001this is a special presentation from the Brighton Central School District Board of Education good evening welcome to the Brighton Central School District Board of Education business meeting and budget review for Tuesday March 14 2023. this meeting is called to order we'll start this way we will start the meeting tonight in one of the best ways to possibly start and that is with Dr McGowan honoring some bright and believer Awards we're so excited to have another group of people to ask you to recognize tonight with a Brighton believer Awards as we've explained before the brain believes Council selects nominees to receive these awards for demonstrating the Brighton believes character traits of Integrity respect responsibility kindness and self-control the award winners our students teachers community members staff members coaches and the nomination form of courses on the
002website at bcsd.org what a great way to think about the work in the district and the incredible contributions of so many wonderful people the first wonderful person we'd like to call up to be recognized tonight is Maureen Wedgwood Maureen and if I could ask Marin Jeffries lashara Evans and Allison Rio to please come on up as well it's okay history of France we should ask you to tell us some stories about all three of these people while you're out there you've got the goods Marine Wedgewood the fres administrative assistant to the principal was nominated by former fres principals Maureen Jeffries lashar Evans and current and former president they wrote Maureen is the quiet Foundation of Perez if a teacher parent or student needs to find out just about anything Maureen will have the answer or
003figure it out in no time at all she knows the staff students and families and goes out of her way to make connections with everyone Maureen exemplifies the traits of Brighton Belize although her job title is Administrative Assistant to the principal it would not be odd to find her in the cafeteria covering longitude of students dancing on the stage at talent show with the fres hamster of course with the hamster helping students at parent pickup at the end of the day and even walking a class from one room to the other to help a teacher her dedication to the brain Community French Road Elementary School the staff and students is simply outstanding she is one of a kind and everyone who has the chance to work with her can see that Maureen does not love
004to be in the spotlight so this is particularly wonderful for at this very moment celebrating her with this award will not be her favorite thing but she is such a wonderful example of a Brighton believer her love of the school community and care for every person she interacts with goes above and beyond each day Maureen is kind respectful responsible and operates with Integrity in all that she does for these reasons and so many more Maureen is deserving very deserving that Brighton believes a war congrats [Applause] the next bright and Believers award Renee papillardo all right nominated by pixel Matt's happening assistant his assistant principal Marine Jeffries Renee is a counselor act teaching assistant nominated by principal Matt Tappan and assistant principal Marine Jeffries they wrote Renee poplaro is an amazing kind incredible person and we
005are so lucky to have her as a teaching assistant at Council Rock Renee began as a TA at Council Rock in 2016 and as a part-time employee but then became full-time in 2020. Renee embodies each of the Brighton police traits she is one of the kindest individuals we know always checking in on fellow staff members making connections with kids and families she goes above and beyond with everything that she does it is clear working with kids and in a school are her calling she takes her responsibility as a TA incredibly seriously working with small groups and individually with students as needed she's one of our Tas that teachers compete to get in their class and get her working with their students she is definitely in high demand every day she models each of the traits
006of Brighton believes in her work ethic carrying nature toward the world and incredible dedication to our school and Community it is with the greatest of pleasure that we recommend Ms Renee poplaro to receive this amazing award foreign [Applause] a second grader Council Rock come on up sweetie nominated by principal Matt Tappan and assistant principal Marin Jeffries they wrote Steven started Council Rock this fall you've made this big an impact this fast it's not wait to see what's going to happen [Music] anyone in the building who has had the pleasure of interacting with Stephen knows that he consistently demonstrates the Brighton believes characteristics Steven is a role model for his peers and stands out as a respectful caring member of our school community in the way he interacts with adults and peers Steven's teacher Mr Coke
007had this to share Stephen is amazingly resilient he moved to a new state and school almost none of us have ever done that this is pretty incredible then moved to a new classroom after he started here at khals Rock he accepts and takes on every assignment and doesn't even blink even when he faces tasks that are challenging I appreciate Steven's character the most he is positive kind friendly hard-working and simply good if another teacher or student is having a rough day I've sent him on missions to be around that person because it's guaranteed to be an uplifting experience could you stop over in our office [Laughter] he adds a calm and happy vibe to our room and he can work with anyone his peers and teachers all enjoy getting to work or play with him
008we are so thankful that Steven joined our school Community Steven exudes positivity and makes the day brighter for those around him thank you to Steven's family for sharing him with us each day Steven's family can you raise your hands up all right thank you for bringing us to him you made us better so we're thrilled to have you here Stephen congratulations foreign thank you again for giving us the opportunity and for recognizing these wonderful people in our community great job everyone thank you yes I would say that as much as we would love everybody who wants to stay to stay we also allow that you might have things like homework and other things to do at home and if that's the case you can slip quietly off the back or side door well Char you
