02/25/2025 WCSD BOE Meeting at the Watertown High School

001like to call this meeting to order please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all look at this crowd huh thank you everybody for coming to our meeting it's nice to see all of you and I'd like to uh entice you on your way out uh to visit the Cyclone coffee Express over here great group of of kids who have great product for you and they're giving it away free although they do take [Applause] tips okay uh at this time we're going to jump off our normal and we are going to have a public hearing on the proposed Capital project thank you very much we're going

002to introduce Jason Benedict our architect Ben masona FAL advisers and Kyle D gentlemen want to join us good evening everyone so this is a little bit awkward in that I don't think you'll see the screen completely where you are but obviously addressing the Board of Education I first want to thank everyone for joining us we had a good conversation earlier this afternoon with the staff related to the capital Pro uh proposed Capital project and so tonight we want to talk about that again I was in here a couple weeks ago to talk with the board about the project so um familiar for a lot of folks but in any case um we want to start with a video so that everyone actually there's a QR code and know Dr schmigle if you want to address

003this piece that this is so once this presentation happens tonight we'll make this public so that everyone can access it but there's a three minute video that our students and US put together regarding the project we'll play that now sorry watert City School District it's excited to share details about transformational proposal a $110 million Capital project that will make our school safer stronger and more sustainable all with no tax impact for our community about ensuring our students have the best possible environment to learn grow and succeed we're focused on three critical priorities keeping students warm safe and dry during my last four years at Waterton High School one major thing that has made it difficult for me to focus is the extreme temperature inconsistencies when these upgrades would remove this distraction for a more comfortable

004learning environment for myself and my peers teaching social studies here at mdle school for the past 19 years and I come to understand that our schools are the heart of our community maintaining them as Essen for our students future this project addresses aging infrastructure modernizes essential systems and ensures that we're meeting today's safety and accessibility standards many of our buildings are in need of Updates this project will replace outdated Heating systemss and windows and insallation to keep our schools warm and energy efficient during water Town's harsh Winters keeping students safe is another top priority the project includes enhancements secure entes and updated fire alarms to ensure everyone feels secure well in our schools safe at school helps us focus on learning the proposed upgrades like secure entrances and updated fire alarms will make sure our

005schools continue to be a safe place for students in day such as school buildings long after I have graduated and of course keeping our schools warm and dry is essential repairs to roots and masonry will protect our facilities from water damage preserving them for generations to come while upgrades to our boilers and hbag systems will keep our students warm in their classrooms so how does this work with no tax impact the district is leveraging State Building A and Reserve funds to do this [Music] project we can address these Le without adding any financial burden taxers I've been an educator here at North Elementary for 23 years I know how impactful this project will be for our entire School Community one of our most important jobs as Educators is to keep students safe so that's why

006I believe that this Capital project is important for both the safety and the education of our students this isn't just about fixing what's grow it's about creating a brighter future for our students while uring Water Town remains a great place to live and Lear after all our children are our future we're excited to partner with you on this journey stay informed to make your voice heard bying on March together we can make a lasting difference for the lives of our students our schools and our community [Music] so the video does a great job uh expressing the mission the vision of the project as well as talking about the highlighted scope but for tonight I want to focus a little bit more on the process which I will start to talk about uh with this slide

007talk about the process the why how we got here and ultimately explore a little bit more about what is happening in each of the buildings so this slide represents the timeline uh for a capital Improvement project that we've been looking at and so this process we talk about it all all the time with schools nothing happens overnight uh unlike anything that you deal with at home or or more of the private Market schools have a lot of regulations a lot of different processes that we need to follow but starting to the left um doesn't show on the screen but uh starting here is uh the really where we started this process in December of 2023 we met to talk about a building condition survey and for those that aren't familiar it's a state requirement that

008requires every school district conduct inspections of their buildings to understand what the needs uh and concerns are and so that's conducted by Architects Engineers um to essentially go through each of the buildings and understand what those needs are but our process as far as King and King is really understanding what the users need uh and that um that occurred in Winter 2024 where we had a number of interviews with key stakeholder groups from building principles Food Service Athletics it and so on and we met with those folks to understand what the buildings are you know the challenges opportunities on a day-to-day basis because when our team comes in it's usually a specific time frame uh limited to you know a couple of days and so that information along with going to the next uh spot

009in time is our inspections that we conducted over the spring summer of 2024 all fed into what we call a long uh range planning uh process or Matrix so all the information that was gathered from all these various stakeholder groups as well as our information was assembled into a Consolidated form that the district Administration as well as the board could see that basically highlighted all the needs for the district in total I know that we're talking about $110 million project but the value of the work that was identified both needs and wants was closer to $200 million and so that is actually as a process is being uploaded to the State education department by March 1 actually next couple days and so we were ahead of that schedule that is being uploaded um but with

010all that information that was gathered the question is what do we do with it and so in spring summer of 2024 um we had advisory committees that the District administration conduct or assembled to conduct surveys of what the highest priority items are for the different stakeholder groups that were represented so students staff um Administration as well as the Board of Education and so we took that bigger list of items prioritized those into high high medium and low categories and ultimately gave us a sense for where the project would be that I'm going to get into in a few minutes relative to what the highest priorities are um so from that standpoint when when we had some somewhat of a guide rail for what the project could be we met as a smaller group Administration construction

011management team Architects um and that is the last summer and into was probably the last couple of months of really understanding what the highest priority items are and those are what you started to see in the video which I'm going to show you right now but ultimately led to this proposed project so this and you've seen them the boards outside this is actually this presentation is exactly a representation of the board so if you have any interest in looking at those as you leave by all means do that that QR code also will take you to this information so that you can read it in much more detail just highlight also so each building has the overall project each of the facilities each facility and then they have the one specific to their school correct

012and I'm gonna turn it over to Ben in a few minutes to talk about the right side of the page relative to the financial information but I will start to get right into the actual building specific information and so uh relative to the scope of work for the high school and you're going to see a reoccurring theme here as I go through each of the buildings um they're in categories so site repairs which I know is probably hard for everyone to see but that's the top portion is going to be standard for each Slide the building upgrades so more of the architectural and then the mechanical electrical Plumbing upgrades which is the last uh category along with that are critical images that show the age of this of these systems and some of the challenges

013that are being dealt with but ultimately Watertown is looking at site components and I think everyone that drove in tonight or anyone that comes in on a bus or any any interaction with the school understands that the site has a lot of challenges both in its circulation its condition um there's just safety issues that need to be addressed and so one of the components or one of the largest components for this project is dealing with the the campus-wide site improvements that will include adaa upgrades as well as drainage improvements one of the things that I wanted to tie in B that did the staff presentation is that the board authorized last year for the district to hire a traffic study for this particular campus you may have seen them in their cars collecting data and

014so once this is approved that information will be used to help design uh those things those three categories J just mentioned absolutely as far as building upgrades um one of the key components is related to hazardous materials so some of the other issues that I'll talk about relative to Mechanical upgrades we have to by codee upgrade or actually mitigate hazardous materials so those if they exist will be part of the project as well but the larger portion of this school in particular is related to the mechanical systems so the boilers are older and actually the whole mechanical system is older it needs to be replaced I see people actually going like this right now and you can no not to highlight it but you know the human comfort in yes human Comfort is a key

015thing and so making sure and the video highlighted that um one of the students specifically addressed it that we need to upgrade the mechanical systems we need those systems operating so that kids aren't too cold too hot or anywhere in between so lighting upgrades from an energy p uh perspective isn't part of this the boilers all the building management which are the controls um and then the fire alarm for safety moving to case uh a little bit newer building so this focus is uh more so related to the site components because as I mentioned it's one campus they're integral so a key component is related to the parking areas the site lighting Ada upgrades and all of the drainage associated with the site building upgrades as well are just really dealing with hazardous materials as

016we run into them and then lastly is the mechanical systems we want even though they're newer uh boilers and things like that we want to improve the management of that so it's easier for maintenance to control spaces it helps it helps with Energy Efficiency as well as again human human comfort and then lastly the fire alarm going to HT Wy this building and actually as you all know is undergoing current Pro actually we're almost done right Kyle wrapping up a project right now um but ultimately there's still more to be had there and so staying on the same theme of site improvements we are looking at reconstruction of those parking lots we are also thinking about the parent drop off being reconfigured in a much safer efficient way as well as uh the playground there

017so we will address those items as far as site components from a building upgrade it's important for security and there's three buildings in particular that really need to be addressed so that all schools are equal and HT Wy is one of those the district office doesn't really have a secure vestibule where parents or visitors can come in and be specific to one area of that building and so we're going to address that and actually um I don't know if we want to get into the financial aspect or Dr Sho if you want at the staff advisor and we presented this also this morning to our student advisor students um in any event we talked about additional monies right now we're wrapping up the $13 million project that touched the high school case and HT Wy

018and so there's potentially about $36,000 left over so our hope is to utilize those funds to begin that secure vegle we do have it for HG wly but we want one on the district side as Jason said there are a lot of visitors that come in and we want to make sure that district office visitors are funnel to the district office and there's no potential that they would enter uh that space one of the other program items um that will be more beneficial than just infrastructure is is the planetarium right Ovation so the existing space is smaller inefficient older and so we want to look at that re imagine where it is and what it is and then reconfigure the existing space to be additional teaching area and then again hazardous materials as we run

019into that uh a little bit less on the mechanical side here at HT Wy but we are looking at lighting upgrades you know building on what we've done in the past projects but also the build building management systems replacing those as as needed North North is our fun experience here because it's one of the buildings that has most character but also the most need um and I think anyone that knows and has been in this building understands that um it it has a lot of opportunities so from a site perspective um yeah saying that nicely yes uh from a site perspective again same thing parking lots sight lighting is as far as safety goes ada8 upgrades drainage but from a building perspective the envelope is is really in poor shape um we did have that

020incident I guess it was about a year or so ago where Windstorm actually literally sucked the gymnasium windows out of the building and onto the parking lot that's all being addressed through an emergency project but it still exists in other areas and so that building envelope so walls roofs windows are all going to be looked at and be uh upgraded the Hazardous Materials as I keep mentioning for all buildings will be looked at as well from a mechanical standpoint again there's systems there that are 30 40 years old from a u boiler perspective so all those steam systems are going to be converted to hot water and then building management systems associated with that Ohio again I'm gonna sound rep repetitive I've said this every single time I've talked about this it's very similar themes

021relative to all the scope but uh site improvements are revolving around reconstruction of the parking lots upgrading the site lighting Ada upgrades and then drainage from a building perspective a little bit different here is the same with the envelope the masonry restoration is required so we need to go in and repoint brick make that watertight so that we don't have water infiltration into the building and causing other problems um but windows need to be replaced they're they're well B beyond their useful life secure vestibule is a key Point here this is one of the actually the second of the third building that needs a secure uh entry so as we're doing this the main office and nurse spaces will be renovated to accommodate that appropriate circulation um but ultimately that would be the building upgrades

022and then mechanically again boiler conversion with the building management system Starbuck um we've been doing a lot of capital La projects what which is an opportunity for the school district to spend $100,000 annually and we've been doing a number of sidewalks sidewalk repairs as part of that but the balance of those sidewalks will be done as part of this Capital project as well as site lighting upgrades Jason you mind if I go back not necessarily scen just for the about s improvements for this campus wasn't necessarily mentioned in earlier Capital outlays yes yes some of the M there were some significant issues with heaving at the the main entrances those were all addressed as part of capital past Capital outlays yes Starbucks the last two years focused on correct yep uh as far as building

023upgrades there's a kitchen renovation associated with this the way this again if you're familiar with that building the way the students are served it's in the hallways and it's not really efficient um and so there's concerns about doing that properly and so we're going to reconfigure those spaces in order to make that a safer more efficient opper uh process secure entry vestibule here as well so this is the third of uh the three that I mentioned that will re uh require main office and nurses Spa spaces to be renovated as well for that secure entry uh it's typical with the mechanical we're going to have boiler conversions so steamed hot water is gone the building management system upgraded and then as well the fire alarm nicker Bacher you can see from the images again the

024site components are really in poor shape so that the parking lots uh are bad sight lighting needs to be upgraded we need to address ADA compliance and so all of those things would be here as well uh within the building we're looking at special education Renovations um so there's opportunities to improve those spaces for the students as well as toilet room Renovations that are again not ada8 compant uh compliant or aesthetically pleasing and so all of those things would be addressed from the exterior window replacement is a necessary uh item here as well exterior doors and interior doors to create a more weathertight envelope um and then the Corridor Renovations um as I've described this in the past as you walk down the hallways there's glass and Cubbies that's not necessarily fire um fire rating

025Pro or proper fire fire rating for current code and so we're going to address that as part of the capital project um and then again mechanical we're going to convert hot water or excuse me steam to hot water and all the associated Management Systems okay we're almost getting to the end so Sherman again site components are limited to just the light the lighting upgrades for the site Ada upgrades and then as far as the building uh envelope we're going to look at masonry restoration toilet room Renovations uh window replacement classroom Renovations here are a little bit different because we have classrooms in the basement level that are just not adequate for student students to be in because of just being a cramped building every opportunity to make space for students is made but we need

