001this is a special presentation from the Brighton Central School District Board of Education good evening welcome to the Brighton Central School District Board of Education business meeting and budget hearing for Tuesday January 23rd this meeting is called to order to begin with as with every public meeting we provide the opportunity for public participation is there anyone in the audience who would like to speak seeing no one we'll move on the agenda first up you all have received the agenda um Mo any questions with regards to our agenda tonight motion to approve so moved moved by Carrie Lynn second seconded by Esther all those in favor we also have the minutes from our January 9th Education meeting does anyone have any changes or questions or edits with regards to those minutes motion to approve the January
0029th education meeting minutes so moved moved by Karen second seconded by Sue all those in favor wouldn't be a public meeting without a discussion on budget and uh we're fortunate to have Lou Lio to talk to us tonight with a first look at our budget review Lou good evening so tonight we get a little bit more into the weeds in uh the budget development process um this is a visual we show Almost each uh budget presentation with our process uh we updated in the fall our needs uh needs assessment the issues identified but right now we're designing our plans and determining our financial capabilities so with that uh the next meeting will be our blueprint updates you'll get more um specific uh proposals and uh initiative updates so first we go over our budget guidelines
003the key budget guidelines that were adopted by the Board of Education what I wanted to point out just in the uh opening bullets here understand the short long-term changes to Foundation a formula so we have the governor's executive budget proposal we're trying to understand that any changes in the formula within Foundation Aid um still going through with the professional organizations to understand the formula if there's been any overrides or changes to the formula that may impact us um this year and in the future and then we do have the American Recovery and investment act expiring at the end of this fiscal year so we've been really strategic over the last couple of years preparing for the phase out of the federal funds uh so we're in good shape for that but there will be a
004significant drop off of federal funding at the end of this year certainly as we're prioritizing allocation of resources we're looking at our blueprint and our priority areas and you can see those listed here and then one of the things the board of education has uh committed to is complying with the New York State cap uh tax cap excuse me um and staying within those financial parameters and we'll talk about the implications of that uh in this budget presentation as well uh key dates you can see where we are January so we won't have another budget update in February so a lot of the work will continue as far as the reconciliation budget actual projections uh looking at assumptions and we'll be able to uh better Define what the numbers look like on the expenditure side
005um at that February meeting and then moving into the community budget forums and then working towards the executive budget proposal at the end of March uh ultimately with the um annual vote Statewide annual vote on May 21st uh 21st so big picture a chart that you've seen uh every year a high level allocation of our spending and the categories you could see about just less than 70% is salaries and wages obviously we're a people in a service industry uh so that's going to command the most of our attention um and you know the most reconciliation then we go into the Bose's our debt and capital and we've been talking frequently about investment in capital and maintaining this um this pie within this uh within our spending allocations and then all the other services and supplies
006that round out our spending so the purpose of this presentation is to disaggregate those give you a little bit more information about the cost drivers within each of the area and what we're what we're working on right now so starting with salaries and and wages so again disaggregating that first pie chart you can see teacher salaries is our biggest uh expense component within there and you can see the growth over the last three budgets that's attributable to our investment um with the uh American um with the federal funds excuse me in the addition of uh many teaching positions to address um kind of the postco um needs that um that have emerged then we look at our clerical and non-instructional supports with cost drivers there are the changes in minimum wage so the wages in
007that area are escalating uh at a rate greater than we've been used to over the past several years just this year uh minimum wage went up uh close to 6% so that's something that'll continue uh pressure and spending in that areas although Staffing levels have been uh pretty steady instructional support a lot of our par professionals roll up into there we have needed to add a bunch of staffs in response to student needs but that's also uh minimum wage and the hourly wage pressures uh also are uh significant cost drivers within the that area same with custodial operations minimum wage our hourly uh again generally uh steady Staffing levels there but escalation and costs as wages um escalate and there's competition within private sector with private sector there you can see some of the other
008areas um and where we're looking at so the main budget factors and what we're continuing to assess uh contractual increases that's the easy part we know what our contracts are we do have a couple of expiring contracts that we'll be negotiating uh so we'll prudently plan for those the changes in mandates so that's one area where we really don't have a good a sense of those changes in mandates we'll certainly see what comes out in the in the state budget but uh mandates that are specific to student needs a lot of that happens in the csse season which Mrs Spagnola leads uh more in the springtime so we have to make some projections on what services may be required by um for our students investment in the blueprint priorities we hear that uh proposed initiatives
009uh in the coming meetings changes in enrollment and how that shifts and requires maybe additional Staffing allocations or where there's opportunities to shift Staffing uh the selection of electives at the high school level again we're unique in that we respond to student choice so we're setting our staffing levels based on um input from our students not just saying you're going to have uh 12 social studies teachers figure out what courses you're going to offer we make it so that our students are interested in these level of courses within the core and special subject areas and we adjust Staffing um in response to those needs the shifting of positions from the federal fund to the general fund again we've been doing that over the last couple of years so we're prepared for that expiration of PR