009can stick around as long as you want yeah [Laughter] hey Dan Goldman I don't want to tell you how to do your job but if you just put a smiling picture of Stephen on the next thing that goes out in the U.S mail we're gone it's all good man that's great um as always in every public session we have the opportunity for public participation is there anyone in the audience who would like to speak seeing no one we'll move on the agenda first stop item four is approval of tonight's agenda that you all have received motion to approve so moved we'll buy Karen second seconded by Sue all those in favor you've also received the minutes from our February 28th uh 2023 business meeting any edits or changes to those minutes motion to approve those
010minutes as written move by Julian seconded by Christina all those in favor next up we're going to ask Mr alimo to do a facilities update if he looks a little different it's because as of yesterday he's a year older no foreign [Applause] great thank you good evening uh tonight I'm giving a presentation on a facilities plan and the proposal that we have upcoming this may um at the budget review last meeting we talked about uh pairing our operating budget with a capital project so to further support of that I wanted to give a brief history on on where we've been in our Capital project uh planning and what's proposed going forward so looking at the history we had going back to 2012. we had been spending and pairing with our operating budget a capital reserve
011drawdown each year and you can see from 2012 to 2017 we are completing about 1.4 million dollars of construction each year and generally I put the scope at a high level of what we were accomplished then you'll see a lot of building conditions survey items in that it's it's core systems very little investment in our educational program very little modernization of our instructional spaces so having that history and having that kind of pay as you go financing strategy led us to an opportunity for greater investment and so in 2017 we had the Brighton facilities Improvement plan which was intended to be a multi-year plan that encompassed both building conditions survey items as well as modernization so that was 64.9 million dollars there was a couple more authorizations subsequent to that as we ran into things
012like Asbestos and unforeseen conditions so then we we pivoted a little bit and we we went from the pay as you go model from the 1.4 million dollars to leveraging our building Aid and our capital reserve to try to achieve a little bit more so in 2021-22 we had a 5.1 million dollar authorization then in 2022-23 we had 7.2 million dollar authorization and you can see the difference in the scope we start to get a little bit more extensive and what we're able to um to invest in the interior of our of our facility so 2122 you know locker rooms Makerspace improvements we did the stadium lights and certainly we also took care of the core Building Systems within the roof replacement the 2223 we're doing a high school gymnasium renovation complete renovation of our
013high school gymnasium and we're also doing work so we're being responsible in investing in modernization of our facilities but also obviously maintaining our core core structures so now we're at an opportunity as we've been talking about over really the last two years we have a drop off in our debt service and an opportunity for reinvestment in our facilities so this number is updated from our last business meeting but we're proposing a 19.5 million dollar Capital project to be considered by certainly the Board of Education and our voters in the may may referendum what that would include is music Suite Renovations complete renovation of our music suite at the high school our industrial technology Suite so if you think about that Corridos two quarters first and second floor the addition of a greenhouse something that we
014lost as part of the 2017 project if you remember we had a mini Greenhouse that was on the interior of the science wing and it was on a roof that needed some Rehabilitation so it didn't make sense to put it back there and we deferred it to do a more comprehensive investment in our in our science comprehensive investment in our Science Program at the middle school we're looking at again core Building Systems our exterior doors elevators flooring but we're also looking at the home and career suite and that all Suite of instructional space and looking for an investment in there as program evolves and as opportunities for more maker space will have that authorization to invest in and we'll build a program for that at French Road more core systems ceilings HVAC work but then
015the exterior of the building needs some Rehabilitation and then we're also looking at increasing security within that front vestibule where the security guard sits right now and the connection to the main office so we're always thinking about Safety and Security as we look at these strategies and we go to the 64.9 million dollars that was the only part of this and plan that had a tax impact so everything that we are paying cash for and from 2012 to 2017 we're with District reserves no tax impact in the 2017 project we proposed a plan that would have about a two percent increase on the tax levy since then we've committed to zero tax we've committed to stability in the in the tax levy leveraging our Capital reserves leveraging our building Aid so we're not letting any
016new additional taxes Dr McDonald McGowan always used the phrase once we have that car payment our commitment is to keep that car payment over the next decade and that's still what we're talking about today so even this 19.5 million dollars is at no additional tax impact it's what we already have in our debt service in our debt service budget so we've talked about this I'll just briefly go over the improvements that were part of the 2017 we've had multiple presentations on it but Council Rock certainly the addition um complete renovation of that that school environment French Road library media center the cafeteria Renovations art music suite and I'm focusing on on the modernization because that's where we needed the lift in that car payment to be able to invest in that instructional space and improve