026to do that right and so we're going to re-evaluate that what that looks like um and then again hazardous materials and then last but not least is is the boilers being converted from Steam top water as well as Management Systems okay so the last building is Massy not student occupied and as we've been mentioning because it's not student occupied it does not generate building Aid um and so one of of the things that we are looking at is because their site components are so um deteriorated you can see that by these images the front stairs sidewalks uh some of the doors they need to be addressed and so we're looking at other funding sources to potentially do that sooner than later um but ultimately it's Incorporated in this project should those other funding sources not

027pan out so to speak um but that in its entirety is the scope not a lot of Frills it's basic stuff but things that that and again the video says it very well um in carrying out the mission for the district we really up need to we really need to make these buildings weathertight safe warm warm safe drives really what we've been saying so I don't know if it's appropriate for questions now or turn over to Ben for the absolutely so I'll turn it over to Ben for project financials all right thanks everybody so the financial piece of this for the public information is going to be fairly simplistic and that is because there is going to be no tax increase so we don't want to over complicate that if we don't have to um

028the district has three main funding sources are going to pay for the project the first is going to be a dedicated capital reserve the voters established a capital reserve um the Board of Education and District funded it over a number of years and now the voters must authorize to utilize that capital reserve it is set aside for dedicated capital projects and again just reiterate must be voter approved to use it it cannot be used on any other purposes other than Capital the other piece and the biggest piece of the puzzle is State Building Aid the district has afforded a 93% building Aid ratio so for every $100 that is spent on aable work you're going to get $93 back over a period of time um and then the third piece of the puzzle is going

029to be expiring debt we're timing this project to come online with the 2007 project going offline so it's a good timing um in order for one project to roll off very similar to you pay one car off and then get a new car similar thing in your own household um one thing that we took a great deal of care in with this project in the financials and the scope was to make sure that the majority of the work is Aid eligible I mentioned the 93% building Aid ratio we wanted to maximize that we didn't want to do work that was unable that's why as Jason alluded to Massie if we can get that paid for out of other funding sources we will but we wanted to make this project as highly aidable as possible to

030maximize those State dollars coming back to Watertown and not going to some neighboring District or some other District in another County so we took a lot of care with that as part of that process each and every building instructional building of the district has a maximum cost allowances so North Street for example there's 20 plus million dollars that we want to do it North however the maximum cost allowance or the maximum you can spend in a fiveyear window and get that 93% back is about $12 million so we have to break that project up we could do 20 million today but eight million of it isn't going to be aable and you're going to have a tax increase so the project financials and scope has been very strategic to maximize that 93 cents coming back

031to the residents um the one other thing that we've talked about at other schools and I've been asked about here why can't we just knock the building down and build new New York state with the way the rules are set at this point it's not advantageous to knock down something and build it new and I'll give you an example the maximum cost allowances for the high school are about $44 million so they're going to give you $44 million today to to re reconstruct what you have and then in five years they'll give you another $44 million if you want to build a brand new building they're going to give you 44 milon they're not doubling that they're not tripling that they're giving you that 44 in rough figures um we figured it would cost 100

032million dollar to rebuild the high school in a nutshell that's about a 19% tax increase to knock this building down and build new and that doesn't even include a new site and establishment of site for power and water and all those good things so we've looked at all those Avenues and just with the way the rules are set up and with the over overriding Financial task that I was given was to know for have no tax increase so with the scope of work provided with this the way we're going to strategize and do the work we're able to confidently say to the residents of the district that there will not be a tax increase um the last thing I'm going to mention because this is pretty important on the proposition language which the voters will

033look at it is going to mention you $110 million 10 million a capital reserve and it is also going to have l in there that says if necessary Levy a tax there on that is legal language and is required however with the financials with the building Aid and with the expiring debt for the district this project will not have a tax increase at this time I'll open it up for if anybody has any questions for the experts no yes um I'll ask a question that many of our staff and students ask I think it's important for the public to know and that's what's the timeline once this is approved for this to be completed that's a great question uh very appropriate to what we're talking about so at0 million if the vote is sorry if

034the uh if the vote does pass uh which we're hopeful for there's going to take a bunch of time that we're going to have to break this into multiple phases as Ben talked about earlier due to maximum cost allowances for instance at North we're only going to be allowed to spend roughly 10 to 12 million per phase on a five-year plan so that would have to roll into two phases over five years so from start of a positive referendum we go into design phase which is preconstruction where the design team will start putting drawings together specifications we'll be reviewing that once that's completed it will go on to State education department which then they will review it and right now their probably architectural reviews will vary uh right now they're probably at about four months

035um so we have to wait for their approval so if all goes well phase one of this would potentially start sometime in later 26 we would aim for the summer of 2026 for phase one we're anticipating anywhere between one to maybe three phases depending on how we have to financially uh attack this project and this many different buildings so to put it in writing I I would say that you're probably looking at a start of shovels in the ground uh following another six to seven years until the Project's completed and the one 10 is spent anybody else okay oh on the topic of ventilation my daughter's class in the basement of sh Elementary right now and it's always you know seemingly hot in there that air BL spreading all around uh you mentioned some improvements

036mechanical stuff but does that include ventilation to all those room just yes absolutely as I mentioned upgrading any system needs to be to code both SD as well as the building code and so ventilation is a key aspect of that and it requires certain air circulation I won't get into the details of it but ultimately it will require us to move air appropriately in these spaces and a lot of them aren't what they should be you know they're built to older codes at this point so yes you mention the planetarium saying that you want to reimagine space that sounds like it's notary hasn't been for a long time I'm going to look at Dr schmeel a little bit here because he has from past experience done um some other or seen different technology that are

037available the planum actually there are people in this room that attended the planetarium when it was actually up and running um it is now considered office space or I think three or four people are sharing that as an office space um we're looking at a more modern technology purposing another space in that building um possibly a Google Sphere there's other Technologies available that can be used for planetarian resources but also additional resources available for educational but it really we're looking forward to it bringing back like we actually had a student last year that wrote a letter that that brought it to the board and read it to the board but it's an opportunity for Watertown to get back on the map and have something that maybe other districts don't that we can invite other people

038to help share those resources so we're looking forward to something new and different and exciting engage our students with st and learning my last thing too there's a lot talking here about motor vehicle tration out what are you going to do about bicycl I still every day ride my b in school you do you have any thoughts on that yeah I think that that ultimately will be part of the survey that was conducted um and will be incorporated into the overall traffic patterns um again from pedestrian to vehicular bicycle all of that will be looked at as part of that plan and actually to your last question as well and I think this is important in general um everything today is pre-referendum is very high level conceptual planning and so once the project is successful

039we go back to all these different stakeholder groups that the school district deems appropriate to talk with with to really understand how these systems are going to work how do they work well and so there's a lot of feedback that we'll be getting to ultimately design these spaces whether it's the planetarium to the site components and so that's it's a really key next step and it actually to Kyle's point with the timing that's why that takes several months because we're getting more and more information this is just scratching the surface as part of this this phase so yes the other key highlight to of this project is it's the warm safe dry piece but it's getting the District on a Ford momentum to realizing that our facilities are not where they need to be and

040we need to work on the shell on the outside of our buildings move into the inside of our buildings and really start impacting the instructional spaces in our schools uh and while really maximizing that 93 cents per dollar that we could be getting back and relieving that tax burden from our taxers and last was a bit of traser I appreciate fixing up these olds there's been schoal that so I'm glad toest yes may you guys focus on the warmth and everything of the schools what about the coolness of them I know like has AC and stuff classes do but I know they recently came up with a new guide on if it's this degree in the classrooms like we have to pull down or like have to dismissed and we did l some schooling days

041because of the heat is that something that so I can speak to that and we spoke about at the staff meting just part of this one the um so we're looking at the Shell and so when we look at replacing the roofs the windows and the doors that's going to help keep the hot ear ear out the cold vice versa um when you look at what was said Jason said earlier today this project was separated everything in high priority medium priority and low when you looked at all of the priority items and just for the high it was well exceeded was over 160 million just for the high priority items and the ruling is at 82 degrees when it once it hits that 82 degrees we're starting to do things like turning off lights turning

042off Technologies once it gets to that 88 degrees and that's an effect July one of this year um then spaces are moved and we' had to do that in case we' had to move classrooms our hope is that by working on the Shell First that will protect our buildings so that water as Jason said earlier water intrusion is not taking place but we are confident that with new windows and doors and new heating system that it will help but then it's in a future project we are going to have to look at that and we actually ad justed that it's on the agenda tonight for transportation looking at are we incorporating AC on our buses so that over the summer months when it gets or the end of the yearning the year but definitely something

043that we're concerned about definitely something that we're looking at if we had added that now to the project it would well over2 million and taxi to try to do project it's zero tax Inc okay thank you very much um and at this time I need a motion to move into Open session for our regular Board of Education meeting John John Milly all those in favor okay here we go Michelle do we have any agenda changes I do not have any agenda changes is anyone here wishing to address the board on AG agenda related public comments okay and then I believe we have some Communications is that correct to the email that went out to the board um a couple weeks ago our food service director is hoping that the board members can attend uh the

044tour of the food service department uh so that she can provide an overview of our District's food program additionally this tour will provide an opportunity to explain the various limitations descriptions and guidelines that are Food Service program as part of the Federal Regulations um we believe this discussion will be highly informative and beneficial to the board offering a clear understanding of the constraints and requirements we navigate while providing meals for our students uh this tour will be offered uh March and or March 4th and or 5th at 11 this time I'll turn it over to Mr Michael Morgan our athletic director for athlete recog hello everybody um we have five student athletes that we are going to honor tonight um but that's actually now three student athletes and some parents uh two of our athletes

045had to go to practice um but again tonight we have the privilege of recognizing five exceptional student athletes who have not only left an incredible mark on Watertown High School and the Watertown city school district but four of them will be continuing their athletic careers at the Collegiate level at the division one stage their dedication talent and commitment to Excellence have set them apart not only here in Watertown but throughout the North country and Beyond first we're gonna honor Jack Adams a true competitor who has made his mark on both the lacrosse and basketball program since starting in the second grade Jack's long list of accolades reflects his passion and drive for excellence he has been named all North MVP earned All State eighth team honors as a junior and is a two time Frontier

046League Allstar additionally he was selected for the all CNY second team and has represented our community as a New York state scholar athlete and a true national team selection Jack's achievements are a testament to his work ethic and we are thrilled that he will continue his Lacrosse career at Le Moine College Jack and Amy uh your Relentless dedication has brought you to this moment and we can't wait to see what you accomplish next so come on up and uh Amy Adams uh mother of Jack Adams so proud of you Amy congrats we also want to recognize Nico spaziani whose impact on the field is nothing short of outstanding last year his junior year he secured First Team all CNY First Team all North alln North MVP and Frontier League first team Allstar honors his incredible

047season also earned him a spot on the New Balance All-America team but Niko success isn't just a one story his consistency has been evident uh throughout his career especially a sophomore season when he received First Team all North and Frontier League All-Star honors his talent dedication and perseverance have earned him the opportunity to play at Binghamton University so Stacy come on down we congratulate niik spani next up Delany Callahan whose record-breaking career has cemented her Legacy in Watertown High School history with 77 career goals she holds the all-time scoring record for girls soccer she also set a single season record with 29 goals and is tied for the all-time career assist record with 25 delany's resume is nothing short of remarkable she's a five-time Frontier League Allstar two time Frontier League MVP and a two-time

048all CNY Honore additionally she has earned all section three All-Star and all North first team honors four times as a two-time Channel 7 News athlete of the week and a twoyear varsity Captain Delaney has been a leader both on and off the field but perhaps her most historic accomplishment is becoming the first female soccer player at Watertown High School to earn a division one scholarship and Delaney will be continuing her academic and athletic career at Bryant where she will no doubt continue to excel so congrats Delaney and lastly we recognize Justin drought who is a standout athlete indoor outdoor track football and his speed and endurance have led him to some of the most prestigious competitions in the state Justin has been a Frontier League Allstar and a New York state championship participant in both

049indoor and outdoor track his dominance on the track was further showcased by his victories in two Syracuse UDA Invitational meets including a key win in the 4x100 relay his dedication to Excellence extends Beyond Athletics as he has earned the incredible opportunity to attend West point where he will continue his academic and athletic Journey while serving our country Justin your perseverance and commitment have led you to an extraordinary path and we are Beyond proud of your accomplishments congratulations and lastly tonight we um I'm G to be speaking on behalf of our Varsity wrestling coach Nick Lavin um he unfortunately could not be here tonight he had a family emergency but he wrote the speech about our next student athlete and I am uh honored to share this uh on his behalf good evening everybody thank you

050all for the opportunity to be here tonight it means a lot to myself our program and this particular student athlete and his family and on this occasion tonight we want to introduce and honor Adam Paulie Ortega Paulie was brought up to the varsity wrestling team last year as a seventh grader and he has consistently excelled in competition but has also experienced immense character development first I'd like to list Paulie's accomplishments from this season he was a runner up at the Bill Anderson Memorial Tournament held at CNS fifth at the Kenneth haes Memorial Tournament held at Sunni asigo sixth at the Southern Tier tournament in amyra he was a Frontier League runner up and section three Class A runnerup and lastly he was first at the section 3 tournament last weekend which makes Paulie a section

