001Good evening and welcome to our board of education meeting for Wednesday, September 3rd, 2025. If you would please rise for the pledge of allegiance led by our student Katie Erso. Thank you so much. Happy back to school week. Uh, Miss Dmano, any changes to the meeting agenda? >> No changes reported. >> Okay. Thank you. So, that will take us right to Katie's report, item 6A. and welcome for your first official student representative report. Good evening everyone. I'm Katie and I'm excited and honored to deliver my first report. Yesterday marked the start of the school year and word Melville warmly welcomed our new 9th and 10th grade students. Though the halls were busier than usual, everything went smoothly overall with teachers and upper classmen helping the underassmen find their way around. It was really nice getting
002to see familiar teachers from the middle school and getting to reconnect with them. The school spirit is already building. Seniors showed their enthusiasm by arriving with kid backpacks as a nostalgic flashback to the beginning of elementary school days. We are also excited that our fall sports are in full swing as we already have some games this week with the volleyball and soccer team which is keeping the energy in the school very enthusiastic for the next few weeks. Another addition to our school this year is the statewide cell phone ban at Welville. The cell phone ban definitely feels different. It's an adjustment since using our phones has become so second nature. But in class, I've noticed that students seem more engaged and more communicative. We are definitely still figuring out this new normal and it takes
003some time to getting used to, but so far the adjustments have been adequate. Looking ahead, clubs are preparing to start next week with more students. clubs are putting in extra effort to welcome new members and I'm really looking forward to seeing all that excitement in action. Thank you. >> Good job. >> Thank you so much. And now we uh call up to the microphone Mr. Jack Blur our safety presentation. Uh thank you very much. Today we have our annual safety and security update on any changes and some of the new things that we're looking at as well. Our focus for 2526 again always the top bullet on any of my programs is the mental wellness. You know that that's a very important thing uh for this district. We are uh on the forefront of that
004things like trusted adult. We were really the first district to institute trusted adult. Uh we have quite a support system here and again if we can always work on the mental wellness for our staff and students and not just the students but our staff as well that has the potential of getting us through other issues. You know if you look and you'll you'll see a little bit I'll talk about things that happen around the country. There's always some indicator and if we work really hard in three village, we can help these people out ahead of time and and we're very successful with that. Target hardening, emergency response, a little bit of IT, infrastructure protection, health and safety, compliance, and training. So, we use a layered security approach in three village. Uh target hardening, that's kind
005of like the mechanical things that we have. our default lockout posture where we once we get the students and staff in the building we go to default lockout where the outer perimeter of the building secure. Uh Dr. Scandan uh is also supported uh something that I think is kind of important is our window closing procedure where unless it's absolutely necessary we keep the windows secure as well as the doors throughout the day. Um that creates a safe learning environment. There's nothing more important um when you look as a teacher right into like things like Maslau's hierarchy of learning. The bottom is that foundation that safety and security is important. So we we present that. So now the focus can be totally on the educational process and not we don't want students to be thinking about
006um them being unsafe as well as the staff. Mental wellness as I said crucial in this district. Uh we have great programs in place. We were again on the forefront u with things like trusted adult and and and target uh violence prevention, emergency response, our units, whether it's the inbuilding security offices or the uh 247 uh vehicle patrol, they're always involved in emergency response. So target hardening, couple changes, right, was the installation of the zero eyes weapon detection platform. Uh we have over 600 cameras that are attached to the zero eyes. We are one of their largest customers when it comes to the amount of cameras. A lot of universities that they handle do not use all their cameras. We use every one of our cameras. We did testing with Zero Eyes. Um it's amazing.
