Wantagh Board of Education Business Meeting - June 17, 2021 @ 8:00 PM

001foreign from [Music] um good evening everyone and those online we're just getting set up here apologies for uh those online um yep just we're just waiting for the board members to uh log in we had uh to start the meeting outside evening for some everyone and those online ceremonies that were just getting set up here apologies continuing the meeting uh those online the auditorium here right now we're just waiting for the board members to uh log in everything to start the meeting outside good evening for some everyone and those online ceremonies that were just getting set up here apologies continuing the meeting uh those online in the auditorium here right now we're just waiting for the board members to log in everything we had uh to start the meeting outside evening for some everyone and

002those online ceremonies that were just getting set up here apologies continuing the meeting uh those online in the auditorium here right now we're just waiting for the board members to uh log in everything we had to start the meeting outside good evening for some everyone and those online ceremonies that were just getting set up here apologies continuing the meeting uh those online the auditorium here right now we're just waiting for the board members to uh log in everything we had uh to start the meeting outside good evening for some everyone and those online ceremonies that were just getting set up here apologies continuing the meeting uh those online the auditorium here right now we're just waiting for the board members to uh log in everything we had uh to start the meeting outside good evening

003for some everyone and those online ceremonies that we're just getting set up here apologies continuing the meeting uh those online in the auditorium here right now we're just waiting for the board members to uh log in everything we had uh to start the meeting outside good evening for some everyone and those online ceremonies that were just getting set up here apology continuing the meeting uh those online in the auditorium here right now we're just waiting for the board members to uh log in everything we had to start the meeting outside good evening for some everyone and those online ceremonies that were just getting set up here apology continuing the meeting uh those online in the auditorium here right now we're just waiting for the board members to uh log in everything we had uh i

004can start the meeting outside good evening for some everyone and those online ceremonies that we're just getting set up here apology continuing the meeting uh those online the auditorium here right now future we're just waiting for the board members to log in everything we had to start the meeting outside good evening for some everyone and those online ceremonies that we're just getting set up here apologies continuing the meeting uh those online in the auditorium here right now we're just waiting for the board members to uh log in everything we had to start the meeting outside good evening for some everyone and those online ceremonies that we're just getting set up here apologies continuing the meeting uh those online the auditorium here right now future we're just waiting for the board members to uh log in

005everything we had uh to start the meeting outside good evening for some everyone and those online ceremonies that we're just getting set up here apologies continuing the meeting uh those online in the auditorium here right now we're just waiting for the board members to uh log in everything we had uh i can start the meeting outside good evening for some everyone and those online ceremonies that we're just getting set up here apologies continuing the meeting uh those online the auditorium here right now we're just waiting for the board members to log in everything we had uh i can start the meeting outside good evening for some everyone and those online ceremonies that were just getting set up here apologies continuing the meeting uh those online the auditorium here right now we're just waiting for the

006board members to uh log in everything we had uh i can start the meeting outside good evening for some everyone and those online ceremonies that we're just getting set up here apologies continuing the meeting uh those online the auditorium here right now we're just waiting for the board members to uh log in everything we had uh i can start the meeting outside good evening for some everyone and those online ceremonies that we're just getting set up here apologies continuing the meeting uh those online the auditorium here right now we're just waiting for the board members good evening everyone i believe the audio is now fixed if anyone uh does hear the repeating again please let us know we did open the meeting and call to order outside for those who have just joined we had

007some student recognition ceremonies outside last night to start the meeting that's why we've now moved in here and it's starting in the indoor portion a little bit late before we begin we will be doing uh salutes of the flag and a moment of silence for the grandmother of laurie gottlieb mother of jennifer sherman and grandmother of joan ross 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 item d approval of minutes item e acknowledgement and acceptance of financial reports and budget transfers as printed do i have a motion second all in favor item f communications to the board of education were received from all of those persons listed item g i

008will now ask superintendent mcnamara to present the superintendent's report good evening everyone thank you mr fischer thank you for joining us tonight uh going to start certainly with our good news tonight i want to thank our entire community for their support of our school district budget our budget was up for a re-vote on tuesday after failing the first time and we're thrilled that our budget passed over 70 percent of our community members approved our budget and we are certainly excited about the programs we'll be able to bring our students uh for uh for september so uh thank you for all those that came out and participated it was certainly a lengthy process this year for uh for us uh you know starting really the the community work back in march uh and uh i appreciate

009all that all those that participated we had really outstanding participation in our forums and our focus groups uh in our survey work uh and uh and even just direct communication with all of us from uh various community members and that certainly that that feedback that i know that the board received throughout the process was was instrumental in really helping to drive some of the decision making in the in the budget process uh you know we uh we began this work uh in in march really sharing uh our our budget story and where we were and some of the work that we needed to do uh and and just once again thank you to our entire community for supporting all of those efforts we have two reports for tonight that uh that i'm gonna share with

010the board before i uh kind of wrap up with just some of the the good news that we just shared outside as well um we're going to start one of the the items that i wanted to address tonight was some of the federal funding that that the the district is going to be receiving we um we were fortunate after initially not receiving any federal funding under what's called the american recovery plan uh we ultimately received some dollars from the federal government uh so we are in the process of working with the board to develop a plan uh to use some of those those dollars so myself in combination with dr ferris we'll share some of that information tonight he's been really working on the instructional side of that uh to to provide some support for

011our students the goal of this money is it was about 9 million dollars in funding that that new york state uh is receiving from the federal government to support schools uh and it's all about safe safe reopening of schools supporting students that uh that maybe uh have some learning loss as a result of of the pandemic social emotional needs all of those things so we have um a portion of that is about 700 thousand dollars and a grant a learning loss grant that we're getting from new york state we have three years to expend those funds and they're really for items that are targeted at learning loss they're they're really intended for items that are not going to be long-term expenditures as i said has have to be expended within the next three years um

012this is the allocation that our district received um there's three parts to it or three different buckets that the dollars that we're receiving fall into one is uh summer enrichment work that we can provide for our students uh and that was a hundred thousand dollar grant uh that uh that we'll share some of the uh the things that we'll be looking at in terms of that another portion of it is before and after school enrichment that we can provide for our students so that was also about a hundred thousand dollar grant and then there was a more general learning loss grant that is about just shy of 500 000 that the district is looking at for to support some of our technology initiatives to address learning loss is an overview of uh our summer enrichment

013portion uh there are four different uh items that we're really taking a look at uh the part of a proposal uh that dr ferris will speak to a little bit in terms of each level so at the high school we were looking at the algebra course and the earth science course we had some students who struggled with that course during the school year mostly due to the learning loss that took place during covid so we wanted to provide algebra and earth science course opportunities those are six week courses that students can take to get credit for the earth science and the algebra regions courses at the middle school we are offering courses in english social studies science math and world language for any students who failed or didn't do well in those courses they could

014take a four-week course they're not focused on recapturing the entire course in the middle school it's more about building skills and making sure that whatever skills were not garnered during the school year we target for those specific students and help them to make sure they have a successful year the following year when they get back to middle school and then at the elementary school we have reading and math enrichment for any students is going to be offered to who are interested in coming to the elementary schools over the summer for a four-week period about 45 minutes of reading and 45 minutes of math just to and teachers there would have their um their scores from the year and work with students on wherever they're at to help improve their skill sets moving into the the