051Champion as an eighth grader and punched his ticket to the state tournament which will be this weekend in Albany excuse me as Paulie fell short in individual tournaments throughout the season he never lost faith in the ultimate goal he continued to work his tail off in the practice room and broke through on the biggest stage to date I proud to call him a champion at such a young age but just as proud to tell this quick story that highlights the person he is becoming on January 9th we faced off against South Lewis at their place during the last match of the evening Paulie approached me while I'm coaching and said coach that kid on the end of the bench can I give him an exhibition match the kid Paulie was talking about had special needs

052and hadn't participated up to that point to be honest I was hesitant at first but I decided to cross the mat and ask their coach if it was even possible their coach agreed and we were able to make it happen everybody in the gym was on their feet clapping and cheering Paulie allowed the opposing kid to score on him before rolling to his back and getting pinned in the second period the whole gym erupted and the pure joy and happiness on this kid's face was something I will never truly forget I will never forget and I'm sure he won't either I had tears in my eyes as this was truly one of the most beautiful moments I've seen in my coaching or playing career as an eighth grader this demonstrates maturity and it's just a

053small glimpse of the heart that Paulie has congratulations Paulie as you now have cemented your name in Watertown High School history and the case wall we're gonna have to get a new Banner I'm sorry Bri and uh we are proud of all you've accomplished on the mat up to this point and even more excited of what you are capable of in the future never stop learning and continue to grow into the person I know you're capable of being we are all behind you as you enter the state tournament this weekend thank you CL yes so I just wanted to say it's a I know I speak for the board it's a pleasure to be in front of such commendable young students and uh Paulie I think we all got goosebumps on that um so I'll

054never forget that story and if you were here for that portion you are free to [Music] leave thank you everybody long um it is my pleasure to turn it over to Mrs Leslie Atkinson for the welcome and student voice thank you Mr Harrington good evening everybody thank you very very much for being here tonight we love having you we look forward to this night every year and uh Watertown High School welcomes you I'm also extremely proud to represent this crowd and this crowd and that crowd and um we're kind of spread all over tonight I realized this could become a long meeting so I'm going to try and clip through this portion very quickly but I do publicly want to recognize some people who are in this room tonight thank you for mentioning the coffee

055Express when you opened the meeting I'd like to tell you just a little bit more about this group though if I could um this Cyclone coffee Express represents Mrs Lori Babcock's life skills class and the coffee Express really started just as a desire to form a club they applied for a club we approved the club and off they went not knowing how successful it was going to become you may have noticed they have brochures they have little coffee cup holders they're marketing supplies um the way it works for those who don't know is it operates out of Miss Babcock's room room 206 and I the principal I can go online and I look at my daily announcements and embedded in my announcements is a link and I can click on the link and an order

056form pops up on my screen and I can click the boxes and say I want a cinnamon sugar coffee with three scoops of sugar and I want it delivered um on Tuesday fourth period in my office and I click submit and on Tuesday fourth period that coffee shows up in my office it's pretty amazing so it became Uber successful very quickly and they decided to expand their lens a little bit and they've just begun delivery service so they they're delivering Upstairs Downstairs it's open traditionally from 7 to 1 every day and people were running to 206 to get their coffees now you don't even have to leave your classroom or your gymnasium or your office or your band room it comes directly to you I would like to take one moment please if I could

057just to acknowledge the young ladies and gentlemen who are here with us tonight we have Jaden Rimer Dustin weight Peola isero Wilbert Rodriguez and AJ [Applause] Robbins I would also like to acknowledge the staff of the Cyclone Express coffee Express who is here with them tonight Amanda young Ariana Mother cell Pam Jones Becky Hurst and Kim Shippy and of course Miss Bab [Applause] next I'd like to turn attention if I could please um it it's kind of difficult because of the wonderful crowd that we have here but you may have noticed there's artwork everywhere all right there are paintings um as you came in the door behind the audience there is artwork if you look at the bookshelving um behind our board and over there on stage right look into the nooks of all the

058bookshelves artwork has been embedded um it's on the eel there is ceramic work on this bookshelf that surrounds our pillar um you you really need to notice that on your way out um just to give you an idea of what you're looking at thead art teacher Jessica Hayden provided this for me because there is no way I would have remembered all this the artwork that you see decorating our library comes from a variety of our courses ranging from Studio Art which is an introductory course all the way up to our Advanced electives such as drawing and painting ceramics photography and graphic design some of the smaller scale drawings paintings mixed media works and plaster masks were created by Studio art students the larger scale drawings and paintings on canvases were created by students in drawing

059and painting 1 two 3 and four the mediums include charcoal colored pencils graphite acrylic and oil paint the photographs you see are products of Photography 1 2 3 and four the digital illustrations posters advertisements and logos are from the creative minds in graphic design Design 1 2 3 and four and finally all of the amazing clay pieces you see were created by the students in Ceramics 1 two 3 and four with us tonight our Lead Teacher Jessica Hayden Claire am Andy nether me and our brand new acquisition Mr Michael skiner whom we adore please thank the art Department now for those of you who arrived early tonight you may have enjoyed this amazing flute choir that is seated before you I am thrilled that you're here and I love the new t-shirts by the way

060they are fabulous um I'd like to tell you first of all who who is with us tonight we have juler Junior Riley Burns Junior April Wang senior Claire Draper Junior Alysa wesseldine Junior Alysa Sanders sophomore Julia Kelly Milo Gregory Baka Milo what great are you in junior she's a junior and what about Nolan Burns sophomore now in addition to these students there is a row of individuals right here here uh these musicians represent the instrumental music program of every school in the Watertown city school district so this is an example of community coming together um we we aren't just represented tonight by Watertown High School although that is definitely the vast majority but we have all our schools represented uh Dustin white from Starbuck Elementary Stephen Hurst from case Middle School jinda Hurst from Wy

061Mrs Andrea Wisher Watertown High School and there's a special guest here tonight and I am I'm feeling uh very very nostalgic we have another gentleman with us tonight whose name is Nick Tate and I'm gonna tell you Nick is the instrumental music teacher at South Jefferson central school so you may oh now come on you may be saying to yourself that's nice why is he here well I'm gonna tell you why he's here first of all Nick is an Alum he's a proud graduate of the class of 2013 Watertown High School favorite class one of my favorite classes but I also want you to know that Nick tapate was my final English student in this school before I went into Administration and Nick has and holds a very very special place in my heart and

062when he heard that our flute choir was playing tonight he asked to come and join and play with us so please welcome Nikki [Applause] Tate and now the flute choir would like to entertain us we have two pieces the first one is Londoner the second piece Teddy whistle jish e e e our first student G to recognize in honor of that wonderful performance Milo Gregory [Applause] vaka okay next up noan burds Alissa Sanders [Applause] so wle [Applause] Dy Riley Burns [Applause] Way D thank you very very much I would be remiss if I did not turn my focus to Watertown High School I would like to very very quickly introduce the staff of Watertown High School to all of you because they are so very very special to me and they do so much for

063every single person in this District but especially for the children of this school so I'm going to go through very fast um Ain coyer actually is a teacher at case middle school but she works tirelessly for the Watertown High School students Credit Recovery credit acrel Cyclone Academy I I think she's here more than she's at case I know that's not true but we are eternally grateful to her Mrs Gail Basset she's a counselor at North Elementary School by day but she's with us a lot of nights at Cyclone Academy we're thrilled to have [Applause] her Mr Peter Simmons he's my boss this school would be nowhere without him he is the glue that keeps us all together [Applause] Mr Michael Shanley audio visual for the whole District but especially for Watertown High School um my

064administrative partner in crime who is the assistant principal of North Elementary during the day but I couldn't do Cyclone Academy without her Mrs Bridget [Applause] fster art Department Claire Ames Lead Teacher Jessica Hayden Michael skaner and is Andy here still okay Andy is not here but also Andy Neer [Applause] me social studies Mr Eric Peters Alexine Thomas Brown and she and I have a joke I can never remember her full title so I'm gonna let her say it go ahead Alexine what is your title [Applause] yes Dr Amy Garts Lead Teacher of the math department Mr Brian [Applause] Shepard also physical education Ohio elementary but we couldn't do Cyclone Academy without her Mrs Rebecca Sullivan and yes that's WEA president and social studies teacher at case Middle School Mr Kevin [Applause] Todd our new math

065specialist math coach Jillian [Applause] Felino Lead Teacher of the science department Mr Timothy [Applause] casera my I and right arm building secretary Mrs Suzanne [Applause] stenard vocal music teacher Mrs Rebecca [Applause] Rose family and consumer science Mrs merid [Applause] Caldwell physical education Mariah [Applause] bordon special education Mia Barnes social studies Amy lame Hammond Social Studies Mr John Wolf [Applause] horse special education Ruth [Applause] Wright Lead Teacher special education Christopher gulen [Applause] fenig science Mrs Lisa Winkler technology genius Tara [Applause] Elmer construction advertis that's on all of our capital projects okay double [Applause] Applause special education Tammy [Applause] Angel I'll get to you too in a minute discipline secretary Elizabeth [Applause] Chrisley homeschool coordinator Mrs Jill [Applause] anier another brand new addition and we love her to death her name is Malia byard and she's in

066the counseling [Applause] department hey McKenzie did you just get engaged um she's been telling a lot of people that McKenzie Martin who by the way just got engaged every [Applause] Analise Parsons [Applause] counseling Mrs Julie Hugh Master [Applause] counseling lead counselor Mr Matthew [Applause] Elliott we also have a gentleman over on this book stack his name is Tyler doomy he's a new acquisition like some other s he is helping us out with Cyclone Academy we are honored to have you with [Applause] us Anthony vas pres is here [Applause] [Music] too oh Stacy nto over here I'm sorry you're over on the other side of the [Applause] room all right so now let's get this going um we we will probably more than likely touch on a couple few successes that have been happening at Watertown

067High School thus far this year but tonight the primary focus of the remainder of this presentation is Cyclone Academy um it has been our pet project this year we've put a tremendous amount of focus into it it's it's distracting a lot of our bandwidth because it is so very very important to us um it's our baby and like most new babies every first step and every step forward we Delight in I would like to turn the program at this time over to my two assistant principles who I have to say um I don't think I remember a time in my career when I've enjoyed working with two assistant principles more than I have enjoyed working with these two women they are skilled they are smart smart they are talented beyond belief and they come to

068work every single solitary day excited and enthused to go to work for these kids it is an honor and a privilege to introduce Mrs tanyaa trudell and Miss Amber misercola [Applause] well thank you that was really great good night let's go I don't even know what we should say I'm Mrs trudell T trudell Miss mola okay so we're gonna talk about Cyclone Academy um and as Miss tinson said Cyclone Academy is a bear you know and whoever uh I don't even know the minds that were at play that put this thing into motion but it's a brilliant idea um flexible model for for students that don't fit in Traditional School days just brilliant and it was before I got here so I won't take any of the credit obviously but it was brilliant and to

069see it kind of unfold has been a blessing for me so um we're gonna get going I'm Amber's gonna start with this slide um before we get talking about our Cyclone Academy which is absolutely wonderful we do want to acknowledge we still have 1100 kids here every single day who are doing amazing things day in and day out um so one of the things that we want to really highlight is our portrait of a graduate work um this has really engaged students this year we've done things like our winter blast which had 200 additional pre-registrations from last year for just our students um we like to talk about how we have a student service program this year these are students who are giving up their study halls to help teachers and staff around the building

070uh we also of course like to mention that um as part of the student service program we are working with Tyler doomy and Cassandra Richardson at w to do a classroom mentoring program so students have the option of either being being a student service worker or being a classroom Mentor with a Wy counterpart classroom which has been a new addition that we're working on um for PBIS we are really focused on PBIS being data informed in this building and we don't just keep that data to ourselves in the administration office we share that with our staff every single month through a monthly newsletter that they have so they can see how are our behaviors how is discipline going in the high school what do we need to focus on to better support our students but

071it's not all busy um business work we have a lot of fun with PBIS so um every year we do an annual Christmas basket raffle uh we do an ice cream social which was just uh the Friday before break and we of course have an upcoming pancake breakfast but that again is based on data so the class freshman junior senior Etc with the least no fewest tardies fewest Hardies um fewest referrals and best attendance are going to win a pancake breakfast so they get excused from a class um for one period and then we cook the pancakes for them they get all the toppings and they really enjoy that social time with their peers and every week they get updated on how their class is doing so they're part of that data piece as well

072no you're fine we also uh brought back our not brought back we instituted the first ever winter pep rally um this is a new thing for us but we wanted an opportunity to celebrate our students in multiple capacities and our winter athletes our artists our musicians and so this was our first year doing a winter pep rally that was really exciting for us and helped us highlight even more of our students in the building so speaking of that um when we talked about the Cyclone Academy it was important to to have this flexible mode of education for students that wouldn't fit in the traditional school day but with doing that we did not want them to feel excluded from the traditional school and to we wanted them to be included as this Cyclone you know

073core of people so that's a task right when you're when you don't have the kids together how do you keep them feeling as a community so there's been a concerted effort with Communications parent squares invites to things and um Amber just spoke about the pep rail so the the Cyclone Academy kids are invited to all of those things they're invited to pep rallies they're invited to pancake breakfast they're invited to the ice cream socials they're invited to all these things it has been all hands on deck to try to get information out to these families to make sure that everybody's invited to these things and you know we might not be perfect in the first semester but things are going well and I think as you see the second semester come into play it's going

