001It is 7:25 and we have all of our board members present tonight. Can you stand to pledge allegiance to the flag please? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. This time is the announcement of March 17th, 2026 capital project vote results. Turn it over to our clerk, please. There were and 552 total votes. Proposition one, 157 yes, 295 no. Proposition two, 169 yes, 381 no. So, at this time we will move on to the acceptance of the March 20 or 17, 2026 capital project vote. Can I get a motion to approve the resolution as presented? Motion by Frank, a second? Second by Penny, perfect. Colleen, how do you vote? Yes. Penny?
002Yes. Jared? Yes. Frank? Yes. Kim? Yes. Rebecca? Yes. And I vote yes. At this time we will move on to the budget development presentation, and it's important to note that this is the draft budget. Our business official has told us that she still has work to do, so if you see numbers they'll be, you know, a little shocking, but it's the draft. Am I correct in that analysis, Colleen? So, it's the first one that we see, and she's going to go back and work with our auditors at this point. >> [clears throat] >> Slide two, one. Column, column, column. Do you want to stand up there so we can show both the slideshow? Do you want to present some up there so I can do the slideshow and your presentation? Just kind of stand there.
003Share the microphone. Okay, so you want to stand a little bit up there. [laughter] Did it just unplug, Don? >> [clears throat] >> Oh, she's going to unplug. Good evening, everyone. I'm using my presentation to go over the budget Both of our presentations kind of set the set the stage that this is a draft budget. We have some work to do. We need to look for areas that are underspent, areas that we can pull down a little bit. This is where we're beginning. So, the goal of this presentation is to provide insight into the district's financial status and sustainability challenges. We talked about that a little bit at the last board meeting. To assist the board of education in making decisions about the use of reserves and fund balance, which we will look at tonight,
004while remaining within the tax levy cap. Um, to consider the return on investment, the student impact, and buy any of our funding decisions. To inform the public about proposed changes in programming and operations. So, anything that's new to the budget always goes in here. Allow the community to share their feedback and ideas in this process. Again, this sort of sets the stage for where we're coming from. We have work to do in this community to get our school back and where our revenue meets expenditures. We have this period of time that we're recovering from in which the district spent, as you can see, a million or more than a million some years over the prior year. What you'll see tonight is in a similar range. We don't want to repeat this, and this budget needs
005to come down for the next presentation. So, we need to get back to those years where the increases year over year were smaller because our revenue is not growing by any means dollars year over year. One of the things we'll be looking at, March 27th we'll get final numbers on how to calculate our medical insurance, which is a very large number in our budget, so that can sway the budget up or down significantly. April 1st is our year to see the budget. We'll know if we're getting any extra aid. I can look back at things like our transportation BOCES aid, make sure I feel confident in the number that was there. What I would like the public to keep in mind, any increases in that aid, because we have a budget gap and because we
006have drawn down reserves, will not create funding for additions. We're going to need to look closely at what we already have. That additional funding, if it does come, should be used to reduce the structural deficit in the budget and reduce potential use of reserves and fund balance. Any savings or reduced use of reserves that occur help us lengthen that window I talked about last board meeting. The window is tight and we have to align expenditures with our revenue. It is increasing over time, but expenditures are increasing faster than our revenue. At last board meeting, when I went over the revenue budget, I presented the BOCES aid and the transportation aid because they are big expenditures in our budget, and we see our our rates going down. And you all asked why that was, and I
007said I would go back and look at the formula, which I did. So, as our property values have risen risen over time, they then take the per student calculation of the total value of properties in the district, and they as our revenue goes down, property value goes up, it begins to widen that gap, looking like we have more money per student for each student. Nothing in the district, of course, has changed as far as buildings and needing to maintain, and staffing that we need to have in place to run a building, but it does impact us in our in our funding. There's nobody who's making up for that gap as it grows. As a small rural school district, we don't have this great opportunity to find efficiencies. We'll talk about that a little bit when
008we look at our pre-K slide tonight. When you have a full class, there's a there's an efficiency you can get there. You can buy in bulk, there are efficiencies you can get there. So, we don't have the opportunity to reach some of the efficiencies that a larger school district would be able to. And some of those costs as I just mentioned remain the same regardless of what the state gives us or doesn't give us. We still have to maintain these buildings. Our network will always cost the same. We can't change those even if our rates are declining. Nobody gives us a discount. So, BOCES aid, we've talked both last year and this year about various programs that run through the BOCES. Um, I think there continues to be some confusion about how how BOCES works
009and what we can afford when we uh, purchase things through BOCES. So, let's use an example of last year. Our aid re-add that time was 51.5%. And you can see we spent about $2.7 million with the BOCES. Part of that special aid is funded separately, so I deduct that, and the remaining amount we spent on services that were not special aid get funded as BOCES aid. And that is $1.7 million roughly. So, the actual BOCES aid you get back on that is $636,000, which is clearly not 51%. What happens there is there are deductions that are taken out of that $1.7 million, and that percentage is applied to what remains. So, extra salaries or other components that come back out of that number. It is it's a 50% return. You get 50% on what they
010consider the aidable portion. And it always comes back to your following year's expenditure. So, I have a quick question. Has the state increased the cell limitation? They have, and that will have um a positive impact. One of the things that we're going to see is that because our rate continues to decline, what we got is sort of more of a net incentive. The key is we didn't go down from last year, but we didn't see quite the increase. And I will be looking at those things again to see if I feel safe to raise that number at all because they'll fit that projection based on what we purchased. And I also know that as part of our regular cost-saving measure at the beginning of this year, we went through and identified all the bills that
011were expensive and cut things that we could and received refunds on things that we weren't using. This is the number we reported before the state aid is going to be lower because we cut those things. It looks like the state aid is still So, our revenue projection is similar to last time. There are a couple adjustments I made. Again, I'll do some more work and see if we can use up any of these aids based on our expenditures. So, things like our transportation aid will come from this year's expenditures. They're This year's not over. We have several more months. So, I'll make another projection based on what's in coming in the budget. And I'll use this aid calculation to determine if I should bring that number up. I don't think it will go down, but
012maybe if I see the spending is up, then that also goes up. We'll have a chance to do that in April. Our tax levy remains the same with the $252,000. And our foundation aid, the basic foundation aid, remains at $88,000. And that is the number we hope to see change when the New York State budget comes out. However, we have several other revenues that are in declining. Interest rates continue to decline. Um we have things that won't reoccur like the sale of scrap and surplus. Our um tax penalties, our property is doing better in paying their bill on time, so that appears to be trending down. And as you can see, there are several other areas that we're projecting lower than the rest. Private and public excess cost, I think I mentioned last time as
013well, that has to do with enrollment. Presumably, we have lower expenses because that's going down. Uh look at that calculation more closely as well. Going into this budget, we're going to look at our budget status this year. And you're going to see that the trend that we have currently is not a reflection of what we realistically have to carry. And here is why. Um at the beginning of the year, we had a couple teachers who had gone to different school districts. And those filled roles we did not fill. So, for each of those roles, there's a salary, there's a benefit, there's the medical that goes along with it. And the total salary of that um ends up being $450,000. And a similar thing occurred last year. We had this number of roles unfilled. And that's
014a large amount that we know automatically we should plan to spend because of the if we hire those people, they're on our staff, they come with these expenditures. So, that's really a false savings. It gives us time to respond and then decide what to do with the money that is unspent. Are there things we can accomplish in the next 3 months that can help us deal with our equipment replenishment or other things that are one-time costs? We can use this this as an opportunity window. That's part of the discussion that we'll have tonight. Opening budget. So, there's the budget the taxpayers voted in last May. At this current moment, looking at all the expenditures in the budget, we are at $24.5 million, which is significantly lower than the $26.3 million of that. Why is that?
015So, when we calculate our budget, and then I discussed this last year, I go all through the budget and I look at the lines our various administrators have given me input into. And I look at the historical spending. They said, "Well, this one might come in a little lower. I think this one has a good chance of coming in lower." And I look at flexibilities throughout the entire budget and make sure we're in this range. I know at the time I built the budget last year, I didn't go high and I didn't go low. I was about My prediction was about $7 million at the Um we have that $450,000 of unfilled roles. We had some rollover funds and grant amendments that picked up some more things than we expected at the budget. And we
016have a lot of things that have to do with BOCES cuts and reductions as well as operational efficiencies that have definitely put us in this range. The changes to our telephone alone, including both the telephone service, the maintenance, the service the service to those phones, the hardware and replacement every 5 years. The savings there, what we will pay now is the same dollar bill, but our hardware, which was about $150,000, is now built in to that that one time that one thing in '23 of $7,000 for our phones. So, that's a huge savings just to have done that. When we talk about reserve funds, this same slide was on here last month. I want to remind everyone to set the tone. Reserve funds have an annual usage limit. When you see the reserves that the
017district has, the reason we cannot use them is because there are rules and limitations. When we decide to move money around at the end of the year when there is excess, if it goes into workmen's comp, I can only pull out in that budget year the amount we just expended out of workmen's comp. Example. So, they can only be used for designated purposes. There's a legal process and there are restrictions around them. Reserves provide stability and time to transition, and that is what this district is really working for. Using those reserves allow the district to respond to community concerns during the budget development. The reserves can delay layoffs. They're not going to stop them. So, we do need to look at our total trajectory. Hopefully, some of the savings we have seen in the unfilled
018roles help help us lengthen that window to make wise choices in between and reach that time when our revenue and expenditures meet and eventually the revenue exceeds the expenditures so we can replenish things like the capital project money. It can only be used for capital projects if that gets spent. Very important slide. I know we have a lot of people in the community who care very much about our pre-K program. At this time, or when I asked last week, we had only 15 pre-K students enrolled. We can have a maximum of 18 in each class. When the class is full, we recognize some efficiency because we get to fund the entire classroom. Every student in that class will draw aid. If the class is not full, and that's where we only stay at 15, there
019are three seats that we can't pay for that have get no funding at all. Um in this past year, the amount that we are projected to pay the bill from BOCES for pre-K is $194,000. Our grant funding came in at $150,000. Uh is this And then there's a certain there's an impact to the general fund. I think this This is the year coming forward. So, the year coming forward, let's skip a step. Let me back up a moment. Year coming forward, right now we receive $6,600 per child. In the coming year, the '26-'27 year, a change in funding has occurred in which we will receive $10,000 per child. If we remain at the $10,000 per child, 2016, that's what our $150,000 is. And that means that $44,000 is what would get our general fund. If
020that class is full, we have 18 kids, well, now we have $180,000. And that BOCES pre-K would be much more affordable, right? Much less to hit the budget. At that point, it might make sense to go with the BOCES program because we would have to invest in another things to start our own. If you have two full classrooms, the tables turn. Then we can afford teachers and their insurance and all of their benefits. So, in order to decide how many sections we run and how we run it, we really really need people to get their packets, their registrations, in by April 1st. And look at this again before the budget is put up. And have some discussions about what is best for our community and what is best for our financial status. Last year, there
021was a lot of conversation around TPK and UPK, so I wanted to clarify that so we don't have the same number of students. Uh TPK is targeted pre-K. It's a grant that is awarded to the BOCES, and they receive that money directly. They discount our pre-K price, but it is still an impact to the budget. And if we can't fund it, we can't receive any of that $6,600 for next year. We can't receive $10,000 for each child because they're accepting their grant. You can't fund it if they can't get a grant and we get grants to fund the same classroom. So, they use their grant to run their part and reduce the cost, but $94,000 would hit the general fund because we cannot use grant funding. Mhm. If we utilize BOCES to run the pre-K,
022they don't take the the that the classes are full that they're going to have to make up the difference. We'd have to make up the difference. So, what is the advantage of 2-minute pre-K program now that the state has increased the UPK program? For us, it's the offsetting cost is not going to make sense financially anymore because if you have a class of even 15, 15 kids we have, we know that the impact will be at 4,000. Even if we still use a BOCES program, we're using a UPK. A TPK means that we cannot pick up any grant money and the price they charge is the price we pay from the general fund. So, are you going to break down the difference in the UPK versus the TPK increase? Yes, once we know we have
023one or two classrooms and we're not at enrollment, we can do that on the next slide. Or the next budget presentation, should I say. Right now, where our numbers are at, it's a decision much more difficult. So, we really need people to register if they intend to use UPK program. And we have to offer UPK now? Currently, we don't have to offer it. In the coming years, along with that $10,000 increase we got on pre-K aid, uh New York State schools will be required to provide a seat for every child who requests one. Do you have 20? So, at that time, it could happen where we do have an under enrolled class. Here's the danger in the situation here and last year and things just really shouldn't really be happening right now with the enrollment.
