001We're live. >> Okay, great. All right. Good evening. Welcome. Uh we are going to resume the regular meeting of the Suffren Central School District Board of Education for Tuesday, February 3rd, 2026. May the record reflect that all board members are present except for Mr. Shapiro. And at this time, we will begin with the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Okay, our next item is student board member report and we got both of our student board members tonight. Welcome >> [snorts] >> So, voter registration began today in the library for eligible seniors. A couple people from the voter registration committee came in to help guide seniors to
002choose whatever political party they want to choose. And this week, Heroes and Cool Kids will visit the middle school and talk about what Heroes and Cool Kids talk about. [laughter] This Thursday, there will be a Molly UN conference in the library. And next Tuesday, there will be a countywide speech and debate tournament also in the high school library. We wish all our students good luck in these competitions. The elective fair is elective fair is coming up at unit lunch next Wednesday where students that aren't in current electives can check out other groups that they could be interested in. And civics day for history honor society members is next Thursday, February 12th, in which many go to many seniors go to different elementary schools, Connor, Cherry Lane, Slosburg, and >> Montabelloo I forget Viola is in
003school anymore. Next Friday, um the 13th, the Nourish Project will be visiting elementary schools for Rockland Reeden. And next Thursday, the Thursday after that, the 19th, USO will be hosting their annual blood drive with the Maddie Nick Pond Together Foundation. And students often volunteer at this event. The student advisory committee and USO are also planning their winter spirit week to boost the spirits um during the February month. Over at Suffer Middle School, this past week, school counselors have been pushing into classrooms for mid-year check-ins, talking about habits for success in school and out. This Thursday night on the 5th, SMS will host an orientation for any parents of incoming sixth grade students. This event will be an opportunity for parents to learn about the middle school from our student ambassadors and our administrative team. It'll
004take place at 6:30 p.m. Over at Montabelloo, students and staff are getting ready for the Winter Olympics. Across all classrooms and subject areas, students will be learning about the Olympic Games while exploring the character traits behind great athletes, including resilience, perseverance, and the mindset it takes to keep going even when things feel challenging. At Cherry Lane, they're thrilled to kick off their one school, one book initiative this week with a big title reveal taking place during our kickoff assembly on February 4th. This shared reading experience brings our entire school community together around the joy of reading. They're also excited for Global Day of Play on February 4th, a special day dedicated to creativity, collaboration, and learning through play. >> At RB Connor, they are currently collecting cereal for the community food pantry through the cereal
005bowl food drive, which runs through Friday, February 6th. If they reach their goal of 400 boxes of cereal, students will vote on a special schoolwide celebration such as pajama day. Their chicken h hat hatching project is also well underway. Last students, last week students were candling the eggs and learning about the stages of development, observing changes over time, and engaging in hands-on scientific inquiry. The eggs have been in the incubator for two weeks with one week remaining until hatching day on February 10th. Over at Slosburg, the PTA and teachers will participate in the New York State Pick a Reading Partner initiative again this year. This initiative encourages students to read for 15 minutes daily with a partner. The program began on Monday, February 2nd, and will continue through Friday, March 6th. Through this monthlong event,
006they have planned various reading activities that include the Scholastic Book Fair, Rockland Readen, Boulders Reading Challenge, and Read Across America Week. Students will earn tickets for being avid readers in school and for visiting the Sloburg and Suffree libraries. Thank you. >> Thank you very much. That was excellent. All right. Glad to hear we're doing some uh [applause] All right. You have a rehearsal, Robbie. All right. Good luck. [laughter] [gasps] >> Glad to hear everyone's uh who's eligible to vote is getting registered to vote hopefully. Um if Mr. Shapiro was here, he'd be very pleased to hear that, but we all are too. Okay. Moving on to uh item Okay. Okay. [laughter] All right. Moving on to item 1.08, minutes of the regular meeting of January 20th, 2026. Has everyone had an opportunity to review the
007minutes? Very good. Do I have a motion to approve the minutes? >> Move. >> Mrs. Hodgej second. >> Uh, Mr. Donnelly. All in favor signify by saying I. >> I. Anyone opposed? Any abstensions? Okay. Very well. Superintendent's comments. >> Thank you very much. Good evening, everyone. Nice to see the the room packed here um with uh folks in the here for the board of education meeting. So tonight I have the distinct pleasure of welcoming two student organizations that are really the pride and joy of Suffren Central. Uh tonight number one we're joined by Heroes and Cool Kids. We're going to start them off by uh having them go first. Um Heroes and Cool Kid board members uh who are going to share a little bit about the great work that they do as mentors to
008our young students. Without giving too much away, these students apply each year to be a part of the program and then are trained on how to engage and interact as mentors to our youngsters. They visit the middle school and the elementary schools a few times a year. And I wonder if some of the students who are presenting this evening were also on the receiving end of having heroes and cool kids visit them when they were in the middle school or maybe even the elementary schools. And of course, they're here with their adviserss Seth Ramen and Stacy Samura. So, I'd like to welcome up the board members for Heroes and Cool Kids. >> Oh, I did that. Okay. Good evening. Thank you for having us here tonight. Um, here are eight board members. Bryce Bakia, Cassidy,
009Cassidy Sheldon, Nevin Sullivan, Jill Bosac, Lincoln, Christianelli, Dan Hodgej, and myself, Marissa Goodman, and Llaya Kern who cannot be here. We are excited to be here with Visit 2 on the horizon with our middle school groups getting a visit this Thursday and our elementary school groups visiting next Wednesday, the 11th. An icebreaker we like to do is ultimate rock, paper, scissors. With the large crowd, tonight we will share the rules with you, but we'll stay seated. groups like to to start. Groups will get people get in partners um and you essentially you play rock paper scissors and you get the whole class engaged um and the winners then face off and the losers then cheer for the person they lost to. This way we're we promote cheering for our peers and things like that. Um
010and then ultimately it gets down to like just two and the whole class it gets pretty noisy. Um and then we get a winner and it just seems to be a lot of fun. Next slide. >> Um, >> I just press this down. >> Okay. So, this is our first um visit. We talk about building resilience. Um, uh, what is resilience? Resilience is the ability to bounce back after challenges or hard times. Um, and now we're gonna talk about like um the things about social media and ways we can build resilience online. >> So when we go into the classrooms, we try to teach the kids a bunch of things that have to do have to do with resilience as well, including really important things in their life like social media. But we uh assess
011the positives which is that they obviously get to stay connected with friends. They get to learn new skills and you get to build communities like the distance is no longer an issue and people all around the world's country can connect but we also make sure that they're aware of the potential negative impacts like what excessive screen time can do and how it can cause potential mental issues and could impact social like social skills in person and try to make sure that people understand both ends of the stick. go next letter and we each look to share a story with the students about the different topics. So for resilience, we'll share a story personally about resilience each and try to connect to the kids so that they can learn more. So first I'd like to share
012my story about resilience. And the moral of my story is that not all resilience comes through sports. Often times we think we just have to push ourselves in sports and I feel like a lot of times people get caught up in that, but you can do it out like in the classroom as well. And I I did it for the first time really with DECA actually. We're up at our states competition and as we took the bus up to Rochester, I started to lose my voice, which was the worst thing that could happen considering the next morning I needed to speak in front of a judge and do a good job. And that's where I learned resilience because I was at the convention center and I couldn't just go back to the hotel and relax.
