11/06/2024 WCSD BOE Meeting at Ohio Elementary

001e e e please for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United unit States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice gr like to thank Ohio elementary for hosting this evening like to thank everybody who's shown up it's beautiful crowd here and I'd like to thank everyone who is uh tuning in remotely tonight Michelle we have any agenda changes I don't have any agenda changes although I did provide the board members with an updated Personnel report um with highlights since I posted it originally on Friday very good is anyone here tonight uh wishing to address the board on agenda related public comments no okay Michelle do we have any Communications I do not okay we are moving right

002into board and staff reports it's my pleasure to turn it over to Mrs Jessica Blair our principal here uh for welcome to Ohio in student voice all right well thank you all for coming tonight this is a great turnout um I'm Jessica Blair I'm the principal here at Ohio elementary have a quick short um slideshow for you as always we are Guided by our mission statement here at Watertown and uh one NE neat thing we decided to do um to start out this school year is all create our own mission statements um I I came into the school year with my welcome letter and I welcomed them with my own personal vision and my mission um really focused on creating citizens here in our community um with all of our students making sure we have

003the resources that we need to do our best for kids um and then from there I asked the staff to each create their mission and vision and in the manila folder in front of you um you can kind of flip through and you'll see um the missions and visions that they created um from there it was such a neat little project that we decided to expand it to the kids and so our kiddos all did little goal setting and missions and Visions um so here is our fourth graders sharing their piece [Music] my mission as a student at Ohio Street Elementary is to see more teachers with a smile from kids doing their job to make teaching easier I will help Ohio by being a good fourth grade role model I can make new friends

004by doing the right thing and talking to them I can be a better reader by reading chapter books to be nice to people to tell them how I would love to be their friend to play with them to help them when to help them when they are sad or need help with work my mission as a student at Ohio Street Elementary is be smart be kind help people learn stuff I don't know make friends so since I've seen you last um we've done some awesome stuff and this isn't all the awesome things but I do want to just show you showcase if you of the neat things that we did with our families and with our students last year um our steam fair was extremely robust we had um JCC programs here we had the

005scitec center here we had our own stem group here we also had some of our high school students um in their apem classes all doing Hands-On work with our kids um it was it was an amazing experience for our kiddos um our third graders went to Fort Drum and they um did a little syrup project they they saw how maple syrup was made and they came back and the third grade teachers said you know we want to want to teach our families about the maple syrup process so we actually invited families in they served a pancake breakfast to their parents and they talked to them about what they learned while they were on Fort Drum um Multicultural fair is always a big hit here at Ohio elementary the kids have a designated time where they

006go into the gym and they kind of Bounce from table to table and do just a lot of different crafts or have some different tastings and all related back to the country that choice this year um well and we've always invited the international students from our high school and from IHC high school but this year we tried to tie the activities directly to their countries so they were showcasing their own country at their table um so that's our little group of volunteers we have several retired teachers in there um Betsy Hennessy is in there with us as well and uh D Caldwell brought over those students students from IHC and from the high school and to finish the day we welcomed the Irish Step dancers to put on a little show for us and now

007to hear from our first graders good at math and I want to get better at math so I would practice every day I I I'm good at writing and I want to get better at coloring I'll practice I'm good at riding my bike I want to get better on standing on my bike and I'm want to go fast I am G to add gymnastics I getting better at gymnastics ixes every day I am things that I am good at is spring math I want to get better at helping my friends and I our practice to be a better student that I want to get better at this I want to get better at Jengo my mission is to be better at reading I want to um um practice at bike riding and cheerleaders and um

008practice I want to get better at running I want to get better at gymnastics I will practice we can do it um again Guided by our strategic plan goals um and you can see a lot of a lot of these throughout my presentation um everything we do comes back to these goals and now what have we done here this year already um we always have a community fair with our open house I I'm trying to welcome community in as much as possible so these these students and families know what's out there what's available to them um fire prevention the fire department reaches right out to us and they get the fire trucks here the smoke trailers here so our students all get to learn all about the fire department and our fourth grade group actually

009got to go to the fire station um and just at the end of their presentation they got a call and that was probably the most exciting part to watch them all suit up and run out so and then we had Jared Campbell um a fantastic motivational speaker he came and he shared um just a great message about being a good human being and being good to people being a superhero by being kind and taking care of others um I'm actually not going to play the video because I'm going to I'm going to sneak right through it there we go I'm gonna pass that all right after school activities that we have uh right now we have 24 students receiving after school tutoring we have a Scrub Club thank you to Tara Elmer and Laura renzy

010they have 13 students in their Scrub Club right now learning about um profession uh the medical professions we have a 4 program that is full with 40 students and I just got messaged that maybe they hired two new staff so I'm hoping that'll be up to about 60 here pretty soon um and then our Good News Club is starting next week can I ask you a question with those after school activities is the activity bus helping the activity bus is helping um we specifically had two uh students who needed the tutoring skills who the parents said well they just can't last year um we couldn't transport them and I said actually we can do that um and they do they live very close but she's got five kids that she can't bring in and out

011all the time and and she knew that once she got to Winter that she wouldn't be able to commit to that transport so after school transportation has been outstanding so thank you so much and let's hear from our second grade I like oh how she's super second [Music] ear my mission is to be a better leader my mission is to get better at playing it to high school my to do Olympics gold medals in my mission is to be a good friend and be good at math my mission is to help my friends when they when they need me and and and and I want to get better at math and writing my mission is to be a better Rider and to not forget my punctuation hi my name is Emma and my mission is

012to help others and be more loving because I have INF love hi my name is Thomas my mission is to be a good student and help by right at this point I'm going to hand over to genap genap um has taught in this building for several years most recently a first grade teacher she moved into the instructional Coach position this year and has done Beyond a fantastic job um really making sure the teachers had everything that they needed as we're implementing all these new program at the elementary level um I did ask her to share um youly the youly program the teachers are absolutely loving what it's doing for the foundational skills of literacy with our students so she um shared a few things with you she's going to have you get out some tools

013and try a little uly work here pretty soon um but I will let her uh take it away evening everyone my name is Jennifer as Mrs Blair just said and I am the instructional coach here and the very proud instructional coach here at Ohio Street school last year all of our elementary teachers were very fortunate with much thanks to Mrs Gaffney that they were all trained in the science of raing so what is the science of raing it is over five Decades of scientifically based research from thousands of studies and evidence that proves how efficient reading and writing develops why some have difficulty and how we can most effectively assess and teach students to read and that was compliments of the reading leag and they are the people that come and train us so what

014re researchers discovered is that there is a simp view of reading now any elementary teacher will tell you there's nothing simple about teaching a student how to read or write but this does put it into some perspective we take word recognition which is reading those words off of a page times this is a multiplication fact times language comprehension do they know the language that they speak and things like vocabulary and then all of that equals reading comprehension see seems pretty easy but actually it's pretty complicated so our amazing teachers have been working on things like pheic awareness we are taking that piece of word recognition and pheic awareness is the ability to identify and manipulate sounds in spoken words so it is putting sounds together so if I were to say the word a to

015you you would know that was the word map it is all listening there is nothing with letters in in this piece graphine graphine and phon correspondence and really that's just a fancy way of saying how letters correspond to their sounds we also need decoding and encoding words and that is blending sounds to make words and break apart words to spell them so when I see the word cat if I don't know the word cat I can look at those sounds and say cat I have just decoded that word when I'm encoding I'm going the opposite direction and I'm spelling the word when I'm writing if I need to know how to write the word stamp I'm going to break it up and I'm going to represent all of those sounds with the letters that they

016make and then we have site recognition which is that automatic effortless recognition of Words which is our end product which is reading and that's what we're all here for so thank you researchers now we know what our students have been missing so enter youly youly which stands for the University of Florida literacy Institute are a bunch of researchers that came up with this program and their Foundation it is a new tier one District initiative to increase word recognition skills and our students PID for it is a 30 minute a day explicit and systematic lesson per day that teaches practices and reinforces the foundational skills necessary to help our students become better more proficient and fluent readers and writers so with a lesson it is 30 minutes a day there are different components that it goes

017through and then the first component is pheic awareness as I had said before if I would say to the students I'm going to say some sounds and when I point to you please blend those sounds tell me what word it is so if I said M you would say Matt thank you and then after practicing a few of those we would do it the opposite direction I would say we have the word hat let's pound in sounds we pound and we would say hat p a hat we are segmenting each sound and blending the word the next component is the graphine phoning correspondence so we would say we would see our letters on our board and it would say we would say m spells m m spells n because remember we have to go back

018and forth each way because we want to meet readers and writers at the same level the next component is the decoding and encoding words so now we're putting all of those words together so if you could please go to that laminated um folder that you have that is called a sound board all of our K2 students have one and they're a lot of fun except maybe not the um Bill Pro however if you could please um make the word sad at the top of your board where it says my word make the word sad and I know what you're all doing in there you are all Breaking that up you are saying sad and to put that together and then from there I would say to you we have just made the word sad let's

019blend it and they would take their fingers and say s add and then you sweep across the bottom to read it s and then from there we are going to change one sound only it could be a beginning a middle or an end and this would be a first grade lesson so um from sad I would like you to make the word sat so now they have to hear that we're going to take off the sound and that they are now going to replace it with a t sound and we ask them different questions it's not always what letter are we replacing it's what sound are we replacing from there try one more because you look like you're having a great time with it if you could if you could turn um we went from

020sat now I'd like for you to make it sit and one last time we're going to take our finger we're going to we're going to um do each of those sounds and then like ready okay great job you can please return all of your letters back to your soundboard and of course that does go a little bit longer with the students and obviously you can tell as the year progress and as the years progress there are a lot of sounds that a student uses and learns with these sound boards the last piece of the lesson oh goodness did I do that okay sh Michelle in the the last piece of a lesson is the site recognition and what I like to tell students and teachers is that the site recognition piece is after you have

021practiced and practice and practice a sport what do you need to do you need to play the game and so in reading reading a text or reading a story that's playing the game after all of this practice all day long so at the end of a lesson there is a decodable text and underneath your um soundboard you will find a decodable text and this was thanks to Project Read AI which is something that we subscribe to so that teachers can generate texts um for the students and you may or may not notice a few names in there um that were helping us out with our story today I was able to put in Mrs Gaffney and Miss Lane and Dr schmigel and Mrs Durham's name in there and it does create wonderful little texts and

022stories for the students to be able to read so that was something that that Mrs Gaffney has uh brought to our district as well so it's just one more um mode of reading and texts that are available to our students so that would end a youly lesson I'm just about to to uh bounce into our spring math briefly but does anyone have any questions about youly how long would it take a teacher to develop that that literally took 30 seconds yes yes it was very easy very very easy and fun and it could regenerate it regenerated different stories as well so it was very simple Yes okay the other initiative which is amazing this year for our teachers and our students is spring math and spring math is a kindergarten through eth grade classwide tier

0232 intervention to increase fluency with math facts with a wide range of skills students first work in pairs for three minutes so if Miss Lane and I were were uh Partners I would take whatever skill that we are working on this happens to be a third grade skill it is addition and subtraction three-digit numbers with or without regrouping if it was my turn as the worker I would say I would start a person the ones and I would say one minus one plus 0 equals 1 I am saying this out loud so she can hear the fact then I would say 6 + 3 equal 9 and 9 + 6al 15 and write it down I am talking through every step of what I am doing it's not a Race Against Time with my partner

024it's I want to be efficient and I I need to but I do need to be fast when my turn is up my partner takes that same paper and they just continue Contin on where we're going again if it was when when if we were regrouping such as 5 plus 7 they would be expected to say 5 plus 7 is 12 I'm going to put the two down in the ones place and I'm going to carry the one into the 10's place after those three minutes are up the students are now given their own paper and they are now in a race against the clock and they get two minutes after the two minutes they stop they switch papers back with their partner and we go over every single problem um every single problem after