017our programming from a facilities physical environment standpoint 12 Corners Middle School you see the modernizations the cafeteria the library music rooms Fitness Suite all great additions that seem to be very well valued by our fire School community at Brighton High School certainly we had the art rooms the auditorium was a big piece of this project our science rooms and other Investments there so this is what we presented back in 2017. so what we were is we were going from 2012 to 2016 with the pay as you go method we actually were receiving more building Aid than we had any debt so we were had a negative tax money so those dollars that we were receiving in building Aid were essentially being deflected to support our operating budget and so the commitment of the Board of
018Education was to say we need to build in that payment so we have a consistent investment and maintenance of our of our facilities the problem is with the tax cap this negative Levy that we had was needed to offset any future debt first so when the tax cap looks at it it doesn't look at on a project specific it looks at cumulative total debt minus building Aid and then you can you adjust your tax levy so any new debt that we came off first had to be absorbed by this by this building Aid which had already been deflected to operations so that's been the lift over these last really four years is to make sure that we had this investment in facilities stabilized so this is the chart we've been showing over the really the
019last couple of years and if just comparing the two slides where we thought we would be on the capitol just over two million dollars based on our use of reserves and the financing that we've been able to secure with our strong financial position and the good credit ratings we came in less than that that two million dollar two million dollar Mark and this again is the opportunity for investment where our Financial Consultant said you have the opportunity for approximately a 38 million dollar project that we could complete construction combination of modernization investment in program as well as our core Building Systems maintaining what we need to being responsible building owners with no additional impact to the tax money so what's the percentage of the levy that we're we're raising right now for taxes would stay
020stable we wouldn't be loving any new taxes but we would continue that same that same portion so what we're thinking about in the discussions that we've been having as a facilities planning team as an owner architect construction management team is to spread that 38 million dollars over two uh referendums the first being in May which I talked about um it'd be 19.5 million dollars we needed to increase it a little bit and again we would accomplish this work um before for 19.5 million dollars but then we're also looking at a December referendum that would include some site work and the reason part of the reason we're splitting it is because any site work requires an environment environmental review so it's going to take us some time if the board's support above the scope that's proposed
021to to do all the State Environmental Quality review act requirements so traffic studies if we're looking at reconfiguring the high school parking lot if we want to invest in the community in a community turf field in the back behind the church property that we acquired those are two areas where we're recommending investment that we feel would be an appropriate use of the Brookside proceeds so we're thinking about the proceeds from the sale of Brookside investing then and recommitting that to community assets and the most widely used Community assets are our athletic fields and in our schools and particularly our high school is really the center and the Hub of our of our town for all kinds of activities including you know Farmers Market things like that so we're looking at using those proceeds leveraging building
022Aid and creating a site plan project that would be no additional cost to the taxpayers but it would not be part of kind of replenishing that car payment if the board is agreeable to that scope with the site plan that requires the work we would also be recommending in the December time an additional 10 million dollars that again we would prioritize for modernization as well as building conditions structural type items so back to the May referendum what we're proposing right now again it's about 19.5 million dollars and these are the financing considerations for any Capital project we have the construction costs we have to have construction contingency for one when we bid it and then two um if you open up a wall something happens we need to be prepared and we need to prudently
023plan for that then we have the incidental budget which is our architect fees our construction management fees the legal costs with debt issues issuances the financial consulting costs all those things are a percentage of the construction budget they add up to about 3.2 million dollars and then because we have to borrow we have to plan for capitalized interest or dazzling costs so that's essentially the bridge between when we have to issue the debt when we need the bond proceeds to when the building Aid starts coming in so that acts as a bridge so of the 19.5 million dollar approval that we're asking for consideration for or only about 14 million dollars actually goes towards towards construction costs and this is a more detailed breakdown of what's being proposed in the May referendum and with this
024scope the board then would at the March 28th meeting consider the environmental impact of this scope and would also be considering a capital project resolution for the 19.5 million dollars so with uh again with the board's considerations that's what we would like to present at the March 28th meeting next steps obviously it's it's the boards and the superintendent's consideration with what we're proposing as far as the scope and the financing plan and then if the board is agreeable to a site site work plan using and leveraging the proceeds of the Brookside sale then we would more we would begin the environmental review for that piece of it which could take six six seven months as long as that process okay so with that I'll pause and see if there's any questions we obviously had an
