Board of Education Meeting 4/9/25

001Good evening everyone and welcome to our Wednesday, April 9th, 2025 board of education meeting. At this time, we would like you to please rise as the superintendent leads us in the pledge. 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. Thank you so much, Mr. Mono. Any changes to the meeting agenda? We have two changes. We're going to reverse number seven and eight. Uh public comments will be seven and items for board discussion will be number eight. And we have an addition of um item 9B stipulation of settlement general lease regarding student on confidential schedule A that was discussed in exe in executive session. Thank you. All right. We will turn now to

002the very exciting part of the evening and recognize some of our fantastic athletes. Dr. Scanland. Yes. I'd like to recognize our executive director for Hepera, Mr. to come up and present all the lovely awards for our winter sports season. [Applause] Can I close that? Yeah. Thank you. All right. Good evening. I'd like to thank the board of education, our central administration, and the community for taking the time tonight to honor our athletic teams and some individuals who competed this past season. Ward Melville had a wonderful winter sports season with most of our varsity teams making the playoffs. We had some individuals and team awards including league and county champions. Some individual athletes competed at the state level. To highlight our greatest achievements, our girls fencing team won the county championship and individual fencers Kiki Laauo

003and William Dryer won the individual county championships as well. Jonathan Seafford won the New York State indoor track championship in the 1600 meter race. and our cheer team won their second state championship uh this competitive year. Most importantly, every single team once again was recognized as a New York State scholar athlete team. This past winter, we had 53 student athletes earn all league or all conference, 37 all county, two all Long Island, and two all state honors. Tonight, we will specifically honor several students and teams for their athletic achievements from this past winter. First, I'd like to call up our boys track coach, Ryan Duca and Brian Lieitz, and our boys track runners JJ Elsynor, Anthony Anatol, and our state champion, John [Applause] Seafford. Good evening. So, I am Ryan Duca. This is my assistant,

004Brian Liowitz. I coached the boys cross country, winter track, and spring track programs. Uh this year we won our league championship for the second time in school history, scoring 101 total points and beating the second place team who scored 80. Uh John Seaffort won the 3200, he won the thousand, and he won the 1600, scoring 30 points for us. Uh earning him League 1 MVP title. Uh JJ Alinders won the 55 meter hurdles. Uh 55 meter hurdles, 55 meter dash. He came in sixth place in the 300 and he came in second place in the long jump scoring 19 points and in doing so set the school record in the 55 meter dash with a time of 6.43 seconds. Uh Anthony Anatol who is running a little behind schedule as usual came in second place

005in the 3200 came in third place in the 1600 and he was on our winning 4x800 meter relay team and he scored 20.5. So the three guys who are should be here scored 70 of our 101 points. Um these guys have made this season incredible. We then go to our state qualifier which also qual is our county championship where John went and won the 1600 meter championship. JJ won the 55 and Anthony came in second in the 3200 all qualifying to run at the state championships. At the state championships, JJ ran through an injury and still finished in a time of 658, which would have been a school record had he not set it at the league championships. Anthony ran a 9-second personal best of 925 in the two-mile. And John Seaffort set a school

006record in the 1600, running 415 and winning the state championship. Um, this was the first time since 2001 that award Melville runner has won the state championship and the second time in school history. Uh, so it was a pretty big accomplishment and this is all coming off of a cross country season where we won the county championship for the second time in school history. The first time since 1973. Yeah. So is it These guys have been really putting in a lot of work. It's been a lot of fun to watch. Uh John and Anthony then went to the New Balance Nationals and accompanied by their teammates um Luke Jansen and Andrew Andrew SM set a school record in the four by mile running 1751 which was a 18 18se second PR and they finished 11th

007of 35 in the nation. Round of applause for these guys. They did a great job this year. [Applause] While recognizing our track runners, I'd also like to take the time to recognize a coach who never wants to be in the spotlight or take credit for his team's achievements, but rather for his athletes, he would want them to take all the credit. I'd like to recognize our track coach, Ryan Duca, for all of his years and accomplishments as a cross country and track coach. Coach Duca not only coaches one season for us, but all three track and cross country seasons. For many years, his runners and him have racked up numerous accomplishments and awards. Season after season, our boys running teams are always winning titles, breaking records, and year after year, they're upstate at the state

008championship. Like Anthony said, welcome, Anthony. It's a good thing you're fast on the track. Um, he has a passion for running and educating our students. Not only does he lead his runners to county and state championships, but he also coaches with class and integrity. Coach Duca's dedication and commitment to his athletes and our athletic program goes way beyond the cross country trails and track. It's an honor to have him on our staff. And I'd like to also congratulate Coach Ryan Duca as this year's track coach of the year. on. All right, guys. We'll look at this camera first. Congratulations. [Applause] Yeah, stay right. Okay, thank you guys. And now I'd like to introduce our girls basketball coach Kate Gordon and boys basketball coach Alex Picarillo and basketball players Caitlyn McNeel and James [Applause] Coffee. Good

009evening everyone. Uh my name is Kate Gordon. I'm the girls varsity basketball coach at Ward Melville High School. After a great first season making the playoffs, winning a playoff game, I'm proud of the entire team and program. However, tonight I'm here to celebrate and honor the heart and soul of the Ward Melville girls basketball program for the 2024 2025 season. That's undeniably Caitlyn McNeel. Caitlyn, your journey here hasn't been an easy one. Facing an ACL injury is a tough blow for any athlete, but you met the challenge head on with incredible resilience. Then came a new coach, me, and with it a new vision for a team and a program. Change is very difficult, but Caitlin embraced it with open arms. More than just a player, she became a leader. She understood the new direction,

010championed its among championed it amongst her teammates, and consistently set the standard with her positive attitude and her passion for the game of basketball. What truly sets Caitlyn apart is her unwavering support for her teammates. She is the definition of best teammate. always encouraging, always lifting up others, always putting the team first. For me as a coach, Caitlyn is invaluable. Her insight, her understanding of a team dynamic, her willingness to help bridge the gaps made my job so much easier in my first year. Caitlyn, you have been instrumental in building the foundation of this new and improved girls basketball program at Ward Melville. Your leadership, your incredible team spirit, your willingness to embrace change have set a powerful example for everyone. And noticed not only by your teammates and your coaching staff, but for ev

011by every other coach in League One. And because of your passion for your team and support, you were named the unsung hero for the season. Thank you, Kayn, for everything you've done. Your impact will be felt for the years to come. Can't wait to have you back on the floor next year. Good evening everyone. It is an honor to stand before you and present James Coffee, a freshman who was has been awarded League 2 Rookie of the Year. He worked tirelessly all off season, attending over 50 offseason workouts and playing in more than 30 offseason games. When the season officially started, the moment was never too big for him. James is a hard-working, respectful, and coachable young man. He is a true leader both on and off the court and also leads the W Melville

012basketball program with the highest GPA on the team. For a freshman to step onto the court and not only start every single one of our 22 games, but lead our team in minutes played with over 30 minutes per game is truly remarkable. James helped lead us to the playoffs and secured a memorable home playoff win versus Newfield. During this past season, James led the team in assists, led the team in deflections, and was second in scoring, all while running the show from the point guard position. For a young player to take on such responsibility and perform at such a high level is unheard of. James' maturity on the court, his basketball IQ, and his ability to rise to the occasion make him not only an incredible player, but also a true leader. What makes him

013even more exceptional is his character, his humility, his work ethic, and his commitment to being the best teammate. James, I have no doubt that this is just the beginning of what will be an outstanding career for you. I look forward to watching you continue to grow and excel both as a player and as a young man in the years to come. Congratulations on this well-deserved honor, and I'm excited to see what the future holds for you. All right. Congratulations. [Applause] And now I'd like to introduce our varsity wrestling coach, Garrett Schnetler and Chase Phillips. Zach here too. And Zack Rothenberg, [Applause] good evening everybody. I'm proud to stand here tonight to recognize two incredible student athletes, Zack Rothenberg and Chase Phillips, who earned their 100th career varsity wins this past wrestling season. Zach, a senior

014and allount wrestler, has been a consistent leader in our room, someone our younger wrestlers have always looked up to. His quiet determination, relentless effort, and willingness to do whatever it takes to improve have been the foundation for his success. He's battled through tough opponents, injuries, and long seasons, and he's never once taken a shortcut. His dedication to this sport and to his team is truly something special. Chase, only a sophomore, has already built an impressive resume. three-time all league, league champion, two-time all county, and a county finalist. With two full seasons still ahead of him, Chase is the first first underclassman to achieve a 100 wins at Ward Melville in the last 10 years. He trains year round, puts in extra work when no one's watching, and carries himself with focus and humility of someone

015far beyond their years. Both of these young men have sacrificed time with friends, weekends, and even parts of their childhood to chase greatness in a sport that demands everything you've got. And they've done it with heart, class, and grit. Chase, Zach, your accomplishments speak for themselves, but it's who you are and how you've earned them that makes us all very proud. So, congratulations. Before Before I close, um I'd also like to just acknowledge six six young women who couldn't be here tonight because they are being honored at the Suffach County Allount Dinner. Clover Vandervelddon, Oilia Rosenthal Vincenti, Ana Rosenthal Vincenti, Julia Zakowska, Madison Vega, and Ava Sevdelakis. These six athletes were part of the first ever New York State Girls Wrestling Championship team, competing and making history by bringing home the state title. We are

016incredibly proud of all of their hard work, their courage, and the doors they've opened for the future of girls wrestling in New York. Thank you. There we go. Congratulations. [Applause] And now I'd like to introduce our league, county, and two-time state championship cheer team and coaches Georgia Curtis and Maggie Hurley. [Applause] the clanging of the medals. Our varsity cheerleading team is made up of extremely dedicated athletes led by seniors Juliana Russell, Captain Emma Clants, and Captain Emma Miller. Through their extraordinary commitment, they have had the most successful fall and winter seasons in program history. Ward Melville's cheerleading team continues to put out some of the most elite skills all around in stunting, tumbling, and pyramids. They won first place at the Pocono Championship in December, earning themselves another regional championship title. While competing at the

