001this is a special presentation from the Brighton Central School District Board of Education welcome to the Brighton Central School District Board of Education business meeting for Tuesday December 12th 2023 this meeting is called to order to begin with we allow for public participation to receive feedback or get questions from members of the community is there anybody here tonight who would like to speak seeing none we'll move on to what is always one of our favorite parts of every public meeting that's the Brighton Believers award Dr McGowan so for the first time uh in the history of the bright and Believers award I'd like to call up the OG to come up here [Applause] please I'm trying to think of the spot where the camera can get you best so uh first of all the introduction
002to the awards the bright Believers Awards as you know and hopefully our community knows of course at this point too are all about people being recognized in our community for demonstrating the brighten beliefs character traits Integrity respect responsibility kindness and self-control the award winners are students teachers staff members parents coaches community members the nomination form is available at bcsd.org .org these are very special people doing very special things in our community and tonight is absolutely no exception to that James Smith a cleaner at Brighton High School had 25 separate nominations also never happened before come in for uh him which is something again is unprecedented and that on its own demonstrates the impact that Mr Smith also known to the students as Mr OG has on students on staff at the high school and frankly
003on all of us we were talking about you just a little while ago and it was all good I promised my friend but it was about how you can't help but have your bucket filled when you interact with you and I say that you know well my family who interacts with you quite a bit at events and how you make us feel and you do that for everybody all the time here are some of the highlights from the nominations teacher Andrew Conroy wrote he consistently encourages students to be respectful of their peers and to take pride in their school Community instilling Values that extend far beyond his custodial responsibilities he is the one trusted adult for many kids that makes the difference that makes everybody in this school Community as an educator feel better about
004the work that they're doing GG MTI wrote Mr Smith consistently promotes positivity and responsibility throughout the school by fostering close relationships with students and helping to create an environment where students are motivated to to take care of the school and each other Liam feffer wrote that he supports students by attending Games showing his support for our school and taking time out of his day to show his appreciation for the students he cares so much for and take and I'm sorry Thomas D'Angelo wrote Mr OG deserves the nomination because of the positive connection he makes with students the important lessons he teaches students and because of his positive attitude every day this is kids seeing you do this every day and taking the time to write it down Taj Foster wrote he holds students to a
005level of responsibility that allows them to grow as social and productive students at a high school which shows how much further he goes to be more than just a custodial staff member Luke pillo wrote Mr Smith teaches students valuable life lessons throughout our days with his wisdom and personable spirit that doesn't even come close to describing that Spirit but it's a wonderful way for this young person to express it Nathan ruckin wrote when I am older I want to have the same enthusiasm as Mr Smith does every single day his unwavering Spirit helps to motivate me and my fellow classmates each and every day at school Ben remel wrote his positive influence throughout the school has touched almost every student and staff member Ella Simpson wrote he keeps our school clean and is in my
006opinion a true underrated hero hopefully rated right tonight Isaac Wing wrote he has interacted positively with everyone he has met and created a positive lasting impact on students by connecting with them on a personal level going above and beyond I only began but just scratched the surface in describing the impact that you've had on our school environment on all of us in this room personally and can tell you how much we appreciate it we are forever indebted to you and recognize you tonight as a brighten believer can you take a picture because Dan's not here and let's see uh John and Rob if you guys could come on up and Lou if you could come on up too thanks Tom and actually Mark yeah do you mind that'd be great Danielle never mind Mark sorry
007calling you into duty already Tom hop in the picture thanks pick the easy [Applause] great I would love to thank everybody in this room and I will continue doing my job because that is my job I put 35 years with the Rochester City School District working with special weed kids so this is part of my family when I come here I put on a hat is to teach when I go in this cafeteria every day they know a responsibility is going to come from me is to do your job thank you for giving me this [Applause] reward okay you're all to my left so as we're doing approval someone's got to raise their hand so I can see who it is um we have all um received the agenda that we're working from tonight I
008need a motion to approve tonight's agenda move by Susan seconded by owner all those in favor um approval of minutes from our last meeting November 28th um question questions edits changes to those minutes as you've reviewed them motion to approve move by Karen seconded by Carrie Lynn all those in favor um very excited that we're going to get a an update from Deana Spagnola in regards to the student Support Services Program so looking forward to that tonight Diana isn't that what I got all the technology and I still had to bring my paper to just in case so thank you excited to be able to be here to share some highlights and updates about this office of student services I feel it's priority important to highlight all of the areas that my office supports including
009the areas that are listed across the top often people say well what is the office of student services and so I just like to make sure that I list those items and those areas that we support every day every way for every child a big portion that I'm very proud of and I I owe a great deal of uh thanks to the leadership from Caitlyn feny my assistant director who is really helping to lead our work to support the the blueprint and mental health if you open up the blueprint when you go online mental health is the first page of our blueprint and here is our overall goal for the year and our continuing work and strategies for how we are supporting each of the goals and um the work that I'm going to highlight
010that I've also been able to talk during our blueprint overview throughout the year so I'll only summarize some of those pieces today Caitlyn has been working with our building leadership our building teams and our mental health departments and now our work is even expanding with our partnership with urmc as we look at our supporting the area of mental health um in terms of the training so a common theme throughout the presentation tonight really is about how we're maximizing our resources how we're increasing our area of development and strengthening our circle of support for our students including some of the professional development that's happening most recently uh Dr Melissa Heatley was presenting at the middle school on trauma informed practices in January she'll be joining us as a leadership team and she will also be even
011presenting to our teaching assistants so just some examples of some other professional development that we're providing including also um upcoming in February uh to the entire Brighton High School staff um the QPR question persuade respond in terms of identifying indicators of suicide or students at risk of suicide our work around mtss and um in a few seconds I'm going to talk about our work regarding um School avoidance or I like to call our school re-engagement plans in particular and I'm going to mention Caitlyn once again because she's in the process right now of helping our buildings in our district take a look at the tools that we're going to use to conduct in the spring another social emotional learning survey how we're going to do that what tools will we use for that and digging
