that trend as we approach that eighth and final year. And it's cumulative. So, everybody is a part of those students education. And ultimately, we're when they leave us, they're they're ready at high levels. And then science again. Cool. Science is only fifth and eighth grade and the earth science those are our first right there. So really impressive really um way ahead of the the state in both fifth to eighth and the region. So well done to our science teams. So our next steps, so

026some of these things that we're doing, it's important to note for the the board as well as the public that our computer literacy, so computers and technology that's not going away, is only getting stronger. In fact, all of our state tests this year will be on the computer for the first time. This is a state mandatory thing. It's not necessarily a decision on our part, but all of our students will be taking it third through 8th on the computer. So computer-based testing what we're doing to prepare is that teachers are using uh computer assessments for their summitives and we also already use them through our benchmarking process as well. So students even as early as K are getting used to using the computers and prepared for this testing. We already actually had our pilot testing

027for third and eighth grade. So those third graders that was their first time to take somewhat of a state test. Last year, seventh grade didn't take the assessment. So, we had our eighth graders piloted as well. So, they get a little practice round. It's not anything that's scored. It's just a way that they could see all of the manipulatives and things that you could do on that state test. >> You just don't want the computer to interfere with the base knowledge of what's going right because it's a new medium that they're taking on. Their fluency in the computer is something that as you practice, they'll be more comfortable. So, that it's a true representation of their knowledge and not disruption in in medium or something. >> Exactly. And ultimately we have to and our teachers

028are doing a great job of it. Not only are we exposing our students to taking assessments online, but we also have to teach those strategies. Okay, this is very different than pencil paper and going forward. So they're they're teaching they're using all the tools that the computer provides during the testing and exposing our kids to that. Our students, they they grew up with this. they they're much more comfortable than us as adults feel and that that's their preferred medium and that's how they excel. So they're like I said they're very much more comfortable than us going in like oh my lord they're they're all on the computer this year but once we get that in place and the students have years of practice they're going to be very successful with that medium. We do have

029a bunch of stuff from the state. We have our literacy initiative and our numeracy initiative that's coming from the state. The New York or NICED I should say released the science of reading initiatives that are along and with that we have a prek through3 instructional best practice guide. So science of reading is this is how students learn how to read based in evidence throughout science and then the instructional guide is this is how teachers should teach to align their practices with the science of reading. So that's guiding us as well as the literacy briefs which separate the science of reading into grade bands and what that looks like at each one. And just recently they the state released the numerousy briefs as well. So think of that as more of like a science of math

030thing as well. And what that is doing is making sure our kids are learning at high levels in terms of math fluency. And so, um, one note on math, and we're in the heart of it right now, is we are working on adopting a new math curriculum for next year. We've observed three programs right now and a fourth the week we get back. And then we're going to go through the process of working with our teachers and math team to ultimately decide what we're going to do for next year that's going to help our kids maximize their potential. Couple other things we have going on here. Our MTSS program that's a it's ultimately a multi-tered system of support. Sometimes you've heard it called RTI or response to intervention. That's a proactive way where we're helping

031kids who we see might be struggling. And then we have AIS which is a way we help kids as evidenced by state test and benchmarks who we know are struggling. We support them as well. So we have a a proactive reactive response and we use data on multiple levels to find our students, find the gaps in our teaching and and support them. So this is the this is where the state is heading. Some of it it I have to admit it's mainly heavily based in high school, but what we have to do we're preparing our kids for that. So ultimately here we are with New York inspires. There's four transformations here. You can see what I'm going to touch on is the portrait of a graduate, which is what directly impacts us the most here

032at Springs. This is ultimately the state's version of portrait of a graduate. This is what they want our students, our high school students when they leave 12th grade being prepared to do. So, you could take a look at those indicators there. In the heart of it is cultural responsiveness and sustaining education. And ultimately what we're doing if you look at the blue section around this is 21st century skills. Our students will have all the facts in the world in their hand in half a second through internet through AI etc. What we need are effective communicators. We need students who could critically think and work with a broad group of teammates ultimately. So here's here's a portrait of a graduate. If we look at the interesting part would be the learning expectations in the middle there

033where the state and we don't have word on this yet but hopefully it's K12 where they're adjusting and prioritizing the standards. We do that here as a school in terms of teachers groups they for each grade level they're looking at what's the most important to learn. But if the state says this is what you ultimately have to learn before you get out of this grade and then give you support in teaching that that'll be very great for us as well. And then lastly, here's the theory of change. So this is from the state. If they go through with New York inspires and those four indicators, then what will happen ultimately? You can see great things for our students prepared for the future ready to learn and a couple things that really impact us. If we

034look at as shown by the evidence, this is where we're going to have to make a few adjustments in terms of our teaching practices to make sure we're aligned to this fully, especially if you look at that second bullet. So we're engaging in much more project based work, real world learning, and then multiple means of providing evidence. So no longer is it I'm going to take this test or I'm going to write this piece. The students can show and prove they know the information by various means. And that's what we really have to dig deep into. Identify those means and teach multiple different ways. So that's where the state is headed. That's where we are. And uh we're ready for it. >> No, that's wonderful. And obviously it helps with your critical thinking, your problem

035solving in the age of AI where a lot of these answers are sourced so easily now. >> Yep. >> Education is moving into a way where we're putting more merit to how do you think about >> a challenge and how are you solving for it because the answers are out there but there >> we need to understand how we arrive at them, how we communicate them and it's it's wonderful that we're accounting for that in this. It's also nice to see that you had mentioned in a previous board meeting quite a few board meetings ago, but how important it is from that K through third grade level to make those supports and interventions >> for literacy. Um, and it sounds like there's a similar model approaching whatever curriculum you guys choose, but >> we're going