025that they are scored by their partner and when they receive their paper back they now record what their score was the point is to set a goal and to get better and faster this system is building math fact fluency and encourages goal setting for the students and I I love it and I know the students love it I know they love to set their own goals I know when a teacher sees that they have moved up to a different skill it throws confetti for them on the screen and the teachers are just as excited as the students it goes through many many skills starting from kindergarten which is um number identification and just counting right up to at least the fourth grade that I have seen of fractions and multiplication and division and it's just

026helping all of our students get fluent in their math facts any questions about spr uh spr okay that ends my part thank you very much for your time tonight so let's like hear from our kindergarten friends I want to be a figh fighter I want to be a doctor I want to be a police officer I want to be a firan i [Music] so also in your folder you do have a packet of data that I'll quickly go through um I will say our data is changing what we used last year to what we used this year um at the beginning you're going to see the I ready data um it's a stapled packet in your folder um the ready data is the diagnostic tool we used last year we are not using that this

027year this year we are using the spring math that Jen just shared with you and um then Dibbles to do our Ela assessment um so this is last year's initial math diagnostic lot of red and you can see we hugely decreased that red um bumped up some of those yellow which is one grade level below um and moved quite a few also into that green um and then for the reading diagnostic at the beginning of the year last year again 30 2% in the red um we got that down to only 17% um and really shifted towards that green there as well so this is what um the spring math diagnostic is going to offer us so right now the top bar what that you can actually see is the fall screening it will compare

028it to a winter screening and a spring screening um and this is all broken down by the skills that that grade level um was really assessed on um so th that's that was Kindergarten this is first grade um sums to six subtraction 0 to 5 and quantity comparison 20 to 99 um the grade two uh third grade spring math Diagnostic and fourth grade and then for the Dibbles um diagnostic so the Dibbles really breaks the reading down into different skills dependent on the grade level um so the lower grade levels Focus this is on that word reading the decoding the letter sounds and the phic awareness the red being well below the Benchmark the yellow being at below Benchmark and the green at and the blue above um so that's the kindergarten has more areas

029um like the first grade also has kind of more areas assessed our second grade third and fourth grade really just focuses on reading fluency um so this is our initial diagnostic this is where we are starting um and we'll move forward from there our PPT team um looks specifically at our behavior and attendance data um we've also in uh put well-being in this we we had a well a survey done at the end of the year from students um so that's also been carried into our program um but this really offers the opportunity to really quickly see um that 8% that's this missing school where else are they lacking in we don't have report card grades out yet so there's no academic data in there yet um but that will come later on um some

030things that we are looking forward to the rest of the year and we will finish off with why our third graders love Ohio elementary this is why we love Ohio I love when teachers grew us at the door each morning I love I love the music H Sal plays every morning I love how kind Miss Davis is oh I love being able to see my to see my teachers from earlier grades I love the special events planned for FS I I love when Mrs Blair visits our classrooms I I love that Miss Amy takes good care of our school I love singing the Ohio school song please get I love the many of Mr D Polar Express conductor the mass singer and the tug of war expert all right thank you very much um that

031is our presentation for tonight you have any more questions for me before I down that's my fault I almost forgot we do have a few more presenters I should have put that right in my presentation so I didn't forget so I want to invite right now Adeline Parson one of my third grade students and she's going to share her Mission with you all my mission stay wait my mission at Ohio elementary school is this year is to learn be nice and be a good friends I'll do this by listening to the teacher giving them a compliment friends from can I please have sahai priest sing up S sahai created a story for us it was an ordinary Halloween night when all of a sudden I saw something out of the corner of my eye it

032looked like a black shadow figure then suddenly the doorbell rang then I opened the door but nothing there was nobody but there was only a box that said open now in Red so I did then the Lights Went Out All I heard was Thump Thump Thump then they were they went back on a note appeared that said don't open the door stay safe then I heard a loud knock so I didn't open the door then the news said there was a a burglar dressed as a kid stealing so after all the note saved my life the end and my final student presentation is Luke flamp I could barely see the only light isn't through the 1,00 year old house I'm in I only hear rats in the creaking stairs I'm on and breathing everywhere I

033walk it seems like something is following me I just wanted to and and craw out the door but there's one blocking the door I'm trapped the breathing really annoys me so I just turned around inside there was nothing so I go closer to the window I turned into a line and clawed the air my left paw fell nothing but my right paw fell a blanket I kept clawing until I figured out that it was an invisibility Cape under the cap was the ugliest thing I've seen in my life it took me time to realize it was a Warth hog closer and closer it came to me it started charging at me so so I turned into an so I turned into an elephant and squished it then I realized I can turn into a random

034Crash the door open I turn into a r and at full speed run into the door boom yes I whisper I turn back to a human and I read a big TV that said llyn New York I find enough money on the ground to rent a house so that's what I do the house I rent looks strained I walk inside the house and the owner is floating he looks like a blue baseball and smells like running to so I sleep in the base in the bedroom in the basement anyone have anything that they'd like to say to our young friends or educator that was amazing and I I I snuck a peek at all of your parents while you were reading your pieces and your parents just had this beamy look of Pride on their

035faces do you love being at Ohio yeah pretty good school awesome thank thank you students thank you parents for sharing your students with us tonight and before we move on I would just like to thank uh the students who were here and everybody who was uh flexible coming tonight I know that you were probably prepared for last night as it was typically scheduled but thank you for your flexibility and the good news for the young folks in the room is you are now excused and you don't have to stay for the rest of the meeting but to those of you who wrote those stories maybe like the second chapter update us in the future does that sound all right yeah okay very good thank you again guys thank you so much okay moving Along on

036board and staff reports this evening uh I'm going to turn it over to our friends at Bowers for our external audit report I'm hoping it's as entertaining as that was okay so hard act to follow met with the audit committee went over it so we're going to try to condense it into a exciting PowerPoint thank [Music] you station comments at the end on to the first Slide the communication governance the letters in your financial statement packet disclos all the information about your accounting policy are disclosed to not one to your financial statements um we follow the gading standards and there were no new standards in the current year that ancient statements um there are some coming in the future Years be 101 through 103 which will see some significant changes in your financial students in

0372026 um soos accounting estimates that effector Financial so that is appreciation theorization um also there's present value calculations for right assets and liabilities as well as actu report for D68 G 75 pension and other benefit reporting um overall all the statements um from the audit were provided and corrected by management any of those that were material are cash that letter your pack as well um overall we had no difficulties performing our audit um no transactions La any authoritative guidance management and no know communication with any other accountants um overall we apply limited procedures du M management session analysis and the required supplementary information and overall we are engaged to report on complementary information which is not RSI so that is prepared based on quiries comparison fire recil overall looking at the actual independent auditor report

038um so overall that report does disclose management responsible for the preparation presentation of the financial statement um it's our objective as the auditor to obtain reasonable assurance that the financial statements as a whole are free from Material misstatement whether FR and error and issue an opinion um so overall the opinion the first first page of that report overall un modified C audit at 2024 with the financial dated October looking at the financial STS a few highlights first in your general fund and positive um change in fund balance in the current year of 15.6 million overall you have reserves of about 18.9 million as the3 2024 making up about 36% of your fund Ms uh general fund expenditures and es came in about 22.7 million under budget uh looking at your Capital fund um there was

039about 7.2 million of expat incurred for a districtwide project 1.4 million tur project was in the initial stages that year end um and there was a ban or on anticipation that with a short-term financing issued in the current year for about 13 million cover costs leading to boths maor special agon grants are reporting about 14.4 million um and out of that 6 3 million are education stabilization funds uh your school Food Service fund a positive change in fund balance in the current year of $227,000 um overall fund balance at the end of the year exceeding six months worth of expenses by about 5 to 1,000 this one of the regulations that we talk about later as well looking at some of the actual statements um and a combined summarized format kind of here the governmental

040activity statement of acquisition um so a combination of all your funds and long-term assets in ilities uh overall total assets for the District of about 142 million up about 14% from the previous year uh total liabilities down about 2% from the previous year to just over 279 million uh the difference between asset and liability is your total net positioner deficit at the end of the year of about 127 million um driven by the other post employment benefit which is the unfunded liability based on the actuary report um without that liability in there you'd have a positive 112 million uh net position next you're speaking of activities and change in net position for your governmental activities so combination of all those funds and the change in long-term asset and liability numbers uh overall total revenues of

041about 103 million um up about 12% from the previous year expenditures um just under 96 million which is up 6 and a half% from the previous year leading you with a positive change inition for year um combined of about seven and a half looking at the detail on a f those long-term items of first sen your assets so Capital assets um the roll forward here your construction and progress consisting of the district lde project and a CH field project that continue be in process um overall those statements we just saw about $2.5 million of the cumulated um depreciation theorization expense slow through there as well um but overall you have out seening total balance of capital assets of just over 73 on the liability side looking at your short-term debt obligations the first is your

042B anticipation notes are bed um with one outstanding at the end of the year for 13.9 million in the current year about $574,000 of interest expense incurred on the bands looking at the longterm fece um so that's your serial bonds outstanding of about 12.5 million um and other liabilities for compensated absences other post employment benefits um which is that unfunded liability as I previously mentioned about 237 million um your net pension liability um 5.3 million both of those large numbers prepared by actuary reports that are reported um in FL your financial students looking at some of your fund statements which you guys see um on an internal basis um auditing based on major funds and non- major funds your major funds being your general fund your districtwide Capital project and your special aid funds um

043other non- major funds are comined in the supplementary schedule so F service Debt Service fund extra classroom scholarships and other capital projects um overall total assets increasing about 31% in the current year um to just over 76 million um the other portion of that statement is your liabilities and fund balance overall total outstanding liabilities at the end of the year of 28.7 million um the difference between your assets and liabilities is your total fund balance overall total fund balance about 30% increase from the previous year to just over 47 million um just under 52 million of that is with any your general fund we at the general fund a Little Closer um on some of the other slides the next is your statement of Revenue expenses and change in fund balance so your income statement

044um similar for your funds here overall total revenues for the current year of 104 million expenditures just under 94 million um overall excessive revenues over expenses of about 10.8 million um compared to 7.4 million in the previous year um so with your other financing sources and uses overall there was a positive net change in fund balance in the current year of just over 11 million about looking at your fund balance a little closer in detail here the slide shows you the full um breakdown of what is within fund balance that broken down before in four categories nonspendable restricted assigned and unassigned um you restricted is all of your reserves that you hold within your general fund other restricted funds which is your do service extra classroom funds um your assigned fund balance over all that

045including about 8.9 million of funds that you um use to balance your 24 25 budget the difference the remaining funds in your general fund is your unassigned fund balance within your general fund um just under 24 million next looking at here fund balance in the general fund in terms of the section 1318 real property tax law um So based on the real property tax law you're allowed to pull 4% of the subsequent Year's budget in unassigned fund balance that would be 3.8 million um again with that fund balance number coming in um just under 24 million overall that's a percentage of 24.7 5% um increasing um in the prior year at 15.69% looking at the performance in the general fund um with the increases in the fund balance versus your Revenue comparing that to your

046voter approved budget um so overall your Revenue sources came in about 1.48% over budget um or 1.2 million over the adopted budget of 83.7 million um and on the expenditure side um overall expenses coming about 5% under budget um overall the budget was adopted for about $92 million and 69 million were spent um so overall that net change in fund balance in your general fund of about 15.5 million in increase in your total fund balance the next is the schedule of your capital projects funds um so that kind of gives you a summary of the multiple um Capital project funds that you have going on in projects and process um as they are rolling typically from year to year the current year about 7.4 million of expenses relating to these projects um and there you'll

047see the fund balancer deficit on it's typical for those projects to run into deficit until you issue bonds at the completion of the project which will be um the revenue Source on of those other things we have to audit is your single Auto which is some client testing on your federal grants because you spend more than $750,000 of federal Awards um so in the current year the district's SP about 14.5 million um of federal funds we were thir test two programs in the current year testing the education stabilization funds um for just over six million and we also tested the student support and academic enrichment program um so overall no compliance findings um in any of our grant testing for the single audit um the third piece of the audit is the extra classro activity