015the following year and the final program it's part of this is something we're going to call the middle school head start program the elementary 5th grade teachers would identify students that they would feel would benefit from a couple of days of extra support prior to the start of middle school students in that group would be invited in to meet with teachers get comfortable in the building learn how to open their lockers follow their schedules this is prior to all the other students coming work on some basic units just to get comfortable in middle school so that when middle school did start those kids would have a leg up uh and and be able to kind of keep pace with the students that they were joining so it's just for a program for any students that

016the elementary fifth grade teachers felt needed a little extra head start prior to starting middle school so i think these four programs will really kind of help any kids get a leg up as a result of for some of them a pretty rough year great thank you dr ferris and then also one of the other areas that we'll take a look at is just some before and after school program opportunities we really focused on some before school programs that we like to offer starting in the fall by having students come in early for reading support certainly an area of continued uh concern that we want to support our students in and that's really focused on our elementary learners and our middle school learners so let dr ferris speak to that a little bit yes and

017one of the things that we were noticing is that um some of our students who struggle in reading also have other service needs such as speech or resource room and when you have those services in elementary school and middle school it's great because they get the support they need but then they miss some of the courses or they miss time in the classroom because they're out in those other subjects so the idea here would be to offer some reading services in the morning before school that way students could get their reading services and also participate in the regular programs without missing any electives or any other opportunities for them in the elementary middle school and then the last portion of the grant this is the largest is really really going to focus on district technology

018we through the budget process pulled back on some of our our technology initiatives uh this would be chrome student chromebooks this would be uh panels for our classrooms our smart boards uh that need to be replaced that would just help with our connectivity in our classrooms so that's a biggest portion here that would uh that we'd like to propose as well to really help bolster our technology initiatives so that's a summary of uh of the learning loss uh this is our timeline for the board a discussion tonight uh then we're going to post this for public comment on starting tomorrow and then look to adopt the final plan by by july 1st and then as we move forward we can continue to amend that plan as needed and uh and you know as we get

019feedback from the state education department about our plan i'll just pause there and take any questions from the board about the uh the pre-funding or any of the proposals thank you uh one clarification um the funding is you mentioned it earlier though is in the form of a grant meaning there are specific requirements and uh only limited uses for which we can use this mic can you just walk through just a little bit more detailed about what those requirements are jordan yeah a lot of the highlight in the first slide there of some of the specific items that we can use that funding for uh really those first two buckets really for summer work with students and for before and after school work really extended school day type work so that's really why we we

020structured that in the way that we did the other bucket is is a little bit more open-ended in that we can incorporate technology into that as well and that is certainly an area that's expanded greatly for us you know through the use of student devices so so that that's the other area that we decided to focus in on we can also use that to address other supports too reading or math supports as well part of that that larger grant so we're going to be working with sed to see what will be allowable in there um but you know and we'll get some feedback we've already submitted the initial work the assurances that that we want to accept this grant we provided that to scd and then we're waiting for the next portion of their process

021which would be to start to get some feedback on our plan that we'll submit to them and and it's limited use so just i think to your point uh mr fischer is really that we can't use it to offset things uh you know ongoing and incurring expenses uh in our budget uh we wouldn't that's something that we can't use this funding for uh you know to supplant that so and that's if you're going to do that in any way you have to show what your revenue sources would be beyond the three years of the grant and that's something you'd have to provide to sed as part of this process so that's why we were very careful in picking out these pieces of funding that wouldn't be ongoing expenses these programs that we're proposing would be

022short-term programs to address loss learning loss and the technology expenses one-time expenses can i ask as far as the before and after pro after school programs and the summer programs uh for students is it for any student whose parents feel that they need this type of program or will teachers need to recommend certain students for these programs to reach for certain qualifications yeah good question so i'll let dr faris answer that's really a combination of the two in some areas we're targeting certain students that struggled uh in particular areas and others it's more open-ended so i'll let dr ferris address that sure so for the high school courses it's for students who failed the algebra regents class or the earth science regions class for the middle school it's also for students who failed those courses

023so those would be targeted students who were needing those credits to kind of move on to the next grade level or to get credit for the regents high school regions um in the elementary schools it's going to be we're going to send out a survey to parents with some dates and times and basically it's going to be open to the first come first serve and we'll see how many people are interested and we're hoping to be able to accommodate anyone in the elementary schools who wants to have additional reading enrichment or math enrichment the head start program at the middle school is going to be pre-selected students students that teachers are you know for or could fall into a criteria of kids we would worry about and want to just make sure they get a

024leg up before they start any of the questions we have any additional questions all right thank you and then the other report uh that i'd like to present with to you tonight is our special education presentation i've invited uh jeanne love who's our director of special education services in the district and uh and she's gonna share uh really an update on on some of our programs some of our initiatives in that area uh this was uh one that we've we've put on hold i've invited jeanne going back a few months but as uh you know the budget process unfolded we've kind of held this update to the board this is really just more of a general update on on some of the new exciting initiatives that we've had and some of the real successful work

025that's been done over the the past several years uh you know i certainly want to thank jeannie for our leadership of that department and the way that we've really been able to grow some really exciting programs uh focusing on uh keeping students uh in in wanton here in wanton not having to send them out for support services historically going back you know five six seven years we did not have a full complement of of special education services that we could offer for students and as a result there were a number of students that we would send out for for different supports that we just could not provide here so we really revamped program in recent years to accommodate that so i invited do you live here tonight just to speak to some of those programs

026i'll turn over to her so thank you so much tonight we have an update for you regarding some of our new programs as you will see our belief is that no one cares more for our students or can provide them with a better education than we can here at wonton before we start the presentation i'd like to take a minute to thank our devoted teachers therapists and psychologists for working with media is that no one cares more for our students new endeavor or can provide them with a better education than not if that we can hear it without our wonderful before we start the presentation i'd like to take comments through these efforts we've made school a wonderful experience for more and more of our students i would be remiss if i did not mention

027dr melissa bennett who is our district cpsc chairperson and has been with me all along the way on this journey and who on many nights has put up with me and my ideas as late as 3 a.m mainly because she too is up at that hour thinking and dreaming about all of the things that we could do for our students we will continue this work to include as many children as we can in in-district programs and continue to improve our current programs too as we move forward into the next school year we hope you enjoy our presentation conversations between myself septa our pps staff administration and parents what was clear to me was that of all the wishes and dreams expressed conversation by everyone involved between there's more for or can educate our students what

028was clear to me was that all the wishes and dreams expressed conversations by everyone what i'd like to do tonight is just introduce you to some of our new programs and give you some information educate foreign before i do that i just want to say thank you before i that foreign oh is oh foreign [Music] special [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] as well as our socialization and collaborations as well as our socialization collaboration so okay uh thank you any questions from the board for uh for miss love so as as we're talking right here i just want to make sure can those online hear us speaking at this point okay thank you uh so we do know there was just some technical difficulty connecting the presentation audio a link was provided in here uh you

029know will we be able to post that on the website as well we so we'll post that on the website for everyone to be able to view the entirety of the presentation do any of the board members have questions so is the team program will that be new for next year or yes so that ran last year it did okay and uh it was wonderful kovit limited us a little bit on what we could do this year but it's absolutely going to continue for next year that's great i think that's a fantastic idea and i love that you worked with septa to collaborate on that and to do something like you said more than just you know a buddy program but that's something that was more natural and organic yeah so when i first started

030and i met with septa i had asked them what are the things that you would love to see happen and this was something that everyone really agreed upon and felt strongly about and thought it's not for a lack of of kindness of you know as far as the the students go it's just a matter of what opportunities can we get kids together where students are comfortable interacting and making real friendships that when they see each other outside of school or outside of our groups that we have though they really will be friends and have those relationships moving forward and again it's it's just been a wonderful venture and i really give so much credit to the staff at the high school for being creative and really working so hard to make it valuable and genuine