036to have a sim similar base for math as well. >> Yeah, both of them. Ultimately, our our focus has been that those the early literacy for the last few years and it's going to be when we choose this math program. The same thing if we don't get that foundation, we're playing catch-up time. So, we want the very best for our earliest learners and that's going to just impact the trajectory of their future. And in terms of all that data that you showed earlier, obviously the more the higher percent of our students that take those state tests, the more rich and informative that data is. >> Um hopefully we're seeing, you know, more and more, you know, people taking it. But what it is showing us is that as people go through their ARC at spring

037school that by the time they graduate, you know, on average, all those that have taken that test, they're showing that >> we're actually ranking even above the state. So, it's just kind of like make those interventions early, continue to support >> is doing wonderful as well. So, really appreciate your presentation. And this is all some of this I I realize it's hard to read probably for the audience, but all of this is always available on the school's website, usually not too long after a board meeting, right? From our budget presentation to this presentation. >> And it could always just type, we could Google New York report cards and it's available to the public as well. And they could type in any school you could see how we compare to schools upstate. So, whatever it is,

038it's all available. It's public knowledge at this point. >> Excellent. Thank you so much. Is there any questions from the board here about this? >> I'm just wondering if there's a couple of reasons you can point to for the increases in the test scores for this year versus last year. >> What do you think? >> Yeah, it's just a clearer focus. I would say we we are continuously working to improve just like every other profession in the world where we we dive in, we look at the data, we're collaborating more. It's it's a more consistent group that we've had at at school is we've had the same group of teachers and now the same group of administrators and we're all on the same page rowing in the same direction. So, um, it was a a

039great little boost forward, but we we look and expect to continue that trend going forward. >> Thank you. >> I think we're all on the same page, and it's one of the um >> just one of the nice things um about how we're all working together, the administration, and the teachers, the teaching assistants, aids, we're all working together. Um now, we meet regularly. We look at how we can improve um in all different areas. So, uh, kudos to the staff and everyone for working collaboratively. I think it's what makes a difference in the district. >> I did doing a job and we're also lucky that we have our students are the same students every year. Yeah, >> we have very consistent student body from K to 8, you know, like just keep on moving. Sometimes

040I'm not crazy about state statistics. >> No, you have to take a grain of salt. >> Everything is Yeah, absolutely. It might have some students that some have students there two years they leave. Yeah, >> we just want to see, you know, that's why I know you rely on your own testing, >> your own house program is more important state program, they funded some of it. >> We got to follow their guidelines, but you know, >> I really like Yeah, the emphasis on project based learning coming about and one thing you'll notice with education things come happen over and over again. I was a very a big proponent of project-based learning when I was a teacher and I'm very happy to see that it's a a new way of assessing students not only by exams

041but by what they can show and articulate um with the learning that they're doing. So I'm glad the state is actually acknowledging that now as a form of assessment. One thing I I did not mention, it was on the bullet point, but another thing that this the state uh is encouraging and actually requiring next year is not a not specifically a course in it, but financial literacy and climate uh literacy or climate education as well. So, there's two components that we're going to have to incorporate into our curricula already, which is is going to also benefit our students. of being prepared to be fiscally sound moving forward as as they become adults is is a great thing. >> More programs into an existing program. How do you fit into the schedule? >> Say that again.

042>> When they add more programs into existing program, you already have existing programs set up >> in a certain amount of time. You can do it in the course in the course of a year. >> So they add more programs into it. How does that work? >> Not necessarily more programs. It's just enhancing the existing programs that you have. So looking at >> you have a financial enhancement in that program by right now. >> Not specifically, but we do have the platform for it. So we have a business program as we get into our middle school where we would incorporate that into >> she's already started this year doing a lot of >> sciences for the climate. So we'll incorporate it. Uh we'll just see where it prioritize. We always go back to our standards

043where the where they align and what grades and then we'll we'll make it work ultimately. >> It sounds like you're not adding or removing anything per se, but it it seems to work in the normal whatever 180day integration of what's going on. >> Yeah, we're going to adapt it and it's not a new class that we have to offer. It's make sure in certain grade levels based upon when the standards are released, this is for next year, we'll have a clear indication of that. uh where and when we teach it and how. >> Yeah, it's not I guess it's a matter sometimes some of these topics might be in the system already and it's just a matter of where you focus your attention but it's not like students uh in exchange for this like a

044quid pro or something where now that we're doing this thing uh this financial you know we're not we're not going to do this anymore. >> It's incorporating what you're already learning into financial literacy. So, if you're learning about percentages and you learn about PMI and getting mortgages and different things and learning how to use the math that you learn in real life situations, uh, which is what makes sense, uh, unfortunately, >> like applied learning, right? >> I'm never going to use them. >> Well, no, thank you. Are there any other comments or questions? Thank you again. All right, so we're going to move on. We have a another presentation coming up from project most um which runs our after school students here. I invite Rebecca Morgan. >> Oh, uh thank you so much uh Rebecca

045Morgan actually go by Taylor too. >> Okay. Okay. >> Um anyway, um I'm so happy to be here tonight. Um you know, we used to present at school board meetings pretty regularly. Um and we got out of that habit. Um I know several years ago um I guess we worked so closely with um Eric S and Deb Wer and um Christine Clearly Clearary that um we just got out of the habit of it. And so with the some of the new board members who I don't know and new administration, I thought it was really important to come back and and start presenting to you again because um you know we like to think of project most as you know um a full day for the children. So they come here at 8 in the morning

046and they don't leave till 6:00. So they're in this building, there are springs kids, they're engaged in learning and socializing all day long. So, just like you hear what's happening during the school day, you should also hear what's happening during Project Most as well. Um, so I invited some of my staff here tonight. I'm just going to say thank you for all of them coming. Um, and these are my leadership staff. Some of them work at John Marshall and some of them here at Springs. And surprisingly, one showed up who didn't intend to show up um who's doing his school administration cohort. So, he's here tonight too, Tyler. But I have two students, Tyler and Catherine, um, who grew up in Project Most at John Marshall School, starting in kindergarten, um, all the way through