024You know what I'm saying? Is if a class can hold 18, we get 20 kids interested, we're paying with 18, we get all the aid in that full class, and then we have another class where we don't get $20,000 for and perhaps still paying $190,000 for. That's the efficiency we don't realize if we don't fill those seats. Now, now what happens if we put another TA in that classroom to help instead of three or four in the classroom? There is a waiver in which you can add an one extra student to an 18-seat classroom and the salary of the TA will be offset by those two. Right. But, I understand that you're mandated to offer a seat [clears throat] for every student. I was just wondering if there's a mechanism At this time, there is
025no So, there are waivers that exist in special ed. For example, at this time, there is no waiver for UPK, whether they introduce one in the future, I don't know, but to my knowledge, there is no waiver process to exceed that because it's not a mandatory program at this time. But, once it becomes mandatory, then it's just a different some kind of I'm not sure because it's it's odd about the situation. We want to learn still. Um $10,000 is is a great benefit to the schools. If you get more kids in pre-K, but we don't know yet know the rules that will be put upon us when that time comes. So, public education currently funds K through 12. Even though we purchased this program, for example, from the BOCES, it cannot get BOCES aid because
026it's not K through 12, it's pre-K. So, how are they going to make that all work? Um many business officials we've talked about this have questions and we'd really like some clarification so we can prepare what's coming. Does that exactly answer your question? But, because of the current law, it's K through 12 funding, not pre-K through 12. And this is separate funding, it's not state money, it's grant money. It's separate kind of offices. [clears throat] So, as we discuss what happens with pre-K, should we bring it in house, there is a requirement that we spend 10% on a community-based organization. Um we can apply for a waiver for that and bring the entire program in house. I would argue that in our rural situation, it's hard to find partners to work with. And again, the
027financial situation it puts us in is that we have to give 10% to someone else, but then affects the financial viability of the program. In house, I do believe the state would accept that as my explanation of why we would do the other waiver and not spend that 10% with anyone. [clears throat] Should we bring it in house? Does that mean like another like agency or school district? Yes, so in some instances, um you might purchase seats from another UPK, which doesn't make a lot of sense if we're bringing it in because we don't have any other right here or right here to drop a child there. Like BOCES for example. But, yes, 10% would be the as we have now, but that's 10% in house for seats purchased elsewhere. I guess if you have
028two students, you have 20 kids and you need 18, you can find two seats elsewhere. Yes. And that would be beneficial. And that's another benefit of the waiver. If BOCES were willing to do this for us and they have that available to them, it would be better for our families. So, they have to be So, the facility in our school district and then like are there certain employers that offer programs for their employees pre-K? Sure, we can choose to work with any local community-based organization that doesn't necessarily need to fall in our district boundaries. However, our transportation for UPK students is currently free because we're able to pick them up on the same run as our as our elementary students. The minute we start bussing them to a separate program that's not on our run,
029it would be pulling from our money. We can no longer report those miles for transportation aid. So, that's an additional cost that we would incur with that. So, we don't have to provide transportation? We don't have to. But, if we provide transportation for our other industry students, we must provide transportation for all students on the same run. So, this is economical, right? Yeah. So, along with other things, try to think of the full cost. If we were to bring it in house, if you get more kids involved, then it makes sense to do so. We have to think about the extent of costs. We'll have to purchase some furniture, supplies, uh those teachers will get sick and we'll need substitutes, we'll need some professional development, curriculum, things we already provide to the BOCES. We have
030the daily supervision in our building from Joey, and we have our classroom space that we don't really rent for. We have our maintenance and custodial staff, we maintain the space. We provide them with curriculum for laundry, art, gym, and music, and library. Uh I did speak to the state to make sure I clearly understood what would be happening should we switch from a UPK to a TPK or back and forth, whatever the decision would come to. In that conversation, I said, "Well, if we're paying for seats anyway, can we offer them to students?" And they said, "Yes." And I had not known that before. So, if we find ourselves in a position to run a section, we will not get aid on any of these students sitting around, why not offer it to them? So,
031some ideas there if we were to be in that situation. Um if we offer half day, we get more kids, if we offer full day, how do you do the lottery? Would we prioritize students we must provide services to because of their special education needs? We just won't get grant money, but it will have zero impact should that occur because their seats we would have to have available. The class 15 up to 18. Library program. Our current thinking on the library is that we do have a certified librarian in the district. It is difficult to find a librarian. Um and we can still achieve some cost savings. So, one of those positions that went unfilled that led to our $450,000 of savings was the absence of an elementary uh librarian. So, we wouldn't achieve the
032same savings, but we could achieve some savings by having a library support person working with the librarian where they switch off the schedules, whether that be days or half days put in between buildings. We would have to work out the best way to do that. But, this is a possible new staff member to be brought on board and that is included in the current budget. If it is not approved by the board, then we will pull that comment to the budget. So, library staff saves us some time. Uh we will be adopting new new service to reduce the burden on our one librarian over the two buildings. So, some of those administrative tasks like inventory and cataloging, BOCES will take over. We were already spending $1,500 on our own cataloging. And then we'll receive BOCES
033aid payment on that service. So, you know, the cost there is relatively low as far as the picking up the library automation service. The more expensive part is is the library support person. Another unfilled role from this past year that caused us to have the savings we currently have is half a math position. Um a person previously split half math position and half a TOSI position. We got the TOSI position filled, the half math is open. And we would propose to add another half math to help us meet our financial literacy mandates. So, in the current school school year, you might wonder, "How are we doing with it? If we needed this teacher and we didn't use all of why?" It's because we're having our teachers teach six sections. Six sections is what we can
034teach in a day. And we currently have 3.5 of those assignments. So, it might be three teachers who teach a class a certain amount of times every day and a teacher maybe teaches one every other day or once a semester. And that's how currently our coverage is. So, when our own teachers get this additional stipend for teaching a sixth section, there still is a savings to that. And that's what's currently happening. I just want to point out too, we're also going to have special education this year. We have a new hire that we're starting on board now and we'll be covering that in the sixth section as well. So, that would also go away if we put that hire we have pre-K so our class will be doing our schedule now since And that on
035that slide, everybody needs to subtract that. education teachers are also going to be using it. We know it is a necessary position that that person's schedule will be full. Uh distance learning is something we already do to assist us with meeting mandates or offering distance learning personal finance. We have three of them this year. We'll talk a little bit more about distance learning in a moment. Slide it down the line. We do have any high school students in math or chemistry. So, that's nice to see it there. Interesting. person finance and check with Matt. So, I have a question. So, if I actually did five subjects, five periods. Yes. So, if it's five periods from five, how is that covered? If it's is that an extra sixth period? So, keeping in mind that the current
036budget was built with that post staffing in mind. I mean, maybe I'm not getting it. Just wrote the whole schedule to make it work. We used the six sections to make it work. In this current year's schedule, we would have to find places to condense it to make the schedule work. So, that's A lot of your year's changes with what student enrollment and course work and courses. Dave's building the schedule right now. It's course selection. Students request courses. So, you look at thousands of class sizes. If you have like six kids in one section, you know, while another is in five classes. So, Dave has parameters of what he's working with and he's building that right now as counselor. So, if he gets the class when he's completed with the process, it's hard year to
037year that nothing carries over exactly the same. Just think it it changes year to year in terms of your enrollment numbers and what the course selection and class sizes are year to year though. So, at this current moment, the number that most people came here to see today, we're at $27.6 million of projected revenue. We're getting around $11 million. And our other revenues are the $13.6 million. So, that leaves us with a structural deficit of $2.8 million, which is a very very large number. So, we have some work to do as a team looking at efficiencies in the schedule, various other things we can do to find where we're historically underspending a line and work together to determine whether it was another false piece of saving or whether that line can actually come down. If
038this number were to remain the same, which I do not anticipate, uh this would be the maximum that we can currently pull from any of these reserves. The amount I anticipate spending um to our third-party management working capital is at $55,000. That's the actual bill they sent us. That's the maximum we can draw from there. Our unemployment, I look at that as a quarterly expense. So, one year it's up, so one year it's down. So, if the auditors came in, I could justify $10,000 approximately over a number of years is what we appear to be spending per quarter. Our ERS, this is we already received a quote from the state. They tell us exactly this number. That's the maximum I would be allowed to draw down to close this budget gap. TRS, our maximum is
039I believe around $950,000, but we don't have that much money in TRS. That's why we moved some of our available funds from one to the other last year so I could do exactly this. We prepared ahead of time to do this, which is to draw the money that is available. We may not deplete it because we might find ourselves again in the position to need another place to draw from. That allowed that transfer that we did earlier allowed us to have this extra $200,000 available. Um we then have a million in fund balance that we used to close the current year's budget gap. I anticipate that money will hold forward. Um we would draw from a reserve before we would draw from that fund balance in order to make sure it holds forward and is