010um federal funds and then I talked about the uh minimum wage pressures and compe in U wage uh competition across different Industries just to remind um our investment in our in our teachers again who are driving our operation that's the the core of our the service and you can see what we've added in this budget that will continue to support in the upcoming budget some other districts have invested in in teaching positions as an infusion of support ours were build building up foundational support that we continue to that are plan continue an investment in and that was part of our application with Federal programming how we going to continue that so a lot of the increases in Foundation Aid that we were uh benefited from over these last couple of years have allowed us to
011build a long-term plan to continue to fund those positions and make that as part of our base uh service to our community and to our students as opposed to just a short-term infusion of support we have updated our enrollment projection been working closely with our principles to look at um what our enrollment projections are what are the assumptions that are used in our model and what the resulting class size is so updating those projections and then looking at our K5 enrollments you can see on the right hand side here um based on our enrollment projections if we wanted Equity within the class sizes K through five again you can see what the ratio would be um with any adjustments and then what the impact would be if you add a teacher or you subtract a
012teacher So based on this model if we wanted to achieve these class sizes would require the addition of 2.0 FTE in addition to just enrollment shifts we're looking at uh more higher need for risk Provisions um especially in the area of um English as a second language special education and then we're responding to the expansion of um the design and drawing production uh course at the uh at Brighton High School in the tech department so you could see that there's a demand for additional Staffing beond down what we've added in the in the with the federal funds when we look at benefits you could see the the pie chart of our benefits so a lot of it about 60 66% of it is contractual in our health insurance and our retiring health insurance so there's
013not a lot of opportunity for interventions there although we did offer a new plan that the Board of Education approved for our retirees that is more competitive and provided in our opinion a better uh product to our retirees at a significantly lower cost so voluntarily we offered that to our retirees and we were able to migrate close to 81% of retirees from the excelis plans Medicare plans to the atna plan uh which will uh achieve substantial savings for the district and I want to thank Nancy Butler um who spearheaded that project and answered every question from our retirees to ensure that they understood what that change meant and how it impacted their benefits um that will be a significant Sav in in the upcoming year the rest of the components within our fringe benefits or
014unallocated benefits uh relate generally to our salaries so as our salaries go up our workers comp will go up our payroll taxes will go up our contributions to the pension systems will also increase so as we reconcile our staffing and determine our final Staffing numbers and the Staffing projections then I can update and finalize what our our benefit costs will be looking at our bosis and disaggregating our Bose Services special educ ation drives that you can see the budgetary increases over the last uh few years which are responsive to our student needs so we have more districts in um both centralized Bose's programs and we also have an increase in services to our uh private schools our teneran services that are being provided to our um to our our private and parochial schools our business
015and technology Services have increased cyber security as a been a significant cost driver in that as as systems our financial management system our student management system all required updates and um enhancements from a from a safety security standpoint as well as our on toone uh technology and device um program that um came postco then you have the other areas Transportation you see is a decrease and that's not intentional we are hoping to continue to use bosis as a partner for transportation to uh Center based programs um they just like every other district and every other um area is struggling with a driver short so they're now unable to meet our our transportation needs which is driving more of cost to our contract Transportation which we'll talk about in a minute and then occupational education we
016have continue uh our students continue to express High interest in our OCC occupational education programs bis has done a phenomenal job in investing in those program I think the Board of Education had the opportunity to take a tour there um so we continue to support um students that are pursuing um those particular programs so what we're looking at there uh Bose's has published their tuition rates and we'll be reconciling our service projections uh again over these next couple of weeks so then the other areas the services tuitions and supplies again try to disaggregate the major cost drivers and the service and supplies that we're providing uh contract Transportation uh continues to be um the most significant within this category um you could see the increases um over the last couple years budgetarily that's a lot
017from CPI adjustments but the increase in the number number of outof District runs and the transition from uh Bose transportation to our private transportation we actually have an RFP out right now um that will be closing in the next couple of weeks and we are anticipating significant rate increase um as contractors gear up for um the uh electric bus fleets but then also just trying to compete and the wages for bus drivers are escalating at a much faster rate than CPI one of our neighboring districts when they did did an RFP just last year experienced a 24% increase in costs if we were to have that same level of increase it would be over a million increase in the expenditures um just in contract transportation and that's generally all mandated services so we'll talk about
