001this is a special presentation from the Brighton Central School District Board of Education welcome to the Brighton Central School District public board meeting public Board of Education meeting excuse me for September 12 2023 and welcome to the new school year to begin with we will create or we'll have the opportunity for public participation if anyone is in the audience that would like to speak see no one will move forward in the agenda next up we've got approval of tonight's agenda so moved moved by Karen second seconded by Sue all those in favor next up and this might be a little confusing if you were at the last meeting which all of you were but we have up in front of us both the code of conduct and the district-wide safety plan we'll do them one
002at a time we did talk about them and I made a mistake last time I thought it had to be approved the last meeting it actually had to set so people would have the chance the public would have the chance to review it um you guys obviously had a chance to go through it again I'm going to start with the code of conduct any other comments before we put it up for approval you weren't alone in the mistake by the way I would like to take responsibility the start of the school year you clear the cobwebs and you get rolling right no um motion to approve the 2023-2024 code of conduct as presented at the August board meeting moved by owner second seconded by Carrie Lynn all those in favor same question for the 2023-2024
003district-wide safety plan you know I've had the chance to review it before and then it was submitted again any additional questions or edits motion to approve the 2023-2024 district-wide school safety plan so moved by Esther second seconded by Sue all is in favor aye next we'll approve the minutes from the August 23 2023 business meeting so moved moved by Carrie Lynn second second by Eleanor all those in favor very exciting we're gonna do our first set of reports for the year and we're going to hear first from Leila Chen our new student representative roundabout Falls from Atlanta welcome thank you in sports cross-country held their annual Dash in the dark the boys brush City volleyball team won their first and second home game and are holding a fundraiser at Five Guys this Thursday the football
004team also kicked off this season with a home game on Friday as for clubs acapella groups have become their auditions and the drama department has been held auditions and callbacks for the fall musical you're in town the high school newspaper trapezoid has begun preparations for their October issue and are planning to enforce new methods to Garner more student involvement and enjoyment as for model one their chairs are continuing their preparations for the upcoming conference in the fall executive Council has begun homecoming preparations as well as student council exec has also begun preparations for the VHS Club Fair in other news the freshman and transfer students were welcomed by link leaders at the freshman orientation at the end of August it's excellent excellent first report thank you very much uh next up we've got a whole
005series of committees and task forces that we do as Board of Education members and it's we're very fortunate to have Christina to be the one to sort of manage that for all of us so I'm going to turn the table over perfect just a second okay so um I just want to thank the board because our board is really involved in the different Committees of the district we sit on over 20 committees in addition to sitting here on Tuesdays for our Board of Education meetings we sit on all the buildings diversity committees curriculum Wellness Safety Committee many of them and then we also serve on different boards including in Monroe County and in New York state so there is legislative information exchange and labor relations and so we have representatives in all of those and
006actually this year Karen has stepped up she's co-chair of the legislative Committee of the Monroe County School Board Association she also sits on the steering committee for the same Monroe County School Board Association which is our regional our County School Board Association so that is amazing to have our leadership in that so thank you Karen um and then I've been fortunate enough to volunteer as the area 2 representative on the Dei committee for the New York State School Board Association so that has been really an honor to to do that so I'm really happy to do that and I just want to start with that thank you very much um Labor Relations is first uh that first meeting is next Wednesday so we'll kick off and there's going to be updates with regards to health
007plans and the areas sort of health plans and what different school districts are doing in those and we'll see updates on there's going to be some updates in regards to new plans for mental health issues and some other things like that so looking forward to that one next Wednesday information Exchange okay and uh legislative legislative has already met we are the first Wednesdays of the month so the first day of school we had our initial meeting where we talked about our legislative priorities you'll be unsurprised to learn that they remain funding Foundation Aid and what the formula will look like in the future we're talking a lot about Universal school lunch and hoping that we can pass that both in New York state and with federal assistance those are those are the two big pieces