007It picks up weapons outside on the property. Small weapon inside someone's hand as they're walking up to the building picked it up. So, and we we had a uh we actually had a non-lethal uh notification before we put the system completely in place at Mosaki where a a young young boy had a water gun. It picked it up, gave us a total non-lethal notification. We were able to investigate it. So, we're very happy with that. And again, that's, you know, the the partnership that I need to have with the administration and the board. And I I really think it was important that you supported that that addition to our security. Um should you decide to authorize armed security uh we're ready to go uh in in any way, shape or form and I know we've
008come up with some options if if you decide to do that, but we are absolutely ready to move forward with that in this district as well. Event analysis. So, as of August 20th, and these numbers are a little skewed depending on where you get the the information from, there there were 273 mass shootings in the United States. As of August, there were 34 school shootings in the United States that resulted in injuries or death. 49, this is in schools. 49 people wounded, 17 persons killed. Um, this is what we do. I look at what happened, how did it happen, and what can we do better here. for example, doors that are left open. Well, we've taken care of that. And and these are all all the things that we've done here in the last uh
009well over 10 years now has been based on the research that that that I get a chance to do. I look at nauseium of all the details. I wait for the FBI reports to come out. I look at the local police reports. We'll I'll look at school information because if there's something we if we can find something here that we're that we could do better, we can always be better. But, you know, little the littlest things, our ID card system, all of this was all this came about based on on event analysis. So, event analysis a very crucial part about what I do here. And I, you know, I had the chance now to get the probably about three reports on the the Minnesota uh school shooting. And you know I'll be kind of really
010diving deep into that as we move forward in the year. So mental wellness so suicide prevention um we know that there is a nexus between bullying and suicide. I know uh we have other staff members here that are involved in these programs as well. We we we are monitoring devices here and and you know Dr. scanning can tell you that just about every day, even all summer long until 2:00 in the morning, we're looking at alerts. We respond immediately to these alerts because this would be very important to us as well. We can't let these things wait. And we have a team that kind of looks at these go, we use a GoG Guardian, which is a great um device monitoring program. Uh we utilize that as well. We look at social media. The police
011department looks at social media. The FBI looks at social media around the country. Um, we have gotten FBI alerts in this district before that we were able to vet, which I think is kind of nice. The police department does the same thing for us. The the targeted violence prevention is is important. It's really like a 13point system. um where the teaching staff, let's use the teaching staff. Part of their job is to maybe wander around the classroom and look at what kind of things are being written on paper. If you remember when I some of the people were here when I did a presentation many many years ago and I brought the coline some of the the work that those two students did and they got these great grades and they talked about you know
012killing people. So now it's 2025. you know, the student that's drawing firearms, doodling during class, it it it's not really appropriate in 2025. We have the teachers looking for that. We have the teachers looking for things like grade changes. High performing student all of a sudden becomes a low performing student. That's something to look at. That's targeted violence prevention. It goes down to changes in diet, changes in appearance. You know, we had a we had a student years ago that we we found out that because of the the the his his hygiene that he was homeless and he was just bouncing between friends homes, took care of him. This is all part of that. That's that's what happens if we don't have this targeted violence prevention and this trusted adult program. We don't pick this
013stuff up ahead of time. Um, we also have a great program here where student uh any discipline issues or issues within the buildings follow them through their career. If you look at Parkland, information wasn't passed on. Um, you know, Nicholas Cruz had problems in preschool and none of that information moved along here and I know that uh uh executive director or assistant to the superintendent Connley is here and I know that that information moves with our students now and time is taken to brief the next grade. So that's that's a very important part of what we do. So our default lockout posture, you hear about me talk about that and you know that's right after dismissal before before uh sorry before right after arrival before dismissal we're in default lockout. Um we we you know
014we we are not perfect with that over the years. We have found little glitches where and you know we had a staff member that actually put a magnet a tiny magnet in a door so they didn't have to go 15 ft away with their card to get in. This is what we find. But we have teams out there doing this. So that's important to understand. Security vestibules. Those have been in place for a while now. Very very effective. Bullet we have uh bullet resistant film. There is no such thing as bulletproof film but we do have bullet bullet resistant film. I'm not going to disclose every location where that is located. Um, the automated hallway door lock system within seconds of a lockown activation, all our doors are secured. And usually I get the question,
015well, what happens if my if a staff member or a student is in the hallway when that occurs? Part of our procedure here in Three Village is that if you if you feel safe to do so, that you can just you always can open the door from the inside. they'll open the door from the inside, drag somebody into the classroom. We need that split-second response. I just talked to another school district in this county. Um, they put a a way extended delay in that system and that's really not going to help them because these things happen very very quickly. So, we have a very solid pro and if you ever get a chance and the board's always invited to come to one of our lockdown drills and watch this, I I you know, I I