040available to our 2016-2017 budget. However, all that said and done, we have more work to do. The additional fund balance we would need um to begin to address this, I would say is $532,000 with a remaining deficit of $350,000. That is if you want to maintain 4% fund balance as the maximum under that current budget number that we would be allowed. If the board wished to go um to a lower fund balance, it could choose to do that. However, we have to keep in mind the Wethersfield project, the reason we put this excess fund balance there was to protect us should something occur. Um so, drawing on that if the board did decide to support that as a funding plan, what again would put us to a lower fund balance if something happened with the
041water tank or the septic, we would have to find a way to fund it through our budget, whatever excesses we can find in there, or we would have to appropriate it from the existing fund balance. So, we are looking for your feedback as we always do. I you believe this slide, which includes any new programming that we're introducing. And here are some things that are additions to the budget. We have our annual raises, and then we have some things that we would like to support or we wanted to discuss or we've discussed in the past, and they're up here. So, unified sports, we did that this year. It did increase our travel line a little bit. Um we'd have to talk about the cost associated with that. Uh weight room equipment, there's some equipment in
042there that needed to be treadmill. It looks like it needs to be replaced. They have to have safety inspection. There's going to come a time when they're going to say, "We can't really have kids on that piece of equipment." So, that would be about $8,000. The batting cage is in there. Currently, drawing drawing soccer. Whether there's always been this topic of whether or not we continue or do we need to do a lottery? Will we consider the STEM magnet school? Distance learning was a topic last year as well. Good news on that topic. We are going to receive about $60,000 in return on our distance learning this year in addition to the hosting aid we'll get back. I didn't put 60,000 in there because the teacher who's teaching it this year is a teacher with
043project experience. Should a teacher of lower experience take on a distance learning role, they would be funded at a lower rate, get percentage of their time. So, I didn't want to max it out compared to what we got this year, but if we have a teacher of similar salary or slightly less, it would be covered by adding that to our revenue, which has been added in there. We also have some unknowns coming in with two contracts under negotiation that will not be closed by the time we have to likely by the time we have to make the decision about the budget. So, we have to figure out what to build in there. >> [cough] >> The closer [clears throat] we are to an agreement, the closer I can budget. Because I'll have some implication of
044where we're going to fall with that. So, we are asking at this time for an additional budget workshop that would happen at the round table. Considering the feedback we're receiving, what we would do during that time, we'd look at the optimal coordination of our grant funding. Currently, we are carrying advisor salaries for some of our after-school activities. We're carrying a tool set in our grants, and we're carrying 1.5 special education teachers. So, determining if they stay there, if they come out, is it advantageous to put something else in there? Those are discussions that we can have to make sure we're the most efficient. Um we'll work with the administrators to whittle down the discretionary budgets. Can you stand to lose a little bit of those supplies? Do you need this piece of software in addition?
045And so, we'll have those conversations in the mindful manner knowing that this budget includes what everyone wants, and we have to find places to bring it down. We'll look for scheduling efficiencies like we just talked about with Matt. Can we do this with that extra half-time teacher? Make sure our assumptions are realistic. Brainstorm with staff, see what they are willing to flex on. And we'll work with our collective bargaining units. We have another meeting coming up. With our teachers' union, we'll have the ability to reassess on April 1st where we are with the enrollments and how that can affect our budget. Um we'll look at reducing the contingency margins. There is contingency in here that was at 3 to 5% range that exists in the budget. And we will re-estimate the revenues for the current
046final budget when we receive the state budget revenue um estimates. Other factors that are driving our costs and some things we can look at if the board so desires. We are quoted at 7% increase increase in our commercial insurance, which is not too improved over last year, but still nearby where it used to be. We are told that we will have a 26% increase in our pharmacy plan. It goes along with the health plan. We get an update about that on March 27th. So, it was the right actual number on anticipated savings. And our CPHP plan is estimated to go up by 15%. TRS is actually going down, which is good news because our largest piece of salary does come from certified teachers and teacher assistants. However, ERS is going up significantly again. Service agreements,
047if we are looking for savings now or in the future depending on what we're going to try. It is never a good idea to cut down everything all at once because you don't know what the impacts will be. But what we have been doing is making changes and tracking that we actually are receiving savings from those changes. We've done that service strategically. I mentioned last time the most recent thing we did is switch over our garbage to a flat rate. So, we make sure we're seeing return on that, make sure our assumptions are correct, and that they actually are savings across the district with the flat rate on the heating plan. So, some things we have not yet addressed that we could consider. Field maintenance is the $8,500. That's what we spent in 2024-2025. I'm
048using 2024-2025 because that was a full and complete financial year. The current year is not full and complete. We're not done doing service yet so we don't know exactly where it will fall. So 2024-2025 we spent $20,009 and these are rounded numbers. Except for 78. That's exactly it. And finally it was around $20,000 in 2024-2025. That's just a subcontractor. Yes. So last year before we decided to bring plowing in house. Yes. And it wasn't financial done after the fact that we approved that. So that money is still in the current year's budget. Um we did have a meeting with the custodial staff today. We'll have further meetings with the custodial and maintenance staff. And one of the things I want to ask our team is it wise to still purchase that truck? It is at
049this current moment not purchased. And so if we do have full in house support to move forward with plowing then we may make that decision with the board's blessing. Um but at this current moment we do not feel that we have the support in house to do that. So do you say like like support or are you talking about personnel number of people that can actually manage? Make sure people can be available or that they're willing to do the overtime and that we can all support each other as a team. And if this is the end we've asked some questions along this journey but if you have additional questions for the board or if you'd like to revisit any signs. I'll skip back to it. >> [clears throat] [laughter] [cough and clears throat] [clears throat]
050>> I'll keep coming. This time we'll I'm forward to the presentations. We have um the drone soccer. >> [clears throat] >> Um so we saw the drone soccer in action. So this year so I went to a tech startup company and they talked about drone soccer. Um I thought it would sound like a really awesome program. I'm going to hand that soccer to It uh it brings in So one of the things I I liked from what we saw was that it brings in drone time which kids really like. It brings the sport aspect into a class. Uh so we went to Mahopac cuz I had reached out to them because um they had went down to the elementary schools that are doing this in the district or not in the district in the area.
051And uh Rob was great. He's one of the ones that runs the program there. Um he allowed Don and I to go visit for the day because as soon as I heard about the program I ran and said, "Don, I think this would be awesome for us." Um I think I went around the school for a couple other people to you know share my excitement cuz I just think it'd be a great opportunity for our kids. Um so we went to the program. We saw >> [laughter] >> Um so we yeah we checked out the program. Rob was great. He let us actually kids build the drones and programs they were using. Um and then we got you know Don was you know really excited about the program as well. We uh Yeah a lot
052of questions. Um we got the kids that Don's going to show you a little bit today to kind of you know work with the drones and see how it works with the system that they currently have. And then uh Kent also was invited to Mahopac and got to see the program in action. So he did some school visits to see how um they were utilizing the program. They just talked about a lot of opportunities that the kids were having by taking this program as well as um you know the club opportunity where they get to do things outside of school. >> [laughter] >> And this is outlined in your flyer. I don't I certainly don't want to read it to you. So the idea would be that this is an uh engineering design capstone course
053for 11th and 12th graders which is what Mahopac does. We'd be modeling after that school district where they would take technology education courses as electives during their high school. It talks about CAD. It talks about digital electronics, C++ and computer science and web design and intro to computer science and Python as well as their intro to uh engineering design EEE class. And culminating in a lot of great deal of knowledge on their behalf so they would be in line for a capstone course which is robotic in nature somewhat. Not quite. There is a bit of a learning curve but like I don't know a drone compared to a robot. But that's that's the premise behind it. But it has a lot of aeronautical stuff that we have never dealt into before. We you know there
054are uh project lead the way courses that are aeronautics and and the drone soccer really is getting to be a very popular not just statewide where we have C and Y develop drone soccer program but in the national Uh did you go? I did not. So as Ariel said going to see the drones in action really is exciting and watching the kids interact with it but seeing what they learn as a result of the course is is very insightful as far as what my students would be doing. And there is a point where they could become certified in in being a drone because the Valley has a certificate that certificate program for drone flying. Right. You have one? I don't. Oh okay. I would love to. >> [laughter] >> So it it's an exciting field
055and it certainly is up and up and coming and pretty neat that uh we're then able to bring it to the school district and and have the students [clears throat] interact with with the drones and have some fun while they're learning. So did you build that? So yes as Ariel mentioned she secured a teacher kit that includes two drones, an assembled drone, a semi semi semi drone and then yeah. So completely unassembled and it would be what the students would experience. And it it turns out the screws that are in there are different sizes and it's really important really really important that you put the right screw in. Cuz you could ruin the little motor. I did not. I was measuring but it it really do have to be not only the propellers going the
056right way kind of like that but there is a lot to it just in building it. It took me about 4 hours. And of course the students wouldn't have you know overnight to just hang out and and build the drone. They would be doing it in increments over the course and filling out their flight journal and stuff like that as they're doing it. But there's a lot to You know we're used to robotics. If we do a lot with robotics in in our tech program and and you get used to motors and stuff like that. But these guys are really really strong motors and they're tiny. It's pretty impressive. I thought it was kind of cool. And then it's at the uh lithium battery that's actually kind of dangerous. They can zap They can fire.