008and then the other piece is that the other piece that schools really have to think about is the move to have New York State convert its best fleets across the state to electric buses so from a legislative person that's we have a lot of talking to do with our legislators about how much funding we'll need to be able to accomplish that and and how much the industry still needs to evolve in order to be able to supply more than 10 000 buses in New York state at zero emissions so there's a lot of work to be done there as a legislative co-chair it's been interesting I was able to meet with both Jeremy Cooney and with Joe Morelli along with Amy Thomas the executive director and my co-chair Sarah Palacio from Pittsburgh and it's great
009just to touch base with our representatives to say Hey you know here's what we're doing in our schools and I have to give both a great deal of credit we haven't met with Sarah Clark yet but um Jeremy and Joe are both deeply interested in schools and and their welfare they're deeply committed to seeing public institutions in New York state be successful in supporting students in in every way so that's been it's just been interesting to have that face time in a smaller setting rather than in larger groups like The legislative breakfast that's the work thank you very much uh BOCES report we're fortunate as most people know that our former board president Mark coconovich is a representative to both he's he sent along a quick update and I will uh quickly read through that
010the board of ed for BOCES elected Kim McCloskey from Pittsford as president and Tom nespeka from Webster's vice president at their July reorg meeting they also welcomed a new board member Amy West who's representing Honea Falls Lima adopted their 2023-2024 Monroe 1 organizational goals reviewed and approved their uh 2023-2024 Board of Ed presentation schedule and um mark would remind us an early calendar reminder our board is going to be visiting the Monroe Juan BOCES main campus which is the one-off Baird Road in Fairport on Thursday November 2nd at 8 15. we'll be taking a tour it's an absolutely fantastic facility to do great work with all sorts of different types of students so very much looking forward to that Other Board member reports will start with Christine and we'll just sort of move down the
011line we have usually we meet on Zoom throughout the year because we come from all the areas in New York state it was a really great discussion in light of some things happening in public education currently so we were able to really debrief with one another and think about how we wanted to recommend different resolutions that were coming to the state as as a you know as the New York State School Board Association committee so that's always really inspiring to be with these people who really prioritize diversity equity and inclusion in you know as board members and so it's always great to be around them great I haven't had a chance yet at the start of the school year to attend any additional meetings but I look forward to representing French Road and the Board
012of Education and the diversity committee and the district-wide Safety Committee coming up shortly but nothing yet to report thank you I'll be sitting with the 12 Corners Middle School Equity committee as well as curriculum Council but none of those meetings have started here school-based Equity committee for Brighton High School met over the summer and we discussed the next steps of how to um survey and to go over the extensive data from the latest Panorama survey from students and uh we were given all that information and and discussed the next steps what we're going to do for the following meeting great Council Rock Equity meeting is not yet met this year but I'll be representing the board on that committee as well as uh also I'm one of three representatives from the PTSA from the board
013and their first meeting is tomorrow which there will be a report in a few minutes about that thank you Eleanor surveying this year on the Brighton leaves committee and potentially the environmental limiting so it has not any meetings yet and also indirectly related I told you did an excellent job on the 5K so thank you very much um I'll quickly note actually Esther and I are on hiring practices that first meets in October so we're a few weeks away from that one did attend the first Monroe County School Board Association of board presidents which is Amy Thomas who you heard Karen refer to and talked to a bunch of the other Monroe County Monroe County School Board Association presidents just about what's going on there always informative and um yeah the construction committee yesterday just
014continued to really commend the buildings folks that we have John the valley Rob moose and and that Mike congelli the whole team the new playground at French Road looks absolutely fantastic um the front of the high school looks absolutely fantastic whether you go there to see drop kids off or go to the public market on Sundays um just been really happy with the amount of work that is getting done there's as much behind the wall with things happening with HVAC which never sounds as interesting but is equally important so um great work being done by the construction folks feeling very good about where we are from a physical facility standpoint not about the audit Commission commit to over 10th Larry Christina and I will represent the board there correct thank you appreciate that okay um
015Nicole BTA first BT report of the year um so I'll always thank you for letting us share some of the things we're doing and I know all teachers would like to um thank the following Central duplicating nurses data registrar clerical main office custodial groundskeeping um and the summer work that we have the privilege to be a part of the curriculum that we can learn it makes a huge difference and while it's kind of the HVAC I guess behind the scenes that you know without all of that we couldn't Jump Right In and do what we're doing so some of the things in the report are from June and over the summer so I'll kind of Click through them some great pictures from the crews that are going to Asbury once a month to volunteer there's