047fourth or fifth grade, then working for us in high school, um, working for us in college, and going on to be teachers, um, which we're super proud of. um they both spoke at our events in the summertime to share their um their love of Project Most and how much it meant to their families while they were in the program. Um, I have other staff here who are East Hampton staff members but work for us as well. And they were counselors when they were in high school and their siblings and nieces and nephews all come to um project most and they um live in Springs and they work for East Hampton School District. And then um Manuela is a teacher who um grew up in Project Most as well. learned by working for us that she

048wanted to be a teacher, went and got her teaching degree, taught at John Marshall for about three years, and decided she wanted to make a career change into marketing. And so we hired her back to um do some social media and marketing for us. And Melissa has been working as our site directors for John Marshall and Springs for roughly six years now. So we're all teachers. We're all we've all worked with kids for a very long time. I myself am a teacher and also hold my school administration degrees. So just a little history about who we are right now. Um I wanted to bring you through the history of Project Most and I was looking through some historical data and I realized this is our 20th year here. >> Oh wow. >> Which is amazing.

049And Pat probably has been on the school board for many of those years learning about Project Most. So, um, so we're really proud to say that we've been here for 20 years. You look at the history, it started with a private grant. The grant was $200,000 um from a private donation and they came to the school and they said, "We want to donate this to you. We want you to decide on the pro on the program that you want to have here that will be sustainable for the school." And so the school board was given a menu of maybe four or five items and they chose project most. So we were already in existence at John Marshall School and the school board at the time and I believe Kathy Bur Gonzalez was on the school

050board at the time realized the value that we were having at John Marshall and they wanted it for their kids here. So um it started off with a K through3 program. Um the funding for the $200,000 was over three years. It was supposed to be a h 100,000 for the first year plus ter parent tuition. A 6040 split with school district and the foundation money and parent tuition. And then the third year a 4060 split with school district funding and um and the foundation funding. they thought that the school district should be invested into the program as well. But we all know the budget for spring school. So that did not continue. But the good thing was is that um we had started our programs at John Marshall with advantage after school grants. It was

051state funding and so a new RFP opened up and we were able to get that grant for spring middle school and high school. And that funding really stayed on. They're five years grants. We reapply for them. We've been able to get them. And unfortunately, Governor, every governor comes out with their new initiative. So, Governor Hokll came out with LEAPS. And I'll talk more about LEAPS a little bit later on, but unfortunately, Spring School did not qualify to for us to write a grant for LEAPS. Only East Yampton did. Um, and I looked for Montalk, too, but they didn't qualify either. Um, so anyway, going through the years, we had the state funding. Um, in 2010, uh, we had some local parents who were chefs who said came to the school board and said, "We want

052to start to teach our kids about cooking and gardening and where our food comes from. Can you help us fund this and can we put a greenhouse on the property?" School board said, "We'll give you the property, but we can't help fund it." So, it fell under the mission of Project Most. We loved the idea and so we fundraised for the greenhouse that you have on the property. Um, $30,000. Um, and Project Moles also had a part-time garden educator who would come in in the afternoons, teach the kids from gardening to cooking, and then she also sometimes would come in and support the teachers who were using the greenhouse um, as an outdoor classroom. At that time, there were several teachers on carts. I believe Owen McCormack was one of those, and he was teaching

053science. So, he spent a lot of time out in the greenhouse teaching. Um, and a lot of the kindergarten classes would go out there. Um, and so our staff person would go out there and support them. Um, moving on. So having a greenhouse and a garden, the best time to use that is in the summertime, right? Um, so attached to the greenhouse, we had also built a really nice garden. And so that started our summer program. We had a grant from the Levit Foundation. It was a 5-year grant to um start a summer program about gardening, cooking, environmental studies, and it was art focused. And so that is how our STEM summer program got started. Moving along, um we started to lease the neighborhood house um associate neighborhood house building on 3M Harbor Road in

0542019 um to do additional programming. It was our goal that our summer program would be there. Um and unfortunately COVID hit. Um so that summer that COVID hit, we were able to open at the neighborhood house for essential worker children. So we had a summer camp for about 30 kids for essential workers. Um and then spring school could only open it as a hybrid model. So, um, Project Most decided to we're going to start a remote learning program for the essential workers and the kids and the families where they need to go to work and they need a full day. So, we had 50 students every day at the neighborhood house, six feet apart, doing their remote learning. Um and um during the day it was like Google Meets and Zooms and worksheets and Manuela

055was our lovely teacher. She was fresh out of college. Um had a couple other teachers fresh out of college that we hired to help do that. Um and then in the afternoon it would go into um traditional project most. So the kids were under our supervision from 8:00 in the morning till 6:00 at night um during co and we never had a breakout which was wonderful um amazing. Um and then it brings us to today. So we currently serve um prek through 8th grade. We have 137 students which is really truly roughly one quarter of your population here um almost. And so that's sort of the short end of the 20 year history with Project Most here at Spring School. Thank you. >> Um when I think of Project Most, I like to look at

056it this way. Um yes, we're just an afterchool program. Yes, we're a summer camp. Yes, we do school vacation programs. But we do so much more that people can't see. So we see the families every single day. We talk to the parents every single day. We see the children every single day. Um we're in this building. So we really become this middle person between teachers, between social workers, between families, what do they need, what's going on in their lives. There's been many times where um the trust in our counselors through the years where um students have told them very personal um life-threatening um things and if it wasn't for these great people to get that information into the administrative hands into the social worker hands those um problems were helped and solved. So, and those