012into the data for that as well our mtss are multi-tiered systems of support teams our BST teams bright and support teams in our buildings have really been digging in very carefully around school avoidance school re-engagement plans helping to support our students who are struggling maybe from covid maybe related to mental health needs struggling coming to school this is a very individualized it is not a oniz fits-all plan and really using the guidance of our partnership with urmc as well the ladder comes up as a theme a lot you going to move along very slowly very gradually along the steps and teers of the ladder engaging back into school that could mean time in the tutoring center that could mean time in um a class here's an example of a sample re-engagement plan just a simple
013one example and again I want to emphasize it is not a one-size fits all we are looking at different aspects of this what works for students to re-engage them in school another example is we're also going to be um bringing in some of your RMC team we just talked tonight as our monthly nurses meeting to talk about trauma informed practices and school and re-engagement plans with our nurses as well so that would be really exciting uh another example of great professional development we are constantly looking at our Continuum of services uh January and I will be meeting with individual teams individual teachers across buildings to look at what are projected needs of programming for our students what are things that we need to anticipate in terms of budget implications but also at the end of
014it what do students need and what are the programs that we need to put in place for our students this is an example of the Continuum that we have in place but it is always it's a fluid needs assessment that we look at where do we need to bring supports to our students again I want to use that phrase circle of support for all of our students as well I'm looking forward to the conversations that I'll be having with individual teachers in January and into February as well I'd be remiss if I didn't bring up our outof district placements as those are a critical important way that we support many of our students if it's not in one of our four buildings our constant communication with those teams looking at plans and how we provide
015what is needed for students who may have unique needs that we are not able to support within our buildings as well we also have a number of students that we support in our parentally place programs I like to highlight this in particular the last few years as I've mentioned last year we we've seen an increase in the number of referrals from the parental replaced and I'm really excited that beginning January and February Caitlyn and I are going to be working with some of these schools around multi-tiered systems of support to help take a look at the number of referrals looking in particular at tier 2 and tier three interventions before we get to the special education table here's another example of some maximizing resources I was really excited today as our nursing team was joined
016by Kate Valdez our new nurse coordinator you may remember her her during our time of Co our covid nurse we called her she now is our nurse coordinator we're really excited to have her on board working part-time each week helping to develop practice process procedure helping to develop our team and let's face it my background is in special education while we oversee the nursing department I now have a right-hand man in terms of knowledge based for nursing boots on the ground practice to help support our nursing team so we were very grateful to have her on board last year when I presented our overview I talked about the St John fer University program our transition programming there we've added some really great features we're excited about we're partnering with bosis to work with a transition
017specialist so we can better Target our goals the experiences the interest and needs of our students we've also embedded into the program um a psychologist Heather Gabriel and Lindsey German one of our speech and language providers is coming to support with some communication needs to support social communication working in the community so we're really excited about those features in those programs I'm going to be highlighting some some pieces around our 1214 programming um due to increased enrollment and an increase of students we actually added a third 1214 program to Council Rock very late in the summer but where we they were able to turn very quickly pivot to support and put resources whether that's OT PT speech services change schedules to support very unique individualized needs of that very very very important program um students
018coming from not only across the county across our country and actually across the globe as well coming for the special education supports that we provide so we're very proud of that and we're also proud of the way we're able to support those students needs some highlights here within our 1214 program of how we are working these are some highlights from Council Rock of how we're able to build community adding in that other program how how we're learning in the community here we have some examples of some students at the high school uh delivering coffee our coffee cart that delivers every day it's a wonderful and amazing experience sometimes you get to do the job that you want to do it's your favorite sometimes you have to do a job because it's your job and you're
019not interested in it and then how do you work on your communication when you're doing part of the job that's maybe not so preferred um here's an example to the right is our St John Fisher University transition program they are working together also with westero and Webster students in this snapshot prior to this they were on a community- based outing they had uh prepared uh cost reports menus and recipes and here today they're are preparing what they prepare what they planned for together as a team and uh maybe Mrs bino some familiar faces in this picture here as well but here's an example from our high school um where we're also serving our community whether we are working together at the food bank that love that picture um the 1214 program is also looking at
020how they can use um some of their own tips to give back to the community um they were really invested in how they can continue to support other families in need and that was a student generated um requests so we're taking a look at how we can navigate that process for them and we're very appreciative of their wonderful wonderful ideas we have internship opportunities not only at the food bank um but the friendly home and and um at the YMCA as well where we're continuing to look at that Community Connection Community conversation Independence and really strengthening goals in the interest of our students as well I could go on for quite some time but these are just some highlights and I promise that I would keep it brief any questions yeah just a first a
021comment um I appreciate that the team is open to establishing these Partnerships like with urmc CU I think years ago maybe we would have tried to take everything in house and sort of figure it out so I love the Partnerships you're doing with other schools as well as like experts like urmc I think that makes us better and allows us to serve the kids better so I appreciate that second thing is I'm going to briefly apologize because I was working off an old agenda and so I was trying to get squared around with uh Kevin so I had to look away a few times and I apologize for that but when I don't pull up the right agenda that's on me so I apologize so no worries great job any comments from anybody else thank
022you appreciate the work I'm getting coaching one second please um I did do that a little bit out of order as I said I was working off an older agenda so it was my fault I apologize but we do have a very exciting uh couple of um moments to hit um with for two staff that happened to be in attendance um we're going to approve two 10e appointments and then we're going to present those 10e certificates to the two individuals I should have made her stay up there right if that's what that would have been ideal and then she was going to sing a song there's a whole bunch of things like Everybody's Got Talent competition so we just did a great job di on the student services uh student support services update now we're