057It yeah can be really mindful and careful of the lithium battery undercharging and overcharging. And they're not going to fly it. It's like on an airplane. They're the ones that make all the flight attendants go nuts. I Can I show it to you? Can I demonstrate it? I won't take off cuz you don't really you're in a cage. And mind you I do not have my pilot license. Do you have a certificate? Yeah which is better far more entertaining than me. Although if if I help one of you guys and it's on camera This this will be memorable. Now we won't go off the ground cuz we don't have a cage or anything like that. And the odds are pretty good that I won't fly it right. It rolls around. Well it will go off
058the ground but I'm not going to make it go off the ground. I'm going to try to keep it >> [laughter] >> We have three questions. All right. So you can hear the motors. So just imagine it's five on five on the field. Five on each team. And then you've got a a striker and then you know You've got a defensive person. Yeah so each child is driving so they have a deal with a transmitter for each drone that's in the cage. 20 by 10 by 10. They're totally >> And they're outside the cage. The drones are inside the cage. And they're all And you can hear the just the Just imagine But Um Yeah, and then then pitch and and raw yaw and and there's so much to it. The thrust, there's a lot
059of conversation that happens in the tournament. Let's take a walk. I see that they're still connected. Yes, they are. So, Ariel has a video, you know, all of the content of the plane. Actually competing um the bottom of the classroom. But the other side that Ariel mentioned was actual competition. Where this you could take it a step further and create a team that's above and beyond above and beyond the course. That meets Saturdays from September until about April. Kind of runs like a first robotics competition. Same season, same I don't project development life cycle. And on Saturdays you would be traveling all over Central New York as competitions. Five on five. And you're competing against each other. There's nationals, [clears throat] there's worlds, and it goes quite quite further on. Ariel will show you the
060video. >> [laughter] >> the classroom competition. So, I wanted to give you access to this. The first video I'm going to show you is the one that we were doing with Honest in the classroom. Um the second one is just so you have a digital version of the flyer that I passed out and gave to you. And the third one is one of the things that I originally saw when I reached out to Rob from Honest. It's them on It's Rob talking about the program and Rob talking about on the news. They talked about how to go to nationals. So, I think that is like really cool. Like we can get Rob on the map, and you know, we can be talking about him on the news all the time. So, if we get a
061chance I'll show you the news article today, but I definitely suggest watching the video. It's a few minutes long and it really talks about the program more in depth. If you give me 15 minutes over and give us some of the high power motors down there at the curriculum But the bathroom is there. I didn't even know I had to do that either. And the striker five of those things storming every year when I put the things together. And we can change the color of the skeleton at our school or our school colors when we're competing and directing my ball. What are you getting into? Yes. Yeah. And it's a double foul to it. That's a double foul every time. They can't go from behind the student one of the goals, one of the many
062goals But from an engineering design perspective, it's not just the directions of the kit, but it is uh tweaking it to be lighter, tweaking it so it's uh still flexible. So, when they bang into it you notice that they're bumping, but there's not They're not hurting the propellers. They're not accessing the propellers because the axle still turns once. Allowing it to bounce around and not not going into the other's motor. But there is some engineering design in this course, and that's what excited me. That's not not the flying it, the actual designing part of the kit. The kids would be excited when you But it's uh what what they can take away from it in the designing and reprinting stuff that they design and have to tweak that drone to make it more competitive for
063even if it's in house and you don't do the competitions that are outside of school. That's that's a cool aspect of it as well. Does anyone have any questions in regards to the program, what we're trying to do? No. I don't have any questions on the drones soccer, but I do have to mention actually going over the course oldest son is in sixth grade and he was curious about the high school offer. I just have to acknowledge that the amount of college credit that your program offers is just wonderful. And it's actually really impressive from what's coming the number of credits that students can write in the drone program. Yeah, that's a good thing. Yeah, what else? Sounds exciting. Got all the aspects. >> You'd like to fly the drone. I can give you the
064drone to try it. Five year old Okay. It's only like 48 seconds. I think you'll enjoy it. All right, I'm ready. And then if you look You wanted me to fly a drone, didn't you? Yes. Yeah. So, we were just trying to keep it short, but there's a news article like I said that talks about Rob talks about his classroom and that's about 45 minutes long. I would definitely suggest looking at that one, too, cuz you can see um he interviews the kids and I think they just really talk about definitely more about the the program. I'll let you check that. Thank you. Thank you everybody for taking the time out. I know this is a busy time for you, but um meeting at KAS was appreciated. Thank you. Many years student data update. >>
065[laughter] [clears throat] >> Hello. Good evening. So, I'm just going to begin. Obviously, I'm going to present my year data for Bruno Elementary School. So, just quickly to go through my budget goals, my zoning goals, um that's really what I'm focusing my data on. Looking at our family engagement goal, increasing the number of families participating in school based activities and events during the school year. Um our goal of academic achievement, basically focusing on reading, but obviously math will be included in this as well. Closing the achievement gap by improving reading fluency for all of our grades. Here we're talking interventions and reading as well as increasing our overall attendance. Aim to increase our overall attendance by 2% within the school year. All right, I'm going to begin by looking at our IXL. So, we have
066various modes of data that we um assess students' performance on. So, as I graphed this and pictured it in this way just so you could sort of I thought it was easy to see the growth in the green, the decrease in the red. So, that's what we want to see. It's grade level specific. Next to it shows kindergarten, first, second, third, fourth, and fifth. And F is for fall, that was for fall. W is for winter. So, we gave the fall assessment and and then at the end of January we gave the winter assessment, and this shows student progress within that time. Um you know, if you're looking at it obviously you want to see more of the greens. Uh in the winter I did say how many more greens, how many less reds. That's
067obviously the trend we want to see. The yellow I feel like could be positive or negative. If it's positive because we're bringing kids from the red to the yellow, then obviously that's what we want. There could be also negative meaning some of those yellows aren't moving to greens. So, I feel like, you know, we're making good progress. Obviously, this is just winter, so we have a lot of funs ahead of us. Um we're seeing, as you can see, two of the trends in the K 1 and 2 are looking better or progressing in more progress within this time. Um you know, we'll all describe to you a little bit later some of the extra things we're doing with our 3 4 and 5 fifth graders just to kind of help close those gaps as well.
068Can I ask a question? Yeah, of course. So, like first grade there's now according to this reading assessment data there's now 24 kids that are six kids that are reading at level. So, that means Yeah, I'm sorry. First grade. Right. So, right. So, green is at grade level, yellow is one grade below Okay. level. Red is two or more At or above. Yeah, at or above, right. Could be above as well. So, right. In first grade if you're looking at fall we had six kids at or above, now we have 24 kids at or above. Second level. And this is for This is the reading assessment. Um the same assessment done for math. I feel like our math I Yeah, Rob a little bit just said what we saw. Our math is, you know, a
069stronger performance by our students. Again, we still see some of our struggles in our third, fourth, and fifth graders. So, well, I'll explain after cuz I'm going to show you two more data points and that's kind of explain to you what we actually do with this data and to inform our decision making. So, along with that IXL, this was the first year that we have performed or given the IXL benchmark. Our teachers and students have used IXL for lesson practice and target skill practice. Um we previously used i-Ready for our diagnostic. This year we have used IXL. We've gotten some positive feedback. It's giving us some really specific data um on things to target with students. So, we also do a Heggerty. We started this about a year ago. Um this is phonemic awareness. So,
070this is targeted for our K-1 and two second graders. We're seeing I mean great progress with this and our in our students really being able to grasp those concepts and really we want to we want to have kids be competent in the phonemic awareness before they can move to the phonics skills. So, this is something we really need our really our kindergarten and first to do so that we can progress that through those phonics skills. Um but you can see throughout the grade levels and with the the continued practice like I said last year was our first year that we really did it intensively for these grades. Um every day is a tier one instruction. Every um class gets 10-15 minutes of instruction in phonemic awareness. So, this is our progress so far. >> [snorts]
071>> And then we also look at our fall core um assessments. So, our um our fall assessments are for um our phonemic awareness. I mean our phonics, I'm sorry. This is more of our phonics instruction. So, we're looking at obviously we take the IXL, we take the Heggerty, we take the core. These are the three things major things that we look at when we're looking to see what interventions students needs, where are our gaps that we're finding within student progress. Um so, this year at when we finished these assessments at the end of January, we sat down as a whole group all you know Sam was with us and Jessica as coordinator. We had Kinsley join us for that who's our pre-start specialist. We had our MTSS interventionists and really just kind of unpacked the
072data, looked deeper into why um specific things students were struggling with. We looked at our groupings of students who were in MTSS, how much service they were getting, were they making progress, were they not making progress. Were there students who maybe could get out of a tier three intervention into the classroom or a tier two. Um so, we really had some great conversations about that. We were able to kind of fine tune our groupings and service our students the best we can. I think we've got very outside the box with finding times. So, our classrooms all have win times which is a what I need time and that time is meant to service students with any pull out interventions, any speech or OT services. Um we offer some enrichment opportunities during that time. So, we've
073been able to to really meet these kids' needs through that time but actually our interventionists have been strategic in some of the other times throughout the day to be able to um pick up some extra students. Just you know this is an example our third grade we had a a large group of students who needed more of that intensive intervention. We've been able to find times to work with teachers um to find time within that academic day to service them not just that you know having that 30 minutes is great but when you have you know excess of students it's hard to service all of them in that 30 minutes. So, we've been able to kind of be outside the box and so we use all of this data to inform the decisions of all