016used the high school as an example. It is amazing how we can lock down that high school in a matter of seconds. So, the board's always welcome. If you need a schedule, feel free to feel free to ask me. Uh security guard coverage. Uh we've kept uh the posture uh strong. I'll explain a little bit more on that in a second. So, we had budget budgetary restrictions as did every department. You know, we were tasked to to reduce our operating budget. Uh, amazingly, uh, with some creative scheduling, we were able to meet our restriction number and we did not have to we did not have to excess or lay off any security people. Um, a little bit of our changes, again, some some creative scheduling and we're we have the same amount of people. We're
017giving you the same amount of security, but we met our reduction that we had to meet. So, I'm kind of proud of my team for for doing that. Building use coverage. Uh, you know, as as we've talked about, we're nearly we're nearly well we're basically a 247 operation here. We have people coming into the high school at 3:30, 4:00 in the morning. Uh, we got events that last uh past midnight. So, we're basically a 24/7 operation and we keep that default posture. So, just today, uh, a little bit later on in the afternoon around 5:30, we were doing some camera work and noticed that there was a garbage can, uh, put in a doorway at one of the elementary schools for convenience for people that were going to use the gym. This is real world
018stuff. I'm very transparent when it comes to how we operate here. Luckily, we picked up on that. Had the patrol vehicle over, took care of the the door being held open and explained that to the building use people that that is not appropriate at three village. So, that's what we're doing all the time. Emergency response is provided. One of the things that we have to do, uh, we have to respond to fire emergencies, medical emergencies, and that's 24/7 here. Uh, we have EMTs and and and other people in our patrol unit. Um, we have to establish incident command. uh we would lose complete control of an emergency here if we didn't establish that. So what kind of how it works, it's kind of good to know is that the security guard at you know 10
019o'clock tonight if something happens will take command of the situation until one of us arrives and relieves him. Um even if the principal arrives and I would I would work with the principal in that command role and we would take care of the emergency. So we never have that gap where the police or the fire department is here without someone in charge. Uh the patrol vehicle, we don't talk much about them. That's 247. Um they've already had uh over 120 calls. Uh August 23rd, they had 120 calls for service. And that and that is fire alarms. It's every time a bus has an accident, we respond to that. Uh the bus fire that we uh had recently. Uh intrusion alarms all the time. Every single one is investigated. We won't just take somebody's word on
020a phone call. Hey, I you know I'm sorry I came in the building, set off the alarm. We verify that uh they all the the patrol unit something new that we started uh is we respond with the building staff to all home visits years ago. I realized that people were taking maybe the principal would take her own car to go visit a student. That's not really good. The plate numbers available and you know you can get plate numbers run today and that was always a problem. So now our patrol unit goes with the principal or the social worker or the psychologist or a guidance counselor or a teacher to that address. Now that gives one protection. You know, we're going into houses that really we don't have a lot of intel on. So now we
021got a security person there and we got a vehicle that does not come back to the the teacher or the principal's home address. Very important part. Event action plans. I know uh uh I do I do provide these to the board. We create very uh comprehensive event action plans for prom, graduation. Uh one's going to be coming up for homecoming and the end of the year plan. That's kind of like one of the newer ones we've done and knock on wood for the last two years we've been very successful with that end of year plan. Um so those are when why I do those is they're actually required under uh FEMA regulation. When we have that many people in our facilities, we need to have a safety plan in place. And I know that I
022I do provide those to I know the administration and I know uh the board president gets to take a look at those and they're pretty solid. We take care of all parts of the of the program with those security technology. So I talked about the automated lockdown system uh and alert system very effective uh tested all the time. Uh we do ID card scanning uh ID scanning. So driver's license to get in one of our buildings the license has to be scanned. It's on two different databases. one, it's on the sex offender database and it's also on an internal order of protection or custody database. The second the registar gets a a custody issue or a order of protection, it goes to myself and and my assistant and that's put right into the database. So
023within minutes that's updated and all the buildings have that. So if we get the dad that's really not supposed to come, not a problem. Um, also we have direct communication with the police and the fire department. There is nobody, there is not a district in this county or in this Nassau County included that talks directly to the fire department on the radio system. Um, it is something that I think is one of the greatest things. So, we have calls. We had a fire alarm um the other day. I was able to tell the fire department exactly what happened. It avoided their response. Uh, we have that relationship with them. Uh, we have a new SRO. Uh so the two SRO's uh the current one and we have a new SRO uh they'll have the availability
024of our frequencies as well which I think is a really a really great thing for us in coordinated response. We have two emergency apps available. We have the uh Rave app on the left uh which is the one that the county purchased for all the school districts in the county. Uh very effective. Um it can be used here. It can be used at home. It can be used in Smith Haven Mall. We had a staff member that if you look at it, they pressed the uh the blue emergency medical button and pressed that in the Smith Haven Mall. Um it brought the picture of the mall up on a big screen and both police headquarters and at fire rescue that dispatches the fire departments. They knew who the person was that made the button push.