048funds um so similar we review the cash Health there so on the second page of that statement um prepared on the cash basis you'll see all the cash receipts and cash dispersements coming in and out of the actra classroom funds um about 212,000 coming in 194 going out um leaving you with your ending cash balance about 162,000 um with extra classroom funds and man L go through a few housekeeping items on those the next portion is the graph show some visuals with fiveyear comparisons of information for the district as well as the industry column which the industry consists of 20 other school districts that bers and Company um Audits and and those are alled here within Jefferson Louis and St lawence c um the first looking at the general and program revenues um so you'll

049see there over the last five years and in comparison with the industry of the 20 other schools um your Revenue sources are fairly consistent and state aid is your largest revenue Source uh looking at the expense side for your program expenses um similar very consistent over the last five years in instruction is the largest expense um over the last five years and within the industry the next couple slides look at your general fund specifically um first for your fund balance looking at that percentage calculation um for the percent and then also your unassigned fund balance dollarwise which is what drives that percentage calculation um so as you can see dollarwise unassigned fund balance increasing over the last five years um in correlation with the increase in percentage of that real property tax SL um over

050the last five years um in comparison with the industry um data of those 20 schools coming in about 7% couple other areas of your general fund fund balance your restricted fund balance on the left your total fund balance on the right um Z searched fund balance all those reserves that you're holding um obviously correlating as well the larger toal fund you have funding your reserves and see there um over the last five years for both distri fund balance fund balance all up Trend about five times what they were back looking at the general fund for the budget um revenues and expense signes on the left there are your Revenue variant um revenues coming in very close to actual approv budget um plus or minus one to 3% and then on the expenditure side on the

051right hand side um overall expenses coming in um on average between 12 to 24% under budget in the current year in comparison to about 9% for the industry and then to wrap up our report um which is 100 some P report there's a schedule of findings and question cost some all the reports and information kind of on one page um so that overall dis soldes there's an unmodified depending on your financial statements there were no significant deficiencies or material weaknesses we have one material instance of non-compliance um overall there are not any significant deficiencies or material weaknesses noted in the major programs um that we had to test for the single audit for compliance testing um and one audit finding in accordance with other compliance testing um during our special a fund testing um so

052we will look at those instances on compliance first um the first being an item that I previously mentioned with the 4% fund balance um so overall you have exceeded that real property tax laot by about 20 million um so required to be reported that way um and our recommendation there to review that um we did fund balance and Reserve planning management response as well um the second instance of non-compliance is in regards to one of our testing on Grant outside of the single audit um noting that it was found that $92,000 in expenditures were charged to the title one Grant on a final expenditure report based on an estimated amount um with only $ 53,1 180 of expenses um incurring within the grant guidelines and during the grant period um so the remaining 38820 was

053determined to be question cost um so our recommendation to review internal controls over to allow ensure that they are spent in accordance with the allowable costs and in the grant period and then a couple management letter comments letter in the back of the P that more housekeeping items um for items to discuss the center testing um the first for non-compliance with federal regulations in regards to the school Food Service fund balance um similar there's a limitation on that that it should be three months worth of your expenses so you've deeded that by about 1.4 million as of June 30th um effective July 1 2024 they've actually increased that threshold though to being six month worth of expenses uh which overall the district will still exceed that by about $518,000 so we're looking for that one

054we're looking at purchasing serving lines refrigerator stoves so there's a spend down plan for them the next comment um on untimely Grant reimbursement requests so overall the district has um been in process of a smart school spond act in the capital fund um and the project has operated on a reimbursement basis so as of June 30th 2024 there was about 3.6 million of expenses iner um relating to this project and the project has been completed um it was noted that the district had not submitted all expenditure for reimbursement or the proper documentation and there remains about 177,000 um in the governmental funds for that as deferred State a um so overall recommendation reviewing the grant reimbursement requests and then the outstanding balance will have to be subsequently submitted to the state or recovered with the

055transfer from your general so that one our plan is this building being one of them Ohio Starbuck and Wy um all three of those schools need um safety security entrances we're talking about capital projects and so there is not an expiration of the use of these funds and so we could go back and we could do the accounting to make up for it or we could use the 176,000 towards almost like a down payment towards the millions of dollars that it's going to take to get those buildings the security entrances that they need so that is what we're leaning on doing with that so those monies will be used uh the next comment on extra classroom activity funds um so during our testing and review of that was noted that student ledgers did not agree

056to the reported balances for the central treasure um with a few variances from the student ledgers um and also incom complete student ledgers as of year end overall we test 10 receipts and it was just noted that two out of the 10 receipts were not deposited timely to the bank um so overall they a recommendation reviewing the pamphlet and um in the standard for extra classroom and providing training to Central treasur and those uh last comment uh similar housekeeping item on Journal general journal entries so during our testing of internal controls it was noted that there was not um dual control over journal entries um for improper segregation of Duties um overall similar recommendation reviewing those processes and implementing du control um in a documentation process for all General and we've now added a procedure

057with Bri uh starting here now she's approving them before they give to this so there's that step lastly just a few value ad prints that we have hours doing for you as your external Auditors um so actually at the completion of our 2023 audit and our 2024 audit we did a detailed review of our overall audit findings with management um and also with all the staff in the business office to review any comments and suggestions um also other various Consulting during the year as questions and things come up uh we also do calculations in the journal entries required um for the lease reporting which is one of the gby standards um which affects some of the numbers you saw on the financial statements uh and we also maintain the capital asset listing and the depreciation

058records uh which also flow into the financials um and then lastly for the single audit you have to submit a data collection form to the federal audit Clearing House um so we kindly do all the input um of that so you have to do is for the um certification on that as well so we appreciate your um long standing as the external owners um and for our assistance this year working through um the on process we change the manag SL any questions thank you very much thank you hey up next Mr kly goer with the FF committee report um yeah so we met PRI of this meeting and started with a virtual meeting with ustar both they are the are our internal Auditors um we kind of pivoted a little bit and started with the

0592324 school year risk assessment um they uh over risk assessment corrective action recommendations the assessment of risk which is a low moderate high level of risk associated thing um compared to Prior years comments as well as update comments past years um then went over the attendance a it um briefly um with scope of the audit with observations as well as recommendations following that we met with our and advisor our external Auditors that you just heard from um with a slightly more detail I'm not sure how much more detailed it was before that's it very cool thank you very much Dr Larry schmeel is up next with the superintendent of schools report good evening anyone everyone and uh some topics here for updates uh my executive team last week had the opportunity to meet with our

060region uh Manon um excellent meeting to talk about his new role and um what he's looking forward to as far as building his relationships with the districts um he spent about an hour with us to ask us uh what's working well with the district what are things that we're working on and how he could partner in that initiative the next thing uh is a new initiative with um I serve on the construction committee for bosis um you may or may not know but our Bose's program that is currently being held at JCC they're going to be removing our classes out of that building as they're renovating and so they are going to be uh taking over the globe Mall um off of the square so the down the lower level of the the old Mall

061will be turned into bosies and so any programs that's currently at JCC will be moved there and then the the top is a mixed use property that is uh will be used for traveling nurses so we're excited about that um capital projects we had an opportunity last week to um visit Three schools um we had the opportunity to discuss FEMA and what we're going to be doing with FEMA we have um do we have the phone call did we get that confirmed we did today yep Friday the 15th so the Friday the 15th will be our exploratory call with FEMA we'll be discussing um the items that we identified and then they will be doing a site visit and then we'll have a better idea right now what we're trying to do is calculate uh

062we know the inside project was about $4.2 million to address um the inside um one of the things that uh I pushed our Architects on and our construction Associates is a looking at um also identifying north elementary school who took on water uh during that event and so we had the opportunity to visit them last week and we also a case Middle School took on some uh water or sewage uh in the basement during that event and so we we also added that so when they come in we'll be touring all three of those facilities to see what we can do um it's not about just getting the buildings back to pre- disaster conditions it's also about mitigation efforts and so we're looking at flower gardens that we can add in our driveways we're looking

063at curbing to direct to the water we're looking at under uh water storage tanks that would hold the water temporarily until the uh City's uh the um storm drain is able to accept the amount of water going through we are also working in collaboration with the city because anything you know there are City Waters that come onto our property and so it's that water plus our water that's all pushing out to Washington Street and so we talked about the diameter of those pipes Etc so there's a lot of work there and we want to make sure when it comes to mitigation that whatever the work we're putting in is going to prevent or at least to the best possible exclamation um it from happening again um the next thing I and I will be talking

064about capital projects later on in the discussion portion of tonight's agenda um today we had the opportunity to meet with our commissioner Rosa to talk about the uh regionalization and uh she did a great job talking about that today and and in her comments the the new law which is required of school districts to take place every 10 years the idea that is to bring communities together to talk about what is a district are we doing well and to share those with our neighbors which she pointed out in today's presentation which was held at Indian uh River High School um all of the superintendents and board presidents in the area were invited that was an opportunity to really discuss what are we doing well and how can we share some of those things um in

065addition to that um she was pushed on the um support of the military in the liaison piece there was a parent there I believe that asked about that um I asked her to reiterate what she presented in front of the board at the nisba conference um there's a lot of work that they're doing to work with teacher certification um and so she presented uh shared on that as well she also talked very briefly on the Blue Ribbon commission work that's going to be talking about graduation uh Pathways so and then the Rockefeller Institute which is conducting a foundation a formula you may have seen it in the news uh Watertown was not one of those districts that were adversely affected last year um but about 50% of the districts in our region would have negatively

066seen a decrease uh Watertown saw a $4 million increase in our foundation Aid um the other districts were not in that same boat much more of the smaller districts that report uh she had mentioned she had asked for a two-year timeline uh the governor pushed that uh much tighter than that and so they're looking to have that initial report by December first so I'll have a better idea of what those Foundation Aid formulas are going to look like the other thing I want to read uh for the board is an update um on North Elementary School uh as most people probably recall if you were in attendance at last year's meeting we had talked about having that project done uh prior to October and we're now in November um so I ask them to please

067provide me an update uh North Elementary School update betting spring is our general contractor the status of additional work to complete remove the exterior brick and rebuild uh remember remember when we initially went out we were talking about just replacing uh the windows um the Integrity of the brick wall the entirety of that brick wall uh needs to be removed so demolition is complete there will need to be a rebuild of that entire exterior wall uh the new brick is on order delivery is expected to take place in two weeks from this Friday preparation install and finishing is estimated to take place in January first week of January uh the window system at North Elementary School um they submitted the product data on 10324 King and King reviewed this and sent it back in 1024

068finalization and submitt is expected this week anticipated uh lead time on this is six to seven weeks their installation will follow their anticipated completion of the window system would be the end of January with with hopefully that entire project which was considered an emergency project completed by the end of January uh the next thing I want to mention is our a thank you um you know Watertown city school district um had an unfortunate loss of a student and the amount of community members and that reached out to us outside organizations and the number of districts that are outside of our in our region and some outside our region that reached out I just want to say thank you to all of them for thinking of us um and working with us through that tragic event

069the next thing I want to mention is the SRP nomination um School related Personnel are the vital heart of our district there are custodians our nurses Food Service workers bus drivers AIDS they do amazing work in our district um Tina and I and Matt berck have had the opportunity to we with meet with Union presidents we've had two meetings we have another one on the books um one of the things that we talked about in order to address attendance is the climate and culture of how people feel when they're working here and so one of the things that we want to do is is recognize our school related Personnel so our next board meeting is actually November 19th and that is school related Personnel recognition day and so as of this morning when I looked

070we had nominations um and I know those numbers will increase and so I'm proud of that and then we will work uh with the board to recognize those people at the November 19th board meeting so I just this is up here as a plug it did go out uh via parent Square it is also on our Facebook page uh this is open to students nominating SRP this is uh we have had many teachers nominate SRP we've had administrators nominate SRP we've had a a board member um we've had community members so anyone is is eligible to go to this and nominate someone who has made a difference in the lives of our kids our district and our community that concludes my comments for that portion very good thank you so much turn it over to