031for kids i think they really enjoyed it so that's great thank you there any other questions from the board this time for those online just so you're aware if you do have any questions there will be some time at the end of the meeting tonight if you do have any questions on the special education presentation as well you could ask those thank you that's uh that's it for me the last just last portion is just uh once again thank the community for supporting our budget we're really looking forward to all of our n year events we've had several celebrations this week they've been fantastic all of our elementary moving up ceremonies our middle school moving up and we're looking forward to our our high school graduation tomorrow evening i thank all the building leadership uh

032teams that have put together really some some nice outdoor events for our community and we look forward to celebrating with our high school seniors tomorrow thank you before proceeding uh just some things are out of order just a little bit since we're outside to start i just wanted to provide some general information particularly for those who haven't attended meetings in the past meetings of the board of education are conducted for the purpose of carrying on the business of the schools and therefore are not public meetings but meetings held in public following the agenda which we will go to next there will be time permitted for public comment please note that tonight's board of education business meeting is being viewed live online and recorded as we have attendees both in the auditorium and online we will

033be responding to questions and comments from both we'll do our best to alternate between each format in order to address all community comments and questions accordingly we ask attendees to please limit their questions or comments to three minutes or less in order to help us respond to everyone for board policy persons wishing to address the board shall state their name town of residence and name of organization if any any group or organization wishing to address the board must identify a single spokesperson we respectfully request that all speakers conduct themselves in a civil manner obscene language libelous statements threats of violence statements advocating racial religious or other forms of prejudice will not be tolerated the board will not permit in public session discussion involving individual district personnel or students persons wishing to discuss matters involving individual

034district personnel or students should address their comments and or concerns to the superintendent during regular business hours speakers may address their remarks to the board of education president may also direct questions or comments to board members or other district officials upon approval of the president board members and the superintendent also have the privilege of asking questions of any person who addresses the board additionally for those in attendance in the auditorium as we're still under state restrictions with respect to covid we respectfully request that you follow all coveted guidelines thank you moving on with the agenda item h h1 personnel actions h1a resignations h1b appointment to special assignment h1c preferred eligibility list h1d probationary appointments from preferred eligibility list h1e probationary teaching appointment h1f appointments to part-time teaching position h1d change in titles and h1h appointment

035of summer personnel do i have a motion second all in favor h1i rescission of club extracurricular appointments h1j appointment to club extracurricular activities h1k appointment of substitute teachers h1l rescission of substitute teacher appointment h1m revision of effective date h1n testing and iep coordinators and h1o amendment to substitute pay do i have a motion second all in favor h2 personal action civil service retirements letters of resignation for the purpose of retirement have been received from members of our staff we wish miss sereni and ms sierra health and happiness in their retirement and thanked them for their many years of dedicated service to our school district and our children h2b resignation h2c revision of appointment h2d appointments h2e change in status and h2f appointment of non-instructional substitute do i have a motion to our retirees h3 contractual

036and other authorizations h3a facilities use agreement h3b facilities use agreement h3c health service agreement h3d special education tuition agreements h3e special education tuition agreements and h3f related service agreement do i have a motion second all in favor h3g licensed security guard services h3h fire alarm services h3i agreement from guercio and garcia llp h3j omni group service agreement renewal h3k extension contract for summer food service management and h3l extra classroom activity charter do i have a motion second all in favor all right h3m want a seaford track center h3n donation the wanted that the board of education approve a donation of two thousand dollars from the wanta elementary pta and the fifth grade class of 2020 for the middle school courtyard project h3o funding of reserves 2020 2021 h3p use of funds from retirement reserve h3q

037disposal of obsolete equipment do i have a motion second second all in favor aye thank you to the wanta elementary pta and the fifth grade class for your generous donations h3r cenco bid h3s transportation agreement summer 2021 h3t driver education in-car instruction program summer program h3u textbook and h3v destruction of ballots do i have a motion second all in favor aye aye we do not have any unfinished business j new business j1 approval of committees in special education and preschool special education recommendations do i have a motion second all in favor do i have a motion to adjourn to executive session mr president i'd like to make a motion to return to executive session to discuss safety and security and the employment history of specific personnel do i have a second senator all in favor

038thank you all very much mr fisher i just wanted to note we recognized our retirees outside earlier and i know some folks are online watching they just wanted to note that maria sierra is one of our teacher aides she's retiring and we just accepted that we had an opportunity to recognize our family and i just want to congratulate maria for those that are at home right now listening maria does has done an outstanding job for us at the high school for the past 21 years just dedicated as services special education aide providing great support for our students so i just want to congratulate her and then also linda rinney who couldn't join us this evening as an occupational therapist and as once again dedicated service for the past 15 years to the district we wish

039her uh well in her retirement as she moves on so i just wanted to recognize both those individuals for those that are at home tonight as well thank you very much mr mcnair um i'm not sure i don't believe we have our geo representatives online with us no okay all right so that concludes the agenda portion of our meeting we will now move to the public comment portion um as i mentioned earlier we'll try to alternate between those present and those online with any questions if you do have any questions you can come up and speak at the microphones i think that one's probably the best one to speak into tonight um and if you could please as i mentioned state your name in your town of residence or organization that would be much appreciated

040uh dr farris do you want to start with one of the online questions sure but as i do it's perfectly fine for whoever would like to speak to get up to line up for the mic over here i'll read the first question online um it says good evening this is from trisha stasi when can we expect wanta to address parent option for masks as many other districts have we have asked along with many others and have not received a response so i think she's basically asking why we're not allowing mass to be optional so um mr uh you know of course we're nearing the very end of the school year this year uh we have just a few days left um looking forward to the beginning of next year uh i think you know we

041would certainly hope that the governor would allow for more local decision-making with respect to uh policies and procedures particularly with respect to covid so that we and others could better address uh issues such as this that fit the circumstances of our community uh at any given time mr mcnamara do you want to answer yeah uh thank you we've spoken in the past i know uh had the opportunity to speak to in the past um around this issue uh we are uh we've you know moved at this point uh you know to relax so many things uh to the point where we can uh you know we our hands are still tied in terms of um mass wearing is still a requirement i know there was a lot of confusion a couple weeks ago uh the

042governor's office had put out a statement uh about the uh you know the health commissioner inquiring in the cdc for some relaxing of those requirements that caused a great deal of confusion across the state but certainly in our community as well uh and um and then on monday you know he had a press conference uh that that clarified that position uh where they relaxed outdoor mask wearing uh we've done that uh we've uh we're at a point where barriers are down in classrooms you know what typically i start all of our meetings with an update on kovit you know all of those numbers are outstanding we've had very little uh in terms of cases over the past uh eight weeks now the beginning of may was really our last significant spike we had about 30

043cases of the high school in a short amount of time and then since then it's really been terrific we've had very few cases amongst our staff very few cases amongst our students counting numbers are down to a very low point uh you know we're we're well under one percent now in terms of positivity rate uh all good things and you know as we head into the summer it seems like we've really turned a significant corner uh we're we're excited about that we certainly hope that uh that trend continues and that we can continue to relax things in in our schools right now though the requirement uh by the new york state department health uh is uh is still that in terms of wearing masks and uh and we'll continue to track that follow that we