025They were actually able to talk to the person through the app or text through the app. Um they saw the overview of the mall where the person was and it sent the Center Reach Fire Department to directly to that location. On the right is the crisis manager app. Um, those are little icons I developed. If you click on one of those, if you click on missing child, it tells people what to do in a missing child called. If you clicked on a weather emergency, it links you right to the Noah weather. You know, we have we're always concerned about that as well. So, that's the two apps that are available to all our staff at the district. So, additional devices. So, as a result of the ongoing building tours that Dr. Scanland created when he
026took over. Uh we're finding other things that we need. Uh it's great. You know, uh I I will tell you, so I'll tell you what just happened the other, right? The first day of school, being really transparent, right? You you noticed maybe a a lapse in timing of the security guards at Galenus Middle School and Dr. SC immediately contacted me and we we corrected that by shuffling the schedule a little bit, you know, because we we're we're it's a little tricky because we had to reduce our our our budgetary issues a little bit. Uh but we do find places for new cameras, more door locks. Um that's funded by your annual budgets or you know, we'll add it into capital and we also have a decent input into the the prospective bond that you may
027be deciding on at some point in time. emergency response, the district-wide emergency plan. You approve that at the last meeting. That's in place. Each building has a building specific plan. I kind of create those, work with the principles, find out who their players are on their emergency team. That's an interesting plan because that's confidential. That has a lot of information on it that stays within the building. Only one legal copy is within the building. I send a copy of it up to the state education department as well as the state of uh the New York State Police for their review and approval. We've always had instant approval on our our plan. So, I kind of feel good about that and we have we'll have them up there by October 1st. So, uh technology infrastructure protection,
028one of the things that's important and I think it's a really it's a it's a really tricky thing is that let's use the copy machine repair person. All our copy machines are attached to the network. So what we've done is we we have gotten the ID card templates of our vendors. We have that at the security station. So if someone comes, I'll just use the term Xerox from Xerox to repair a machine, we can see what their ID looks like based on what we've gotten from their company. because again uh it wouldn't be out of place for a copy repair person to be sitting with a laptop inside one of our devices that's connected to our network and you know network security is is important. I work certainly very closely with it on that as
029well. We keep our area secure too. That's always uh you know we have a lot of IT equipment switch gear and things like that that have to be secured in closets and we work on that as well. health and safety. A little bit of a different little bit of a different twist of what what I've been doing here. And this was before I really focused totally on security. We do indoor air quality investigations uh all the time. Uh an odor in a classroom, uh maybe a staff member that has an allergy issue that's identified by their physician. We will go in and we will check things the temperature the humidity level carbon monoxide which is like unburnt gases carbon dioxide a great indicator and some people have seen some of my reports in the past
030that that's the exhale there if the exhale there is high and I know uh Mr. Visel when he was principal we used to do this we'd find out that we have to change the ventilation settings in a classroom so we're very on top of that I work closely with the facilities director uh we do volatile organic compound testing got this is great instruments that the the district has purchased in the past uh very important to us those are things that off gas like carpeting and paint and chemicals um the the the devices that we have can also check for mold and that's something that we have to take care of as well and as we put more air conditioners in the building we're we're pretty much eradicated any issues with that compli compliance uh compliance
031is important and I know I know Dr. Dresky and I work closely with with uh director Wells we do extensive background investigations and that's we have a great partnership uh w with Dr. Gary and and now that Matt's a board as well. Um, you know, I will tell you and to be transparent, we find things in prospective employees. These employees wanted to come here from another district. The other district had no idea that we so this is we are very very and it's everybody. We we do extensive background investigations on all our employees. If we have a volunteer that wants to work a show or we have a musician that wants to work a show, not as extensive, but we do a background check. So, that's all done through through human resources. And I I
032again I applaud Dr. Gary and Matt for their their assistance with that compliance with the uh hazard uh asbestous hazard and emergency response act. So, in 1987, this district had to have all the building products tested for asbestous containing not everything's true asbestous. contains small percentages. Uh we're constantly working to reduce that. We have very little left in this district and that's thanks to administration and the boards that have that have let us use capital money. It's very expensive to do that. But we we have very little left but we work on that. Um my part in that is to be prepared to talk to a citizen. Citizen can come at any time and say what's containing asbestous in your building? What's the percentage? What are you doing about it? No problem. We we'll meet
033with anybody on that. U New York State and EPA's lead and drinking water standards. Uh our v we use our vendor uh JC Brick we are if you if you're into auditing and if you look at the I happen to get uh basically a weekly email from the comprollers's office and a lot of schools have been cited for improperly reporting their lead and drinking water. Well, I can assure you that three villages right on top of that. Uh we are one of the few schools in the New York State opioid overdose prevention program. We get free of charge supplies. When my u nasal Narcan goes out of date, we get free supplies because we're we're giving data to to this particular uh part of the state. Uh another really important part to this district is
034the fire inspection. So it moves a month earlier. This year it starts on October 21st for us. And as I've said, and I talk about this all the time, the only way we can operate, the only thing that allows us to operate a school building is the fire inspection. That's how we get our certificate of occupancy. So, we are very, very crucial on how we handle that. And we'll start the process of getting emails out to the principles. Uh, you know, I I just did a couple of things on the opening day of school. And you know something like a door chock, it's not just a security issue, it's a fire issue as well. I picked up some door chocks on my tour on the first day of school cuz some of the staff member,