017UCA National High School Cheerleading Championship, our cheerleaders placed second in the nation in their game day division and made it to the third and final round for small co-ed, earning sixth in the nation. Through their hard work, our cheerleaders continued to make program history by again having won both their fall and winter county championship titles. They continued on to win their fall game day state championship and just won the co-ed state championship title for the second time this past March. This makes New York State cheerleading history as no team has won both game day and competitive cheer state titles in one year. Our talented athletes were also able to be named all county and academic allcount athletes for both game day and competitive cheer. This year has been one for the history books once again

018and it has been amazing to watch our seniors lead us through it all. Us coaches are so incredibly proud of the work ethic and achievements put forth by the varsity cheerleaders. Uh before we before we recognize the cheer team, I'd like to highlight one of the reasons why our cheer team is in this position and has captured three state championships uh in two years. We hired Coach Curtis about six years ago and uh with her background and passion for cheer, I knew one day she'd make a positive impact on our varsity cheer team and the entire cheer program. In a short amount of time, Coach Curtis has transformed our cheer program into a championship caliber team who competes at the highest level. In the last few years, our cheer team has won multiple county and

019state championships, and has placed the highest we ever have at Disney, almost winning nationals this past year. Most importantly, Coach Curtis has instilled important values with her team, such as dedication, teamwork, and perseverance. Our cheer team not only competes with precision and intensity, but they always stick together and know how to support each other as a team. Because of these accomplishments, I'm proud to also announce that Coach Georgia Curtis was just recognized by News Day as Suffach County Cheer Coach of the Year. So yeah, we're gonna have to do two rows. All right, everybody here. Big smiles. [Music] Wonderful. Congratulations. [Applause] [Music] That's okay. Okay. Okay. Last last one. All right. Last one. Okay. All good. It's all good. Yep. Okay. We're just going to let the cheer parents come out. One more team. Good.

020One more team. Good, Terry. Okay. Good. All right. And now I'd like to introduce our county champion and Long Island finalist girls fencing team and their coaches, Coach Jenny and Joanne Ciscodus, and our individual male champion, William Drier. Okay. Good evening. Um, I just want to say that it was a real honor this season uh to watch these amazing young women take their county championship. Sorry. Hello. Not a tall person. Um, every day they came to practice, they showed absolute dedication for the sport. Our captains were amazing leaders. They helped everybody that they could that was new to the sport. And it was the effort and the hard work that they put in showed off with an undefeated leagues um county season followed by a county championship. Then we had um all of our starters

021went to county individual county finals and we have a county champion Kiki Louu. It was overall a wonderful [Applause] season. Hello I'm taller. Um, so we did have an individual uh county champion uh in men's saber, William Drier. Um, he has been an amazing asset to our team since he has joined it. Um, fencing for the most part is a lot about camaraderie and a lot of hard work. Our team, we're very fortunate because of the deep-seated friendship that we see throughout our entire team. um both with the men and women because we're really one team as a unit which is awesome and William Dryer is the epitome of that effort since there was a huge difference between where he ended and started this year. He came in this year fully committed to being a

022like a big asset to our team. He ended his season with an winning percentage of 84%. He had the second highest in both leagues and he went undefeated at individual county championships with a 15 and0 and took the championship there. So more proud and I can't help but mention if you don't know Jenny and Joan are sisters who fenced at Ward Melville and it is extremely difficult to find fencing coaches in Suffach County and New York State. So, and they've been with us for a few years, and I just want to say they've done a great job bringing this program back to its championship level. So, thank you, Jenny and Joanne. here with the parents back here. Okay, ready? Smiles everybody right here. Smile. Wonderful. Congratulations. [Applause] Congratulations. We'll just wrap up. And uh as

023always, I'd like to thank our parents for all their support, our student athletes for all the hard work that they put in, and our dedicated coaches on behalf of our athletic department. Thank you for providing us with this opportunity to highlight these great accomplishments, and it gives me great pleasure to be our athletic director. Thank you. So, Mr. Mr. Finity, once again, you have another championship season with all of the teams. your hard work and your dedication, your leadership among all the coaches is truly appreciated. It's amazing to see the quality of the program under your leadership over these past several years. So, thank you very much from the bottom of our [Applause] heart. All right, that takes us to item 6A on our agenda. Unfortunately, Hazel has the flu, but trooper that she is,

024she sent a beautiful report. I'll never be able to do it as well as she did, but I'll give it a whirl. Good evening everyone. Although I'm unfortunately unable to make it to tonight's meeting, I still wanted to pass along my report from Ward Melville for this past week. Firstly, as many of you have heard over the last week, today there was a Holocaust assembly held for 10th grade students. Dr. Bernie Fers, a second generation Holocaust survivor, made a presentation to the entire 10th grade. He shared the powerful and harrowing story of how his father at just 10 years old survived alone in a Polish forest for three years after the Nazis entered his village of Liverpool Poland. Dr. Ferspan's message helped students to develop a deeper understanding of how dangerous hatred, prejudice, and anti-semitism

025can be. His presentation helped inform 10th graders on the importance of acceptance, kindness, and respect. Moreover, in some exciting news, it is official. The class of 2025 validictorian and saludiatoran have been selected. A huge congratulations to Oliver Woo and Alexander Song for this incredible accomplishment. We can clap. That's a big [Applause] deal. Oliver is a standout student who not only dedicates his time to his school work, but also several extracurriculars, some of which include being editor-inchief of the Kaleidoscope newspaper and his current research at Stonyie Brook University under Professor Yi Wang, which explores how language and race shape transnational decisions. Saludiatorium Alexander Song possesses a deep passion for mathematics and is also an accomplished violinist. His accolades include being named a national merit semi-finalist and receiving distinguished honoral recognition in the annual AMC International Math

026Competition among many other positions in and out of school. I can only imagine the hours upon hours of dedication and hard work that went into receiving these titles. Both of these students will be formally honored during Ward Melville's senior awards on June 5th, as well as through a number of functions sponsored by various community organizations. Inside the classroom, level three ASL American Sign Language students recently spread their knowledge by sharing their storytelling skills with young students. As part of a special project, they created original books and visited Minisaki, NASA Cake, and Satake elementary schools to read them in ASL to second graders. This exciting experience allowed high school students to not only connect with the younger grades, but practice their signing while introducing younger students to ASL. Through storytelling, they fostered connections and encouraged a

027greater appreciation for sign language within the school community. Lastly, as we look ahead into the next school year, many clubs have begun the election process to pick next year's executive boards. I can say firsthand from completing this process in clubs such as student government and key club. It is exciting to see the dedicated students who will be taking over these important roles as they present their plans and ideas to better our clubs and school community. Thank you all for your time. I look forward to returning at our next board meeting and happy spring break. and we wish you a speedy recovery, Hazel. Thanks for the report. [Applause] Okay, going to 6B now. That is our budget presentation. We turn it over to Mr. Carlson. Thank you. Okay, so I'll start off. I'll do a little

028bit of a recap of where uh what we've done so far, where what brings us to where we are. Um then I'll turn it over to Dr. Scandlin to discuss the uh staffing uh changes uh for next year and then I'll I'll wrap this piece up. Tonight uh is the night the board uh adopts the budget. Um which is just the the the process once the budget is adopted. Um it the dollar final dollar amount of the budget doesn't change after that. So that's actually when when um when you go to vote on a school budget, what you're voting on is a total dollar amount of the expenditures. When the board adopts votes to adopt the budget, what they're adopting is the dollar amount of the expenditures. Um the board does not vote on what

029the tax levy is going to be. Um and nor do you as residents vote on what the tax levy is going to be. that might determine how you vote on the budget, but what you actually vote on is a dollar amount of the budget. So, uh, so we always start out with the tax cap. Um, and I know I've I've said many times before, it's we we still hear in the media the 2% tax cap, it's not a 2% tax cap. One of the factors to determine what the tax cap or maximum allowable uh tax levy uh is can be up to a 2% increase. It can be lower than that uh but not that that one factor. It can be lower than 2% but not higher than 2%. For this year that factor is

0302%. There are other other variables in determining the the cap itself and the the t the cap varies from district to district and from year to year. Uh there are years when our cap has been below 2% when it's been higher than 2%. For this coming up year our cap is 2.78%. Uh just to remind everybody uh one of the um variables to determine the uh the tax cap is um the amount of capital projects in the budget. So the current year's budget we have $3 million in capital projects. The initial budget that we brought forward to the board had that same $3 million in capital projects for next year which would have made our um tax cap uh well over 3%. The board did not like that. So the board there was a recommendation

031from the budget advisory committee and the board felt the same way. Lower the capital projects down from three million to one and a half million which also uh meant that our tax cap uh lowered down to 2.78%. So the budget that we're bringing forward for you to consider uh complies with that tax cap. Um if anybody's interested in the way the tax cap calculated, this is it. This is the official definition of the tax cap. So, not that anybody's really wants to go through that, but that's what it is. Then the other uh significant revenue that we receive is uh state aid. Um unfortunately, the state budget is still not done. Um the the state budget is due on April 1st. It's almost never done on time. Um way back 20 years ago or so,

032uh there were years where the state budget wasn't even done until August sometimes. Um, it's been better than that recently and just as recently as our last meeting two weeks ago, it looked like the the state budget would have been done last week, a few days late, but but close to on time. Uh now it's sounding like it might drag on for for a lot longer uh because of certain policy changes that um well it's the governor wants to make certain policy changes and make them part of the budget process and there's not agreement among the uh state assembly or the state senate. So hopefully that doesn't take uh too much longer to get the budget done because we would like to know how much we're going to get next year. uh in the governor's