018financing strategies to build into uh until the aid can catch up with that but from a tax capap standpoint if it's a million dollars just in transportation expense that it completely exhausts any new money that would be in in um the tax capap as as well as any increases in Foundation Aid all that money would need to be fronted so then we look at uh special education um contracts and tuitions again that's all in response to mandates as we assess our students needs and they're placed appropriately then we need to be prepared to respond for um the corresponding costs uh utilities and custodial again looking at that we are experiencing just like we are at our home significant increases in utility rates delivery charges um that we need to be responsive to it's our responsibility
019to manage consumption and we're working on that as a team um but the cost the unit cost of utilities is increasing at a much higher rate than the rate of inflation that's afforded in the um in the tax cap calculations and then you can see some of the other uh areas that again we're reconciling and we're responding to increases in either mandates or service demands from a capital standpoint this is the slide that Jason Schwarz uh presented um at TCMS and this is our opportunity for reinvestment so February 7th we have a vote for a capital project that would allow us to achieve the stability in the tax levy that's outlined in this bar graph so with that new project we'd be able to reinvest debt that's coming off of books that essentially has been
020satisfied and allow us to reinvest there so that portion of our spending as well as that portion of the levy uh remain stable and that's our goal right stability we want to be able to continue invest our uh stability at neutral impact to our our our TA local taxes so again just an overview of the capital project we're requesting authorization from the community for 2,850,000 of that $4.8 five million would be paid for from our capital reserve fund and within that we would have uh full reinvestment of the proceeds from the from the sale of Brookside that allows us to achieve no impact on our local tax levy again it's a full reinvestment no I don't mean to use that for but no new taxes it's what you're already paying will you will continue to
021ask to be pay towards improvements of our of our facilities that date will be on February 7th uh polls open 7:00 a. to 7:00 p.m. and we are going to have a public hearing and we're going to have an opportunity for the community to do a walkabout within this room we're going to have our design professionals we're going to have our Engineers uh talking about the project what the objectives of the project are and how we hope to achieve those goals those goals are outlined here all the information is on our website I encourage anyone to um to read through it look through U what the schematics are the high level schematics um really excited about being able to achieve uh what's outlined on on this slide so on the revenue side of the budget
022quickly we have the uh the governor's runs which I shared that we're we're trying to reconcile we're trying to get the detail behind uh participating in webinars to understand um you know what what how the formulas are have been driven when we look at Foundation Aid uh about a 4% increase in Foundation aid over the past couple of years uh that's a good number generally of 4% but I'm trying to figure out what's what's different when we look at uh Questar who's our state aid planning agency when they run the numbers based on our November uh data it shows that we should be getting a couple hundred, more so we're trying to understand what that discrepancy is and again reconcile those formulas so this really this portion of it the $19.7 million is the unrestricted
023Revenue that's what's support program that's what's supposed to uh support the inflationary growth so a 4% increase and just this $19 million versus $100 million on the expense side everything to the right here is generally expense based AIDS so we're already spending it and we're getting reimbursed we're going to continue to spend it and we're going to continue that money so that really doesn't help us with the inflationary factors uh and the pressures that's on the on the property tax local property taxes high level of revenues you can see the different components of our revenues and what it shows is our preliminary again at this point in time what my best estimate is for our changes in revenues and then what we have here is proportion of spending so for instance I we budget for
024a $74,000 increase in sales tax that would allow for a 0.1% increase in spending when we look at uh all of our local sources um so even the 4% increase in state and federal aid that allows our spending to only go up 1.3% so again with all those spending pressures that I talked about the increase in state and federal aid supports a 1.3% increase in spending the tax levy um is Computing about 1.9% that allows for a half a percent increase in spending so even though we get you know the formula that generates 1.8 in new money and property taxes when you apply that in proportionate against our spending it only allows for a0 5% increase in spending so you can see here I've also increased proposing to increase preliminarily our appropriated fund balance and
025that's to offset the anticipated uh spending and transportation so I'm trying to build a gap or try to fill that Gap a little bit until we get those categorical AIDS in the 25 26 school year so that's something we're going to need to talk about use of our reserves and in the financing strategies overall I'm we're our team is projecting a 3.2% increase in in revenues um so that's that's kind of our starting point and we'll be able to better Define if there is a gap gap between uh spending projections and the revenue as again we reconcile Staffing benefits and all the other um services that we provide so our next steps just that is to continue to monitor budget to actual again we want to be as accurate as we can we also want
026to prudently plan for the risk that's inherent in our budget we want to look at our uh reserves and our finance different financing sources and again we're building this year's budget with three year budgets in mind right so we don't want to do anything that jeopardizes um the next couple of budget so we're really thinking about it over a three-year period and how we going to be thoughtful and in in funding uh everything we want to achieve and in response to the mandates there will be a community thought exchange that will be launched uh the superintendent will administer that and he'll report back out at uh uh a future meeting and then certainly we're always continuing for advocacy for additional funding and mandate relief at least help us pay for the things that we're obligated
027to do uh if you're not going to give us the flexibility in in uh in spending in different um maybe more creative models so with that I entertain any questions or requests for additional data or information just a couple quick comments and then I'll see if the board wants to add anything first um I think it's possibly confusing for people to understand the February 7th vote which is for a specific Capital project and the vote scheduled as it is every year for May for the annual budget which is May 21st outside of the couple of slides you had that were focused on the capital Pro project which is the February 7th vote this sort of takes a longer look at the year obviously and gets us ready for that May 21st vote as we go