044are we have our reopening plans ready to go uh you know we we hope to reopen in september as normally as we can that's the goal right to open up like we traditionally would that's what we're looking to do we are in terms of our pandemic planning all that planning has been done that's complete we know what we need to do in case we get into a difficult situation but we certainly anticipate uh things continuing to improve and be able to uh to open up as i said as normally as possible in september so just where we currently are trisha asked uh follow-up she just said i apologize but that's not what she's asking she wants to know if the district would draft a letter to governor cuomo uh executive current and other dis as

045other districts have uh fighting to get rid of the mass mandate uh it would be appreciated by parents if if they and then felt that you supported their choice publicly yeah i know the board's had some discussion about that uh i know that they they are open to looking for more local control of of some of those issues so um i'll let mr fischer speak to that so uh that is something that the board is looking into um i i do want to be uh specific though if if the board does decide to write a letter we have to we have to write out those words i cannot tell you exactly what that will say i will say that there are community members who do reach out to us as well that have viewpoints uh

046that would would in would request that we keep masks we are listening to the entire community and looking to uh chart a path forward that creates as normal an environment for our students as possible i think the best way to get there is local control a one size fits all for everyone in new york state i don't think makes the most sense at least from the discussions we've had at this point so we are looking to you know express that to the governor we have seen some of the letters that other districts have wrote they've written they have taken a variety of different approaches some have requested different things used different language so we are looking into that and would look to um communicate something to the governor about our opening in september thank you

047um heather satina obviously i'm a resident of once one i have uh i have three children but i have uh two that attend our schools i was at the graduation the fifth grade it was beautiful today well orchestrated and thank you for all of your work i'm i'm curious about that's a lot of money the the 700 000 and um i mean that's wonderful that the district is getting this money because of this severe education loss that our students have suffered and it does seem like a portion of that money is going to the most vulnerable students um faced this summer and if they didn't um pass their courses it most likely had to do with the fact that they were not in school and had to do that on hybrid so they they don't

048even qualify for passing the regents at that point am i correct on that for the high school and the middle school students yes yeah so i think that's um that's important that these students get an opportunity to come you know to the school and make up for that especially in those subject areas and and reading obviously um the bulk of the money i have a question with the technology i mean i know it went fast and i know you're posting it um that money is directed because of the covet loss or you know my daughter like fifth grade she received a chromebook was she due to receive a chromebook anyway or that was because of covid that was because of covid yes okay so most of the students were getting the chromebooks anyway like middle

049school middle school and high school students would have had one-to-one chromebooks the k-5 we didn't have that budgeted for right okay so with the technology how is that i'm just i'm curious if there's any more physical resources we could give our students and you know as far as i see this purchasing of smart boards but was that something that prior to covered maybe needed to be purchased um i you know i'm personally i know this was i'm so grateful the budget passed it would have been a catastrophe for this district not to have passed that budget and this community came out in droves to do that we need to do that every year and we move to this community because it's schools of excellence and there's there's no question about that we don't have a

050big tax base here um but the resource are our kids go to school i i know there's an increase in class sizes a lot of even prior to the second budget cut there's um positions that have been been cut and i want this community maybe i'm going longer than i'm speaking i'm sorry i apologize i'm gonna get to my question my question is with the technology is there a way to is there a way to put a position to teach the technology to the students we're getting the technology is that can that be part of the grant it is part in the reading it is part in the um because the cost of that is is the teachers coming in there and providing that service that's how they're getting that support can we do the

051same thing for technology because i'm overwhelmed as a parent with with what my children are doing they went from google chrome they went to schoology so can we do that i feel like as an instructional point of view that's what as a parent that's where i need help yeah so good all good questions so as far as the the grant goes you know that we we structured that in a way where right there there were those three different areas that i highlighted so as you pointed out the summer dollars are really just to help support kids that struggle this year uh the early in before and after school once again students that are struggling uh provide some supports for the technology portion of it was a combination of two things one is certainly for us

052to be prepared to support kids in the classroom with the the tech initiatives um and then really embed those skills into what we do each day right so a part of um of what we're doing in terms of technology is um you know in in building our our plan you know k to five it's what skills do we want our students to have in the areas of tech and then how do we incorporate that into the curriculum so uh introducing that each you know each step of the way so if it's uh presentation skills or the presentation tools how do we incorporate that into uh reading science social studies and embed those into lessons so identifying those and that's a lot of the work that dr ferris has done with our our district directors and

053supervisors in building the curriculum creating that continuum so that we can embed those skills right into what we're doing every day and the same thing uh six through twelfth uh and and uh one of the part of our five-year plan uh was to identify all those exit outcomes that we wanted in areas like research and speaking skills uh and technology and and then identify how we can incorporate them into each one of our courses to support those outcomes so that's that's the approach i think what you're asking for is can there be a separate person a pull-out person that's just teaching those technology skills and digital tools digital literacy we just had a hack a big huge hack in our country of right so yeah so one of the things we have is um elementary

054librarians who teach library skills but they also um putting together and they've done this in the past where they put together for the three through five digital digital citizenship how to you know how to use tools how to you know what how to pull information off the internet and determine what's fake on the internet and what's real accurate sources and things of that nature and we have a guidance counselor in the buildings who also does push in lessons on just social emotional well-being and they connect that to a lot of social emotional well-being issues now today are related to kids and their internet use and things of that nature so that is taught as well i think the other thing that we would do and that we have done is danielle luke serves as our

055elementary like professional developer for technology and she works with the teachers to then teach the kids but she also does parent trainings at night so we would continue to do that next year where we would do online parent trainings for schoology for how parents can access their children's grades or the portal and also help them at home when they bring their chromebooks home so that's going to be a continued uh effort in september as well yeah i mean i do find that the the students um they come home they they have the chromebook but like my my daughter they still need help and i just i just i'm concerned that the teachers are t you know the basics in the elementary school are teaching the curriculum and there's so much with the common core and

056all of this that technology is just getting a little overwhelming i mean can you some can that do you think some of that money could be used for teacher resources for technology or does it all need to go to actual equipment i i didn't look at the slides it looked like it was all equipment it is equipment that's the bulk of it um you know it's it's really two pieces of it part is chromebooks for students that we know we're going to have to replace over time right over the course of the three years of this grant we know we're going to need replacements in that so we're building that in and the other portion of it is classroom instructional tools smart boards that we know are aging and need to be replaced so that's

057part of it as well but how is it how is that different than what you would need typically instead of just for covet because our students didn't get computer instruction this year i had to take time off of like my job to figure out schoology you know because i was afraid there was going to be as a working parent i was afraid there was going to be a complete shutdown and then i'd have to be getting a babysitter and then getting someone to i mean there's just um i'm just how is that different than like how does this address i mean they didn't get a a lot this year with computers there was right you know it was all on the teachers to do that and the parents yeah and also it was kind of

058we were in emergency mode where we didn't know if we were going to shut down for two weeks and have everyone come home and so we had a lot of stuff that we had to work with teachers on very quickly and they had to work with kids on and it was a little overwhelming i think uh next year in a more normal school year we're not we're prepared for that but we're not like aiming if that's going to be a reality we're hoping our reality is going to be regular school and in regular school we integrate computers slowly over time we build it up you know kindergarten do it a little bit and we in first grade there's a little bit more introduced and so it'll be more of a progression as opposed to a