023going to do uh for the board approval of the administrator 10e recommendation for Deana Spagnola who we just just heard from motion to approve moved by Karen seconded by Elanor all those in favor I also want to do approval of teacher tenure recommendation for Donald Benedict motion to approve move by Esther seconded by Sue all those in favor I so uh we'll do the presentations and I would ask uh DT and Diana to come to the podium uh for Christine and Larry to present you with your certificate uh and you can make your way up there the first person on the uh agenda is uh Diana so if you can head back up Christine Larry will meet you there got it Tiana don't don't go anywhere yet though because now you have to endure hearing
024all the wonderful things about yourself but you're joined also tonight by your family who's here and I would like to also give them a round of applause thank them for all their support so I have the pleasure of recommending you to the board for this tenure appointment and what I wrote to them was that it was with with great enthusiasm and excitement uh that I offered my wholehearted recommendation for this tenure appointment as director of student services and I've had the privilege of working closely with Diana in this current role and when she was an assistant principal at French Road I've witnessed firsthand her outstanding dedication and valuable contributions to the students staff and greater Brighton school Community Diana possesses an exceptional commitment to meeting the diverse needs of each student under her care care
025and as we heard in that presentation they are diverse they are deep they are varied and they are all exceptionally important her unwavering empathy towards all individuals combined with her deep rooted commitment to this District have consistently translated into initiatives that prioritize the holistic well-being and academic success of each and every child I believe one of Dianna's most admirable qualities is her exceptional ethic of care not a surprise to any of you that know di at all she is Relentless in making sure Relentless in making sure that each child and their family is supported Diana confronts apathy and Embraces uncomfortable moments to push adults to find better answers for students she possesses an exceptional moral compass consistently making decisions that reflect her deep seated commitment to ethical practices and the betterment of our students lives
026she also demonstrates incredible collegiality fostering environment of collaboration of support among staff parents and students alike her kindness and unwavering dedication to doing what is right for the right reasons has served as a Guiding Light for all of us Diana's dedication to upholding the values and mission of the district is commendable her tireless efforts that every decision made align with the best interest of our students and community members underscore her passion for education and her role within the district there is simply no question that Diana's leadership will continue to enrich the lives of our students and further Elevate our own standards for excellence she has earned this exceptional commitment thanks to her exceptional work and our confidence that she will continue to make a remarkable difference for our students again [Applause] congratulations if I could
027ask DT Ben can come up now [Applause] please Donald otherwise known to us as DT Benedict uh was recommended by Mr Tappen for this tenure appointment he writes that DT is an educator who goes above and beyond daily to ensure the success of his students while building deep and meaningful relationships with each of them as well Mr Benedict has his bachelor's degree in elementary education from Mercy Hurst College and his master's degree in special education also from Mercy Hurst before landing here at Council Rock he was working as a classroom teacher long-term sub at French Road and then previously taught in the Rochester City School District DT commits his full self to anything he does and this certainly includes his classroom he works hard to create a positive supportive and challenging environment for all of
028his students his energy is infectious and it is not uncommon to walk into his room and find him playing his guitar or sharing his love of other music with his students no matter what is happening in room 52 the constant is the love and adoration that DT students have for him he respects each of his students individually and helps them collaborate with each other to create a team atmosphere where together they all achieve and support one another in addition to his students Mr Benedict connects with their families he communicates frequently and elicits their support in the team mentality of working collaboratively to ensure success for their children within our school culture DT has taken on a role as a strong leader he connects with his colleagues both socially and academically he has become an integral
029part of the first grade team his work in blazing the trail for our newest Ela curriculum has been impressive like all other parts of his life he has taken it head on with an incredibly positive attitude and with a passion that is unparalleled his positive attitude is something that Mr Tappen so appreciates he is often a face he looks to during a meeting to find a reassuring smile and head nod showing his unending support for the work that we do with kids Mr Benedict completes his probationary period demonstrating an excellence in teaching and Leadership his positivity diligence commitment love for the profession and for his students are all a part of this excellence he is most deserving of a tenure appointment in the Brighton Central School District and he wholeheartedly endorses the recommendation first of
030all because I didn't acknowledge them he's also here with his family ten can we give them a round of applause thank you for giving of him at times to work with our children and for all the sacrifices that means in our school community and DT congratulations we couldn't be more happy for you [Applause] spe and thank you for letting us go out of order Mr Davis takes the fall but that is not necessary it's what he's been given by me so thank you and great job Diana glad you got to present in front of your family I know you're probably very excited about that opportunity so okay gun yeah don't blame yes that is correct think uh next up we have a Brighton High School facilities Plan update with Lou and his team good evening
031so in just a moment I'll call up Brian seninsky from SEI design but I wanted to make a few introductory remarks um on behalf of our owner architect uh construction management team we're excited to be recommending for the board's consideration phase two of the 2023 24 Capital Improvement project we as a team have spent months prioritizing defining scope working with our financial consultants to put a package um that we're really excited about I'd like to take the opportunity to recognize our team um representing the uh the district and our leadership team certainly board uh board president Mr Davis is is a key member of that we have John noelli and Robert loose our partners at SEI design Brian sininsky and David hmark and C campus construction Gary Huffman and Nick aalo I can't thank them
032enough for their efforts and the work that they've done to present again a project that we're really excited about that I think is going to do great things for our community and and for our broad broader School Community um some key highlights of the project that I wanted to note just before inviting Brian up uh key scope items this is going to include improvements to our athletic fields it achieves full accessibility to the front of BHS and access to the fourth floor and renovation of the fourth floor which has not been significantly renovated since 1939 Dr Hall so we'll be finally updating updating that space uh we'll be re-engineering the BHS parking lot to to improve safety and allow for future Traffic Safety improvements it will improve Building Safety at TCMS entrance by moving the
033main office to the first floor and allowing the creation of a mental health Suite we'll be improving hva HVAC systems um at BHS and French Road and achieving energy efficiencies we'll be red redesigning the Bus Loop at French Road uh to improve safety and scheduling issues and we'll be improving workplace safety and building operational continuity in the at French Road uh elementary school so with that I'd like uh to invite Brian slinsky up to further uh Define the scope of this project and then we'll entertain any questions thank you well he finished so I don't know what I have to do um thank you for having me here tonight um happy to present the project U we've developed the project working through the long range plan and identifying a bunch of items uh as Lou