035you know, they need that ed. It's all about education. If we educate the staff and the administration, we do very well. So that's starting October 21st and we'll be able to give you an update on that a little bit later on in the year. Training. So I get the chance as a safe trainer to do our safe schools against violence and education. some updates every year, a little bit on DASA, right? The dignity for all students act. Uh we do that and we we do that most of the staff gets it online through the GCN program. Uh but one thing we do here, we do every single new employee. Every new employee gets that training from me in person. It takes about an hour to get through the things we have to do. And I
036think that is a big I actually get accolades from other school districts because they're happy that I took care of that for them because they don't do it. So it's some the three village does it really not everybody does. Included in that training is the uh New York State Department of Labor or PESH right public employee safety and health training. We have to do training every year in fire safety uh exposure to bloodborne pathogens right to know has like looking at uh you know to understand chemical paperwork. We do that as well. We have our own in-house staff for CPR and AED. They're constantly going out on the road all the time. Whether it's Boy Scouts, whether it's PTA groups, whether it's the schools, very generous to your you are very generous to allow us
037to do that training not just for staff students, but we do it for the community as well. Uh everybody gets uh if they like we get train, we will train in Narcan administration for opioid overdoses. Uh we'll train in EpiPen. Um this is in conjunction with the nurses, but we have our own trainers. U we do FE we we will train in FEMA required incident command. Uh we're going to actually be doing a public information for emergencies for our new uh director of public relations, which I think is going to be great. And we're hoping to have another EMT course here, right? Emergency medical technician. The success of that is not only for us. It turns out that that we've had EMTs that have gone through our staff members that have taken our EMT training
038here and have actually used it here and in their community, which I think was a was a really great thing. So that that that was a a benefit for everybody. That's basically our update for 2025 and I'd be more than happy to answer any questions. >> Thank you so much. As always, we um very appreciative of the of the robust and thorough job that you and the entire security staff does. So thank you. I open it up to questions or comments. >> Thank you, Jack. >> Okay. >> If I may. So thank you, Jack, as well. We're a lot more secure than we were before you did this job. So, and we're very appreciative and every year we get better and better. So, we have a lot of resources. Uh, a couple of things I
039want to touch upon with from Jack's presentation. Um, you mentioned about the suicidal prevent suicide prevention. So, this coming Monday is 98. Um, so in the county, they're um doing a program for suicide prevention. The suicide prevention hotline number is 988. Um, so we're going to be sending a message out on Friday afternoon to the entire community to uh wear purple or turquoise. Those are the colors on Monday to um remind everyone about suicide prevention. Um with that when we talk about in the emergency response plan about see something, say something. Now it's not only see something, say something. If you hear something, say something. If you read something, say something. Um, we're going to send a reminder with the 988 uh message on Friday about the safe school hotline. If you're worried about communicating
040some issues and you want to do it anonymously, this is the way to do it. We sent this home in the letter to remind all parents uh and students in district about what all those emergency numbers are there for there for. Um, so please utilize those resources. It was very underutilized last year and we would love to get people to be more aware of it and use it more often. Part of the outcrop of the uh task force for anti-semitism, racism, and hate speech was uh discussion about peer mediation possibilities. So, we are in the process of exploring some of those things with the town um and the county. See, we had a peer mediation program here years ago. It's something that worked very well. Uh we have students that are like our our student
041rep here that are very well adept at helping their peers and and looking at things and helping with some of the processes that we have with mitigating some of the circumstances between students. Also to remind everyone too what Jack mentioned too with the uh the review process we we do with the vetting of people at the doors. We have the largest number of order protections in the history of the district this year. So, and we have that's a big concern. So, we're constantly vigilant at this and it's every building every day. As Jack mentioned, we have the GoG Guardian system that we are watching what's being done on the Chromebooks. Um, but also too, um, it's what's watching coming to the front of our buildings. Uh some of our schools are in very um busy
042areas, some are in very rural neighborhoods and don't have a lot of traffic, but we are are very vigilant at keeping uh track of everything. So that system is updated daily uh and goes right in for us. If we get a notification, the registars's office works with the security department, gets it up and ready to go. So all that's been made possible by Jack's uh efforts here. So, um, as Jack mentioned, if if we move forward with the idea of armed security at any point, we are very well prepared to to do that. There are still some things we need to work out once the board um has uh reviewed everything that we're working on right now. We have some meetings coming up uh this week with uh different units for negotiations on the financial
043components of this. As we move forward, we'll have those prepared for the meeting on the 17th. >> Thank you. And thank you again. Thank you. >> All right, that brings us to item 7A. A little bit of an explanation of our lunch program. >> Certainly. So, as as we were talking about before about the changes with cell phones and uh Jack mentioned bit about the heat mitigation issues. One of the other things that was done this year with the state budget is um every student in the state has uh free lunch. So only 10% of the students in the state of New York did not have free lunch since Three Village is considered a high wealth district. We were one of the few districts in the state that didn't have it. Um so uh we
044do have students that are on free and reduced lunch already. Uh the poverty level in this district went from 4% 10 years ago to 17% now. So that's a major increase. So now every student in the district gets the free lunch. This is through the federal lunch programs. The state is subsidizing what the federal government doesn't cover. So, uh, the state is now required it for every student in the state. Um, so students get the free lunch, uh, at all of the schools. Uh, we're going to remind people of this every year, um, because, um, we had someone stop me in one of the halls the other day asking about, um, how much do I should I give my child for lunch? And I said, nothing. They don't like, well, they they want to buy.