059rush to get everybody to be ready to be home for long periods of time so it will be different and danielle luke one of the professional developers who pushes into the classroom that does lessons with kids will be more available to do that now because she's not on emergency mode of setting all this stuff up for the pandemic if that makes sense okay well i appreciate your question yeah i mean i guess i'm asking if there's any type of i just feel like the reading the science you're totally on target and i just feel a technology instructional for our students that didn't get it in the elementary school this year i mean they lost out on the arts too and i know that's unmandated that's giving it anyway i know that could be you know

060whatever but i i feel like you know even the board just to look at you know some possible things we can do with three years it's a lot of money um and if it was technology that we were going to purchase anyway this is covid related we didn't have computer instruction in elementary school we didn't have um i know i mean next year unrelated but you know to the budget we are losing the library you know i don't know specifically with the stem i know that part two but you know just to to look at that i would appreciate that on top of the actual physical technology i just think this district has so many gifts in terms of it's some instructional staff and what we can give to these kids they just they lost

061so much just from the hybrid model and the lack of um they come to school not just for um english and you know math they come to school for all these these other reasons and sometimes just brings the kids to school because they play an instrument or they're in a sport um so thank you thank you thank you thank you um just real quick for those online i'm seeing a few questions being posted in the chat it's very difficult on our end to track those to answer them if you could please include them in the q a feature at the bottom rather than the chat it'd be much appreciated thank you okay i'm going to read one question from the q a and then we'll have somebody come down who's in the audience uh the

062question is can this funding uh be used to reinstate the aids for the inclusion programs instead of the other things that we're doing and that that's what i was speaking to earlier you know this this funding is is the more targeted it's going to be one-time expenses it's not uh long-term to support the budget we have to separate put in a separate plan to do that and show the revenue sources the reason why some of those changes were made and our reductions were made in our budget is because we couldn't continue to support them long term so that's the difference with this funding it's it's targeted for the more of those one-time expenses good evening my name is marilyn rich my children are in the school in the monterey school district i reside in once

063more first i'd like to congratulate the board on the passing of the budget uh the wanto community really came together to make that happen we emailed we called we texted we took to social media we passed out flyers uh we put up lawn signs we got this done we were even talking to people in parking lots i was one of those people trying to help out so it was power in numbers and congratulations i think that's great power numbers is why i'm here and it brings me to my next topic and um superintendent mcnamara knows why i'm here the mass mandate that is still in place for our children i think this should really be on record i don't think a lot of the people that are listening or that in the district realize how

064much other districts are doing the following long island school districts have taken action in the last month uh massapequa seaford levittown island trees bellmore north belmont merrick north merrick belmore merrick garden city hot pog lindenhurst william floyd oyster bay kings park smithtown comac station hedgehog medford miller place port jefferson rocky point locust valley west islip and riverhead and we've remained silent and i think it's time that we start questioning the governor and demanding the science and at least attempting to reverse the mass mandate uh they are attending rallies these districts are holding emergency meetings they're backing up their parents they're affirming their positions that these decisions regarding the health and well-being of our children need to remain local we cannot stay silent any longer we really have to start addressing this uh if this pandemic

065has taught us anything it's that every school town state uh fared the same way our schools towns and counties need to have local control we cannot allow the governor to continue randomly enforcing the mandates that no longer make sense he has declared the pandemic is over he had a firework display and our kids are still muzzled the science has told us they are not spreading the virus the data has shown us we are no longer at risk yet for the remainder of the year and for special needs kids in the summer um they're going to be masked and so where is the science are we still following the science so i decided to call the cdc myself to find out no one at the cdc could provide me with an explanation or scientific studies as

066to why the children need to remain masked in school but nowhere else they directed me to excuse me the new york state department of health who i've spoken to many times i've called and emailed and and have made my thoughts known to them who they've also directed me back to the cdc or the new york state department of education who told me to call my local officials my elected officials so i decided to speak to senator brooke's office which i did uh his office also directed me back to the cdc so everyone is passing the buck um and speaking of passing the buck in uh conversations with senator brook's office mr reed from there informed me that the wanted community the tax levy contributes 80 percent of the budget the community does and the state

067only gives 20 so one would think that serving the requests of the community would be a priority over you know being cowering over the state governor at least warrant take a stand write a letter make a request to unmask our children and to get control of our district and to keep these matters local it's not just the mass the mass is very important right now but a lot of things coming down the road um education programs that the state is going to mandate for the whole state may not work for the wanton school district and the parents need to take control we deserve a response a response we deserve a board that will fight for us we deserve leaders we certainly pay enough and we keep paying for you guys to have that budget and

068our children of course um we need to make sure we're preparing for september parents need to know what the plan is going to be um and how we're going to interact with the state because i don't i think there are a lot of parents that don't want this to continue um we need to push back on mandates for masks and vaccines and you know we need to give control back to the parents and and because we're not co-parenting with the government so governor cuomo this week said if you're vaccinated you're protected the unvaccinated do not pose a threat to you he said that on national television our children are not a threat or at risk they should not have to be masked anymore we send our kids to local public schools we pay for our

069schools the majority of them not the state and it's time to take our schools back it's time to take a stand unite with other districts and make sure this doesn't happen again the state should not stronghold our schools with random and unreasonable mandates that are no longer necessary the time is now to unmask our kids we need the governor to pay attention to the concerns of the parents and leave these decisions to the local school districts and the local health officials we need you the wanton school board to help us make that happen we need the power in numbers and we need you to take a stand you can either stand for something or keep falling for everything they tell us we need to do it now thank you thanks miss rich it's good too

070i know we've spoken via email and it's good to actually see in person so so thank you for your comments okay um online question uh april asks where do we stand on critical race theory and i have to answer that question um you know this is kind of like a political hot button question that's come up it's been on the news it's been going across the nation i really don't believe our district stands anywhere on it we don't specifically look to teach it it's a college level kind of concept that was created decades ago um our district teaches kids to be kind to each other our district teaches kids to be caring of one another and our kid district teaches kids that is wrong to be mean or hurtful or racist towards other people and

071to be accepting of all different kinds of people that's what our district teaches there is no specific theory or a college program that we teach here it's really more about character education and teaching both world history and american history in our high schools the way it is taught across the country and aligned with the standards of new york state and the national standards as well i hope that answers the question rich hi i'm rich colavita president of the wut uh what i want to say is hopefully going out to more people in the six people in here i don't know how many people are out there but 57 57 okay so to the 63 people that are listening uh i just want to thank the community for coming out to vote for the budget it

072was the the outpouring was great the wt really appreciates everybody coming out to vote and we especially appreciate all of the groups that we worked with to help get the word out um it it really was amazing the the all the the parent groups all the community groups that that got out there and and handed out flyers and got on social media there were launch signs um we we loved working with all of them we got this thing done and we're looking forward to continuing to work with all of the parent groups to keep our schools uh improving uh it shows really what you can do when when we're all working together and uh the the next out of these 63 people i wanted to address the 30 of the no votes that are out

073there uh 30 is a pretty significant uh chunk of of uh votes and i want to start the dialogue with those people anyone who voted no i'm i'm asking to reach out to the wut my my email address is colavitar juantoschools.org um let's get the conversation going whatever it was that that made you lose faith in what we are doing here in the schools we want to fix it if there are problems we want to hear about it we want to work together we want to solve it so so especially the people have voted yes it's great we appreciate it it's awesome but the people that voted no reach out let's let's get the conversation happening let's see if we can fix uh what you would like to see fixed thank you okay uh olympia