013But I did everything I could. I found a friend who had tea. I made as many cups of tea as possible. I didn't say a word. As soon as I got back to the hotel, I went to sleep. I did everything I could to make sure I was prepared for the next morning. prepared myself mentally not knowing what would happen and was able to to do to do good the next morning when I performed and that's how I really like learned that resilience doesn't just come through sports and it could come in the classroom as well. Hi everyone, my name's Hold on. I'm going to hiden that. Um my name is Nevin Sullivan. I'm a senior at Suffren High School. So a new thing that we kind of just started was bringing in different objects
014to kind of represent what your story is really about. So, I brought in one of my mom's bracelets. Um, my mom is my best friend in the whole entire world. She's my source of inspiration and I love her to death. Um, and the moral of my story is that you're braver than you think and stronger than you know. So, our mission is to help younger students learn how to overcome adversity, build resilience, believe in themselves, and choose kindness even when it's difficult. One thing that I've learned is that adversity can come from all types of people, including adults as well as students. It could come from being talked down to, not being believed in, or feeling as though your voice doesn't matter. I've had to learn how to move forward through moments where I felt
015belittled or underestimated even today. Throughout the school year, I've shared the same story with younger students, my peers, and heroes and cold kids staff. It's a story about how my mom was terminated as the coach of sophomore girls lacrosse, the challenges my teammates and I faced because of it, and how we chose to respond with strength and resilience. Instead of falling apart, we came together. We played for her and we played for each other. Yet today, I was asked by another teacher to silence that story out of fear that it could cause discomfort for others. Even though the heartache I felt and the adversity were set aside, I chose to show resilience. So today, my story of adversity stands tall, I share it to encourage my peers to stand up for what they believe in
016and to know that their voices deserve to be heard. Growth comes from having difficult and uncomfortable conversations. As young adults, we cannot always rely on parents, administrators, or coaches to speak for us. Sometimes we have to face challenges ourselves, develop resilience, and learn from them. That is how we become brave young adults. This is an important lesson for students to hear because not every challenge is obvious and not every obstacle is another student. Heroes and Cool Kids teaches that students feelings matter, their voices matter, and that adversity can be faced with confidence, integrity, and resilience. When adults lead with respect, students rise to meet it. So again, the moral of my story is adversity does not always define you. Your support system will always lead you to the growth and resilience you deserve, and you're
017braver and stronger than you think. [applause] Okay. So, my story comes um in the sports side. Um for my object, I brought a golf ball. Um my story is in freshman year. Um I used to be a three sport athlete. I used to play field hockey in the fall, uh basketball in the winter, and lacrosse in the spring. Um during my freshman year of basketball during our last game, um I suffered a brain injury. I was essentially lifted off the floor. I landed on my head and my whole world was turned upside down from that day. Um I didn't none of my parents were there. My dad was working. My mom's a teacher, so she was still at work. Um and that night I went home. I said to my mom, I said, "I have
018a headache and I'm not one for complaining." And I she said, "Well, go to bed. You know, maybe you just are really exhausted. I had a bunch of tests, a bunch of work that week." Um and then the next morning I wake up and I asked for Tylenol, which is something completely out of the ordinary for me. Um, I never had asked for something like that ever. So, my mom knew something was wrong, but again, high school, you have a lot of tests and a lot of work to get done. Um, so I went in to go take a test. Uh, I said to my friend, first period, I had had earth science. I said, "Hey, can you take those notes for me and I'll just get them from you a different day." I wound
019up putting my head down. I fell asleep for the whole period. Um, and for away games, they're required to check you out. Um, get checked out by the nurse. The next day, she calls me down. Um, I had turned white as a ghost in her chair. I had fallen asleep and I was basically inches from passing out. And um, she knew immediately something wasn't right. And from that moment on um, the next 3 weeks I didn't really talk much. Um, and I'd had to go to multiple doctors and learn that I had suffered a level three plus concussion on a scale of four. Um, so it was complet my world was completely turned upside down. And when I had visited with the sports medicine doctor, um he told me that I would never be able
020to do something that I love my whole life again. He told me if I wanted to play lacrosse again, I had to be the goalie. Um which wasn't something that I was used to. I was always the on the offense. Um so I didn't really want to make that sacrifice to change. So I said, "Huh, maybe I'll try something new." Uh my dad is a golfer, avid, and he said, and the golf coach at the time, Mr. Ksman had been coming for me and he said, you know, look, I want you to play golf for me. I want you to play golf for me. Um, and I then found a piece of who I was and now as a senior, I get the opportunity to go next year to play golf at East Strawburg University,
021which I'm really proud of. Um, so the moral of my story is that you can always try and turn something negative into a positive. My story is not as grave or as serious as the others, but when we go talk about resilience, I like to share this one because I think it's a reality for a lot of kids going into high school. So, I brought volleyball. I've played volleyball most of my life. Freshman year, I was on JV team. Um, sophomore year, uh, all my friends play, my friend group, so we all went to try out together. Most of the try out we're pulled up to the varsity side. So, in my opinion, um, is a little misleading. We all were super excited. We're like, "Oh, we're definitely going to be on varsity." Uh, time
022to get results for tryyous. All my friends made varsity except me. So, I went home. I was sobbing to my mom. I was like, "My only choice is to quit. Like, I'm trying to play a sport for fun." And now, like, the fun is totally stripped out of it. My mom encouraged me to talk to my coaches. So, I went back and did that. They told me that I was still an important factor to this team, and that it didn't mean that I wouldn't ever be on varsity. So, I decided to stay and keep on playing. Later that year, I just kept putting in the effort. I eventually got pulled up to play games on varsity and then I was a starter after that my junior year. So my moral is giving up is never
023your only choice. [applause] >> All right. So I'm going to be talking a little bit about uh our second visit which is going on uh two days on Thursday. So uh little bit different from the first visit. uh it's talking a little bit about what disrespect and respect is at their core and uh someone talked about what resilience was. So we have to define what exactly we're going to be talking about during the entire visit. So we define disrespect and respect and then we get into a little bit about how it can be shown. We talk about bullying and cyber bullying and how uh overall bullying is an imbalance of power and how cyber bullying is uses the wide array of technology that we have today to in order to spread negativity online. All right.