074of what we what we plan to do obviously for the rest of the second half of the year. So, as I mentioned before I feel like you know we we have strong programming for K-1 and two. We really picked up on the phonemic awareness last year. We've been this our second year doing we apply the the phonics instruction. So, where obviously that data showed us a little bit more um of our student need was in our our third grade. So, working with Kinsley she suggested us doing a spelling screener which basically every student um depended on the list was different depending on the grade level. So, but students were given a list of really was just the spelling task but what you get from it is really more of those phonics skills. And and it's
075a whole sheet helps us work with us with grading and really gives it that data. I put that picture up there just it's a little overwhelming but that's kind of what we need to see from each grade level. So, um on the top we we talked about like what the skills were for each of the words and how it assessed those skills and then it's kind of showing us where the students are really strong in where some of the students are maybe still struggling. Um you know in that instance the skills that were really red were not skills that really kids would have mastered at this point in that grade level. So, it wasn't you know shocking for us to see that that red. You see you have to kind of see well okay now
076our instructions are only in January. Kids haven't been instructed in those skills yet or they're still skills that they can develop on. Yeah. Yeah. So, when you give like the number that is at or exceeding grade level, is that the expectation at January or the expectation at the end of the academic year? That I believe um at the end of the year. I'm saying it's on grade level. So, in IXL the way it's usually it's sort of I mean it would be like for a first grader it would be anything in the hundreds, right? So, that would be a first grader. So, 200 would be okay at the second grader. So, it was those students were either high in the ones or two and two already by that time. So, those kids had already met
077grade level expectation. So, when you at that time you showed the data so >> [snorts] >> so like it's 27 students in winter were at the expected grade level at the end of the first grade year. That by the But now in January. In January so they already have the content Right. for first grade. Right. Right. According to that assessment. Oh, sorry. I'm just going to go back to you. >> Yeah. Okay. >> [laughter] >> Yeah. So, according to the IXL assessment those the skills that were on grade level they mastered or exceeded mastering those skills. So, already? I'm looking at that 24 students. Those kids have already moved on and they're ready for second grade. Yeah. Well, yeah. The some of the skills that are specific to that grade. Yeah. Okay. Yes. So, IXL
078will keep increasing those skills so that they'll keep working and building on those skills to hopefully be well positioned in that second grade we have kind of an offer. Okay. Is this the first year of this type of analysis? Um we we always used I we used i-Ready so it was just a different kind of analysis. I feel like I think the teachers feel IXL has more specific data than the i-Ready and that was one reason that we moved to the IXL. It just gave us more um specific skills that students needed working on and it also lends a lot of practice. So, teachers if a student is um you know I'm thinking if they're struggling with the short A, okay we didn't see that in their assessment short vowels and then there's also um
079a whole group of lessons that can be given to students to work on to meet those skills. So, my question is if you have this this year so so first grader going into second grade getting tested in the fall would that show the summer slide of what they lost during the summer? Um yes. I mean we could see we could look at what and where they fell in that assessment. We'll get the assessment again in the end of May. I'm looking at it if you can tell what the slide is from the summer if there's stuff that we can send home with the students over the summer and maybe decrease that slide. Are we also I mean we could if we knew what the slide was. I mean I think at the end of the
080year we would know what the slide was but this we couldn't Right. The following year we could do it. Right. We couldn't do it this year because we didn't do IXL last year but yes. Yes. Year after year Absolutely. Or even just targeting like saying what skills our students yet coming in with that might need more practice in that level and be able to give them some of that practice. So, think about the libraries too Yep. and our libraries that is what makes it so nice because I just think They do and we often send some things home with general things not targeted for each student but we would send general things home with the parents with the students to build those skills. This isn't this isn't new. i-Ready is the same thing essentially. You
081have the green, yellow, red monitoring three times a year you test students throughout the in the year. But the IXL that's why we moved over to IXL was actually much cheaper. It does have some additional features to show you. There's a lot of features in i-Ready as well and certainly the the monitoring and giving you the green, yellow, red and the Oh, yes. And of course the parents families what it means it breaks down to so they're both really good systems. This one's one right now though more preferable and definitely at a lower price point as well. I think that was the main reason to switch. And yeah the parent actually have really good parent reports. Yeah. It explains that thing to the parents so it gives them a little bit here and then their
082parents can kind of break it down to where their child's at. Um and a lot of this what I see is what they translate into your state test scores obviously. So, when students are taking up the grade three you want to start seeing that if you know they're saying here they're green you want to start seeing that at state test scores and obviously you're three or four possible answers score. So, there's some translation there. Mhm. And we did make the switch with input from teachers so it wasn't necessarily a financial decision. It wasn't just that we went with the option. The feedback is really this is kind of the very surface level of the data of the color coding, but when you dig into the data I read, it kind of goes under categories, whereas
083I Excel will speak to one to very specific skills. It's a lot more granular and a lot easier to divide into different categories. Only struggling comprehension versus these specific areas of comprehension. So, it's it's a lot more detailed for teachers to look at. So, just one of the new things that we have done is just our being able to identify some more of the gaps was this spelling screener. Every student got the spelling screener. It really helped us to um score it and then we talked about that as well. So, just some of the things that we found, we found that the the K-2 were progressing at grade level aligned with the skills being taught and applied. Um grades three and five, there are still students struggling with those basic phonics skills, so things like
084long vowels, um vowel consonant e, vowel r's, digraphs, trigraphs, long vowels, vowel teams. Those are some of the things that we highlighted that students are still struggling with. Um we talked about doing some more tier one or everyday instruction in some phonics even for our fourth and fifth graders who are struggling with um these skills. You know, we we did have a discussion too and these students who are in our third, fourth, and fifth are students who did not have a Haggerty and UFLI because we only started that a couple of years ago. These are students that really weren't able They didn't have that instruction. So, we're hoping that as the years go by and the kids that are coming up have those sound foundational skills that we'll see more of that um those skills
085later on in their academic in their elementary years as well. So, just looking at trying to target that. We looked at using an advanced word study program for teachers because they were looking for some supports um in the fourth and fifth grade to kind of add that phonics instruction and morphology. Um and then obviously also addressing these skills in targeted groups during grade time. What are UFLI and phonics? Um you got to put me on the spot. I don't know exactly what >> [laughter] >> Um What about UFLI? It's Leave us University of Florida. University of Florida. Yeah. Sorry. I knew it was Florida, the Florida program. That's all mine, the UFLI program. No, no, no. >> [laughter] >> And then we also um made a switch from some assessing in um some We've done
086a Fountas and Pinnell testing with our third, fourth, and fifth graders. It's really um testing that we do with the students who are already in um books, but we found that the grade levels and districts are moving away from that. It's not giving us really the data that we're looking for. Um so, one of the new things that we also decided to um assess is times and oral reading fluency. So, obviously our one of our primary goals is reading and oral reading and fluency is a major part. There's some information about um the fluency that it measures more objective and predictive of comprehension and aligns with the science of reading. Um so, more of a predictor of students' reading success and it's also not necessarily focused on just what your guided reading level is and
087you've seen in the past it's like, "What's your guided reading level? What's your reading level?" And now it's more, you know, it's more how smoothly students So, if you're looking at a oral reading fluency a student is given a passage with their grade level and they read that passage and they're timed on how many words they can get correct in a certain amount of time. So, um it's not just do they have the skills to read those words, it's do can they read those words with Is that Is that the winter time? Um yes, we just started that in January. So, we're looking to see the progression in that to June. We don't have any We don't have any progression right now. Um so, that Yeah, and and we did look at the correlation between
088the um Fountas and Pinnell and this, but they're just two totally different tests, so it didn't really give us accurate information. So, we take this information and we'll be able to kind of use it to guide Sorry, um moving forward when we get our student assessment as well. And another [snorts] thing, you know, I obviously with fluency, my biggest thing is just getting kids to read. The more they read, the more fluent they'll be. Modeling fluent readers, you know, adding more read alouds [clears throat] in the classroom. My teachers and just having kids exposed to people reading fluent fluently. We also, you know, this is part of our um our reading buddies program of having high schoolers come in and read to them. We have programs that our fifth graders, fourth graders are working with
089our kindergarteners and they're partnering up to together. So, as many opportunities that we can get to to see that um reading fluency and then also being able to practice those skills as much as they can to go with that fluency. Jody, are you seeing that your >> [snorts] >> third, fourth, and fifth grade trend is similar to what you're seeing in the data? In the state wide or nation wide? I mean, I haven't found one. I think it's very specific to the cohort of students. Yeah. So, there's why I see that it's just the population. So, these students were three, four, and five graders when the COVID started. So, they spent a lot So, a year to two years listening to people read to them behind a face mask. Right, right. So, they don't necessarily
090get that visual of how the lips move. So, I I was just wondering if that's a similar if we're seeing that similar data in other you know, districts and education. I'm just curious. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think it's totally reasonable to believe that. Yes, and and I just I think that that's kind of what our our education became more computer based too. So, which means that there's less sitting next to someone reading um as well. So, that's a trend I see that started at that time too. So, that's a trend that's found as well. All right. So, um that's obviously the academic data. We also have our attendance data. Um I just broke it down from last year to this year. Um working on looking at our our attendance rates. Um just some of