074has a concern about the sizes of classes especially at forest lake she knows due to the budget restraints we had to increase class size however she wants to know if the head count on children will include the children that push into the general education classes for instance next year's fifth grade class has two sections of 27 but if the special ed kids push in from the special classes there are nine of them that would inflate the class size to well over 30. will the board guarantee this will not happen yeah thank you appreciate the question so um we're well aware of numbers in terms of that that's something we watch closely throughout throughout the summer just for some clarification because you know i did get a couple of questions about this over the course of

075the week in terms of class sizes we [Music] through the the budget process class sizes across the board all elementary schools and in through sixth grade uh went up by one student per uh per class uh one through six kindergarten remained the same at 24 and then went to 25 one through three and and 27 four through six um the so i know there's some concern at forest lake uh in particular um but that's that's you know uh across the board just you know it at all schools that's that that would apply uh in terms of students pushing it you know that's something we'll work with uh make sure that those numbers aren't too high uh we have um you know really two different things you know students that mainstream for uh their core classes

076we have some students uh in in self-contained program smaller number for core classes but it's more about the special areas um you know some of those sections very well may break uh and and give us the ability to provide the uh the you know the smaller numbers in there too so none of those decisions are finalized yet we structure everything right now based on uh where numbers currently stand continue to watch that already conversation with the two of the principals today about you know some some changes and enrollments in a couple of grade levels so um and that's that's nothing that we don't typically do right that's a conversation that happens each and every year throughout uh up and through august 15th usually by august 15th and we make some final decisions around that um

077that we support so we're watching that closely we're well aware what those numbers are a couple of grade levels that are right up to the cap and uh and you know if if need be if we start to exceed that you know we'll break sections as needed okay heather donahue is asking and this is there's three questions about this one so i'm just going to ask it once for the three people who are asking it um at the last board of ed meeting the question was asked regarding the budget advisory committee and bringing it back after the past month i would think that the district would appreciate more community involvement has a decision been made about creating the this committee and if not when will a decision be announced that was asked also by vinnie

078siro and also another question very similar to that by another attendee online so so uh at this point uh the budget advisory committee is not uh being considered to be brought back that being said a few things i would just like to remind everyone but also another comment one is in terms of our current structure we hold believe it's five public budget forums prior to adopting a budget typically those begin either in late february or early march all the way through early april every one of those is public they are set ahead of time i believe we include it on the calendar that we post in the summer heading into the school year so you know over the summer when the calendar is set those will also be on the calendar and posted to the

079website available far ahead of time open to the public and for comment and for questions and review so all five of those are open to everyone we also hold a budget hearing during our business meeting prior to adoption additionally the assistant superintendent for business the other superintendents the board members of course are always available to discuss um go through items and contemplate them all of our planning and business meetings are also available as you as tonight as well with public comment for discussions which would include the budget indirectly while the audit committee is not tasked with you know review of the budget certainly um you know the district finances are a part of that committee and as there are openings for qualified community members that would like to join you could look to be a

080part of that committee as well additionally the board is also considering you know as you mentioned this year it was a challenging year and as rich mentioned from his perspective rich golovita you know looking for more more ways for community input more outreach ways to reach more in the community uh you know one of the suggestions that had come back was you know even as simple as is there a way for community members who don't have students in the district to receive certain uh notifications that go out or information and we've i've added that now to the school website for folks to register so you know we've also over the past couple years done surveys that of course has been more with the school population but now that we have this uh you know the

081website registration updated that could go out to more community members so we are continuing to look for new additional ways to reach community members and then of course you know we have uh there's been a significant leap in use of technology ability and function as we are using demonstrating tonight uh that can also be incorporated into ways that we meet we did hold um some forums uh this year virtually uh with uh community members that wanted to join again all ahead of adoption of the budget so at this point in time i think that's our framework um but for anyone who does have suggestions on additional ways to reach more in the community and those that are still involved we're always open to listening to those and finding ways to incorporate them yeah one thing

082i'll just add as well you know we did some focus groups this year they were really helpful uh they were small group uh they were you know we met for half hour 45 minutes with five six seven residents at a time uh you know mr cedrone and i did those and and uh we did a whole series of those over a few weeks and those conversations were great and informative you know we got to really have more informal conversations with folks hear their concerns uh and uh and and you know we were able to bring that feedback back to the board as well uh you know and and to mr fisch's point about the technology you know people we did them via zoom people could jump on at their lunch hour and that kind of

083thing so it really worked out well that was something that we added this year early on because we you know we knew it was going to be a challenging budget um so that's something that i think was was was really productive as well okay um karen david just wants to make a statement she says i want to say that i and a lot of other parents do want to keep the mask requirements and do not want the board to write a letter asking not to require masks cynthia smith says uh she's bringing up the forest lake question i think we answered that question already um regarding this class size of forest there's a few more nuances in there so i think uh it looks like down towards the end so um about the manual and

084exceptions so i think if we could just take a look at that question yeah she says are we realistically looking at class sizes larger than the increased class sizes already proposed by the budget presentations no so that this is so the increase in class size is one right so this is um regardless of that right so let's say we're at 24 and 26 the way we typically work this is something that we always manage right this is not something that is is new to us and something where we'll be prepared to do so um difference being this year right where we're and and we run up against this from year to year certain grade levels are closer to the the top of the cap than others and so that's something that uh i don't see

085that question but i think is that what the question is in reference to um i clicked it already but please i just want to show folks this isn't something that is new to us in terms of managing is you know we'll be prepared we'll make sure that all of our kids get what they need uh you know whether it's uh you know one of our our self-contained youngsters pushing into a special area or a uh a general ed setting for a particular class we will be prepared and ready for them and and we've got a couple sections on the cusp that very well may break so okay uh courtney lazarus asks is there any plan for the four-year-old universal pre-k program will you be housing it in a specific school or at local vendors we're

086hoping to make some announcements about that soon we just went through an rfp process that just closed out last week what that just to frame that question for folks that may not have the background on that we had as part of this this this budget process the state provided districts that don't have universal pre-k with universal pre-k funding our district received about 340 000 uh that can be used just for that sole purpose to provide universal pre-k uh which would be fantastic it's not something that we've been able to offer to our community on on its uh on our own because of the the expense so we're currently in a process of we put out an rfp which is a request for proposals to our community based organizations that provide pre-kindergarten services and we are

087just getting those responses back we're going to evaluate those and the the challenge for us is to be able to provide uh universal pre-k at uh at uh within the confines of those dollars um and uh and and not have any kind of significant cost that the district has to take on so that's what we're really working through um it's the way that it works you know with the allocation is that you get um it's dollar for dollar based on the number of students that that you provide that service for so our number is it equates to 64 universal pre-k spots that's not 340 000 it's i think it's 5 400 per is that right something like that somewhere in that neighborhood and it's reimbursed based on what you provide so that's per child so

088if you're provided universal pre-k for only half the number of kids 32 32 kids then you'd only receive half that the the that total total dollar amount so we're working through that we certainly hope to have some good news in in the coming weeks around that once we you know evaluate the the rfp and hope to partner with some of our our community-based organizations to provide that service okay um diane calabrese parent says thank you for all the work you do but last i like to ask your help removing the mass mandate for our children please stand with the other districts in long island that are supporting our kids in addition please be aware that the cdc called an emergency meeting for today which will end up being canceled but it was because children are

089presenting with heart inflammation after receiving the vaccination for covid as you fight our governor on our behalf for the mask please also include an argument for not mandating the vaccination for our children thank you vinnie siro i respectfully ask that the monthly budget expense revenue report be issued or be made available to the community to provide an overall status of the budget any overruns under runs and the actions being taken to address these mr jones speak to that that's something that we we currently do monthly you can share you know how that that's structured it is in fact uh the month report is attached to this agenda it usually is attached to every uh you know business meeting our uh expenditures and revenues what the budget was what we've spent to date what's left to