071Lyn gathy now the assistant superintendent for instruction report thank you I want to thank everybody at Ohio for such a warm welcome and such a nice presentation on the part of the staff and and the students that were here it has been a productive month in the world of curriculum and instruction I'll just go few through a few highlights um the principal Academy was held on October 6 and today we focus on educational leadership systems Improvement and the use of data to understand and meet instruction needs of our students I also met with the assistant principles on October 7th where we discussed similar topics our after school tutoring program is up and running in all of our buildings with an emphasis on reading and math we have 25 tutors and 154 students and we're looking

072for more so we're excited about that we continue to offer Afterschool trainings on best instructional practices over 30 teachers participated in our last five-week professional Learning Community which meant week and today we launched a new PLC with several teachers and attendance on October 10th I met with our enl teachers our discussion center around how we can continue to support our growing ell population and ensure these Learners have the resources they need to thrive our attendance advis point something out because you just something that Tina and I heard from the commissioner today she did recognize that in the North country that although enrollment Trends not for the Watertown city school District but for other districts in our region that the trends of enrollment have decreased but she significantly pointed out the fact that our enl numbers

073have increased in our region and also our students with special needs and the fact that we need you know maybe our enrollment went down but we need those resources for other things yeah and we're on it um we hired two enl Teachers Tea did last year and we're just looking at enrollment right now to see if our needs can be met with the current teachers or we may need we may be coming and asking for an additional enl teacher at some point um the attendance advisory committee met on October 14th to review strategies for improving student attendance focusing on building homeschool connections celebrating positive attendance and addressing barriers to regular attendance this supports the work that Dr Garts is doing with attendance committees at our building level several Educators and I attended the research Ed

074conference in Delaware on October 19th this is a Saturday people give up their Saturdays to go to these conferences they're only given on Saturdays um and they're very very um low expense so it cost about 40 something dollars to attend these and we have people from all over the world that present on best practices and instruction um so it was closing that research to practice Gap was the focus to increase student learning and achievement the reading League met with our principles and instructional coaches on October 28th to discuss our implementation of res research-based reading instruction you heard a little bit about that tonight it's an implementation we're in the beginning stages of it we want to make sure that everybody has the support that to continue with it um the reading leag will be here

075actually next week visiting schools to offer additional support uh last Friday I was able to attend the Burlington Coat Factory store opening along with principal Ashley Barnhart Berto and a few nicker Bacher teachers they graciously donated $5,000 to nicker Bacher Elementary School teacher supplies um Dr schmeel has asked me to assemble a committee to examine the potential role of AI in our district this group will explore how AI could be effectively utilized or in some cases avoided to inform our future decisions and practices and I just want to point out that that decodable that uh jnap shared with us that was an AI generated decodable so it is being used but we want to be very um careful and deliberate and thoughtful on how we progress with AI use thank so Billy's GNA go questions

076sure um so we used to use so we changing from the American uh to this di program now like how how is um that's a great question so um do you remember that yeah equation that she had up there with Yeah so basically what we found we had the teachers and instructional coaches do a reading audit last year for our K4 reading program and we found that American reading company is very strong on the language comprehension side building vocabulary knowledge building that type of thing was not very strong on the word recognition side um so what we decided to do working with the reading League working with teachers and coaches is to supplement American reading company with youly that's the phonics and decoding piece but keep the core piece because it is very strong okay

077and we also that matches the data that just shared for Ohio specifically yeah we want to be careful is that change management right we don't want to throw so much at teachers with so many new programs that they're feeling overwhelm so um and my second question is only because you brought through attendance initiative so and this might be a combined question for both of you but we have had an enormous amount of kids that are getting sick that come into the OR care and what I've noticed this year is that for some reason parents are asking for notes for their kids to be out of school for more than necessary times so on a standard if a child does not have a fever and the standard would be that if you don't your fever free

078for 24 hours you go to school get started on an antibiotic and then you go to school the following dat so parents are requesting that their kids get two up to three days off of school so I've asked some of the parents I'm like well this is inappropriate and they're like well we don't want we don't want her to go back to school because it's just going to get sick so then I just go through the whole educ but I got a phone call from one of the teachers in the other school district and was very upset that we had given this child more than the necessary 24-hour um absentee so my question is is should should we talk to the nurses at the school in the clinic and really kind of coordinate what is

079acceptable I know it's acceptable from not perspective but the other thing we we see is that the kids are getting sick they're going to the nurse's office call the parent parent pies up the PID takes the urgent care of the pediatrician and now they're out for a few days so in the spirit of improving our attendance I'm wondering if this is something that we should be looking at from our perspective because my pediatric volume is pretty significant are you suggesting that we need to educate families on not asking for no I think I think if it's not a problem because the phone call that I got from a school nurse was not from the Watertown city school district so that just alerted me so if it's not a problem we don't need to do anything

080about it I'm just wondering you know as we're improving attendance is this becoming a problem with children at the elementary level or even at the high school level with kids getting notes that they're out of school for three days for sinus Inception so I I'm sure you don't know the answer to that but I just want to put that out there because I've noticed that it is something increasingly like we educate the parents I tell the parents the other PA tell the parents there's no need for it's just a 24-hour thing get started on medication have your K we do that I'm just wondering if there's an issue and if there is an issue then we can address it proactively that is hours y that's it thank you hey up next Tina Lane with the

081assistant superintendent personnel and Student Services report good evening everyone pleasure of inting superintend student advisory meeting on October 15 24 students Independence what a pleasure it is U to take time out of the day to meet the students reason here uh we discussed their problems and practice projects and we also had them I Dr a little bit later Dr will be uh breaking down with the students thought the same activity the board part in a few weeks ago the students actually had the opportunity their opinion very inter I think with their alignment to Brian's feedback as the Director of facilities and our King and King architect I think they may be all given an internship talent that counil on October 29th also facilitating the meeting of the bation committee we have brand new members uh

082this year and we have some members as well we're busily planning for our late winter Community event we had the brief three event last spring we're going to do our event this year on February 27th 2025 uh it's going to be called our community our it's going to be held at Beast Middle School at 5:30 p.m. this event highlights the vital need for resources and education on how substance Ms can impact mental health and the potential of Our Community Partners with valuable resources will be in attendance so each two guest speakers have dinner transportation and childhood those will all be provided so we're going to advertise really an option for that we have a great committee we're very excited about bringing our community in this year to educate um we've also recently hired you'll seeing

083this person tonight we're hiring an elementary social worker great for it's going to work with our special education students and families in grad we're very excited this is a much needed resource for our students and our families we also Le hir started last week and we've also added to our substitute teacher and nurs list as well in this week and finally as Dr mentioned we had two meetings with the six Union presidents and also a member of the the contention unit to discuss how to improve attendance we're having rich and deep conversations regarding attendance we created actually this strategies to and the attendance and we learned today and I I was fully impressed today list commissioner and staff in the first five years so teacher during the first five years inre about 50% of teachers

084they don't teaching 50% we don't want that to happen here at Watertown we want to Foster you know teachers stay we want to recruit great teachers as well so this committee's work all comes together we've got some great ideas that to implement future thank you very much finally Brian Duro assistant superintendent for operations Finance thank you I can tell you I'm a bit audited out on the external audit report that was presented tonight I I had to get kudos to bers um they started the audit week after Labor Day and it's required to be submitted to New York state by October 15th they had their report in my hands by October 14th I was extremely impressed so that audit was emailed to New York State and submitted into the New York State portal on time

085and second aspect of that is a SLE audit report the federal gr um that there's a separate surve survey in the New York State portal that we had to respond in there whether we had a single audit that was completed and the report was uploaded to the data Clearing House database um the st3 submission which is another aspect of the audit at the end of the year um all the different fonds attendance reporting building cost Transportation expenses those are all submitted into the st3 in the STS portal by for New York state that was due on October 18th and everything was submitted on time to ensure that our Aid is included in the database coming out New York State um I do have a tax collector status from Jenna for you um from compared to

086November 6 of 23 to November 6 of 24 last year $1 million was collected 4 million the county just about seven for the city um about 85% and 55% respectively this year um the county is on part about 82% of $4 million collected the the city Side however is less than half of what we were last year just over 3 million collected today about 25% but she doesn't seem to have any concerns about colleting the rest of what is um we are also working with the on an RFP for transportation Dr and I are working with fbh bosies to work through that process for us um they are very well aware that we want to have that RFP out as quickly as possible so we can improve the new contract around December January period we've

087got some new aspects of that RP that we're going to be going out for you've got the electrification of buses um but we've got the activity buses that are after school that we're paying individually for that we would like to try to roll into that but there's some other things that we're looking at also to include in the NP process exced um couple other things um I did pop week eval lead evaluator recertification completed um and then finally um the s report that is reported to New York state every year the s report breaks down the the expenditures for building for every school district this isn't Federal requirement it's changed up a little bit this year it's no longer called the sing for it's called a school level Finance survey it's based on your audited

088expenses from last year so 23 24 expenditures um a second part of that was a transparency report that used to be the exact same report but your projected budget figures that report's going to liated now they just concerned about actual numbers um that report was completed last week um there's a whole new spre tee that our PRS for us makes the process much more simpler I was told it would take 45 more than 45 minut but apparently they haven't met watert School District so but that has been completed and uploaded into the idex portal and has submitted that as well and just a couple more things real quick um Dr SM and I did a couple building visits the other day and I that was one thing I haven't been able to get on my

089plate and I really need to make an effort going forward to do these building visits I'm seeing a lot of things especially with budget planning coming up yeah that we need to take an eye on take a look at um like at Cas the Auditorium um at the stage of the high school and I'm very looking very much looking forward to doing that working with all our principles and administrators for the upcoming budget I I'm so excited I'm a nerd that's all I have thank you very much okay moving along items for consent agenda resolve that consent agenda items a through are hereby approved I have motion please John John the second H Hy any discussion all favor any oppose motion carries item to the board action resolve that the annual internal audit and annual

090risk assessment for the school district as prepared by The Firm of Questar 3 bosies for the 2023 24 school year and the corrective action plans associated therewith is hereby accepted and approved okay can I have a motion please s second i' like to motion T that please um reason being is that we haven't had enough opportunity to really um review the audit report so I think that we all through that before we can actually vote is any supporting I have a second Randy Randy all those favor to the table m motion is Ted resolve that the annual audit of the school district as prepared by The Firm of Bowers and Company CPAs for the period ending June 30 2024 and the corrective action plans Associated therewith for the following funds general fund School Food Service

091Capital fund extra classroom activity funds is hereby accepted and approved now please Milly Milly a second John John discussion all those in favor iOS car whereas pursuant to the New York State education law section 414 board of education is authorized to approve Child Care programs for school age children during hours school is not in session and permits school buildings to be used for this purpose and whereas District policy 10003 provides for the community use of school facilities so long as such use in accordance with applicable law and authorized by the Board of Education and whereas the Watertown Family YMCA uh desires to use space at the Watertown city school district to operate an Afterschool Child Care Program through the Army youth programs in your neighborhood program between uh September 1 2024 through June 30 2025

092and whereas the district is willing to permit use of the portion of the district's facilities for the purpose of an Afterschool Child Care Program operated by the provider as it deems the program to be in the best interest of the district and whereas the district and the provider have agreed to the terms and conditions set forth in the facilities use agreement now therefore be it resolved as follows number one the Board of Education hereby finds that the Watertown city school district space will not be needed for educational purposes by the district during the dates and times set forth in the proposed agreement and that the providers operation of a Child Care Program for school- Aid children is in the best interest of the district number two the proposed agreement commencing on September 1 2024 through

093June 30 2025 is hereby approved by the Board of Education the superintendent and his design is authorized to execute said agreement and the officers and employees of the district are authorized to take steps necessary or appropriate to comply with the terms of set agreement I have a motion please mil and Tina discussion all those in favor I opposed motion carries resolve that in accordance with the board regulation 83021 comp complaint procedures concerning textbooks Library material and other instructional materials the superintendent of schools recommends um members to serve as presented to the board on the reconsideration committee for the 2425 school year and are hereby appointed I have motion please in a second got you discussion yeah I have a couple of questions both so um with this reconsideration committee this is just for point of