034said infrastructure accessibility and safety kind of some of the caveats that were used to define these uh and they will affect French Road 12 corners and the high school along with the campus site as I'll kind of go through please ask questions as I go um french road I actually went to school here when it was open wall uh what you're seeing is the Highlight in the hallways here and really what that means is we have what are called he pump systems those units are sitting up in the ceilings and they're aging out and so as part of the project we've allocated a portion of funds to handle as as many as we can with that portion of funds and continuing to do the updates um as we are currently doing an a portion of
035the current project as I zoom in a little here uh on the back side of the building this is right behind the cafetorium you'll see kind of a red box this is a piece of an addition uh what this really is is there's a freezer a commodity type freezer that needs to be added and then if we shift the freezer and cooler inside the kitchen it's allowing for the kitchen to function a lot better and then relieve some space inside that and we'll do some renovations to make this function better so it kind of was a twofold we talked about one item and then uh looking at the other item and aligning all these together it works out really really well um additional to that you see a little highlight on the mechanical room there's
036some work inside the mechanical space um detailed systems which I could go through but I don't know if anybody wants to talk pumps and systems okay outside we're looking at the Bus Loop I think those of you that have been there uh have managed or worked on staging buses to get in and out of here it's very difficult so how do we start to look at that and we've looked at multiple plans and this isn't fully vetted final but it's a very good take at this I'm going to Overlay this so if you look at at the way the buses come in now they actually stage half elsewhere looking at it in this manner uh we make a realignment of the front Loop and do what we call the Chevron parking for the buses and
037then do a little bit modification to um the parent drop off portion of that to make those fed this gets everybody in um all the buses in line and really is a huge update to safety and the way things are being managed now okay uh 12 Corners again on the security side enhancing a secur entry and then integrating some office spaces in this front portion um it this is a difficult task we've been struggling with the design and we're still working through all the details because you have exiting out of this gym piece and that kind of messes up how we come in and out of the entry so we'll be working diligently through this solution but uh We've allocated the funds to handle that um over at the high school now this gets fun
038cuz I'm going to show you this slide and then I'm going to show you a funky slide that I put together that I hope shares the um elevator piece but the Boiler Room there's some upgrades that need to be done there um as we know we got to keep the heat and running at all times and so we have to do some infrastructure work here but uh in the front and I'm going to blow this up here is adding that elevator um is Mr Lio mentioned accessing the fourth floor has not been available and so if you're not aware as students um come through the program actually they're shifting rooms to get the rooms down for their programmatic needs if somebody in an accessibility issue has to attend that class so by doing this renovation
039of the rooms up top uh and adding the elevator and so I kind of stacked all the floors uh on the ground floor in the bottom we're going to get you an entrance and we're going to cut into a few of the areas so we make modifications and we worked um through this with your principal um and modifying those r we can squeeze an elevator right in and where does that elevator come up if you look at the first floor it will actually be as you now walk in just to the right when you come up the stairs to the right hand side there's a display area the elevator will come up through there we're trying to make that and we're actually working with State historic preservation so that we don't modify the look too
040much uh we're going to have to do a little bit uh and we'll move some of those cases and integrate that into the lobby which is good for security and then we move up the next floor we're impacting a small portion of one of the U student rooms there you'll see on the second floor just we're taking just a sliver enough to get the elevator in uh and then on the fourth floor we actually cut a room in half to get that in so we kind of lose half a room but in part of our long range planning that we're working with um Mr Hall here we're working through how we're modifying and shifting all of the rooms to accommodate these solutions that that will allow you a bunch of things uh one full renovation
041of that upstairs and utilization and two there's actually some side rooms that flank so the future in the long range plan that's been talked about is we'll be able to move stuff up and down and access some little bit more of the storage which helps relieve other areas so that's a a good any questions to that one because I know that one's a slice through your building it's not easy okay uh and then this is just showing those classrooms on the upper level uh that will all get renovated and you should go visit if you haven't um they're interesting okay um site work in regards to the site work this is starting to look at baseball softball in the back area I think as we know getting started in the spring around here in in
042our climate uh yourselves and many of uh the schools around the area are looking to modify into turf fields um baseball softball this is the way way you exist today this is kind of overlaying that plan so now some good things have happened you've done some acquisition of property and that's fostered a little bit of the ability to work on this design in this fashion again we're halfway there so don't think of these is done we'll be working with your new athletic director here uh going through some of the details of this but it allows us to get some more parking it allows us to start looking at safety of that par working lot and you know drop offs and all the things going on in the front um and then integrates both a baseball
043and a softball field and you see in this design the baseball off also is the ability to Overlay a soccer field um and so you'll be able to get double utilization of that area um we will be working with some modifications around maintenance as well with this um but one of the very exciting in my mind and this has been a little bit of a a goal here is to line the exit of the parking lot to the street across Newton across uh and so you've already invested in a study with a traffic engineer uh that engineer has come back with a few what we call warrants and those warrants are things that the Department of Transportation goes through to depict if we can add signal lights or modifications to the road uh if you
044are not aware which I'm sure you are you are at a crazy intersection and you actually hit three jurisdictions um this road is a county road we have already met with the County Department of Transportation uh we have began that discussion and I say began uh and this is not uh the signals themselves or the the answer to this is not all in the project but in planning what is in the project is to align those two roads and then work through with Department of Transportation uh and this is where if you see the red circle it would realign the second piece of the puzzle and one of the the things that got triggered in the first study was that in the yellow box there we have the crossing area um there are many well
045not many there's a couple of instances where cars are still going through that and so we're looking at what we call a hawk system or a modification and U working with do and Dot was really great in sharing some of that information and talking to us about different modifications that if we don't meet the warrants and get a full signal light they might be able to work with us and do a different type of system that will make this saf for slow traffic down Comet uh and there's even some study as to changing some of the the Turning lanes and um modifications to the main road now that's a yearlong process so I want you to know and L was harping on me that to make sure that we express we're working on that portion
