001[Music] All right. Good evening, Springs BOE. Uh, we're live on YouTube. Phone lines are open. This meeting is being recorded and you may begin. >> Thank you very much. Welcome everybody. Those attending here tonight and from home. Uh Suzanne, will you do the roll call for us please? >> Yes, I will. Eric Frederickson >> here. >> Patrick Brayban. >> Kate Saris >> here. >> Der Quinn say not with us >> in Emma field is not with us this evening. >> Uh thank you. All right. Please stand for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. >> I'm very excited to open our meeting tonight. Uh I believe we have
002a number of presentations. Mr. Kel will uh you introduce us tonight. Absolutely. Good evening. We're already somehow in in mid-occtober and Mr. Shimus and I were talking about not only how the school goes so fast, but all the great things that we do for and with our students, but ultimately what you're going to hear tonight is is what it's really all about. The the hard work our students have put in their their courage to to come up here and present in front of everybody as well. So, without any further ado, I want to introduce Miss O. Mrs. O'Reilly for this. I believe every year you do such an amazing job with multiple different presentations here for our kiddos. This is the first one of of each year and it's really fantastic. So without any further
003ado, Mr. Riley, >> thanks so much for having us back to share again this year. So this I believe essay originated as a radio program hosted by journalist Edward R. Maro on the CBS radio network way back in 1951. It ran to 1955 and then was picked up by NPR. So everyday people were invited to write and share brief essays about their personal beliefs. It became a longlasting c cultural sensation that emphasized individual values and encouraged people to articulate their guiding principles. We always begin 8th grade with this essay because it challenges each student to think about his or her own guiding compass. It encourages the students to look at others and themselves with empathy and this project teaches the importance of using our voices in a positive respectful way and it's a great first
004step towards the speech presentation later in the year. So tonight our authors are Ariana Ruiz. Thank you. [Applause] Thanks so much for listening. >> Thank you. >> I believe that no matter how lonely you think you are, you're never truly alone. My mother passed away on April 30th, 2023. She fought her enemy breast cancer for about 13 weeks. I always thought my mother would survive this horrible disease. She believed that she would make it through chemotherapy and she told me that no matter what happened, she would always be my heart. I just didn't realize how much little time I had left with her. My mom was my everything and losing her meant losing my whole world inside of my 9-year-old heart. I relied on my mom for the important things. Drama with friends, stick sticky
005situations, and advice about growing into a woman. When she passed away, I thought I would have to deal with my personal problems alone. I obviously couldn't go to my dad or my brother for situations like that because they wouldn't understand it completely because they are men. I thought I was alone. A few months after my mom passed away, I was still really sad, but I just kept all my emotions to myself. A new school year started in September, and I went back acting as if everything was okay, even though it wasn't. When my friends would talk to me and ask how I was, I would say, "I'm doing excellent." But everything was about to change. One day in recess, I couldn't hold in my sadness. My friend noticed how upset I looked and she asked
006what happened. Instead of keeping my sorrow to myself, I told her how I felt since my mom passed away. She said, "Arana, it's not okay to hold your emotions in like that. We would have been there for you if only you just opened up to us. We could have helped you. We will always be there for you no matter what." I realized that I needed to talk about my emotions because I was destroying my happiness. I thought ignoring my feelings would make it better, but I was wrong. Because of the words of my friends, I started talking to teachers, family members, and trustworthy friends with. With that support, I was able to be me again, open and free. If you ever feel alone, there is always at least one person who will look out for
007you. I believe that no matter how lonely you think you are, you are never truly alone. Thank you. I believe in music can change people. >> In the beginning of seventh grade, I was the lonliest I'd ever been. I just had just fallen out with a few of my friends. I felt hopeless and tired. Seventh grade was supposed to be the year that everything would change. Thankfully, the never ending year finally passed slower than time itself. And yes, there was so much change, but there was one thing that helped me through it. Music. Sometimes late at night, we have questions for ourselves about our lives and whatnot. One night, I started wondering about myself. Who am I really? And then it came to me. I don't know. I've never I'd never asked my myself that
008question before. The loneliness crept up to me like a crowd of eyes staring. It was something I had never felt before. At that moment, it all came rushing to me. You're different. It was like my soul cracking away, leaking into my brain. But but coming to think of it, I've always been different. Ever. I I'd never had a friend who understood me for who I was. Always the odd one out. Ever since I was a little girl, I've always felt a little out of place. A mature girl, a wall flower. Decided to put some music on my headphones to sit through my thoughts. I picked a random song by Radio Head that I'd never listened to. Then I heard it. One of the lyrics, "One day I'm going to grow wings." It was like my
009brain harmonized with my heart being heard for the first time. All of my emotions, all of my feelings strung together. To me, one day I'm going to grow wings means that one day I'm going to be myself and love who I am. Such a simple yet complicated thought. I don't have to know who I am. But that's okay. I have so much time to discover. You're all so unique and that creates beautiful harmony. The beauty of the freedom to discover who we are. Slowly, I learned to peel the mask off of the person I was hiding. Start the endless journey of self-discovery. Found comfort in the safety of being someone I wasn't. The old lie slowly rotted inside of me. It's okay to be different. That's what makes you you. We're all a little weird
010and different in our own unique ways. And that's the most beautiful thing. Some people never learn to embrace it, but I did. And that's what music did for me. In the end, even the wall flowers are still flowers. Music can change people because it changed me. This I believe. [Applause] I believe in asking questions. This belief has directed me almost my whole life. Curiosity has just always been a part of me. I was born inquisitive, but I never would have stayed that way. My parents had shut out my questions. No matter how silly, every question was answered to the best of their ability. When I was younger, before I learned how to read, whenever we went on road trips, I'd ask my parents, "What's that sign say?" Even though I would even though I would
011ask them that same question over and over at every single sign we passed, they never lost their patience patience. Another instance to help reinforce my belief was when my parents bought me a book about science for Christmas. While flipping through the pages, I stumbled upon the periodic table of elements. I began reading through all the different elements, wondering what new and amazing things I could create if I combined them. I then went on to read about atoms and compounds. Throughout the next couple of months, I would read through the rest of the book, asking questions about everything. Then on my birthday, I received the book specifically about the periodic table of elements and chemistry. It astonished me to think that everything in the entire universe was made of just these 108 elements. I was sucked.
