001At this time is our public input on agenda and non-aggenda items. I welcome any member of the audience to speak at this time. Just go up to the mic and tell us who you are. >> Hello. My name is Daniel Piper and my daughter Jimmy is in Mrs. Duour's ELLL kindergarten class at school 14 and apologies for my my froggy voice. As you're likely aware, the federal government has issued a series of alarming executive orders that have many families worried about their safety and the safety of their friends and neighbors. Many are fearful about the potential impacts on student safety in the face of rapidly changing policies. In particular, there are concerns related to immigration status, gender identity, access to special education, and more. Are Troy public schools less safe for many of our students?
002Will they be in the near future? On February 2nd, my wife Ellie Irons sent an email on our behalf to school 14 principal Clutier and Vice Principal Rossi expressing these concerns. In the email, she asked what the plans are for the school district and whether guidance from Attorney General James have been taken into account. So far, we have not received a reply. I am concerned for my daughter's classmates and their families and I know many other parents are similarly concerned. I urge you to take this matter seriously and to offer clear guidance that addresses the safety and well-being of all the students at Troy schools. Please tell us what your plans are. Thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight and thank you to Ellie for handling child care at home. Um, if you have
003a document, if you if you want to leave your documents clerk, we can't respond back from the tables, but somebody you leave your contact information, somebody will be able to respond to you tomorrow. Thank you. Um, hi everyone. My name is Angela Beer. My child is a student in Miss McCarthy second grade class at school 14 as well. And Silvin has been in the district since entering kindergarten. Um, my two are very concerned about the federal level communications issued in the form of executive orders. Um, and their implications for our local communities, for our schools, for families, children, and and so many in our community. Um there are many possible topics to discuss and I'm sure everyone's feeling overwhelmed um by the near daily changes and assessing like what are the impacts and what can
004we do about these things. Um but I'd like to focus on the um the you know revocation of protected areas um that came on January 20th. schools were a protected zone um you know under binding era policies um and they were replaced uh you know with an unreleased directive that gives ICE agents the power to take enforcement actions in any of these spaces using so-called common sense um we know that ICE has been active in the surrounding region mostly thank you to the Columbia County sanctuary movement and we know that within Troy in the past two weeks there were um recent ICE arrests um it's not abstract it's happening it's happening here and now and families and children are not surprisingly afraid. Um I too wrote to our principal and vice principal on February 10th.
005Um and we didn't hear a response and I think you know it's it's not it's not uncommon for them. I feel like it's because they're lacking a clear guidance from the district level. Um, so why the delay in communicating to families and educators? Many other school districts, Saratoga, Skenctity, Albany, uh, Sogerties have all issued statements in January and earlier in February, but we've not heard anything from the Tory City School Department, sorry, district. So, you know, what are the plans in our district and how does this reflect the guidance from the attorney general and similar communications from the New York State Education Department? I know firsthand, spent time with people who are scared to leave their houses, heard from educators that they're not seeing certain students because they are afraid to come to school. So,
006how is this impacting students ability to access educational opportunities virtual? Um, I urge you one to issue a communication uh with our families and with your employees. Um, two, that this be followed with training and guidance for employees on how to best protect our children while they're present in school, how to work and protect families and um, look after what the extended impacts are upon the communities. And three, that the school community, all of us that were courageous in the face of these threats, each of these things, um, immigration is one of those, uh, areas that are, you know, that are under attack right now. have um access to special education and the rights of queer and trans youth are also threatened. As a queer gender non non-conforming parents, my partner and I, we want
007to know that our child's school will continue to be a safe and welcoming space for our student, for us, and for others in the LGBTQ community. Um I look forward to working with educators, families, and the school administration to show up in support of each other, for my child's classmates, for each of the families connected to our schools. Um I think this sense of safety has already been shattered from it's already happening. So how can we work together to substantively address this? Um and thank you all. This is also you know on behalf of my partner Elizabeth Press who's at home with our child. Thank you. Would you leave your contact information? >> Is there anyone else speak? Hi, I'm Ria Dale. I'm a business owner. Started as a business owner. Uh became a homeowner,
008became a parent, and now I'm a proud um children. So excited to have my kids be a flying horse. And I feel really bad. I forgot what the mascot of middle school is. >> They're all middle school. So, um we're excited to to be a part of Troy schools. We have amazing schools. Thank you. Uh the teachers are phenomenal. All the resources are free, but I'm going to echo what um Dan and Angela both said um as friends and allies and we've done so much together, but thank you for all the leg work that you've done and all the people that you talk to because we know that people are scared. I'm also on the board of trustees for the Troy Public Library. And this is an issue that we face. U you know what
009happens when law enforcement or ICE or someone comes in the building or first amendment auditor or anyone that is demanding information and access to the staff or patrons and we have to be ready with the answer. So our question, my question to you is what is that policy? What will you say? Can you give that to teachers to parents? Just let us know. Um and I know it's new. So this is brand new. Not everybody knows what to do with this information. Uh, but if you can develop something, get a communication out, that would be appreciated because it's definitely on the minds of many people. Um, and not hearing back from the principal wasn't great. But I also know that she has her hands tied right now is probably what she would say. Um, and
010is looking for an impression. So, I'm just here to echo that. Uh, they're not alone in that. There are many others who couldn't make it here tonight because of childare and because everyone apparently has norirus flu B I don't know but we're all sick so not everybody's here and hopefully that's for your own benefit. Um, I don't have any contact. >> Is there anyone else? on here. Down here, >> I don't even need it. >> Um, thank you to the speakers tonight. I appreciate it. Um, probably the lack of communication from Miss Blueier is is my fault. Uh, so I apologize for that. We did have uh a couple of meetings with principles and administrators to talk about it. And really, I can't get into too much detail, but really the policy is um that
011if something does happen, they're to call me and then I call our attorneys. So, um, we we all share what you're feeling right now. Uh, and I assure you that, uh, we are all on the same page. Right now, the federal government and the New York State government are at odds, right? Uh, we are still governed by New York State Education Department. And so, um, you know, for the time being, um, again, with guidance from our attorneys, nothing's nothing's changed. And I just uh I wrote a few things down. Um and I'm just gonna kind of go through them if you don't mind. So we say in nearly every message that we put out to staff and families that safety and security of our students and staff is our top priority. We truly mean it.