046is not part of this project but tied into what we're doing now to Foster that down the road any questions to that because that's a whole bunch of stuff no I'd note that when the time comes we will be able to present this whole plan to the community they'll be able to come and see some of those things when we get there we we've talked about that in the past but the community particularly those folks who live on winon road who live through that traffic snarl in the morning and then in the early afternoon um we'll have a chance to come and see what we're proposing and have a chance to provide feedback and things like that you guys have been great about saying we'll get that all out there on some uh cardboard and
047put it out absolutely and that is a great tie right into a potential schedule and I call this potential because none of this happens until the board acts tonight um here we are December 12th um if you decide to go forward and you vote to do so we will begin Distributing that data to Residents and start um getting the word out there there will be some public information meetings um that will happen in between the January or December January time frame and then the target here is February 7th um for those that are new to this you have to keep 45 days between the moment you guys make a referendum and that vote so that meets the requirement for the law um and gives us time to really get the word out so we we
048can Kevin just reminded me that we're setting that date for January 31st so that uh third bullet up there will be January 31st okay we moved okay January 31st uh this is just kind of a summary of the budget um each of the the buckets and how much is roughly per School U working with campus here and we run through the numbers and put that together um there are incidental costs to that design fees in all the agencies the de OT and all those requirements that we're going through and that's what I have for the presentation thank you before we have any questions I just wanted to touch on of course I got to touch on the finances of it I can't ask the board to approve anything without really understanding the finances of it
049so it's a 21.85 million project it's will not have a impact on local taxpayers meaning it is a reinvestment as we've been talking about for the last couple of years the current portion of the levy that's dedicated to Capital will remain so it's a reinvestment no new taxes uh for Capital purposes uh we are can I ask a question about that so you mean because everybody from me down at this table and actually a couple people down there pay taxes in the community so my taxes won't go up at all for all that work so the portion of your tax bill right now that's dedicated to Capital won't go up we'll stay the same I just want to make sure it's was clear on thank you so some other key financial talking points for this
050project are we are maximizing the state aid that's available so Brighton is aided about 78% so we're maximizing our cost allowances within the interior work and the site work the site work based on what was presented um by our design team exceeds the maximum cost low so we need to use some capital reserve to ensure that we're not increasing taxes on the capital Levy we are fully reinvesting the sale uh the proceeds from the sale of the brooksite property so approximately $3.3 million we netted from that sale is going directly into this project and it's dedicated to that site work so the turf fields the realignment of the parking lot it's it's a full reinvestment of that as we said you know during the during the sale process um it does require though um to
051ensure and to maintain that promise to the community that we won't be leving new taxes for this project it does require additional capital reserve of $1.85 million so we are using that we will have a balance of 5 point2 at the end of the projects once we commit this piece of it um we'll still have um ample Capital reserves for a future investment as we consider work down the road so of this project um $4.8 five million will be from Capital reserves the rest will be borrowing so we worked at our financial consultants so any new debt that we be taking on again is a complete match to what's coming off of our debt service schedule that's how we're able to ensure that no new taxes should something go wrong then we're using our financial
052position to honor that commitment and that has been a very strong firm commitment by the Board of Education to make sure that this Capital project is tax neutral um those are the key financing points again so on the the um Capital uh resolution there'll be a bonding portion of it and then there'll be the capital reserve portion of it that the board's considering and the community will be essentially authorizing both to issue new debt and to withdraw from the capital reserve fund any questions on the finance helar did you have a question I a I had a question but not on the financing it was um about the elevator is that going to increase accessibility to the school at all for Ada other than sort of the one entrance that we have that's at the
053far end of the school I'm just curious like I know what that's the anten okay so the the front of the building we'll have an we'll have elev well we'll have access through ramps and other things work go yeah thank you yeah okay yeah uh so we're working with preservation to look at accessing instead of coming up the stairs we have a ability to go down and come through one of the entrances below um that won't affect the facade it kinds of keeps us away from historic preservation issues and makes them happy um so yes that still means somebody will be have to be buzzed in at that location to come up that's why we come into security which is nice because they have to come to security first and then security can check them
054in no that's great also having been a high school student having to had to walk up the stairs to the fourth floor in my crutches back in 1991 I'm very happy there's an elevator to the third for the fourth floor now uh I was also just mentioning um SRA you the State Environmental Quality review act you're going to take action on that first um you have to do that first before you do a referendum but um you had a whole thing in your packet there um we have done this as a full environmental assessment form but are acting it as what we call an unlisted uncoordinated what that meant is that we've notified all your agencies that have an impact to the area it's been put out in the world in The Ether uh we've
055gotten comments only to say just keep us in tune to what's going on nothing other than that has come through to my knowledge I don't think we've received anything else um the State education department actually just snuck in yesterday uh that yep we're good as well so you've met all of that requirement and you'll see the phase one piece that we identified the phase two which says there's really no impacts that are anything excessive in this nature and then the three is just your sign off the other other thing I'd note and uh we've talked about this as a team previously and this will seem I don't know if it's counterintuitive or not but we will in a few parts and Brian had these one of the diagrams taking up real grass and putting down
056fake grass which seems counterintuitive for someone like me who's an environmentalist or at least considers myself an environmentalist our problem is our challenge is availability of fields in the spring and fall if you have a wet fall or a wet spring cuz once a field goes muddy you can almost never get it back so um some of those things might seem counterintuitive but it will actually allow our students to be out on the fields more so I just note that because I think it's important we say that out loud for folks yes sir good point that thank you all very much next up we've got reports um first uh the first up is the financial reports those have to go for approval you've all had a chance to review those are there any questions with