012I no longer wondered and asked only about my surroundings, but the workings of the entire universe as a whole. I became absorbed in astronomy and physics and tried to learn as much as I could by asking as many questions as I could. Without asking these questions, I never would have become interested in science or my favorite topics. I believe that when you stop being curious and asking questions, creativity, innovation, and knowledge will cease as well. If we lose our curiosity and our ability to learn and wonder, and life will quickly become gray, dull, and meaningless, the true extinction of the human race will not be aliens, will not be asteroids, will not even be robots. It will be the end of curiosity, the end of thinking, and the end of learning. We must support people
013who ask questions, not shut them down. We must keep asking questions and not be content with what we already know. I believe in asking questions. Thank you. Beautiful. Thank you guys so much for sharing poetry. We love when the students come up to do this and you always do such a nice job. Um it's it's also wonderful for our community to see, you know, the programs that we're doing and um that's why we're all here is is for our students, right? So, thank you guys for sharing. It's it's not easy to step up to the podium and talk. So, um, we really, uh, we really appreciate what you're doing. Uh, I also want to say, please do not feel obligated to stay. We always like to have student presentations in the beginning. So, you can
014go home if you'd like and not listen to all the other stuff, but of course, you're welcome to if you'd like. Um, were there any other presentations or anything? That was wonderful. So, we'll move we have multiple presentations. Apparently, it is uh schoolboard recognition week. Uh >> would you like to share something? >> Uh of course. Um first I just want to say to the students um you brought tears to my eyes some uh to my eyes and uh just so beautiful that you can share what's inside of you. Um it takes a lot of courage each and every one of you and so appreciative of you being here tonight. Uh coming out at night late at night like this uh really just beautiful. Thank you very much and really really nice. I just want
015to give my So, uh, once a year we recognize our school board. As all of you know, this is a volunteer position. All of these people come here. They put a lot of time, a lot of effort into our school, into supporting our students, the programs that they have, into supporting our staff, our administration, and the community as well. And we thank you so much. We have a short little video that some of our kids put together that we just wanted to share with you. No. Um, the cookies are from the STA and as I said, we we had uh treated you to dinner as well. >> Yeah, that was wonderful. >> I didn't expect there to be so many opportunities to cry, >> to kick off a board meeting. Oh my god. >> Well,
016we have our annual external boarding now. >> Yeah. So I recover more tears >> annual external audit that'll that'll help the tears. Um so um well thank you so much. >> Thank you guys again. >> That was super heartwarming. That was that was beautiful. Uh so we'll we'll continue our presentations actually and uh we'll now move to our annual external audit. Jonathan to introduce us to our auditor and our presentation. >> This is uh Jeffrey Jones. He's with the EFPR advisory group. Uh we use their firm to do our external audit for the 630 25 year end. Can you hear us, Jeff? >> Yep, I can hear you. All right. So, thank you for the introduction. I'm going to share my screen here to put up a brief presentation. Okay. Uh can you see that?