094clarification it's for purpose of everybody else this is the committee that by do our board policy we have to establish in case anyone has a question about instruction Community member want propos so um also point of information so the current board policy calls for five community community members you can just share with us how you derived at those five Comm yes so the board policy has a list of who is on the committee as far as how the breakdown looks uh it was recommended at a prior board meeting to modify that board policy that was tabled um and so what the policy states is that the chairperson of the committee is the librarian and so uh that is where we came up with the names and the idea is is that we're getting getting people

095that are impartial somebody that has filled out a complaint for an instruction material if you think about the committee is almost like an appellate body so the people that are serving on the committee cannot be someone who has filed a reconsideration complaint about the material uh because it would not be impartial um so the body is impartial um it is and and just for clarification because the board policy also States this um when we receive a reconsideration request the person filling out that form had to have read the the book in its entirety so that it's not based on an excerpt it's based on the entire thing um the committee as such has to do the same thing they have to read the entire text they do not have a copy of the uh complainant

096form that is something that was emailed to me it could have been handed to me in this case I received two they were emailed to me that committee they look at the book they provide me the their recommendation and then I Write a response to anyone that have may have filled out a reconsideration request for an instruction material thank you and a followup to that according to our board policy this reconsideration committee um should be established on a yearly basis so my question is is this committee it's obviously been created as a result of someone or two people have putting in a a request to review the instructional material so is this committee the committee that's going to stand for the rest of this year or was this committee specifically put together to address these

097two particular issues now which is the hate you given I real assign so this committee has established to address the fact that there's a board policies says there has to be a committee as I said a little bit earlier but it didn't go into detail as our legal team has it advised that we change the language of that policy to convene a committee when an issue comes up so we're at Ohio if there's an instructional material at Ohio that's questioned then we can convene a committee based on this school's Community similar to case or the high school um so that is our legal council's advice so if that were to be approved then the answer to that question would be no okay so we're your intention is to speak with the board and move in

098the direction of putting a committee together for any particular complaint as opposed to designating a generic committee at the beginning of every year not knowing what the situation may be so that it's more appropriately discussed abely that way that school Community whatever the school Community is that direct School Community is involved in that decisionmaking process okay thank you that that I think that's I have an additional question on the community piece um where do you formulate those names those names are the chairperson of the committee is the librarian media specialist so we work with the librarian to come up with those things so does the librarian recommend some names or I think your your um proposal to revise our board policy in particularly addressing whatever the issue may be at hand is a good one

099because every issue is independent and I think in the spirit of of having the right people with the right fund of knowledge or even people that don't know this for me this is a very important issue because this particular board policy is Community Driven so if a Community member has a concern then that Community member cannot be part of the committee therefore you want to make we as a board want to make sure that the community representation is really representing what that right what that idea is so I think your suggestion of moving towards modifying that um board policy is a good one and we should probably do that I bring that forward again I appreciate that I think that's a very good response to my concerns just to clarify too to the board very

100so it doesn't so the first thing could be a conversation somebody says I have a concern about this instruction inter ter that's stepal depending on how that goes because sometimes people skip steps if that happens then it goes directly to the committee if a form if if instead of that face-to-face conversation and we get a form that's completed then we've now skipped a step and now we're looking at the reconsideration committee um once the reconsideration committee gives me their recommendations then I write my letter as the superintendent the instructional leader I write it if the complainant or the person that filled out the reconsideration form does not agree with my recommendation then they can appeal it to the board so at the beginning stages the board should not be involved at all because you are

101you at the end of the day are the appell division that says yay or nay and depending on the level of engagement at the beginning would mean that certain board members would have to recuse themselves from serving as an you know that impartial body I explain that for the community so that they're aware that it should not come to us first of all not be impartial at the end that they disagree with your decision so just a point to move further the isue Lori and I I I think your question was answered but you raised another point in my head so currently according to the board policy it is the superintendent who designates the consideration committee and then it comes to the board for Board approv of the committee members that is what the current

102policy that's what you're acting on tonight that's what we're doing tonight is no that's fine no I just wanted him to clarify that so with this this situation they came K the board course they didn't know we didn't even know that POS so now I'm saying going forward that if someone comes to me regarding curriculum I'm going to say you need to do all of this I don't even want to hear what they have to say because I don't want to be impartial in case it comes all the us to vote on absolutely that's what I was stressing for the community that please yes I'm sorry that you feel this way this is what we need to and as our assistant superintend of curriculum instruction Lynn would also play a part of that conversation the

103initial conversation I think just in general and I think I said this in your last FL when that you guys were away I think in general like us as a board we really need to um Force more and educate our community members that if there is an issue I mean that our policies are pretty precise and there's a lot of time that's been put into that so I know that I've made it a personal effort that when someone comes to me for things that the first thing I do is look to see if there's a policy on it and then always follow the chain of commands because I think that that's the most effective way to deal with things and I think we actually can be more of an asset to the community if the

104of commands has followed and if we adhere to our board policies and I think in the past that has been a little bit gray area and people haven't really done that mostly because I think as a board and I'm not saying this board but previous boards haven't really enforced that and I'm learning more and more that we have a policy for a lot of things and we really should you know have a joint effort making sure that that is what's communicated and that we're consistent so that the community doesn't feel like we're not following policies or everyone's kind of doing their own thing um I think that's fairly important so I'm glad to brought that up I well I think the thing with the community is there's a lot of people that they're connected to

105one of us one way or another and because of that connection they feel that they can openly talk to us and I don't think that that they're taking advantage or anything I think they feel better talking to us yeah then and then wanting us to take those steps forward we all just have to be 100% on the same page that we are following your policy so that no one is doing that and we're not you know in the back Zone did receive this call about this and next thing you know they're standing in front of us I think we need to go back to the roots of why we're here and so we can do our job as a Bo that we all I mean absolutely we went out and asked for their votes so

106that there's a connection there but we should handle every issue we can at the lowest level possible and that was one of the things that we learned at the school board meeting in New York that we went with Larry I mean if you weren't there missed you but it it was really drilled the conference was amazing and it was what our role as school board members who drilled into our head that you know our main thing we have three jobs we drive policy we hire our superintendent and we take care of the pocketbook and the finances for the community and we are you know we're supposed to be the stewards of finances so those are things that we learned very well and that meeting was incredible it was a very productive four days in New

107York City and I'm glad that you invited us because it was it was nice that you paid for every so was we had great food we were right next to Central Park it was amazing yeah you keep rubbing it in yeah I was working I should clarify that almost P for extracurricular sorry guys no thank you thank you Larry for explaining um all those hi whereas the Board of Education wishes to attract more qualified applicants for certain difficult to fill titles and whereas the Board of Education recognizes that the cost of obtaining fingerprint clearance can discourage qualified candidates from applying for employment with the district now therefore be it resolved that the Board of Education hereby authorizes payment of the full cost of obtaining fingerprint clearance for all applicants applying for employment in titles designated

108by the Watertown city school district superintendent of schools is difficult to fill motion please second John John Millie is this a problem it definitely is a problem for some of our food service workers are lower paid lower early wage earners Food Service custodial and AIDS still $150 yeah I was gonna ask how much is it that's a lot of money is there any look back period where people can be reimbursed for past finger printing no this is to try to get people in the door that we've had people that we've interviewed for a jobs that maybe would be perfect but they just don't have the $100 to front before they get their there's no way we can do this in house yeah you want to open up shop no it's difficult it's a it's a

109process I've gone through it yeah so where's the money coming from you it come from the general fund M we will make sure that there are funds budgeted in their specific people finger I didn't know that that was a problem but $100 I can imagine all right all those in favor motion be it resolve that upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools Dr Larry schmigle the Board of Education hereby approves the following resignations retirement appointments probationary instructional term non probationary instructional probationary non-instructional term non-probationary non-instructional permanent Cyclone Academy um stem program after school tutors um substitutes instructional substitutes non-instructional winner coaching girls winner coaching boys do I have a motion please only second discussion not disc question just so it's so nice to see all we keep adding to the Cyclone Academy there's more

110and more teachers coming that we're just great to see the salaries are nice as well um is it because they're doing after school how how are how are we doing how we haven't agreed upon amount that's $38 and10 an hour so that we pay that for Sumer school pay for after school that's very nice so that's probably why you're getting a lot of people but I mean that's great how what are we up to in numbers so we had 56 students that were signed up for cyclon Academy 17 are interested in joining for semester two so and our minds are turning for next year to to add to that but I don't want to let the C out of the horse without that berck here so anything else all those in favor I opposed motion

111carries whereas a resolution was passed by the board of education on October 1 2024 approving the November 29th 2024 resignation of Kristen Boo and be it further resolved that this amended resolution reflects the change in resignation date to the October 31 2024 and is hereby approv I have a motion please joh joh secondry discuss all those in favor resolve that the sale disposal auction or recycle of an outdated unused and generally in poor condition uh partech folding machine from the district office serial number 05010 230 is hereby approved motion please John John second Milly any discussion all those favor res the Burlington cult factory made a generous donation of $5,000 to The Faculty at neaker elementary school to purchase items needed for classrooms this donation is gratefully accepted and approved and will be acknowledged in

112writing I have a motion please sorry second Lori than question all those in favor I oppos motion carries and I is the end of the resolutions okay is anyone here uh this evening wishing to address the board on non agenda related public comment up my name is Katana Richardson I'm a teacher of Watertown city school district I feel fortunate to be here I was lucky to do my student teaching in this district and I was estatic when I received the call from Miss Tina Lane confirming that L town was be my teaching home and I continued to feel deeply connected to the school to each and every student I teach it because I care so deeply for the school for the students and for the community that I stand before you tonight I'll admit I'm

113a hesit I'm hesitated to speak sooner to typically I prefer to work behind the scenes quietly making a difference but the time has come when silence feels like picity it's both an English and a soci teacher I've spent years immersed in literature literature excuse me history uncovering the patterns of humanity both the triumphs and the tragic repe repetitions of harm for those considered other through this lens I know that a bystander is just as culpable as a person who inflicts harm and so I refuse to stand by when it comes to transgender rights and issues currently being debated in our community and in our school I'm here tonight to ask the board to take a definitive stance to stay on the right side of history and to protect every student in our district every student

114regardless of gender identity sexuality or any other trait that makes them uniquely who they are at a recent board meeting a comment was made suggesting the art curriculum should not cater to the needs of the 2% minority but should instead focus on the majority frankly this commentary is dangerous America has always had its minorities and those minorities have often faced persecution Injustice and misunderstanding time and again our country's history shows us that refusing to recognize the needs of any minority creates harm from the indigenous tribes who first inhabited this land subjective to violence and forc displacement to Africans brought to the new world of slaves denied basic human rights to the immigrants Crossing Ellis Island to our Jewish Community the Japanese placed in US internment camps those with physical and or mental disabilities unwed mothers

115Asians Pacific Islanders and so many more regardless of the group each face Prejudice fear and often unimaginable hardship today we teach history in our classrooms this history with a clear understanding the treatment of these groups was wrong we have evolved as a society and we know now that these past actions were rooted in fear ignorance and intolerance but history if we're not careful has a way of repeating itself and right now I see history reemerging in the way that many are reacting to our transgender Youth and the broader lgbtqia plus Community some want the trans and lgbtq communities to remain unrepresented and unsupported in this public school system some are more concerned with debting the word Ally than understanding the real struggles the lgbtq members face we've allowed voices to blur lines where some are

116categorizing transgender youth with furries and they are questioning curriculum the New York State mandates and protects this is fear talking a fear as old as Humanity itself some might argue that transgender issues are new that Society simply hasn't had time to adjust to this minority within Society but this is not new story it is the same heartbreaking narrative that has plagued marginalized groups throughout history the minority fighting to be seen to be heard and to be afford the same rights as the majority to Simply live without fear our transgender youth are feeling isolated unsafe and unheard some of them feel so hopeless that they consider ending their lives because they believe there is no place for them in this world so I ask our board to be different I ask that you not be the