057regards to the financial reports youve received motion to approve move by Karen seconded by Sue all those in favor our student representative I had to look down the table because I can't see side so for clubs the Galaxy literature magazine is currently holding an open mic night in the lower Library friend of me is hosting food drive next week and the chess club is planning holding a chess tournament the morning of the 16th of December in addition drama club is hosting karaoke night this Friday after school and climate club and fashion Club are co-hosting a holiday flea market the week before break as for sports seniors anthia hlip Lucy leaderman and Ma defendorf had their girls across Signing Day at the end of November and seniors Tom Welker will peor and Kieran Hughes received the
058National Football Foundation scholar athlete award as for executive Council we just hosted our second annual Battle of the Bruins and in other news there is an orchestra concert tomorrow night and Mountain Bound signups have begun link crew is also handing out pieces of string called for get me knots to appreciate people who have helped us in our lives and I believe last week Dr Dr Christine coward from the U ofr was invited to the high school to discuss her journey as the only black female eye surgeon in Rochester thank you very much uh Board of Education uh first up as Labor Relations which is me and I can't remember when the last time I did an update we've done two meetings one was with um an overview from a couple different school districts with regards
059to a system called guard Sentinel I think is what it was called and it was around cyber security and it was absolutely terrifying um the things that people can do to try to get into school systems and things like that so uh a lot of information and knowledge there I did um I wasn't able to get an electronic copy but I did give a paper copy of that um presentation to Teresa and um Lou also we recently did one with regards to updates to Civil Service law and um uh with regards to Civil Service law and some of the new things that are happening out there for employees um from a hiring perspective and some of the ways they're trying to bolster some hiring for schools and things like that so some interesting information there
060um Carrie ly are you going to do information exchange um I good I attended the uh information exchange for the Monroe County School Board Association on November 8th um and it was all about chat GPT and Ai and the title was uh whether we like it or not change is coming so they talked all about how educators across the country are addressing the AI challenges in their classrooms how they feel about either positively or negatively um and it seemed very reminiscent of when we tackled that onetoone technology piece many years ago that people were pretty resistant to it at first um but once you dive in and start U looking at the challenges and start working with it that it will come and we will manage it as we did with the onetoone technology so
061that's my report legislative it has been a busy month for legislative um or busy since the last time I reported out on the 28th we were able to meet with Regent Adrien heligan he's the Regent from our uh from the Rochester region and uh he wanted to talk to us about the um New York State graduation measures Blue Ribbon commission which had just given its report to the board of regions on recommendations for possible changes to um graduation requirements in New York state and it was a great session because there was a re Reg hail wanted to learn as much from us as he wanted to report to us so we're really grateful to be developing that relationship with him and then on the 29th the legislative committee met as a whole to prepare for
062our day of advocacy which happened on Monday that's yesterday right this today's Tuesday okay that's yesterday uh we did two sessions uh one at 9:00 a.m. and one at uh 300 p.m. the membership of the legislative committee worked together working off of our position papers to develop questions for um all of our local leaders um all of our elected leaders were invited uh many many came uh we were able to see Sarah Clark Jen lindford Som Brook uh uh Holly a number of folks who represent regions that are more rural than ours and get various perspectives on what the upcoming budget season looks like and this is our opportunity to tell them these are the things that matter to us as your developing the budget for the coming year um and it was a really
063fantastic session and then today we were able to meet uh in person with Dean Meeks who represents um the city of Rochester and then parts of gates chil and RGA to ask him he wasn't able to attend yesterday but we were able to sit down and again further that relationship with folks who represent our region to let them know how how their legislation affects us and our day-to-day operations um so if you have the chance two things if you have the chance I would look up the Blue Ribbon commission's graduation measures report you can find that both on the mcba website if you're a board member and in the as a public you can look that up um on the board of Regions website you can find that on Google um and then also if
064there is another day of advocacy I I truly recommend that you try to attend because it's it's just great to hear from the legislators themselves what they know and what they think uh we did a lot of education on how the tax cap really does affect our ability to meet mandates in New York state thanks um all of us are working on a bunch of things but it feels like of late uh Karen you've had a ton of time in part because of the leadership position you've taken out with legislative so thank you very much for that and being such a strong advocate for our community uh a quick update as I say each time we are very fortunate that our past president Mark leanovich um is uh one of our Representatives on the bosei
065board Bose's board now sent along a quick update from their November and December meetings um they had updates and discussions with regards uh with regards to the anti-racist curriculum project they're leasing some new space uh for their central office functions in order to create some additional instructional space they're continuing to grow out there um and they had a bunch of updates with regards to quarterly steering committee and um their 2023 speaking of Karen and the legislative updates their 2023 2024 legislative priorities from a Bose's perspective as well so we greatly appreciate uh Mark's work on behalf of this community Other Board member reports uh Christina I'll start with you this time and we'll move down the table that way uh for I actually think that two of my meetings happened the same day as the
066board meeting last week or last month month so um I the I just want to say thank you cuz many of us sit on many different committees and sometimes we um when we report we've been to a slew of meetings so this is my this is my month in which I've been to several so in our audit committee which uh Karen and Larry and I sit on we were able to go over the corrective action plan from the com controller's audit we always review our internal audit um and we often discuss uh different approvals of contracts that um we're thinking about for the district and also capital projects so uh that happened at the last audit meeting I also attended the social studies program evaluation meeting um for the first meeting we dived into state
067standards and we're going to start thinking about questions to tackle through the evaluation and that'll go through the summer of 2024 um the teachers policy board met and um the policy board looks at Grant approvals for professional development vment uh we also talked about what kind of data we're going to look at in terms of improving instruction um in the district uh and then I also sit on the New York State Schoolboard association's diversity equity and inclusion committee and in the last November meeting we talked about how to diversify our board members what nisba can do to draw in new board members around the state what kind of training they can provide and um we heard from uh veral boards and how they have Diversified their boards and um also um in terms of what
068kind of education the state nisba can provide so that's it for me um the one thing I did attend um as a board member um over the past month was um a PTSA meeting with a combined principles of TCMS and Brighton High School um with Miss Edmonds and Dr Hall who spearheaded the meeting um calling together um parents to have an informational session about um vaping in our schools um starting in middle school and then maybe progressing into high school um and I joined as a volunteer board member but in my capacity um as a pediatrician who does work in this area I was able to um share some expertise and resources along with um another wonderful resource we have in our schools Lance Mitchell who's a social worker and addiction counselor who shared um