033budget proposal um she had uh that she had released, it had us getting an increase of about 200 uh $38,000 uh not counting building aid. And I say not counting uh building aid because that is a separate part of the tax cap calculation. Um and it can it can it can skew um it can skew things. So that's that's why even even sometimes in when the media when the state ed department reports state aid and sometimes in the media they'll say excluding building because that's that's that's calculated separately for the tax cap. Um so we're hoping that our final state aid amount will go up with the final budget. It normally does. That doesn't mean it always will but it normally does go up from the governor's uh budget proposal. Now, both the state uh

034assembly and the state senate are recommending a higher increase than what the governor um proposed. So, that's why we're we're pretty optimistic that we'll get a little bit more than that. The uh increase that the um uh governor used the the $238,000 increase is a net increase. uh most of that that comes from an increase in the foundation aid uh where the governor proposed every district get a minimum 2% increase in foundation aid that I forget which is which one of the state uh assembly uh and state senate one is add recommended a 2.9% increase the other is recommended a 3% increase so um we think we'll get one of those two which would be about $275,000 so that's what we're anticipating we had discussed that at the last meeting uh that we're going to

035anticipate that $275,000. Um we're pretty um uh confident that we will get uh that or close at least close to it in the final budget. So that's what we factored in to our budget. So uh before we've even looked at some of the other things, what we were hit this year, this is a diff very difficult year budgeting. Uh the contractual salaries, the the $6.1 million that I mean that that we knew about. Uh but what did what we really got hit uh hard on this year was health insurance increase of well over $5 million. And um it's it's just the the the cost of uh medical uh medical costs have skyrocketed, but especially pharmaceuticals have really skyrocketed. Um you know, and I and I say I don't mean it to be funny. There's a

036there's a reason why every other commercial you see on TV is for a pharmaceutical company because they know people see it. they see the commercial, they say, "Oh, I need that." And they go to their doctor and say, "I need that prescription drug." And they get a prescription for it. And and it costs a lot of money. Um, and the So anyway, we're working with our or we're part of a self-insured health consortium. Uh, we're working with the consortium looking at ways to to save money going forward. Uh, but still that was the biggest impact in in this coming up year's budget. And then we had other benefits. ERS and TRS. Those are the two retirement systems that our employees belong to. Uh well, one or the other. Employees retirement system or teachers retirement system

037and then the district share of social security added all together. That's about a $900,000 increase. So that's that's even before we started looking at anything else. Then we have liability insurance is going up. We have you cost of utilities. You know, just like us at home, everything's uh going more expensive. Same same for us here. So that brings us to uh if you been paying attention um if we did nothing else just the exact program we have in place now all the current staffing everything kept it to next year it would have put us seven about $7.5 million short of where we would need to be. So um that's that's where we were at in budgeting. That brings us now to the staffing changes. I'll turn it over to Dr. Scandlin. Thank you. So, first

038I want to start off by thanking all the unions that we work with in the district and their cooperation, realizing that we're under a very stressful time financially. Um, we've been very grateful for the mutual conversations and brainstorming about how we could go about um making some changes and some concessions in order for us to be able to achieve the goal of providing the best quality education for our students in the district. If you notice, the numbers on the screen now compared to last time are a little different. Well, one of the reasons is because um we had 47 students on a wait list for prek and we decided that w with since we can we can do the prek program in groups of 18, we pulled 36 students off the list. Um so that

039meant that we are opening up an additional section now over at our head for prek. Um servicing a larger group of students. we get $2,700 per student per year for the program from the state for the age since it's a part of a UK up UPK program. Um and then the enrichment program we are maximizing. So this has allowed us to uh decrease from 14 teachers in the elementary level access being accessed to 13. The secondary net reduction is um due to the fact that as we transition the ninth and the sixth grade up and we've maximized our class sizes, we've been able to lower those numbers down. We also have the largest class in the district is graduating. The senior class is around 525 students. So as they leave the classes behind the there's

040no class larger than 500 in the entire district. In fact, as of this morning, the the kindergarten class coming in is 301. So, it's a significant difference in the number of students. So, um to that end to the next with the TAs, we went from 29 being cut last time to 28 since we added the enricher program. A TA went into that program. And then, uh we also looked at the SCAS um as well. And we start that'll be on the next chart. We cut those down from 15 to to seven. Um the lead positions, we're working with the union to determine whether or not we need all the leads. There are 34 leads right now in the district. We're looking to see what we need to operate next year. And then as I as

041I said with working with the administrative union district, we were looking at either 10 administrative position being cut or concessions from the TVSA. And I'm happy to say that we've had uh we've been working very closely with them and we're we're close to having um that completed and to the board for for review to go forward. I'll do the next slide. Um, so the non-instructional staff, u, we're also cutting three clerical, three maintenance and operations, and eight of the monitors. It was 15, but as I said, seven of those positions are going back to cover the, uh, preK enrichment programs and the additional prek program. We've made additional cuts in summer reading and math program. That's about $123,000. the co-curricular activity programs at Ward Melville High School and basically throughout the district we're looking at

042an average class average attendance in clubs and sports at 15. We have no teams that are below uh 15. So because we have some teams that are combined with other districts um but we do have a few clubs that are less than 15 average uh attendance. We've cut overtime districtwide and we've also utilized some grants as well with all of this. So we're we're really working hard to try to mitigate the circumstances of all the different cuts. Um one of the areas we're also have been uh is on there is some of our toes. Those are teachers on other assignments and the IG fourth grade program. So that's what's put us in the position right now. We we're able to cover our entire budget um as it stands $7.6 million with with all of these

043cuts put into place. Mr. So, uh, as Dr. Scandal mentioned, uh, with those cuts, that brings us to where, uh, we at least, uh, need to be to comply with the tax cap, and that would mean our budget to budget increase is just under $2 million, which is a 0.84% increase, and the tax levy um, 2.78% increase, which complies with the tax cap. And the reason you see the disparity in that is because one, well, a couple of reasons. one is that the percent increase on tax levy it's on a smaller base than on the whole budget. Uh but also um uh part of our tax cap calculation as I mentioned when I talked about capital projects and also building aid is a reduction in building aid which we knew was coming because we're um

044uh the building aid from our 2007 bond referendum is end just ended. So we we knew that was coming. Uh so that shows up on the on the um uh tax levy side, not not on the budget side. So and then in fact we we lowered the capital projects by the million and a half. So um those are the percentage increases of the budget that we're bringing forward for the board to uh consider tonight. Um and because it complies with the tax cap, it would need the simple majority of voters uh who vote on the budget to vote yes in order for it to pass. Uh as for anybody who doesn't know, if it's above that tax cap would require 60% of the voters to vote yes. Uh we tried that two times in the

045history of the tax cap were successful neither of those times. Once the first year of the cap, which was 2012, and then again in uh 2021. So if the budget doesn't pass, uh there's a couple of options, same as same as always. Uh so the board can decide put the same budget up for a revote, revise the budget, put that up for a second vote. Either way, if there is a second vote, it's on the third Tuesday of June. Uh or the other option is go straight to contingency, not even have a second vote. Uh but but either way, if we do not have a a budget that is passed by the voters, uh we go to contingency either because it failed the first time and there was not a second vote or a budget

046failed a second time. And uh being on contingency means no increase to the tax levy at all. And from this budget we're proposing, we'd have to cut another $4.8 million for there to be no increase in the tax levy. So hopefully we don't get to that point but but if and when we do then we would discuss with admin uh the the uh building uh districtwide administration and then uh with the board what what do we do with that? Um so the the voting day third Tuesday of May um May 20th all the voting is at Ward Mobile High School now in the gymnasium. uh for security purposes, it's uh much easier to um uh secure that area than when we used to have it in the elementary schools. Uh and now starting uh was

047it last year or the year before, uh early voting is allowable now. So uh if anybody's interested in in partaking in that, you would contact the uh district clerk. So um were there going to be any questions now or you wanted to wait a minute? Let's hold. Let's we'll take the public comment and then we'll invite you back up. All right. So, thank you very much. All right. So, as mentioned, this will take us into our public comment period. Uh, we're going to pause the business portion. District residents who wish to speak must have picked up a blue form from the hallway and given it to Mr. Mano. Each speaker will have three minutes to address the board and may speak only once during any given board meeting. Please understand that for the most part,

048we're not going to get back to you immediately, but as appropriate, an administrator will follow up with you privately after the meeting. You're also welcome to stay after the meeting and come speak to any of us. Please remember that according to state and federal privacy laws, we're unable to entertain any comments, questions, or discussions about any individual student or employee. I know I have some students here tonight. That's awesome. We cannot wait to hear from you. You can speak about your own experiences. Just don't mention any teachers or other students by name when you do that. So, thank you all in advance for your understanding regarding that. We will begin our 30 minute public comment period now at 7:49. And I would call over to that microphone, please, Sean Fontana. Please say your name and

049where you live. Thank you. Name and address or please. Hello everyone. My name is Sean Fontana and I am an alumnest of the IG program and I want to bring to light how fundamental this program is for kids. As an as an elementary school kid, I always felt under stimulated. I was treated as the quote unquote smart kid who always knew the answer and would always feel bored as the curriculum was too easy. Once I got my acceptance letter in the mail saying that I was accepted into the IG program, I was ecstatic. For me, this had always been a dream. The IG was a place where I could be challenged, be pushed to be an individual with a harder curriculum, but also be with classmates who were of the some of the smartest individuals