117antagonist in this story or rather the Ally that chooses the right side of History because someday when the comprehensive struggles of the lgbtqi place plus Community are recorded within history books I want Watertown to be remembered as a district that took a stand that protected all of its students and embody of the values of respect and inclusion as a community we must evolve to recognize that we cannot leave minorities behind in the name of the majority real progress and positive change requires effort courage and willingness to stand up for what is right even when it's not the popular choice let us be a force for that change let's be a district that all students regardless of identity can be proud to call around thank you anyone else tonight there Christen the barge I didn't have

118anything um planned but I just wanted to touch on a few things first of all I had the uh recent opportunity to volunteer with Cornell Cooperative Extension I do meds money with them um so typically that takes me to all sorts of schools around the region but starting last year um the Watertown city school district became involved which is nice because that cuts down the travel time compared to the other schools as I'm a local resident um I just wanted to say that it's it's pretty amazing going to different schools and seeing how different all of these kids are um so the high school I believe they said that it was most Juniors um they were just really great kids and the staff was really great everybody was enthusiastic about it um if you're not

119familiar it is this life simulation where students receive a family um they receive their salary if they have a spouse their spouse's salary they have to budget that money they have to go around they have to take uh consideration for housing Transportation they have to go to the mall um grocery shop all of those things and then um northern Federal Credit Union is a partner with it as well so they deal with their debts if they have college debt um or credit card debt things of that nature so it's a really great fun simulation I'm glad that the the district does it um and it was just really great um I noticed at one of the recent board uh board meetings that it was brought out how we treat uh how you treat the policies

120um and I don't know as much about the regulations versus what is um preference so I just wanted to speak to that was uh Mr Richardson brought it up that uh and I've noticed it for some time it it varies from my organizational experience where if there's going to be a policy change or if a policy is presented I'm used to that being presented to a board and then floating for 30 days so that it can be discussed and considered even outside of that meeting maybe somebody has some questions or they want to do some more research um and then typically after the 30-day float the vote um is to approve it or sometimes like with State policies time is of the essence so um occasionally there's a vote to wave that day flope um

121and I was just kind of curious if that's just the way that it is because you know school boards are mandated for it to be that way or if that's a choice because I as a community member I also appreciate that Outlook of having that that 30-day float to understand more about those policies as well um I wanted to bring up a resource for some of our family potentially and staff members as well um there has been a lot going on in our district and Nationwide about certain assignments certain text and whether or not they are appropriate um this is something that um we also see in my family's industry as well and a lot of times parents aren't prepared to immediately understand whether it's movies books video games podcast apps things of that nature

122so there's a really great resource out there um it's not slanted the goal of it is to Simply assess what each of those media components are um and clearly communicate are there certain components that may be of concern to some families what they would be um a professional takes each resource gives it their own rating their own rundown it's just about being transparent um and then and it's actually changed over the years and now there is a separate component where parents can go in they can give their feedback their reading their understanding um and my favorite part and this has come up as a suggestion as well is that kids come in there's a there's a child category specifically that rates those components um and gives their feedback as well um so for instance you

123go in and you research the hate you give it does it separately for the movie and for the book so one of the professionals from Common Sense Media comes in gives it a review they're rated as 13 plus the parents come in they give their feedback um that rates it at 14 plus with all of their you know it rates it on a a five star system as well so you get to see each of these reviews from share up um but the kids was by far the most popular component of this particular rating and the overwhelming consensus is 13 plus so I just wanted to bring that up that falls well within the realm of our eighth grade students I also went out as soon as this book was mentioned and I devoured it

124in three days I would not recommend it because it is so profoundly impactful and important that was a lot to digest and and process it was very uh just profound I think it's an amazing book I've spoken to students who are um former readers from eth grade and students who have read it in the high school um and they all had positive things to say about it um and I do back the professionalism of our teachers and our staff here choosing the curriculum both that book and the transgender assignment the I am I just wanted to speak to that briefly thank you you it's the Curious couple questions how kind rounds program are the uh you may not have the answer to this now but I want know how program is doing the H machine

125that vending maches yeah the hygiene hygiene vending machine um is going well at the high school uh Conor brown one of our students that actually uh thought of the idea um over a year ago now um that machines had been purchased and delivered so there was one that was delivered to case middle school and also at Wy so um the kid was eager to take the initiative the city was contemplating I don't know if they still are uh they were contemplating a similar idea at bus stops and so he's had other districts reach out to him um Tina mentioned it briefly didn't get into the detail on the projects but he was the reason why now any student that serves on the superintendent advisory Council now they have to identify a project and work with

126Bri on the financials uh Lynn on the curriculum um Tina on the HR aspect to bring it to fruition so we're going to have many projects and some of the kids are going to be working together but that project is well received and expanding that's fantastic second other questions when my first came to boarding a year ago I turned about one of your goal ini was student absenteeism and I know I saw an article recently s across the state how is it doing at the high at the school district are you doing a good Trends in the absenteeism reduction or yes we pulled that recently in our um attendance advisory committee and our average jily attendance as by a few percentage points so we're taking that as a win but we're still working on improving

127well you get 95% that's not quite there yet no but going the right TR the other thing is violence and out of school suspension that was one of the first thing here how any idea how that going as full suspensions or um I don't want to jinx anything this is a plastic table but things are looking much better and actually La the year for last we had 77 I think um superintendent hearings last year we ended the year with less than 40 so we're we're making amazing Trends we've also put a lot of systems and procedures in place to try to help that iar go have a friend daughter sending them she's teaches in Brown district and she watched your meetings she they're so interesting she watches the meetings thank thank you anyone else this

128evening okay up next is items for discussion and information so the first item is the Watertown city school district city of Watertown mixed juice property exemption um you may have recalled that we've shared it at the last couple of meetings um I have um Tina is going to jot down some questions if we have any questions from the board following these what we would need to decide at the end of tonight's meeting if there are no questions and whether or not we want to move a resol resolution forward excuse me um one of the questions was uh the school district would need to reach out to local assessor to determine how many properties so the question was how many properties um are interested in doing this um the next question was when you say that

129difference in the tax get shifted do you mean that the burden get shifted to the current taxpayers within the district the answer to that was yes is it possible to cap the number of properties that are eligible for this the answer is no there is no ability to cap the number of properties any eligible property would be entitled to the exemption if the board elects to adopt the exemption whether or not to adopt the exemption is in the complete description of the school board and again it would have to be a mixed juuse property then I decided based on the answers from those were from our legal team I reached out to the city to receive their responses um a quick summary of the 45 exemption is attached the freeze only applies to the increased

130assessment following rehab or conversion of mixed use buildings there is currently only one proposed project project that would qualify for this exemption there is no way however of knowing how many exemptions could eventually apply to because it would cover the conversion of any commercial building to one of mixed use the most likely recipients would be for rehabilitation of small downtown buildings you have any questions you would like me to pose those were the answers to last board meeting's questions and then I just need to know if we want to bring a resolution for questions answer we'll bring one to the uh November 19th board meeting and the next one is nisba so I love opportunities and I love audits we don't always like the findings and it means we have things that we have to

131work on but we have an opportunity here and so um as you mentioned Milly we went to a a nisbar conference the um New York State Schoolboard Association and one of the offerings that they have the association provides a state aid review you and so what they try to do is they try to look at the state aid financials that we've submitted and they look at what are ways that maybe there's more money that we should apply for from the state and what are ways that we are not maximizing that state aid Revenue there is only a fee for their service again this is the New York State Schoolboard Association the only fee is if they find money that we inadvertently left on the table so if we find that we have $499 ,000 that

132we could go back to New York State and Bill for that then we would have to pay them uh 15% of that 499,000 still a win we're still earning money it gives us a learning potential to realize transportations included Food Services included there's a significant amount of special education that's included in this audit to make sure that we're billing for special education services appropriately um if the rate exceed seeds 499,000 that the state would owe us then that rate that we would pay NBA would be 133% again we would not pay in either events unless they were to find money that we could have applied for that we did not um this is not a resolution tonight it's a conversation uh what I just need to know is if the board is interested in pursuing

133it is the superintendent I would highly recommend it because there's not a cost to the district unless they find money that we left on the table and then we would pay out of money that we don't have anyway is that a one time or moving forward they would do it it would be a two-year agreement but we can continue doing it forward but if they recover some revenue is it one time or it would be a one time applying for it but learning with now we have a new Department with Bri being in there we've got some things in special education that we're reshaping so it would be a learning experience also so that we know to to build for it next next so what's the downside there there's not a downside because it's money

134that we don't have now is it possible there could be State monies out there at that are part of the program that we intentionally dis apply for there is no I've had legal vet this there's no negative ramification for having them do this service um other than the potential obviously if we recover more money it increases our general fund balance so that choose not to you choose not to yes and if they find nothing there's no fee so I would the board like me to bring a resolution forward so I'll add that to the 1119 meeting okay and then the next thing is I don't know if board members would like to pull out their calendars now or if you would like to email but we have a list of dates um I've been asked

135to schedule another workshop for the Board of Education with Jason Andrews Who provided the first workshop and did in my opinion an amazing job um this year um he has some dates available so I can either email the board or can read off the dates now whatever you prefer okay yeah I'll do that and then the next thing I need Mike The Tech Guys helpful uh the dates are November 5th oh sorry cancel that today's November 6th cancel that there we did not meet yesterday just for the Public's knowledge um November 14th November 26th December 2nd December 3rd December 4th December 11th which we have a concert so I'd like to not do that dat um and then um December 7 our holiday concert is December 11 December 17 so and I'll put that in

136my weekly update and I had 5: PM unless you would like a different time propose the next thing is there any way to blow that up some this is today's vision screening so thank you um we had the opportunity can anyone see it from the back maybe um so we had the opportunity of meeting with our students Tina kind of mentioned that earlier she wasn't trying to take uh the show here but she did mention that earlier we met with our school board we had that Public Work session for them and we also met with our administrators and we met with our teacher Advisory Group and so what we did is we asked each of them we followed the similar process some of you in the audience I can see participated and the board here

137definitely participated um we went through a prior prioritization uh ranking and so we asked these subgroups to do the same exact thing now what I will say to those of you that are maybe sitting in here today and have heard me say this in the past is that New York State requires a build-in condition survey to be conducted every five years it was not our fiveyear period however we had the capital project that touched the main campus um that was coming off the books not off yet just to be clear um and then we had the turf that we were able to complete in August and so with the idea of those coming off I didn't want to blindly lead the board in any kind of direction for capital projects without getting building condition survey

138there's a ramification if you get recommendations and you don't make those modifications and that is uh North Elementary School is a good example with the wall if there are things that are identified that we blatantly ignore and don't address and then we try to apply for emergency aid the reimbursement rate and the length of time it takes to get those monies is greatly impacted So to avoid that we asked the board if they would mind if if we went earlier for this building condition survey and they blessed that and we went forward um what we did is we took a road trip so all of the board members got on a yellow cheese box a school bus and we rode around and visited every campus in the district and that was really to bring the

139building condition survey to life so we did that we had that opportunity they had an opportunity to speak with Architects and our construction Associates and was it PA Osborne also there we had an engineer there yes we had another guy that talked a lot about engineering okay there was a guy that talked well above my understanding of engineering so in any event we went from that piece we went with these stakeholder groups and then um with that we came up with three priorities for each of the buildings what I will highlight is that each of these priorities match the high priorities that we already identified in the building condition survey and when you see our students and what they shows all of them probably could get an internship with King and King or construction Associates

140because our kids similar to what was said earlier with a different context our kids have a pretty good sense of the pulse uh if we just ask them and so um with our Watertown High School the three top priorities and this is taking all of the stakeholder groups combined we have site improvements um Brian's going to share what those are quickly yes sidewalks asph parking lots building exi and then we uh picked the uh it was ranked mechanical electrical Plumbing um security updates to No Surprise we talked about that briefly earlier and then toilet rooms or bathrooms we're going to scroll down I have the mouse so then we went by stakeholder groups and you can see where our school staff our staff advisory said um bathroom rooms um Tech Wing at the high school

