001Need a motion come out of executive session All in favor, okay, we're out of executive session superintendent. Are you? recommending your Superintendent's report It's my understanding that the superintendent's report will be without S87 is not being offered at this time Also s 85 is not being offered at this time And my understanding is that we are pulling S83 to be offered individually my understanding is that there are pages 23 24 25 and 26 27 Let me just make sure that's the last page yes Are being offered as add-ons Does everybody have a copy on that add-on right? Okay so based on pulling S83 not offering s 85 and 87 and adding pages 23 through 27 can I have a motion to would you recommend that report? Okay, I need a motion to Approve the superintendent's
002report Okay all in favor opposed motion carries I need an I need a motion to adopt s83 page six Okay all in favor abstentions okay motion carries I believe that is the that portion of the agenda related to the superintendent's report and now we are up to continuing business Continuing business, I have a question. Can we get an update on the busing? Last presentation we had questions about the busing and the possibilities of it being rerouted by Columbus. So the buses have been rerouted. They come out of Proctor. They come out of the Armory Drive and go left. So I think we have a policeman now sits there and barricades that side off. If there's other buses from, I'm just saying another area, that come up Armory, I'm sorry, Hilton. Do you know what I'm
003saying? If they're coming from another, so most of the, mostly all, no, all the buses, from what I understand, because they come out of the Arcuri entrance, go left when they come out. They're not going right. The buses that you're, so the bus. Excuse me? Is that now? Yeah. The recent change? A couple weeks or two ago. The buses that you see that are coming across are most of the buses that had to get to Columbus for dismissal that are coming across. That are coming down Armory. So the ones that are coming down Armory are just going to Columbus. Yeah, so they have a, I'll talk to Ms. Palladino tomorrow, but they, and Mr. Jelanek. They have the barricades set up for when the buses come out of the Arcuri area, they go left. The
004buses that are coming or maybe going through Armory by Columbus are probably the Columbus buses. They're probably going because they're coming around back. Okay, so looking at it going down Arthur was not so the problem is and I'm gonna be honest with you It's the same problem if you send them down Arthur then you send them down It's it's the same bottleneck because we have all these cars coming up from Parent pickup they're all coming into the same channel And I get it, but it's it's it's hard to govern when you don't have any authority in the road for So the problem is all the cars there are picking up Columbus. So the buses are not supposed to be from, I'm going to triple check tomorrow, but I know I've talked to Ms. Paldino and
005Mr. Jelani a couple times in the last couple weeks. No buses out of Proctor should be going right coming out of the I carry entrance. They should be going left I just I just the times within the past couple weeks. That's fine, but I know My wife counted 23 buses in four minutes Those buses are not going right. So, like I said, the last two weeks, I understand. Right, so we did adjust some of that, 100%. Yeah, so since the last meeting, we went over and looked. Some of the buses were going this way, some of the buses were going that way. And they had directives to go left, but they were still going right. So now we station, there's a cop there and some barricades on this missile or security guard. So you shouldn't
006see any buses going that way. If you do see one, they're probably trying to get to Columbus to get around the backside. Okay. Anybody else have any? Thank you. You're welcome. Any other business? For continuing? Yeah. Okay. Is there any new business? Yeah. Okay. So for new business, can we get the number of TAs that were down in special ed? Do you know how many TAs were down in special ed right now? I think we provide that every Friday. Yeah, I provide that to vacancy. I'll provide that again this Friday. Okay. So what I would like to propose. Pardon, that's Friday, Sunday. Sunday, yes, because you will be away if we can have that. What I would like to propose, I would like to make a motion to have the administration investigate raising the pay
007for our TAs for special ed up to $25 an hour. It's what the North Syracuse School District has done, and they are fully staffed. So I would like to make a motion to have the administration look into this, to investigate this, and to present the results to us at the next board meeting. I don't know. Are we directing the district administration or the superintendent to raise the pay to $25? No, I'm asking with a motion that I clearly just asked was for them to investigate the cost increase from going to $25 an hour for their special ed TAs in northern Syracuse, how successful that was. They are fully staffed. so i'd like to have a report back to the board of what that would mean for us what that would look like and how that