012It really is one of the most important jobs we have. As was said tonight, the last month or so, there have been changes to federal policies that have created worry and confusion about whether all of our students, especially our immigration students, immigrant students are safe while they're here at school. Despite those policy changes at the federal level, I'm saying to you now, our policies and procedures, Troy's policies and procedures around protecting students and student information have not changed. New York State's laws and policies that regulate our operations and our responsibilities in protecting our students have not changed. In fact, New York State has some of the strongest protections for students in the entire country. All of our principles and administrators have been reminded about their legal rights and responsibilities if law enforcement officials including immigration
013uh custom enforcement officers come to school looking for questions student on district property. They told again, [Music] you got it again. They they will call me. I will talk to our attorneys uh immediately. We'll make sure that the paperwork's there. We'll do whatever we have to do. Um, we've also provided our administrators with the New York State's uh guidance uh the attorney general's uh letter that was sent out uh about safeguarding the rights of our students, especially our immigrant students. In addition, our attorneys uh that I already referenced give us continuous guidance. It's really changing and I think it was also referenced changing almost daily and so we are getting updates daily so that we're well informed of all these changes that are happening. Again, I want to reassure our students and families that these
014federal policies do not change our steadfast commitment to ensuring the well-being of all of our students. As always, district administrators, counseling teams, all of our staff remain committed to providing every student and family safe, secure, and supportive environment. Uh that's that's not just talk. That that's what we believe. That's what we do every single day. We really believe in all things, not just this, that the people that are closest to the work are the ones that are going to help. So those families have been reached out to by teachers, by our ENL curriculum leader, by administrators at the building level, right? Uh to to kind of reiterate all of that that just said, come from people that they know and trust. And so we will continue to do that. We'll continue to reach out to
015those families. uh we encourage them to continue to reach out to us if they need anything. Uh but we we have not changed in our commitment to those families and to all of them. >> Thank you. >> At this time, I'd like to introduce uh principal Carol. Thank you. Happy 100 day school. This is one of our kindergarten classes from today. We have 101 days in Murphy dressed up as Kella. I'm going to start like we always start with our Troy City School District mission statement. The Troy City School District will provide a strong educational and social foundation to graduate all students college and career ready. our Carol Hill mission statement that was um created uh collectively with all of our stakeholders here at Carol Hill. The mission of Carol Hill is to foster partnerships
016between school, families, and the community to provide a variety of student centered learning experiences that empower all students to be independent learners while working working to develop their academic and social emotional growth. Our goals for Carol Hill remain the same. We um believe in and are working towards our district goals which is to increase our level ones to twos, twos to threes and threes to fours by 20%. We continue to foster meaningful relationships to increase student learning and engagement responding to individual social emotional needs and we will by doing these things see a decrease in our behavioral referral by at least 5%. We continue to increase and foster school and family partnerships using approaches to establish and maintain reciprocal communication with 100% of our families. Parents Square has been a huge and I will reiterate
017that health students communicating with families regularly and very consistently. The percentage of students who are chronically absent as defined by NIS will decrease um schoolwide by 2% each year. And our equity goal is to increase proficiency on New York State Assessments for our black students, which as you know, um, is an area, a subgroup of students that we really need to close the gaps for and make sure that they're achieving at high levels like our other subgroups. And we continue to be committed to that, not only for our black students, but for all students. Before I go on, I just want to take a moment, I should have done this in the beginning, to thank our faculty and staff for being here. They are totally committed to not only the work that we you're going
018to see in here, but beyond the walls of Carol Hill, Mr. Foblia, our teachers, our custodians, Miss Kate, who we couldn't run the school without, um our tech coaches, our instructional coaches collectively, they make Carol Hill what it is, and I could not do this work without them. So, thank you for being here. [Applause] really all of the things that you're about to see is because of all of them. So, one of our data points that we look at consistently is our New York State data and how students are progressing to reach proficiency. As you can see, for the last 3 years, we continue to trend in the right direction. So, this is our ELA proficiency rates, which last year we had 28% proficiency. We know that we want to continue to grow and continue
019to uh close gaps, but we are proud that we continue to make progress year after year. And we continue to look at this data and put things in place that will allow us to soar and and grow for every student. And some of the things that we are doing this year, you'll see in just a few slides that show our commitment to growing our ELA scores. >> I'm not good with the click. Sorry. Our math assessments, again, as you can see, have increased each year, starting at 18% a few years ago. Um, and we're at 33%. I do need to note that some of our co prot classes last year reached 80% proficiency. Another one 56% proficiency. [Applause] all of our teachers made things and that's really important to highlight. But those two in particular
020um really showed great growth. How do we get the work done? Our committees, if we didn't have the committees in place, I don't think collectively we could get the work done. These committee members work tirelessly after school hours. They plan and prepare. They show up for meetings and they work as a unified team to look at data and determine how to best move forward. We reflect on our strengths. We think about where we need to improve and we create plans. And those plans then are turnkeyed into professional development for all of our faculty and staff. So, everyone's on board and knows where we are headed as a team. And I think the most important word to me is team there because there's nothing that we don't do without one another. We have committee crossover days
021throughout the year. So there's three throughout the year where we look at how we're all moving towards the same goals and how we can um reflect and refine anything that we need to based on the data as a whole unit. Our summer PD days are some of the most important days and I have to thank the board for supporting those professional development days. They're what really leads into our following school year. We plan and prepare with our teams. We come in over the summertime and there are sessions provided and workshops provided prior to the school year beginning so that our faculty and staff knows where we're headed, knows our goals, and has the opportunity to gain the capacity to implement what we're saying we're going to do. And we have a commitment of ongoing professional
022development, meaning it's not one and done. So whatever we do over the summer, we repeat and we provide support all year long. We also have um embedded external um professionals that come in and help us through Eureka Matt Squared, Adam Baker, Moss Flowers for ELA. We work with Rebecca Megan on our social emotional learning curriculum. She comes in regularly, visits classrooms, gives us an outside perspective on how we can um redefine some of the things we're doing, but continue to push forward. We also work with Lori D. Carlo from U Restorative Practices who's helped us instrumentally implement um community circles which you're going to learn more about and we took that to another level with the work of our committees to have a community block put in place for this school year. Our instructional coaches