017Okay. So, um earlier today I did go through the financial statements with the audit committee in detail. So, as a result, we're going to keep this kind of a shorter and just more of a highle overview of the actual results of the audit. Um as Jonathan said, my name is Jeff Jones of EFPR Group. I'm a director here with the firm and I was in charge of supervising the fieldwork for the district's audit this year. So, at the beginning of the audit, we start with our audit approach. Here we approach audit by performing detailed risk assessments of the district. We identify significant audit areas and obtain a detailed understanding of the internal controls for those areas. And with that, then we test the effectiveness of those internal controls. Now, when we say significant audit areas,
018I mean an area such as your cash or your revenue and cash receipts, maybe your cash dispersement process themselves, and then we'll kind of go through look at your actual internal controls themselves and make sure they're operating as designed. Now, for example, we're not going to go in and only look at very large transactions. So, I want to make sure when the district is purchasing something that's $10,000 or they're purchasing something that's only a dollar that they're following your procedures. And then based on those results, we'll then create a detailed audit work programs and they'll be designed specifically for each of those significant audit areas. And with all of that, it will allow us to issue opinions on your financial statements. Now, based on the results of the audit, we are expecting to issue unmodified
019opinions on the following reports. your basic financial statements, your federal grant compliance audit, also known as a single audit, and your extra classroom activity funds. Now, one thing I always like to note is that unmodified opinion is also considered a clean opinion or the best opinion that you can receive. It means that there is no material modifications to the numbers, to our audit strategy, or any of those items. All records and information that EFPR requested was freely available for inspection. and the results of our test disclos no instances of non-compliance or other matters that are required under government auditing standards. Additionally, we said there is no material weaknesses or significant deficiencies or non-compliance related to your internal control or financial reporting. Also, no material weaknesses, significant deficiencies or non-compliance in regards to the major federal
020program for the uniform guidance. So again, that is your single audit where we go through and we test your federal awards. This is something that's required if you have more than $750,000 of expenditures of federal awards. That threshold is going to be increasing in the next year, but the year under audit was that 750,000. And when we did that federal compliance audit, the major program we did test was the education stabilization fund. Uh, this grant was the result of a lot of the CO 19 funding that the school districts received. So, that was actually it. I was keeping it short and sweet. Um, again, everything had already been gone through in detail with the entire audit committee and reviewed by management. So, from here, I just want to open up to any questions you might
021have. >> And is the board uh have any questions regarding House? >> No. I mean, it's wonderful to see. I really commend the administration for having an unmodified opinion. That's the highest standard that you could get. I think we've done exceedingly better and better in getting our uh our finances in order. We really appreciate the efforts that you guys make every single day. And Jeeoff, I want to thank you for a thorough process and uh for providing us all this information as well. >> Of course, you know, thank you. And you know as you mentioned but the whole team there you know this is something where we start our work really back in July and then honestly throughout the year with all conversations and between you know testing items virtually random phone calls communications emails
022um you know the whole team there has made the auto process very smooth and that's why that really leads to that unmodified opinion that we're able to give. I >> appreciate it very much. Yeah. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Wonderful. All right. And thank you guys again. >> So, we'll move to uh public comment. I just want to say uh ladies and gentlemen, we're about to convene into the public comment period of our meeting. It's 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 concerns 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 talkfully and respond
023at 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 p privacy laws, we are 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. And finally, we intend 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 civility 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
024audience. And as such, please for particularly people viewing from home, come to the podium if you do have any uh comments for the board this evening. And with that, I'll open it up for public commentary one. This public commentary uh commentary is for agenda items only. Uh LTV, please let us know if there's anyone calling from home and if there's any comments from the public tonight on agenda items only, please come to the podium. Yes, go ahead. Good evening, David Buddha from the Springs. First, as an aside, let me just make a suggestion. Uh, the students were wonderful, but it would have been much better if you would have some kind of speaker system in the library so that they could be the voices could be amplified and everything could be uh heard clearly, especially
025for those people who are a little bit uh gray on top. >> I'm right with you, though. >> All right. My comments are concern proposed business and finance resolutions 5.7, 5.8, 5.9, and 5.10, which I have reviewed. I have briefly also reviewed the district's draft financial statements, which were prepared as of June 30th, which was the end of the 2024 2025 school year. Thank you for posting this 83page document sometime this morning. The financial statements report that for the 2024 2025 uh year, the school district collected more than $4.5 million from the taxpayers, mostly from the taxpayers in excess of what was actually needed to fund the school district's monetary requirements. You are now proposing to fund various reserve accounts with all of these excess funds. Based on the resolutions that you have posted on
026your agenda, you do not intend to consider using even one penny of that large excess that was accumulated last school year to reduce property taxes, which is your right and your opportunity. One of the resolutions that you have tonight is to certify the amount of money to be raised by taxes. You are planning to put $4,175,000 in the repair reserve account, $175,000 in the employee retirement contribution reserve, and approximately $195,000 in the teachers retirement contribution reserve. While the voters did approve creating and funding a re reserve a repair reserve of up to $7.5 million, it was expected to be funded over a considerably long period of time. At least that was the presentation in the sense of of the uh body that I received from listening to everything closely. I dare say that no one
027expected that more than $4 million of unused excess funds would be left over from last year's school year uh transactions and would be deposited into the repair reserve account in a single year. And as for the plan to add $175,000 into the existing retirement contribution reserve account and approximately $195,000 into the teachers retirement contribution reserve account. It's my recollection that such interf fund transfers were simply not provided for in the voter approved budget. In fact, I remember your financial consultant saying that he did not intend to recommend those kind of interfund transfers this year. Moreover, those two reserves for teacher employee uh retirement contributions are already adequately funded and there is no apparent reason to think such additional reserve funding is needed at this time. The employee reserve account has $230,000 approximately and the teachers