057are things that we don't always talk about. Um, we have a group of families, we have small funding from a private donor who wants to feed people. So, we have a group of families, maybe 15 to 20 families that we send weekend food packs home to them um September through June. Um, so we kind of are this little connection between the child and the family and the school. Um, sometimes we're the first ones to hear that, you know, the family there's a death in the family. there's somebody has been deported or somebody um is going through a divorce and maybe that's why the child's behavior is changing in the classroom and the teacher may not know that yet or the social workers may not know that yet but but my staff will and so the

058communication between the school and project most and um the all working to um support the families is truly truly valuable. So after school, what what all of you probably just know is um last year between John Marshall and Springs, we served 335 students. Um said we have 130 students enrolled here, quarter of your school. Um we do homework, we provide snacks, um enrichment, art, STEM, wellness activities. Um what you may not know is coming out of the pandemic and I really was interested to hear Eric's um discussion on um literacy kids were struggling coming out of the pandemic when we saw that. So we wrote a grant um private grant. We got it. We still have it. And so we do small group tutoring um for kids, three to five kids in a group. We

059try to put their reading levels at the same. We communicate with the reading teachers to find out those reading levels. Um, it has to parents have to sign up for it, but they're 30 30 minute lessons. And this year we have Deb Murray, Emily Driver, and Melanie Curos all that we hire um to work with these kids. Last year it was a different group of um teachers from the school. Um and Melanie Curus was um a child and a counselor who went through project most as well. So now you have her as a teacher. Um thank you. Our summer program um we contract with East Hampton High School to provide us a bus from 9:00 in the morning till 4 in the afternoon. We think it's so important to get the kids out and about.

060Um, project-based learning I heard discussed today. We have been doing that hands-on learning since we started. We want to get those kids' hands messy and dirty and to see the world. So, um, they're going to museums, their parach museum, the church in Psych Harbor. They go see how the shellfish are, um, down at the Eastampton Shellfish hatchery. They're over at Duck Creek learning about art and artists. They're at Amber Waves because we don't have our garden program at here anymore. We go over to Amber Waves and they do cooking and gardening there twice a week. And so, um, anything and there's just ongoing things that we can do with the kids. This year, our newest program, we have a new grant, um, and so we're focusing on middle schools. So, we're going to try to

061do a broadcast news project with LTV um with Chrissy Samson and um a student exhibition at the Springs Library. School vacation programs we have coming up. Um again, we're focusing on middle school. We have an arts immersion grant from the Arts and Letters Foundation. $60,000 grant over three years to focus on middle school arts immersion. So, um, next week we have 15 kids who will be in a stopmotion animation class. Um, they did it in the summertime. They made these wonderful little videos. Then they got up and had a little panel discussion with their parents. It was really inspiring and they loved it and they asked for more of it. So, we're doing it again. Um, April, we put together a travel club. So, they're going to the North Fork. Um, they're going to go

062to New York City. um they'll go to Southampton and then some of their local art museums and things around here. And then for the and then during the summertime they'll just be artists and residents coming in under this um grant. And then our newest program is for high school. Um it's called the kind's future college and career pathways. Again, anonymous donation. We write a lot of grants. They're really helpful. um they can do really cool fun projects um that are sort of out of the box um thinking. So um you know our program sort of ended in like fourth grade and then we saw kids dropping out and we we don't want that. We want them to continue and for them to be counselors for us one day, right? Um, so we're moving in a

063direction. We have we're we're working with Adam Fine at the high school, um, and the assistant principal over there. And we have a pilot program with 10 students. Um, some of them are springs students going to the high school, Agerie being one. Um, who is our and it's collecting and this will start in middle school. It's collecting. It's creating a portfolio for college basically. So holding all the wonderful things and great things that they do from middle school to high school um in one place and developing a portfolio where they can truly kind of present themselves and who they are and what they've done throughout the years. Um we will also in this grant also bring in um just you know finding different careers. What can you do in your life? Um uh financial literacy

064um you know when you you know so we have all these wonderful things. We're excited about this kind futures careers program. Um the high school is excited about it too. And so it's a pilot program and we're actually looking to write a bigger grant um that will hopefully fund that because once once kids get to middle school and high school they can opt out of things and then their parents don't have to pay for things. So we're trying to get these grants so that these programs can be free for families and that they can um that the kids want to be there and they want to do these things. So um okay um funding. So, um, I talked a little, we try to keep things very affordable for working families. Um, 23 24 was our

065last year of any state funding for the advantage program. Um, like I said, um, Kathy Hokll came up with LEAPS learning enrichment afterchool program support. um you had to be a high you had to qualify as a 50% or more economically disadvantaged um student population. Well, we all think that Springs that would be springs, right? Well, unfortunately, Springs did not qualify. So, I wanted to share this and I'll give it to you Nancy. maybe whatever data the state education department had on spring school, >> they did not qualify. Those are the school districts that did qualify. >> One of the reasons is because they don't have a cafeteria and um they they use the free and reduced lunch rate to uh determine poverty rates. Um it's something we've been looking at. uh we've started looking

066at because it's absolutely uh it's not indicative of what our population is >> and I mean if you need help with parents you know filling out forms and stuff like like I said we see a quarter of your your your parents here to do that. Um and and I know that's the reason I know that's the reason why Montalk didn't get it either. Um it's unfortunate because these schools need it. East Hampton just squeaked by with 50%. So, but our grant for East Hampton is um $550,000 a year >> and we have the same exact population as >> you do. Absolutely. So, if there's any way that we could shift the data or change the data or project most can help in any way. I when I found this out, I went to Fred the

067at the time, had him write letters to advocate. I talked to Deb Wer about it. So, >> no, it affects our state aid as well and it's something um that's been it's very challenging. >> So, understood. So, anyway, we you know, this is these are last year and this year are years without any state funding for spring school. We're trying to keep our programs as the same as John Marshall, so one isn't receiving more than the others. Um we're finding other ways to fund fund raise for it. Um we do events, we write grants. Um, so but we give about $200,000 away every year for financial assistance. Um, that was last year. We're predicting about the same and if we're predicting right, 80,000 comes from just the springs after school program. Um, our funding structure

068is really parent tuition, um, government school district grants, private foundation grants, and fundraising efforts. And then lastly, um, we've been in the news lately about our building. Um, so we had a dream of having our own space and being able to do things within our own space. It doesn't mean that our afterchool programs would leave because John Marshall and after school programs are sightbased. Um, and it doesn't make sense to transport kids to another building. Plus, that building won't be able to house the number of kids that we have currently, but it will house our summer program, school vacation programs, weekend programs. It will act as a community center for for everyone in the community. Um, so we are just about ready to reubmit our application with a nice landscaping plan to buffer the neighbors.