023work every day to support our teachers and all staff to make sure that they have what they need to then support every student. So they plan coaching cycles. They work to have grade level meetings, look at student work and student data and help them with the planning to move forward. This is a glimpse into the life of Carol Hill. [Music] Here at Carol Hill, we commit to engaging all learners. Students have the opportunity to learn from one another through the use of student data binders, goal setting, and student life conferences. Each morning, every faculty and staff member joins the classroom for community circle. Students are empowered to use their voices to speak out and uplift each other. >> We commit to student daily attendance by removing barriers for our students and our families. Our goal
024is to get students into school each day on time without the extra stress of having to face any barriers. We acknowledge our students and recognize them with things like Troy Bugs and morning meeting awards uh to keep them incentivized to show up every day on time, ready to learn, doing their best. >> Here at Carol Hill, we work to meet the needs of all students by building on each student's strengths. In each classroom, we use Zen zones, which are places for students to regulate their emotions and be able to calm down if they need a break. We also use uh zones of regulation to help students identify their feelings. They can be in the blue zone, the green zone, the yellow zone, or the red zone just to help them identify their feelings and uh
025be able to express their emotions. The teachers at Carol help me be a little bit. They're also creative by teaching us how to give feedback on one another's majority. >> We tailor our instruction to meet student needs. Uh we use small group instruction every day. We're able to make our small groups using I Ready. Um it helps us form small groups and we also are able to um offer them personalized lessons that way. Also through programs such as reflex and discern uh which are programs that we use every day. Here at Carol Hill, we work to engage learners beyond the classroom by hosting events with MTO events like our math dinner event, our annual CHS turkey chat, and our summer community event and so much more. >> Here at Carol Hill, we foster leadership. We
026are provided many opportunities beyond the school day to become leaders in our community such as girls ak kids classroom buddies as well as many other opportunities. >> We have after school programs like hey kids which is a service leadership program that does food drives gives back to Alb Medical Center intensive care unit. uh visit the Ronald McDonald House and collect supplies that are are needed in the house at Ronald McDonald House. Uh in pallet it's take a look at teaching. We start to have children that are interested in teaching. We start to plant that seed of what teaching is. We are constantly giving back to the community because togetherness the school and community develops well-rounded contributing members of society. We thought it was important to hear from the teachers and the students because it gives
027you an idea of what goes on on a regular basis and you don't always get to see that. So, thank you to everybody that participated in that. At this time, I'd like to welcome Carara and Erica, our instructional coaches. Good evening everyone. My name is Cara Zimmerman. I'm one of the instructional coaches um here at Carol Hill. Hi everyone. My name is Erikica Jerwitz and this is my first year here at Carol Hill, but my 10th year for Troy management. Um so we're going to speak to a little bit of some of the practices that we have put in place throughout the school year. So, um, Sabina shared with us some incredible data and we used that data to create our three main commitments that Carol Hill has embedded throughout this year. Um, as spoken
028to earlier, we are up here talking, but the people out there are doing the work. Um, so we really can't thank them enough for everything they do every single day. So our first commitment this year was um committing to creating a responsive environment that promotes academic independence and self-regulation for all students. The most exciting thing we have done this year is expand some of our restorative practices and we created a schoolwide community block. What that entails is every day from 7:30 to 8:25 the entire building participates in a community circle. There was a video of a community circle occurring in um one of our second grade classrooms in the video. This is an opportunity for students to share their ideas. They get an opportunity to speak. um every voice is heard and building on those
029practices this year we have invited every staff member in the building to join a community circle every single day. So it's not just classroom teachers and their students. I myself as an instructional coach go to a community circle every single day. All of our special area teachers join community circles. Our administration joins community circles. and it has really allowed us to um build the relationships across the building and I think you'll notice that in our um behavioral data which was coming up shortly have to stand maybe over here. Um the other thing that we have put in place this year are specific relationship building strategies. These are researchbased strategies that we work closely with Rebecca Min in terms of implementing throughout the school year. The first is called Carol Hill Coolkit. Um this is a
030researchbased strate strategy where basically the purpose is for students to practice giving and receiving compliments. There's a lot of research that shows how this helps build community and it helps build identity within the classroom. The other strategy that we've implemented this year is also researchbased. It's called 2x 10. Um, this strategy basically is where a teacher chooses one student at a time. They spend 2 minutes for 10 days um talking 10 consecutive school days talking to that student about anything but school. So this could happen during breakfast. It could happen during a transition. It could happen during the lunchroom. You know, pop in for the last 2 minutes or the first two minutes upon picking them up or dropping them off. And again, this is really just um allowing teachers to further their relationships with
031students and get to know them as humans and not just as students. We have continued with our social emotional learning curriculum this year. A lot of the things up there are things that we've implemented in previous um years. Also, we have a lot of embedded PD throughout the school year. Being an instructional coach, this is obviously a huge part of my everyday um role. One thing that we um have in place is we have weekly grade level meetings. It alternates depending on what sort of data we're looking at and what um decisions we're making, but we're always using data to help inform our instruction. Uh we look at student groupings to help create tier 2 and tier three group groupings. And Erica will speak more to that in a moment. Um we also use this
032time to unpack and plan our curriculum so that teachers feel like they are um prepared for upcoming lessons. The other thing that we um instill as coaches is being sure that we're supporting our teachers transfer of PE that we have within Mossflower and Eureka Mass Square, our two core academic curriculums. Um we are very lucky that we have Mossflower and Eureka Mass come into the district, but we know if it was just one PD that was given, um we need continuous support with that. So the coaches at Carol Hill have really taken this on. Um we've noticed that this year specifically it's led to a much higher level of transfer um for our teachers in terms of rolling out some of those initiatives brought to us by our curriculum and also it's helped build um