028reserve account has $370,000 already. Next, I do not understand how the draft end of the year financial statements have been prepared, reflecting that these proposed reserve account transactions that you're only now considering to authorize this evening have already occurred as of June the 30th. Unlike the retroactive budget transfers you have proposed making by adopting resolution 5.7 tonight, it would seem to me that the financial statements should act accurately reflect the funds in each reserve account as of June 30th, 2025. Using 2020 hindsight, it seems to me that your 204 2425 budget was recklessly excessive and that a responsible school board would now consider using a significant portion of the unanticipated excess funds to reduce the 2025 2026 property taxes that will be required to be paid by owners of property in the Springs. There was
029more than enough money in the unassigned fund balance as of June the 30th for the board to increase the amount of fund balance unapplied fund balance that you will apply to fund the 2025 2026 budget. Instead, you've decided to put everything available into reserves. I understand money in reserves is not spent. It's there. But you must be considerate more considerate I suggest respectfully of the property owners in this community. Thank you. >> Thank you for your input. >> Uh is there anyone else that has or do we want to address that? >> Sam would like to respond a little bit. >> Let me respond to a few of those points. So you know I I I think we need to be careful here when we're talking about the budget and throwing around words like recklessly
030and something is adequately funded or not. You know let's look to what the law says. I think that would probably be a better basis for us to make this uh analysis. And in doing that, let's let's back up because when we when we started the budgetary process, I told the board the budget is an aspirational document. The budget has to be designed because you only get one shot at creating the budget for the year. The budget has to be designed so that there are contingencies in place because when something comes up in the middle of the year, if you don't have it planned as a contingency, your choices at that point are cut something else or don't do it. So I think that this budget generated some surplus for a variety of reasons. Let's look
031at a few of them. Uh the first was that we historically have budgeted for health insurance increases of 12% a year. Now let's remember how this works. We know exactly what the health insurance costs are going to be between uh in the first six months of the year, but because NICHIP does not hand down the insurance increases until around Thanksgiving, we're just kind of guessing where the health insurance increases are going to go. Health insurance has gone up 499% in the 24 years since 2001. And that's about 12% a year. That's the industry standard amongst people who do my kind of work about what kind of increase we have. So when we designed the budget, we built in a 12% increase. Well, something happened that has never happened in the last 24 years and the
032increase was onetenth of 1%. So we generated a lot of savings there. We generated a lot of surplus there. Sorry. You know, it's very easy to sit here and look and say in hindsight, you the budget was $4.5 million in excess of requirements, but my crystal ball doesn't work. So, the best guess that I had was to go on trend data at the time the budget was designed. And it's not just, you know, me making this decision. My colleagues up and down, you know, Long Island are doing the exact same thing. You also had a situation here, and you've uh seen this with the uh uh enrollment report the superintendent presents every board meeting. We have to budget for a certain number of students who are going to East Hampton for their high school education.
033Well, you've had a fall-off in high school students. Number of families have moved away. Why that is? I can only be guessing. It'll only be anecdotal evidence, but again, the trend data was that you would have a certain number. The actual number has been less. So, we generated some savings there as well. Now, yes, you could choose to reduce the taxes and uh apply some of this to the levy, but the problem with that is it looks really good this year, but it will look really bad next year if you can't generate the same surplus of funds because you're going to have to make that difference up from somewhere. So, if you don't have it next year because there isn't a surplus of funds because the particular contingencies I described don't come to pass, well
034then you're either going to have to jack up the taxes again, probably pierce the levy cap, which we don't want to do, or you're going to have to cut something. Well, you run a pretty lean operation here in terms of the programs you offer. So, cutting something really doesn't seem like a very viable approach. The bottom line is though that putting money into reserves is smart budgeting. You are able to do repair work in this building. This building is old. You're able to do repair work in this building through the use of the repair reserve rather than have situations continue to deteriorate where you're going to have to not spend money today in a certain smaller amount, but spend a larger amount of money in the years to come to fix it. I was quoted
035in the newspaper of talking about what's going on with the bond in East Hampton. So, I don't mind repeating the what was said publicly there. We're looking at a situation where we need to replace the windows in the middle school in Eastampton. Well, those windows are never going to get better. They don't repair themselves. And so, we would rather spend the money now than have to spend the money five years from now. And that's the same thing I would say to you here. The money that you put into the repair reserve is money that you're going to be able to spend in the next few years to repair things that need to be repaired now instead of something that's going to have to repair repaired five years from now under a capital bond which will
036incur more debt to the taxpayers. Mr. Buddha made reference to the fact that the two reserves the for the retirement contributions are adequately funded but you know again the law is very clear about what is permitted in the reserve and so I think we need to look at that and the numbers are not selected out of thin air the numbers are selected because they are the legally maximum amount of money you're allowed to put in the reserves we know that the retirement contribution costs are probably not going to go down in the next few years because they're tied to how stock market goes they're on a 5year rolling average and I'd rather put money in the reserve now while we have it in order to save for the eventual rainy day that's coming than to
037give a windfall to the taxpayers now and have to pierce the tax cap two years from now to make that difference. Again, the choice is yours. I will remind the board that the voters were given a very clear picture about what the tax levy was projected to be at the time they adopted the budget overwhelmingly in May of 2025. And I think one of the best things that you can do as a board is follow through on what you told the voters. told the voters where the levy was going to be. My recommendation to the superintendent to you is to set the levy where you told them it's going to be so they have faith in what you're saying. >> Thank you very much, Sam. >> Thank you, Sam. >> Yeah, I just add to