074to be much better um some of the things that I think are essential about the Cyclone Academy and you'll see too as we start going through these slides and talking about the things that are are benefits of cyclone Academy is the critical thinking that you're going to see in these kids as they're going through the the the students set didn't fit in the regular school model the the Project based learning and the ability for them to engage in things is really important and some of the things that I see as I'm walking through after school when the kids are in Cyclone it's just pretty really really pretty neat especially Sully bringing her wagon around and doing Fizz that all over the school it's pretty wild my next all right so the the this is just

075an outline of what we're going to go over some academic successes behavioral progress social emotional wins um the fact that we're one Watertown High School family and building morale so we're going to see slides on all of these things okay and we like to point out that when we talk about the Cyclone Academy this isn't just let's just throw some kids after school and see how it goes all of this really is aligned to our strategic plan so when we look at Cyclone Academy it's about improving the graduation rate improving student engagement improving attendance and making sure that our kids behaviors and we're supporting them and their social emotional needs every step of the way so all of it is part of that strategic plan and the ultimate vision for the district so who are

076cyclone Academy kids um as of the Friday before break because it changes all the time so I do want to say that uh we have 70 students enrolled in Cyclone Academy um 58 of those students only come for cyclone Academy so they're with us from 2:30 to 5:30 Monday through Friday Monday and Wednesday is one class Tuesday Thursday is another class and Friday is a chance to do credit acral and Credit Recovery classes eight of our students come to our school at least at some point during the traditional school day some of them come in the morning take a break come back some come in the afternoon and roll right into Cyclone Academy and some of our students four of them even attend Bose's programming I did want to point out that this is should

077actually say 71 because we just added a new student to Cyclone Academy she is a full-time traditional um student in our building but PE just wasn't working for her so she's just taking PE in Cyclone Academy that's it and she's gonna earn that credit and she's going to graduate on time this June so this this slide is just representative of our student population student students with IEPs and students without IEPs that are in the Cyclone Academy and some of the things well all of the things really that are offered during the academy you know we have um our special ed services are there in full force I think we have eight special education teachers that are in that are offering services in um the Cyclone Academy we have Workforce connections Counseling Services field trips and

078I can get into some specifics like they've um kids in Cyclone have taken field trips to the library Piggly Wiggly we've had Beth solar come in and from Fort Drum and talk about career opportunities in the medical field these types of things are being offered during the Cyclone Academy so the kids I mean it's not just you know they're not just there taking classes and walking through the day you know what I mean there are a lot of things being offered to them also extracurricular activities kids are also still allowed to be in clubs because clubs meet oftentimes between 2:30 and 3: so they're eligible to be in those clubs that are meeting during those times so we have a lot of enrichment things that are happening and it's exciting and like we mentioned earlier

079they are part of all of our social events whether that means the pep rallies our dances um ice cream social pancake breakfast we've Incorporated those into each of the components for cyclone Academy um so for instance on Friday before break we served ice cream periods um 5 through 8 in the building and then from 2:30 to three Mrs trudell and I were there serving up ice cream Sundays for each of our students in Cyclone Academy yeah all right um when we look at the enrollment of cyclone Academy what we see is that the majority of our students are current 10th graders we do have though 13 freshmen who are joining this uh Cyclone Academy for the second semester we really wanted them to have an opportunity to try high school and really get to know

080whether or not the traditional High School model was going to work for them and for 13 of our freshmen they said nope I want to tryy Academy and so we've switched them over with the second semester beginning and they've been very successful already thus far um again these numbers from before break it has altered and changed a little bit already okay got it so this is an exciting graph for me um this is looking at uh the credits that were acquired during Cyclone Academy so 52 students acquired 105 credits during Cyclone Academy in first semester so I mean that's that to me that's an incredible success so the purple is the inperson instruction and the yellow is through credit acral and credit recovery and that's all that is it's pretty simple to see but to

081me those are credits that we don't know you know attendance purposes or whatever reasons for kids sometimes they struggle social emotionally whatever not sure they would have gotten those credits so that's to me is a huge success and I applaud the teachers and the kids that are in the Cyclone Academy for that it's wonderful um and you know my heart is near and dear to PBIS so I always like to look at the behavior as well um so looking at the behavior statistics if we take those 70 students who are in the Cyclone Academy we looked at their behavior from last year and how many discipline referrals um were written for those students those 70 students accounted for 668 discipline referrals for this year the students who've been in Cyclone Academy from the very beginning

082from September through February when we pulled the data were're responsible for 21 of those discipline referrals on our books so this model is working for them whether it's because it's a later dat it's a less transitions no matter how you look at it it's working for them and we're really excited to see that um Mrs Shel is going to explain that Center number because it's a little confusing but we find it really important to look at all of the data so we know really what the impact has been so at the beginning of the year we were we were just rolling out cyclone and I remember there was a that we were calling families and saying we think that this is a match for you and your your family and your child and so we

083were filling seats in Cyclone Academy well we filled some seats and these are the students that started first day September these this is this number the number in the middle is uh the referrals of students that were started out in traditional day model school but then went into Cyclone Academy so 163 referrals were were gathered by those students and now they're in Cyclone Academy so the ones that entered late okay they entered late into Cyclone Academy they got 163 referrals so this is the total so far of referrals of those students this year before entering okay does that make sense all right so now well I'm gonna say one thing so can you go back to that slide worst case scenario I'm a worst case scenario person I don't know why but worst case scenario

084right worst case scenario if this number doubled it would still be just over half of that number which we don't think this number would double because these students would probably be better suited in the Cyclone Academy it would still be half of that in my estimation that's how I in my mind it works but whatever darkar right dark and scared okay so this is just I don't I don't even think that we need to go over this if you look at um the improved Behavior Cyclone Academy and Watertown High School across the years this is how our behaviors are looking this is this year and it's by grade band we have some we have some thoughts though in Cas any I don't think it's all Cyclone Academy I think there's some other things you want

085to tell them what we I mean there are some other things happening yeah so when we look at this yes a good part of that is Cyclone Academy and the change it's made in our building but there's significantly more happening here right um one of the things that we posit as the contributing factors of this Improvement is that we are taking a more holistic approach in the ad administrative office um so when we are dealing with a student with challenging behaviors we're a team but we're also a team with our SRO with our um guidance Department with with our Pete yes um all of us are working together and we're just trying to wrap around the kid in a little bit different way to meet all of their needs um you know when a student

086comes in and they're angry we let them be angry they can yell all they want and tell us how they feel and then when they calm down we go okay get it but here's what you need to know and there still a consequence because while you're allowed to feel that way you're not allowed to do X Y or Z and that's been a really beneficial thing for our students and helping them see that we're not just punishing them to punish them we are trying to help them build into um their best selves especially as they're going to be leaving us yeah working with guidance and working with our SRO in the front and Pete in the front and I I'm not joking when I say that and miss chrisly and working with Jill anfar and

087working with the nurse and working with everybody when all hands are on Deck our kids really improve immensely but we had also talked about our teachers in case absolutely so I want to point out specifically this freshman number which is um gone from 950 in 2223 to 965 in 2324 to 373 in this year um and there's a lot behind that uh one of the things that we think's been really beneficial is that this year our PB committee along with our staff hosted the first um ninth grade orientation that we've done in years and this allowed us to get staff students and their parents all on the same page the high school wasn't going to be a scary place they got to explore the building meet some of the staff see some familiar faces and

088friendly faces to help them be successful when they got here we also posit that part of it is that we've really reinforced and ramped up our PBIS in the building um we focus on something called Pride which is highlighting professionalism respect Integrity diversity and empathy those character traits were identified by our staff as being really important for students when they leave the building but they also are really import important to the business world if you look at any um survey data from employers they identify those traits as really highly um desired in their future employees and then finally we want to give a shout out to case I think there's two teachers here from case um but what they're doing at case is really laying the foundations so that when the students get here they're

089more apt to be successful because they already have those foundations in place so thank you guys so I know that Miss Miss ainson just announced everybody but if you are also a cyclone Academy teacher would you stand up these these people have been working or been up probably since five o'clock in the morning and worked all day then worked all night and then came to this meeting so I'm greatly appreciative and I know the board is of you but that's part of the reason why Cyclone okay and there's Cyclone administrators here as well that's why it's so important and that's why it's so successful and also I I Amber said don't forget to mention the subs the subs for cycl Academy are so important so and they cover when people can't be there so that's

090another thing we just wanted to do a shout out for [Applause] that and the next thing we want to talk about and I think this may be our last thing is our our building morale and the culture here at Watertown High School um the culture from the moment I stepped in Watertown High School it has changed and there I don't know it's not measurable but it's palpable you can feel it um when I first walked in into the halls there was sort of a tension that you could feel between groups of kids um sort of between not between teachers but it was you could feel it you don't feel it now and it's not measurable to me but it's just different and um and I so we did a survey and because that's what you

091do in education um so on that survey we asked two simple questions um and the first question was simply of our staff uh the 2425 wtown High School school year has been better because open-ended tell us what's been better and then one thing I would like to improve or change at whs is and here are some of the results right so the first the fir well and I only put on here the things that were mentioned more than you know multiple times I didn't put on everything so the first thing they said was Cyclone Academy and it was mentioned M like tons of times because it's a flexible mode for kids that can't handle the traditional mode of school and because there are fewer disciplinary issues so that was I mean it was it was

092prominent they also mentioned the administrative team which is very humbling for me and I know for Amber we've talked about it they said that we were stable um supportive I know I don't think they meant mentally I I think they meant that we were just sticking around I don't know supportive and student centered and they said the hallways were calmer safer and better so to me that's speaks volumes so thank you so much um in a few moments you're gonna actually hear from some of the Cyclone Academy staff and students but we wanted to take an opportunity and see if you had any questions for US based on our data before you hear from them oh I guess team is gonna speak before me go ahead I don't have a question question but I have

093a comment I was lucky enough to um assist at the ice cream social and it was it was amazing um the kids walked in the cafeteria and they looked over and they were like we get ice cream you'd have thought that we'd have given them a million dollars they were getting ice cream so they had to eat first which you know I'm Italian that was tough for me but you know hey whatever I'll go with whatever tells me I have to do so they went atate and they got the tables called up and they came up and they chose what they wanted and every single student said Thank you every one of them and if it wasn't thank you it was I appreciate you and I was like yep okay so that was phenomenal a

094huge shout out to Stuarts because they Don everything for that ice social from the spons to the toppings to everything it was phenomenal and those kids were so excited to get ice cream and when I left I'm walking through the halls and I did sub here a couple times before I was on the board and the atmosphere like you said is so different that you feel it the Halls are calm the kids are laughing they're talking some are skipping it was joyous to watch them go down and this is high school and they're skipping down the Halls having a blast it was wonderful there was no tension there was no Hey Joe you know I'll meet you later and you know we'll duel this out or whatever that I heard before but it was just

095I heard that before I might not have been Joe but but it was just amazing and kudos to the administration and to all the teachers at the high school because it is very well noticed and you are doing a great job and they are great kids every single great kids they are okay sorry Jason you're turn no I'm I'm G I'm glad to hear that there's no [Music] duels no doing only during the dungeon and Dragons Club um I know that uh you kind of talked about Cyclone Academy but the behavioral slide I think everybody up here noticed and it's not just because of Cy Academy it's because of the people sitting in chairs right here that's where it starts um and to drop behaviors by 2third to a half of referrals uh I know

096that your jobs retire somebody you need to feel good about that when you go home tonight and I'm sad to say that the news has already left and that's not going to be the headline right tomorrow and it and it should be um but to the board uh that will be what we take away from tonight so thank you all for doing such a great job thank you very much now I would just like to give a couple of teachers who teach Cyclone Academy an opportunity to speak just for minute or two to tell you what their experiences have been I would like to start by introducing science teacher Mrs Lisa Winkler IAL very loud good evening my name is Lisa Winkler and for over 20 years I've had the privilege of teaching science the

097last five at Watertown High School which has probably been one of the best opportunities I was ever provided teaching is my calling a way to make a difference however we all know the challenges teachers face overwhelming workloads Mo and moments of feeling unrewarded but it's in those moments that I believe in the power of reinvention and that's why I was so excited about Cyclone Academy when I heard about the district's Vision to create a supportive environment where students regardless of their past struggles could achieve the diploma I knew I knew it was going to be something special so this is my second semester and I've witnessed incredible Transformations not only in my students but in myself as a teacher many of our students arrived with a sense of ambivalence even apprehension they'd faced difficulties in

098the Traditional School day not just with the schedule but with social and emotional challenges that can absolutely derail learning but as they started experiencing their success something shifted just as you heard people talk about already there maybe I can do this turned into a resounding man I can do this and I am going to do this I've seen students Blas into leaders mentoring new arrivals reinforcing their own learning one student who I knew from the traditional setting and who struggled with attendance behavior and engagement is now an absolute vital vital part of my classroom this student catches up my absent students explains Concepts provides invaluable peer support more than that they are part of a vibrant Learning Community where students are taking are talking laughing and genuinely enjoying education we're still refining Cyclone Academy as