033teacher capacity within our second commitment which is we commit to strengthening and maintaining partnerships within our school and community. um our attendance liaison and our stronger connections mentoring program really help strengthen our relationships with families. Um our stronger connections mentoring program we have over a 100 students participating within that program and staff within the building has been paired up with students to be a mentor. Um we provide mentoring during lunches um outside of our typical day and um these students were very purposefully chosen by taking a look at our equity goal, our attendance data and our behavioral data. Again, I think you'll see the the uh benefits of this program in a moment when we look at our behavioral data for the school year. Um but the mentors work directly with the families to establish
034a partnership but then also create a common goal that's tracked throughout the school year. This year we also were very proud to have studentled conferences established throughout the building for the whole year for all grade levels. We started this work last year as a pilot program and this year um all grade levels are participating and basically this has taken the place of the typical parent teacher conference. Students are leading the conference. They're collecting their data throughout the school year. They're building data binders that they are speaking to and they're leading the conversation with their families and they are sharing their own progress. Um, in December we had over 60% of our families participate in student le conferences which is I believe the highest percentage we have ever seen here at Kerala for um our you
035know conf conferences. I don't want to call them the parent teacher conferences anymore cuz they're not they're studentled. So we are so excited to see that and we've also seen the transfer over to the classroom. So students in order to prepare for the student led conferences as you saw in the video there was a child speaking to their data binder to miss niece and we have to um build that practice within the classroom so then that the student is then comfortable going and transferring it over to their families. So we've seen a huge success with that. This year we have also implemented under our second commitment lunch and learn events. Um each trimester we um invite families to come in um and meet with the instructional coaches and we share different ways for them to
036support their learners. In November our topic was technology and how to access all the technology we have here at Troy at home through Clever. We worked directly with the tech coaches to help support us with that. And then in March, we are going to be sharing breathing strategies um and questioning techniques with our families. So, we're excited and you guys are all welcome to join if you'd like to come to a lunch and learn. Um another thing we have put in place are curriculum celebrations. We've expanded these practices this year from years previous. Um all grades have to hold at least one curriculum celebration each trimester. And this year we've had a variety of different curriculum celebrations such as writing showcases, math fact celebrations, but then we've also have had debates at a fifth grade
037level. We have science experiments and science fairs. Um, kindergarten had a Thanksgiving feast and invited their families in around Thanksgiving time. So, our curriculum celebrations have been extended. And then finally, under our second commitment, we have our um community partnerships. These have continued from previous years. We have a mentoring program that comes in. We have a PTO that's um been very involved this year. As you saw, our masked singer event was a real hit. Um and then um finally, we always have our family engagement events as well. So, I'm going to hand it over to Erica and she's going to speak to commitment three. >> Thank you. Um so, I'm going to be speaking to commitment three. We commit to increasing growth and achievement on district and building assessments for our black students. Um I've
038had the privilege of joining the Carol family this year during a very exciting time. Um we began morph morphology instruction. Um and that is one of the key pillars of literacy that we had looked through our data and noticed that there was a significant deficit for all students in vocabulary instruction specifically. Um so alongside of Sabina um and the coaches, we drafted a proposal to begin using a morph a morphology um supplemental resource. Um looking at data from I Ready, from Fountain to Panel reading assessment, um from on demand writing, um even from our math program, from our Eureka math modules, we really noticed that need for vocabulary instruction specifically. Um so we as coaches attended the PD and then we were able to turn key the PD um for morphology instruction to teachers and
039then we now get to work alongside of teachers to implement this program. So we are very very excited to see the data that will hopefully come from this increase in student achievement. Um our next thing I'm going to speak to is the targeted small groupoup instruction. Um that is something that in Troy we've been given a ton of support with over the years. So we are going to be building on that even further and have been this year. Um we are using the DFS um process where we look at data with teachers at least two three times a month if not more and of course in our day-to-day practice and when we um we also can now utilize our new program I Ready where it'll actually help us um help the teachers as well work
040together to make tiered groups for tier 2 and tier three that are super targeted. Um, it gives us explicit systematic instruction as well that we can really help to implement um, in our day-to-day practices. Um, and then for our implicit bias training, um, by the end of the school year, 100% of our staff at Carol Hill will be trained. Um, our very own Tina Wilcox, she is a teacher at Carol Hill. She is a nice hit trainer for this. Um and so 100% of our faculty and staff, this is a huge important thing um that we really need to make sure that we address um so they will be trained by the end of the school year. Um so as you can see all three of these commitments, they really really work hand inand together
041um to drive our current and future work for Carol Hill um for the students and the families that we serve here. [Applause] Thank you for a great job. And as you can see, all these things that they spoke to has led to our current data for this year. Doesn't look like maybe not. Thank you. I think it's stuck. Maybe it doesn't want me to show you the data, but our behavior data is down significantly as you can see from 2122 down to 2425. Significant decrease. And honestly, we attribute all of this to the things that we've implemented over the last few years and the hard work and commitment of every faculty and staff member. I cannot say that enough. They have been working tirelessly to make sure that community is a priority and that we're
042meeting the needs of all students every single day. So, thank you once again for that. And our chronic absenteeism continues to go down. We certainly want it to go down even further. But through the help of our SST, our faculty staff and our attendance leaison who communicates regularly with our families, we continue to drive that down. And I'm hoping by the end of the year it's down even further than it is currently. So, here at Carol Hill, you can see it. We take Mr. Carmela's messages very seriously. We are all in this together. And the last picture really shows our dedication to each other. That's Mr. Phobia along with Mr. Jaylen Wilcox who just last week had surgery together on their new >> I wouldn't ask my staff to do anything I wouldn't do. >>
043Same doctor, same day, same. got to be in a room getting a text from Tina with that photo that we just took all in to a whole new level. Anyway, thank you very much for the opportunity to speak today and for the rest of us on behalf of Carol Hill, we thank you again. [Music] [Applause] [Music] Is there any questions? >> You just didn't tell us about your [Applause] >> Carol Hill Chronicles. You want to see enough those that need it? Ironic that is new this year. It comes out monthly and coloring and are reading all the articles in that. So, thank you. some parts of mac and cheese. >> I hate to interrupt, but time for our financials. >> Uh, good evening. Uh December financials were forwarded to the board for review this week.