024So, in addition, because we're talking about cyber bullying and how uh harmful it can be to mental and mental health, uh we talk about steps for online safety, similar to how the resilience uh visit talked about it. Uh we say that the internet can be a great place to check out the latest YouTube video, download music, and chat with friends. But unfortunately, along with all these benefits can come a certain amount of risk. These are the steps teens should take if they receive a message that is of threatening nature. And what we do after that is basically just describes all the describe all the steps. So we say stop, save, block, and talk to. We go into more depth during the actual visit, but here's it's basically at its core. So moral of my story
025is that people who bring you down can leave your life to make room for people who bring you up. So I'm going to keep mine a little short. I have my item right here. It's a pair of sunglasses. Uh, so I used to go to camp and I had these two friends who I completely relied on before I went to middle school. And I felt like I was being bullied every day and I wasn't even aware of it until I left camp and I went into middle school. And the thing about middle school, I'm sure you guys all know, is that from like three or four elementary schools that we have here, all of them combine and give so many opportunities to make more friends and meet new people. And that's exactly what I did
026uh in sixth grade. I made a whole new group of friends. [applause] >> Okay. So, I'm Cassidy. The moral of my story is to not focus on the people who bring you down, but focus on the people who bring you up. So, similar to a lot of the other people, I'm talking about athletics. I'm a competitive dancer. I have a true um a medal. But, um I started a lot later than a lot of other people did, specifically competing. I trained my whole life, but I wasn't seriously training. It was like one or two hours a week. And so, when I came back to dance after quitting for two years, I was obviously very behind a lot of the people who were my age. And as I was progressing, my studio began posting videos of
027me online, which led to people who I knew seeing me and they began making fun of me and mocking me for my skills compared to their skills. And it really upset me. It made me it was it was really hard for me coming back to something that I was trying to find a passion for again. But instead of focusing on the people who were making fun of me or mocking me and telling me that I wasn't good enough, I focused on my friends, my family and my teachers who told me that I was good enough and I would I had potential and at the end of the day I sticked stuck with it and now I am a very successful dancer. And that's why the moral of my story is to not focus on the
028people who bring you down but focus on the people who lift you up. [applause] Christina gathering >> um so my name is Bbakia and I am a senior also as all of these people are back here all these board members sorry I just called you people that was a little rude of me um but I keep my um thing that really shows resilience means to me um in my wallet um and it's a story about a time that I saw something and I said something and that's the moral of my story is don't just look at something and just be okay and pass it by. Um it's always okay to say something even if that person's bigger than you or stronger than you. Um and that you can there will always be people that you
029can trust and that will do do something even though you don't have that ability to do something. >> [applause] >> Okay. So, usually at this point in our visit, we do a question box where the students in the classroom get to write down on post-it notes anonymously and we kind of read all those questions out. Um, but I think we're going to skip that tonight cuz there's a lot of people and we kind of ran out of time, but um, we just wanted to say thank you so much for letting us come and letting us share what we're all about and we hope that we impacted you guys the same way we impact the students. [applause] Thank you so much to our heroes and cool kids board members who uh were able to really demonstrate
030a little bit about the work that you do. We talk a lot in our uh in our uh strategic blueprint about our older students having an impact on our younger students and Heroes and Cool Kids is a fantastic example of that kind of work. So, thank you for sharing your story um with all of us. We're also happy tonight to have members of our DECA board here as well. They want to share a little bit more about their club and the recent success as they prepare for their state tournament coming up next month. Mr. Courtney, >> appreciate that. Dr. Gunderson, first off, just want to say thank you all for having us here. We know you have a busy meeting, so finding the time for us in your schedule means a lot. I'm just going
031to start by introducing ourselves and all the amazing people we have here. Then we're just going to recap what we do, how it's been going this year, and what we're exciting for going forward. So my name is Ben Courtourtney. I'm a senior at Suffren High School. This is Tanish Sera. He's a junior. He's our VP of finance. We have Aaron Zia. She's also a senior. She's a VP of finance. Aiden Brown with a a beautiful running medal. Aiden Brown, he's a general board member. Isabella Yin, she's a sophomore. She's a general board member. Joy Yin, also sitting over there. She came over here to join us. She's our co-vice president. Aayushi Meotra, she's a region free board member. Very exciting. Aiden Anthony, he's our VP of written. Brandon Marusk, he's a our co-vice president. And
032Lincoln Fishantelli, even though he's in a heroes and cool kid shirt, he's our VP of roleplay. So, just to talk briefly about what DECA is, we came over I struggle with clickers. >> Thank you. So just to recap what DECA is, DECA is Suffford High School's premier business club. We compete at a regional, state, and national level. Crowd these competitions, which Brandon will elaborate upon. We sit down in front of judges, and we work through real life business scenarios. These competitions are both fun academic and networking opportunities. We get to meet professionals, we get to meet with colleges, and we get to meet with peers who are interested in working in a business field. Now, Brandon's going to begin by talking a bit about what those competitions really look like. Brandon. I apologize. Is gonna
033talk about our membership real quick. >> So, our chapter has seen incredible growth throughout the last four years. So, from 3 years ago to two years ago, we had a 170% increase in membership and just this past January at regionals at a regional competition which is at RCC um we had 20 students place in the top six and they will move on to state competition. So with those 20 students and the 42 students competing in Britain events add up to our 62 competitors which in March from March 3rd to March 5th uh we will be going to Rochester to compete in the state competition. Um later in April is nationals. So last year uh we had 12 competitors, one finalist and one competitor in the top 10 exam. Um and the year before we had
034only four competitors. So we've had huge growth. Um my freshman year in 2023 we only had five people compete at states and last year we had six and this year we have 62 which is around a 1100% increase. >> EXCITED. [applause] >> So Deca is primarily split into two main events. You have your roleplay events and your written events. Now, role-play events are more on the spot business scenarios where students will analyze a case and prevent and present their solution to your judges. Um, written events, on the other hand, are more long-term business projects where it takes many weeks of preparation as you need a full-fledged written paper and a presentation to present to your judges. Now, to give you an idea of what these competitions look like, I would like to introduce you Joy
035and Aushi who will be showing you their integrated marketing campaign. In this scenario, they were marketing analysts for Hydroax executives and they are presenting to you a marketing campaign for their company. Good evening. We're at Yushi and Joy and tonight you're Hydro Flask's executive team. We're pitching a campaign that strengthens both brand loyalty and delivers measurable impact. Hydrolast for Humanity, a 45day nationwide campaign that ultimately cultivates on World Water Day with a two-day New York City popup. So, here on the slide, you can see the four posters that so this is digital version, but we had like the big printouts that we brought to states and nationals and it uh gained us first place at the state competition last year. So, our event was like how you said 45day campaign for a two-day event that
036accumulated on World Water Day in March. So, here's the Shark Tank part. So, we would make both money and societal impact by partnering with Charity Water. Um, we would donate 15% of all merchandise revenue and 40% of all ticket revenue to our event to this charity as well as 100% of profits from this user um designed design for humanity event. So, we also um made a prototype to bring to our judges. So, this is um like just a Hydro Flask that we designed for our event. >> Yeah. So this is a sample Hydro Flask that users would design um for a pop-up event again in New York City. And so Hydro Flask would be selling these water bottles to earn a profit while also um having uh bringing like user awareness since the c consumers
037will be the ones creating these water bottles. So another huge part of DECA is the financials and it really helps with their math skills. So on the right hand side you can see our financial dock and we estimated a 300% ROI which is a pretty successful campaign with around $2 million being donated to charity water to help underprivileged communities around the world. And a main reason why we created this event for Hydrolast is the fact that nowadays a lot of other competitors such as Aala are coming into the uh water bottle space and we want to make sure that Hydrolast is on on the top right now and Hydro has always been known for its park renovations but this time we're going to bring uh their water focus plan into charities uh focused on bringing
038water to underprivileged areas. >> Thank you so much for listening to our mock campaign. So, what questions can we like? Thank you for listening. Um, as our campaign leads, [applause] >> um, so I hope you guys enjoyed pretending to be DECA judges for a second there. Although we've, um, you know, already seen Joy and Aushi's project and seen the real world applications, I just like to go into a little bit more specifics of what DECA actually offers. So because of the fact that DECA primarily selects actual business professionals to serve as their judges, it kind of forces our participants that do their projects and their role plays to be as realistic as possible with their projects. So this means that there are hours of research that goes into creating a budget or creating the analysis
039of a campaign target market in order to be as realistic as possible. And this kind of mirrors the real world re that research that actual businesses do when it comes to creating a marketing campaign or even just selling their very own product. Additionally, because of the fact that DECA has so many events across many business disciplines, just to name a few like business administration, marketing, or even more niche areas like hospitality and tourism, there are literally hundreds of events for participants to pick from with their own unique set of guidelines. There are certain events where participants are actually encouraged to reach out to real world corporations in order to uh gather data for their projects. And there's even more serviceoriented projects where people have the opportunity to have a tangible impact on their local communities.