028through some of that just want to put that out there so there's not too much confusion thank you um I do also want to say this and you mentioned it early on we are a people business and Dr mcgaan says this frequently 70% give or take of our budget is for people and that's salary and wages obviously U I'm sorry salary and benefits wages and benefits um and did not you you said this and it you know it was said in your narrative but I think it's important to point out it's been important for this board as representatives for the community to make sure the people working with our kids are able to make a living wage so you talk to getting uh positions up to living wages and that was uh those were things
029that we had to budget for we had to move some things around for but it's important because we want the people working with our kids in any capacity whether it's teaching or supporting the buildings or anything to have a wage that they can quite literally live on so I appreciate the efforts your team did to undertake that very important February 7th votes uh um there's going to be a lot of communication on that we got postcards going out and uh that's very important we hope to get people to what I would call an out of cycle vote because we don't typically have votes in February um Dr McGowan talks a lot about the the car payment those of us who have cars and get new cars sometimes sort of keep that car payment in our
030budget and that's the intent of this project so that when you talk about no imp impact to taxes it stays within that dollar we consistently budget every year to pay for capital projects so I appreciate the planning associated with that because a lot of work's getting done Behind the Walls and in front of the walls to get our schools sort of updated so again thanks to you and your your buildings team for that as well uh questions or comments from the board I'm looking at uh Karen who's one of our Representatives on the legislative committee I would uh I would fail if we didn't also acknowledge the work she's doing trying to advocate for our public servants to sort of understand our costs and do things that sort of um help us understand and make
031sure we're taking care of all of our kids but all of the systems that also take care of all our kids so we appreciate the time you're spending in legislative to have sort of our politicians here the sort of challenges we have ahead so thank you for that other questions good do we have an idea of what our tax cap will be this year uh just over 1.8% thank thank you great question see no other questions we move on next up we've talked about it a little bit and that is the approval for the election inspectors for the February 7th 2024 Capital project vote um if you're going to have a vote you need to have people working that vote so we will received a list of folks who and you've all had a chance
032to see that any questions with regards to these people who've signed up to work motion to approve the election inspectors for the February 7th Capital project vote so moved moved by car Lyn second seconded by Christina all those in favor I uh next up uh not as comfortable a topic approval of first read policy policy 6123 regarding workplace violence New York state passed a law on January 4th with regards to workplace violence this will be a new policy for us that we will put in place um of the I always look at Christina for this the 20 or 30 subcommittees we have the Safety Committee is one of them uh Dr gasperino serves on that on behalf of the board and this will be reviewed um on the Safety Committee is it later this week
033or next week this week this Thursday this Thursday so this is the first read on that policy you'll have a chance to review it um and again in compliance with the new state law that went into effect on January 4th any questions uh in regards to the first read motion to approved so moved moved by Susan second seconded by Esther all those in favor I um bids we've got a bunch of bids for Cooperative bid for medical trainer supplies Cooperative bid for health and safety supplies and a Cooperative custodial Supply bid had a chance to see those bids uh any questions no motion to approve so moved moved by Karen second seconded by car Lyn all those in favor I onto our reports first we'll have Financial reports and we always do a separate approval
034for those I will make note um in regards to number three which is the extra classroom activity report for the period ending June 30th 2023 um the audit Committee subcommittee of the board which is Christina Karen and myself had a chance to review this report and also the associated corrective action plan summary um that we've put in place to continue to have tight fiscal controls so with regards to the um the executive summary the treasurers report and uh the extra classroom activity report and the control cycle audit for the period ending June 30th are there any questions with regards to any of those financial reports you've all received those had a chance to review motion to approve the financial reports I move move by Susan second seconded by Christina all those in favor now sorry
035my system is working a little bit slowly here on to other reports Leila our student representative welcome hi um I'm not sure how that I'll be just because I thought best I best firstly for clubs Brighton Red Cross plans to hold a blood drive Saturday February 10th from 900 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. in high school cafeteria the Galaxy literature and art magazine held their disco theme Suare January 19th which featured AC capella groups and individuals performing Mar one attended their second Conference of the year in Syracuse and won best delegation in addition to six individual students winning Awards Bron me is hosting a meeting this Thursday to write cards for Hospital workers girl up hosted the dean of the School of Engineering at the ufr as a guest speaker some leaders of the Brighton High
036School climate Club traveled to Albany today to rally and Lobby to pass the New York heat Act and the South Asian student Society celebrated Lori with a kite flying party on the 19th as for executive Council we are in the middle of planning the second annual Winter Dance which will be held February 2nd from 7 to 10: p.m. we're also preparing for the winter pep rally which will occur the following Friday at the end of the school day in other news the AC capella groups at the high school um performed at aaoa which featured brunets Mac capella and crazy pitches 15 students who are taking AP Literature traveled to New York City to experience two shakes Shakespeare plays during the first weekend of January and the junior class Council will be holding a fundraiser at