044All accounts are reconciled. Uh the general fund revenues and expenses are on par with last year. Uh we anticipate to receive about $8 million in general aid in March. Uh believe it or not, April's coming faster than we think. Um during that month, we end up freezing uh the entry of new POS and expenditures uh to help us uh get ready for the fiscal year end process. And uh anything else to report this time? Thank you very much. >> Once again discussion draft one. >> Thank you. Who's going to put it up on there? >> Thank you very much. >> Was that thing working or not? Thank you very much. >> Great job. >> Excellent. >> Operator, uh, thank appreciate the time tonight. Um we had a draft report uh last month uh but now
045we'll get into um more of um the actual money and and where we're going from here. Um so I always start with our mission statement. The Troy City School District will provide a strong educational and social foundation to graduate all students college and career ready. um that is the forefront of all the decisions we make, but certainly at the forefront of budget decisions where you're making decisions for um you know your operations the following year and trying to make that a reality for all of our students. The first couple slides are repeats from the report, but and I'm not going to go through them all again, but I want them in here just to remind people. So, we are super proud. Great job, Espinardo, by the way. Uh yeah, definitely super proud of all that's
046happening in the district. There's some highlights. You see Carol Hill on there. They were the only school this year to increase in both ELA and math. It was significant increases as you saw from the presentation. Uh and looks like they're on the trend to uh continue that work, which is great. uh school [Music] uh school two removed from uh receiverhip and again we talked about we went through all those last time but uh again I wanted to show them you know that's this is the reason we're doing all this this is the reason we put a budget together it's the reason why we're all here uh budget development process so we want to sustain the progress want to build on those successes we want to ensure we're meeting the needs of all of our students
047students. Uh what Sabina just said as well, we want to maintain our environment of continuous improvement. We're proud of uh the last 10 12 years of always trying to get better at everything we're doing. And how do we do all that in the most fiscally responsible way? And you'll see tonight how do we do that with a uh the most difficult budget season we've had in probably I don't know maybe 10 years uh maybe more. Uh so we'll get through it, but it's uh we got to do all that and we got to do it. And you heard M uh Assembly Member McDonald tonight. Actually, I was encouraged by some of the things he's taken our letters and that's what he's great at. Uh and we'll get to that later on, but he'll go out
048and share those things. So hopefully we get some traction for the things we're looking for. Um whenever you're doing a budget, you have to combine and balance those two lenses. one is that you're educationally sound and that mission statement I just put up there can be a uh a reality for our students. Uh what staffing and programs and supports do our students need to be successful to reach their full potential? Uh and you know how do we support all the students in their academic achievement and um their social achievement and all the other things that we want them to do. Right? If that's all we cared about, then we could just, you know, raise taxes as far as we wanted and and just move forward. But you also have to balance that with being fiscally
049responsible, right? We had to be good stewards of the taxpayers's money. We have to be mindful of our taxpayers, continue to search for other funding sources, which we're very, very good at. Uh Mr. Nardo was talking about that stronger connections grant and the impact it's having. That's an extra grant that we found. uh it's our first real year doing it uh a year and a half ago. Julie Curry does a great job her and Dr. Watson uh you know wrote that or helped write that to get us that funding. But we're always looking for other sources to help us um get more and more things or keep the things that we have. We've been under the tax cap for the last 12 years. I got a slide specifically for that. I don't think there's anyone
050uh that has done it as good as we have uh over that time. as you'll see in a minute, uh, state and federal money. So, we we get most of our money from the state, 70% about, uh, from state funding, which is why it's so crucial that that 2% that we just talked about is increased. Um, and we're always doing long-term financial planning, always looking at right now, we're looking at next year, but at the same time, uh, you know, Adam and I are discussing things that are going to happen two, three, four, five years from now. There's the tax cap history. Uh so if you if you look at 2016117 which was the first year in a while that we went 0% increase from that year down 2 4 6 8 those nine years
051we have a combined 5% increase total total 5% increase over nine years to our taxpayers. the last four years, our tax levy, the tax levy is the amount we get uh from the taxpayers has not been increased, has not changed over the last four years, right? And so we're really really proud of that. We've offered a lot of stuff and the federal money did help the last couple of years doing that. Um, but again, balancing those two things, we we've got some successes or even going back to that, we've got some successes that we're really, really, really proud of and some things that we've added and some great stuff that we've done and students have been achieving at all levels and we've done it by not increasing taxes to our taxpayers over the last four
052years. Really, really, uh, proud of that. Really great stuff. Um, not sure that can continue. We talked about that last year a little bit a as a board and district office. Uh we did do it last year, but um you'll see in the bottom of the slide, this might be the year that we can't keep doing it. Um the 2% tax cap, it's called the 2% 2% tax cap. It's not always 2%. This year, the consumer price index is 2.95. So it's over two, it defaults down to two and then the calculation starts. So, um, once it's, uh, down to two, then there I think Adam told me today there's 11 other factors that go into it. There's a whole formula. So, ours this year is 2.57. So, what that means is that's the highest