099again you've heard tonight but we are seeing Real Results we're empowering students to see their diploma as the key to their future almost like currency and we're ensuring that they have the tools to to unlock their future thank you so much for giving me this opportunity to share my experience if you're a teacher looking to ReDiscover the joy of teaching and make a tangible difference in a student's life I encourage you to explore the possibilities of cyclone Academy um accept it over there um next I I would like to introduce another Cyclone Academy teacher I just want you to know this woman's middle name is flexibility um Rebecca Sullivan has been teaching our PE class in Cyclone Academy and um there was no gymnasium or Becky so this is her this is her classroom okay

100she pulls this wagon around the building to whatever site will accommodate a gym class she has taught in the cafeteria she has taught in the hallway she has taught out of that wagon she has taught outside the ladyes room she taught in an English classroom now mind you this is a PE class okay you tell her back I don't know where you're going to go today but you got to teach Jim don't worry I got it she says don't worry I got it she says and she's got it I would like to introduce where is she oh there she is I would like to introduce coach Rebecca Sullivan from Cyclone [Applause] Academy think I'm nervous and I'm never nervous um for those that you don't know me um my name is Becky Sullivan I've been

101teach or AKA Sully I've been teaching in the district for 27 years 14 of those years were spent at the high school and the last 13 have been at Ohio elementary I've seen it all you know I I'd like the high school but I work much harder at the elementary and I enjoy the elementary but I was looking to get back to the high school kids how and why did I chose did I choose Cyclone Academy originally when Matt bck said something to me I said no it's not for me I'm not doing it I'm too I'm done i' I'm just done so after several conversations with Matt a lot of questions and answers going back and forth I said you got me I'll do it with a condition I can pick my days and

102so he did he goes you can pick your two days Mondays and Wednesdays because I wanted it was important to me to be with my family and watch my son run so that's what I did and I also took a pride when I was here at the high school um one of my greatest accomplishments accomplishments I think was making a connection with those students the students who are The Underdogs they weren't the the kid that you you know that gets all the accolades they were the underdog those were the kids that I gravitated towards and I just like being around them so I thought that was a calling to come back to Cyclone Academy why does it work we've been over it it's the smaller class sizes it's a shorter time frame less pressure fewer

103distractions for those kids and I think all those combinations combined all together have have produced a a wonderful product in the Cyclone Academy finally um Cyclone Academy is not your average PE class as Mrs ainson was saying in a t in a typical class your class is 40 minutes long and you're guaranteed a teaching space whether it be a gym a waight room a pool or good weather outdoors in the beginning I had there and then as the winter season Came Upon Us for fall or winter sports and the weather I didn't have any of that so we had a meeting and I had some um strong advice from other Cyclone teachers you know just brainstorming what can I do how can I make this work so we decided to teach I had to learn

104a little technology I had to get up with a Google classroom and whatnot it's not my forte so what we our classroom went to we met in the gym or the cafeteria we go to a classroom we we sit together for about 10 15 minutes just talk about our day just to get to know you know see how we're feeling and then we're on the Move we go for a good walk and then I grabed my cart and we're off um this semester we found ourselves in the large cafeteria and we would play games just reconnecting with ourselves and and just talking you know we do our exercise in the beginning of cyclone Academy but we making those connections with each other socializing not TR not trying to be on our phones but looking eye

105to eye with you having a conversation and I lost my notes just one moment there we go um oh let's see so during this time you know looking from now until back to September I have felt many heartwarming uh rewards from this experience for example in the beginning back in September I was I had a student who was very adant that they did not like PE and between their language and their body it just they were very adant I'm not doing PE I'm not going to do this I said okay we're gonna find choices for you what you're going to like if walking is what you need to do to get through I'm gonna help you walk if playing catch is what you want to do I'm gonna help you play catch and finally he

106figured out that this is going to work so he became one of my favorite students he grew on me you have students that grow on you and this p semester when the fall ended he sent me a message he said thank you for believing in me I never thought I could get through PE and just thank you for that and there's been some other things behind the scenes that he's looking out to for different avenu bosies for culinary I'm not sure how far that went but that was just something that we didn't know that was a connection I was able to make with him so that was one another one is coming back to the high school seeing former students from Ohio in this program just to see them and tell them how proud I

107am them to see them to persevere to push through and that I love them and I'm very proud of the young adults that they are becoming and um and one of the last things it's brought me to my old friends where I grew up I grew up here as a young teacher and it's been nice to see some old familiar faces that are now old with me Shepherd um so uh that's what Cyclone Academy has meant to me it's been a great thing and I just hope we keep pushing forward with for those [Music] kids and last I would like it very much if Miss Aon coyer would come forward please as I said earlier Aon is a Spanish teacher at case Middle School by day but manages our entire credit recovery and credit AC

108cruel program um for the Cyclone Academy yes but also for high school for everybody for everybody I'm here every day till 5:30 yes you are and I love my family too Sully okay um because I don't take this off um so if you're not familiar with credit recovery um it allows the students in Cyclone Academy and in regular school to get their credits so they can only do Monday Wednesday or Tuesday Thursday so then there's some courses they still need to take so they do that with me on Fridays online um they come in and then if they need to take tests if they have questions if they want my help um usually they don't but um and the great thing about the program we use at mum is that it's accessible on anything that

109has the internet so whether they have a Chromebook which I do bring Chromebooks but if they have a their phone or even some of the consoles that they play games on you can access it pretty much anywhere at any time um which is good because a lot of them you know people aren't morning people um and a lot of my kids are doing work at like 11:00 1 in the morning and which is great if that works for them then this allows them to do that um Mrs ainson asked me about an example and it took a little bit because there's so many and and I've been doing credit recovery for a long time um this is my 23rd year teaching uh 18 here in Watertown um and there's just so many kids that are

110working but I did have a senior that stood out to me and um I didn't know him and a lot of the kids I do know I had him at case they walk in they see me they're not happy um but um but I didn't know this kid and he came he sat way in the back with a group of buddies and I'm like he's not gonna do anything but I let him go and then he kept coming up and I was like great he's gonna want to go somewhere and he's like hey I I need help with this can you help me and I'm gonna go do this I go okay and I'll open something back up and he goes and sits down he's coming back and forth and um there was another adult

111in the room and said there and said wow I I can't believe he's doing work and that that stayed with me because I didn't know this kid and I didn't know the history but that person did and the fact that he was actually doing work and he's still doing work and it provides an alternative for kids that don't fit in the cookie cutter um School model that we think that all students maybe should be so I think it's a great thing and I'm learning a lot from these kids and I'm very surprised at how many of them are actually coming and doing the work because there's no pressure and I don't bother them and I don't hound them and there's no questions to answer or hand to raise and they just get to do their

112thing and if they need a break they get up they walk around they go back they sit down and they go back to work so that's been it's been very rewarding thank you I believe I saved the best for last and then we'll move on with your board meeting I have a young lady here with me this evening who who I could not be prouder of um she has agreed uh to speak to all of you tonight she is a cyclone Academy student and I thought it best for you to have the perspective of an enrolled student in Cyclone Academy so that she can tell you firsthand what this Flagship year has been like for her please welcome Alexa Solis [Applause] hello um I'm Alexis Elise I'm 17 years old and I'm a junior at

113Watertown High School I moved to Watertown High School from Texas I'm a military brat um when I was halfway through eth grade and as soon as high school started I felt like there was no way for me to make it work no matter what I did it just didn't feel right for me I went through my entire freshman year and I failed just about every class I had to do two six week long summer programs so it was really clear that it wasn't working for me and about halfway through my sophomore year I made the switch to GED and unfortunately like normal high school is GED isn't for everyone and it definitely wasn't for me but at the time it was the only alternative option for someone who didn't fit into a normal high school

114schedule until I heard about Cyclone Academy when I heard of cyclone Academy and the smaller classrooms I immediately thought that it would be something that I would love to try not thinking that it would work so well for me I started with a science class living environment and global history I have never been good at either of the subjects they were some of my worst subjects um but the one-on-one time you get with the teachers during Cyclone Academy and the way they pay extra attention to the students the smaller environment everything is so much less stressful and everything is so much more centered towards the students needs I did amazing my first my first quarter in Cyclone Academy I have never had my grades be so high um I was excited to go to school

115I was excited to learn I was excited to participate in class um and as someone who's suffered with severe social anxiety her entire life that is really rare I was usually the kid who'd sit at the back of the class not really ask any questions and I was scared to ask for help especially in big classrooms full of a bunch of students but in Cyclone Academy you not only see your teacher as an educator but you also see them as a friend and someone who's there to make sure that you're successful I passed both my region for living environment and global [Applause] history for cyclone Academy I had never been eligible to take regions and I did it with ease it felt easy it felt like I was supported the entire time and my teachers

116made sure that I had every bit of knowledge I could need to do well for the region I'm currently taking Algebra 1 and English 11 and those classes are going just as well as the other ones I get done with my work so fast so often in math that I get to help around the class and I'm confident that I will be able to take my region and I will pass them as well I have never been someone who has been strong in math or science and so a career in something that was very Math and Science heavy never seemed like an option for me but now I plan to go to school for nursing and once I'm a nurse I would like to enlist in the Army cyclone [Applause] Cyclone Academy has created an

117opportunity for me to succeed in school that I thought I was never going to have I thought that high school was never going to be easy for me that it was never going to be right because there were no other options and it is an amazing opportunity for students who struggle with the standard of Education the way I do to have a Fighting Chance at making it through high school and now I'm on the right path to be able to graduate on time and do what I want to do with my life because of the opportunity this has given me so I'm grateful for all the teachers and everyone who made Cyclone Academy possible for students like me I don't know where I would be without you guys [Applause] thank you very much to everyone

118who's here tonight um Mr Harrington I would never tell you what to do but if you wanted to excuse the Watertown High School contingent before going on with your meeting we would be eternally grateful thank you God bless you all have a good abely beauti know got put tissues no no hey moving along and uh Ben it was clear that no one is here to hear you I feel bad for you are we good good yeah yeah that's just terrible intro terrible take it away all right so part two of my presentation tonight is not as exciting this part one um some of you might have remembered I was kind of here last year we did a little bit of a tax cap what is it how do we approach it recommendation so I'm here

119to kind of do the same thing um I'm not going to take a tremendous amount of time I know you're probably disappointed in that but I'll try to move fairly quickly um so again what is a tax cap introduced in 2012 to help limit the ability to Levy taxes um without essentially having a super majority the tax cap uh there's certain things that you know it was always out there it's 2% right it's 2% but it's not really 2% there are certain things that can help you exceed that certain exclusions and you can override the tax cap with a 60% majority all municipal ities in New York state have that ability um but since school districts are the only ones that have a public vote that would have to go before the public where your

120local municipality could raise the taxes um with the town board or Council whatever the governing body is uh important considerations there's a growth fact there's a few factors involved there's a growth factor watertown's growth factor in 2025 26 is 6% Pilots come into play again 2% is not really a cap um there's a c a certain Capital exclusion component which I will highlight a little bit later on as well the first part of the presentation with the capital project we're keeping your Capital exclusion consistent with the project and that was kind of um to stabilize that part of the the tax cap limit fluctuations this was a chart I had shown last year and I didn't want to belor the point but it was it's just basically an indic indicator of if you don't Levy

121to your cap one year let's say you don't Levy it to you're $100,000 less and you do the same thing the second year it's not $100,000 each year it compounds itself because if you don't Levy all the way to the tax and your cap in year one then your starting point in year two is actually lower so it's basically a compounding impact and can exponentially um reduce the amount of revenues a district could have had if you had just levied to the cap and I might sound like I'm a proponent of leving to the cap um and I guess in some respects I am because you're not over taxing if you're loving to the cap it's a formula right if you go to the formula you're doing what the state asks you to do some

122points to consider moving forward uh obviously expenses are increasing every single year um capital projects which hopefully on the 25th will'll have one that will help stabilize you Capital exclusion there's the electric bus conversion although there's a lot of question marks on this but that's a huge expense that could be coming down the pipeline but it could be pushed out as well your district has received large Foundation Aid increases since 23 24 in 2526 your foundation a is about 1759 million increase which is about 3.18% I would consider that a very nice bump considering most of the neighboring schools and a lot of schools that I talked to were kind of capped at 2% so that's good tax cap for 25 26 um in working with Bri we've determined that right now the levy increase

123for simple majority would be 2.44% um obviously changes in this moving forward Pilots Capital exclusion and buses except kind of the things we've talked about already uh I apologize for this page thing being in the middle but this is your actual tax cap calculation that we have worked on to get to this point I guess interesting to know or to point out last year's Levy 17 milon 502 once you take into account growth factor Pilots Etc your starting point before you do any of your exclusions is actually lower than it was last year so that's something an interesting part of the formula you can actually start lower which it did happen here we looked at all of your Capital exclusions Bose's capital projects once you put that into the fact into the formula which is

124about $440,000 the tax cap for 2526 as it stands right now17 m929 or a 2.44% tax increase and again that's simple majority no super majority that's part of that education process especially with the public it's not 2% it's over 2% but we're still only at the cap um we didn't share this on the earlier part but I figured it would uh be beneficial to put this in here this is what we had last year I think when I talked about the project and how we layer it in and keep the capital exclusion consistent these were much smaller numbers um so we're actually this would be the real Capital project all of your current debt for 25 26 sorry 2425 is 4.6 million all of your current building is 4.2 million the difference is about $437,000