050I'd ever have the chance to work with, including our current valictorian and saludiatoran. IG was the first place that many of us potentially struggled. The environment fostered growth as people and challenged us kids who really needed it. I for one will vouch for the program and how essential it is to be kept for all other elementary school kids rising up. There will always be kids who don't feel challenged, who need the higher intensity in school, who crave knowledge, and we can't sacrifice their learning, this program, in order to save money for things like a later start time. Yes, a later start time could be beneficial to many, but the loss of these educational programs for only an extra 30 minutes of sleep isn't worth it. The program has been valued and appreciated for years before

051I went through it and years after. We shouldn't shut it down now, and we can't for those kids who need the challenges in their life. This program is one of the biggest reasons I'm the person I am today. And I'm able to do things like this, talk in front of audiences because of many projects that we've had gone through. And all the kids should be given the opportunity and the option to pursue a chance to further push themselves and grow as thinkers, learners, and students. I appreciate the chance to talk to you all and thank you for your time. [Applause] Thank you, Sean. All right, next up, same microphone, familiar name, Sherie Fontana. Yes, slightly related. Um, Sherie Fontana. Good evening, Dr. Scanland, Dr. Biscari, esteemed board of ed trustees. I stand here before you

052to express my sincere disappointment. I do not envy the difficult job you have been faced with this year to come up with a budget that is acceptable to most while dealing with the extreme financial constraints placed all while meeting the needs of the students and the contractual obligations of the district. With this in mind, I am left completely perplexed with how anyone can justify making cuts to academic programs, many of which don't cost the district much money, yet are considering adding costly non-academic programs. Isn't it the job of school districts to educate all of our stu all of our children? Over the last 10 plus years, this great school district has said time and time again that they are vested in the IG program and are here for the benefit of our students. I have

053always assumed this meant all students. But I guess I was wrong. The recent decision to cut the fourth grade IG program, which will ultimately lead to the cut of the program in its entirety, yet not having any alternatives in mind to offer has my mind boggled. I am sure you never would cut any sports programs. These high- ability learners that participate in the IG program are basically a different type of special needs students only. They are not protected by any laws and certainly deserve better. I know for a fact that several families have moved to the Three Village school district to have access to the IG program since most other districts do not offer anything similar. At the last board of ed meeting, I sat in awe to hear trustees mention that the reserves are

054like a bank account to withdraw money and that our district is bankrupt, yet are pushing to implement a costly non-academic program that will be costly every year afterwards. The bank account is only as good as the money that is deposited into it. And if we are bankrupt, how can we afford this costly annual program? I strongly urge you to reconsider the many academic cuts and non-academic additions you are proposing. Remember, all of these costly additions will come at an annual cost increase. Thank you. Thank you very much, Barbara Rosati. Good evening, everyone. Barbara Rosati, 27 Bramer Road to talk. If you want to ring and say hi, I'm there. Um, so I just want to really thank the board and the administration. I and the unions and everybody I know this year was very challenging

055and um I know that in this budget there's a lot of heart uh and courage um you understood a that the impact of of uh certain uh moves that are not uh appreciated and people don't understand is in fact big right 97% of our kids are sleepdeprived and uh in a in a moment where youth mental health is in crisis. Uh it takes courage to act and it's costly and we we understand that and we appreciate that. Uh 1,700 people in your community uh had a petition in 2019. It's been long. We participated. We tried to help. We participated in every committee to try and explain why this was important to us and to see that you in a very difficult time are recognizing this and are helping uh this large part of the community

056and also others who didn't participate because at the time their kids were in elementary school and they didn't realize the uh the problems of of this this issue of early secondary start times is is just um heartwarming and I want to thank you all again. Thank you very much. All right, next up, uh, Huaw Wang. Okay, good evening everyone and uh, I'm Huawan and I live in the three village district for more than 12 years. U, my address is 20 buck east to kit um, 11733. Um so I have two children who have grown up here and one is nine college and the other is 11th grade. I'm here to talk about the uh healthy start start time initiative. Um I uh I appreciate all the great work you know the community uh the board

057and the star school late committee and also administration you know working group for developing the optimal plan given all the constraints. I also want to thank the board for the unanimous vote in favor of this initiative at the October 23rd meeting last year. Uh as well as this year's budgetary advisory committee to work so hard on such a challenging budget and with um this still keep this important initiative in the budget. I really appreciate it and I think um the community really appreciate your all the efforts all the hard work. It's so hard. Um um I have prepared you know so many but now I don't really want to go through every single thing. Um I just want to say thank you and I really hope uh this can be done this year. Um the

058the the the budget is very challenging. Um but compare uh to the cost with the um how to say uh the it is it is 0.5 percentage in the overall budget. Um I hope this um is is the cost is is um not that kind of impactful but the benefits it brings to the students really uh huge and uh last long time and I don't see any uh reason to postpone for another year uh because we have been uh advocating this uh I personally uh since advocating this since 2018 when my child my first child um you know um Gregor graduate from the uh elementary school to the middle school. I feel the uh I feel shocked you know with all the changes and everything and I feel the importance of this and then in

059our community you know the niece is sitting here has been advocating since 2010 is 15 years now so it's like year by year by year I know there's always any situation we can say it's not implicable because we have this and that always there's obstacle but um if we put this as a you know a serious thing and uh we don't want more people or more students to suffer from the deprivation of sleep. This should be done now and reservation. I I know with reserve we have reserve money, right? It's for the emergency but I feel like this is this is important. Um and with uh uh we can use this for now or with the savings from the restructuring and also the increase the state ad this is this is doable and we can

060always replenish next year. And why let students suffer for one more year? Um, I don't see the need for that and I hope this can be done and time is up. Thank you so much. Thank you. Next up to the microphone please, Althia Grubs Alrech. Um, my name is Althia Grubs Aubre. Uh, good evening everyone. Thank you for opening the mic uh as you do at all meetings. Um, but I'm I want to begin by acknowledging the difficult budget budget process this year and the challenging decisions you've had to make. I know that it can't be easy to cut uh extracurricular programs, academic programs, and employees. Um, so I um just want to acknowledge how difficult that's been. Uh, that being said, I want to voice my support for continuing the uh IG program uh

061in the district. I moved here uh in the summer of 2017 from Miller Place. Um, my parents were seeking a stronger district academically. Um, I was able to join the IG program as a sixth grader uh in the final year of the program. Um, and I just I had a wonderful experience. Um, I was finally able to be challenged by my curriculum. Uh, after years of just feeling sort of bored in class and seeking enrichment through, um, programs like math olympiad, mock trial, um, I was finally able to get that sort of experience in class. uh among peers who were um better than me honestly like I'd always been a very talented kid in class and very um sort of a know-it-all you know but uh once I joined the IG program I was towards

062the bottom of the pack. Um so it was wonderful to finally get that experience and it really prepared me for um academic struggles in junior high and now in high school. Um, as a high school student, I've had to really I've had to study a lot and I've had to work really hard in all of my classes, which was something that, um, my elementary school education prior to IG really hadn't prepared me for. Um, I never had to study. I really didn't have to work all that hard. Um, and so being in IG that one year, um, failing my first math test ever, um, it really it really helped me out, um, just in terms of, you know, lowering my ego a little bit, um, and being able to interact with people who were like

063me and share ideas with those people. Um, but I understand that the the budget process has been very difficult. Um, I know that we can't keep all the programs. I'm sure there's people could speak in support of every program that's been cut, every staff member that's, you know, been let go. Um, but I just wanted to share my experiences with you. Um, and really, uh, talk about how important the intellectually gifted program was to myself and many other people like me. Thank you. Thank you, uh, Farah Monzer. Hi everyone. I'm Far Manor. I live in three Fieldhouse Avenue. Um so, um I've been also talking about the IG program as well. So, I've been pretty disheartened since the email went out about the IG program. My son is in the current fourth grade IG class

064and he's had a wonderful time there. Um he's really loved his time in the class so far. He feels very engaged and challenged and it sounds like there's a few students from, you know, previous IG classes. He says it's very exciting for him to learn the new material material and to push himself. He especially loves math and it's been great to be surrounded by other kids who also love math as much as he does. And the friendships in his class are also great. They like play, you know, they play soccer outside, but they also like challenge themselves by doing like speed cubing, which he always comes at home with like new hobbies that he's learning from class. So, not only is he enriched in the class itself, but even outside. Um, like now he comes

065home and plays chess. It's just it's a fun environment for him. And I think he finally feels challenged and in an environment with others who also have that same interest with him. So, he's still going to be in the class next year. And I know for him the program is still going to be running, but um I also have a younger daughter and um I have other class I have other friends from work as well as in the community whose kids are younger um that were really looking forward to having the same program. Um I was actually in a gifted program myself in a New York City public school when I was younger and my experience was also wonderful. So it was lovely when I moved to the community to see that that same type

066of program was here. So once the email came out about it, I was pretty disheartened to see that this is going to get shut down um or you know potentially just fifth grade. So, I mean, I don't know if there's any type of committee that you guys could consider maybe to talk about this further. Um, or if there's other ideas, whether it's donations, fundraising, um, even maybe if it's about the buzzing, if there's a way for parents to be, you know, opt in and have, you know, them drop off the kids, like some out of the box type of ideas to kind of make this program stick and work. It would be nice to see if we can somehow keep the program. Um, it'd be great if it was fourth and fifth grades, but if

067it's just the fifth grade, as long as the some part of the program is still running, it would be great. That's it. Thank you. Thank you. Next up, Miruslav Chhatkovic. Hi. Um, actually, I wasn't planning to ask anything, but I was uh about the budget. So it's about 5% increase basically all the cost if you had to get it at 12 million and budget 0 240. Now I think this year is somewhat of the outlier probably because of the healthcare cost but is our increase from the tax usually enough to keep up with the raise in the budget or not because even if it's outlier I would think we probably we we can't answer any qu it's not a back and forth so you can make a statement and okay yes another statement that I