069instead of facing punitive consequences for students who are struggling with vaping or vape devices um were finding ways to address it more restoratively and providing parents information about um sort of the dangers of vaping what's out there how students are getting them and then what they can do how to have conversations and then um where to send their students um so again avoiding punishment and really just getting students help who want help so um thank you to both principles for taking that on um and again Lance Mitchell it was wonderful to interact with him as well and I think it was really well received I have nothing further to report but if you would like information about the Blue Ribbon Commission on graduation measures you can find it as a featured story at nysed.gov thanks
070um I I just want to point out in that same space There's an opportunity to comment on those and there will be additional uh opportunities they like won't wrap those up until probably mid next year or so they haven't accepted aced right exactly so there will be a comment period but there's opportunity right now I believe also to comment um and any feedback we can pass along as well so thanks for bringing that up uh I was unable to attend the curriculum council meeting as well as the hiring practices committee meeting this time I was um had a previous engagement um and our school-based Equity um team for the high school uh our meeting has been rescheduled so nothing to report at this time I have nothing additional to report as other committees have already
071reported on it so passing off to keep I also was unable to attend the curriculum Council sorry Dr Rio and um I have nothing else to report uh I'll quickly note uh two things one actually a w the on the construction side our normal bi-weekly oacm meetings but we got a great construction update so nothing uh nothing necessary to add there um Esther and I uh tag team sort of the hiring practices committee which is chaired by our own Lu Lio and um I was able to attend the November meeting where we continued to look at the hiring rubric and uh did a couple of other group exercises around continually trying to figure out how we get better with our our hiring practices um so that was that um now I'm just being really careful
072about the agenda so I do this correctly um BTA I'm sorry anybody else have any other reports BTA Nicole great thank you um so hopefully you enjoyed looking at our whole list of pictures starting from Council Rock um where you see some um I think those are first graders um working on Fall fund gym learning waste jump land balance um during their AKA Halloween gym fall Fun Gym they also worked on a fitness unit with Matt Griffin who's a u ofar athletic performance specialist who also helps run the fitness center here at high school um they learned about exercises to strengthen muscles good posture and using proper form so you can see some amazing squats and lunges they also learned some bird dogs and dead bugs so pretty fun stuff happening in the Council Rock
073Gym at fres fourth grade ESS students were making autobiographical maps and students could either choose to make a visual poster or use technology and make PowerPoint or canva presentations so you can see a few examples of that also at fren Road third and fifth grade uh fed classes had a guest speaker who came in to teach karate skills focusing on respect coordination and there was a lot of striking and blocking that was definitely the favorite part of striking at TCMS english8 students um thanks to the Brighton education fund were able to take a field trip to the memorial Art Gallery um they're now writing a poem about resilience um based on a piece of art that they selected also at 12 Corners foral Wednesday the entire school um participated in a group activity to create
074gratitude chains um so all the wi classes made their own chain and then all of the chains were linked together and hung um in the foyer of the school to celebrate gratitude building wine there are two clubs that are brand new the doodle and draw club and the games Club lots of fun happening at the high school um you can see an amazing list of the senior high area all state participants um which was at Pavia High School in November and then there were five students who were chosen to perform at the nisma conference all state ensembles AP Lit students have been looking at the dangers of performative rather than genuine allyship and they were reading um a novel by uh a D's novel called Americana and creating graphic essays based on that and there
075were just some some amazing examples of what the um students have created so you can see a few of those uh students in Sarah Jay's portfolio preparation class um are working on using 2D and 3D mediums um based on student choice and um again wonderful photographs of students really engaged in their learning in early November Mrs Hernandez and Mrs Baker Spanish for uh 4H class took a field trip to laasa hasana at Nazareth College they participated in an immersion program and then shared their experience with the BHS Community by creating display um as part of the holiday and traditions unit and then last but not least um Dana and Orie came from shin chanim and talked about the differences between Israeli and Brighton teenagers they visited um um Heather bonad Don's Multicultural lit classes and
076non-fiction classes and students were really engaged and felt it was a really interactive informative presentation thank you as always for letting us share some of the great things teachers and students are doing thank you and the entire BTA for getting all those I know that you don't have to work real hard a lot of people are sending you pictures you send them reminders but I would just say unequivocally you always have the best pictur so many students concentrating on so many things or laughing and smiling which are about the best pictures we can ever see based on what we do uh Dr Victoria love is not able to be here tonight but uh Christine I think you're going to cover just a couple of quick things yeah hello I thought that I would just thank
077the PTSA for all the events that they do for our district and um for our teachers and our students and families um it helps build community here in the district so I just wanted to point out they've um helped plan fall activity nights at the middle school I'm just looking at um Victoria's report they did some service activities at French Road um collecting coats um The Book Fairs have been I I have heard successful um they're providing some holiday cookies um at the end of this month and um organizing school pictures author visits movie Nights at Council Rock so a big thank you to the PTSA and all the volunteers thank you Dr McGowan uh a few items very briefly first of all I think it's really important to point out we are in the
078midst of Hanukkah and I would like to wish our many community members who are celebrating a very happy Hanukkah interestingly as I was uh thinking about our message to staff around the holiday season uh in the midst of Han season often referred to or a holiday referred to as the Festival of Lights and a recognition of resilience and perseverance a poignant moment in Jewish life uh we're in a poignant moment ourselves I think in the world and I am so grateful to our staff for being a source of that light and hope for the kids in our school community so I wish to thank them and wish everybody very happy holidays celebrating or not I hope people have a wonderful time with their family and friends we're need deep in budget season as we come
079back after the first of the year we'll be uh much more detailed in that conversation uh with all of you and with presentations as well and I want to again thank Karen for legislative advocacy and the work around uh just thinking about what it will look like long term for us in terms of funding in in this coming year we have the February referendum of course detailed quite a bit uh this evening and you'll have a couple of votes roll call votes in a few minutes regarding those but I do want to again reiterate with the community uh three things one on on January um 9th will be more detailed presentations at the board meeting on January 31st will be an opportunity for the community to come in and see the boards with uh drawings