045I'm like, the lunch is free. Like, if they want the snacks and everything, that's a whole another story, but that, you know, but the lunch is free for all the students in the district. So, I think for uh for the sake of some of our families with that 17% poverty level, that's a big help. Um because we have children in this district that don't know where the next meal is coming from and we have families that are that are struggling at this time. So, this uh for all of us is a is a big help moving forward. I'm not sure if they would like everything we uh do. Katie can tell you I think taco day is the most popular day in the entire district. I think we're going to have to double up the
046taco days. Um but we we do a good job of getting uh getting everyone out there. I know some of the families would express some interest about what the nutritional value of some of the things on that, but you can't blame us on some of that. The federal government legalized ketchup being a vegetable about 1981. So, nothing we can do about that one. So, that was when Reagan was president. So, that's how far back I go. That's all I have. >> Thank you so much. All right. Item 7B. Uh, this is just an ongoing conversation amongst the board tonight. Uh we were approached by the Long Island Museum, wonderful museum here in our community about the possibility of under a provision in New York State law, they could attach their budget as a proposition on
047our budget vote. So it wouldn't be part of our budget, but you would show up at the polls to vote on ours and theirs at the same time. So this is just something that we are we are considering. We're waiting for a little bit more information from them. They're waiting for a little bit more information from us. So, I just open it up to the trustees if there's any further discussion since we've had a week or so to think about this. >> So, um if we have to vote on that, will we take a look of the final um proposition language before we Okay, >> absolutely. Yep. >> We'll have more information uh for the next meeting, but this was just a great chance to if you have any questions you specifically want the administration
048to get answers to before the next meeting, this would be a great time to ask them. Okay. Thank you. >> Actually, I did have some logistical questions regarding this. Um I think it's a fantastic idea partnering up pe uh um things in our community. Uh but aside from that, logistically, if there going to be a proposition on our vote, like what happens with that if our vote fails and theirs passes they and also if there's if theirs fail, do they have to get a revote? I mean, so do we need to provide them with a revote because then that also costs us money. So >> So their their proposition is separate in part from yours. So okay, it's not it's not tied together. Um and they could not ask you to do a revote on
049the proposition. They can ask you to put it onto your ballot for your next election, which is what they're doing, >> right? >> If they do it appropriately. >> Okay, good. Thank you. And I think perhaps at the next meeting we should let the community know some of the things that they explain to us as far as what they do in the community for our students, for the parents and um you know it's a great resource right in our backyard. So perhaps we can explain some of that also. >> Would the board be amendable to allowing the uh LIM to come in and present so this way the community can hear directly from them as opposed to us doing presentation for them? Okay. So, I'll I'll reach out to their leadership to do that. We're
050also going to contact a couple of districts where the museums in their respective districts have already done this. Um, and then see talk to the school administrations there to see how they went through everything and then get some logistical pieces. Uh, Mr. Carlson did ask for their financial statements which I think out of full disclosure we the board should review before you consider anything. So, um, a vote may have to be held on whether to put this on a proposition until you we get that information and you have a chance to review that. >> Okay. >> At some point, >> perfectly fair. Anything else that we want for next time? >> Okay. Thank you so much. All right. On to item 7 C. So, this should be our final look at the most up-to-date uh
051iteration of the board goals for 202526. Uh, we all received a copy. everyone's had a chance to look at them. Is there any further discussion, questions, things you want to elaborate on? >> Sure. So, yeah, just a couple comments and questions. Um, so yeah, I saw the there's the new cell phone policy. I think that's that's sort of great. Um, I'm glad to hear that the the students are more engaged. Hopefully, that sort of continues and we can stay on top of it and uh get it done. So, I'm glad the state did that. Um, there's an item here about expanding career technical and education offerings. I'd like to ask more about that. Yeah. So, uh, career technical education programs in New York State have to be approved by New York State and they can
052be utilized for two things. One is a pathway towards graduation and another is a diploma enhancement. So, it depends on which area uh the CTE is in, but we currently have one in marketing and we also have one in early childhood education. So in those programs there have to be affiliations with um with colleges uh and there are varying pathways and choices for students to make in a series of courses that they have to take. Um and then they are able to they have to pass an industry um approved exam in order to get that credential. Uh and there has to be some sort of work-based learning hours that are associated with it. So it's really um you know on the job training. So we in marketing we do it with local businesses their opportunities