053tax levy increase we can put out to voters without needing a super majority. Okay? That's what the tax cap does. So, if you want to go over that cap, and some districts are, if we wanted to say we want a 4% increase, which I'm just using as an example that uh but if we wanted to go out as a 4% increase, we'd have to get a super majority, which means 60% of the voters would have to say yes to that. If you're under the tax cap, then you only need a regular majority, 50% or 50 plus one. Uh 2.57 generates about $974,000, a little bit over that. Um so, you know, going back to that page, you know, we usually want to stay at least since 1617, uh under that two range. So, uh that'll
054be one of the decisions we'll have to make as we get further along is what we want to do. With districts like ours, there's not a ton. I mean 974 is not small but there's not a ton of money from our taxpayers that can be earned. That's why we need uh we have so much reliance on that state. Uh so the considerations again uh very similar to a slide that was in the last thing but worth talking about again. We've discussed the need over the last several years to be conservative and strategic with our choices and we've done that. federal funding was ending. Uh the uncertainty around Foundation Aid, which assembly member McDonald talked about a little bit, there's still a ton of uncertainty, right? So, there's a couple of things that were added and
055we'll talk about those in a moment, but really there's supposed to be a full new formula coming in the next year or two. So, uh there's still a ton of uncertainty for the future. And so, we got to be really, really careful about what we're doing. In this current year's budget, we were able to still keep 30 positions that were created from the federal funding. So, remember the federal funding was four years ago, we had a lot of money, what 2022 million at that time uh to add a whole bunch of stuff. And uh Miss Dinaro talked about the co- teachers. They've been fantastic for us, right? co- teachers are two certified teachers in one classroom working together so that students get more attention, more individualized attention. It's really been great. It's it's it's been
056uh a game changer for for a lot of our students to have that kind of uh work from two teachers in one room. Uh we've added the attendance improvement specialist that Mr. Naro talked about. Those have been key in helping our students who have struggled to get to school and those families uh ease those barriers which Mr. Harris was talking about on that video. We were able last year to keep 30 of those positions. It also included social workers. It included new ENL teachers. It included a couple new uh instructional coaches. We did we did a lot of great things. They've all been super impactful, which is why we wanted to keep them, right? They all were always meant to be temporary. Uh when we put them in place, remember at that time we were
057coming out of COVID and we were talking about the achievement gap that wasn't just going to happen in Troy, but across New York State and across the country. And so those positions were always meant to be temporary, always meant to help our students and and staff to get through that coming back to normal kind of stuff. We got a bonus year in my opinion last year by able to do that. the plan last year and I put attrition plan there at the end of last year's budget process we talked about as positions start to as people leave as they retire as they leave for other things they move up in the organization we don't always backfill every position anymore right we've done that this year been a half dozen or so uh we certainly have
058some that we have to fill right um you know if a principal leaves we have to have a principal if uh if a science teacher leaves at the high school, we probably have to have a science teacher. But there are positions that are built in. If a co-teer leaves, there are no two certified teachers in one classroom. If one of them leaves for some reason, we haven't always filled those factors, right? So, and we'll continue to do that uh as we go along. But those 30 possess positions uh will also be part of the conversations that we'll have to have uh and which one of those stay and which ones might not stay. Um and we've received and we're reviewing requests from the priorities administration. One of the best things we do here is include
059everybody in these conversations. So we meet with every single principal, every single director and ask what they need in their departments and their buildings to help students be more successful. Sometimes the conversations are over the last few years when we have the federal money especially, you know, what things do you think we could add? Sometimes those conversations are what would have the least negative impact if we didn't have them anymore, right? Uh but they are all part of those conversations and so we've uh obviously started those at this point. Uh there's our numbers. Our state aid is 90.5 million. The key to that is um the foundation, right? It's only 1.2 million, not even enough to uh half of what we need just to maintain the stuff we got. Uh it's 2% increase. There's many
060many other districts that uh got a lot more than two. There are a lot that only did get two. Uh but what John McDonald was talking about today that Adam and I sent him a letter about, there are He said 12. Is it 12? I thought it was 15. >> I think it's 15. Yeah, I think there are 15 districts, which still not a lot. He said there was 856 districts statewide, right? There's 15 that count as urban, suburban, high needs, right? Like us that got the 2%. So, when you can narrow it down to a small group that's not going to have a huge impact statewide, maybe we'll get somewhere. It sounded like he was at least listening. Um, and so what we wrote in our letter that he's talking about, and I'll send
061that letter to the board and to the citizens advisory committee uh tomorrow. Um, what he's talking about is those 15 districts, high needs urban suburbans, right? Not the wealthy districts, not the districts that could easily tax their way out of these problems, but districts like ours. Don't have 2% be the minimum, have 4% be the middle. That was our suggestion. He sounds like he's at least on board with it. Let's see if he can get some traction with his uh colleagues, but that foundation is certainly not enough. Uh we also have the one time uh city capital outlay. And I actually got a whole slide on that, but a quick reminder uh I think we might have been the only district to ever use it. >> Not the only, the second, but to that level.