008district went ahead and accomplished it and what other districts are doing as well so basically what you're doing is you're making a motion to direct the the administration superintendent whoever you want to say to call that district and ask them how they did it no i think that the motion has as laid out well no i'm asking the question i know i'm clarifying I believe, and Mrs. Newk can correct me if I'm wrong, it was to have a report for the board investigating the consequences for this district if the pay were to be increased, both a cost analysis and what they think the effects of that would be. I think that's... motion also the motion was made and seconded so we are now in discussion of yes we are in motion we are in discussion
009yeah if I can just offer this I think that the I just like consideration for the tasks that the administration has to carry out in a daily operation to the district. I need time to speak with my team, considering that the business office is a little light right now, to see if that's feasible and sufficient enough time as for them to conduct that level of work. And if the next board meeting will be enough time, because we have some attrition that I'm going to have to consider on their behalf. So you're only talking about raising the pay of... the special special ed tas to 25 leaving the other tas at a different level correct so my question is is that something that can be done when you're so yeah but i guess the question i
010would ask to clarify Is the TAS currently on staff or if we are fully staffed? We're not fully staffed so the number would be how many were down. True, but I mean I heard the word consequences. I'd probably rather if it was a formal motion talk about the impact. Well, but we have to project that we're going to be fully staffed. So to give you one figure, if we're down to 20 or 25, that's a significant difference if we did get fully staffed. If you're going to do that, you have to be, you have to understand that it's got to be at full capacity. You have to have the capacity to reach that payroll implication. Okay, I would like to... What if we offer I'd like to offer an amendment to the motion of broadening
011the scope of just saying the impacts of raising TA pay both for the cost and what the administration believes that the hiring and retention benefits would be and also a study of whether or not those types of positions can be split as when it comes to titles. And I understand the staffing concerns. I would offer the amendment that it be by December's meeting at the latest. I would prefer earlier. The motion's not, the language of that motion's not a blanket grant of taking two months. I think it... We would appreciate it earlier, but in order for them to not be able to be automatically in violation of a motion of the board giving December, that way they can update us on November how long this is taking. If it's going to take longer, we can
012amend the motion from there. Does that make sense? I just, do you need a second for that? It was offered as a friendly amendment, so Mrs. Duke who made the motion would have to accept that as a friendly amendment. Because I just want to kind of, again, Charles isn't here and I'm not trying to act as though. My concern would be in making all of the information and the analysis and everything else in a motion and a report. It becomes public record, which becomes not only foilable, but it also becomes, you know, something that can be used. used in in You know contract negotiations, right? Well, and so my point is I while I understand while I understand the intention and I understand the You know the curiosity. I'm not sure that It's the right
013vehicle and that's just my personal view on it. I agree that something has to be done about trying to increase the number of people that are performing in that position, but I don't think that the vehicle that we're choosing to do it in is the right one, and that's why I was asking the questions when I first started. But again, that's just my position on it, so we can, you know, if anyone else has any thoughts, Feel free to weigh in. I just want to, just for the record, state that we're prepared to engage in contract negotiations with several collective bargaining units. And there's a process for discussing wages and discussing benefits and things like that. And so I just caution that if we do this this way, we may be, this may set a
014precedent. Well, it's part of the analysis, right? When we're doing that work, yes, we're doing market analysis. What I'm saying is as part of the analysis, you know, it might be that it's going to increase a cost or whatever it happens to be, which might impact the, for example, the employment levels of various positions in the district. Right. So that will have to be part of the analysis. And I'm assuming that, you know, that's a pretty high-level analysis to try to figure out how you're going to move all the parts and what we're going to give up and what we're going to gain and all the other things. So, you know, I think that that's a pretty tall task is all I'm suggesting. Again, I think it's very important that we, you know, become fully
015staffed. There's a lot more moving parts to this than just the simplistic. Okay Let's just pay everybody $25 and hope that we're gonna be able to come up with that plan and we need to know what the impacts gonna be So, you know, we thought it was a great idea when we changed the you know when we changed the The hours right to 37 or whatever it was to 35 hours a week And that created problems not only for some of the staff, but it's created issues for us. And it was well-intended and good-hearted and, you know, met with some, you know. Pleasure with with the people that we conferred it on and now we're sitting here and looking at it now and we're saying boy It's really kind of hamstring a lot of things.