091the things I added pictures of some of our attendance celebrations. I know I update you every month on our attendance [laughter] celebrations. Um today you can see our hearts. We had a jam the day to celebrate our attendance star being built. So, that was fun. Also, like I said, what we do with our attendance is our student support team meets every week and usually every other week we talk about attendance. We look at student attendance. We chart it. We have a spreadsheet that we um keep looking at what, you know, patterns of student attendance. We look We kind of look at the numbers and dig deeper if we need to. We have the tools to kind of look into um records, to record seeing reasons for attendance, reasons for absences. So, we we have letters
092that we send home to parents just as informing them um of past student absences and also relaying the importance of having students students at school and the reasons why we want students at school. We've also had um some in-person meetings. So, about a month ago we sent out a school day and our student support team and I just we scheduled them to come in and um they came in. Some met through over phones, but we really were just focusing on that communication with parents about the importance of attendance and really trying to figure out what struggles they're having getting their students to school because I know I I think I talked about this a lot in in elementary school, you know, for the most part kids want to be at school. Um sometimes parents struggle
093getting their kids to school. Sometimes kids are struggling and that And those are things we want to know so that we can create a plan with parents on trying to help them support their kids or help them support, you know, themselves or um you know, I mean, in elementary school one of our challenges and our biggest challenge is parents, you know, their kids are sick. They're little kids, you know, and we they get sick and the weather doesn't help and then somebody in their class gets sick and So, just trying to get parents to understand we understand when they're sick. We appreciate that your kid's sick, keeping them home, but just really just being aware that every day that they're out of school, you know, it it loses all of that academic and it makes
094it harder for them when they come back to recoup that academic loss that they missed out on. >> [snorts] >> feedback on that. I know you've put a lot more effort into attendance issue. Do you feel like it's paying off with only a 5% increase? I mean, our right, our if you look at our chronic attendance, um you know, those are the students that we were really really wanting to increase. That right now So, um it it's hard to tell. I think that we've had some really great increases in some certain students. I think you kind of sometimes you look at specific students like you you know you're working with a family and and you're and you're getting some resources and we're introducing bad attendance things. So we've had some definitely some success stories with
095certain families. Maybe as a whole it's not as improved as I would like it to be, but I think that our team works really hard and we make some really good connections with families and we've been able to support some families in need. So I feel like we should have some positive stories and some improvements in that aspect. So And then my last goal is family engagement activities. So these are some of the activities we've had so far. We had our math night where we had 43 families attend. We had a Halloween dance which is always dances are one of our biggest attended activities in elementary school. We just had our literacy night where we had over 53 families. So that was really well attended. It's great and we were a little weather worried cuz
096the weather was a little iffy and we weren't sure, but people really came out. We were able to the whole theme was about Northern Heights and the Adirondack and we were able to have somebody come in and do an assembly that day and bring their dogs. And so I think that really got kids excited and families excited and it was it was really great to see how many families came out for that night and the kids really had a great time. It was We're going to have a bingo this Friday. So that's open to anyone in the community, not just BES families. So we're excited about that. It's a basket bingo. So you win bingo and you win baskets that were donated. So that should be fun and then um and then we have a
097sock hop dance coming up so and we'll have our family picnic as well. So we're really we're really enjoying having more family activities and we appreciate that the families are really excited about getting out and attending All right. Thank you for me. Thank you. Yes. So Sam and I are going to kind of share a little bit about special education and MTSS after each building's presentation. So since Jody's presented, we'll touch on the elementary and then after Mr. Burns presents, we'll touch on the high school as well. So just a couple of things. So I'm going to share the same data that um Jody just reviewed with you guys, but with just our special education students pulled out from that data. I will note I did not do a grade by grade since we have
098small groups and I want to maintain that anonymity. So it is all combined specialized students within the building. And the other thing I just wanted to note is that our STARS students are not included in that data. They're assessed differently. So we don't have those assessments for our STARS program students. They're assessed differently and their progress is assessed differently. So we don't have them included. And the other thing I want to note is that all special ed students are general students first. I don't have the exact percentage, but the overall majority of our special education services are delivered within a general education setting as well. And all of our special education teachers are very much involved in all of the building initiatives and work that goes on for tier one instruction and all of the
099things that Jody just covered. So here is our assessment data for the fine and gross motor for our special education students at BES. This is just K2. I'm seeing some some growth trends there. And then this is the ISL reading at the top and the ISL math at the bottom. Again for our special education students fall through winter. Again some really positive growth there as well. And then this is the oral reading fluency. So some work to be done there for sure. And again this is the 3-5 only now. What do you think caused the drop Five students two students. I think it it kind of speaks to the trends that Jody was speaking about in the whole building. I don't see that our trends are significantly different from the trends that the building at
100large is seeing. Certainly 3-5 is is having some more struggle than our K-2 groups in progress and skills. So it's also really hard to speak to it when we're talking about such small numbers as a whole trend. Because when you the smaller your sample size, the more that those individual differences lay out. You did it in the fall and the winter and the spring. The spring was the best time. Um oral reading fluency is the best one. You put that in the for the fall. So the fall is the easy score levels and then the winter is the oral reading fluency. >> Oh I see. So that was not real then. I mean the other piece of the same assessment. Right. It's a little bit a little bit different. I'll still tell them the spring
101is the >> [laughter] >> Exactly. Top same assessment. So when we have spring numbers we'll be able to see a little more specifically about oral reading fluency. And one of the things we did to kind of break things down a little bit was talk about some strengths for special education and MTSS and then some of the challenges that we face and then some of the current actions going on all in conjunction with everything else that Jody has shared about the efforts of the building and the work going on there. So some of the strengths. We have a lot of flexibility within our program. When we talk about STARS program at large, we talk about resource room supports which are pull out services for special education which is small group instruction with no more than five
102students with a special education teacher. We have all of the various MTSS supports. Sam, if you want to elaborate on a few of those different things. Uh yeah. Yeah. So our for MTSS mostly we are working with our tier three population this year. Um so our interventionist pull out students from the different classrooms during the week time or other times during the day like Jody touched on. Um and our groups are four students max with that just so we can really hit those skills that are priorities for those students. And of course we have our co-taught classes for special education and then obviously the general education program. And the reason I highlight this is because just because a student needs one of these services, it does not preclude them from accessing any other service or
103any other content that they need. For example, we could have a student who needs a self-contained class and goes to STARS for math only, but is doing well enough in ELA to see to be supported within a co-taught class. So there's a lot of flexibility there within which services students need, where they can access those and how we can best serve them. Um similarly for resource room, MTSS, general education, there are crossovers all over the place. Students who are getting a level of support that meets their needs, but is targeted and specific to that need and doesn't prevent them from being involved in any of those other different supports or services. One of the biggest challenges is staffing. You know, I think that's news to anyone. It is challenging to find and hire qualified applicants
104for a variety of positions. I did put up there a couple specifically. Teaching assistants is an ongoing challenge to fill positions for. And then I put related service providers in there. Our related service providers, we talk about speech, OT, PT. They are very full. in their schedule. We had added as a district an additional 0.4 position for speech. We have a It is a very difficult position to fill. I'm currently exploring some other options on how we can try to share services with another district or another other ways to attract candidates for that position to be able to meet our students' needs. Provide more of those MTSS and preventative supports. I think that's the biggest area for related services that they're struggling with right now. We want to provide as many services as we can
105as early as we can as we've seen with the K-2 group. They make much more progress. Early intervention is known to be more effective. So the sooner we can meet those needs, the faster we can get those supports, the better our students will do. But one of the challenges that that is when our speech providers are are fully scheduled in with IEP supports with 504s and other mandated services, they don't have enough time in their day to be able to provide all of the preventative work in class times, picking up MTSS students, and delivering some of those supports earlier on that aren't mandated. So trying to expand those services has been a goal of mine um finding a qualified applicant to be able to do that is challenging and we're certainly not alone. >> [clears
106throat] >> BOCES currently is struggling as well to hire speech language pathologists. They're down at least one. I believe they might be down two right now. Which adds an additional challenge to our program districts because we have students who attend those programs for special ed who need speech services and cannot get them at their own at the BOCES program they go to, which means it's the district's obligation to provide services. So, I've been very creative with making sure that our kids at BOCES who don't have a speech provider because BOCES can't hire one to be able to get their speech services. So, all of that to say that related services are are certainly a challenge and finding qualified applicants is an ongoing battle. And you want to touch on some of the current efforts for
107MTSS? Yes, so some great things that we are doing at the EES is we meet weekly um for academics. So, we have the interventionist come, the teachers, and any other support staff who works with the students to discuss their progress. We do bi-weekly meetings for behavior checking on how those students are doing with their behavior plans and any changes that need to be made. Um Ariel and I have monthly data meetings uh with grade level just to go over everything and any maybe support staff they need moving forward. Um and we we try as hard as we can to be really responsive to student needs and getting them the support they need by having those meetings and conversations with everybody. Any questions on elementary special ed and MTSS? Thank you. Turn it over to Mr.