080layout Etc ask any questions that they have there will be a BRI brief presentation that evening 7:00 p.m. in the boardroom as well uh for that so we're excited about that and and I'm not sure uh if I was clear enough before I know Lou was very clear that the portion of our budget devoted to Capital and the taxes raised for that will not go up all kidding aside uh we talked for a long time and it's a tribute to the people who are sitting at this table right now and those that came before you and and really lose financial stewardship about getting the car payment in the budget right so the notion of having a Debt Service amount in the budget that could support ongoing Capital work without having to be increased in the
081future not necessarily the amount spent but the taxes needed to support that in other words when we're done paying off something or we have more money in the capital reserve to pay the down payment without increasing the cost to taxpayer we're able to continue to go out and and do more projects so uh going back now several years ago when we were first having that conversation on our need to set that structure up financially this is the benefit of that it is also the benefit of the sale of Brookside and really the notion of that being a Community Asset that could be turned into something that would uh continue to benefit the community but in different ways than the previous benefit so again Lou thank you for leadership in that regard and this great opportunity
082for us to do that without an additional cost uh to our community and additional tax to our community and last but certainly not least we'd like to welcome a new member of the team to tonight he'll be appointed on the Personnel agenda Mr Mark Crest is here Mark is the new director of health physical education Athletics coming to us from the Leonia Central School District we're so excited mark has been a leader in the region in his league in the section as an athletic director and keenly interested in how he can continue to connect with youth programs in the area build that connection and really think about the experience that our kids are getting not just on the field um on the court uh but also in the gymnasium and in our health classrooms and
083how those all connect to delivering a more healthy experience and preparation for all of our students K through 12 Mark can you come on up and shake some hands and uh put a hat on for us [Applause] please it's only in athletics that people put a new hat on or or going to do yeah that's true that's true here we [Applause] go welcome AB board Mark welcome uh as was alluded to just a minute ago we're going to go through two approvals and a roll call is needed on each of these approvals so Kim will be reading the roll call and you give a response is I which is for or nay which is against but whatever yeah I'm convinced um do I need to read it Kim do I put it forward and then
084you go okay so first up is approval of the Seeker resolution adopting negative declaration for the phase 2023 2024 Capital Improvement project I'm sorry motion to approve move by elanar seconded by Carrie Lynn all those in favor Larry Davis how do you vote I Christina Lee hi Karen hatch hi Dr gasparino hi AER winter hi elanar oi Carrie lambertino okay motion is carried 70 next up is a resolution to authorize Capital project vote on February 7th 2024 um we've been through that we saw presentation on you I know that you're all caught up on that motion to approve move moved by Karen second seconded by Sue Larry Davis I Christina Lee hi Dr gasparino hi Carrie lambertino Karen hatch hi elanar oi hi Esther Winter thank you motion's carried 70 we'll reiterate the dates and
085these will be on the website of course also that we will be doing a uh a meeting presentation with the financial folks on uh January 9th and that the community Community form is on January 31st again we'll have communications going out in regards to those uh next up approval of the revised correction act corrective action plan for the controller audit of it Asset Management um we uh audit committee through uh myself and Christina and Karen discussed this briefly any questions with regard to this corrective action audit motion to approve move by Susan seconded by Esther all those in favor next up we have the approval of the second read policies this is the one uh policy 8260 instruction title one parent and family engagement we have had a chance to review that and talk about
086it in the past are there any additional questions motion to approve policy second read of policy 8260 title one parent and family engagement move by Carri l second seconded by Christina all those in favor the straight line is really a challenge I just want that not it's hard to all right next up is the approval of the settlement agreement memorandum agreement between the Brighton Central school district and the Brighton Association of office professionals you've had a chance to read that agreement and memorandum any questions with regards to that motion to approve move by Esther second seconded by Sue all those those in favor uh approval of professional service agreement for pre-referendum architectural services you had a chance to review that as well and know that's SEI who we work with any questions in regards to
087this proposal motion to approve move by Karen seconded by Christina all those in favor bids approval of three bids and I'll read each one approval of the Cooperative bid evaluation for electricity Supply approval of Cooperative bid evaluation for school lunch paper and plastic supplies and then finally approval of Cooperative bid evaluation for Food Services equipment repair maintenance and installation service any question in regard to these bids motion to approve move by elanar seconded by Carrie Lynn all those in favor bye next up for the consent agenda um we've got uh approval of personnel changes which you've had a chance to review approval of the recommendations from the committee on special education and approval of recommendations from the committee on preschool special education any question in regard to any of these items on the consent agenda
088motion to approve move move by Susan seconded by Esther all those in favor we got kid you get there we got kids going on field trips which is always exciting uh BHS Spain trip February 16th through 26 Varsity Baseball spring trip to Orlando Florida March 29th to April 4th the model un which just which is January 5th through 6th excuse me we've got a few different fundraising activities that you saw which includes girls basketball at Jersey Mike's great opportunity to eat um questions in regards to the field trip and fundraising activity approvals motion to approve move by Karen seconded by eler all those in favor as is our Uh custom we will read on the gifts uh we have a gift from the Brighton education Fund in the amount of $885 this is really cool
089to cover the cost of theater tickets for the AP Literature class trip to New York City to see two plays with contemporary interpretations of Shakespeare the uh Brighton education fund continues to be just an awesome thing for for our kids and um um it's great to read something like that um motion to approve move by eser second seconded by Susan all those in favor all right uh anything else for the good of the order um two things Christina wants a selfie with everybody so everybody stay put but um we like to close with some gratitude and I didn't uh we obviously in a different place of we normally are each year we get to get out to a school uh each of the schools and have a meeting our next meeting in fact in January
090will be at Danielle's house over at the 12 Corners so that'll be cool but uh grateful and this always happens without fail we get here everything is set up the microphones work the Screen Works everything works and that happens because of people like Bill Moyer Jack Whitmer Mike Paxton Violet clouse Carol ad damsky anad damsky everybody wave to us if I said your name wave to us thank you thank you all we appreciate uh Tracy Glazer's leadership for always getting this all done and we look forward to showing up at the middle school on January 9th and everything will be set up and everything will work I'm not even afraid of jinxing it that's how good you guys are so thank you very much uh and with that anything else I wish everybody a happy
091holiday and I hope over the next few weeks you get to spend time with family and friends motion to adjourn moved by Karen seconded by elanar all those in favor we are adjourned this has been a special presentation from the Brighton Central School District Board of Education