040And of course, because of the way that these competitions are set up, there are plenty of opportunities to develop relationships and network. And this can be as simple as just making a new friends at the state competition or developing an actual business relationship with an industry professional at ICDC. Thank you. >> [applause] [cough] >> Additionally, given the fact that as Aiden said, DECA helps with all these real world skills, it translates into college and career success. Isabella is about to list off our current college list so far this year, and it's been looking pretty cool so far. On top of what Aiden said also, Deck is an amazing resume booster. As fun and valuable as the competitions is, it's also great that our students get access to real world business learning experiences and have something
041to put on their resume that colleges and potential employers can recognize as this is somebody who knows how to handle themselves in the business world. We're giving students real pre-professional experience. And that's, you know, as amazing as a classroom is, that's something that just elevates your experience here at Suffford. Now, Isabelle is going to take it away with the colleg's list. Can you hit the slide, please? So, that's not the college list. Just just just to name. There we go. Isabella. >> Attendance and recognition at the DECA state and international levels give our members an advantage in the college application process, allowing them to be accepted to a number of prestigious schools. schools that include Princeton, Cornell, Duke, Dartmouth, Stanford, Georgia Tech, Carnegie Melon, Indiana, and Bingampton along with the others that are shown. No
042matter how or where our DECA members choose to pursue their post-secary education, their involvement in the club sets them up for success. [applause] Transportation and district support is also what makes DA um realistic. Transportation to competition means it determines who can actually attend these competitions. When busing is provided, participation isn't limited to only the students who can provide transportation fees. It allows more qualified students to um attend and compete these conferences and makes it more logistically possible for teams rather than just individuals. Other than that, financial support also plays a direct role. Registration fees, competition costs, as well as preparation materials can add up costs. Many students who qualify often cannot attend because they cannot afford. DECA's prestige glows on resumes, but his financial barriers keep a lot of eager students out. However, with district
043help, um we want students to be able to avoid these costs and be able to attend. And we want our chapter to be more competitive rather than just selective. >> [applause] >> So as a DECA member, I would like to invest in student opportunity. We want to continue growing the number of competitors at suffer and as we saw there's over a 100% increase over the last two years in DECA and our membership growth is needed because fin um because we get financial literacy skills that we otherwise won't find anywhere but maybe after college through Deco. we get to connect with true professionals who are more than keen to um help their future leaders like their future business leaders because the truth is every single student standing here is going to lead the world in some
044way shape or form. Every single student here is going to make an impact just like everyone in this room has. So, we would like to um we would like to ask the district for a little bit of support with um with the DECA um club because we would like everyone every student in Sovereign High School to have the opportunity to compete and grow and elevate their empire as DECA members. [applause] Thank you all again for your time and consideration. We appreciate your energy and enthusiasm at 8:11 p.m. on a Wednesday night, Tuesday night. So, thank you all again and we hope that you keep us in your mind going forward. Thank you. [applause] and and of course uh first of all you all did a great job and just like heroes and cool kids you
045represent our district in a fantastic way and recognize that you have a slightly different emphasis and that is really you know when you look at our blueprint um a major priority is learning outside of the classroom and you are certainly learning outside of the classroom and showing what true student leaders can do and Mr. Courtney, it wouldn't be a DECA presentation by you and your fellow student leaders without a pitch for asking for additional financial support for DECA. So, congratulations on that request. Um, it hasn't gone on deaf ears, but of course, I can't say yes at this point. >> But well, well done. Well done. >> Well said. Thank you very much. support. [laughter] >> And finally, to wrap up the superintendent's report, this week is National School Counselors Week, and I just like
046to give a big thank you to all of our school counselors for being instrumental supports for our students across all grade levels. We'll be sharing more about them on our social media feeds this week, so watch out for that. And thus concludes my superintendence report. Thank you to all who are here in attendance to present. Thank you. Just kidding. I have one more thing in the board uh superintendent's uh report and that is our budget presentation. That's right. And so I'm going to ask Dr. Castellane, our assistant superintendent for finance and operations to to get up and and share this very preliminary budgetary presentation. >> [clears throat] >> All right. Good. Good [clears throat] evening. Thought I was going to get out of it, but [laughter] So, I I say this every year. It's kind
047of hard to believe that I'm already back uh giving budget presentations because I feel like we just ended the budget presentation. So this tonight it'll be again as uh Dr. Gunderson said it'll be very preliminary as far as I'll get a little bit into the numbers but really kind of talking about what we've been doing what we've been discussing on the building level uh district level and our next steps and where we're going to go from here. So [clears throat] this year the district uh engaged in creating a the district blueprint, right? We were moving away from the strategic plan and into the blue blueprint. So I brought back to my team the mission, the vision and just wanted to make sure that we were focusing everything around the budget um everything around the blueprint
048for the budget, right? And some of those items that we discussed were the three as three main aspects, right? Rigorous teaching and learning, right? We want to be able to prepare students for future successes, engage in instruction, future classes, talking about what curriculum we're going to invest in, and what opportunities. We also want to talk about learning beyond the classroom. Right? That's creating partnerships, community connections, and provide classroom learning opportunities and field trips. Right? That actually might be a good one for the DECA group to get on board with. And then operational excellence. And this really focuses on um systems, technology, communications, strengthening our processes and our facilities, making sure everything is running effectively and efficiently. Along those lines, we'll also be looking at safety and security. So, our budget development timeline changes a little
049bit from year to year, but essentially I like to kind of look at this and show this to the board because it shows that we don't just start having this conversation in December and January, right? As soon as the budget passes, we we roll into the next year and then we really start those conversations. Even though it says September, we really start that over the summer. But September and December, that's when we start branching out of our business office. We talk about preliminary decisions. We talk about the district needs and our district wants for this year, right? We don't want to just limit it to um have a narrow focus when we're looking at everything. We do some on-site visits for specific items, have in-depth conversations. Then when we get to January, February, we start
050talking about aid and what does that look like as far as revenues. And I'll get into this in a later slide, but really the district is limited into how they can receive different revenues. So just jumping back when I talk about the revenues in the state of projections January February to give a realistic idea we only received these projections from New York State uh about a week ago. So while we know exactly where we were this year we don't know what the governor's proposal is going to be for next year. And when I talk about the state aid proposal, and I won't go through all those lines, but when I talk about these numbers, I think it's important to remind everyone that these numbers can change. Last year, we were giving these numbers earlier on
051in the year, and these numbers change significantly. If the board recalls, last year we actually approved our budget prior to the New York State approve um budget approval. So, we were basically approving a budget hoping that these numbers would come in. Now, one of the things I do want to point out is after our budget was adopted and passed, we did receive a decrease in foundation aid once New York State changed the their formula. Okay. So, these are things that we just have to kind of talk about and we need to make sure that we're able to pivot um after the budget is passed on. So, one of the things I'd like to point out is foundation aid. That is our largest form of aid uh that the state can give us. Then when you