141special education art Wing and athletic facilities which some of which are addressed in our site improvements just worded differently our um student advisory said mechanical um they were impressed that our students said that our mechanical should be number one um site improvements toilet rooms and pool Renovations um our administrator said uh bathroom Renovations site improvements and HVAC upgr grades our Board of Education was in alignment with the students there for the mechanical the Electrical Plumbing um the Finish upgrades and then the site improvements the pool Renovations Etc and then we move to nicer Bacher we ranked them uh taking into consideration all of those stakeholder groups the first one was site improvements Brian those are um yeah field drainage Improvement sidewalks parking lots site lighting Etc uh and then they also said they would like

142the pink green and all of those nice colors to be upgraded our staff advisory uh mentioned Windows site improvements and trying to read from a distance hazardous materials our student advisory mentioned site improvements toilet room Renovations Mechanicals and finish upgrades our administrators mentioned um data closet upgrades so we have data closets in our district that lack air conditioning and so we don't want our servers down and learning to stop and people to panic without technology and so a consideration of adding those and we also have Sherman is a good example Sherman Elementary School has data closets in the same space as a custodial closet and that should not be happening those two should be separate so that's just to mention there our administrators also mentioned uh more storage and that was a common theme not

143NE not necessarily prioritized but all of our buildings would like more storage um that in conference spaces and indoor playgrounds our Board of Education uh mentioned mechanical uh Electrical Plumbing security upgrades toilet rooms and window replacements door hardware Etc and then we have Sherman Elementary School the top two things were site improvements Brian side improvements at Sheron are um sidewalks playground and then our school staff uh said basement um in that building they have prek in the basement um and other instructional spaces that are there that we would like to uh breathe some life into toilet rooms mechanical engineering and plumbing uh student advisory mentioned site improvements flooring upgrades mechanical engineering Plumbing Etc uh to include security toilet room Renovations and basement uh administrators mentioned more space storage and bathroom upgrades our Board of Education

144mentioned mechanical electrical Plumbing security upgrades uh toilet room Renovations and basement Renovations and then we moved this follows the same uh path that we took on the tour with the bus uh high priority for HT Wy all stakeholders combin we safe entrance secure Vestal this is one of the schools that although they have it on the wly side when you enter the district office there is not a secure entrance and so people that enter entered there could potentially uh Sue does a great job uh making sure that doesn't happen but we would like that secure entrance site improvements there include um upgrade to athletic fields with Ada access um sidewalks additional parking and reconfiguring of the bus parent drop off pick up site and sight lighting and then you'll notice one that's great out here

145this is for Jason's benefit uh we had a student if you recall come and speak to us about the planetarium and so we added that to the list um that gives us a way to we want Watertown city school district to be a district of choice and offering the planetarian when you think about what the governor and what the commissioner of education is doing with the regionalization this allows us and the district used to be the host of this years ago this allows us to get back in the spotlight and for people to see Watertown for the amazing District that it is so that's on the list the school staff advisory mentioned safe entrance parking lot um site improvements we've got uh student set site improvements uh partial roof replacement mechanical electrical Plumbing security upgrades

146and secure vable which is addressed in that third bullet as well administrators mentioned parking lot uh Lynn is doing a great job tapping that conference room out with PD uh but we lack parking and and it could be a potential safety so we ad parking there Ada updates to the athletic fields so that our visitors and patrons can get to those athletic fields on the top behind Wy and uh Brian Bri and I got to see some sketches of what that could potentially look like today and Conference Room space our Board of Education mentioned site improvements partial roof re replacement secure Vestal and mechanical electrical Plumbing Etc and then we move to North um North is a school that when you see us actually present our phases north um the cost allowance for that building

147building is just about 10.2 million the um BCS report came in at about 36 million and so that one is going to have to be a school that is definitely in Phase One and also brought back five years later at phase two um roof replacement site improvements which include playground replacement sidewalks parking lots and um work to the exterior stairs Foundation thank you Brian staff indicated the Mechanicals as well the windows and the roof student advisory said site improvements roof Mechanicals uh finish upgrades toilet room and you won't see on this school the what happened during that storm damage with the wall and the windows that is being done regardless as an emergency repair administrators said storage area add more space um and indoor playground we had another indoor playground there uh Board of Education

148said roof Mechanicals and finish upgrades and then we mov to the combination score with the Starbucks elementary school secure entry uh kitchen staff room right now they're currently delivering lunches in the hallway um and so that's not where the kids eat uh but that's where the food is distributed so we're looking at um a space for that site improvements which include um playgrounds they mentioned sidewalks but we recently um address addressed a number of bad sidewalks in last year's Capital outlay project and this year the remainder of the sidewalks have been identified then the secure entry point people just worded them differently that obviously came to the top our staff advisory said definitely the secure entry at that building the kitchen the staff room uh the playground um that playground is the old wooden playground

149um so we we need some work there students mentioned the site improvements the Mechanicals the secure entrance administrators mentioned the um create more space uh secure entrance and Food Service kitchen upgrades the Board of Education mentions the secure uh entry site improvements Mechanicals and kitchen renovation we went to case Middle School the combined score with site improvements which include again um sidewalk replacement um parking lots stairs there's um number of stairs that are deteriorated from just salting ter of winners um Stadium lighting was also mentioned thank you and then Mechanicals Electrical Plumbing upgrades and then the auditorium improvements the school staff advisory mentioned air quality uh room temperature parking lot U mechanical um um electrical and plumbing and then site improvements student advisory mentioned site improvements Mechanicals and the auditorium improvements and they're looking at

150at that particular School I've asked the principal to convene a committee of people that were there when the school was built to talk about the purpose of the auditorium and then to convene a uh committee that will look at how do they Envision that space being used moving forward administrators mentioned conference room space um AC and um what is that last one second I read that cameras cameras Y and we're addressing Brian's team has done a great job adding them as principles are asking for them um board of education site improvements mechanical and then um Auditorium thank you perfect uh we're going to move to Ohio elementary school we've got the high priorities is the secure entrance that's one of the schools that does not have it uh you know that we're here site improvements

151and then the secure entry which ties into number one you'll see some repeats here secure entry site improvements windows and doors Mechanicals um the student advisory was the improvements mechanical secure entry um Extended Corridor walk uh administrators mentioned um data closet upgrades more storage secure entry our Board of ENT Board of Education prioritize secure entry is number one site improvements and Mechanicals and then if we can share what the um the site improvements were for Ohio for Ohio um playground improvements sidewalks parking lot repairs um stairs um front and up that was a thing that the board noticed when we went to all of the um schools particularly the elementary schools so then what we asked to do was we asked to identify themes so when you look at themes throughout the districts and so

152number one security and safety came as number one that's not a surprise um infrastructure the Mechanicals that was not a shock because our Mechanicals are outdated um essential um essential facility to include our bathrooms upgrading and then our educational spaces so that was a priority ranking uh what we are hoping to do uh moving forward with the board's blessing is to ask our Architects these items that were identified were identified as um from our building condition survey so what we would like to do remember our initial goal was to have our legal documents uh presented by December so the timeline is really tight and um to have a board vote on March 11th and so we have some legal deadlines that we need to meet what I would like to do is get the board's

153blessing tonight to take this information to hand it over to King and King and to have them present us with a phase phase one phase two phase three with these items included y um and the other thing that I will mention uh particularly for the high school case depending on the plumbing uh we're looking at the plumbing with the sewage that backed up on that during that August storm to see if there's something because one of the things that FEMA does allow for is they allow for wherever the damaged area was they allow you to bring it up to coat and so if there's a plumbing thing that we could fix we're going to try to tie that in North we have several things that we're going to try to tie in in that lower

154level um and then the high schooled so where we're trying to balance and it's not a perfect timeline is femma has their timeline which could be extended dragged out um and our Capital project which needs to go out to the voters so what I will tell you that I've been extrinsically clear with as far as our Architects our construction Associates my team is that we are not leaving money on the table and so if we are able to work with FEMA and we're able to get 4 million six million whatever the dollar amount is that they approve us for we will use that to fix the areas to bring them back to pre- disaster conditions to work on mitigation efforts and that will free up some money in this area here excellent okay that was

155all I had there questions great coming dates uh Wednesday 13th 6 PM the ball Sports banquet is at Watertown High School Tuesday the 19th 5:00 pm policy committee meeting in the district office and following that at 6 PM is our regularly schedule Board of Education meeting to bring that that my phone might be faster so I'm not texting anybody I'm just trying to open my calendar can do Tuesday what time was the okay um start off um so I have principal of serman Elementary an update from shman um Sherman had a very successful fall festival and book fair ins effort between PPA and their building also has Char clothing sale upcoming their PBIS helping the PTA raise funds by doing a ofon or dance ofon and the goal is to help PTA do all the

156things they want to do as well as a Sherman t-shirt to every student that t sh um other than that I just want to say I had the pleasure of ISB convention um a lot of great information it was very um AI oriented the Keo speaker wasn't AI robot um but um but uh but you also you know even more so reminds me that you learn a lot not necessarily I mean all the information that which included but um you can learn a lot by networking other people and other board members outside um so it's very valuable and I know that not every District um is able to send board members so I'm very grateful done that's all I L C first I want to thank Ohio for your hospitality today um I have a

157message from Ashley flto ner she said she wanted to give an update and she had an amazing turnout at the PTA PTO Fall Dance on October 25th with great costumes lots of family and wonderful music our students enjoyed a beautiful Halloween pered last week and Jared Campbell put some fantastic songs for students yesterday November 5th we enjoyed listening to his songs about being resp responsible anding to others um I did want to mention that I was able to actually go to two conferences um I was on the port I'm on the portrait of The Graduate so I went Ed back SLE te nor Orleans a couple weeks ago to a Dropout convention and there was a lot that was learned there a lot about AI engaging children alternate Ed um we also learned issues and

158setbacks that are affecting children nationally so with that being said a lot of our setbacks and things that we talk about here are not just us guys it is a national issue like literally everything that we have discussed we disc decided we thought out it was National but at the same time we're actually doing a lot better than a lot of other places um and there was everybody was represented all the way trips and so a whole entire country was represented there with us um they were talking about how to overcome obstacles and attendance so that's a huge issue as well and how to again like engaging children a lot of the obstacles that were brought to attention are things that I didn't even think about as a board member but I'm sure you guys

159do know you know there's a lot of children that they have to work to help their families or they have to babysit their siblings there's a lot of things that happen that they can't come to school and it's not just the basic needs so that was um quite enlightening and that there that was talked about quite a bit so and then the New York City conference as he said the AI was there and it was an effective board opportunity for all of us that were able to attend to actually Eng with each other as well not just sitting here that was huge for me I'm sorry that us play another time um I was able to visit different booths that I do want to um email all of you I have some some that like

160to discuss maybe we didn't talk about that too when J so that's all I have but I'm just very grateful that I got to have those those and the good news out of the Louisiana conference that we went to which was a national Dropout prevention conference they asked us to consider going next year and actually presenting at the committee what we're doing with the Cyclone Academy and on that note um that was actually very exciting too is that all these presenters were just coming into doing something like cyone Academy and we could sit there and actually really proud and head ourselves in the back that we were very much ahead good J Larry Tina okay I came prepared I I forget things and I get nervous and so first off our Sr our SRP nomination

161things I want to thank you and Tina so much because that is something that never happened before um and I feel that their recognition is extremely important um I could have sat there and filled out people's names for days um but I I appreciate that um as far as being a retired SRP myself um that was something that's never happened before so thank you both for initiating that and getting that out there um and speaking of the srps I was lucky enough to go to our National Honor Society um induction thank you and um there were two AIDS there that I have seen with their students many times at after school events and they don't complain they don't get paid they're there with their students to support their students because you know we're not robs

162and we really do like the kids that we work with and sometimes there is a little bit of a a bond and a trust thing so you know shout out to them for going above and beyond and there's more than just those two that that do that so I had to thank them and our music department um we have an amazing music department I am lucky and and blessed to be Jack philli and Joshua Mara's aunt and I went to wasigo to watch um Greece Well Jack Mara was in Greece and I had to say to myself okay this is colle this isn't Watertown High School I have to accept that my nephew's not going to be the star of the show I have to just sit and calm myself and you know whatever um