125or that portion of the capital exclusion we are going to layer in the new capital project assuming a pro positive vote in March column three is all the debt column five is all the aid the differential once we layer everything in and the whole puzzle still $437,000 nice place to be and I know uh Dr schmeel alluded this earlier there's other things down the road we have a small drop coming in the 2032 year and a significant drop in 2035 setting the district up very very nicely for those other improvements down the road uh in conclusion you know very similar to last year is a with a lot of districts H heavy state aid increases over the last few years but those are probably only going to last for so long so the recommendation would

126be to develop a strategy hopefully by going to the cap or close to the cap to maximize your local revenues obviously there's other factors always involved with any sort of um taxing entity so I know that's there's only one part of the overall that you have to look at but typically and again reiterate myself we recommend going to the cap um as it's an appropriate tax level level not over taxing not under taxing that's the cliff notes version any questions I'm not going to play an instrument I'm not going to sing none of that's happening yeah I have several questions um so I know your job is to make sure that we're financially viable you know currently and moving forward so and I understand that so when I phrase my questions I don't want you

127to think like I'm you know going after you but my job as a board member is to protect the taxpayer so right now our fund balance which should be at 4% and there's always been this talk that you know going to increase it they're talking about increasing it to 10% that's irrelevant at this point the fact is is that our fund balance is very healthy and way above 4% okay so that puts us at a financial advantage number one number two even though the foundation Aid across the state has mostly reduced for most school districts like you said we're at 3.18% which is very healthy and that's fortunate not fortunate because of our socioeconomic status of our students so I I've lived in this community 30 years and you know our about 60% of our

128population fits into that status that's not going to change anytime soon and if we're basing Foundation Aid on socioeconomic status I don't think that all the people are going to leave Watertown in fact the more affluent people are leaving Watertown which really hurts our tax base as a city taxpayer so where I have where I struggle with some of this is that I understand you know there's this whole concept of leaving money on the table like that whole concept was discussed last year and you're saying so last year we had a 0% tax right there was no tax increase and so we're starting this year you said at 177,000 177 million2 right but at the end of the day when you do all your C calculations if we approve at 2.4 we're still ending up

129at 17.9 right so where I struggle with this is we live in a community where our tax our our property taxes are going to continue to increase this is going to be a major problem in the coming years we have a capital Improvement project of 110 million which I think is extremely attractive to the community that there's no there's no tax increase on it that's great that's attractive and we want that and I think we should all be proud that we we got there but moving forward though when you're when you know H my question to you is is how do we tell our community tax how do we pay our tax pay payers we're going to do our we're going to do a 2.44% levy but our fund balance is very healthy and we

130have to take into consideration that we live in a community where our taxes are predicted to be double digits next year so now we're putting more financial burden on the community and on the taxpayers so I want you know guidance from you like how do we justify that well again I look at this through a very narrow lens so I look at I don't know about the double digit tax increases I know about this tax increase that's it so I can't really those are the other factors that are involved in this and generally um to be quite Frank I don't I'm not asked to give a perspective on the totality of everything it's in a very limited framework so keeping in mind those that's where it's more of a board decision and I I don't

131really can't give advice on this part of it as it reflects to other tax baces I can only give advice on what I would do in this limited School District piece of the puzzle so that's fair yeah no that's fair but you're right and then I would just mention to the fund balance piece of it I will say that although you're right 4% is the limit which the cap is at um a lot of districts I work with understand that 4% is a little thin of course and four anything over 4% although to the um State rules looks like you're exceeding their limitation any credit agency or any lender of money is going to you know lay out the red carpet for you for having more than 4% so it helps in undertaking a project

132that we're thinking of undertaking if the voters approve it it will help um in that respect later on with borrowing rates for sure yeah I remember you saying that last year which is most of the reason that we can actually do such a huge project probably the biggest project in Jefferson County it is the biggest project in Jefferson County and um so Bri what is the percentage of our fund balance of our operating like what what percentage are we have as of June 30th theor report is 24.75% lot not as much as Carthage well Carthage is in trouble for it so and we definitely don't want to be there they're being called to the carpet because of that and and you know just so whoever's watching also knows and I I just want you know

133Larry has said this um in our meetings because we have a healthy fund balance we can take some of that money and actually pay Upfront for some projects that uh we're going to do which one of the examples that was used earlier in right the Massie Street Massie Street does not you know we don't get any building aid for that building because there are no students in it so that has to be 100% paid out of our fund balance that project was sitting at about 1.4 million so that would be something the stage of the the high school the condition of our high school stage is not okay Bri and I took a tour of it and I left that stage and I said I want that done brought to the board the board approved

134it um we're looking at Starbucks Starbuck has some issues um with a playground it's not 88 compli it's very old it's it's got some safety issues that's something that can be so there are separate one-time projects that we can build into this yeah I mean I don't mean to put you on the spot but I think it's very important that this board starts to think about how you're going to Market that Levy to the community um I think last year we were hesitant because it was a 0% and you know some of us I know that I when I spoke to people we I said you know we're doing a 0% but we had talked amongst ourselves that that probably wouldn't be the case the following year so I think maybe there was some groundwork

135on that but for me I you know I I just take my job really seriously and my job is to protect the taxpayer and so we need to find and we have a beautiful presentation the video was better than the one we showed at nicob Baka I think just because we had students and we had teachers I think that that's definitely going to sell but I think as a board we need to start thinking about how we're going to Market that tax levy Fair absolutely y so no attack on you none take it exactly what I expect I know no surprises for me I know but thank you Ben you're very very um informative appreciate all those numbers anybody else well B I'm sure you'll continue to stay for the rest of our while you

136can thank you so much you we'll work on the instrument later I play theum all right opening expect that next time now the moment that we've all been waiting for this is Lorie Converse is going to give us the policy committee meeting report well tonight at policy we talked about headli oh wonderful right everybody in Jason I was gonna say I'm the word anyway so um we talked about policy 7106 um Dr Rod came in as long as one of our School nurses and I apologize I don't remember which one it was um we were just talking about this because um Tina brought it up and um regarding parents had asked her about lice and how how do we handle it I was under the assumption that we still checked kids like they did mine

137back 10 12 years ago we don't do that anymore um and there's a bunch of reasons that I will save time to not go over tonight but so we did talk about is looking at our policy and doing some rewarding and some things and we also talked about having additional resources for our parents because we do realize there's a lot of parents that don't have the resources if their child does have lice to treat that so we're going to look into possibly getting some lice kits at all of our schools maybe even getting them donated not to give to everyone but we do have some you know social um emotional parents that you know might need some help with that so we're going to look into that look into if nurses can help with the

138treatment we're going to look into changing the verbiage on this policy in regards to having nurses look at you know followup from seven to 10 days how that looks and then how that looks after day 20 because as Millie can probably attest you that that you can look at it 20 days later and they could still possibly be growing there so we also looked at doing a QR code and information can we stand on lice for a second yeah please we're still on lice we're still oh we're still on lice um we're gonna look at a QR code or an informational handout that we're going to give out the beginning of the year to parents and during mid year where they like to share hats and things like that as well um because then she

139had mentioned the nurse has mentioned that you know a lot of parents there there's continual families because some families think that you know well I had it and they don't they don't treat the problem so we just want to be proactive change the verbiage which once we do bring it to bosies to change the verbiage then we'll present it to you guys before we put it to a vote and Dr smeel and Tina are going to look into the additional resources what we can do at the school level if we can allow kids to be treated at school if it's not being taken Tak care of so that's basically what we talked about the whole meeting so what is a current policy state for lice like if a kid gets you know diagnosed with LI

140or you see license what is a current policy State like what are we supposed to be doing the current policy is now we don't send them home we let we let the parent know we give the parent the current resources tell them what suggested what they're supposed to do what they should do to treat the lice the kid goes home at the end of the school day and then they come up they go home the next day I mean they come back to school the next day there's no really like followup per say right now so when was that policy written in TW oh that's a draft when was the original policy here it is so 2020 so adopted in 17 revised in 2020 and 2022 do maybe you would know or Tina I don't

141know at what point did why was the policy changed that if a kid gets diagnosed with lice they get to stay in school like what happened that that that's a major shift that came to us spoke about that tonight being CDC guideline not Su sending kids home there was a shi a shift with CDC okay that that's what I want to know CDC so here here I obviously see a lot of this okay and I'm going to tell you what the problem is the problem is is that parents do not know how it's not I would tend to guess I mean my population is about 65% Medicaid anyway so I'm pretty accurate at what I'm going to say what's going on with families is that they really don't know how to treat it there is

142over-the-counter stuff um called elmite but unfortunately the elmite is not strong enough to treat the lights so what they do is they apply the elite they think it goes away but it really doesn't go away so there is a new medication and I've used it with the kids that come to my office parents are usually doing two to three treatments before they actually take their kid into the doctor because a lot of this is viewed as oh you could do it over the counter and once we prescribe the medication which is a pill it's not a shampoo it's a pill it's absorbed into the system it seems to eliminate the lice and the reason why there's a problem with lice is because they leg lay eggs and the cycle of the eggs you can't calculate

143that so if you don't catch everything at the right time you're going to have a recurrence the other problem is is that parents don't want and when we were growing up if you had lice your hair got caught that doesn't happen anymore yeah we talked about the parents do not want I I have seen kids with hair up to here and I'll say to the parent you are providing a fermentation ground for life like you need to cut their hair and they're very very resistant however the pill seems to work really well so I'm part of our educational process with our nurses and parents don't know that and maybe what we should be doing is educating parents that they either need to see their pediatrician or they can go to Industry urgent cares they can

144go to any of the Urgent Cares get the prescription and eradicate this because it is true that they changed that kids don't need to go home which I don't understand because remember we us we used have lice outbreaks and now that's starting to happen again but it's really because parents don't know how to really effectively treat it so you answered my question that was a part of the QR code there are some videos if you remember the name or any of I didn't there was a a nursing association that vide treated us doing shampoo she was going to email us with the videos because she said you know some people even ask you know we rather look at YouTube and she said some videos that that can be sent out yeah but Dr R didn't

145mention the pill but what he did mention was so say a kid goes home they do the treatment it's not working you know mention we mentioned that you know how many doctors if we called them would they give them even the prescription shampoo without being seen no and right and that's it's illegal they there's not many that would do something no one's going to do that I mean if you have a PCP if you have a pediatrician and you call your pediatrician and say Hey you know Jack is sick you're they know Jack's a patient they may do it but it is illegal to write a prescription without especially now we are so heavily monitored because everything's through e prescription so most of us are very hesitant to just send prescriptions without right you know

146documenting something in the um medical record I I don't think a lot of people know about the pill the reason why I know about it is because I actually had a drug rep come to my office a couple years ago and we started using it pill Works amazing um and the treatments are failing miserably and so that's why we're having these outbreaks so we can provide some of that education it I'm sure pediatricians know about it I don't know I I bet you do knows he probably just didn't think of it the only reason I know is because I've been doing this a lot like parents are coming in and saying I've done everything and it's not working well first of all your kids's hair is down to the floor and number two the elites

147just n strong because just like everything else since covid these these organisms have mutated and they become resistant to the medications that we normally use so there's an just a profound amount of um resistance now and so we have to think of alternative treatments because that is really what the co virus did to a lot I mean people were isolated for a year you didn't there was no social interaction and so these little creatures are very very smart and they mutate and then we have this problem so I just wanted to shareing again how do you think I feel when they come in with three of them and can you look at their hair I'm like no I'll just prescribe the medication learned more about the life cycle of lice tonight than I ever thought

148I would ever want to know but the education piece was a big part of that discussion and trying to make sure that we're educa our you know all of our staff and especially the parents to make sure our kids are getting treated right yeah and I just didn't realize like I just I said I thought that they just still check them all all the time but not realizing until they hear from a nurse all the other things that they're dealing with during the day that is much more than it was 10 years ago that they don't have time to be yeah it's sad but it's true okay that was it just lice policy there a discussion always thinks this is the weirdest term that we've ever all right let's move on please um Dr Larry

149schle superintendent schools support you're right there just a huge congratulations to your team they did a wonderful job sou was amazing the art displays around us are amazing to see how artistically talented our students are um that's grade and then our student athletes that were recognized tonight um I was especially warmed with your focus on cycl Academy last year we had a dream we had a vision reached out to Kevin Tod I'm looking at him before he speaks at the podium but it was just a dream and the Board of Education supported that initiative my executive team supported it but more importantly the people at this building and the other teachers that you've gar their support around and it's something that you know we we told the teachers Kev you were a part of that

150when we came over and met with the high school staff we said you're going to have to believe us this is out of the box it's something different it's something new um we're going to get the plane up it may have one engine we're going to work on trying to get the other engine up and running uh but trust the process and I cannot be any more proud of I am as far as the work that you've done under your team Matt bick's not here tonight the effort that he has put into it and everyone else and I will share a testimony when we were envisioning this program um I did not think about the program personally as an educator I thought about getting more kids across the Finish Line we presented when we looked