108Breslin. >> [clears throat] >> So, it's good to be the last administrator. Good evening. Good evening. So, did everybody go and get coffee or Should we take a 2-second rest if everyone is in that like good practice in class? No one looks hopeful. All right. So, it would be my little bit of Frank um Ken said I cannot get this done in 10 minutes, so I have a bet. Okay. Um Ken, ready? Jody has 37 minutes and 52 seconds >> [laughter] >> on the timer, so uh You guys all think Jody's really nice. She tells me behind the scenes that I talk too much. So, here we go. So, I have Ariel up here and her name is Beatrice as well. Um actually, say what's same. We're a team. We work together. Here's our mindset
109growth and improvement. Um always looking to see what we can do even when we're doing well. What can we do you know, in terms of the three building goals, what data driven plan and the goals this year are quickly improve student attendance, enhance academic achievement, foster positive school climate. Keep So, I am at the the attendance I I'm disappointed. We were going really well. 17%, 19%. We're 28% right now. The winter months have killed us. Um it's not a lack of effort, I will tell you. But, between illness and um be honest with you, students choosing not to come in um you know, it has gone up. The majority of our increase is illness um and other things. Um but what we are doing is, like I said, we're looking at every day, we're talking
110about it with the teachers in meetings, parents, counselors. Uh we're constantly looking to see what we can do with it. One of the things I think we've learned is the bottom line. Our work must focus on prevention and rapid response when patterns emerge. We were going well, we're going well, and our rapid response and that's me as a principal, that's falls on me, nobody else. That person is great, I mean everybody's part. One of the things that we talked about, all right, from when this happens, what should we do? Like all of a sudden a student's going well and they're out like 10 days with illness or something like that. Kids go on vacation, you know, different things that happen. Um what can we do to make sure that we are not going over for
111uh chronic absenteeism. So, that I know 28% is a little disappointing, definitely disappointed me, but we are learning a lot as we go on, you know, as we're going along here. Why students missing? So, I just we have data. I just want to break down the unexcused. Highest, medically excused, illness. Medically excused and illness, people say same thing. No, they're not. Students could be out for social emotional reasons. They could be out um I don't want to get too far into it, but medically excused is different than illness. All right? Um Most impact, grade grade 12. You know what we call that? Senioritis. All right, we should we're working on that disease. Uh Look what's interesting, though, the transition years. >> [clears throat] >> That's something that caught us uh in terms of us saying,
112"Wow, we got to focus more on those transition years." You know, one of the things is ninth grade, they come from middle school, you think it's the same thing, but no, high school and middle school are two different things. So, we have to pay more attention to the transitions and we're going to do more programming for next year. Attendance improvement, what we're doing. I know it's a lot there, but basically we've gone over this. Number three is really important. We've learned to code better and the data entry and Darcy deserves a lot of credit, but you know, like uh Miss Hudson is taking up on it, Miss Demick is in uh um the guidance office, the teachers, but our our language has changed in terms of coding and that's helped us a lot. Our attendance
113teams, we feel we have to expand them a little more. We take a lot on and uh between the school counselors and administrators, we have to get teachers more involved. One of the things that we are discussing possibility is creating peer mentors amongst the staff with the students. Um we need more mentoring. There's not enough of us to go around. So, how do we uh fix that? So, that's one of the things that we'll look at next year. You uh Attendance chats, I think we're getting better uh in terms of getting families involved and understanding it. But, number six, the Rensselaer County services and community partnerships, that has expanded immensely this year. Our partnership in different uh uh departments has increased. You know, I can pull Jackie Meeks who is the director of probation for
114Rensselaer County anytime and she gives me different ideas for students for different reasons. We didn't have that partnership before. So, that's helped us a lot. And the bottom, moving reacting to preventing. That's what we're talking about. I do not like being reactive. We want to be proactive and that's what we're all working on. I'm going to give this to Um so, similar to what you saw, I just in a different format. We assess them again in the new year, sixth grade, seventh grade, and eighth grade for ELA. And you can see that they're definitely increasing. Um we're noticing I had meetings with the teams that really identified the students from who are not increasing or that um were improve that. Um eighth grade, they don't have a lab like sixth and seventh grade, so they
115don't have that extra um ELA time, which we're also seeing is a time that, you know, the kids are really utilizing that in sixth and seventh grade to really build those skills. Um we're looking at two different ways to incorporate that differently to next year to give them that extra time so they can What's that Sorry, what's the data used for this That's IXL. That's IXL. Thank you. Now, the students that decreased and no change, we know their their names. We created uh individual programs for all of them. So, we're looking at the deficiencies and where we can help them. So, we're really focusing on those students. Um And like I said, I think you go to the teachers and they'll tell you exactly who they are, what we're doing, and where the deficiency uh
116deficiencies are and what their independent plans are. So, that's something that has improved tremendously this year. There's a lot more ownership. Oh, excuse me. Um again, similar to the time to the elementary, our math scores um are up a lot. You know, some of them had increased higher than some of the ELA scores. Little bit of a dip in the eighth grade, but not as much. They also don't have any uh math lab for eighth grade. So, again, looking at changing that next year to give them more opportunities to strengthen their skills. One of the things about uh ELA math eight, we broke down Miss Marv at the high school for ELA and Miss Conley for uh math and they've done a tremendous job of looking at eighth grade curriculum, but also preparing them for
117high school. That's a different approach. We brought them down here for a reason and they're you know, they're meeting all of our expectations beyond. So, you're going to start seeing over the next few years it's going to keep increasing because this is the first year. So, you're going to see that it's going to continue to improve, but they're not going to move from where they are. We're going to have a consistent team there. So, overall the majority of students are demonstrating a lot of growth overall of that. Um some kids are even showing anywhere from 100 to 230 points. Um 100 points is what you would expect to see in a year. So, we're seeing some students jump two grade levels and which is only at the halfway mark. So, that's really great to see
118especially closing some of those gaps that they um have fallen behind with for various reasons and we're really just targeting what they're needing this year. Um looking to again engage them in their growth. We're also seeing some of our eighth graders don't take the test as seriously as some of the other grades. So, just encouraging them that buy-in that this is really important piece that shows us where we can use the data to help you. So, just again getting that buy-in with the kids so they take the test serious. And then make sure that we're looking at um you know, everybody's doing it to the best they can and we'll be looking at those levels and how can we do that with them. So, this is more of the same thing, but just real quick
119what you're focusing on is tier one. The tier one is that's what we're we're focusing on. So, tier one um we've been really talking about common writing expectations. We you guys have saw the annotation sheet that we um put in all the classrooms 6-12. So, we're really just creating that alignment. Um literacy routines we've been having departments all working on action plans and all their action plans have to have some kind of literacy piece. And one of the patterns we're seeing was that in the upcoming test for biology and social studies and science and math that they're just very heavily um with a lot of literacy. It's more not just a math computation test. They really have to have a strong literacy to be successful on those tests. So, we've been breaking down vocabulary, how
120to teach that because that's just for a lot of our high school teachers that's a new area to really um be looking at when teaching our students their content. We had a nice conversation yesterday uh in PD with ELA speaking about Did I Did I say that? High school alignment. About the alignment that when students go from K-5 come here there should be no change in terms of the expectations when it comes [clears throat] to writing, in terms of how we're teaching it, what we're doing, with the reading comprehension and other skills. So, we are committed to that vertical alignment K-12 that students don't have to transition from one program to another program. That's not fair to the students. So, what we have to do is that it's a common language and common expectations. Um
121it should not be any different than second grade than 11th grade. All right. So, that's what we're in terms of what we're teaching and how we're teaching it. So, that's something that we're really concentrating on. We had a really good discussion today. Yes, that's that I just wanted to add to that. That's something that we started from the elementary and it was nice to have that the K-8 talking about the writing versus the social studies. As always the student parent um engagement Um I'll read the bottom. Participation is stronger in the middle school than in the high school. However, we would like to see increased engagement at both levels. This is constant uh battle in terms of getting parents in. I thought yesterday at the jazz cafe was a really nice turnout. Um first of
122all they were excellent the jazz cafe. Um the jazz band excuse me. But we we need to do more of those things to get uh families involved, but we also have to go out more. So, one of the you know, things simple thing like go to Stewart's say can our students go uh our students paint on the windows for the different holidays. You know, things like that we're trying to do just to get out in the community to get them engaged in the building. So, those are some of the things that we're looking to do. So, here's our road map uh from now till June. The attendance is just continue the specific average. Look at it mid-spring again just to see what we're doing and how we're doing. You know, we got to constantly assess
123what we're doing and and make changes and adjust. And then recognize the students who have improved. See, we always talk about the students that aren't doing it. We have to recognize the students who are doing it. So, that's something that we're going to change up to do. The achievement gap basically what we're doing. And I don't like Regents prep because that means that we are teaching to the test. We are not teaching to the test. If we do what we're supposed to do the students will be prepared for the Regents. So, I I don't like that terminology Regents prep, but I lost two Ariel she wanted to put up there to make sure that you guys know that we are concentrating on it. >> [clears throat] >> But it's not something that specifically we're going
124to stop. We're going to keep doing what we're doing. And then engagement continue with the family events, student led initiatives. So, for example on our graduation committee we have students involved. So, their voice is very important uh in it. Uh and that's just one of many many things. End of the year student voice, things that we can do for next year. Uh students are going to help lead in terms of some of the changes how the building looks inside. We want to take the students' voice and make it very visible. Um one of the things we have for attendance Huh? So, I've had these in to put up all around the building about be ready, be present be your future, attendance matters. Uh Rachel Teresky and I did about 500 different versions. And I think
125you came up with that. I surely am not creative enough. No, no, no. So, this is great. We're hoping to get them up. Like I said they did um what's it called? Uh we put in a work order. So, we're hoping we get it up and we get it around. Also in the work order is the front taking the pictures of the teachers and putting them up on the wall so we have that group. So, we're just waiting for that stuff to get done. Um The other thing I would say very quickly >> [clears throat] >> I like it. You got to get a picture. Um we are looking heavy discussion of two things. This is discussion phase [clears throat] right now. This is not I'm not coming to you saying we're doing it. This
126is something that has to be discussed. But before I come to you I want to make sure it works. We're thinking about taking lunches making 20 minutes. Instead of what? 42. And then another 20 minutes um like the middle school will get intervention services. We are looking for and they would have recess um like like 42 minutes is too much time. It's too much time. So, we're looking to see uh if we're going to do it or not. I'm going to give you the test run one of these days. I'll send a letter home. I know you're looking at me like I'm crazy. 42 minute lunch? Yeah. It's too much. They don't like to do 30. That's why we want to go to like the 20-21 minutes because Regents short lunch is what they We
127want to say 20 minutes. That's our trouble. I know you guys are looking at me like what are you crazy? No, no. No, in the 22 minutes that's what's happening is the kids you know, especially that aren't going outside and they're I agree that's good. It's not a lot. Too much time. What we're trying to do to be honest is we're trying to with the staff that we have the time we are trying to find time for different intervention services that we normally don't have. This is another thing we're looking at. Currently we are looking to remodel the middle school. We don't have a true middle school team. Meaning that each team has all the core teachers, special ed. We don't have it. We don't have the staff to support it. So, why are we
128doing it? So, I think that we can simplify not have as many teachers involved and then we can create possibly an ELA coach and a math coach that could do specifically and only do is um the direct services, direct instruction help the students because we don't have that right now. We need that desperately. So, I'm trying to manipulate the schedule to allow us to have that without the six periods and you know, without a pulse. So, if you ever go into the conference room you see all that writing on the wall that's me trying to figure out the different numbers and um with the help of the the school counselors Ariel um you know, Sam we we're putting all of our heads together and I think we're going to be able to do it. So,