037the 12 Corners Panera February 2nd from 4:00 to 8:00 p.m. wow there's always a ton of things going on thank you when you're not quite 100% for making the time to come in and do an update on behalf of the high school so much appreciated um Board of Education First of the 25 something subcommittees and uh task force and all those other things we have the monor County Schoolboard Association committees first up is Labor Relations I was able to attend that launched last week it had to do with intensive negotiations um with any of the bargaining units in the school district and some of the ways to try to be successful and sort of establish joint line goals always appreciative appreciative of the fact that within our community people are wanting to work towards Solutions
038and um we have great leadership within our bargaining unit so it was informative and um great chance to sort of compare how we do to some other school districts so grateful there information exchange did anyone attend in person I attended excellent uh so on January 10th um we had monor County School boards offered a presentation at the Rochester Museum and Science Center on the upcoming solar eclipse which we will see on April 8th uh great presentation um talked about a lot of educational opportunities what will actually happen in Rochester during the eclipse um people from districts all over monor County and the region attended and it was a it was a really really cool night um I have it posted if any of you would like to see it I have it I have a
039link to it I um I wasn't able to attend in person but watched it later and so just so everyone knows these are some interesting facts so it will begin at 207 and it's a it's a total eclipse which is very very rare um and the next total solar eclipse that will incur in Rochester isn't until the year 2144 and so just to show like you know the significance of this and how excited everybody is about this so that's 120 years past this one so and even if it's cloudy we have been reassured we will still experience totality okay and that's a half day we know already now that that's a half day for Brighton students some schools have the whole day off and some schools have a half day so we'll have a half
040day on that day and they anticipate because it begins at 2:7 totality asks um lasts for a little while then it ends at 4:33 so they're anticipating that afternoon and directly following the eclipse um you know there's 300,000 additional people going to be in Rochester and they're worried right at that like 4:30 5:00 period right when it's over the roads will be very packed with cars so it's um kids should all be home safe safely home and great thank you uh legislative I also attended that uh so January 3rd came right out of the gate into the new year um we did a review of our advocacy day back in December and began to plan for the legislative breakfast which is coming up on February 3rd and as well talked about our upcoming Albany trip
041in March and what I will say about this year the theme of this year is that we've had a lot of FaceTime with our Representatives um both local and then folks who are representing us um Statewide which has been really great we didn't during the pandemic and even last year we didn't um really get those face to- face conversations and it's been really important to have as we move out of that sort of foundation Aid era we all talked about for so long and into the nitty-gritty with the tax cap with some upcoming challenges we all face good challenges right we want folks to have that increase in minimum wage we want to see electric buses on the road but we're going to have to explore a lot of solutions surrounding the tax cap for
042how we fund that appropriately um so lots of good conversations to be had and um if you have not signed up yet for legislative breakfast I encourage you all to do that as well as for the Albany trip so the legislative breakfast is Saturday Saturday February 3rd and the Albany trip is on a Monday is March 4th March 4th yeah we're taking the train I'm excited train is fun it's an early start to the day all right that's uh bosis uh reporting on behalf of our former board president Mark kokanovich just a quick update here and I'll always acknowledge grateful that Mark is willing to take on this responsibility those of us who had a chance to tour bosies a couple of months ago just blown away just outstanding the work that's being done over
043there um Bose's uh Bose's Board of Ed received presentations and reviewed school year 2425 budgets for special education EMCC which is Eastern Monroe career center and the multiac focused budget categories also received a presentation on the OK Conor Academy Community win initiative OK Conor Academy is the count Monro one special education High School grades 9 to 12 wi is an acronym for what I need and is a full School initiative designed to meet the needs for individual students to meet their needs to regulate prior to beginning their academic day it is structured time at the beginning of each day for students to regulate to be in a good place to begin their day we did hear from the okor academy principal and vice uh assistant principal when we were over there just really cool stuff
044being done so thankful for Mark uh taking on that work for us other board member reports I'll start with you Christina so today we had um an audit committee meeting and uh several of the things that we went over uh the New York State com Controllers Office puts out a fiscal stress monitoring system report which um our Deputy superintendent L Lio and Dalia Watts our district Treasurer um talked us through that um report which really is a comparative report across New York State um and how our districts might be stressed financially and because of the great work that we do we really have very little Financial stress on our district um they're constantly monitoring and analyzing our our um Financial Health and so we're really lucky there were some you know environmental factors that are
045a little bit stressed but those are things that we want to see I think because we're really providing services in our community both in special education and English learning English English language Learners which does you know impact our budget and I think in good ways because those are things that we're really doing to serve the needs of our students so that was one of the things that we went over today another thing that we did is that we did get an audit report from our Controllers Office and we went over a corrective action plan summary as a committee and we made some uh plans in place to sort of change perhaps some processes proc procedures think about how we wanted to communicate both from Lou and Dalia to the audit committee and to the board