038that with uh you know, a school that was, you know, had financial health issues a very short time ago uh to now having just the beginnings of financial health uh to keep the school safe for our students. uh and and still be responsible to our community. The things that we've had with the shared services, you know, somehow um we've been saving money and at the same time increasing our financial health and uh the community really stepped up uh with piercing the tax gap and we want to respect that and and really not have to approach that at all in the uh in the foreseeable future. And putting money in reserves is a is a responsible thing. I think any homeowner realizes that when stuff goes wrong, it's nice to have an account that you can
039look to. Uh there are so many improvements that we've made in our school that this uh is an asset for the community and it's uh it's a place of of learning for our students uh that we want to make sure that they have not just a safe place but a thriving place to learn. And thank God that we did what we did because as we uncover things we you know as anyone knows who owns a house you you start one project and you realize you open a wall and there's something else there and I feel very fortunate that uh we have the experience that we have in our business office and thank God that we have made the decisions that we have made and I'll leave it at that. Does the board have any other
040comments to make? >> Thank you. Are there any other comments? New comments from the crowd? >> No, just one question. You had your time. Well, all right. One question. >> I was under a minute, please. >> I would just appreciate if one of our two financial gurus could just explain the concept of whether or not the financial statements as of June 30th should reflect the actions that you haven't taken yet as far as making the reserve uh account deposits. >> All right. I think Sam looks like he's willing to answer that. >> All right. So, you know, ideally, we'd like the board to be in continuous speaking. So, you can vote in a continuous session about it's going to work. The board the financial statement is in draft form until the board votes to adopt
041it this evening and votes to uh if it wishes to put the money into reserve and it reflects as if that is going to happen. If you choose to do something different, that is your right. I want to stress that you can you're the financial stewards for the district. There will be an adjustment then in the in the financial statement and we'll have to take off the agenda and do it, you know, have the have Mr. Jones uh make it reflect where you end up selling it. Report is due to the state in >> tomorrow I believe. So that's why this is on there. Unfortunately, 770 school districts in New York all have their reports due in the exact same time. And there are a very small number of financial firms that do this kind
042of work. I would love it to have done this two three weeks ago, but we're everybody is trying to get in the last two weeks at the same time. The board wants to make a change. I recommend to you that you pull the financial statement acceptance off the agenda. Let Mr. Jones make the adjustment based on how you appropriate the reserves and then we'll have to have a special meeting to file this uh as close to on time as possible. That's how it works. I think your recommendations have been clear with that information though. Does the board have any comments to make on that? Okay. Uh are there any other comments? LTV, do we have any callers? >> Yeah, just stand by. >> Hey, good evening Springs BOE. This is uh Matthew from LTV and
043uh we're just calling in on the uh phone line just to demonstrate that phone lines are in fact open and operational. Um and we have no other callers at this time. Thank you. >> All right. Thank you for the evidence. Uh all right. So at that point, uh let's move from our public comment to consent agenda items. I ask for a motion to approve items 4.1 to 4.10 on our consent agenda. Do I have a motion? >> Do I have a second? >> Second. Thank you. >> Moving the 4.5. >> No. Uh, all those in favor of approving uh 41410 our consent agenda say I. >> I. >> Are there any abstensions? One abstension. Uh, any opposed? Okay. So, we have three eyes, one abstension. The motion carries. Let's now move to our business and
044finance item section. I ask for a motion to approve items 5.1 516 under business and finance items on our agenda. Do I have a motion to discuss? >> Do I have a second? >> Second. >> All right. Thank you. Jonathan, can you please review these items for us? >> Thank you. Um, item 5.1 to 5.6. These are our usual monthly reports for September. We have items 5.7 to 5.9. Those are related to the 630 year end. And as we wrapped that up and our financial statements became drafted, we coordinated with the district's accountants and auditors um so we could do the final budget transfers at year end as well as the funding of the reserves. The annual financial statements, as Sam said, are in draft form. If approved tonight, they will be finalized with the
045state tomorrow before the deadline. 510 is the tax levy approval. Um, we will send that off to the town as soon as it gets approved. This is based on the voter approved budget in May of 2025. We have our lease with Boseies for copers um expired as of June 30th, 2025. And we have been working to get a new lease drafted. It took a while because they no longer carry that model, a copier. So, we just couldn't get new machines in and swap them out. We had to go for a higher model, but thankfully they gave us the price of the old model. So, the pricing doesn't change. This is what's budgeted for in the voter approved budget. >> It's already so expensive anymore. >> That's for uh three years. So, and we have three
046copers and they all average over a million copies a year. So, they are well used, but the ones that we have now are >> way past the end of life. We have a intermunicipal agreement for bus route coverage with East Hampton and an amendment to the private school transportation. We provide services to MTalk for um one student. This would just be approving that contract. They did not approve it until their last meeting. So, this is the earliest we could get it on. We have an agreement with Wayne Scott. This is for the private schools for them to provide >> special ed services for the students who are parentally placed with um parentally placed at the private school. There we have we have a um MOA with the CSEA um for the 25 to 30 I
047believe >> I think it's five 40 um this was um the negotiations for this started um over the summer and I just want to say both sides table negotiated very well. It was a pleasure um to work with them and we're hoping that um we it's mutual this agreement is mutually beneficial for both those unit members and the district. >> Any questions on any item? >> Thank you, Jonathan. Are there any questions from the board on any items? >> I just want to make comments about 5.8. >> Yeah, sure. 58. >> Yeah, 5.8 is the festival of funds. >> Mhm. >> Uh I agree with the with the business administrator just suggested on this and also superintendent on this one. You have transfer 4 million over to the reserve fund. You know by looking at
048the school last on board nine years now and we haven't done a lot of repairs in the school in the last year. New administrative here we've got a new parking lot that we well needed that we the front of the school. It's sort of like a campus now and not just a rag tag school down in the springs. You know, taxpayers respect it. You have 700 kids coming through this school. They deserve to have the best out there. And we're placing the lockers in the hallway. Took a lock from 1952, 2025. Finally. You know, you those lockers never knew it was cool, right Katie? That was on 15 10 years ago. So, >> but you know, this tool needs repairs. you know, sitting in the room. I don't like the whole ceiling to be redone.