016So that's all I'm suggesting before we go down that road. Yeah, I agree I'm not philosophically against it. I agree with the fact that we need to figure out what the impact is. That's why the motions made and have that study done. From a philosophical point, this member regrets the fact that they feel the need that motions become necessary, but that is, I think, the state of things. Okay. I guess what I would say is I don't think it's necessary from my perspective, but if you want to do a motion... Well, then I want to be clear about something. When you say it's not necessary... The motion not being necessary or the study? The motion. Okay, so we have three people who, three members here, who believe that a study should happen. Two who made
017the motion. Joe just said he agrees with the fact that a study should happen, not necessarily in the fact of a motion. So there's three. So if a motion's truly not necessary, then I'd just ask for a commitment to do it. I would say just talking about contract negotiations and things like that, I would say I wouldn't necessarily, like, A, if you want to say, hey, could you call up North Syracuse and find out exactly how they did whatever and, you know, what was the impact and how did it work and all that, that's one thing. I think anecdotally that would be a good idea. Just talking about a global contract negotiations with all of the different places that we have to negotiate contracts with I'm not sure setting a number is the right a
018solid number is the right thing do I think we need to do something to improve our our recruitment besides you know I agree with that. I believe, unless I did misspeak, when I offered the amendment, I just said wage increase, not the set amount of $25,000 anymore. Well, I don't know. I didn't miss that. No, I'm just saying that I agree with you. We're in agreement. I agree with you on the facts there. So, I'm not sure. I mean, you know, I think we have to look at how we can solve the problem with the thorny 35-hour... a weak issue that we have and you know the perception that you know the job isn't a well-paying job or different jobs aren't well-paying jobs and our and the lack of available people to do those jobs
019so something has to get but we need to do we need to look into it agreed so we could at least get a commitment for someone to find out how they did it in Syracuse, what brought them to the number they were brought to, you know, and then, like, come up with a point. Because it's not just... Going to be all we're raising the wages we may end up in a situation where we have to we may have to do some different things to cover it. Yeah, and we're talking about a statewide issue one that's not unique to Utica and an issue so deep that the state is even reconsidering how they qualify people to be TAs because they recognize that their scarcity in the marketplace and when we're looking across, you know, we really
020look for the region to make sure that we are appropriately conducting the analysis because some of these things get a little bit more complicated. For example, you can say we're going to increase wages here, but it may be we're also extending the school day in exchange for that. There's so many different things that go into these negotiations. So the process itself is designed for us to conduct a market analysis to make sure that we're providing a competitive wage based on market conditions for the region and to make sure that we have a contract that is one favorable to the prospective employee but also sustainable for the long-term health of the organization. And so that's really the balance that we try to find when we're doing these negotiations and we're looking at the market because we
021recognize we got to be a little bit more competitive in areas. So I think your suggestion of maybe anecdotally calling around, Mr. Langone, if you would call to get some insight as to what prompted that action, you know, what was the result of that action, that would also help give us some insight as maybe as a starting point. But to be clear, when we conduct this, it is a full market analysis. The market sets the wages, and that's what we're looking at. So what are we doing with that motion? Moving forward, I'll call the question. Yeah, I'm going to move it forward. Okay. Are you offering it with the amendment? Yes. No, with the amendment. So you want a report? Yes. Okay. I think we probably should go roll call on this. Yeah. Mr. Havlika?
022When it comes to the report, I'm going to say no. Mrs. Padula? No. Mr. Dawes? No. Mrs. Newt? Yes. Mr. Paul? No. Mr. Cooper? No. Mr. Nana? Yes. Okay. It fails. Sorry. But can we have a commitment that the issue will be looked into and information being provided? As requested. Yes, I'm directing the human resources staff to look into that issue and provide the response to me so I can review it. With the market, which would be a market analysis and the anecdotal information from Syracuse. North Syracuse. North Syracuse. Yes. Okay. Thank you. So that's the commitment. We have it on the record. Very good. Can they also get for the next meeting can the board get a readout of how many teachers are set to retire in the next five years? Can we look
023at that? Yes, yep. Yes next question I have is So the next question I have is regarding our AIS and our math facilitator books we still do not have Equal amounts of books that were shared we still have schools and teachers that are still missing their AIS books their your equal your their your equal squared Do we know why we're about to go into November? This is about to be the eighth week of school and how do these instructors not have this for our students? Mr. Felch, you please provide update if you have one now, I'll have to look into that to get the specifics What are those books exactly? Can we have that sent to the board as soon as we find out? Yes. Thank you. What are those books? It's part of the
024new math series that was purchased for the district. How long ago were they purchased? During the summer. So when did they arrive? I have to get that information to you. Okay. They weren't on the front steps over here with the musical instruments, were they? Maybe. Maybe, maybe. All right, that's all I have for tonight. Okay. Does anyone else have any new business? I actually, hold on, I do. It's okay, take your time. Thank you. I'm fine. I do have one more thing that I just wanted to cover. So, Mr. Langone, I'm hoping that you can kind of help out on this one. So, Ms. Padula requested a look at the number of applicants that we've received. Also a look at the applicants that we hired regarding the amount that we received. We also have a