151at our graduation rate we invited invited everyone throughout the community um to actually participate in that orientation and things were going well my son was my older son was at Watertown High School and all of a sudden you know life took him you know in a different direction and it took him off path and um Cyclone Academy saved him and because of cyclone Academy and the 70 other kids that are in that program my son graduated in January um and that would not have happened if it was not for cycl Academy every kid is exactly is different I have two sons that are opposingly opposite and the fact that we have a program now that can focus on 27% of the other kids that the traditional model is not working for is a testament to

152your leadership and everyone else's commitment to see succeed so I want to mention is our Capital project proposed Capital project um today we had the opportunity to present that to our students who asked amazing questions in the student advisory we had the opportunity today to Pro present it to our staff um and then the the public hearing tonight so just thank you to everyone who who made that possible and just to remind our community that the public vote is during music in our schools on March 25th the next thing just to update the board on this um I presented it a prior board meeting that we are working with the city civil service department to approve an assistant director of facilities it was a new title with the Civil Service and tin and I got

153recent news that that has been approved so we are excited about that we really believe that that will give us more oversight in the evening and it also allows us to have a succession plan um um to prevent the boat that we are in now although Mike pad's doing a great job the next thing that I want to mention is we are working uh Brianne and I are working with Ted to trespass um he is working to present a proposition to bring to the board for their approval and then uh with their approval to put it on the U ballot um for our May ballot and that is to we had the board listen to a presentation on Open Gate which is a security entrance for the high school in case and so so we're

154looking at that and the other thing that this District desperately needs for safety is handheld radios that actually are secure they're on our own network and they work across buildings and across the district um we currently do not have that we do not have them in our vehicles and so we want to move in that direction so we're looking at a safety proposition and T trespass is going to help us present something to the board on that the next thing that I want to mention is I will be heading to Albany um Saturday Sunday Monday and Tuesday to um to Lobby to our legislator to advocate for fair and equal funding for Watertown city school district so we're excited about that opportunity and I already mentioned the student advisory but I'm going to mention it

155again because every time we meet with these students and here what they have to say it just it makes me proud to be here to be an educator and to work with these fine students um they talked today we had some kids that our passion te and I made them kind of stick to one thing um with a project because this year their goal was to to be a mentor and to create a project similar to like the vending machine or something similar and our students today talked about the need for a social worker or counselor with our athletes and so we have students that are going to be working with we're going to be reaching out to Kevin Tod you're learning it publicly um from the teacher negotiation standpoint we're going to be reaching

156out to um Tina and her Department Personnel some social workers in our district to see is it something that we could create a stipend for to support a current social worker that will help our student athletes they're struggling with social emotional that was their idea um behaviorally our students want to create or student engagement wise excuse me they want to create buddy benches at the elementary level so that if a kid's sitting at the bench alone other kids go up and play with that particular student or encourage them to engage in the playground we have students that want to work with food service to improve uh fruits Food Service in our district and I will say to them we put them on the spot today and we told them that we're going to be having

157interviews for Cal director of food service so two of them are going to be participating in the interviews for food service director so we're excited about that um we did receive good news today from the city of Watertown they did provide us our rates so just to educate the board on this um the contract going into the 2526 school year we'll see an increase of 3.58% uh which is a daily rate of$ 66292 that went up from $640 a day um the next thing I just want to mention to the board uh is that we are going to be moving forward soon so you'll see some executive sessions planned we're going to be opening up uh negotiations with our administrators Union their contract expires this year and also our teaching assistant Association both of those

158contracts expire this year so you'll hear more information about that the next thing I'll mention uh Lyn and I have been briefed from the state education department um the accountability status for nicro Bacher they have been identified this is based on the 23 24 data um and they are a targeted school so there'll be different resources put in place and a plan put together to address it and the subgroup that was identified was the multi-racial subgroup um and just so that to educate the public prior to next year um there needed to be 30 assessments so not 30 students so if they take Ela Math and Science there's there could be 10 kids uh that create a subgroup and then if a subgroup is not performing at a proficiency then they're identified um and so

159there's was for their multi-racial subgroup what I will say going into next year is the state is changing that so instead of 30 test scores it will be 20 so that's something that we also learned and just before break can I ask a question about that yes when you're talking about nicro bachan accountability is that synonymous with receiv receiver ship no we are not on a receivership status but that is a level we are not at receivership so what exactly does accountability mean for nicker Bacher so we're a targeted um School in nicker Bacher which means that the state expects us within two years to get our test scores up for that particular subgroup they are going to give us money resources and then there's a list of expectations that the district and the school

160have to do so was were we targeted because of our state scores correct for that particular subp yep but I will to be honest and transparent with our community when you look at last year's test scores and you look at other other schools in our district students with special needs as a subgroup so when we sat through the um budget process with the building principles going through their preliminary asks there was that Focus if you look at the special special education service dely models that we're adding and evolving all of those are working towards addressing that same goal so you'll hear more of that because we're trying to be proactive on those ones that are kind of on watch if you will so when they are targeting the multi-racial sub group how are they coming

161are they just how are they targeting the multi-racial group why were why were we listed because of that so we were targeted because of our state score so that's Nick Orbach and now now Focus scores of our multi-racial kids at I didn't they I didn't realize that they identify race when you take those tests uh when they register for school they can identify as one or more race okay so the thing that we're trying to watch out for is next year like I said they're changing it to 20 test scores instead of just 30 so it's going to be much easier for schools to get identified and that is all that I can very good items for consent agenda resolve that consent agenda items a B and C are hereby approved motion please John John

162second Tina Tina all those in favor I any oppose G's item support action resolve that athletic and field trip transportation agreement general homes School transportation agreement and summer school transportation agreement between the Watertown city school district and the first student incorporated as presented to the board are hereby approved can I have a motion KY second any discussion all those in favor oppose motion carries resolve that the following Revis board of Education policy is hereby approved and adopted 6303 rights of nursing employees to express breast mil motion please John John second Glory discussion all those in favor post carries resolve that the proposed new course social studies AP World History modern for the 20 uh 25 26 school year at Watertown High School Is Here by motion please bil second joh John yes um is that

163we never talked that before we have taugh a history before I don't remember teaching it I I don't want to say it's never been Tau um we teach uh we Tau obviously a variety of but it's been a very long time since we have a new social studies teacher at the high school to express very early teach us so these kids who take AP classes when they graduate do they get a weighted GPA or is it just some for okay so it just counts as a potential college credit potential potential and I say potential only because some schools will acknowled and accept other schools will not I have personally know young lady who got a perfect VI on her AP English Lit and comp exam and her University take it yeah okay so I I

164only point that out as a way of caution because yeah there have been upset graduates in the past yeah did so well but it really does depend on the individual um institution of pirate Yeah but whether they accept the credit or not every institution will tell you that having AP on your is very power yes AB I agree thank you sorry all those favor any opposed motion carries be it resolve that upon the recommendation of superintendent school the Board of Education hereby approves the following resignations uh appointments uh term non-probationary instructional appointment probationary instructional appointment uh Cy Academy appointment probationary non-instructional appointment term non probationary non-instructional appointments permanent tutor after school appointments instru any discussion all those in favor I oppos motion car all that upon the recommendation of Dr lar SCH superintendent schools the

165probationary appointment of a non-instructional is hereby discontinued effective February 7 2025 motion please I think we had there John Tina and Lori all expressed an interest um any discussion those motion curious Dr lar superintendent of schools the probationary appointment of a non-instructional employee is hereby discontinued effective February 7 2025 I have a motion please L and Tina any discussion I just have a quick question for Tina what is the average is it a standard probationary period for any employees Civil Service depends on the title in civil service but 8 to 52 weeks okay oh wow you Mo up to a year wow okay all those in favor iOS motion carries resolve that three General Brown Central School District students are hereby authorized to practice and travel with the Watertown High School track and field team

166at Watertown High for the 2425 season these students will compete as uh independent under General Brown Central School do I have a motion please John John second K discussion all those in favor any oppos motion carries resolve that the disposal recycle or donation of damaged outdated and unused books from the library at case middle school as per the list reviewed by the board is hereby approved motion please Melly melee second J any discussion all those in favor yes resolved that the disposal recycle or donation of damage outdated in unused books from the library at Sherman Elementary School is fur reviewed by the board is hereby I have a motion mil mil second Lor discussion all those in favor oppose motion carries res the disposal recycle or donation of damaged outdated and unused books from the

167library at Watertown High School as per the the list reviewed by the board is hereby approved motion please John John second discussion in favor any oppos motion carries resolve that the students student trips as presented to the board are hereby approved motion please a second discussion all those in favor oppos motion carries resolve that a donation of 75 under arour T-shirts from an anonymous vendor for the athletic department is gratefully accepted and approved and will be acknowledged and right I have a motion mil second and John any discussion favor oppos carries resol that a donation from steuart shops for 75 gallons of ice cream toppings and supplies to the watert high school ppis ice cream social this donation is gratefully accepted and approved and will be acknowledged and writing motion please second discussion very favor

168oppos motion car that might last my son a month he asked me after I gave him the first one if he came back after the last lunch period if I'd give him another one the faders I said come see me anyone here wishing to address the board on non agenda related public comment tonight Devin nothing okay okay I think we're moving along we have another presentation uh from Jan Durham our budget overview just a couple of updates on the budget we've completed all of our budget meetings with the various departments and Bill buildings the only one left really is um buildings and grounds which we'll work with melad on U we also met with the Rick today to review services for next year um and on Thursday we are going to meet as a group

169to look at prioritizing the request from each building and department and building the uh total budget and as we finalize those numbers we'll have a second round of budget meetings with each of those buildings and departments and departments yes um this is one I was looking forward to updating you guys on uh if you remember the last board meeting I had mentioned that the foundation Aid formula changed that the governor had moved away from the fbal rats the pre and reduced lunch over to economically disadvantaged student count at um our ASO meetings and with the quest our workshops I I got some information on where those numbers come from it's made up of five different areas direct certification data which is um if you qualify automatically for free lunch because you're on Snap or Medicaid

170the second one is the community eligibility provision data which is once you hit a certain threshold for um your direct search you automatically qualify for C which this district is number three is the poverty estimates from the US Census buau so just as a comment for that one that's what provides our students to get free breakfast yes yeah uh number four is your number of homeless and migrant students and I know Dr that was a big concern of yours so that does play into this and the fifth one is income based metrics such as income tax data matching and unemployment rates I found that pretty um pretty interesting so when you take all those factors into account it actually increases our District's Foundation aid from 11,554 to 11,721 so about an increase of $167 per

171student and from my understanding virtually every single District in the state benefited from this change in the formula I think there was probably just a few of them that didn't and it really wasn't a significant amount so I accomplish something for you and you know just to wrap up with u what Ben maona had mentioned tonight about our tax cap that's calculated 2.44% in dollars that's about $426,000 um that does have to be submitted to New York state by March 1st which I will do at this point but I know that your standard in the past has been um we'll discuss this at the next fnf committee and have the board approve it at the next meeting too um even after that has been submitted by New York State I can go right back in

172and change it which is pretty standard across the state so I have it this point very good thanks questions yeah I do oh go ahead I just have a quick question we talk a lot about the tax um unfunded when we have money that we've got left over in the fund balance is do you anticipate us applying any of that to offset the levy at all this year or yes I know it was for the current year um yes that it was built in to do so okay really so I just want to say that I'm really disappointed because I have now said multiple times that I would like to see some numbers especially you're submitting a tax levy at 2.44 and we have no numbers in front of us other than what was presented

173tonight and I apologize if I'm the only one that feels this way but I'm going to I'm going to say what I feel and I feel that when you're giving us a budget overview and you're saying I'm going to the buildings and I'm meeting that doesn't mean anything to me personally I don't know what those numbers look like we went you know our our we had a $97 million budget last year we're talking about a 2.44% increase on the tax levy which is probably going to bring our budget to higher than $97 million and personally I don't feel comfortable not knowing what those numbers constitute so I don't really know what it's going to take for me to express multiple times that I really think that one of our jobs as a board member is

174fiscal oversight and as fiscal oversight I can't fiscally oversight anything if I have no numbers in front of me and as you're working through this process we should be included in this process and you weren't here last year but it was a it it was a major FAA last year trying to come to to come to terms that we were not going to do a tax levy and go to 0 per. and all of a sudden all these numbers came up and we we didn't really know what to do because it was a really hard decision to do that so I'm not sure like what what's it going to take for if nobody else on this board cares about looking at numbers that's fine but I'm entitled to look at those numbers I don't know

175what we need to do so we're looking right now and it has been posted on board Doc and it is there now um and it's on the PowerPoint that was presented what was on PowerPoint that was presented PowerPoint that then went over that showed our numbers it is on there yeah that I I I know and I acknowledge that that one page that he said was hard to read so maybe I misspoke but that's not what I've been asking for for several meetings I I I and I know you may not know this but I'll say it again I was trying to parallel what our city council does and they have a binder with departments and requests and so because they have to vote on a budget they are looking at real numbers so there

176is a budget that's presented and I sent an email out after the last board meeting there is a budget binder for this year that everyone received the only one that wouldn't have received it was Tina that was given to every board member last year for this Year's budget this year's is not put together yet we're not even there yet to put the numbers together so are you advising me to use the binder from last year as my point of reference as we move on through the budget process I say yes because there's typically carryovers like we met with more today a lot of those things are services that we have this year that are carried over when you look at the salary line they're going to carry over andless we're looking at adding new positions