046so um that was that was very helpful and good to think through those processes every at every audit and then we have regular processes where we look at the claims audit report and we review other some of the things that we saw today in these report it's also great to get objective as you pointed out objective feedback from the state talking talking about the quality of our sort of fiscal situation and um hear that from an independent auditor is always gratifying soe I have nothing I'm looking forward to Safety Committee this Thursday Karen uh I've been able to attend two PTSA meetings one back in December one just last week um you know always grateful to the parents community members that we have Dr Love included um who are out there doing awesome things for
047kids kids it is always busy at the PTSA table and I love to see that we that we have both some traditions that continue for our kids and then other New Traditions that have come on board and online so always appreciative of that work I also met with the school-based equity team at 12 corners on January 4th um where we're talking about um how kids feel safe and included in sort of unstructured areas of their day during passing time before school after school um and that's a result of surveying the students there um talking about places they feel like they could feel uh more included or need Improvement in their day so great that's what I got thank you Esther we um had a meeting uh curriculum Council had a meeting on the 18th and
048we are continuing our work um in cont content specific teams identifying exemplars for our transfer goals um and each team focuses on one of six subjects um those subjects are Health social studies science Ela World language and math and the transfer goals Define what we want our students to independently be able to do with their disciplinary Knowledge and Skills in the long run um and each um each transfer goal is um uh appropriate for each um level of school uh so for you know obviously Council Rock is looking for a different transfer goal um than the our high school um and it is assumed that the students will be applying their Knowledge and Skills to complete a complex task out once they leave our buildings um and it's really exciting it's a little confusing what
049we're doing now um both car Lyn and I are on the on the committee um but it's really exciting work and we're we're really learning um what we need to do to complete um going on through what do with the profile of a graduate it's all connected um so that's curriculum Council um hiring pract practices committee was uh celled this month we are meeting in February perfect it's a lot to undertake for curriculum Council that's like a big piece of the pie to take a it's a lot yeah to say the least right Cur thank you car Ln um just to Pig you back on that the curriculum council is it consists of um District administrators teachers community members parents it's really great to be in this room led by Dr Rio and um Julie
050cop and just hearing everybody's opinions and really getting on the same page with what we're trying to get our students to achieve by the end of their career here in Brighton so that was great um and I did not mention that last month I attended the families of color meeting it was great to be there meet new families that I hadn't met before um Dr Glazer did an awesome presentation on technology to tools that are available to our students K through 12 um it was a lot of great learning for me to know what we have offered for our students and families and how we're working to utilize technology to close some of those gaps that we're seeing in learning um as a impact of the pandemic so it was exciting to get to a
051different group and meet some new people and um get myself out there I'll just thank you very much I'll just quickly add uh we have so much construction going on in All Phases plan strategizing underway finishing up punch list all this other stuff um I say this every time and I'll continue to say every time our buildings team is fantastic John de Val Rob loose and a whole bunch of other folks who are uh watching out for the kids watching out for our schools and making sure we're creating the best possible learning environment um continue to be grateful uh to all of them for the the work they do uh let's see Nicole BTA hey um lots of great pictures I don't know if you looked through them I was like oh my goodness um
052so uh for Council Rock you'll hear a lot of the habits of mind um Mrs tas's class having their Winter Garden Party um and the friendship Garden which is right outside before kindergarten rooms um they had chocolate they had cookies hot chocolate cookies and a story um they were using the habits of mind Gathering data through all senses and clear and precise language to describe their exploration which this with the snow which you can see some friends really have a good time they are well geared in everything well geared go it looks like so much fun second graders in extended studies cluster groups also use habits of mind thinking flexibly striving P accuracy um to do artwork designed from their handprints and they sold these as a fundraiser um for Bell's buds dog rescue for
05393 donation and Wild Wings for 200 um they were very happy to contribute to our community um back to Mrs Tea's class they're having fun um using the habits of mind of flexibility problem solving and creative thinking they designed dens for stuffed animals um so they had all sorts of materials they could use um and then they made sure that they were warm by putting a fan on them to see what would happen um so it's super super cute you can see some cute smiling faces there and um it was International stem day on November 8th Mrs pora second graders had a whole day full of stem um fun again habits of mind persistence working interdependently um they had engineering and coding challenges a science experiment and a visit from an optical engineer who's a
054parent in our district um they spent the whole day building um they did experiments they um learned about Optics and then Dr boat came and taught them more about Optics um they had the vocabulary that they needed she showed them how polarized lenses work how light travels um how Crystal sheets help us see um things and what kinds of gases are on planets um she showed water beads just some wonderful a wonderful time um and then she gave them little prisms that they can use to carry around to find rainbows um and then they finished with Coating in our habb and they um Co Dash robots to behave like chameleons which was part of our Whitten and wisdom um module and they changed color with every new piece of paper that they went to so