062Yes. >> Yeah. So, uh remember two years ago, well, wait till I get to the slide. Um and expense expense driven aids um you know those are the foundation aid is the important one that's the operational aid the expense driven aids are money you spent on transportation on uh capital projects on uh bosses and you get the you get money back on a percentage of the money you spent but that's not really aid you can use for operations right uh and so um they did increase and our city capital out is coming in. But we'll talk about what we want to do with that in a moment. Our tax levy is 37.9 billion. That's been the same tax levy again for four years. There's our tax cap that I had on the other page. And
063right now, draft one that you'll see in a moment is assuming zero, but I already did the caveat that we probably we have a gap. We have a significant gap we want to close. So, that's probably can't be zero this year. Uh pilots and other tax items, there's just some miscellaneous that that follow that. Those are our revenues. So there's the uh city small city capital outlay. So again May 2023 um there were some parameters that we had to meet. Had to be at your debt limit. Had to be a small city district. There was a couple of other things and we met it. And I think most people in here know but I'll say it anyway. When we do all our capital projects, and we're in the middle of a huge one right now,
06450 plus million, you get aid on those. For us, it's about between 86 and 90% depending on, you know, a lot of different details. But I mean, high 80s to almost 90% aid back. So, when you spend $100, you actually get $90 back. But in a typical capital project, you get that over 15 years, right? You still get it back, but you get it over 15 years. it comes in, you know, over that time. For the small city outlay, the rule was you get it back right away, a year after you spend it. It was too good to pass up. I remember when we did that. And so, um, we got a $5 million U outlay approved. Um, we haven't spent all five. We're working on it. We're about four million in right now. There
065are some deadlines. Um, and those deadlines are coming up. So, we're hoping to get a few more things. Those were the elevators we're trying to do. Those were the turf fields that we were trying to do. Uh some boiler stuff, some chiller stuff, right? Those kinds of things. But the the incredible thing was you pay out the money. Like I think so far we've paid out 4 million. We're going to get 3.6 million back next year. So, it's almost like it was a no-brainer to do it. Now, we don't qualify anymore because we also um lobbyed and won to get the debt limit on small cities uh increased and that was a whole another story. But every other district we could go 10%, we were only 5% and they fixed that. But now we're not
066at that. And I think they're going to take those away anyway. That's going away. >> That's going away cuz we used it and they're like, "Wait a minute. Is this real?" So anyway, we're getting that aid back the next school year like uh the 25 26 school year. So when you're getting one shot aid like that, you have to be careful. It's a nonrecurring revenue. You really can't use it for recurring expenditures, right? So it' be great if we could use that to fill the budget gap, but you do that, you get a hole twice as big the following year because that's not 3.6 million that will keep coming. that comes one time. So, what we'd like to do with it is what we've done before is a transfer to capital. Uh we've done it
067in previous years a couple of different times. Uh remember we've talked about these capital projects. We're in phase five now of the of the last phase of the 50 mostly original number 56 of the $56 million project over the last six years. Work in almost every building. Um, you know, significant work at 18, significant work at 16, walls at 14. I'll forget all the stuff, but now we're on to the tech wing at the high school. When you're in the last phase, and we talked about the cost increases all along, so there's not as much money left as we thought. So, this 3.6 comes at right the right time. we put it right into transfer and capital and we can supplement that site work that's going to be at the high school uh the tech
068wing stuff the bids are opening tomorrow I think they'll be right so we'll see what that number is but that number and that number can go up if we're able to beat the deadline on a few more things uh we're still waiting on the elevators that's a problem it's not that we're not trying to spend them we're still waiting on some of the elevator stuff we're still waiting on some of the other things so if we can get that number four up to five I don't know if we get 485, but we'll get about 90% of that back next year, which again, if we put in a transfer to capital, it's not a budget uh it's budget neutral, it doesn't affect our budget negatively at all. And actually, when we spend it, the 3.6 now
069on capital, we'll get aid on that 3.6. So, we end up uh getting that double bonus from it. We won't get that back the next year anymore because it's not a small city uh outlet, but we will get 90% of that 3.6 backish uh over that 15ear cycle. So, it really uh it really is something that is a no-brainer, but that's what we're recommending using the 3.6 time. There's the bad news. There's our draft one. And it's only bad news today. Um, we have things that we're going to talk about. We'll talk about in with this room, not in these rooms. We'll be at building at that time, but in our next meeting, we'll go through some of the ideas we have and some of the next steps that we're talking about. But right now,
070there's our current budget up top 13306785. The revenues from this page um total 139596851. Our expenditures are again that and this draft one assumes all the things those 30 positions that I referenced from the federal money that we're able to get a bonus year out of. Where'd you go? There it is. Um those are still in there in draft one. So all of that is 143716818. Now remember it looks like it's a $10 million increase. It's not because the 3.6 is also in there. It's on both of them. So that 3.6 6 and budget neutral. Uh that last line there because it increased the revenues, it increased the expenditures by the same amount. Uh so again, it doesn't affect the tax levy. It doesn't affect anything other than uh it has to be put in
071there because it's going to be a transfer to capital. The deficit right now um is 4.1 million. Okay, that's a lot. We haven't had a deficit like that in the draft one again in a long time. Um, so we'll have work to do. Um, but we already have some plans to look at it. There's some things that, um, none of the things we're doing aren't impactful, right? And Sabina talked about a lot of them tonight. But when you're looking at a gap like that, you have to really make some priorities. Some of the things maybe and they're great for kids and they're great for our district, but some of them might be a little bit luxurious. We have class sizes that are incredible in this build in this district and in this building. Um, I
072mean, it's great stuff and the board's been supportive of it and we're thankful for that and we talk about it a lot. Uh, but we have class sizes in the 14 15 range and some even lower than that. Right. That's great for kids. It's great for kids, but when you have a $4 million gap, you can't do that, right? So, those kinds of things, things that we wouldn't change. If our number came out for foundation aid and it wasn't 2%, it wasn't 1.2 million, it was 5 million, which some districts got, then we would just be, you know, probably rolling our stuff over and keep going because it's the stuff we're doing is great for kids and families and staff. But if it's going to stay like that, then we'll have some decisions to make.
073We don't have to make them yet because we got we got some work to do. So here are the next steps then. What is that work? We're going to continue to review, analyze, and discuss the current budget, right? Those federal fund positions, which ones, right? Where's the least negative impact? How much reserves do we want to use? Uh every year we have that conversation towards the end of the draft uh the budget process, right? We have reserves. You got to be careful about using too many. Same with the 3.6 million in capital outlay aid. That's onetime revenue. You got to be careful not using too much reserves because you end up with a double hole the following year. Uh because that's not recurring revenues. Uh it can't be you you'll use up all your money.