177so I don't remember getting that budget binder yeah it was the same one we gave ever um s was it a binder it was um it was in an email attachment so I did that this year I did it as an Detachment but last your s handed everybody one and we legally have to publish them on our website so it is there and we also have to put one a physical copy in each building well I mean I've mentioned this several times and this is the first time that now it's evolved into you already had one last year and you should refer to it and I will do I I will do that because for me it's important for me to look at those numbers because were at 7 97 million and I'm pretty sure

178that our budget's going to be higher than that this year and I'd like to know where that difference was and we also had money we also had money left over last year and with our fund balance being where it is I think it's important that as a board we take a look closely at those numbers absolutely yeah that's why I S know with the attachment there just look at this year's you look at a lot of our contracts you're going to see and you look at the Consumer Price Index every year that definitely goes up at least 2.9% if not higher so all of our current costs are going to be higher for next year automatically because of that our health insurance costs which we mentioned at the last board meeting those are going up

1796% um into next year so that is an expense that we can take last year's numbers or this year's numbers and project 6% up so when do you anticipate that you're going to have we vote on the budget in May right so when do you anticipate that you're have final numbers for every category um we do have presentation scheduled in March 24th and 31st I believe um we should have some final numbers coming up with the next couple weeks as we meet as an executive team to put everything together and prioritize the requests okay so we'll get updates on those numbers yes okay thank you is it true like because I know the year before M was on the board we changed it like right the week before it got presented so we can change

180that date yes right up to the last minute we just approved last year's yesterday the modification when it went in and it was Chang but I'm saying so for us even if we come right down like we did two years ago we made a negotiation so if we want to change that right down to the week before it's go and change it she changes it and then I approve it and it's done right to the town Bri when would you see the finance committee seeing some preliminary projections on some of these we do have that time I don't know if you have it on just on me um a month from now yeah you definitely have something within the next couple weeks Mandy I know we have our next fnf meeting next week right and

181that's when things start to take shape as far as the questions and you have a little more certainty about some of these numbers first is when the governor will come out their final numbers right where where are you anticipating that we're going to have like a big dollar change yeah welle the benefits are definitely and that's because last year they went if you remember they went very low and so now this year they have to almost double it to make up for what they didn't raise it last year health insurance was almost milon so just over 900 something but like a uh we've established some new programs special education which we're trying to do ly and I have been working with the education L Tina's office Bri's office we've all been meeting together to make

182sure that we have special education programs we looked at our strategic plan and in Prior years I think I said this at a couple board meetings ago but it's worth mentioning again um in Prior years we sat down and did requisitions with principles or the department heads and it really was not helpful to see what is the district's priorities what are the building's priorities how they're going to tie them to the Strategic plan so this year was a 100% facelift on those presentations um and so now we have each building gave us like a wish list and now we have to look at okay we know this building's on watch for special education are they asking for something that's going to actually improve that or Teena Department's help looking at this does this grade level

183have nine this grade level have 20-some students are we utilizing our current resources appropriately or do we need to go to the board for additional allocations so that's going to take us we did the first round now we need to do the second round and then we promised the principles which has also not happened in the past we promised a second round of meetings with them to say okay this is what you asked for this is what we can we can ask the board for to allocate yeah and the to total numbers for each of the buildings and departments um in our Google Drive is complete with they total increase for their asks um and that took your time because you had to reach out to payroll to make sure these are the salaries these

184are the benefits to see what the total cost for this yeah and um um the Excel sprad sheets I did for each different department I've got a number written down too for and it looks like some big jumps because of all the different asks that the they're at that they have requested but when you back those out it it's not a horrible number it's just a matter of prioritizing what you know anything that we're adding or taking away some examples that we talk to the principles about is like you know we have cafeteria workers that don't work full day and some of them are like we really could use particularly the buildings that don't have the secure entrances Ohio Starbucks Wy at the district office side they asked for like an additional body you know

185for that security piece and we said what about hiring a food service worker in the morning that can be there to greet um Patty Davis came up at Ohio because she was in that building forever she knew every parent grandparent and uncle and so now with a brand new secretary you don't have that piece so now they need additional Safety and Security measures in place to account for them so we're trying to balance all of those asks so we did our process this year we're trying to bring it sooner which is what you guys are asking for but we're also trying to be thoughtful and make sure that we're not asking for things that we don't need and we're utilizing our current resources appropriate because at the end of the day we have to be

186able to sustain it right after the fact I don't want to come to you with you know saying like for example North Elementary with all ask was a million dollar increase I don't want to come to you with that because it's pretty outrageous number I want to give you something that's a little bit more realistic yeah yeah I agree and right now it looks a little outrageous anything else no thank you very much okay uh two upcoming dates to share uh both on Tuesday March 4th the FF committee meeting 5:00 pm at the district office followed by our regularly scheduled Board of Education meeting at 6 um Millie St um so I have a couple of question questions um I think this is more for Lynn so um you know we got the email from

187the DI and canceled it because there's going to be new directives um so you know our current president put out an executive order on January 27th and gave us 90 days to implement that which is a complete about face of what I believe you can disagree because you run the committee but what I believe is some of the direction of the DI committee so what are we planning on do we have any plan in place to implement those executive orders within 90 days within our curriculum because it's mostly curriculum um you know I'll give you a great example you know it's not a secret in this uh group of people that we had parents that were outraged and we not supportive of the IM Leo assignment and looking at those executive orders I don't know

188how you're going to be able to continue that at the case Middle School um so there's been no verdict on that there's been no final decision on that and I just think an amicable way of probably just getting rid of it is just eliminating it because I just I mean unless you find a way I don't know how you're going to be able to teach that you know with respect to our executive order so I I want to know what we're doing to prepare for that because we're already at the 60-day mar so we are getting um guidance from the state through bosis and that's what the March meeting is about so we can make sure that we're in line with any regulations that are coming down from the federal and the state guidelines so

189we don't so we'll have to wait until a March meeting in order to figure that out and what is your thought on the IM Leo assignment like do you think that that's something that's going to be sustainable with these new orders in case medal school I don't know um it I know that I've read through the executive orders and there's some things on surgery um I Leo doesn't necessarily speak to that so I think we have to just be very thoughtful and read through the regulations and we will follow what the regulations tell us yeah I mean the surgery part is just one part of it I mean there's a whole different social perspective and I think a lot of those secutive orders are geared towards more you know having education and it's not really

190focusing a lot on social aspects um and I think that's you know that's where parents that are not happy with that assignment that's where they're coming from so I personally don't see how that can happen but I'm like you said I guess you have to wait for more guidance in the March meeting but that is definitely something that I am a little bit concerned about um and the second question I have is for uh Tina so so how what are our current rules right now for coaches so can can a coach that is currently not employed by the district actually coach a sport they can if there's not an internal candidate who's viable so nobody applies for that position okay so should we so then it's okay to encourage people who are not employ District

191employees if they want to coach a sport they should be able to put their name in and then you know depending on what the applicant pool is okay so there's also and I haven't been able to find this and I've been looking but I I'm assuming that you would definitely know this is there truly a New York state law education law that states we have a board policy on coaching and it says that you can anybody can coach you have to take your internal candidate obviously but if there's someone that's better or is more qualified there's a loophole to but traditionally we've you know employed our own employees to coach so my question is is there truly a New York State education law that prohibits um someone who wants to coach and that is that

192do they have to be a district employee in order to coach within the district there's a commissioner's regulation that I can certainly add Michelle email the board I get that information to the entire board and the reason I'm being yeah the reason I'm asking is because I know that there's that commissioner reg and I if you can email it to me that's great because I can't find it and I've been looking for it but Indian River General Brown South Jeff all have coaches that do not teach within the district so I'm I'm perplexed as to why can they do it and why can't we do it we have coaches don't oh I know we have a couple but there's been some obstacles in the past particularly last year there was a big obstacle because an

193individual wasn't a district employee and I get the whole if you're in the district you get first dibs so if you can just send that to me because I can't find it thank you that's it I'm done John thank you so much what a wonderful presentation um I just think about the number of teachers that you highlighted in your building that I've had um professional and personal relationships with and and some of us have kind of grown up together uh as Educators and just warm memories and wonderful people and very very dedicated to what they do and that was very obvious tonight so you you guys did an awesome job so thank you so much for hosting and thank you so much for highlighting all the great programs that are going on here uh and

194then just good luck to all of our teams and our individuals that are heading off into sectionals um you know to be able to make uh the wrestling state tournament as an eighth grader is absolutely incredible absolutely that just doesn't happen to a whole lot of kids um and and what an outstanding young man as as all of our athletes and all of our students here tonight were um so good luck to all of our teams um you know I love the dedication that you know would have been nice to have all of those athletes here but they had practice because they're getting ready for bigger and better things and wanted to be there to practice with their teammates so um you know the dedication that our student athletes have is is beyond reproach and

195so just good luck to all those teams Tina um I also want to thank you for having us here and for your coffee club and for all your people and the flutes and it was phenomenal he did a great job as always but I wrote down what I wanted to say because I never do this very well so so as you know my favorite part of these meetings is acknowledging our students for their achievements and we will continue to do this however I feel that all students should be acknowledged so I'd like to acknowledge the following students students that will woke up this morning and came to school the students that did their homework that helped the classmate that got caught up on back work that made a new friend that said please and thank

196you that told themselves they matter I want to say great job and keep up the good work excuse me you are appreciated and we are so glad you're here that's um all right I wanted to say that I thought your presentation was phenomenal for the high school I wanted to also note that um you know this is my fourth time coming here as a board member and the energy was definitely different you could feel it I don't know if everybody else could say that but I could feel it and as a parent that my oldest is now 24 that has gone through this High School um I can tell you that I know I've mentioned this to before Leslie like back then the energy was great I didn't hear many complaints there wasn't fights they

197were happy to be here and I'm actually happy to say that now my junior I haven't heard anything negative in a very long time and that's great I mean I I don't know I just it's it's great to be back in that where I know things still happen but it's very rare that I hear anything negative at all and he's generally happy to be here as well and I'm hearing that from a lot of people so it was great to see during the presentation that their behaviors were down and I love that you presented and let everyone speak about their experiences as teachers and to see their emotions behind being a teacher and being wanting to be here was just so heartwarming and to have that young lady speak about being here and how that's

198made her a better person and the fact that she stood here she said she has social anxiety and that she stood here and spoke like that somebody please tell her tomorrow like w like I don't know I was I couldn't even focus on what she was saying I like she said that she had anxiety and social I was like this is not a girl that has anxiety she no longer has it she's cured she's cured so anyway I just wanted to say that you guys are doing an absolute wonderful job and congratulations to Paulie um I personally do know Paulie that was the second time I heard that story because my own child um had come and told me that that had happened um and uh I just think that's great I wish that we

199had more energy like this on media um and saw the good things that are actually going on here with our students and not the bad things so I wish he would have stayed go um so speaking to the behavior one thing that St stood out to me was um the decrease in the shift um you you're helping the kids in the academy but you're also um lessening the distractions during regular day helping those those traditional kids um but um I had one question or not questions but comment on the you mentioned the um food services to our fourth and 5ifth at 11 is there an email or could you send an email or a text so we can respond to maybe I'll take the whole email and just send it back out perfect because it

200take me a while to find it okay no but um sitting here tonight um I'm going to start bringing popcorn because it reminded me of of Channel Sur thing um and I knew no back I knew this would be a tremendous um presentation but um but once again herself um you started with a little cpan we went the ESPN homart definitely the Food Network with the uh Express um in even MTV so it was um know it was it was truly um entertaining as well as educational um and the artwork everywhere um what really me the touching stories you had an engagement announcement I think um but the testimonials um at the end really really uh overwhelming as well um and and the little change as even as simple as the winter pep rally um

201to me to show that um as a district and it makes me proud to be in somewhat in some way I'm associated with this District because it's always growing it's always not just changing but getting better growing adding new um every time I I come to a board meeting um there's there's something that that betters our district and it's exciting to see Wilson Mrs ainson we you could feel you could feel it last year in this room um but you can tell under your leadership we're working on all four cylinders eight cylinders all cylinders here at Watertown and it's it is you can tell you've changed the culture of this building you and your team and everyone here um it's a real Testament to your hard work and when you see Alexa standing up there

202that's all you need to know and everybody was transfixed on her and you know you're changing lives in ways we weren't before so you should be very proud of [Music] that scores and that's what excellent um with been said you both are doing a great job and uh I think you know that we all believe that um I had a family come up to me I was out in a grocery store and I always kind of cringe when that happen because it's never it's never for like a good reason um anybody who knows me knows I'm just automatically but uh anyway long story short it was like a 20 minute conversation and this family was career um I and they all just moved their kids to Watertown this year and didn't and I got to

203tell you it was 20 to 25 minute conversation and I didn't hear one negative thing um so that that's good and it's nice when we start getting those because for the past six years that hasn't been why people are approaching me in a grocery store um so I think that we're doing a lot of good things and we need to need to keep that up and I really want to say I really like the new video um I've somewhat disappointed that I didn't somehow make it in there I think with my history here with the audio visual club and just my boyish good looks I would have been great in that but maybe next year so we'll hold out for that um and I guess at this time you're in need of an executive session

204for the purpose of a discussion with legal councel can I have a mo Milly and Lori all those in favor see you next time