163Jeff Maro was the star of the show yeah he was phenomenal and not that the talent wasn't wasn't there but he just stole the show yeah and kudos for our Music Department for you know bringing out all those qualities that our students have and and just letting them be themselves and letting them you know just directing them in the ways that they should go so so those are those are my shouts just to plug the the board agreed last year in the last year's budget cycle to add music a case so that kids could get it each year not just seventh and not just eightth that's awesome did you have an update from me over there too I don't think so did I yes I wasn't from Jessica yes I thought everybody here no oh

164well I whispered uh good morning Jason this is from Jessica Boer by the way good morning Jason Ohio elementary welcom several students and their families to celebrate fall at Ohio Fall Dance and the consent parade Jared Campbell a motivational speaker came and shared an outstanding message about how to be a great person currently students are working on supporting the Ohio PTO by filling their acts of kindness calendar as a spread kindness throughout our community thank you Mr Kane I just want to say that not only is Jack Mara an amazing performer but that he is a role model for our younger music students uh and my son has had the opportunity to work with him and has enjoyed every second of it so he's he's feeding that next Generation those younger students too so I

165got a little I got a little Kudo points once aen found out that Jack Mar was my nephew did a little more important I I was very important was amazing uh I have a report from Mrs Kain at North Elementary I know I ask for it for it never heard of her uh last week our PTO hosted a family portrait fundraiser night family signed up and were able to come in and have 15 minutes to work with a photographer many families Ed these pictures for the holidays there were 35 families who were able to attend in addition we had our yearly harvest book look families can come in to make fall or holiday crafts with their child drink cider and eat cider donuts and they all receive a free new book Mrs Lane reads a

166story at the event in Mrs Strat in the libr in the library had students decorate tissue boxes with the theme of their favorite book it is one of our favorite events all year that we have for our North students and families for Mrs Kane at north um thank you Mrs Blair for the the hospitality it's always a pleasure to come from to Ohio thank you everybody that shared your thoughts with the board tonight uh super important and uh the only other thing I want to mention is uh with Veterans Day coming up a thank you to all of our community veterans we have a lot of veterans that work in our district uh and I want to give one special plug to a Watertown high school graduate from 1966 and that's my father and he

167is a veteran so a little special play liis Smith um so I have something to read from Chad and Olivia from Wild staff but I'm gonna say a couple of things first um Jessica it's always great to come here you do a such a great job with these children children your presentations are thorough very informative and it's really nice to come and visit the school so we commend you for having such a great program I only hear great things about North Elementary uh sorry Ohio I he hear great things about them too I do hear great things about Ohio all the schools so I just wanted to say that to you um I wanted to thank the children for participating that's always I think that's the best part when we Flo to the difference School

168is to listen to the children and what they say I think that's the best part um again we I was privileged enough to go to New York City to the conference and it was an amazing opportunity again not only to just visit um and go to the conference but also have some bonding time with our cboard members I thought that was really important for all of us we did a lot of great nice things the next thing I'd like to address the two people who spoke tonight so Mrs Richardson I apologize if you were offended by my comments you referenced me and two comments that I made at the dib committee so I just want everybody to know that I am a part of that committee because the board um we have to have a

169board member representation and what I would like to express to you that if I offended you by making my comment about the 2% I think it's important that when and Everyone's entitled to their opinion but I also think it's important that when things like that that can be inflamatory are said that a context is put to it so I appreciate that you heard what you heard but I obviously did not mean to offend anybody I just want to assure you again in the spirit of abiding by our board policies we have a very um deliberate diverse equity and inclusion policy which is 0013 and in that policy it actually states that we as a board and as a school district must accept every child no matter what um I think also that there is a

170sensitive issue about the transgender assignment but I want to for my for my part I want you to understand that I sit on this board to represent everyone in this community and I know that that's a Hot Topic at this particular time I think we move forward from that but as much as you're passionate about your Viewpoint there are opposite and there are other people that are just passionate not that no one accepts to transgender or any sexual orientation and I've said this before I don't think anybody cares about that but I think it's a sensitive issue because they're being singled out in a particular assignment and I think what's going on with some of the families that are upset about it is that they have religious perspectives they have their own set of moral

171compass within their family structure and they feel offended that their children are being exposed to something like that and then they're coming home and saying what's that about or a child you know they're coming home saying that they're not comfortable with that so I think that is really the angle and I think that this policy really expresses how we all need to accept each other's views and resp one another so I don't want you to think from my perspective that I have any um bias or anything against the children the term Ally I specifically asked how that was referenced in order for me to make my comment and that's my personal opinion and what however that was perceived it was perceived but for me and allies it is someone that has some level of authority

172and I don't for me it was just not what every body else thought but I think moving forward one of the things that we can do to improve this communication is and I'm going to talk to Lyn a little bit about it it kind of came to mind as you were saying all the stuff that you were saying which is valid and I'm definitely not taking anything away from you but I think that our di committee needs to be a little bit more diverse in terms of thought process I think right now our committee is very homogeneous and so it's very difficult for those parents and people who who are not in line of thinking to get their point across and they feel attacked or they don't feel like they're being supported and that's not

173the purpose of this we all need to accept each other and I think that maybe we need to do a better job in just having a little bit more representation because right now it is my personal opinion that the dib committee is a little homogeneous and it's very difficult for those people who don't agree with the same L thinking to get thought so I just I apologize if you felt that I was minimizing and I appreciate everything you do teachers like you is what really puts those children at the Forefront and I understand that case has a club that addresses the children who need extra help or who want counseling and we're doing a lot of things towards that so I don't think anybody wants to offend anybody so I appreciate you coming here to

174say all that inform out um what was stated she said it was will that was a board meeting not the last one before yes mention and the word allies and I as comment okay okay and yep you're welcome um and for you Kristen I also took the time to read the book um and I agree with you it's a wealth of information and I think somehow it's been connotated that I or or some people want to ban the book we have a policy we cannot ban books my point there was book SEL selection and age appropriateness in fact I recommended that the book be shifted to the high school I don't know what the committee is going to do that's what their recommendation whatever the recommendation is Dr schmigel will have to address that but

175I also read the book and I do agree that it was very intense and there was a lot of subject matter in there that I as and I'm speaking for me would not want my eighth grader I don't have an eighth grader anymore and I actually asked my daughter if she read that book when she was a case and she didn't and the other comment I'd like to say is that none of the other school districts have that book in their ccul none of them so we we can be different but it's not an isolated idea none of the other sto districts use it so it it is a point of contention when are the only ones using the book and again that that will be discussed that's why we Dr schmeel put a reconsideration

176committee and we will have to address it at that point okay so I'll read now um Mr fairchild's email Jason we held a special assembly in October for our student body our guest speakers were Watertown High student AES special thanks to Mike Morgan through helping us coordinate this these students represented seven different sports teams they came to share sh and Inspire our younger Cyclones with what they can look forward to in the upcoming years when they will be at case middle school and Watertown High School they truly did an excellent job in inspiring our students with their encouragement life experiences and words of wisdom a select group of our wildly moral students were able to participate in the by County festival at South Lewis under the strong and steady leadership of Mrs Lori F we

177are grateful to be able to provide this outstanding opportunities for our students students in our 12:1 to1 program were able to join their case Middle School in Watertown high school peers and participate in a Fall Festival at the high school it is a great collaborative event that brings together students and staff from the different grade levels to learn and celebrate together we at Wy are thankful for all the opportunities for growth and learning that our Board of Education and our superintendent leadership team provide for our students thank you Chad and Olivia on behalf of the W staff nice I'll go I always go last and I I had the thought the other day that's sort of arrogant always have the last word so I'm gonna switch that up um I have two reports tonight my

178first is from uh Mr nabinger at Starbuck uh and he wrote Our polling places open in the library and the students are casting their ballots for the next president of the United States uh our attendance incentive contest is up and running our goal this month is 10 days of over 91% attendance his third point was our Harvest Dance was a huge success and finally he wrote Miss Greenwood's kindergarten class one the golden sport award for the best behavior in the cafeteria so congratulations congratulations to miss Greenwood's kindergarten class um the other report that I have tonight is from Beth Mau she says I am thrilled to introduce and highlight the littlest learner campaign parent podcast to the board in each episode we will revisit foundational principles to support family engagement and Child Development our topics

179include the importance of outdoor play Family Style Dining fostering curiosity without devices establishing routines nurturing affection sharing daily reading time building self-regulation resourcefulness frequent smiles and prioritizing self-care to ensure we reach all families we felt this podcast would be the most accessible and effective way to share these insights I want to to extend my heartfelt thanks to everyone in the district who has supported me in bringing this passion project to life especially the P3 committee my prek dream team our special guests on the episodes The District leaders and all the tech supporters your encouragement and collaboration have been invaluable additionally I want to thank two dedicated teachers Kristen deara uh BK instructional coach and Marissa moch who is a special education teacher and P3 Committee Member who applied for the Jefferson Lewis teacher Center Grant

180Jefferson Lewis teacher Center informed us that funding has been awarded for their request for the New York Association for the education of young children conference congratulations on this achievement if you have not heard her podcasts they're absolutely amazing they can be found on the website they were shared via parents square and please share it with other parents if ask me to be a guest but I'm sure I'll get over it I'm a pretty interesting save the big guns for the right time when ratings are low that's when you bring out the big guns um J thank you it's always a pleasure to be here huh I'm going to after I say I don't have to I'm good I was just finishing my thing okay okay like to coach Sullivan for being here she was a

181rockar when I was in school she still is amongst all of you so it's always a pleasure to be here and thanks for having us and now Mr rich I'm not used to that curveball uh first thank you to all of you for hanging out with us for three hours I know you can probably have other things to do tonight but me a lot here with us um thank you to Mrs blaira and Mrs nap for showing us the magic that happens here at Ohio you can see it in the smiles and the faces of those students and I loved hearing ways that they can be better because it reminds us all that we can all be better it's a lesson for for lifetime so it was really good to hear it was nice to

182have electric company refresh too does everybody know what El company is okay so that was kind of nice very uh Christ I just wanted to mention to you I I do take the policy piece you heard me in that meeting very seriously it's one of our most fundamental roles and I think as a board we could probably put in place a procedure for that I think we'd all like to see that so we're not guessing from time to time it's always good to have more input more stakeholder feedback and just involvement from our board in policy changes a new policy so I I think you'll probably see that that happen and as it relates to that nispa was really good um lot governance I think we all had some reminders of what we are and

183more importantly what we're not um probably more that soard good it's really good and it was nice to bond with those of you that were able to was an important element of this family that we are that we spend so much time together so it's really really nice just wanted to uh have something to read here from Leslie Atkinson but I did want to say it's been alluded to already the phenomenal job she did in concert with the leadership team for the memorial service High School it was amazing um knew every every moment of that was the right culture and feel for our district and I was proud to be able to be there so uh she writes uh it's hard to believe at Waterton High School is busy preparing for this Friday's end of

184the first quarter marking period with Halloween and da like savings behind us it won't be long before cold temperatures and holiday music fill the air this month of November is a wonderful time to consider giving to others with that in mind the Gary M Jones chapter of the National Honor Society will host its semiannual American Red Red Cross blood drive this Thursday so that's tomorrow in the Watertown high school gymnasium the event will be held from 8:30 to 1:30 and donors are requested to enter the school through the main entrance security the whhs Cyclone Academy continues to provide students in grades 9 through 12 with an exciting and Innovative way to attain their High School diplomas Cyclone Academy has begun taking registrations for second semester courses and we encourage any secondary instructors who would like

185to suggest a course to propose and contact the administrative office as soon as they are able WaterOne High School is grateful for so many things at this time of Thanksgiving especially for the opportunity to serve the children and families of our school we wish everyone a safe and peaceful start to the holiday season that's I would like to thank all the principles who sent a update it was very nice to receive so uh with that I guess we've reached the end of the road so I'll take a motion to adjourn John John a second sorry see you guys next time e e e