069Um and hopefully we will get a stamp of approval to move forward with our um project, but um we're looking forward to it. And so more to come for rehabilitating and creating this great new space for the community at the neighborhood house. So anyway, and so just a bunch of pictures. So >> as of those cute kids. So um I think you all should be very proud to say that you have project most as your after school program. Many schools do not have this. Uh many programs are forprofits. Many programs um just sit and do homework and then let them run around the playground. Although some days that's might look what we do. But there is a lot more in depth to what we do. But um you should be very proud to say that

070you have project most in your building and we're proud to be here too. >> We're very happy to have Thank you so much for sharing this. I think it's important for the community to know there's so much that you do but it's very hard to see um you know from all the different perspectives and I think this can build awareness to what you guys are doing which we appreciate it. >> Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I just say something. >> I've had I've had two, as you know, two videos go through. And if I if I could be honest with you, one of them, nobody asked how young she was when she started. She was like maybe a year or two young. >> Mine too. >> She fit right in. Derma, >> she fit

071in. Well, there's a look there was a photograph that we got. The kids are on on their Chromebooks doing their stuff and if you look underneath Cersei's behind there's two phone books that she's sitting up on top. But from >> she is smarter now. >> But just the amount of things like we were told years ago throw everything at your kids and like if you throw everything at them something's going to stick and let them make up their own mind. and Project Most threw so much at our kids like through reading, art, science. Um, kids were taken to exhibits up at um the Parish Art Museum and the next week then Cersei's like dissecting Al with Anita, right? And it's like everything in between. Andre is is going through this great program um with uh

072his mentor is is Brian Tupper and for his application for college the it's such an amazing program. It's like don't tell me what you did when like to get here show us and like it's such a an amazing program that you guys are setting up like I do anything for project most I run a marathon for you all the time. Thank you. We we truly we love what we do and you can see by these great kids who are here today who grew up in the program and and they're still with us and they show up for things like this. So, um there's a lot of heart and family and project what we do >> and there's a lot of stuff sticks. >> Yeah. >> Thank you again. >> It was wonderful. Um all right,

073so we're going to move to our uh superintendent report part of tonight. I ask for a motion to approve items 81 through 85 under the superintendent report. Do I have a motion? Second. Second. Nancy. >> Okay. First, I just wanted to say thank you very much to Project Mo. Uh my daughter worked in project mo as a high school student and um it was a it's it's really uh to all of you that came here. It really is a wonderful experience. It helps you um when you go out into the real world. Although the experience you're getting working from Project Most is going to really be beneficial to you as you go out and about, she's still somebody that everyone looks to for guidance. Um because I think it started uh back in Project Most.

074But um thank you for all you do um for our district. Um we have I and for the board. We have an early morning program for our kids that come here. Uh we have an afterchool program. I think these are programs that are very needed by our families. So, uh, to the board, uh, for supporting all these programs, I give you accolades. I think it's really important for our community and thank you all for being here and for what you do. I truly appreciate it. So, um, just want to go, um, as we start, uh, we have a couple of, uh, retirements that are coming up and I just want to say at the end at our June meeting, we're going to acknowledge all of our retirees. So, um I'm just going to mention them

075briefly this evening and we will have a little celebration uh for them uh when the time comes. So, uh first we have the resignation um of Tracy Frasier who is going to be retiring at the end of this year. She's a beloved teacher. She was here when I taught. Um, we spent a lot of time uh discussing uh both somebody who's so so passionate about education and she's going to be a great loss to the Springs District. We're we're so uh glad uh for all that she's given to our students and also to the camaraderie she's had and the leadership that she's provided uh to fellow teachers. So, she'll be retiring at the end of this year. As I said, we'll be acknowledging our retirees in June. And then we also have the retirement of

076Jerry Tapia who's been here for many, many years as well. Um, once again, this is how old I am. Not that they're old, just me. But, um, I worked with both of them as a teacher here in Spring School. Terrific educators. Uh, Jerry Tapia is a special education teacher. She's provided, uh, so much support for our students with special needs over the year. um has traveled a long way for many many years uh to come here and be a part of our community. So, we're looking forward to acknowledging them uh in June. And uh I just want to say I really uh kind of brings tears to my eyes as uh people that I worked with are retiring as we come up. Um also uh we have a couple donations I just want to mention.

077Uh very exciting. We're accepting the donation of Billy the Bearded Dragon. And if anyone has the opportunity to go visit Sandre Veio's room. Um Billy is uh living in, as Miss Janice once mentioned, if she ever um dies and comes back as a pet, she wants to be Miss Thomas's pet because >> I want to be in her >> terarium and the environment that she set up. Uh she donated this uh this >> hammock. Yes, a hammock. Um just a beautiful terrarium with a beautiful stand and the kids are really enjoying it having in their classroom. So, we really appreciate donations like that um to the school district. And we also accept a very generous donation from the Travis Field Memorial Scholarship Committee who's donating $1,000 and it's going to be allocated to the school's