01658 volunteers from the district including central office all four buildings this sprung out of the Brighton believes day of caring which we have in March and once a month volunteers go and we help serve the food and then clean everything up and for the people who come and sign up and eat so you can see there's some amazing pictures of students staff members families it's it's really tremendous and I asked for just a few pictures in Katie falter sentence yes yes exactly they were all great exactly at French Road they started a book study about building thinking classrooms in mathematics and they are using that to rearrange their classrooms to think about how to teach math a little bit differently so you can see an example of one of the classrooms and it's a lot
017of wall space a lot of opportunity for students to get up and show their thinking and edit and change it and a big thank you to Stefano manikino for that Janice mixes Health classes for grades three four and five they're learning about the brain and how it relates to emotional regulation they're going to learn and practice calming strategies they have puppets fidgets glitter jars and she really wanted to stress how much habits habits of mine in SEL are woven into health class um at TCMS at the end of the school year um Dr Justin Fay so his student's father came in and talked about Evolution to one of the science classes he's a computational biologist at the U of R and the students just loved it they learned about artificial selection as well as biological
018diversity so it's always wonderful when we have parents come in and share their experts TCMS strong students during the summer helped with orientation for the sixth graders and any incoming seventh and 8th grade students they went to the library talked about Library expectations how to use it they also LED tours helped with lockers supported Tech and did team building sessions so great group of student leaders at BHS in June the AP environmental science students made digital portfolios for Capstone projects which is just amazing looking at urban forestry and local problems of environmental justice they learned about heat Islands how to think about improving air and water quality and then looked at inequity within Brighton they also had to compare and contrast to neighborhoods they were trained in the use of two programs that are not
019required for this class but that Dr Smith really wants to make sure they have exposure to you they can use this to Blink they can use these portfolios to link to their resumes share with the town and be accessed by by anyone doing research so pretty amazing and there were some links so you could see two of the portfolios the project assignment and then also in the summer some of the Brighton AP Art and Design students finish some of the projects that they had started during the year so you can see there's a Makerspace mural Athletics mural an art room mural foreign language mural and ceramic planners and again just some wonderful creativity by the students giving their summer time for that that's it thank you thank you very much as always the pictures I
020appreciated so thank you for all your work on that as well um next up that we're going to hear from the PTSA for this uh school year our PTSA rep is actually Dr Victoria love standing in for her tonight is Mark degree her husband thank you Mark thank you yes so uh I'll be sitting in as alternate for PTSA representative this evening I have a information report from the PTSA president uh and the TCMS and Council Rock Primary School building Representatives um the PTSA has started the year off strong we held a very attended Food Truck Rodeo in the uh Brighton High School Bus Loop to celebrate the first day of school we have been selling calendars and spirit wear at various school events and in the RS Market and this year we held our
021first annual Brighton Belize 5K we had over 180 participants and despite the rain it was a very successful event that we hope to grow in the future we have two reports from 12 Corners middle school and Council Rock primary school for 12 Corners Middle School the events that were recently held were on August 29th Locker day was successfully held for grades uh seven and eight on August 30th the sixth grade and new students for all grades attended orientation it was very well attended and on September 6th we had the first day of school upcoming events uh tomorrow the 13th is the September meeting with principal on the topic welcome to Middle School principal Danielle Edmonds will be presenting along with Mr Jeff Green director of student and family engagement and Mr Nate Merritt director of
022health physical education and Athletics on Thursday evening the 14th curriculum night is upcoming for parents and Guardians who will follow a modified version of their child's schedule and meet with all their teachers Thursday and Friday are pitcher days upcoming we are using the same vendor as last year and anticipate it will run smoothly um on the 21st uh ode outdoor education is a brightened tradition this school in a different location for the Day activities include archery fishing ropes courses Fire Starting Cooperative challenges and much more students spend their time at Camp working together and building stronger connections with their classmates and teachers this year ode days will not be overnight but all-day affairs on the 27th there will be a club and activity Fair upcoming and students will learn all about the wonderful clubs that