052look down those lines, there's two other items that I always like to kind of talk about. One of them is the Bosey's aid and you'll see a significant decrease in the Bosey's aid projection for next year. So, there's a couple reasons for that. So the first reason is last year when the district was looking at the budget and we decided to make a couple different changes and refocus some uh monies in different areas, we spent a little bit less money in some of those areas for Boseies and then some of those other items might have been one-time purchases that we received aid on. A good example is this year for safety reasons we had to upgrade our phone system. Our phone system was outdated. It was no longer going to be supported. We budgeted for
053it. So, we ended up um partnering up with our technology department and installing between the technology department and facilities department. They installed all new phones throughout the entire system. Ones in which case we can immediately dial 911. We can have access to lockdown systems, etc., etc. So, things that kind of put us a little bit I I would say up to the times and even maybe a little bit further, but we were definitely behind there. So as we look at those items, while the aid projection will be in there for next year, it'll drop for the following year. And then the other one is the transportation aid. So when I get when I work through my presentation tonight, we're going to look a little bit about the transportation numbers because the transportation is one of
054the largest pieces of our budget. And then overall, as you can see with the totals, we're looking at receiving a little bit less uh than we than we did the year before. So, budget revenues, this is where I talk about how the limitations and how a district can go ahead and have revenues for it. We have New York State aid increases. Our hands are a little tied with a lot of that because they're always changing the formulas. We have our tax levy. That is our number one way in order for the community to support the district. We have our pilots payment in lie of taxes. So that's when new businesses come on and we are able to sit at the table which is very unique for Rockland County where we're able to sit at the
055table and add input on what we should be able to receive from those new businesses coming on. Now what does that do is that gives the district a guaranteed set amount of money for each year. And then as companies grow over the course of several years, depending if it's a seven-year pilot to a 15-year pilot, they end up falling off as far as paying the district and then they end up hitting the tax roles. We have interest on investments. So, we've been very fortunate this year where we've been able to tie up some of our money in uh collateral collateralized investments and take advantage of those high interest rates. But if you've been watching the market and looking at the interest rates, the interest rates are coming down. So as the interest rates are coming
056down, we are being we will not be uh receiving as much interest on our money that is sitting in the bank. Uh and then we have miscellaneous revenues and this these ones kind of change from time to time and we do our best for projections. Uh however, they can always change uh throughout the course of the year and that's when we're billing back for health services. uh those are services that we provide to uh non-public schools that might be in district. We would build back to the other districts. We have Medicaid billing. Again, those come down to uh certain guidelines by the state. And then we have our rental agreements which we will be able to lock up prior to the close of um the close of budget season. And then I always like to
057mention um not always but within the last two years specifically I should say is the uncertainty surrounding certain federal grant funding. While I believe that grant funding will continue to be in place, I know last year there was a lot of discussion about certain title funds that might disappear. So we do have to keep that in mind when we're building the budget. And when I say we, I would mean the administration, the board of ed just to know again should we need to pivot because certain federal money does not come into the district, we need to know what our plan B is. [clears throat] So now we have budget development considerations. So as far as this slide, I like to show this slide every year. And the reason why is because on here, this is
05869.98% of our allocated budget for this current year. These are our bargaining units, right? These are everyone that makes suffering a wonderful place and takes care of our kids every day. So next year we have four bargaining units that will be up for negotiation. So the only reason why I point that out is because I think it's important to look forward. The budget should not simply be a May tomay conversation. We really need to start thinking about what does that look like for the upcoming year. And that's the reason why I like to put this up every year. Transportation. So transportation accounts for approximately 10% of our budget. Okay. this year and you'll see on a later slide this year we're just under about $17 million for transportation. So the conversation that I've had since
059I've come to the business office was really talking about enrollment and the transportation needs. So when I came over four years ago, I figured I needed to start somewhere. So I went with a three-year data set and that's simply the only reason why I'm starting this off with a 2020 2021 school year. Additionally, it's the first year that we are coming through COVID, right? So, if you think about CO, it's so long ago, right? But anyway, so what you can see is you can see the non-public school applications are in green and then we have our public school uh transportation in blue. So, in 2020, we are transporting 4,185 students to at that time seven schools. We are transporting 1,246 non-public school students. When you fast forward to 2025 2026, our present year, we currently
060have just under 2,300 applications for non-public schools. And we have 38 just under 3,900 students that we're transporting to six schools. So when you look at that there's only an increase of about 730 somewhere in that ballpark students. So there is an increase but there's a shift of from six schools to about 110 schools. And this next slide kind of puts that into perspective a little bit more. Right? So when we look at again keeping with the theme of 2020 to 2021 all the way down to 2526 we can see that we were at $9.5 million in transportation we have grown to almost $7 million more in transportation in the last six years. Right? So when we look at the public school versus non-public school, you could see that again when we're transporting to only
061six buildings, the number per pupil is very low. But when we have to expand to approximately 110 plus, then we're now looking at 6.7 million. The other line, transportation miscellaneous, has a little bit less control because those are transportation items that are connected to special education. Those are um whether they would be public school or non-public school options for kids. Those are um those are transportation needs for uh our homeless students, our McKenna Vento students that we're required to. Uh there are times where students might be victim of a house fire, some other tragic situation where they simply have to live with another with a loved one or somebody else in another county. and we do provide transportation and some of our special ed education transportation does end up going out to Long Island. So
062those are when you look at that number you say wow that number is pretty big. Um that number is all included into the transportation miscellaneous and that goes into any of the other items that might go into transportation needs any of our software any of those uh things that we might need. Uh transportation also include uh transportation to sporting events >> that would fall under transputaneous miscellane uh miscellaneous. Correct. >> Correct. Right. Anything contractual. Uh so that would be sporting events, any any of those items, >> field trips, etc. And and I do that just jumping back I do that keep it separate only because we have the mandated to and from school for public school mandated to and from school for non-public school and then and then right >> yes >> so transportation obviously
063we've been talking about this for a couple years. So, what have what has the district what has the the board assisted the district in doing? One of the things that we were successful with is last year we had to go out for a uh general contract. Our general contract had to go out for bid. So, we were able to award a one to three uh a three-year contract and we're going through year one of that contract. And the specific thing that uh that helps us with is knowing exactly where we're going to be next year. So when you talk about transportation uh renewing uh transportation bids, uh similar to some of our other bids, uh security bids and so forth, those are based off of CPI. They have a clause in there, um that you
064can extend for x number of years depending on whichever contract and whatever type of service it is. So every year we would go into a budget season. The CPI which is a consumer price index is released after the budget season for us. So after we have an approved budget, if we built in 3% for a consumer price index increase and it was 3.5, we're already behind the eightball. So, one of the things that general transportation contract did for us, which covers a lot of the miscellaneous transportation as well, does cover some of the private and some of the public schools, is that it allowed us to kind of lock in knowing this is what the price will be for a a 35 passenger, a 44 passenger, etc. Um, one of the things that has been