074It's like you if you have a savings account and you use a savings account to pay your car payment down eventually you have no money left, right? You can't use one-time money to pay recurring expenses. but doesn't mean you can't stop a gap temporarily and use some reserves. So, we'll be using some reserves for sure. And then what tax levy do we want to sign? We've been zero for four years, but uh if we're 2% at 700 plus,000, uh that helps cut into that $4 million. Our advocacy, you heard a little of it tonight with Mr. McDonald. We'll continue that. Uh we have some uh Joelle left, but she's going to help us get that message out. uh she actually works in the Senate and so we're going to get that uh message out and
075hopefully get some traction and turn that deficit. I mean that would be the best part if we get some money from the state to knock some of that stuff out right away. Uh we'll continue to monitor the state process. He talked uh Mr. McC talked about the assembly bill coming out March 13th. The Senate one house bill will be very close to that. Uh so probably not by March 12th, but soon after that we'll know where the two houses stand and then the governor and those two houses try to work something out. But it's really telling once we see the one house bills because we at least know um you know where the gap is and then our vote is May 20th. We'll be ready to roll at that point probably. You see I wrote
076there on draft two it says draft two is scheduled to be presented. My guess right now because those one house bills will come after that that that'll end up not being draft two but just a budget discussion. We'll talk about class size, we'll talk about those federal positions, we'll talk about the reserves, we'll talk about tax levies. We will have a workshop on budget for sure, but it might not be draft two until we get a little more information from the state. >> No, no. I have questions. But um when John was up there, what what was he saying about March 13? Not you, John. >> His his the oneoff bill comes out. His assembly bill will come out, not the budget, assembly budget. So, so the governor puts your executive budget out. That's the
077one we're working with right now. And then both the assembly and the state senate put out their one house budgets in mid-March. come out will be right around that time and then they get and try to figure out which ones they're going to then there's some negotiation between those three groups but it's really informative when we see those because then we at least know >> some idea >> yeah we have we know where the middle >> it was interesting that he talked about the thing >> that's usually last >> we have to move to 11 so we can talk about I I see no >> Well, we'll have enough to talk about 12 and then we'll have the 20 26 where we do we'll do that. >> Anything else? >> Does anybody have any other
078questions? >> I don't I really don't. I think I should say because I said it yesterday to the uh admin team um you know I talked about those positions and things like that. We're I don't know if we can guarantee it can't but we're committed to finding cuts and positions the attrition way like we talked about. Um rather than laying off people. We really are not interested in that at all and we're gonna do everything we can to not do that. So if people are hearing this either in this room or on this camera and we say like we're going to be looking at those positions and looking at cuts, we're going to try really really really hard not to be laying people off but making cuts as people leave further. >> Great. Thank you.
079[Applause] [Music] [Applause] Okay. Motion on the floor for approval of minutes 5, 2025. Second. >> Discussion. All those in favor? >> Opposed. Superintendent recommendation human resources staff matters on classified and classified under a classified motion on the floor for consent agenda items 1 through 10. Second >> under discussion I'd like to welcome a familiar face in our audience back to our school district. Thank you Brian for helping us out everybody. All those in favor >> opposed. Under classified motion on the floor for consent agenda items 1 through 8. >> Second >> discussion. All those in favor? >> Opposed. Under superintendent recommendation programs motion on the floor consent agenda items 1 through six. Second >> discussion. >> All those in favor? >> Opposed? Under superintendent recommendations, business finance motion on the floor for consent agenda items
080one and two. >> Second. >> Discussion. All those in favor? >> Opposed. I really want to thank our families that donate things like a digital keyboard for $2,500. I mean, that's great. Uh you know just it's really nice to see good people like that. Uh under board resolutions employee contracts motion on the floor for consent agenda items one and two. >> Second >> discussion. [Music] I just want to say thank you for being here and everything. Please appreciate We don't take a mute. We have to vote. >> All those in favor? >> Opposed. Now, my meeting was much shorter than everything else that went on tonight. sad. Um, before we do district announcement and everything, Sabina, could I have your staff that's in the audience stand up, introduce themselves to us, tell them and what
081you I don't want a speech. I just tell us who you are. school day tomorrow. [Applause] >> I don't know what that means. Cheers. >> So, if you just get up and tell us what you do for the district. Um, tell us who you are. Push your hair off teacher. >> Oh, I'm Jay McN. I'm a special ed TA and fourth hand. >> I'm Beth Park. I'm a social worker here. I'm Jon. I'm a speech therapist here. Hi, Becker. >> I'm Kristen Young. I am a TA in the library. I'm Michelle. I'm a fifth grade. Kim O'Neal TA. >> Tony Morello, grade one. >> Leah Cassava, second grade teacher. Um, Hannah, fifth grade. And Alison, fourth grade. Lizzy, third grade teacher. >> Eliza Stewart, fifth grade. Desiree Elner, third grade. Catherine Severly, kindergarten teacher. Tracy
082Dler, third grade. Taylor Wy, I'm teaching fourth grade this year. >> My name now, how many of you are Trey Hydra? Raise your hand. >> Okay, come on. [Applause] Thank you everyone. Uh future court meetings all meetings will take place at 6 p.m. March 12th budget discussion TMS March 26 at TMS presentation under good news audience tonight. You did a good job. Uh TMS is hosting a Black History Month assembly for students on Friday. The program starts with a short video put together by our My Brother's Keepers and My Brother My Sister's Keeper programs concludes with a Q&A session with Jack. School 2 hosted their annual Black History Panel discussion yesterday, bringing in black community leaders to share their experiences and answer questions from students. Our student athletes have been very busy. Varsity girls basketball.
083This is so good news. Continues their sectional run after getting a first round win against Amsterdam at home on Monday. Friday night, the girls go on the road to face Columbia. Tip off is scheduled for 7:30. Where is that? >> Columbia. Okay. Uh the varsity boys entered the section 2 tournament as a seat as number three seat. number three seed and they'll host number 11 B Hills Boston Lake on Saturday at Hudson Valley beginning at Columbia. The CBA Troy Columbia varsity swim team finished in second place at sectional championships early this month and Troy's rocker board qualified for the state championships. CBA Troy Columbia enters the meet ran 20th in the state. Congratulations and good luck to all. Three of our winner sports teams were named scholar athlete teams by the New York State Public
084High School Athletic Association. The girls basketball, boys swimming, and the bowling teams all received their designation honoring honoring teams and individuals that excel in the classroom. To be named a scholar athlete team, the average GPA of the top 75% of the roster has must be greater than or equal to 90. So that's quite a [Applause] good news they want to share or anything or should we just stop now? This has been quite a long meeting. They're never coming my next to >> we need to keep him. >> No. Um, if no one else has anything else, anybody from New York was modified by [Music] that she knows anybody over um, thank you to the U to you by yourself over there. >> Did you did everybody left? >> Motion on the floor to adjourn the
085meeting. Thank you everyone. >> Thank you everyone.