090be spent um if there's something else that somebody feels is lacking uh or altering the format i'm all ears but the information is is there and i'm you know happy to clarify that or help people understand it but the information is there so just like to add that i feel like sometimes people email us or ask us questions about what are we doing to ensure that the budget is tight and that we're doing zero-based budgeting we do that and we go through it with a fine-tooth comb and it is as bare bones as you could possibly imagine there's an image i get that people think we have like caviar and mercedes-benz like hiding in corners of the schools and it's just not true and everything is posted online and available to everybody for you to

091see and the recommendations that people are saying to us that we should be doing we're basically doing all of them so i'd be happy to talk more about that with anyone who calls us but it's very transparent and available to everybody online um barbara young asks when will the community receive the calendar for the 2021-22 school year yeah barbara the the planning calendar is up there it's on the main page of the site it's just the the you know the basic calendar with the holidays marked on there you know month by month the one page summary version uh we are in the process of putting together the more detailed uh calendar that that's mailed to everybody's homes typically that happens mid-august uh we've done all the pre-work with that uh where we've you know put

092all those dates together we then work with our our publisher to to do that that process is currently underway now uh typically i'll get a final version uh of that the second week of july and then we'll approve that to go off to the publisher at that point they then have to print them uh and then we do the mailings to home so usually that's august 15 to you know august 22nd that's usually the window of time where they're mailed out um karen david asks i'm not going to include the teacher's name but there's a teacher a computer teacher accessed are there plans to bring back computer instruction at the element and not not currently i think kind of along the lines of what we spoke to you know earlier in terms of the the

093the tech instruction there also as i mentioned we have a teacher who does professional development for the teachers and the teachers students now have chromebooks in the classroom so those computer skills will be embedded into the daily routines and activities students do in every classroom in the building jen cramer asks since we couldn't see the video was there any information about special education cuts in relation to the budget is there any commentary by central administration about there being a discouragement of testing for services being done so no uh no cuts to our special education programs for this year we've we've actually enhanced a little bit you know kind of what was highlighted that video be posted i apologize for any of the audio difficulties uh but that video will be posted in its entirety so

094you can view that but no no no cut stuff to programs we've enhanced the program we've uh we're expanding our mandalay program to the middle school for for next year um and as far as any [Music] discouragement in terms of testing or anything like that you know certainly absolutely not i know we want to make sure all of our kids get what what they need and uh and support them with that and provide you know the the services that they're entitled to and so no changes to anything there john i would just encourage any parent who had any questions about special education or services to contact our their special education provider or their school psychologist or the director of pps genie left so just in terms of the budget and cuts and um because i

095think i saw a comment earlier in the chat feature too but it might address the same kind of point um in terms of the uh the aids that were uh cut is there any um thought plans being done around you know compensating for that loss was i think one of the questions also asked in that area gotcha yeah so um my comments really address the programming so right so no changes in programming uh you know certainly a valid point uh in terms of aids you know we had changes in terms of structure this year obviously with with everything that we had going on but we did reduce that level of support back a little bit uh at the secondary uh left that uh intact at the elementary so no changes there at the elementary we

096look we certainly enjoyed a rich model at the at the secondary level in terms of the level of support in our ict classrooms i think fairly typical across across long island across new york schools you know in an ict model you have two teachers in the classroom you have the general education teacher and you have the the special education co-teacher that are there to support students and then some a pull-out support period with our the special education students in the classroom we also enjoyed the added luxury of in the secondary uh well k to 12 in those ict classes having an additional aid in our ict classes that's what we reduced seven through twelve we reduced that that support uh for uh for this upcoming uh school year uh so our ict teachers are well

097equipped to provide the level of support that our our students need and i know i know that our students will get what they need you know seven to twelve leslie cheeria chiara if students are still required to sit in rows or at a specific specified distance how can teachers be expected to address individual needs of their large classes our students suffered with covert restrictions this year with smaller class sizes more than doubling classes will further prohibit teachers to reach children who need both remediation small group instruction but also enrichment i don't understand how doubling class sizes is a decision the administration of board of ed fields is best for children i just want to clarify that we're not doubling class sizes in a normal situation we reduced class sizes significantly to deal with coverage so

098teachers had 11 to 15 students in the class at the elementary level because we wanted to fit the kids in the room and bring them back every day but we but the idea that we're doubling class sizes from a very very reduced rate is not accurate the class sizes in the first through second grade went up one and the class sizes and three through five went up one student so that it's not accurate to say we doubled the class sizes so we'll clarify that vinnie zero when the summary of this meeting and any budget related reports are available will an email be sent to those of us who registered on the web page or will we have to check for ourselves yeah that that material gets posted there's no there's not an email notification of

099that posting that that currently takes place the email the community email sign up list that will include you know any kind of general community emails that we send out about various you know school district functions budget related meetings those kinds of things you know it's still a work in progress you know we there's a lot of different communications that go out from the school district about specific events happening in buildings or grade levels this will be more of a general communication about um you know thing more more more broad uh topics you know such as uh budget related uh topics that uh come up notification of our forums of budget-related meetings those kinds of things that we think the folks that signed up for our that those community-based notifications would be interested in but we're

100still working those through and we have the system that we use to do our emailing is really at this point is all interconnected to a grade level a student is a part of a school a student or family is part of and that's really what determines who gets what this additional community list will incorporate into the the broader notifications that we'd send out to the entire district a school snow closure those kinds of things so that's that's kind of the thought behind that that community-based email and cindy kerry just replied um but our pre-copy class sizes were 18 to 23. i think different class sizes pre-covered we're different depending on the size of the overall grades in each school so you could have this you know even though our class side guideline said 24 is

101the maximum you could have in certain schools a class size of 18 or 23 or 19. it's it's going to vary it's going to vary greatly by by the the school and the grade level so it really depends on the overall enrollment in the grade right just to do the the simplest math if you have uh 40 students let's say in a particular grade level in a building that's going to be two classes of 20. if you happen to have uh 48 enrolled in that grade level that year it would be two classes of 24. um if you have juan tail if you had a hundred students let's say in in fifth grade that would be you know four classes at 25 and there's some years where you you know you're just slightly over that

102let's say you you had 110 or 115 students where now you're pushed over the guidelines for four classes that's where we break and create a fifth section so um what happens in those situations is when you break and you you're let's say you're over now all of a sudden the the numbers could drop significantly now you go from 25 students or 26 students in a classroom down to 20 21 22 students so it really it's it's something fluid that we we watch and those numbers do change you know they change throughout the spring and into the summer you have students that move in students that move out you have students that have program changes that require a change in uh potentially a change in elementary building so that's something that you know we is is

103a moving target throughout the year uh and ultimately by august 15th or so is our kind of informal deadline where we uh we say you know that's where we want to make some some final decisions around that and i'd just like to add you know of course you know any increases in class size it's not something that the board or the administration wanted to do i think you know without going into the well-worn topics related to the budget uh it was a very difficult year uh of course uh changes needed to be made including the uh one-person increase in the class sizes from grades one through six none of them were decisions that anyone wanted to make uh the the breakages and you know larger class sizes is also a challenge that we've uh faced