068want to make is I was just checking Apollo program started in 1961 by 1969 we put men on the moon uh Uh I think we started to campaign for the start school later either 2019 or 2018. If it doesn't go this year, it's going to take more if it happens to start school later than it took to the nation to put men to the moon. I think that would be very very disappointing if that happens. Thank you. Thank you. And just one thing also for the for the uh I'm also disheartened with the with the IG IG program. Uh, so yeah, let's see what happens there. Thanks. Thank you, Jade Zang. Um, my name is Jay Zen. I live in N Bramer Road, Sitake. I didn't plan to speak, but after um uh Mr. cost

069and went through the budget. I feel like need to say something. Um want to thank everybody on the board. Um and the union uh worked together really hard time to come together with the budget. So uh finally you know um something really important to this district to the parents to the community the star school is in the budget. I think this is a milestone and historic and I hope that will pre prevail. I know today is a voting time and this could fail many many times before and lasted until today because there's enormous support in the community. Um we all want our children to be academically excel but they need health first. So if I have to make a choice health first and uh the second thing is same thing you know with IG very

070disappointed to see the goal we have two children um one uh participate IG the other we choose not to participate for our own experience the um the IG is very good program um but sometimes not for everybody and uh the one child didn't uh go to the IG program eventually she in the high school she um study with the children from the IG program so I'm trying to say is we probably can find a different way to um make it work that I always wish that the programs introduced to each school not just uh uh pull all the children from different school you know concentrated in one location. So, um maybe this is something that you know due to the budget constraint maybe we couldn't do it continue with that but consider to put uh

071something um adaptive to the you know gifted children in each elementary school that will you know make those uh talented children still uh flourish. Thank you. [Applause] Oliver Woo. Hello. Hi, Dr. Scalin. Hi. Um, my name is Oliver Woo. I'm not going to say my address, but I live in Stony Brook. And I wanted to speak today because I am extremely disappointed and concerned that the district is planning to phase out the IG program. um I didn't really recognize for many years but looking back now like it's it's shocking how impactful that program was for me personally meeting the students there they exposed me to different ways of looking at the world ways of thinking and different ideas that shaped my own interests and what I want to do in the future and it was

072really uh big for me I don't know if if I would be interested in the same things I am now if not for that program the teachers I had there encouraged my love for reading they encouraged um my my uh my ability to to think about and consider different ideas and um they taught me like much more advanced math and things like that and I just feel like this program is really really special. Over the past couple of days I've spoken with most of my classmates from IG. I know most of them don't want to speak at the board meeting but um most people came to the general consensus that in the classrooms prior to IG they felt oftentimes um less interested or un unmotivated because the class wick was boring to them or they

073didn't feel like it stimulated them enough and I feel that eliminating this program IG without putting anything else in its place without initiating a a new program to to give enrichment to students who would benefit from it is very harmful. It would leave some students less prepared for a junior high, less capable to navigate problems that they encountered and less motivated and less excited about school. I think that's a really um unnecessary tarnish on our school district's reputation on our image as uh one of a very strong educational program that's desirable for many people across the island. And yeah, um I wanted to talk about start times a bit. I have been among my friends one of the biggest supporters of start time changes. Like as someone who's interested in public policy, I do feel

074like if you're going to say you're going to change something but keep pushing it back year after year, that means you're not going to do it. And it's frustrating to me. But I've been shocked by um the people I talk to, most most if not like the vast majority of my friends don't support time changes. They don't feel that um the potential impacts on clubs with sports is with the half an hour um start later. They they don't think that half an hour is a significant difference in their lives. And um while I I hate to say this, I do feel feel that if you had to choose between cuts to dozens of staffs and educational programs or the start time, I I I would support regrettably um delaying the start time one year. And

075that's my opinion. But thank you so much for listening and thank you for all that you do to make this district such a great place to live and be a good student. Thank you. [Applause] Thank you very much to all of our speakers. Now we have a few that were um submitted by email. The first is from Sugatha Goranathan. I'm a parent of three young children in the district and wanted to send a letter to read at the board meeting about my feelings regarding some of the proposed changes. I do want to begin by saying that we have been happy since we moved to this district more than seven years ago and have been generally supportive of the decisions made by the board and district administration. Having said that, some recent propositions have seemed rushed

076and not align with the wishes of many families that we know. First, I have two children currently in the IG program, one in fourth grade and the other in sixth, who have greatly benefited from this program. They are much happier with the pace of classes, the level of assignments, and in many cases, the friendships that they've made than they were prior to being in this program. I think three village does a good job of accommodating children with different learning styles and abilities. And I hope that we can continue to have a supportive environment for high achieving kids, either in the form of this IG program or an alternative program that aligns with the budget. I'm most concerned that this program was taken away with very little notice and with nothing proposed to replace it in

077order to support these kids moving forward. I have a high achieving first grader who will not have the same options that my older children had, which is very disheartening. Second, while I will not dwell on it too long, I also hope the board will prioritize the change to later start times for the middle and high schools. I think most people are in agreement about the importance of sleep and growing children. And I know my family that the ability to sleep an extra 30 minutes or more in the morning would make a significant difference to well-being, happiness, and high functioning, especially in the cold and dark months of the winter. I sincerely hope you will follow through on moving the start times later. Thank you so much. The next is from Guinhoo. Many parents have already

078shared expert opinions and statistics demonstrating that later school start time is essential for our children's health and academic performance. When compared to the overall education budget and other expenditures, the additional cost of implementing SSL is minimal and certainly worth the benefits it brings. So why are we still struggling with this decision? We must ask who is standing in the way of our children's well-being and success. Please know that a majority of parents are closely watching tonight's vote. If any members vote against SSL, we will remember this when it's time to vote in the next election. And last from Samuel Gresevki, we're writing to ask for more details about the district's plans for the IG program. We understand that the budgetary constraints are significant, but we wonder about the decision-making leading to the cancellation of IG4th

079grade next year and whether there could be a way to continue the IG program, just better controlling its cost so that the eligible students are not held back in their development. Does the Three Village Central School District plan to offer any enrichment or more advanced learning opportunities for rising fourth graders who would otherwise be enrolled in the IG class? For us, the cancellation of the fourth grade IG class for 202526 was completely unexpected and very disappointing. To the best of our knowledge, there was no discussion or indication of such a plan and no community input was solicited. In particular, all the communications from the district before the third grade OLSAT exam stated that the exam results would be considered when selecting for the IG program. We look forward to receiving more information. And that concludes

080our public comment period. So we will head back to the rest of our agenda. Respond to some of that. No, probably not. No. No. No. Um, so right now we are going to go back up to items for board discussion. Did you want to address the STEM IG issues here? Certainly. So um, yes, the decision for IG being cut is is problematic for a lot of folks. uh many of the families that are in this audience remember that I was the one that used to do the presentations and then Dr. scary got to do that for the past three years u on the importance of this the history of the program it's been in the district for a long time in fact it was actually in third through sixth grade for many years with two

081classes with an average of 30 students in each class for many many years um the expense for the program right now was part of the budgetary process and the it's not just the teacher it's also the transportation so it's approximately about $200,000 in that component Um some of the wonderful ideas that were presented here are are very much appreciated. Uh this New York State is very unusual. Um this is one of the few states in the country where corporate sponsorship of programs is not permissible in public schools. Private schools can have corporate sponsorships all they want. Take a walk down to the Stony Brook School and you'll see things there. Public education does not. And that's a travesty because all of our taxes in the state are now influenced by that. You go to other

082states, the taxes are much lower because of the fact that there is corporate sponsorship. Now, it was done for a purpose that was seemingly good at the time to prevent companies from unduly influencing children in schools. Um, but we've hit a point in with the tax cap era where we are under the gun with money. Uh this is now 12 years with the tax cap and we're starting to see the uh the ill effects of the caps and what we're seeing in our budgets. Yes. While enrollments going down, the expense for educating students is higher and higher every single year. And it's not just contracts with teachers. As I indicated to the board earlier this evening, some of our vendors are raising rates 34% 14%. So far outside of our our range. Even our transportation

083costs are going up 4%. It's unsustainable with the 2% cap trying to mitigate those costs. So, no one supports the idea of uh of the IG program continuing more than we do, but we need to find other ways of how to maybe handle this. I wish we could do fundraising. I travel down to Florida quite a few times and you drive on I95 and it always struck me as funny when I would drive through Virginia and the uh the football field in one of the the Virginia school districts is sponsored by Marorrow. So, it's a little odd. I don't know how they do that. Um maybe all the kids get a pack of cigarettes at the halftime and smoke up so that they give a lot of money. It's Virginia's a big tobacco state. Um

084going to the um start time for a moment as well, if I may. Um just before we get the STEM idea for a moment, um the the cuts that we're experiencing, uh we have cut athletics in this district. um what we said as a precedent for this there are no uh uh sports that are under that number at this point in time uh but it has been done in the past uh one of the things I appreciate the idea about the transportation but then if we have universal transportation a parent can't abregate their child's rights to transportation so even if a parent drove their child to school we would still have to provide the bus even if you're not riding it so it's it's part of the bizarre education laws that exist in New York

085state um as we said, "Our intent is not to phase out the program." I've gotten a lot of emails saying, "We're doing with the entire program. We're keeping it in fifth grade." Um, our hope would be as we move forward, either as money has become more available, as we start to see more retirements, to phase it back in and or at the same time bring back the STEM program, which was existed prior to COVID and unfortunately we never were able to do again. Um, once CO hit, we weren't able to get that back. So, just to give you a sense, for every teacher we add back in the system or take out of the system, it's about $100,000 in costs. So, if you add up the costs, even if you tried to separate the IG