055they had a great time and you can see the little robot with the photos also picked up a word San terrific I know sfic that is definitely a Mrs Porto word um huge shout out to Katie covert who made it her mission to go around fres and document as many things happening as she could um so you can see Mrs Zan's fourth graders um identified different languages they ended up having Hebrew Ukrainian Thai Arabic Hindi Mandarin Chinese Japanese Korean English and American Sign Language just in their class class um so what a great way to show the diversity there was a shout out to margarit opet who was named a Moder counselor um then you see Mrs scottf Freed's class who were testing systems of moving water they had a lot of constraints they had
056to um do but then they were able to share out their designs and revise to make it work um the most interesting one was that the beakers had to be 100 cm apart so they had to make it travel that far so you can see lots of work going on lots of Hands-On work Mrs Higgins fourth grade class was working on Whitten wisdom um during their Ela block they used fiction and non-fiction to compare the heart in figurative and literal term so you can see some friends working hard with a fun hat too um Mrs MC's fourth graders um this is just during their Ela block where they um doing independent reading also math work and partner work using their iPads so again all the kids doing wonderful things Mrs maz's students were in Mr
057Simmons room during science class um they were using non-fiction skills to work through a Super Science magazine so again you see lots of collaboration uh Miss Giordano's fifth graders as part of their Ela block um part of they're reading a novel called rules so while she was working with one group everyone else was working and I think that this was Tian cheek everyone's favorite grammar and funu work I'm thinking that was maybe a little bit of a joke um that maybe it's not their favorite uh Mrs Simmons third graders identifying main idea and details using the Fantastic undersea life of jacqu Gusto also part of our Whitten wisdom uh Mrs Easter Le fourth graders projects they also were doing for Whit wisdom the figurative and literal heart um so they created games and activities and
058invited families to come and see them and really great work Mrs Willis is fourth grade student so some classes have a soft start to their morning um where they can pick an activity that they would like to do so you can see some reading happening some writing watercolor painting and some bowling um which is a very creative bowling alley they made here uh Mrs arrian's fourth graders also having a soft start there was multiplication janga Jenga dral building um and making geometric shapes to show shaped pieces and then some reading reading in a novel see all those friends Mrs hit's third graders who were using tiles to work on multiplication arrays um and they also in the second set they're working on wit and wisdom some new vocabulary on the whiteboards awesome work at TCMS
059it was the 13th annual gingerbread house building event um so they went through and learned the origins of gingerbread and the stories of the brothers G grim and then they made their own gingerbread houses and these were the winners of the the favorite houses at BHS the Muslim Student Association um wanted to share and spread a message of positivity and peace so they made cards and chocolates for faculty and staff and this this one was pretty amazing when I read through it Miss galucia Studio Art to um it's a new course for functional skills students in a smaller setting um to look at to explore with art materials and ideas so they worked on found object portrait collages and they displayed these at the January art show at BHS so it would be in that
060um big display area BHS um they researched artists they look at how that transformation um happens then they turned the room into a flea market so that they could kind of go around and pick the found items that they wanted they learned attachment um techniques and their final pieces are really beautiful um really extraordinary and then you can see one friend posing with his um at HS there U Mr Conroy's economics and college economic classes they had the shin shim come who um delivered a lesson on the Israeli economy economy looked at parallels and differences between the two economic systems um uh he was just so grateful that they were able to come and the importance of the cultural exchanged between us and our friends and Modine great picture at the start at the beginning
061in particular that's a great landscape there well right yeah trying and give you guys this little something still that ofu thank you beautiful uh PTSA update Dr Love sure thank you so I'm happy to report on some events and activities that have been hosted by the PTSA um uh and reported um by the building chairs um Representatives this month so at 12 Corners um there were a number of PTSA sponsored events um the PTSA hosted a um well Amy excuse me Amy uh Cincy Connor uh is the hospitality chair and she supplied 150 thank you cards and treats um to the staff at TCMS um and they were delivered uh to The Faculty mailboxes on the 22nd of December so um the ptca would like to thank Amy for her efforts um Dr excuse me
062Mrs um Edmonds hosted a virtual meeting at TCMS um it and it was held on Wednesday January 17th um she had two guest speakers uh Greg Hall from uh custodio which is a technology device monitoring app company and Stacy kgal who is the six to 12th grade instructional um technology coach for Brighton Central School District um the topics discussed included U Technologies to Moder monitor students devices um that are provided by the uh by the school district and also um to talk about the district's instructional tools uh sixth grade orientation uh um excuse me the sixth grade parent orientation meeting was actually held this evening um and the building chair Laura briman spoke with parents um about the PTSA and encouraged them to get involved and I'm sure that the sixth graders will enjoy their
063activity night which is coming up on February 2nd um at Council Rock um in the month of December there were a number of different events um these students had an opportunity to sample seaweed snacks for their fun food Friday event and yes and uh the second graders um enjoyed a movie night um and the staff um the PT SAA uh supplied the staff with um hot chocolate and um snacks and um the principal hosted um a meeting and the topic discussed was diversity equity and inclusion um in the month of January there've already been a number of events that have passed uh there was a community service Book and Toy Drive um on the 18th uh the incoming kindergarten information night was held and the PTSA building chairs were on uh there to discuss the