129there'll be some adjustment in the positive way. Yes. Um at lunch are they able to get through the lunch line quick enough? Again, again. That's the number one question. So, when we were doing that Laura um who's to kitchen manager about that all that I discussed. So, what I'd like to do first for where we agreed to it, I want to do a test run. Because I don't want to come to you and say, "Hey, this is what I want to do. This is what we're going to do." And still not be sure. So, I'm a visual learner, so I want to see it as we do it. And then everybody get together and talk about it. That's why I'm I'm not here committing to it because I I want to see how it flows,
130how the transitions look. That's where I'm worried is transitions. So, students when they need an intervention, going to lunch and vice versa. That's where we're going to lose time and that's where I want to make sure that we have a plan for that. Yeah, they'll have a study hall or you know, something like that. Yeah, something. >> [laughter] >> Mr. President, all the staff are out of time. So, we just move to the next the last presentation. She said 10 minutes. Can I get the task done? >> [laughter] >> You have 20. Still less than 20. Tom Tom is still presenting. He has 10 minutes. Thank you, David. It's very quick. Thanks. All right. So, similar to what we had shared for the elementary, we did a similar thing with the IXL scores for reading
131and for math for 6 through 8. Um not a whole lot of changes going on from the different levels. I will say that um things that was presented a little bit differently, so I don't have the specifics on how many students they made growth within these categories to tell you if they how they would classify within these numbers. Um but they didn't necessarily move a lot between those different ranges. >> [snorts] >> Similar for math as well. So, notice the numbers don't align. We had a a change, so we had 19 in the fall and 18 in the And then Tom Tom That's the bill slot of things. Any progress monitoring for the for the year for the 9 through 12 students? So, we don't have any consistent IXL data, so we didn't have an
132ample comparison. So, you know, we can similarly break down regions exams. We have that data as well. Um and for the June assessment, we can break those out and do a similar dive into special education for regions. Just for the board to be consistent, could we say inconsistent with with the Could you explain them the part about 9 How is How is IXL used 9 through 12 the book? What's How is it delivered? Which students receive it? For 9 through 12, it's primarily the kids who are receiving MTSS services and you're also using it for booster here. And I'll share that with you. Excellent. So, it's a little more targeted than the whole student body. And then similarly, some of the same strengths and challenges to be honest with you. Again, we have that same
133level of flexibility within high school um between our different programming. I know we've spoken a little bit about fluidity in MTSS supports and different groupings about kids coming in, coming out based on their level of needs, where they're best grouped. Um So, that is a fluid process in and of itself, but also again having access to all of those different programs to support all of those different needs at different ability levels. Staffing, I am very happy to say pending board approval at tonight's meeting that I no longer have to put a need of a secondary special education teacher on there. Was able to hire and is before the board for approval tonight. I will share he is very excited to start. Um he texted me this morning asking me to give him an update after
134the board votes tonight, so I will be texting him as soon as you go through your consent consent agenda items. Um all right. I'm happy to say I no longer have to have that on the list. That position has been vacant since May at this point. Um and as Holly mentioned in her presentation, we've been covering all of those courses with six assignments. So, I know a lot of our special education teachers are very excited to not have as many courses that they need to try to balance at this point as well. Okay. I'll let Sam touch on the reading teacher. It just kind of food for thought. Um it would be great to have a reading teacher in this building. I know Mr. Brinsley just kind of touched on it. Um with just kind
135of the needs that we're seeing in the data. Um and just some current efforts that we have. Um so, in this building, I meet monthly with the grade level teams um just because of the scheduling and everything like that um to discuss our students and how they're doing and planning. Um and like just responsive to student needs and getting them the support they need and being a little creative in this building like that just because of the staffing that we do have. Um they're basically getting those paid for our time with helping our students. Last thing I'll say about the reading teachers, it can have some great conversations with us about planning and how we can work to, you know, support that in the future. So, it's it's not something we haven't discussed or that
136we haven't worked on some plans to be able to get to someday. Um And I I know Jody shared some of those gaps that we identified at the elementary curriculum in their reading and they worked to address those gaps. But again, the students in this building also did not have those programs available to them at the time that they went through those years. So, there are some of those gaps that we would also need to work to kind of try to close within this building and having a certified reading teacher would help tremendously with those efforts. Now, I'll I'll touch on the way I update a little bit just that kind of order of things with that prioritization as well. Mhm. That's it. I think you have 10 minutes. This time we don't have to
137our students Thank you. Over the weekend, the drama club performed in this year's talent tiers. Director and the band came together for great performances. There was a big turnout from our homecoming show every day. Spring sports such as track and field, softball, and baseball have begun. Students will be competing hard in their upcoming season. We also had the principal's list in our last month. I had a great turnout with over 100 people in attendance at the start. After getting some feedback from the student body, we decided that students want to see who they are and the student council again playing the random name game. The student council has also been working on making the school more environmentally friendly. We're selling out recycling bins that have been placed in classrooms throughout the school. We're also creating
138posters to show what can and cannot be recycled. And our hope in doing this is to increase environmental education. We have also applied to the Department of Environmental Conservation School Seedling Program. This program is offering our school 50 seedlings of native Douglas fir trees to build interest in conservation within the school community. The DEC's goal is to plant 25 million trees by 2033 and our school will be helping them plant those trees. We plan to plant the trees around the school property after the volunteer day Thank you, David. Thank you. Okay. This one. I move to approve the minutes from the meeting held on February 24th. And then I get a motion to approve the minutes as presented. Move it. Motion by Frank. A second. I'll second that. Seconded by Kim. Okay. Elaine, how do
139you vote? Yes. Danny? Yes. Jared? Yes. Frank? Yes. Kim? Yes. And Rebecca? Abstain. And um I'm a yes as well. And policy, we have our first reading regarding policy number 8450 which relates to homebound instruction. Um you were provided a clean copy um with the changes included. Is there anyone that has any questions regarding this policy? This is the first reading, so it hasn't been formally approved. I I just have a Something with Um I thought the opening sentence was a run-on and really clumsy and maybe I had to read it like [laughter] four times. So, I feel like I shouldn't have to read the opening sentence many times to know what I'm reading. Um so, that's just like a minor thing. And then also I just wanted to note I'm sorry. Can I just
140confirm that right now? You were basically saying the same thing you're saying. We came from Niskayuna attorneys and our policy committee had like seven of them on it. So, I'm just trying to see what If I can't correct me, but I understand what you're what your perspective is on it. Yeah. So, I read it out loud because it just sounds Home instruction is service provided to students who are unable to participate in their usual educational setting at home or in a hospital or other institution for the treatment of children due to temporary or chronic illness or injury, physical, mental, or emotional reasons. Yeah. I just felt like it was it was a little bit confusing and just a really long sentence. We just kind of figure out how to break it into two sentences and
141make it a little bit clearer. Or I mean, maybe it doesn't matter to non-educators. Um I don't know if it's even educational. Much of this is just I don't know if it's already legally Can I It could possibly work it out, but I'd have to want to ask the attorney first. Yeah, and Kim came from this in terms of the template and then attorney vetted it and then our our policy team and the policy team I think was more happy actual procedures. It was the 30 days which is pretty normal typical school 30 days is typically out given home bound. Essentially school that 30 days working with this child's medical doctor would be looking at either bringing the child back in on a plan or extending that time. Um we don't have a policy in
142place right now but I I certainly can look at that section Is it ask Yeah I understood what the policy was trying to do. The whole thing makes sense. I just thought the first sentence was worded poorly. And then the other thing is is do we have a medical director? Yes. Who is that? Um I don't remember his name. Riverside Pediatrics. Um we had to switch to the doctors individually again because they weren't available. So we're working on that. So we don't have Riverside Pediatrics. The doctors >> serving as our medical directors. They're the two doctors that ran that practice. We contract with the practice. We just did a new contract. They're continuing to serve as our medical directors. We just need a new contract. That's all. Okay. We will retire and attach to it.
143Yeah. And the doctors we use like we actually did a little bit serve out several several districts in the area but I'm glad she used that same practice as well as medical director. And many of them are continuing to use them in their retirement as well. So we're not alone in the reason in making that transition to contracting with that different thing. We actually have cost analysis as well and we just have schools that the school forgetting the service and also what the cost analysis was that I ran that uh spreadsheet and we're getting a getting a lot quite a bit actually more than what we're paying for the service and bringing the child conversation and team together. We actually recently went through this before the policy when it was discussed and really wasn't a
144reason to change. Um we're getting everything we needed. Not really complaints right now. So we're looking at potentially Very happy with the services we received and the cost that we were quoted and very content. I agree. What parents agree to use this policy or just professionals? Um Parents will definitely want to refer to especially when a parent is requesting home bound instruction. They understand this is policy on home bound policy. Um what we do often is we look at is the student request for child to be home. The struggles with such child goes home. What's common schools is child will not come back to school and we can't get them back. Policy allows for checkpoints in order to have checkpoints with the family [snorts] with this family's decision the school home Okay. My my question
145is back to that cuz if a parent's got to read this it should be fluent for the parent to read. We just have professionals read it. They typically read it in a different way. So that's I guess what the first sentence means. Yes. I guess so. As a parent it's got to be user friendly parent if they're going to be reading and using this policy. I can try that. It's already that's good. I mean it's just And still meet the [laughter] intent of this policy needs to be Is it just the first sentence you were talking about? Yeah that's it. It's really Yeah. Pretty much opening kind of intimidating to start. Well also I thought I was just for the first time learning about this home bound instruction so it sounds like it could be
146at your home or it could be in a hospital or it could be in an institution. It doesn't have to be at home. Um so School's obligation to to >> Right. continue instruction for the child while they're out. Right? Yeah. So looking at it somebody who's just learning about this >> [clears throat] >> it was a little confusing. I wouldn't say it was. I just need to understand kind of what I would go back to the attorney and say if he uses it what do you mean? I just I have to understand your perspective on it. Um cuz I we had another view that was pretty quiet actually with the committee in terms of they were okay pretty good. Um Okay. Thank you. Welcome to the meeting. >> [laughter] >> Is that a surprise? No
147it's not that. It's just everyone was busy so you There was comments. Have people comment on There was comments on it? There was nine changes though that I I think were redlined by them. That was that the redlines? There were redlines yeah. There wasn't many redlines there was on the previous policy which was the AI policy that had a lot more redlines to your point a lot less redlines but definitely was and actually extended deadline another week two more time for it. So it's been about like three three weeks at least that people had to comment on it. I think the feedback generally was just wasn't a lot that that we felt needed to change but Yeah. Um I will certainly bring this back to the attorney to ask to see if I can get
148that and then back to the policy committee of course but we'll see if that reads a little better. Thank you. Welcome. Second did you want to hold the first reading on that? Nope. I'm okay with that. Okay. My question is all right. Any other um questions regarding the policy? Okay. So I need to go into the votes in a minute a second. You just accept the first amendment the first Okay. So I don't need to do votes in a minute a second. The first one You said first. Okay. All right. Can I get a motion to approve the first reading of the home policy number 8450? Motion by Rebecca. A second? Second. Second by Frank. Elaine how do you vote? Yes. Penny? Yes. Derek? Yes. Frank? >> [clears throat] >> I'm going to say no.
149Rebecca? Yes. Rebecca? >> [laughter] >> And I'm a yes. Okay. Um so we have consent agenda items. We do have at the request of uh Frank do you like a short executive session regarding the consent agenda items and personnel? Um it should be extremely quick. Okay? Um and and we'll be right back. Can I get a motion for executive session regarding these specific personnel? I'll move. Motion by Frank. A second? And by Penny on favor? I am. And we'll be very very quick. Can I come back up to this? Executive session. Here.