065driving prices up across New York State is really the um the uh government's uh push for electric buses and the New York State mandates. So, when I talk to counterparts in other districts when when they're buying electric buses or putting money away for electric buses, these are huge costs. Just to give you an idea, and not to I'm just going to give you ballparks because I didn't write this number down because I wasn't planning on talking about it, but just to give you an idea, a gas might cost approximately $170,000. When you're going to buy an electric vehicle, it's about $400,000, right? And then you have all the maintenance and equipment where a lift that's in a bus garage right now will not be able to lift a bus that's an electric bus with with
066the weight of the batteries. So there's a lot that has to go into the infrastructure. So one of the things I do want to mention that is that we have had conversations and do continue to have those on ongoing conversations. I actually have a meeting tomorrow with our current provider to make sure that they are doing everything they need to in order to make sure that if New York State does not push this mandate back that we are still going to be in a calm trajectory. And I'm not coming to the board saying that we're looking for an significant increase for transportation. One of the other things that we've done um starting last year and then again to this year is we took a look at our buses and thought about hey what kind of
067opportunities do we have in order to get more drivers and possibly help control the large increase with the um with the rates. and that was putting bids out for some of our non-public uh with some of our non-public schools. So last year we were able to transport nine to nine different schools. We had bids on nine different schools. We did not award all the bids because again if it wasn't beneficial for the district, we were not going to move forward with it. And then we had this year we were able to uh increase that number to 17 uh non-public schools. So, we have all those students who the district is outsourcing to a different vendor other than Chestnut Ridge who holds our general contract. Um, additionally, that allowed for further drivers uh to support adding
068a few other smaller runs just to alleviate some of the buses um in some of our for some of our elementary schools. So, major expenses and considerations. So salary and benefits uh as I mentioned this year there was approximately 70 thou uh 70% of our budget was allocated for it. Transportation also another um large ticket item. Uh we have our district liability coverage uh and that's insurance. And as we know as everything continually increases, we go to the store, we see everything going up. If you're paying car insurance, you're seeing that go up. One of those factors that we just simply can't control. Um and then we have cost of Boseies. So when we talk about Boseies, there's a couple different Boseies that come into mind that that we utilize, right? We utilize uh Rockland
069Boseies for our CEK or our special education uh programming and so forth. They will come out with uh their rates a little bit closer to budget season uh or the approval of their budget because their board of ed needs to approve their budgets and what rates they're going to charge. So their process is they reach out to all the districts. They get a ballpark. Um they get a ballpark as far as what they will need to provide and then they go back and you know we'll come up with our final rates and or they'll come up with their final rates and then we'll work on our final numbers and that is really kind of right towards uh the adoption of our budget. And then we have Bosey's bond payments. Rockland Boseies uh went out for
070a bond. They're in their second year of their bond. So depending on how much money they incur over the year, we will end up rece we will end up paying our portion out of the eight component districts to their bond payment. Um and then the last one is technology infrastructure and support and that really comes from our um the lyric which is uh out of Westchester and that Boseis provides this is all of our programming our infrastruct uh infrastructure um our support for our phone systems. So, so they handle basically all the technology pieces and they have already come out of the gate and said that they will be looking for a four to 5% increase on all services. So, they're working on that and during the budget season myself along with um the curriculum
071and the technology office will be having several meetings. We've already had one preliminary and we'll continue to go through and make sure that we're getting everything we need out of those services. So for our next step uh our next steps on February 18th, we're going to have Dr. McCill uh has offered to come up and talk about his enhancements over curriculum and instruction, right? And that goes back to the blueprint to kind of see how everything will come together. On March 3, we're going to have another budget workshop where I'll be up here talking a little bit more um with refined revenues and expenses, uh possible staffing changes, any impact we might see, and then a proposed tax levy. So, if you saw on my first slide, and you'll see on my next slide, the
072tax levy is actually due on March 1st. So, what we do as a school system is we put in the tax calculation. We submit that up to the controllers's office. That gives them time to review it as well. At that point, by March 3, we'll have some finalized numbers where I will bring to you and then we'll be speaking to the board to make a decision on whether they would like to have that tax number adjusted. We do have the ability to adjust that tax levy number even though it's submitted March 1st. I just like to make sure everyone knows that ahead of time. And then these are, in my opinion, the most important dates. Uh, I know we approved the budget calendar at a previous meeting, but I do think it's important to highlight
073today, February 3rd, we have a workshop. March 1st, we'll we'll have the C tax calculation uh submitted. March 3rd, we'll have a budget workshop again. April 21st, that's a big one. We'll have a budget workshop, the adoption of the budget, and the property tax report card because on the 22nd, that's when the district will need to submit the property tax report card. And then we'll be sending it out from there. May 5th, we'll have the public hearing. So that would give the opportunity for anybody to uh come up and speak uh speak about the budget. Uh and then uh May 19th, we have our school budget and election vote. Any questions? >> Be busy. >> Uh very busy. Yes. Yes. So >> thank you. So, we'll we'll give uh board members a minute or two
074to to get back to their seats. I just want to thank uh Dr. Castellane for a comprehensive overview. Even though this is a preliminary budget workshop, um we felt that it was important for Dr. Castellane to share with the board of education and the public really, you know, the two main expense areas that we have for our district and to think about the fact that 80% of our budget is encumbered by salaries and transportation. and Suffer Central has a particularly large transportation budget percentage-wise. Uh it's really important to know that there's no flexibility with those two expenses and so really a lot of the discussion points come down to the remaining 20% that we are going to refine more for you in the weeks ahead. So Dr. Castlane, thank you very much. Uh and we'll
075open it up for any board of education member questions. >> Any questions from board members? Miss Brian? >> [laughter] >> Kevin, can take over. >> You know, [clears throat] >> I I don't have a question. I just have a request. Uh is it possible that we can have a copy of your presentation? >> Oh, absolutely. >> And that uh board of education uh I'm sorry, that presentation will also be available for members of the public in the board of education recap that comes out, >> right? Yes, absolutely. >> Any other comments or questions from the board? >> No. Okay. Thank you so much, Dr. Castelin. >> Thank you. >> And now for real. Thus concludes my superintendence report. Maybe the longest one on record. >> Maybe so. Well, thank you to the few uh DECA
076members who are hanging around. A little more school business for you tonight. Uh okay. Um, at this point, uh, we would normally do public participation on action items only, but I see we have a number of people here from the public, uh, to speak and, uh, the hour is growing late. So, I think I'm going to expand the public participation section if there's no objection from the board to any district related business as well as any action items. Yeah. Okay. Very good. All right. Uh and then then at this time we're going to open up this meeting to public participation on any district related business. Uh if you would like to speak to the board about any district related business, please keep your remarks to three minutes. Please do not mention anyone in the district
077by name, whether it's staff, student, or teacher. And please uh give us your name uh before you begin to speak. Is there anybody here from the public who would like to speak tonight? >> Yes. Go ahead. Thank you. Good evening members of the board, superintendent and administrator. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to speak tonight and thank you for everyone who showed up to support us. My name is Fila Moa >> and my name is Muriam Amir. >> We're post co-president of the Muslim Student Association or MSA at the Southern High School. Today we want to say why recognizing Eid on the school calendar is important to many students and families in the suffering central school district. So for Eid, my family and I would usually go to the mosque and we would pray