086program into each of the schools, IG is a separate certification. So, we would have to have a certified teacher in each one of the schools, in each one of the grade levels. So, if it's in two grade levels, that's 10 teachers that we would need. Right now, the program only has two. It means we need eight more. That's $800,000 there. While we might save on the transportation, we increased tremendously on the costs of the uh paying for the staff. The STEM program uh serviced all students K through through six in the elementary schools prior to CO occurring. Prior to that, for about two years, we had the enrichment program. Um because prior to that, we had the PI program which ran simultaneously to the program. And just so everyone is aware, the PI program was

087brought here by one of Dr. Vascara's predecessors. um to do away with the IG program. It wasn't meant to be uh parallel. It was meant to remove and it never got off the ground. Um my predecessor's first year as superintendent when it was thought to remove the IG program, we this room was filled with IG parents. Um Sherry was here, several of the parents were here. I remember that night distinctly. um it they were very passionate about keeping the program and we had to find the money for it but it meant us having to cut something else. So that's the point that doc that Mr. Carlson has made several times any of the programs we take out or put in something else has to come if we're putting it in something else has to come

088out. So that's how it unfortunately how the tax cap period runs otherwise we have to go above the tax cap and sadly with our track record in three village going above the tax cap doesn't seem possible. Every time we attempt to do it it gets shot down vigorously. Uh last year we passed the budget at 65%. If that was the normal budget vote for us we'd be putting the tax cap up go above the tax cap uh right now. I believe Mr. Carlson, the uh the number to go above the tax cap to keep all the existing programs with no cuts was around 7 7.1%. 7.1%. That's almost triple what the cap is right now. So, not a lot of families would be in favor of that. So, it's something we contend with on a

089regular basis, but I do appreciate the passion. This is this is only the beginning. The board is voting on the number tonight, not necessarily the the programs to come in and out. That's what the next month and a half will be like, trying to determine what stays, what goes uh in this process and we do desperately appreciate the advocacy. Um, as far as the start time goes just for edification. Um, when I became superintendent, we there was a full acknowledgement that start time is a health issue for our students and we have to contend with it somehow. But as we put it up this year and the board voted for to put it into place and into the budget, which it is in the budget, I forewarned that we would not have the money for

090this in the budget. And right now, that's 1.1 1 million14,000 of the $7.6 million uh of the budget that we had to come up with in between is for start time. So, um that that meant we had to cut something else in the budget for that to fit in there. So that has been done. Um we are going to see larger class sizes in nine of the grade levels in the five elementary schools of of average class size of 26 to 27 in order for that to be accomplished as well as cuts in other areas in order to to meet that need. So that's what we have to do. While some parents may be in favor of it, I'm certain I hope when if it stays in the budget that the communication from the parents

091that will be in sense that their class size are about 27 in a district like three village, we will have the same conversation about this with those folks because they're not calling you, they're calling us u about those class sizes being about they're going to call the board members to express their displeasure and literally we are cutting every area. The only two uh units in this district that haven't been affected are the food service unit because it's not in the budget and the sack program because it's self- sustaining. Every other unit in this district by that budget presentation has been affected. Every other program in this district we we have across the board taken out things we are bare boning in some areas. While we are not bankrupt and we are able to make payroll

092as any business as we move forward, you have to make cuts in order to do so. And unfortunately, we've had to do that this year and it's cut very deeply. So, um, if everything stays as is, we will see larger class sizes. If the community is willing to accept that, we can move forward. If it's not something the community is willing to accept, we're going to have to look at other ways to mitigate this. Okay. So, we'll uh continue the discussion now about um specifics of the budget. This is it. Last last crack at questions, concerns, thoughts. So, I open it up to the to the board. So, so the the budgeting process this year has been especially difficult. And so, I do appreciate the the difficult work of Deputy Superintendent Jeffrey Carlson and the

093and the rest of the administration um to come up with a plan that, you know, has to balance the spending and the income, right? Nobody wants to do staff reductions. Nobody wants to cut programs. I do somewhat agree with one of the comments uh before who mentioned that we could have better communicated our intention to cut programs like the fourth grade intellectually gifted program. Families received a letter showing their children's score on the IG entrance exam and then they were suddenly notified that the program was was cut. Right? Programs cost money but communication does not. uh if if we do plan to make future changes to IG, whether that's considering restoring fourth grade IG or if someone's proposing any modification to fifth grade IG or if we're exploring other options to ensure that all elementary

094school students will be challenged. I think I heard that the STEM and the PI programs mentioned, uh I I think this should be clearly communicated in advance so that the community feedback can be taken into account before we make a final decision. Okay, who else? Um, just a basic question first. Do you know how much per household the budget is going to cost community members? You don't ask me that. Approximately $336 for that's the average tax increase for next year. Can you tell me big topic right now is the start time. Can you tell me what that if we don't have start time this year what that 1 million1400 thousand dollars would go toward what we can do with that. Well, that's more direct scan and and for the board to consider that would be

095if it were to come out that would be what we' be discussing with the board. There's a lot of different options. One to lower those class sizes in the elementary. That would be a priority. You could certainly look at restoration of the IG program. As we said though, that's a $200,000 component of that of the two of the million dollars. So, um right now, as I said, there's nine grade levels with class average sizes in the elementary of 26 to 27. If you take 200,000, you're only going to be able to address eight of those uh with the remaining money. Um there's some other factors that the board is still in consideration. You're waiting on the results of the survey, which we've just completed for the faculty and staff administration's viewpoint on arming guards. Um

096if that's something that's going to be considered, uh that's about a $200,000 cost in the budget as well. So there's a lot lot of pieces to this that still have to be discussed as we move forward. But um certainly that from a priority standpoint, if you're asking my opinion as the you know chief educator for the district, we would aim at getting the educational programs restored. The secondary program, as I said before, is set. The the cuts that are happening there are primarily due to the mergers and our our declining enrollment. So that that's not going to be much of a change there. the elementary was was mostly due to what we were contending with with the u with the budgetary concerns. Okay. When I look at 17.4 secondary teachers gone, and I understand because

097of class size, when I look at 13 full-time elementary school teachers gone, and we're dealing with nine sections now of 27 students in the elementary school. When I hear the IG program is gone, I was I'm a big I'm a big one for the IG program. And when I hear that it's gone, I'm not happy with that. So, I hate saying this because I totally believe in the start time. I was one that five years ago was right on board with it. But unfortunately, I would have to say that in this budget year, I would have to want to move the start time for another year and bring in some of the other programs. But that's just me. Anyone else questions, thoughts? Sure. I just have to agree with what Vinnie just said. It was

098smart. It was intelligent and really um it's hard to accept the change in start times and what's we're losing as far as educational. I understand that start times would help, but the other educational things will help even more. So, I think I have to agree with Vinnie on that. So, thank you, Dr. McKen. Okay. So, I ran for the board on a range of things, most notably improving elementary math, but also improving high school start times. The current budget situation is genuinely extremely frustrating to me. I believe, and there are going to be people that differ, but I believe that this situation was entirely avoidable with appropriate management of the very generous aotment of taxpayer funds that the district receives. I don't think it's really possible to argue the moral calculus of harming elementary education

099versus harming the health of high school students. That is just not a meaningful argument that we can make here. What we need to focus on is the fact that things went off the tracks here when the board failed to manage costs in a way in which we do not harm any of these students. Setting parents against each other is not what should be happening here. What we should be looking at is why the board failed its fidiciary duty in the past. What went wrong was that adult financial interests were deemed more important than the educational and health interests of students. That's wrong. It's absolutely wrong. Everybody in this room knows that it's wrong. After years of advocacy by parents over our unusually high start times, which everyone agrees is bad for kids, to move the

100ninth grade start times to an even earlier start time is just too in your face. This is the second time that we will have done this. the second time we've gone through an enormously long trying process to fix this problem with the end result that we actually make it worse. This is effectively the last chance we get to partially address the chronic transportation problems. If we take trans money out of the transportation budget this year, which is the plan that some are pro are proposing, it will be prohibitively expensive to fix transportation in future years fucci future years. I just can't support that. [Applause] Hi, I just want to unfortunately I think I disagree with most of what you said David. Um I think it's a very important discussion to have about our elementary school

101students and start time because as you know both of those I am very conflicted about because I agree with both. Um start times has been important. I've been talking to you and uh the group for years and years and years. But we're at a point this year, unfortunately, that we need to put the education of our elementary students against start times for the older P students. Um, and I don't think that's a good place to be. Um, there are countless studies that were all very important, you know, looking and researching that says the increased um, class sizes for elementary school is detrimental to their learning. And I can't support anything that is going to be detrimental to the early learners because that is going to carry out for them their entire career. Um the teachers

102now have to differentiate for special needs students in their class, for ENL students in their class, for high achievers in their class. It's different than it was 20, 30, 40 years ago where we sat in a desk in a row and the teacher taught us something and we all listened and there was no problem. It's not like that anymore. Um, and we need to be able to keep our class sizes low enough so our teachers are able to teach all the different type of children that are in their classroom. Um, so I don't know how we can do this, but um, I think adding the elementary school teachers back is should be top one priority. Adding back the read summer reading program is very important. um because if you can't read in the early grades,

103it's going to go with you the whole entire uh career of your education. And it's also a proven fact if we try to nip some of those issues in the bud in the early years, it saves us money in the later years because they don't need AIS or literacy in the secondary schools. Um so I think those two are very important. The IG program, I feel for all of you guys, I think it was a terrific program. I think if we could talk about something about maybe like a STEM program or something along those lines, um that would be fantastic. Um but that's a discussion for a different day. But that's just how I feel. Okay, Dr. Lee, I'll be quick. So I'm very surprised hearing that start time becomes the reason of all these