053for uh discussions with them with our uh early childhood education program we actually send our students to our own prek program uh so they get on the job training in that. Um so with the the state changing graduation requirements, we feel that uh these pathways are particularly important because um the state is looking to diversify ways that students can graduate. Uh at this point, the only thing that the state has approved is the portrait of a graduate uh which are the competencies that they feel are necessary for all New York State graduates. Um, so we're working on what that means for us and there are definitely some uh implications for future programming. Uh, what Dr. Raldi is doing at the current time, our director of curriculum instruction is working with New York State to try
054to get two more CTE programs approved. um which it's an extensive application process and the the difficulty in partnering with um work-based learning opportunities is a challenge finding someone who wants to partner up and provide our students um with those opportunities. So, we're currently looking into a pre-engineering CTE program. Uh and we have spoken with Stony Brook University about potentially uh and this is potential because we're still in the application process uh putting something into place uh for the 2627 school year. So the the deadline to apply is uh October and then hopefully with their approval we'd be able to run it for the following year. Um so what we do in in partnering with um with higher ed institutions is they give us their syllabus and and they we run our uh curriculum through
055them to make sure that the students can earn um college credits for it. Uh so currently we're working on that with Stony Brook for the C for the pre-engineering and we're also looking at a potential uh automotive program that we're looking to partner with um Suffach Community College. Um so that kind of goes along with um the next goal that the board has written uh has recorded as exploring the creation of an associate degree program with the local college. So Suffach Community College has really um marketed themselves in two ways. In the past, I think everyone's familiar with the fact that they want to be a two-year school that where kids get to transfer into a 4-year program somewhere. Um, so recently, what they've done is really focused on their uh school to work like
056certificate programs. So, we've already had some preliminary conversations with the folks at SUFFK and we're looking to really dive more deeply into that uh so that we can provide students opportunities to get a jump start in their associates degree. So, I think we do a great job as a district uh working to have our students college ready. Um I think we can do a better job with the career ready aspect of it and those are the things that we're looking into. And I think that having these um hands-on experiences through CTE programs and a potential partnership with Suffach Community College that would allow students to get some of their credits while they are still in high school like we do for the four-year colleges, Sunni credits that they they walk out of here with. um
057that that would provide a population of our students with with unique opportunities >> and I want to applaud uh Dr. Viscari for his leadership and with Dr. Raldi and for the curriculum here and Dr. Duski and Mr. Wells for their uh leadership with trying to find us candidates to fill some of these positions. Um there was a time at Wardville High School where we had eight business teachers um and we went down to one 14 years ago. We're back up to four and we have literally waiting lists of students that want to go into some of these courses. So, we have a vision of trying to get more programs into place. Uh it used to be that math, science, language teachers were the highest demand. Now, it's business, family, consumer science, tech, and ENL teachers
058are in high demand. So if your your child's going off to college to major for education, those might be the areas to major in to come back and teach as opposed to the others at this point in time because there is so few candidates for some of these positions. Um we're also exploring the um possibility of putting in a uh stock market lab at Ward Mobile High School in a library. So that Mrs. Ruben Strunk, the uh executive director for technology with Dish will be presenting later in this year um about what that may look like going forward for the next year. And to also support Dr. Biscar's position, we have over a half a dozen colleges we already partner with where students get college course credits beyond the AP. A lot of schools um
059especially tier one schools don't take the AP courses, but they will take the college courses as transfer credits. And as long as they have commenser grades that the school will accept to be able to do that. However, years ago when they used to take those credits and allow you to graduate early, the colleges figured out real fast that uh we're losing money. So they don't let you graduate early now. They just make you take higher more more courses or go for your masters early, which is fine, too. Uh but that gives a lot of our students a leg up. Um and we have students that are graduating from War Meville High School anywhere from, you know, few credits in single digits up to 30 credits or more in and from the school and that's wonderful.