078baseball and softball programs. Uh very very thankful for that uh scholarship. I knew Travis well and it brings uh tears to my eyes. um thinking about it and I uh am so appreciative to the family for keeping his memory alive and for continually thinking about the spring school. So um just want to mention those things and then just going forward I just have a few updates um of what's going on in school and then as we do always our enrollment report. I just want to mention it's been a really special month for our middle school students. Um uh we had a very accomplishing month and I just first have to say kudos to the students for their outstanding performances in Mary Poppins. Um anyone that went to see it, it was truly they were just

079astonishing. Uh the casting was perfect, the music, backdrops, choreography, they just all left me in awe and the hard work and dedication of our students and staff resulted in a really magnificent uh it was just beautiful. I brought a couple friends with me to see the performance and they were in awe as well um at how just uh wonderful uh everything was about the production. So also appreciative to Gil Hall um for having that be a venue for us. It's really makes it special uh being able to perform there. And then also just want to mention this past Saturday uh it was a very difficult decision for me to do as a superintendent. Um it's one of the hardest things we do is deciding whether school's going to be closed, events are going to be

080closed during weather. Um trying to weigh, you know, that families all have uh obligations and we want to make sure students are safe as well. But we had um a robotics competition that took place this Saturday and it was extremely cold and it started snowing and our kids had to leave here at 6:00 a.m. and we made the decision to let them go. they really really wanted to go to compete uh so that they could move forward and we just want to give them you know just a lot of kudos too and this is the first year that we've ever had three teams and we had the Thunderbots the lightning bots and the firebots and we want to congratulate them all for uh showing up first that early in the morning and in the difficult

081uh elements and uh they did really really well and we're pleased to share that the Thunderbots qualified for the next round of the robotics competition um in Hicksville on Sunday, March 8th. And in addition to them uh doing so well at the competition, they received the innovation project award. And they'll be presenting at an upcoming board meeting um to just show that all they accomplished on that day. And according to their coach, Miss Hamilton, she quoted, "You should have seen them present to the judges. Their poise, pacing, pronunciation, and most importantly, their knowledge of the topic were quite impressive. They didn't skip a beat and confident confidently answered the judges questions. The team worked extremely hard and their commitment to robotics truly deserves applause. So we congratulate the Thunderbots and we wish them continued success

082as they move forward. And just want to also mention that uh this uh month and the over the last couple months we have a math team that we've uh created this year that's comprised of teachers and administrators and they've been reviewing different instructional programs that are aligned as with Mr. Kel mentioned the new state mathematics standards and they're going to be selecting a program that we're going to be implementing in grades K through eight next year and as Mr. Kel noted uh the districts are required to implement these as part of the new standards and the New York State portraiture of a graduate initiative. So, we want to thank the teachers and administrators for their thoughtful work and participation in the process. And we look forward to choosing a curriculum for next year, working over

083the summer on professional development and being sure that we're providing our kids with the most up-to-date uh curriculum and teaching and learning. Um, as Mr. Kell mentioned, we really are looking at uh making sure that it's project based learning, that kids are active, and that they're involved in their learning. and are excited about having a really strong both literacy and math curriculum as we move forward. Making sure that, as we mentioned before, it's not just about testing. It's also about being sure that our kids are getting experiences that are going to help them to be successful in life and that they're excited to be in school and they're having fun learning as well. And also want to mention um our fourth grade students visited the Liberty Science Center in Jersey City this week, this past

084week. And um the Liberty Science Center, many of you know, it's an interactive science museum. It's the home of one of the largest planetariums in the countries. Our students enjoyed a wonderful day. They had great hands-on learning and exploration. And just want to really thank the PTA for sponsoring this really valuable education experience. Um they're also sponsoring two upcoming events for our students. The first is Buckill Buckskill Skate Night on Thursday, February 12th from 5:30 to 7:30. And the second is movie night. We don't know the movie yet. Um, but are looking forward to hearing it. Um, that's going to be held on February 28th at 5:00 in the big gym. Uh, we really appreciate the opportunities that they're providing for our students. It's going to be a great time of year for them to

085have uh additional activities uh to do. And also just want to mention there's going to be a PTA meeting tomorrow evening at 700 p.m. here in the library. Everyone's welcome to attend. And finally, believe it or not, it feels like Christmas break was just over. Um, next week is our February winter break from February 16th to 20th. Just want to say we wish all we wish everyone just a safe, restful, and nice time with your families over the break and look forward to uh everyone coming back and getting ready. uh for really positive. Hard to believe we're going to be at the, you know, the end of the school year coming up soon. >> Thank you. That's wonderful. Um yeah, >> and enrollment um as you can see, our enrollment hasn't changed much from uh

086last month to this to this month. If you scroll down a little bit, um you can see um we're currently at 685 students uh as of uh Friday and we were at 686 at this a month ago and see a year ago we were at 690 students. So we've remained at the elementary prek through 8 level fairly steady. If you look down to the high school, you see we're down a number of students. Um, from a while ago, but from last month to this month, uh, we're down two students. So, that's been very stable as well. And, um, as you see, we are down significantly from a year ago, and that's due to a lesser population that moved up last year. We have a a greater number of students going into the high school next

087year. Um but fortunately for us the same amount almost the same amount will be exiting in 12th grade. So we're looking at remaining basically stable to where we are this year. We do have a large middle school this year. So we are going to have some increase in costs as we move forward. But then if we look down at enrollment going past our current middle school, it will be uh smaller as we go forward uh years going three, four, five years down the road. So, it's something that we are going to be continually uh looking at to be sure that we're being smart in how we project uh our staffing and all our tuition and all those things going forward. >> Thank you. That's good. You guys have any uh questions or comments or anything?