104cuts. So basically, we're increasing our major increase this year as Dr. uh as u Mr. uh Ken just presented it's 12 million other than start time so start time is 1.1 million that's why I was thinking because we have all this um unexpected changes we use some of reserve to cover that cost rather than blaming start time for all those cuts that's all I want to say I want to choose start time only because I think students health is the first priority that's it [Applause] so I will chime in um I don't think we're blaming start time. I there's nobody I have more respect for than the people who have been fighting this fight for all of these years. You're right. I'll say it again and again and again. You are right. Um and nobody's

105blaming you. And it's I agree. We morally we shouldn't be pitting the needs of one set of students against the needs of another set of students. This has been an impossible budget cycle. Um, as miserable as has been for us personally to work through things, I do want to take one moment just to say thank you to the administration and to the unions and to everybody who worked together to get us to a place where we're close to a solution. It is not pretty. It is not perfect. People will lose. Everybody's going to lose a little bit, but it is the best that we can do. Um, I will reiterate what I said last time. I do I believe in start time 100%. But if I'm looking at the opportunity to restore teachers to 13

106elementary classrooms and get that foundational work in for children at the beginnings, yeah, it's a moral compass. We have to weigh it that weighs more for me at this point to help them when they're little. So that's where I weigh in on the start time. And again with the IG, I agree. I think there's definitely something we can do um to bring back opportunity for all of our students in STEM or STEA. So, we will get there, but that as you say is for another day. Okay. Um, so just just as uh and not I'm not arguing any point one way or the other, just forformational purposes. If the board considers pulling money out of the reserves, um, the the the item will only satisfy the budget for next year. We will have to be

107revisiting this the following year and the year after that and the year after that until we are able to encompass the million plus dollars. and it will go up every year with our transportation costs as we said averaging 4% increase every year. So we just need to be prepared for that. Um the other piece to that is where our current reserves sit with the $7.2 million. If we recall when when COVID hit, Mr. Carlson, just remind me uh we spent $7.3 million out of reserves. Yeah, it was that. Yeah. So we will if co another co-like event occurred and not I don't want to jinx anybody uh happens we will not be able to do what we did in 2020. We will be in the same position that most of the state and the Long

108Island in particular were in where our students will not be able to come in every day. Uh we just won't have the money to cover it. Um and right now we haven't even fully paid that what we were required to pay back which was $2 million. We're still in the process of paying that back right now. So, um, one thing I take umbrage with is the accusation that the current administration is in some way negligent and in its analysis of the budgets. This is not easy to do. This has been ongoing for years. We are feeling eventually the effects of what a 2% tax cap is. And well, this has been a wonderful thing from a standpoint of uh from a budgetary standpoint for parents and affordability in New York State. Long Islanders carry this

109state. This this part of the state is giving more of its tax money to other parts of this state. And if you're not angry about that now, maybe after this budget season and seeing what we're going through in this district, and we're a high wealth district, you need to get angry about that and voice those concerns at a higher level. The city of New York carries a super majority in both the Senate and the Assembly. We will never be able to break that at all. It's just where the population of the majority of the population sits in the state. But we need to let our voices be heard. Just like last year when the state was going to cut our our aid by $8 million and 3,800 parents in this community wrote letters to the

110state and got that changed. We didn't get any increase, but we didn't get a decrease and it would have been a disaster. It would been worse last year than it would be this year. What we're looking at, um, we need to get angry about that, folks. It can't just be that we sit back idly and say just keep taking our taxes and keep sending them to other places and we don't get it all back. That's a concern and it should be a concern for everybody that lives in this community and every community on Long Island because you're not getting it. And this I don't begrudge any district on this island that's getting far far more than its share of uh of state aid. Uh but we're getting approximately uh you know it was $500,000 originally,

111but the adjustments it's 200 and some odd thousand dollars. There's there are districts getting $500 million on Long Island and they need it because of the wealth the lack of wealth in those areas. They're they're high poverty areas. Um but the other areas like this, we're not seeing that support and we desperately need that support. So something's got to give with the way the taxes are done in this state. It just can't solely be on property taxes on the backs of Long Islanders constantly paying for other places. U it just it's got to end at some point in time. Um, but to accuse the administration that we're it's our fault because this is we should have been better at what we did. I take great umbrage with that and I take that from not only

112myself but my predecessors that this was not this is not an exact science where we can sit and figure out some of these things as if we were a business. We're not dealing with Chads here. We're dealing with children and the tax issues that we're dealing with. When you, as I said, when you have vendors raising rates at 34%. Or other municipalities on Long Island who or their boards can vote to get 60% of the board can get the vote to exceed the tax cap. That's not for public education. I don't know how that's not a constitutional issue where your vote doesn't count as much as a nonvote for a 60% override of a tax cap. It was never that way before until one of our governors came along and put this in place as

113a political ploy. And it's been successful in many ways because people's taxes have slowed down. There were double-digit tax increases. It's not affordable to keep doing it. But New York is getting more and more expensive and the tax system here needs to be revised. So before we uh hang the administration of any school district in the state, uh we need to look where the problem lies and it's not along not in the school districts. It's in the way Albany and the and this our taxes are calculated. I sat with the panel for the Rockefeller Institute hoping that there would have been some reform for how the ratios are done for our aid. Um that whole process has been almost completely ignored and we got a 2% rate rate increase. That's it. Nothing else. Hopefully the

114Senate and the Assembly who by the way the reason why it's the latest because they're going on vacation next week and coming home. So that's why the state budget is being held up. They're coming back for the holidays and everything's going to be on hold. So, we're all sitting here with baited breath hoping that we can nickel and dime this. Um, and it's sad that we have to result in that for all of us for our children's sake. Well, other parts of the state, the money's flowing in like water and we're sitting here struggling to keep our own district. And it's a great district. I worked here as a teacher. I came back here as an administrator. I love this place. I love the people here. I think we're all very, very tired of having

115to keep having these battles back and forth. We should be able to have the start time. We should be able to have the IG program. We should be able to have the class sizes all in place if we simply got the $34 million that the district is still owed from the state that was that was prior to the tax cap being put into place. That still hasn't come to us. And we're sitting here constantly fighting this battle amongst ourselves and getting angry at each other and boards and and people in the community and not focusing on where the real problem is. And it's not down here, it's up there. And we got to make sure that our voices are heard. Thank you. Applause for that. Can I respond? Yes. Okay. So, to be clear, I'm

116not blaming the current administration and certainly not blaming the current superintendent. I I have been, I think, very clear on that at every step. But we do have a lot of money relative to most other districts. We're one of the best, most highly funded districts in the country given our size. There's a relationship between size and costs. For comparable districts, we are arguably one of the top two or three best funded districts in the country. I'm I'm sorry, Mr. Dr. McKinnon. I'm going to interrupt you. That statement has been made repeatedly. It is not accurate. It I've told I've said it before when we're making generalizations like that and they wind up in the newspaper and I have to counter them because they're not accurate. I can't support that statement. I came from two other

117districts where we spent with those districts spent more per pupil than we do. So for the districts of the size that the the group that you're working with from the group that supported you to get elected have mitigated that statement over and over again and it's inaccurate. That's not so because of our size. You're doing a ratio of comparative other school districts. That's not accurate. And I keep that statement. If it winds up in the TBR, I'm going to be writing a letter to the paper. That is absolutely not accurate. Rosland School District where I worked prior to here spends more money per pupil than we do. Cold Spring Harbor, Harbor Fields, Harbor uh um districts like Half Hollow Hills, Half Hollow Hills has $44 million in the capital reserves. We got $ 1.5 million.

118We can't fix the Koopas on the roofs of buildings without doing $125 million bond. It's and we and we're not doing that because the taxpayers in this community can't take anymore at this point in time. I do agree with you that but I don't that comparison I will argue you to my dying day has got to stop being made because that's not accurate that's being propagated as truth and it's a lie so we have we get less money we have sorry half hollow hills gets less money per pupil than we do their their pupil expenditure I said is more than ours they spend more money per pupil than we do that's not what I have in the numbers but let's let's not argue this particular point because the fact is They're all very well funded,

119right? Whether we're the top three or the top five or the top 10, they are all very well funded. What went wrong here from my perspective, and it's only my perspective, what went wrong here is that the school board was not representative of the community for 20 years. And as a consequence, the voices of everyone was not heard equally. only one voice was really heard strongly and that inevitably results in problems. It's like a one party government, right? They inevitably go broke and so we have to deal with the lack of true democracy that we had for all those years and now we're we have problems. Right? In my view, we need to deal with that directly. The board has a responsibility to run its affairs in a way that is fair to the community.