023TCMS has to offer Council Rock Primary School past events uh August 23rd Urban Suburban night and they sent a representative to pass out Brighton gear that was donated by the Nancy Beck fund on 9 6 they provided treats and staff for the first day of school bus Loop helpers escorting students to and from their classrooms on the first week of school on September 8th there was the meeting with the principal where they went over upcoming school year and had a great turnout with 50 people logged in the Brighton PTSA 5K again we had that on September 10th and we they had a building chair representative on the planning Insurance committee and the proceeds are going to fund programs events and scholarships from the PTSA for upcoming events from September 6th and the 15th there's the
024community service school supply Drive collecting backpacks and school supplies for people in need within our community uh for Hospitality they are looking to sign up parents to provide snacks for the September faculty meeting on curriculum nights they're organizing a child watch for those families who find getting Child Care a hardship and they'll be seeking volunteers to join with the Tas and Brighton High School students participating in that on uh curriculum nights they're also looking for speakers cprs PTSA building chairs will be speaking at curriculum nights to promote the PTSA on September 18th there's a new family reception uh we're sending a representative to that and uh the art room chair has been communicating with Lisa so we can set up a schedule and sign up genus for volunteers the cafeteria coordinator is organizing a sign
025up link that has been created to help with getting volunteers for the food fun fridays and recycle helpers throughout September and throughout the year um for a yearbook this is new to Council Rock Primary School our chairs have connected with the French Road Elementary School yearbook chair and we'll start communicating with other teachers to help organize your book and finally for the library A Sign Up Genius link has been created for volunteers at the library September starts and there's a thousand things going down mark thank you very much for that report Dr McGowan thank you so uh off to a great start obviously both of you shared so much so I would say thank you to our families and thank you to our staff for helping us get off to uh such a great start
026and I would Echo your uh common Nicole in terms of all the things that happen behind the scenes it's a complex organization gets 3 600 kids here going in as many different directions as people could imagine on a schedule with materials and to be presented with instruction and support that they need in so many different ways and that's a gigantic Rubik's Cube that a lot of people figure out all the time so thank you to everybody for helping us get off to a great star including families interpreting that Rubik's Cube and working carefully and patiently with us to make sure that kids are safe and inspiring and having a great experience every day so we did get off to a great start I just want to also mention that we are as we continue to
027think about equity and our work in that Dei space really thinking about how to make sure we're recognizing everybody including everybody in our school in our school community and so something that has been done I think well before we're trying to grow which is providing people with more information and materials around the different celebrations in all parts of our community the first piece I want to mention is not a celebration but a remembrance and conversations that the principals have had and information they provide to think carefully today about how we look back on 9 11. and remind our kids remind our staff and think about that moment the importance of that moment the tragedy of that moment for so many and and how that's impacted us and so that was done today in our school
028buildings and communicated by principals at the appropriate developmental level for every school but also we're providing information as we head into this weekend about Rosh Hashanah and Yom kippur's a day off the following week on Monday this year Rosh Hashanah flying on a weekend and uh not being days off but just to make sure that we're explaining clearly and teaching clearly the importance of these moments for families and our community and finally we're also talking about Hispanic Heritage Month as well it lasts from September 15th through October 15th and we're communicating that the celebration spans one month to coincide with the anniversaries of Independence and many Central and South American countries including Belize Chile Costa Rica El Salvador Guatemala Honduras Mexico and Nicaragua Hispanic Heritage Month officially lasts for 31 days but the celebration of
029latinx communities can and should continue all year long we're sharing many resources to support our staff and families so they can learn more and connect with students and families around them as well including the Midwest heartburn resource resource s'more Hispanic Heritage Month resources from our colleagues at recenter who've been enormously helpful in this work and the latinx kid lit Book Festival and every month or as appropriate in these reports I want to mention these and share publicly what we're communicating as well in our newsletter so you'll hear that's very much the language that's going to be used and feel like this is a really good space Also to be saying to our community this is important to us and let's find ways to continue to connect with all members of our school Commission thank you
030next up we have approval of two beds for the vpa program I had a chance to review those bids are there any questions motion to approve both the bids noted in item number eight so moved by Karen second Ed by both after and Sue um so we'll call it Esther and uh motion is approved what's that uh next up we're going to have Dr McGowan go through the budget guidelines and the budget calendar that's right September 1st budget but you're uh by telling her you know it's safe tonight for the difference this is the longest one also psychology like to kick it off with the parameters um every year in September you set budget guidelines to help set the stage for process that really does all the things last all year it lasts all year