078and celebrate with my friends. Although I have so much fun, I'm always concerned about how much school work I'm going to be missing. Sometimes I'm missing a major test or a major assignment and I would have to make it up missing other work which I also have to make up. This creates a cycle compared to other students who have Yonapore on Christmas as a holiday. They don't have to worry or they don't have the same concern as me because they have the whole day to celebrate while I and many Muslims in this district have half the day to celebrate and the other half have to make up school work. [snorts] Eid is one of the most important religious holidays in the Islam. It's celebrated by Muslims around the world marking the end of the sacred
079months Ramadan centered around reflection, worship and fasting. To honor Eid is to spend time with our family and friends celebrating and worshiping Allah which is God and Arabic. This is one of the holidays in our calendar when families travel often great distances to see each other. When faced with the choice of going to school or celebrating Eid, many students are pick are willing to pick celebrating Eid because they haven't seen their family in so long. Approximately 2022 to 2023 of absences on Eid were specifically called in as religious observants. Meaning it's like 1/4 of the students in this district that day were home celebrating the holiday. The percentage absence due to religion observance from 2023 and 2024 was pretty consistent, making it a trend. In terms of day before or day of, there was a
08032% increase in the abs since 2024 and almost a 97% increase in 2023. [snorts] When a district doesn't include Eid, students are forced to choose between their academics and their face. They're both equally important. If they choose their academics, they have to miss important traditions and important celebrations. If they choose their face, they have to make up the work and they have to make it up on top of the other work they'll be missing, which is not great. If your son or daughter came to you with this concern, how would you advise them board? We the students, staff, and parents of suffer central school district ask you to consider adding Eid for the next school year. It ensures that Muslim student won't worry about missing a spiritual day as important as Eid. They can spend
081time with their friends and family. We can't fall behind other districts in Brooklyn County. If we're the first to include Eid as a holiday would be pioneers influencing the rest of the county to do the same. Um together as a community, we can be the leaders of a better future for the whole community and the other district. We thank you for your time and consideration. Now I'm going to have Miriam Amir talk about Eid's significance as our holiday and as a holiday for next school year. >> Good evening and thank you for having us speak today. This issue is ultimately about equity and fairness and our school calendar already recognizes major religious and cultural holidays such as Christmas, Yumkapur, Lunar New Year, and Thanksgiving. As a district, we understand that students deserve the ability to
082observe these holidays without being academically penalized for it. For many Muslim students, Eid holds the same significance as those holidays mentioned above. But instead of being home celebrating with their families and friends, they are forced to choose between their faith and their education. Students shouldn't have to prioritize one over the other. As students in this district, we recognize and appreciate the fact that our district is built upon values such as commitment, equality, diversity, character, and respect for every member of the community. We as a district have stated that placing importance of the needs and well-being of our of our whole community fostering a sense of belonging and shaping our culture is a key core value for us. Recognizing Eid fther becomes another way we can commit to these values and sends a clear message that
083all identities are valued equally not just in words but in actions as well. The district already honors and respects different cultures celebrating the diversity in our community. Our four core core values, commitment, community, compassion, and character, set the stage for designating Eid as a holiday. Our values emphasize the importance of being kind and open to new perspectives. Being open to having Eid as a new holiday in this district would be a meaningful way to integrate new perspectives into our district. Furthermore, it demonstrates how successful our district's core values are in integrating its mission in aiding every student, staff, and teacher. Recognizing Eid as a holiday allows Muslim students like us to feel included in our district and opens the door for other students to learn about the significance of Eid. Addressing any stereotypes or misunderstandings
084they might be about Muslims and Islam as a whole. We know a common concern is why can't why can't keep adding more holidays to the calendar. But recognizing Eid doesn't mean opening the door for meaningless days off. Just across the border, Bergen County has recognized Eid in their calendars, showing that they have found it to be practical and sustainable throughout their district by using flexible approaches like rotating days or excuse absences. In fact, this actually improves attendance and a structural time since teachers aren't forced to retach materials for a large number of absent students. We are suffering central school district. We never waited for others to go first. We don't follow trends. We create them and lead them with the intention of bettering our community. Why not take the lead on this in hopes that
085other Rockland County districts follow? By taking the step now, we have the opportunity to set a precedent in Rockland County and become a model for inclusive, thoughtful decision making for neighboring districts to follow. We the students, the parents, and staff of Sufffort Central School District respectfully ask the board to consider adding E to the school calendar for the 2026 through 2027 school year. Thank you for your time and consideration. [applause] >> Thank you very much. Are there any other students here to speak on the subject? Just [laughter] I see you. >> Okay. Very good. Uh and um is there anyone else who's here to speak on any other district related business? [laughter] >> Good evening. Um Dr. Guterson and the board of education. My name is Ro Schmidt. Um a resident and coach and a
086mom of four. I want to start with saying I have been a supporter of redistricting from close to the beginning, flaws and all. And what brings me here tonight is a concern brought up during the redistricting and one I continue to have now two years later. At the beginning of redistricting, it was stated that both the lower elementary school Soulsburg and Connor would be a prek to two school. And though there is a UPK program at Saltzburg, it is not a district program which has kept Saltzburg a K2 building with re K2 building sorry with redistricting. The community was promised equity and yet has not happened for our youngest Mounties. At the Mounty Minds meeting in the fall and then at the presentation regarding redistricting on October 28th, it was stated that a concern with
087inconsistencies between the UPK programs were being analyzed and programs and the programs and that the district would create consistencies for the next school year. At the end of January, it was released that the Y Beginnings was still going to be operating at Saltsburg. And while I love the program as two of my stu uh two of my kids have gone through it, it is not the same as the district program. Dr. Gunderson, I want to thank you so much for getting back to me in regards to some of my questions. And while I am happy that the YMCA will be getting some equity within the programs, I still have questions and concerns. I am confused as to why the district program cannot be put in place for next year when we still have more than
088eight months until the school year starts. These inconsistencies and inequities have been on the radar since last year. So, in reality, it could have been in the works since this past fall, giving the district almost a year to have everything in place. We've had I have spoken before and having the YMCA get these services and I was told that it was not possible since the YMCA is not a district program. So, I was confused and wondering why the changes to allow this collaboration can occur now. Similarly, how will the students be integrated into the school as it is run by a third party? Will they be able to take part in all the same assemblies, um, spirit days, yearbook, art shows, PTA events, curriculums, back to school nights, um, going forward as the counterparts at
089RPC Connor, you know, being a YMCA program, they don't necessarily have to be there on these nights or participate in some of those events. Would they be getting the extra 30 minutes back? the extra 30 minutes that Connor school um as the district yp um district UPK currently gets more than the SLSburg YMCI does. I'm also curious of the curriculum used between the two programs and how will they be the same? It seems to me that those who have attended the district program seem to be better adjusted to school setting and the demands. [snorts] Is there going to be an opportunity for the YMCA to offer an open house before decisions have to be made in order for parents to understand the overlap between the district and the YMCA? Would they be able to meet
090those who would be in the building such as the principal with the YMCA? years ago at Connor school, the district um held a open house for all the programs where all the programs were presented at once to the parents. Questions could be asked, the curriculums were shown and that really does help and was wondering if that would be able to be a possibility before this upcoming year. So the YMCA, the Suffren district and for kinder and I think that would also help the parents with the wraparound care that I know both Kinderare and Connor school offers currently. I look forward to hearing from you on these matters and to hear you know to get any of the questions that I have going forward. And then I would also I know I'm not supposed to mention