120Okay? That means that the community runs for the board without the influence of special interests bringing in money to effectively distort our elections. And that is the root cause of the problem here. I think most of us actually understand that. Dr. McKinnon, I'm going to interrupt. Not sure how gerine that is to the rest of the conversation. We've got to get through the budget discussion. Yes, Dr. Kerman. David, that's totally incorrect. I've been on the board for a long time. We run a very good school district. Our school district is well respected. Our kids do very, very well in school. They do very, very well in college. And that's because we have done well with the money that we have, excuse me, and the way we spent it. So, it's not wrong of what we

121did. We did it fine and we're still trying to do it fine. That's the problem with this year's budget. We're still trying to do it fine and doing the best things for all the kids, including late start time, IG, all that stuff. We'd love to have all that in there without any problems, but because of the amount of money we're going to be getting, theoretically, we can't do all that. So, now we have to make some very hard decisions. That's what's the truth is. No one's saying this is not a good school district. It's an outstanding school district because the collaboration between the parents and the district. Both are critical to making this a good school district and that's why we have to hear all voices. Thank you. At this time, do I see a

122motion to remove start time from this current budget proposal? Can I continue the discussion? Are are we wrapping up or we can continue the discussion, but let's move ahead with the motion. Do I see a motion? Okay, go ahead. Yeah. So, so uh uh I've been thinking a lot about start times. Um and part of that was I've I've, you know, been looking up how the start time issue has been handled at different parts of of you know, Long Island and across the state. Uh, and so I came across a story a couple weeks ago from 2019 in TBR news media. Um, and they had a section on actually three village, right? Because there was some organization going on at that point to discuss start times. Uh, and there were two or three different parents

123that were uh concerned um that the start time uh was was too early. We're one of the earliest 1% start times within the state. There was the petition that was mentioned with seven uh,700 signatures. Um and the the mood was sort of optimistic, right? So some of the quotes from 2019 were that these parents, they were sympathetic to the school board, right? They they thought the board would be willing to help. Uh and another quote was that they wanted to work with the superintendent, right? They they trusted district leadership. They were concerned for their kids, right? Their their children were in uh junior high at that point. They saw the early start time coming and they wanted to organize and get this fixed before their kids get to high school, right? So, we all know

124in 2019 we didn't do the start times. In 2020, that was the COVID year. We didn't do the start times. Uh 2021, that was a bad budget year. We couldn't do start times. 2022, we were recovering from the bad budget year. We didn't do start times. 2023, uh we started a start time subcommittee to understand the problem, right? We were going to wait for the recommendation. So, we didn't do start times. Uh 2024, that's last year, that was a difficult year. uh the state had threatened to reduce uh change the foundation aid formula, right? So they were going to cut effectively cut $9 million from our district. Um so the district I I mean the board needed a way to save money, right? So one of the things they did is uh they had a

125retirement incentive, right? So there's already a retirement incentive, you know, within the contracts. This was a onetime retirement incentive on top of that. Um uh the cost of this ultimately would be $3 million that was taken out of the reserves to pay for it. Uh and the reason we were doing it, it's it's you know it's obviously bad to lose experienced teachers when they retire, but when you hire a new teacher, they're lower lower on the pay scale, right? So the number we heard today was that each retirement saves about $100,000, right? Just from the pay differential. Um, so we had it I mean the good news is it worked in the sense that we had a record number of retirements. There were 33 teachers that retired that year, which is the most we've had

126in the last 10 years, right? So um that would produce um that's about $3.3 million savings in the first year, right? And this this compounds for subsequent years. It doesn't compound it carries over to subsequent years, right? Because you're still the the lower paid teacher. Uh the second piece of good news that year is that, you know, thanks to, I guess, a lot of people's advocacy, we had people write letters to our state legislators. They they did not take away the $9 million, right? Uh they didn't give us our increase of I think it's like $200 or $300,000 that they normally did, but we we didn't lose the 9 million. So, that was also good news. Um the start time subcommittee also came back with the recommendation that year that we do start times. We

127do this plan that's currently inside the budget. Did we do it in 2014? We did not. Right? And so here we are in 2015. 2025. Yes. Here we are in 2025. Uh and I think about those parents, right? And the the the the hundreds of other parents who got involved in 2019. What their their kids, by the way, if they were in junior high in 2019, they've gone through the high school. They're out of the school system, right? Uh do you think that they still would be sympathetic to the school board? Do you still think they would want they would think that the board is willing to help? Um, so is is 2025 different? Is this finally the year we get start times done or is it another year of, you know, it's not in

128the budget? Uh, and we'll see if the money shows up next year. Any other discussion? Okay. Okay. Regarding the IG, um my comments are largely just focused on the math. We need some mechanisms to foster our outstanding math students just as we foster abilities of unusually talented musicians and unusually talented sportsmen. Some board members have already met with the administration to come up with proposal to to support the most mathematically gifted students. It is not the case that we have not thought about this. We've thought about this a lot. There have been multiple meetings between board members and the administration over this topic. I hope we can come up with something this year. It's something that we really care about. It's something I actually ran on. It's something that is very very important in the

129society that we live in. Okay? And it's only going to become more important. We're not just blowing that off. Okay? That is important to understand that the other thing that is getting addressed here is that the average level of math achievement in New York State is very low at the elementary level and this hurts the academic prospects of a large number of students including at least some of our students. We need to deal with that as well. We've mentioned the STEM program. These are programs that cost money, but we have to bring into the schools to fix those programs, right? And they affect everyone. The best mathematician I know grew up in Texas. He played football, like tackling people. He has a very strong personality. He has a list of children and ex-wives that impress

130an NBA player. Mathematicians aren't potted plants. They're powerful, effective people. They can survive in a general education program and still blossom to their full capabilities. I think everybody needs to understand that that we can't just take people out and sequester them and say this is not going to have some impact on their emotional development. Okay. We need everybody to understand the points of view of everybody else. And that's a central and critical component of democracies. Okay? That doesn't mean we should ignore the special capabilities and the special problems of people with unusual talent. I feel strongly that we should do that. We hear you. We've actually been working on this for a long time now. Okay. I agree with Dr. McKinnon on every single point about the the issues for the math. Just so we're

131clear that the is three villages on the top end of the scale of those scores, not on the bottom end of those scores. So, we're we've been lucky that way. Um we are in the process with Dr. Viscarian and the committees that he's working with with the math program that we're going to be trying to bring on for next year as well. Uh moving ahead with some of the programs. But I I completely agree with you that the issue for the entire country is about math and sciences and that's why the STEM program coming back into place in some capacity in the near future would be beneficial for all of our students. Kevin, um if we remove the start time, can we restore the IG program in its entirety? Um that's entirely up for discussion

132from the board if that's what the board wishes to have. As I said, Jeff, do we have enough money to do it then? Uh, well, as uh Dr. Scandal mentioned earlier, the uh restoring the IG program, which would mean adding a fourth grade next year because there's already a fifth grade, um would cost approximately $200,000. So, so we could add it back. We could talk about adding it back. Sue then I'm going to make a motion that we we resend our start time that we passed and keep the money so that we can spend it for IG and every place else that will help much more students many more students. If I may, you may make the motion to remove start time from the budget, but I don't think we can stipulate what the money

133would be used for. I made that I make that motion. Okay. Do I see a second? Second. All in favor of removing start time from the budget. Sorry. after we second a motion doesn't there usually no just to remove start time from the budget so I think procedurally if once we have a second on the motion there's still a chance for discussion until people are are satisfied you may discuss further sure okay so so I mean just the to uh echo the point I heard earlier I think sh was mentioned this that um there's money uh there was this uh proposal to that we can restore our elementary programs or IG G if we would consider it uh by taking money out of the reserves that that's that's an option as well. This is not

134start times against elementary educators or anything else. This was going to be just the discussion of start times and then after that I was going to bring up reserves. Okay. Okay. Any other discussion? Okay. So, just to reiterate, Dr. Kerman made a motion to remove start time from the current 202526 budget. We saw a second from Mr. Vizo. All in favor of removing start time from the budget? Those opposed? and no abstensions. Do I see a motion to reserve uh excuse me, withdraw money from the reserves for the purpose of be using for this upcoming budget? We see a motion, do I see a second? Okay, seeing no second. Sorry, I want to ask for more detail on that, but I would have gotten you an amount. I promise. Okay. Once again, last call for

135a second on that. Okay, so that does not carry through. That's going to bring us down to the actual adoption of the 202526 recommended budget and property tax report card as presented earlier this evening by Mr. Carlson. Do I see a motion? So moved. Do I see a second? Okay. Any discussion? All in favor? Any opposed? And no abstensions. Thank you. That takes us now to our consent agenda. Do I see a motion? Oh, I'm I beg your pardon. We had a walk-in. We have a item 9B which was walked in stipulation of settlement and release regarding the student identified in schedule A. Do I see a motion? Second. All in favor? Any opposed? And no abstensions. Thank you. My apologies. Okay. Now to the consent agenda. Do I see a motion? Second. Second. Okay.

136Uh, Miss Dmano, item B. That's just the minutes from the last uh, board of education meeting on March 26th. Thank you. And Mr. Carlson, beginning with C. Item C is the approval of a health and welfare services contract with the Union Dale School School District uh, for a three village resident student who attends a private school located uh, within that district. Um, item D is acceptance of donations. We have two. One is a check for $5,000 from the Jordan M. Richie Foundation uh to Arrowhead uh elementary school and a check for $2,500 from a community member who would like to remain anonymous to be used for uh drama club expenses at Satet Elementary School. And then items E through J are the monthly financial reports for January and February. Uh these were reviewed earlier this

137evening by the board's audit committee. Thank you. Any questions about any of those? All right, Dr. Biscari, item K. Uh it's a renewal for next year's affiliation agreement with Stony Brook University for clinical placements of their students. Thank you. Any questions about that? Okay. Thank you. L recommendations of the committee on special education subcommittee and 504 accommodation plan meetings as dated and M recommendations of the committee on preschool special education meetings as dated and for N and O Dr. Nebraski. Yes. And personal items instructional uh submitted for your approval is one uh instructional unpaid leave of absence uh two instructional substitute appointments, appointment of several spring coaching assignments and athletic supervision as well as several hourly and daily extra class assignments for the school year. O personal items non-instructional. We have three non-instructional resignations includes

138a security guard, substitute monitor, and one childcare assistant. uh the appointment of two non-instruct uh two non-instructional appointments, one guard and one childcare assistant. Three non-instructional changes in status which include custodial and a special ed aid. Uh one non-instructional substitute appointment and one amendment uh for a higher date. Somebody changed their hire date to a later time. Thank you. Any questions for Dr. Dusky? Okay. All in favor? Any opposed? Any abstensions? Okay. Consent agenda carries. And do I see a motion for adjournment? So move. Second. All in favor. All right. Have a lovely holiday for those of you celebrating. Thank you everybody.