049It wasn't just simply taking the ceiling to change them. There was something up there that were rotted out. The building was structurally unsound. Luckily, we had the money to repair it. That's what we got to look at. We had the same problem with the building over there, the original entrance way a couple years ago. We didn't have the money to fund. We had to find money to do it. But it's comfortable to know that we have the money to repair the school what the school deserves, >> right? >> So, I'm all for 5.8 Even though, as Sam said, we have the right to change it even though it's due tomorrow. Well, not vote on it because it's due tomorrow. I'll vote on it because I agree on it. So, >> thank you for that. I
050think that's important. >> Yeah. >> And that ceiling was a thank god moment in there because it's not just a stain. We're not experts and because of our due diligence, we were able to identify something and there was something else there and we took care of a major issue and you never know. These things are so expensive and you can never plan for them. but we could do our best to make sure that we have what we have in our budget. And uh Kate, I think you're about to say something, too. >> I just wanted to again thank the taxpayers for approving the reserve last May and trusting us with um with the finances here. And um you know, we also have a commitment to our taxpayers to have more of a streamlined um tax
051levy. So that's one of our mind when we go there. >> And take what Pat said, we can actually sit easily underneath this knowing what was up there before the tiles were taken off. Yeah, it's a it's a old beautiful building and uh like all things that needs work but older buildings you know even you know this why consider this historic in a way you know this is like something we really did a wonderful job preserving some of the history of it uh and uh our investments are going to pay off for a very long time. So, with all that said, uh I'd like to um go ahead and approve uh these if we don't have any more questions. All those in favor? >> I Any oppose or abstensions? >> I abstain. >> Okay. Uh
052we have three eyes, one abstension. Motion carries. So, at this point, let's move to our new business. Uh this is a part of the meeting we we're going to talk about our district goals. Uh this is something I think that's very important to school. Uh goals can be realized, refined, removed. Uh we're making an effort tonight to look at some of the goals that we've had in the past and begin to make an effort to make them more specific, measurable, uh achievable, realistic, and have time frames that we can achieve them in. Uh so I think as we do these processes, we'll become better goal setters. this guides the decisions of our district. Uh and tonight we're gonna we're just going to take a look at them, have some creative and thoughtful discussion on what
053these goals are. And uh while the discussion might be able to continue tonight, we do also have our our board is um going to do a board retreat in November where we can learn best practices and keep up on current information. Uh so at those times sometimes we can look at best practices for things like goal setting but it being October um you thought we should start this process now. So let's begin. >> Yeah. I'm just going to start off by saying um the administration um has gotten together and we're really working well as a team looking at uh areas that we wish to strengthen districtwide in um obviously collaboration with the board of education and we're looking forward to the ongoing discussion. Um you know one of the things that's very important to us
054is obviously making sure that we increase the academic progress from our students. We're very excited that uh we're implementing new programs particularly in literacy where we're strengthening our literacy which um especially at the K2 level um and we're working now toward towards the 35 le level and we're also looking at aligning our curriculum both vertically and horizontally so we can see look at assessments look at scores see exactly when things are taught um if if students aren't doing well in something we can look at a grade level and say well we need to strengthen the curriculum in that area. So, we're very excited uh about the direction that we're going in um as a district to really see that we have, as uh Eric said, measurable objectives that we can look at and be sure
055that we're addressing and using data to see how we can strengthen uh what it is that we teach to our kids and when we teach it to our kids. It's really our main focus, I would say, as moving forward academically. Do you want to talk about benchmarks a little bit? >> Sure. We we uh going back to to the data, of course, we always want to increase student achievement and and the state does as well. Their their bar continues to raise. So even us going up, we're we're going to a to a higher level each and every year. And we have goals such as 5% annually to increase. And that's that's a lofty goal when it comes to it. But ultimately, if we're if we're looking at some of the things that we're doing, it's
056going back to let the data do the talking, using the information that we have. And we actually discussed this a little at our communications meeting, the the importance of having student data and using that data to drive our instruction. And it's not just for us to help students individually at their level, but across across the board. If we're looking at item level analysis on our benchmarks, we could see the standards that we're falling short on or the standards that students need the most help with and then give them that extra support. So, having benchmark assessments and progress monitoring throughout the year, specifically in our ELA and math courses, is going to be very important for us. teachers are meeting every week and they're they're planning collect collectively and collaboratively and we want to just make
057sure that we're on top of looking at the data and doing everything we can to help our students each and every one of them meet them at their specific need not just you need to do better in math or you need to do better in ELA it's you need to focus on this specific skill which is going to get you to be um get you to grow in all the different skills so we're identifying gaps and then plugging those gaps with the needed um teaching and like Nancy said we're aligning curriculum so across grade levels and then also uh vertically which is going to be our teachers discussing each other atlas is a big piece of this as well the program that we purchased where teachers can see the year before the year after same
058grade level their plans their their ideas to make sure our teach our kids are learning and growing as well And as we all know, um along with academics is nothing as important as the social and emotional well-being of our students. Um it's a very important uh part of our work here at Spring School. Making sure our kids feel safe, making sure um they have the supports that they need uh to go through whatever they may be going through. Um we all know that kids have many different challenges and we're fortunate here that we do have great support systems. We have uh as Eric has put in our sore with the Osprey program, we work every day on trying to teach kids accountability and respect um for each other. Um but we all know kids make