060So you want to continue those partnerships and at this these goals within uh the student achievement and engagement component of the board goals are critical to us. We are a school institution so we want to make sure that we're giving our students every opportunity possible as they move forward. >> Dr. Pack, you had others? >> Uh no, sounds great though. Thanks. >> Okay. Thank you so much. All right. So we will move on now to our public comment period. I do see one. So, if we could please come to the microphone. Susan Art. >> Thank you. >> May I begin? >> Yes, please. >> Okay. Hi. Um, I'm Susan Arin. I'm a parent of three children here in the Three Village School District. Um, I'm here tonight because one of my children, who I'm not
061allowed to name, um, recently is starting at a a new school in the district and the bus stop is no longer in front of our house. It is actually the house next door. And the problem with that is the house has been under under renovation for several months and will still continue to be so for more months. Um it is a active construction site. There's a dumpster on the property and I consider that to be unsafe. I did reach out to the transportation department and I can read you the response which was um very I I sent it via email my concern and I was told the house at 13 Thompson Hay has been under renovation but they will return later this month. The reason the stop is there is because the Gelina's bus stop
062does not pass the house. It comes from the north and turns right on Tudor. Well, unfortunately, um, the house next door is going to be under renovation for two, if not three more months. I spoke with the contractor and the owners directly. Um, I don't think it's safe for my child to stay there, to stand there. Um, and also, I don't want this to be a temporary like, well, while the house is being renovated, we'll just have you pick your child picked up at the home and then later be over there. Um, it's not a safe road. There is no sidewalk. Also, when you come down Tutor Drive to make the turn, um there's a slope on the street and the homeowner and the contractor both vehemently told me that it gets icy on that
063road and that they would be very nervous having anybody standing in front of that house in the wintertime. Um so I don't think it's appropriate that my child should be asked to wait in an unsafe area. Um I think my child should be able to be picked up in front of the home. My child um does not have an IEP currently, but he is on the autism um spectrum. The reason he doesn't have a IEP is because he's advanced enough to be in a general ed setting. And in the past, he was picked up in front of the school in front of the house. So, I didn't need to have that accommodation as part of it. So, I didn't realize I would need to do that at when he started at the new school this
064year. Um yes, we can all make the change, but that takes several weeks, several meetings, and this is an urgent situation. Um, I can been walking my child over to the house waiting for him to be picked up, but I have another child at home who has special needs and also needs to be getting ready for school and being picked up on time. So, it's not convenient and I think it's an undo burden to me as a parent and a taxpayer. I think my child should be picked up in front of his home where it's safe. Um, in terms of possibly having him picked up down the road, I don't think that's practical either. It's a much further walk and again it's not the safest street. There is no sidewalk on either side of the
065street. There is no stop sign um for the bus to when it turns and I even saw the bus today. It's a large bus, not a mini bus actually. >> Thank you, Miss Art. Your time is up. >> Thank you. No other public comments? >> No other comments. >> Okay. Thank you so much. All right. That takes us down to item 11 and we turn it over to Mr. Mistki for second reads on our policies. Okay, >> the policy committee has met and these policies were placed on the board agenda at the last meeting for first read. They're now on for second read. Uh they include the 4,000 series homebound instruction policy, adult education uh programs policy, class size, textbook selection and adoption, information center resources, computer and network uh and graduation ceremony policies. I'm
066available if there are any questions from the board. >> Do we see any questions? >> All right. In that case, do I see a motion to approve these items 11 A through 11G? >> So move. >> A second. Second. >> All in favor? >> No opposed. No abstensions. Those are approved. Thank you so much. And that brings us to our consent agenda. Do I see a motion? >> Second. >> All right. We begin with B. Mr. German. >> They are the minutes from the August 27th board of education meeting. >> Thank you. Item C are the aforementioned board of education goals for 202526 as distributed this evening. And we will continue on Mr. Mono D. Uh this is the approval for the election workers for the Emma S. Clark Library um budget vote on September
06717th. Any questions about that? Okay. E. Recommendations of the committee on special education subcommittee and 504 accommodation plan meetings as dated and beginning with F. Dr. Dreski. >> Yes. So FNG uh these are the resolutions to recall both special education aids and teaching assistance. Uh those were the folks unfortunately that uh some of the folks that we um needed to access um at the end of June. Um some of them were fortunate to get their jobs back as a result of other transitions with staffing which I'll talk about during H&I. So um that is what FNG is. Um H personnel items instructional. So we had seven instructional resignations uh several teaching assistants and teacher substitutes. We have five instructional appointments. They are um two teachers and three teaching assistants. Uh several annual extra assignments for
068the 2526 school year and that is for TA special assignments and several summer work assignments. Um I non-instructional personnel items. Uh we had several uh 11 non-instructional resignations, special ed aids. um school monitors, substitutes, and special ed aid substitutes and food service workers. Um so, as a result of this rotation, we have 12 non-instructional appointments, eight special ed aids, and four monitors. And these are all the folks that you'll be recalling this evening, as well as 14 non-instructional changes in status with custodial and special ed aids. Um that's because some of the aids had one assignment before they were accessed, and now their new assignment um allows them to either work more or less hours. So, as a result, they need to be board approved again and several non-instructional stipens as well. >> Any questions
069about any of those? Okay. All in favor of all of the contents of our consent agenda? No opposition. No abstensions that approved. And do I see a motion to adjurnn? >> So move. >> A second. Second. >> All in favor. All right. We are adjourned. Thank you.