031because we're analyzing every penny that we spend relative to what the community supported in that process but the effectiveness of the dollar in supporting the program and the program and supporting kids to understand if that's the best place to use our resources and understanding that helps us then plan for next year and I like to compare these often to household budgets the same way we think about the money we're spending hopefully in our household budget it doesn't have the impact we hope are we keeping track of these 7 000 subscriptions that we all have for three dollars at a time and is it really impacting our life or should we be changing that right we do that but on a macro scale here in the district these guidelines though do help us then think about
032going into the more formal part of the process what we should be thinking about in terms of spending priorities and how to support the work for kids I won't them all I ask you these are all posted but I do want to summarize that they come down to again looking at our operating expenses and make sure that they are appropriately funded with sustaining revenues and what that means this year in particular the the language in green is understanding the impact of the foundation Aid formula and potential long-term changes this is something Karen and I'm so glad Karen continues to be actively involved in this conversation but co-chairing the committee for Monroe County School boards Karen's history with the foundation Aid conversation goes back I won't say way back you know it's not Merv sacks at
033the table or not that old yet Kevin Marvin I know he's watching so far I'll give you a shout out but uh understanding the history of foundation Aid will be really important as they go into this conversation or potentially making changes and then thinking about the the high impact programs and as federal funds expire this is a problem everywhere so right now this is a national conversation about Federal funding and what does it mean for programs that were implemented thanks to the quote-unquote money but that is disappearing and how do you sustain those programs especially those that have had such a significant impact the second priority for us is to make sure we give the appropriate resources provide appropriate resources an effort that support the Brighton blueprint so our annual strategic plan and the priorities
034that are developed based on feedback from the community work internally your leadership and our leadership team to think about what is it we should be really focusing on the most in this school community and how do we support those plans and those very concrete action plans that we measure every year we reevaluate and re-redesign the priority areas of course as you know well mental health and wellness academic Excellence the student and family experience staff support and collaborative culture safety and planning for the future and interwoven in that is so much of the important work that I mentioned tonight relative to equity but the focus that we have in the district and how do we make sure that we're really aligning our dollars to our plans and then evaluating the effectiveness of that and then also
035considering the economic climate and changing needs uh the parameter that you have set before and we're asking you to support again is to think about how do we prioritize resources evaluate opportunities for optimization efficiencies and looking at potential cost reduction reduction consolidation and this is a long way of describing our effort to always look at are we being as efficient as we possibly can be again best utilizing the dollars to support programs for kids we want to make sure that we're also prudently planning for long-term investment in our facilities you know we talk about that a lot at credit you and Lou in particular as well for his leadership and making sure we are looking at revitalizing our facilities all of the time we talked about this earlier but the work now done very visibly
036people can see I know a lot of people in our community noticing the work in front of the high school of the summer to redesign area and fix the concrete that needed to be fixed that's throughout the district there's work that's been done the playground that just went up at French Road so many different improvements at so many places but we need to continue to do that and not fall behind in that work and finally to make sure that we're complying with the property tax cap and understanding the long-term implication for complying with the cap on our long-term Financial Health as well and what the impact the impact of Levy growth means and just how over time that compound's understanding that for our long-term financial planning the calendar is very similar to what it would
037normally be there's no changes to it this year I would just ask people to mark their calendars for the annual meeting a budget vote May 21st I'm guessing there will be Qantas food trucks there as well but along the way lots of opportunities for the community to weigh in and for the board obviously to take the leadership role in preparing the budget that you present to the community and us to communicate a lot with you as that is built over time last but not least I do want to mention to you enrollment drives our conversation and our enrollment estimates and some differences that we just want to make sure we point out to the community we have overestimated now a couple of times the group of kids from kindergarten to first grade and I want