104for a number of years at wanta al uh continue to face uh we're seeing that you know of course now uh more at forest lake and it's something that we are very focused on looking for every opportunity to support the children our teachers are fantastic and will do a great job with them regardless that being said you know i know part of the question that leslie is asking also is uh with this with the seats uh you know if they still have to somehow be distanced um you know that's something we'll have to see about over the summer our you know i think it's our expectation that uh the required you know distancing and such won't be what we have to face in september certainly if uh the governor does start to push those sorts

105of requirements um it's gonna be a challenge for us it's something that we're going to have to address at that time to get those number of students at those distances in each room which was one of the reasons we did not do it this year um so you know we will be looking forward to not having those requirements in september right and i just want to further answer leslie's question because i agree i don't think i did completely answer a question um you know we don't expect all the kids to be in rows as adam said we expect to be back to situations where they're yeah we work with teachers to have to focus on small group instruction in the classroom so the focus you know even in the summer professional development we're providing for

106elementary teachers is um creating even a class of 27 or 26 creating much more opportunity for small group instruction where students are rotating through stations and having more individualized time with their teacher based on their needs so there's going to be a lot of work with teachers we've already been doing this work but using the data from the fnp results i ready math and reading scores to put students in specific groups based on their needs and then have teachers work in small groups with students within the classroom it'll be a lot less whole class instruction and a lot more small group instruction for students in that time so that's our focus leslie and i i do agree with you yes if you had 12 in your class this year and next year you have 26

107it's going to feel like double i just meant that our guideline only went up by one student as a guideline but i understand the point at 12 was really a wonderful thing and the district i think went out of their way to make sure that happened for this year to keep all the kids in school but couldn't maintain that as you know with our current budget situations thank you marilyn michigan from montaura i just had a follow-up question based on um another resident that talked about uh how they were in favor of mass and i think it's you know obviously parental choice but as based on the community is there a way for us to to see if there's a majority opinion um and if so can it can the community can the students parents

108be pulled and the teachers and and where that is and you know if we figure out an opinion of of you know most people want mass will want parental choice uh would be ideal would the board then uh commit to writing a letter to the governor asking for more local control um if the community says that that's something that we really would want and and if so would that be able to happen before the end of this school year well yeah so i think we are already looking to request you know more local control okay um in terms of a specific request let's say i think what you're alluding to is not requiring masks anymore uh you know we we have done surveys in the past i think given that school you know at the

109secondary level is essentially more or less wrapping up this week and then next week it might be a challenge to get out of survey get surveys back in this time frame um from all the feedback we've gotten previously correct me from wrong uh mr mcnamara but i think generally speaking uh it fell out you know somewhere around like either 50 50 or 60 40. um you know so it has not been sort of an overwhelming uh one viewer the other but more down the middle climate has definitely changed now well throughout the year i'm talking about it we haven't we're not doing throughout the year anymore we're doing that like the climate definitely has changed in reference to in case rates infection rates uh covered and the governor you know making all of these it's

110not we're not talking about apples to apples anymore that you know what we did last year or six months ago we've been you know it's not the same i appreciate that um yeah and i i do too and i appreciate all the work that you guys did throughout the entire pandemic and it was a lot and the school district really came up and and did a lot for our students and that does not go unnoticed but i think now it's a time because what we don't want is again the mass in the summer and the mass going into september and we what we need to do as a community is get together and will there be workshops for for parents to to participate in uh moving forward if the if the governor does mandate masks

111i mean how are we going to handle that i mean what what is going to be that you know we need to discuss this we can't just sit back and and wait and you know come august uh and just have that handed down to us and just accept it because i think a lot of parents are going to pull their kids out of school i for one do not want my kids masked again another year it's not it did not work well for us it did not work for a lot of parents and i think it's really something that we can't just brush off anymore so i i don't know if you have things in plans but i i do want to say on the record i think we really need to start addressing that

112yeah so just as we did last summer we'll continue we'll do forums we'll get feedback you know throughout the summer we're prepared to do that as as we get updated guidance and things change right now we kind of know where the guidance stands we're waiting for some additional any any changes then we'll get feedback from the community and how we're going to implement it um you know we got great responses you know over throughout the summer last summer throughout the year you know we did i know i'm sure everyone's tired of filling out our surveys um but um you know it did they were they helped inform a lot of the decisions that we were making and really helped give us a good sense of that it won't be any different this summer you know

113i anticipate as we get more updates and more information we'll be able to do exactly the same thing we're planned we're ready to go we're we're hoping to have a a normal opening to school in september right that's what we're preparing for uh you know we're not preparing for best shields and barriers and and smaller classes and all those things we're preparing for a regular opening the the lingering question is the question you raise right which is masks what's going to happen with masks i think that's really the the one thing that's hanging out there uh you know we've we've relaxed that where we kept where we could outside uh our teachers have been great taking advantage of that you know where you know as the weather's gotten warmer this month and i think they've

114really leveraged our outdoor spaces and we've got out there for events now that hosting our our bigger events outside really helped alleviate a lot of the masking requirements too and just knowing that it's safer to do so outside um so you have access to all the letters if you do not and if you need some uh if the board would like them please you can reach me we've seen them happy to help thank you appreciate it but i think it's fair to say that if the government allows us to we would move to remove them ronnie rahm says she's thrilled the budget passed but she does not think the aids in the secondary level were let go were a luxury as was stated tonight she honestly believes they were a necessity daniel beatty asks is

115there a plan to try to budget the reinstatement of the secondary aids or are we to accept that this is in the district plan for the future yeah always happy to have ongoing conversation about things we're gonna certainly see how this year goes uh and every year you know we we start a new you know as we we build the budget that being said i think um i think um you know our challenges obviously with this with with our budget this year well documented and and some of the really difficult decisions that we had to make you know none of those decisions were easy uh you know we never want to take step a step backwards with with any of those things um you know and and we want to hopefully you know turn a

116significant financial corner at this point and then start to look to to build our programs back again um but as i said none of those decisions that [Music] were taken lightly easy to make uh all difficult decisions each each step of the way and as i said earlier you know as we started the process i just think about where we were in in you know march 1st and we were very candid with the community and said to maintain every single program everything that we we have from from top to bottom the budget to the budget increase would have been significant right the levy increase was was pushing eight percent just to just to maintain every single program march first when we did our first forum and met with the community that was the level that

117would have been needed we we knew the community couldn't bear that level of of expense um and that's ultimately what why that was cut in half you know and but once again difficult decisions for that first budget that was proposed ultimately landing to where we did on the 15th uh you know where we we made significant reductions that was you know over three million dollars worth of reductions to the to the budget to get to where we were on june 15th so as i said none of those things were easy to to to do but we'll continue to evaluate that throughout the year and as we start up our budget process again uh you know that typically it's going to start up again in october and november internally and then we'll start it again more

118publicly towards the end of february and we'll certainly have those discussions and see where we are from a budget perspective and what we can support and what we can't and and continue to take community feedback about that so we have two statements left in the q a uh they both kind of present opposing statements but i'm going to just make them liz broderick says make it easy and have parental consent everyone will be pleased and barbara young says thank you for the students thank you for the students and staff that are health compromised for keeping masks in place and then regina burke does anyone know why the seniors didn't get their yearbook i don't know the answer to that question and we'll find out from dr gazonna mr mcnair i believe they're getting them on

119monday at the barbecue they're getting the money at the barbecue there you go thank you regina and as of right now there are no other questions in the q a so let's just take a moment to see if anyone else asks a question [Music] well thank you everyone for attending tonight and for the great student recognition prior to the meeting everyone be safe and we'll see you at our next meeting in july for the new school year and the reorganization meeting thank you okay