064PTSA and encourage activity within PTSA um and then um in later on this month or perhaps um for the whole month um the PTSA will also provide snacks for uh for the staff and the PTSA continues to encourage people the um teachers to take photos and share them for the yearbook um parents are encouraged to volunteer with the library and um finally um the students will have an opportunity this time in January to sample uh pumpkin seas that are produced locally lots of great stuff yeah lots of great stuff also um a personal thanks Dr Love um you provided us with some great suggestions with regards to Martin Luther King Day some different things to look at some different resources and those are all under review now so appreciate you taking the time to do
065that thank you welcome well I would ask for the super superintendent report but we've got a problem that the superintendent isn't here he's actually in Guatemala and I'll read a quick update and um then ask Dan Goldman to play a clip from Dr mwan uh we're very excited to have word back from Dr mcgaan Who is currently in Guatemala participating in the Life Touch memory Mission Dr mcgaan was asked as a superintendent of the year to represent the national superintendent Association aasa and joined 40 other volunteers on the trip sponsor by and organized by Life Touch This Mission the 23rd they have taken volunteers on and provided complete funding for involves assisting in building classroom space for members of the underserved indigenous Guatemalan population and working with their students teachers and local residents on this
066cultural and educational exchange the group has been working with the nonprofit hug it forward to use recycled water bottles and non-organic garbage to install ecologically friendly bottle bricks that form the ins ins side of each classroom wall Dr mcgall has been working with huged Ford on this trip to explore service trip options for Brighton students and connected yesterday with students at TCM TCMS about the trip he's looking forward to connecting huged forward with the district for bright and beliefs day and sharing his experiences with any classes or groups in the district that would like to learn more about the experience the struggles for inclusion and Equity experienced by the indigenous Mayan population in Guatemala or the many ways that we can learn from the Guatemalan experience as it relates to politics social justice and sustainability
067we have a quick clip that Dan has booted up for us Dan we go [Music] ahead Holden Diaz I'm with uh I'm with some of my friends in uh Guatemala and I want to thank uh the board and everybody else for their support in uh um you know kind of holding down the for and everything back at school as everybody always does probably uh just fine and fact better without me getting in your way however I uh am here in uh shepon the school that we're working on with the Life Touch memory Mission and as part of the superintendent report tonight just I was going to say hello and tell you a little bit about what we're doing we're working on a bottle classroom the Life Touch memory mission for 24 years has traveled around
068the world uh supporting people in developing places in terms of um promoting educational experiences for their kids this is a Mayan Village shatan is um in the pashtun region which is not far from techon where we're staying with fler Guatemala City and this community uh pursued this so that they could build classrooms like this bottle classroom that's been previously built to add to the educational opportunities uh for their their kids this is kind of their General uh Gathering area and the classroom specifically uh that we're working on and the way the project works is uh we tie bottles plastic bottles that are filled with inorganic trash uh into the wall structure uh to form the inside of the wall working with the kids local community in fact uh they're having a meeting right now with
069their PTA and planners for the next uh classro there are 40 volunteers from across the country National Elementary principal Association secondary princip Association the superintendent Association which I'm helping to represent along with PTA school boards and other folks uh really participating in this great experience uh to support this community but uh to be honest to be welcomed into Community with these human beings and learn more about being better World citizens the ways we can help others we've talked quite a bit about uh migration immigration and uh the experiences here and learning from our own experiences uh and our country's experiences and our interactions uh with places like this it's been a great experience I appreciate the opportunity to report back and quickly say hello to everybody I'm missing you at the board meeting but I
070certainly enjoying experience connecting with uh these great kids and families and wrapping up our classroom uh building today it'll be great to see on the other side looking for forward to a board report to tell you more about uh the experience here and uh the village of chapaton and the great people here that we've had a chance to get to know and work with thanks everybody take care and have a great meeting really cool thank you Dan for queuing that up and thank you Dr McGowan for preparing it it is not a stretch to say it's probably warmer where he is than where we are right now based on the looks of it um consent agenda um we've got the normal set of approval of personnel changes recommendations for the committee on special ed and
071preschool special Ed and um fundraising activities as well a good eating opportunity for the math team exec Council winter formula in girls basketball activity nights questions in with regards to the consent agenda motion to approve moved by Karen seconded by Esther all those in favor quick note before we adjourn the vote construction uh project vote on February 7th in this building 2035 Monroe Avenue it's going to be in the gymm um I'm I'm just seven thank you very much I appreciate that 7:00 a.m. to 7: p.m. just want to call attention to this it was referred to by our folks at the curriculum Council the profile of a grad in the newsletter that came out please take a minute to read this it's just fantastic it talks a lot about what we're trying to do
072with the blueprint and um what we're trying to do there so um just really good work and sometimes these things don't get looked at I I highly recommend it as a read and finally as always to Mike Bill Violet thank you for making the whole night work for us with all the technology and everything else we greatly appreciate you and for Kim and Kevin's absence help me keep this meeting organized greatly appreciate our Clark motion to adjourn so moved moved by Esther second seconded by Sue all those in favor I we are adjourned this has been a special presentation from the Brighton Central School District Board of Education