088>> Thank you. Thank you very much. >> Really appreciate everything that you guys are doing, especially this time of year when you have to find activities. There's there's still a lot of exciting things going on. Um, and appreciate the enrollment report, too. Obviously, gives us a glance at what what we're looking at down the road for our financial planning, but um I know my daughter being in a huge eighth grade class, right? So, not yet. >> No, we we do have a currently a large fifth grade class and a large first grade class. So, as you can see, um you just never know. Yeah. So you have to you have to prepare as uh Mr. Schneider mentioned in budgeting. It's so so important to make sure that you have cons contingency uh monies available for

089enrollment increasing particularly with special needs students. Um that can really cost the district a significant amount of money. So I applaud Jonathan and Mr. Schneider for being sure that our budget is in good shape. >> Certainly not. Did you say when prek enrollment starts? uh prek. We we currently have 23 students registered. We just started. Okay. Uh we're having March 3rd. We're having a registration night here in the uh library. Well, we did post it in the paper, but we will obviously put it out on Parent Square and out into the community again. Um, so we're we're confident we're going to be either similar to what we are now or right now we're a little ahead of what we were last year at this time of year, but you never know until until the day

090before school starts. >> I'm just going back to something earlier um to you and to Josh ODM. Just want to say thanks for taking the chance. >> Well, Josh and I were on the phone at 1:30 in the morning. What do you think? What do you think? We thank you. >> All right. So, if no other questions on that, all those in favor of approving 8185 I. >> Any opposed? No. All right. Motion carries. All right. Moving to our last section this evening. We're going to have our final public commentary. Open topics. Are there anyone uh present this evening or LTV? Let us know uh for public commentary. Yeah, sure. Come on up. >> Mine's super quick. Um, my daughter Reagan is in sixth grade and is also in robotics. So, we were up there

091on Saturday and um, the excitement on the kids' faces were amazing. The program is amazing. We're very new to robotics. And I also just want to thank Matt Chumpus for making the treacherous drive to come and and cheer the kids on. So, uh, they all had a really really great time. >> Yeah. Thank you. Yes, please. Good evening. David Buddha, resident of the Springs. Um, I'd like a couple comments. Uh, I think that in two respects, um, the school is not striving high hard enough and high enough when it comes to reporting on school uh, competency and school report card results and also with regard to the budget. First with regard to school uh the school report card. Yes, you reported on how the schools the spring school students did as compared to the average

092statewide. What I think would be a much more meaningful statistic would be if available to provide a comparison of how our schools students do to the geographic cohort either Long Island as a whole, Nassau and SuffK or Suffach alone. I think that would be a lot more meaningful. I'm sure the state has the data. I think that's what you really should be striving for is competency and success as measured with our neighborhood schools that have a comparable uh expenditure level for supporting the school budgets. Now, with respect to the budget, I think that you should not be content with just not exceeding the 2% tax cap. That should not be your goal. The reality is, as you all should know, last year you had approximately a $4 million surplus of uh revenue over expenditures, which

093you were able to put into the on nearly all of it into a repair reserve, of which $3 million is still available because you've already spent about $1 million of that repair reserve. And one of the reasons and I bring this up because tonight's uh presentation budget presentation focused primarily on the cost of tuition. And the s the uh superintendent has just given a report on enrollment. And when you put those two things together, I see a problem. I see a problem because last year's budget budgeted for 374 high school students and prop and budgeted and required this taxpayers to pay $11 million more than $1 million to support tuition. This year's proposed budget at this point is budgeting for 354 high school students. And yet the enrollment report shows that we are currently at

094321. That's 35 students less than last year. And last year we budgeted for 374. And that's a a large part of why you had such a great excess of revenue over expenditures. What you should be looking to do is be not just smart with your budgeting, but be prudent. Yes, you should have contingencies. You have a fully funded 4% unassigned um unassigned surplus, which is $1.5 million. You have that that's there. Your rainy day fund is fully funded. If you have a few extra students that show up, you have that money available. You don't need to constantly year after year overbudget and burden and overburden the taxpayers of the springs. >> Well, let me just, you know, we haven't done that because few years ago we were right on the mark and obviously we were

095in fiscal distress, not just two years ago. So, we certainly haven't been overbudgeting at all. >> No, but you have caught up and you've had >> by this year. So this isn't some perennial historic thing and you know the second that you know it's like you finally have money in the account and then all of a sudden it's like all right let's uh let's stop savings and let's stop planning. We are just now fresh out of fiscal responsibility in the state's eyes and you know we're planning just right appropriately. >> Don't rest on your laurels. >> Well obviously we haven't but I'll let you >> but you know you have your million and a half surplus contingency fund at the ready. you have realistic current enrollment figures, you should be budgeting just slightly more than

096what you have currently because that's really about a million dollars more. You're planning on expending on budgeting and collecting from the taxpayers about a million dollars more than you truly need to fund your high school tuition. One last thing I want to close on saying that for those of you that don't perhaps pay careful attention to the outrageous uh school tax burden that this taxpayers of the Springs have to bear. The rates that were calculated based on the tax bills that were sent out in December are as follows. or springs taxpayers have to pay $1,371 per $1,000 of assessed value. Assessed value of $3,200 equates to roughly a million dollar valued home. Whereas the taxpayers in East Hampton pay $600 per 100 per thousand of assessed value. The taxpayers in Mtok pay $617 per thousand

097of assessed value. The taxpayers in Amagansit pay $381 per thousand of assessed value. And yet the taxpayers in Wayne Scott, even though they had a major increase about two years ago, are only paying $273 per thousand of assessed value. taxpayers in the Springs are overly burdened because unfortunately we don't have a consolidated school system. We hope perhaps we don't have a business district. >> What? >> We also don't have a business district. >> Right. In other words, the >> right but the problem is you're not comparing apples to apples. You're comparing apples to oranges and all sorts of different districts on on you know in our part of the community. We have the business district. We have higher student population than anyone else. our operational efficiency is greater than all of our neighbors. Uh so