091kids or anything and he left. Oh no, he's over there. Um, I know Ben had a great presentation this evening and as his coach, I'd be couldn't stand here and not say that Ben broke the school record for the 100 butterfly this past weekend um, at divisionals. Thank you very much. Is there anyone else from the public who would like to speak tonight? If Connor school is getting the library and all of those things and they are teachers from Suffren Central and if the YMCA is going to get those, how is that going to work out when they're Suffren Central employees and the YMCA is not? And I do want to say that I've been around for like 60 years now cuz I started in Cherry Lane at age four. Um, how do we get
092this word out to these people? What is offered? That's one of my big things. Thank you. >> Thank you very much. Uh, is there anyone else from the public who would like to speak tonight? Yes, sir. Good evening. Uh, let me begin by saying I do not hold this against any of you. If you are in a state of confusion, then are you looking at professor Dumbledore? I am not professor Dumbledore. However, I am the imam and the principal of the suffren school, the Islamic school which is in downtown suffan academy. And you see before you some people that represent the community. The community of Muslims just in the suffren Bergen County line and Orange County line is about close to 250 to 300 families. So the holiday requests that the kids have put forth
093uh is an important one. I am the imam of the masid that these kids most of these kids attend and their families attend. My name is Sayyad Ali. But it really moves me that they are showing their civic duty by coming to the school board and presenting this as something that is very close to their heart. So I would like the board to honor if it's possible at all and if you want to have a conversation even want to come to the mosque and come visit the school I'll give you my information and you could see that how important this would be to our community. Thank you. >> Thank you very much. Is there anyone else uh from the public here to speak tonight? Okay. Uh, we're going to close that portion of the meeting
094then. Um, at this time we're just going to take a very short break. I know we have some young children here if anybody wants to leave so you can get home. Oh, before people leave, Dr. Gunderson has something that he would like to say. So, we're going to just postpone that for just a minute. >> Thank you, Mr. Dickman. Uh, I recognize that the the hour is getting late uh compared to our average time for for board of education meetings and I appreciate you seeing that there's some especially young children in the crowd that may need to uh take care of some other things before it gets too too late. Um, and I was going to save these remarks for the superintendent's closing comments, but if folks were going to leave, um, I wanted to
095make sure I conveyed these two thoughts. Uh, number one to the folks who uh are here to talk about uh the UPK program at Slozburg. Um, I know that we've had some dialogue back and forth very recently about email. Um, and I appreciate the fact that you recognize that we are striving to make progress to make those two programs um, more in line with one another and we're it's not perfect yet with the hope that the following year there would be complete unity across the district. you added uh a handful of questions in that email that you also mentioned this evening and know that I don't have answers to all those questions. So that's why I haven't responded yet. I think the email came yesterday or the day before and I will certainly reach out
096to both of you to have additional dialogue about that. Again, your uh contributions are always constructive in nature and I appreciate that and we're moving towards I think our final goal. >> [snorts] >> Um, I would uh I would like to thank um our two student leaders, co-presidents from the Muslim Student Association on again I I harp on this from time to time about the importance of student voice and about seeing our students develop tremendous leadership skills. Uh these two young ladies reached out to me to ask to have a conversation with me. They're not simply showing up at a board meeting with this request out of the blue. They've been extremely constructive in their approach. Um, Miss Minnik, their advisor, as the the club adviser, has given them some great advice and guidance as
097well. This is, I believe, a model for how students should be advocating for a particular position. I certainly can't speak for the board, nor I think is the board ready to give you a specific answer. Um, but I do think that the sentiments of everybody at this table is you did a great job tonight sharing what your very thoughtful and constructive opinions and feelings are on the matter. Uh, we will certainly look into this. We are constructing a calendar for next year. We will take your uh recommendation under consideration I believe as we discuss this and we hope to have an answer in one of the coming board meetings with what that calendar looks like. So, thank you very much for your great contributions. >> Thank you guys. Thank you very much. And then finally,
098Ben Courtourtney, great job on that record-breaking uh, you know, a great Deca presentation this evening and then swimming really, really fast. I don't think I can do two butterflies, much less 100 meters. So, nice job. >> Okay, so, uh, this is a public meeting. You don't have to leave. We're happy to have you here. Please feel free to stay for the whole thing, but you don't have to stay for the whole thing if you've had enough board of education for tonight. Um, we have a few more matters we're going to be going through. So, um, I just wanted to let everyone who wants to go, um, if you have other things you want to do tonight, now's a good time, um, to leave. If you don't want to leave, please stay and enjoy, um, all
099the rest of our business tonight. Good night and thank you so much for coming tonight and thank you for your presentation. >> Good job. >> Our sponsor and as you cannot be the follower, you never give up and keep resisting. The second of success keep going and thank you. Thank you for all and have a great night. Thank you. And to you. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. All right. Uh we're going to resume uh now uh with our action items. Action items are on our calendar tonight at 2.01 through 2.10. Uh before asking for a consent agenda, is there any action item that any board member would like to pull? Okay. All right. Looks like not. In that case, we're going to proceed. Um, do I have a motion for a consent agenda to approve
100action items 2.01 through 2.10? >> Mr. Frasier. Second. >> Oh, that was Mr. Andard. Oh, >> Mr. Andard. >> Do I have a second? >> Second. >> Mr. Donnelly. Okay. All in favor signify by saying I. I. Anyone opposed? Any abstensions? Okay. Very well. Uh then we're going to move on to our second public participation section. Although I don't think we have anybody left. Gro has anything left to say. [laughter] So uh you got anything? >> Okay. All right. We're going to close that portion of the meeting and move to board member comments. Any board members with any comments tonight? Yes, Miss Brian. I'll make it short and sweet. Um uh I want to acknowledge Career Day at RPC Connor. I attended um and did the finance presentation the same way how I did it
101for Montabelloo a couple weeks prior. A different age group. The second graders were tough. >> Um >> they were they were tough. Um but it was a great experience overall. Um Principal Banady did a great job. She had a a beautiful welcoming room for everyone who came and um it was well attended. You know, there were parents and and others that came. It's a great event. So um just acknowledging that. Um also she left already, but I made a note to comment and commend the student who came up her presentation. She would be a fantastic debater. like simply just listening to how well she presented the facts of attendance and how she laid out her argument for having Eid as a holiday next year. Um, I wanted to personally commend her on that. Also, I
102was disappointed and I told Kevin I wanted to play rock paper scissors. >> I was really hoping that we were going to do that. Um, and we didn't. We were okay cuz I made a note that no rock paper scissors. Um, and my partner in crime says I'm supposed to remind everyone to vote in his absence. So, >> thank you. Uh, any other board member comments tonight? No. Okay. Well, I just want to say thank you to all of our students who presented tonight. I don't think we've ever had this many students do uh presentations. So, as Dr. Gunderson said, "It's wonderful to hear the student voice. We're always happy to have students come in. Really reminds us what we're here for." And thank everyone for their patience tonight as we had lots of presentations
103and everybody was very attentive and uh and it was it was really just uplifting uh meeting. Um so that concludes my board member comments. Any superintendent's closing comments? >> I've had enough comments this evening. So uh no. >> Okay. Just a reminder that our next meeting will be Wednesday, Wednesday, February 18th because of the holiday. So don't come here on Tuesday. Come Wednesday. Um and uh at this point, do I have a motion to adjurnn? >> Mrs. Hodgej second. >> Second, >> Mr. Frasier. All in favor signify by saying I. I. Excellent. See everybody back here on the 18th.