038to point out there's a reason for that we have yet to be able to get a great handle on the trends K-1 since the implementation of full day kindergarten and following code so if you think about some of the factors involved people who decided they wanted a five-day week program when you're offering hybrid people who wanted different things and then waited to send their kids who otherwise would have sent their kids and we traditionally did have a jump between kindergarten and first grade because kindergarten Here was half day other schools in the area were offering a full day program private parochial opportunities and we have yet to be able to get a great consistent handle over time on what that jump would be so the estimate for 2324 was 304 and we actually have 257
039but that's intentional in terms of being conservative in that number so that we also don't for example estimate 257 have 304 and have much much larger class sizes than we would have otherwise planned for continuing to try and prioritize small class sizes and on the right hand side of this graphic you'll see the largest group moving through 23 24 kindergartners estimated right now to be 200 193 in 24 25 and how how large that class will be 28.29 so we're keeping an eye of course on that bubble and these enrollment trends that really do make a big difference in our budgeting if you think about that notion of just one teaching position based on a larger class and how that grows then over time and the number of different supports that that one section of
040students need in terms of every one of their special areas and the other ancillary supports that go with that so that does Drive our spending quite significantly so we keep a very careful eye on that we just wanted to point out though that one particular group we're still trying to figure out the best way to estimate that and also make sure we're keeping class sizes any questions for me on the guidelines on those estimates or the calendar no I'll just say that I'm not terribly surprised that it's still a little Hit or Miss in terms of trying to predict enrollment for the reasons you stated um we are one of the last school districts to add full Decay so we don't have as much experience with it as many others so I appreciate that if
041we had to be one way I'd rather we be conservative so we were prepared because I think that puts our teachers in the best positions as well so I would point out what's interesting is if you look at the entire K-12 estimate we are in trying to estimate 3425 students off by 25 kids so in in terms of the magnitude of that estimate you're correct better to overestimate and coming under that but it's a pretty small margin and pretty close to the actual something but thanks thank you okay next up we have our consent agenda you've had a chance to review the Personnel changes the special ed report the preschool special ed report there's fundraising activities VHS girls swimming and Diving it was actually for a couple of days ago that was for August 28th
042through September 10th I'm sorry an upcoming we have the opportunity to purchase some fun pasta it doesn't want to purchase some fun pasta that's available during the month of October questions in regards to the consent agenda motion to approved move by owner second second by Carrie Lynn all those in favor before we adjourn I'll say two things just we've said it a few times in a couple of the presentations um just thanks to everyone who allowed for such a great opening to the year PTSA are teachers or students our leaders in each of the schools just um we're off to a great start and that's very exciting speaking of exciting I'm very excited to announce on September 26th we will be in principal tappan's building for our meeting as we know on our road tour
043he's offered to service dinner that night and do a whole bunch of fun things so we're very much looking forward to that no um September 26 meeting which is two weeks from tonight will be at seven o'clock at Council Rock we started this a couple years ago going to each of the schools so those dates for the other three schools are upcoming in the next few months very excited about this always great to get out in the schools to see what's been done and do some of that stuff so please note that we'll be in Council Rock for that meeting I did also want to point out you just reminded me uh we have a lot of curriculum nights coming up over the next couple of weeks next week is kindergarten I know first grade
044sixth grade uh I'm sorry not just sixth grade middle school is this Thursday I think anyways point being check the calendar they're all on there I shouldn't have turned around off because I can't read the calendar as quickly as I thought I could in front of me go to the curriculum links that's the point but every one of the grade levels and even if you've been there before please come again a great opportunity to connect with your teachers we normally have great attendance at those but it is really such a key step and we just want to keep pointing out to families be there that partnership is key and teachers do a great job of explaining this is what's to come for the year and uh forming that partnership is is so important and we
045also have a new family event happening on Monday the 18th too and information has gone out to new families about that the time and day location but they should please make sure they come and tune into that love Welcome to our new family great anything else for the good of the order can I have a motion to adjourn please move by Karen second second by Esther all those in favor this has been a special presentation from the Brighton Central School District Board of Education