098I think you're misrepresenting the facts in terms of obviously these uh efficiencies and responsibilities we take into high consideration. Um but when you list numbers like that publicly, you are missing so much of the nuance of it that I think it's misrepresent. >> With all due respect, Eric, those are the facts. Those are the Those are the tax rates that we have to >> which has nothing to do with the school. >> It has to do with the fact that you're overcolcting budgets. You had a $4 million uh excess last year of budget over revenue over actual expenditures. Now, you don't determine the total tax um assessed value of this district, but you do determine the budget. And you have to be ever mindful of where you can reduce that budget and not just simply

099strive to not exceed this time around the tax cap. The taxpayers of the Springs are hurting and you can help them and you should try. >> David, just one one more thing because you brought about the tax numbers. You know, we always do the best budget we can, but you know, you brought this up yourself one other time. We have 5,800 homes in in Springfield. So whatever budget we have gets divided by those households, >> right? >> By the by the assessed value >> by value of those. We have $5,000. East Hampton, how many households are in East Hampton Town? >> They have more assessed value. >> They have more more homes, more businesses, more way to distribute the funds into one fund. Correct. There's no doubt that the reason why our tax rates high

100is because the the value the relative comparison of expenditures versus assess value is a much higher percentage for the springs. But we have to do something about that which is minimize the budget wherever possible. >> I think we do. And also David, I'm sorry about that. >> You know, and you know, we look at a budget and we have to look for maybe there's going to be 12 more students, 20 more students, right? But our own the owners put up this thing 2% increase, right? You can't go you can't expect more than 2% a year on your budget, no matter what it is, any municipality or anybody, right? So say we we >> but you've overridden that twice recently. >> We Yeah, we got voted on how many times Pay is going to do it,

101right? We also got to look at a long range forecast because if we want to so we lower the budget this year, we go below the budget of 2%. We got to max next year's budget that 2% increase. We can't go beyond what we lowered it to. We don't want to spend money we don't want to spend. We all pay taxes. None of us all live in Springs. I think we all live in Springs. We would be on board, you know. Uh so we're always looking a way to save money, but we also got to look at a at the long way planted. Who would have thought? You know, remember five years ago, we had 28 students headed to the high school we weren't ready for. We had to find the funds for it. We

102were rooing to find it. And I think the board before me had the same problem. What you know, I remember you arguing up there one year that it's going to go down in five years because we've been on this coming back here for a long time. We haven't seen on population growth and all that. >> It has gone down >> but it was totally wrong. If you looked at what they gave us 10 years ago, it's totally wrong when they said 10 years ago because it really is today. You know, yes, Springs has gone down a little bit. It might go down, but we don't know that for sure because East Hampton's arafford's unaffordable, right? Every other township is unaffordable. Springs is the last one and right now we're at a $1.2 million value home

103in Spring. So, who knows what's going to happen, but we don't know what's going to happen. We don't know what's we we can't find. Is 42 students something too many? Maybe that's something I'll look at, which I'm glad you brought up. >> Be fair of us now. Be fair when you say that $1,300 versus 200 $300. It's not a fair analysis, but you divide it by how many people paying the bill. >> It's not a fair analysis. >> Just to want to just chip in and say I appreciate when Mr. Buddha's uh >> Oh, I do too. uh input because it's not easy trying to predict what's going to happen in the future. And I just have to say from when I came here and to starting to work with Mr. Schneider and Jonathan um

104I feel very confident in their expertise and in are we constantly talking about obviously it's part of our job our finances our budgeting and I feel that they are completely uh looking out for the district and looking into the future to be sure that we're not in bad shape going down the road. And one of our goals and one of the goals the board had when you hired me is that we don't have these spikes like we've had so that we do not have to pierce the cap again in the future. We don't want to do that. We want to make sure we keep things even so that we don't have those use huge bumps and absolutely if enrollment goes down we're going to be looking at that and if we do see a pattern

105we're going to be addressing it as we go forward. So your concerns are definitely warranted at this time. It's a very changing time. We're looking at we're doing a lot with regionalization. I don't disagree with you. It's a big topic about what's going to happen on Long Island with enrollment decreasing overall and if districts are going to have to consolidate. And we've started, as I said, with the regionalization. That is actually one of the reasons we're in good fiscal shape now is because of the money that we've saved because of the shared services that we're doing with our surrounding districts. So, we are addressing the situations and we will continue to um because it is an uncertain time and as we go forward, we're going to constantly be looking at these things. We're going to

106look at the enrollment in East Hampton. if it's going to be staying at a lower level, if it's going to be going up, we're not sure because, as I said, we have some grades that, you know, we didn't expect to have 76 students in first grade, but we do. Um, and those things, you know, we're not exactly sure where things are going to go. So, we want to be sure that we create a budget going forward that remains balanced. And as I said, I feel very um thankful that we have business officials in the district that are really competent and are making sure that we're doing the right thing for the district. >> My point was just that the standard that you should strive for is not simply not to exceed the cap this year,

107but to have the budget as low as it reasonably can be. And the first thing I see from tonight's presentation is the question of how many high school students you're preparing for for next year. And is that number unreasonably higher than it should be? >> Appreciate. Thank you. >> Thank you. Are there any other comments from inside this evening? >> How about LTV? >> We have no callers on the line. >> Yes, please. >> My daughter is in first grade here at Spring. So, I just want to say thank you to everybody for everything you're doing and project most because my family couldn't live our lives without you guys. Yes, please. >> Chieman just one plug because it is February and that means March is coming soon. March 1st is Special Olympics bowling tournament. So,

108um it's at the Allstar in Riverhead again. It is hosted by Whitney Reedinger. Really, it's hosted by us. Um so, we um are excited to do that. We've been planning again. We were out in the snow on Saturday also um having practice and um so we're excited for that and we look forward to telling you all about it in the future. >> Wonderful. Thank you very much. >> Uh any final takers for this evening? Going once by Cell TV? Still no one. >> Still no one. >> All right, we make a motion we turn. Do I have a motion? >> Second. Second. >> All those in favor? hot. I thank you everybody.