059mistakes and it's our job to try to make sure that we support them when they do make mistakes so that we teach them um how to uh deal with things in a in a different way. Um it's really important that we establish uh relationships with community support systems. We use them very often. We're very uh pleased that we work closely with Family Service League, the retreat. Um we do anti-bullying demonstrations um around uh all you know throughout the year trying to uh teach children uh the the how difficult it is for other kids and what it feels like when kids are bullied. um because bullying is a part of what goes on in schools all around and it's our job to continually um try to work with kids so that they're not bullying other kids
060and kids that are bullied that they have the support and resources of who they can go to and how we can address those issues. So, it's just a very important part of what we do here at Springs. We think um that we have a really terrific uh support group here and we're also thankful for the community support that works with our students as well as our parents that give us a lot of support along with our PTA and I know something that everyone is uh concerned about is student attendance. Um, we all know that when you come to school, you do better. And it's it is an issue with some students and we have a goal of really trying to make sure that we're on top of contacting parents, communicating with parents and students so
061that students come to school every day. When students come to school every day, they do so much better as all the research shows. So, we really want to put effort into making sure that we're on top of it. We're contacting parents. we're having meetings and that we get our kids here on a daily basis. And those are um the goal as an administrative team. Um we just worked on looking at where we are and what are the things that we can work on this year and then as we go in the future, our long-term goals as well. >> Yeah, that's wonderful. >> Before I make comments, did you want to go over four? >> Oh, just that's that's kind of Yeah. The board >> the macro, right? Yeah, talk about that. >> Um, but personally
062what I what I like about the goal structure that we're moving towards is we have I think one point of discussion is you know do we have the right categories? I like because the categories are are indefinite right the perennial I think academic achievement uh social emotional learning uh attendance engagement and governance policy and communication are probably always going to be a part of some district goals the macro if you will. Um but within those macros we we have a couple of things that that we can work with. We have the goals that hopefully are uh achievable by the administration that we have and the the the staff that we have. Uh but within the goals that you guys wrote, I I think we can also in some respect look at the action steps as
063goals as well. Uh goals are not just outcome oriented things. They can be, you know, if I go to the gym, I could say I want to work out three times a week. I don't have to say I want to lose 10 pounds. The 10 pounds is the outcome. That might happen, but in order to get there, I know that I at least have to show up a certain amount of times per week. And I what I see in our action steps is showing up. I see how we're going to show up. And these are our best efforts in terms of how we're going to achieve that goal. If for some reason we don't achieve the goal, we can look at our action steps as a way to say uh we can have some kind
064of revision. You know, in my world, we call like an afteraction review. What was supposed to happen? What did happen? Uh what are we going to do differently next time? And by having a specific construct like this, it gives us a fundamental core that we can maneuver on and make more informed decisions later on. So in addition to the data that Mr. Kel was talking about our goals themselves can be things that we use as a benchmark and a barometer and we can learn and pivot from. Um but if we believe as a board and as an administration that these are uh the most important action steps, our best efforts if you will, our best laid plans in order to achieve these goals for these macros, these categories, uh you know, I think we're in
065a good place. Obviously, this is something I think we'll always continue to look at. uh just because something is written here it doesn't mean you have to see it through to the end in June if we think we need to adjust something you know we can discuss it and uh see what kind of pivots we need we can be agile in our decisions but how does the board feel about uh you know for one the categories two the goals and three some of the action steps that the administration has put together with some of our contributions of ideas >> I think just overall I'd say it's a pleasure to be to have goals that we can really drill down into. Um this is my third year on the board. The last two years we've been
066focusing on some bigger like morale issues that are maybe a little bit harder to um to measure and um a little bit more difficult uh just to deal with throughout the year. So, it's a real pleasure to be dealing to be focusing back on on the kids and um you know absenteeism and mental health and improving education. Um it's I think this is the direction we were really hoping to be in at this point. >> Yeah. Wonderful. Um, how how does everyone feel what you know again this isn't like a momentous thing where we have to land on it but I I mean if our administration feels comfortable executing the action steps um you know are we do we have something to post here is there any additions you know think actually maybe just pull
067back for a moment go a little more high level like are we missing any of the the macros the categories you know like we academic achievement. These are the billboards, right? Social emotional learning and mental health, student attendance and engagement obviously as a conduit for that goal number one and the other goals. And then certainly as a board um you know we need governance. I don't know if part of that I think it's important to you know is there an assumption that as part of governance finance is in there or maybe we we add that I mean it's in the action steps right? Um, I don't know if it needs to be a part of a banner, but I I do think that as stewards of our of our finances and and for the community
068as well, that that number four obviously is a is a strong part of that. I think we we want to make sure that we are not just internally facing, but we're externally mindful as well. So, um, I think it's inclusive of that, but I just wanted to put that out there. Do our statements look clear and what are your thoughts from the board and of course from the admin as well? you think it's an ongoing process and um and the board obviously can anytime you're thinking about things can add to add to things and >> you know say you know I was just thinking I think we need to put something else under strong governance um as you know we're having our board retreat and I think that's going to be a really good time
069for us uh to be really looking at if there's other things that we wish to incorporate into our district roles. >> Yeah. like I guess like our putting our three to five year plan in there things like that, right? That could be >> I think that might be suitable under goal for just making sure we're accounting sometimes we so much of our policies and everything embody some of this as well. But when we're talking district goals, you know, what what are we already already doing that we might not think of as a goal but can roll into this just as sort of a statement of, you know, of our direction. Um but I I think these are uh I think this is a great start and uh I really appreciate you guys putting it together