025list of open positions right now and people to fill that need. So one of the questions I had on here is we have school guidance counselors. We had nine applicants. We hired only three and we're still missing one at Donovan. So I'm going to offer someone today. That's the one we talked about. I won't have an answer for 48 hours. Okay. School nurses for the RNs. We had eight applications. So eight applications. We only hired four and we're still short nurses, especially one for Columbus. Yes. We're short, yes, we're short several nurses, both higher ends and LPNs, and we have interviewed a number of them. You had one on the report, I think, tonight. That's the only one who's accepted a job. I don't think we've turned anybody away. So even though they apply, it
026doesn't necessarily mean they've gone forward with the process or et cetera. And then anyone that's qualified, because there still is a process of looking at reference checks. We are not just looking for, we've got to make sure they're going to be a good fit for the organization as we're bringing people in. So there's that part of the process, too, as we're looking to onboard. We have ESOL. We have seven that applied. We only hired two. We needed one at Kernan, one at Albany, one for the district, and one at Proctor. Same thing for our mathematics teacher. Six applied. We only hired one. We need one at Proctor, two at Donovan, one at JFK. How do we know that? Just out of curiosity. It came in the readout that Ms. Padula requested, so we have it
027all right here, that this is what was sent to us. We need special education teachers, 11 applied. We have earth science teacher, three applied. We hired zero. We need one at Proctor. Technology teacher, five people applied. We hired one. We still need one at JFK and Donovan. School psychologists to apply we only hired one and we have two districts in need also of a school psychologist and again those teaching assistants numbers We've got 17 here that applied we only hired seven Yeah, this is yesterday then we've probably not interviewed them. But oftentimes when we call people for interviews, they're on to someplace else. But honestly, I'm not saying that's the case. So are we taking too long to contact these people when they're fine? How soon I guess I know that Mr. Salini, but it
028collects education starts to sell the interview process some of those I'm in with him some of those I am not And he continues he's out and I'm going interview stream today He spent that MVCC trying to recruit teacher assistants. So I'm not sure if you got anybody to buy We're bringing people to you as quickly as we can fetch them. They are certified in the system. I'm not sure if all those people are certified. I mean, so did I hear tonight that the board has an appetite to approve non-certified instructors? That's not the message that I have received so far from work from here. Because I did hear that, I thought earlier, that people are hiring people that are not certified. So we're just bringing in people that are certified. Well, I was told, I
029believe the board was told, that we couldn't hire certain non-certified people. Yeah, 100%, yeah. Because I... State certainly... Yeah. I'm assuming when they're applying for earth science teacher, school psychologist, I'm assuming all of these people are certified. How else would they apply? No, that's not the case. So we have people applying for teaching positions on here that aren't even certified teachers? Yes, in multiple positions. Okay. And sometimes they're certified in other states. Yeah. The one we, I had described. I'm not saying that's the case with all of those, but we certainly... I think we had a little situation like that earlier in the year, right? Where somebody didn't have their certification. Right? And sometimes you can, like, you can... Isn't there something where, like, you're provisional or you're pending or there's some... oftentimes are pending.
030And sometimes it goes through and sometimes we've been tracking a couple of individuals. But it's okay for them to be pending if they're working here, correct? No. They're not certified. Because you don't know what's making them pending. They could have a number of things deficient. Okay, I just was wondering because I think that's when Dr. Davis came in and she was like... No, no, no uncertified teachers. You can't. You're out of compliance with the state. Right. You need to have a provision certificate. That happened. And we can't have it again. I didn't know it could happen, but I got it. I didn't know it could happen, so. Well, it did happen. I've never worked in a place where that did happen. Yeah. You bring them in as substitutes? And, you know, if there's things that
031are pending or they need support on, we can give them support. We can work with the BOCES certification office to help head them through. In fact, the dispenser can make the call, and they'll call on his behalf for an emergency review. And through that review, they will determine whether or not they're certified. So there's things we can do to help out, but oftentimes they're looking for a job. And they may be short on some things. and i have that lead you would lead me into my very last question for the evening which is at the policy meeting that we had this month one of the policies that we discussed was for our long-term subs and how we left it at that policy meeting was you guys were to present something to us this meeting that
032was amending it we have to uh review we have the document we have not reviewed it internally yet Do you know when? Can we expect that in the November meeting? We can expect that November meeting. The administration just hasn't had the time to sit together and do that yet. But the document's produced. Thank you. Just to piggyback off of that for one second, I believe that the grant given by the policy committee was for the administration to develop a policy and present it at this meeting. Since it's not ready for this meeting... The policy I'm going to speak for the policy committee and correct me if I'm wrong The policy committee expects it at the next policy committee meeting since that will be before the next board meeting done Okay, is there any other questions
033communications and new business we're the whole business okay I need a motion motion to adjourn all in favor