070in this way. Hopefully all of our discussions even from last year I I do want to make it known too last year what we tried to do is in process you know we had the readout of our goals at the end of last year. So in June whether it was the you know state testing results or some of our achievements throughout the year I think it's important to connect these goals together in terms of >> uh you know stating them in the beginning of the year being able to track them in that arc of that and then have some kind of readout at the end so that our everyone in the school all of the stakeholders in the community uh you know can see what we're doing and and we hold ourselves accountable to these
071things and if we need to uh make changes. This gives us a great foundation to continue to do better and better for our students and our community at large. Uh with regard to this section tonight, are there any more comments on our district goals? >> That's not important. >> Excellent. Well, thank you again, guys. >> So, we'll move on at this point to our superintendent report and recommendations. Uh we ask for a motion to approve items 7.1 and 7.2. 2 under superintendent report and recommendations. Do I have a motion? Do I have a second? >> All right, Nancy, can you >> Okay. So, um, one of the things that I enjoy most in my position is when I can, uh, honor an employee who's done a really terrific job and I can recommend them for
072tenure, for the board to give them tenure. Tonight we have a teaching assistant, Margaret Doyle, and I just must say she is a stellar employee. Um, she goes above and beyond in everything she does each and every day. She's not only one of the, I would say, finest teaching assistants we have in the district. Um, she also does morning arrivals, she does dismissal time, she chaperones, she does bus monitoring. Anything that we need in the district, she's always there. And it's a complete honor for me um to recommend Miss Doyle um for tenure. And I would like to present her with some flowers. [Applause] >> I think we both come in the same time mostly. to say the love. [Applause] >> I just want to say thank you personally too. I mean it's uh I
073think sometimes uh we don't get to appreciate how important you know what moves this school. You know, it's obviously administration is a huge part of it, but uh sometimes the lights don't go on or students don't get on a bus and to have people that that raise their hand uh for all of these kinds of things and and the additional items particularly that you know things like that Margaret does and and others do as well. But it's it's uh it's what keeps the school moving and we're very fortunate to have you. So, thank you very much. >> Okay. And then I just end the meeting with um as I've I do each month just our enrollment uh report. And just scroll down a little bit. Uh Bob, just so you know, our enrollment is basically
074the same as it was in September. Uh the difference is only about three students in our uh elementary school. As uh Mr. Schneider mentioned earlier, our high school is down considerably this year, but if you look at our numbers in five, six, seven, and eight. Um, our current eighth grade is going to be almost 20 students more than last year's students went to the high school. Same our sixth, seventh is high and fifth grade is currently our highest grade. So, it is very important that we project those increases in tuition over the next uh four years that we're going by. Uh the nice thing to see is our class size is really nice uh in the district. It's something that uh that we really uh want to stick with as much as possible keeping our
075class sizes at decent levels. Um down the road, you know, we're going to have to really look at our prek and kindergarten are smaller as I've mentioned and down the road we're going to have to look at uh enrollment overall as do many of the districts uh on the east end. But right now we're in um very similar to where we were. We're down um from last year at the same time we're down seven students in our preK through eight. So we're very comparable to where we were last year. >> Thank you. Guys have any questions? >> No. All right. All those in favor of approving items 7172 I >> I >> All right. Any opposed? Any abstensions? >> And I chair tomorrow. Uh finally tonight, uh this is our second public comment of this
076evening. This is uh for any comments or questions uh are not necessarily on the agenda. LTV, please let us know if there are any uh comments on LTV. And is there anyone here tonight that wishes to add to our public comment this evening? >> One more shot. Let's go. different question or I have a question for the superintendent. I appreciate that from grade to grade the population fluctuates and you have some larger classes coming up, but this year at this point you're 40 students less than you were had last year at the high school. Uh last year's budget for uh other district tuition was 9.35 million. This year's budget is 9,45,000. Um, if this current number stays stable through the year, what kind of difference, what kind of dollar difference will that generate in terms
077of tuition that you've budgeted for, but that you won't need to expend? >> Um, we'll find out at the end of the year. Obviously, um, things change throughout the year. We get special education students that get added. we get increase in enrollment um throughout the year. It happens uh at different times of the year. As you know, I think it was one year we had 10 additional students um that enrolled in the high school. We get in different enrollment each month. So, as Mr. Schneider mentioned, what we try to do, we project the best we can project and we make sure that we have the money available in case we do get those additional costs as we go on. And when we look towards the end of the year and we see where we are
078and we see how many kids are going to be going to the high school for the following year, uh we'll be able to budget for that. It's um it's you know it's our best estimate. Uh what we do is we look at trends. Um as I said, it's going to be something we really need to look at as we go into the future um going five and six years when we see that enrollment may be significantly reduced. So, but right now, um, from grades five through eight, our enrollment is is very steady from what it's been in the past in East Hampton, and we want to make sure that we have the funds available to pay the tuition uh, when the time comes. >> The elementary the K through 8 tuition uh, population is fairly
079stable, >> is very stable right now at this point. Yes, it's just a little smaller in pre-k and kindergarten. That's why I said we do we will need to uh make sure that we're you know very observant of the trends as we move forward. >> Thank you. >> Any uh LTV, do we have any callers? >> Uh we have zero callers on the line. >> Your tone made me think there might have been one there, but I guess not. Uh anyone else here tonight? Going once, going twice. So I'm going to make a motion to adjurnn. >> Second. I think I heard. All right. Ajourn. Thank you everybody. >> Thank you.