025initial review of this back on February 28th and Minnesota won over a master plan it took some time with us to do that other questions that you might have I will note Lou and you have to correct me here part of how we look at how we make the high school entrance safer and part of some of the student letters that I've received there was actually some of the students going it's not a safe environment coming into school or leaving we will have some dependencies on the dot because Winton Road is a county road so they'd be involved and everyone sort of says all we got to do is put up a light it doesn't work like that there's a review that Lou talked about a traffic study and we'll have to work with the
026county on what they are comfortable with so I don't want to act like that process is certain we absolutely want to make it safer but the road unintended to get there won't be straightforward or easy anything you would add to that Loop no sir that's that's excellent plans I would just two comments one thank you for this Lou and for giving us this long-term perspective and a plan that's going to make a lot of sense in terms of continuing to Foster and build our capacity long term from a capital perspective but financially to being the road issue you just mentioned I mean for people who would not have known this or might be newer to the district we have pursued a light on Winton past right at Newton and the county studied it and said
027it would really slow things down we kind of thought that was the point actually but uh apparently that that's not optimal for traffic uh we also thought that was the point but they said our option would be to move the light back from Greenwich which also didn't seem to make a lot of sense because of the number of students that cross at Greenwich coming from the neighborhoods so we're really hopeful that as we redesign that we're able to make the case that that makes more sense it would help if we were paying for it that's the other issue for them so we'll look at that but um you know we've most recently wanted a slower speed limit in front of this campus on Monroe Avenue and we're also told that unfortunately it would slow things
028down which again we thought was the point so we'll continue to Advocate with the county and see what we can do on that I would encourage people to contact the County though and express their displeasure of that anybody who's driven down uh went in the morning or in the afternoon on the same on Monroe understands the challenges we have and the safety challenges the other thing you mentioned Lou obviously was the Brookside sale which is uh I'll say imminent but not complete yet we expect that to happen relatively soon and there will be announced an announcement of some sort when we do that so other questions on this I guess I'd just like to clarify for the public about the necessity of doing the two different referendums and how the need to do the environmental
029impact study makes it necessary to move to December can you stick to that a little bit more about how the how the you know first the seeker and then the stated process and then the bid process influences when we choose to go for referendum sure so the board cannot even consider a capital project referendum until the Environmental Quality review is complete so anytime that we would disturb sight and building an athletic field even if it's you know any kind of replacement there would need to be studies done what Mr Davis had talked about though with the impact of traffic that takes the most time and they were 100 dependent on other agencies um when when that's impacted NYSE the State education department excuse me does not become the agency of jurisdiction all the other state
030agencies or local agencies also have jurisdiction then so that process likely could take months and months just the traffic impact alone with the uh with the reconfiguration of that parking lot and we choose to do to to then separate out and maybe because as soon as that referendum if that referendum were to pass then we can get started right away on the process of getting our plans approved and then going out to them correct so that's an excellent point because if we moved from our the pairing of capital projects from May to December we have more opportunity to hit that next well that two summers away I can give you an instance the 2223 Capital project we approved in May it's still an STD approval right now so what was approved in May of 2022
031two we're actually not going to be able to do any of the work until 2024. so capital projects now with the design periods and with the state authorization or at least a two-year two-year impact that's why certainly we presented the purchase of the church property with this as uh as an objective or something that we want to consider and I think we need to do what we said we were going to do with it but we have to consider the timing so having that December vote kind of cuts off that six-month period where we can get a shovel on the ground sooner thank you just final note for a great number of projects you have a two-month window basically July 1st to August 30th at some projects you can but there's a lot that you
032cannot so the construction window is so tight you got everything set up and ready to rock and roll as it were any other questions for Lou thank you very much appreciate it em seven is a budget review with Dr McGowan and I think a few of your team thanks Lou uh so this is just a quick update I'm going to start with the fundamentals of where we are in terms of Revenue and expenditures that we've already reported to there's no changes in those but just to keep those on everybody's dashboard and then talk to you about the information and the feedback we received from the community Through the thought exchange the budget thought exchange just kind of the high level overview the report is available online and has been sent to you as well that
033can be looked at in a lot of different ways but I want to make sure we give you an overview of that and where they've kind of translated to us for Budget priorities as we keep thinking about the development of this year's budget and talk about the next steps where we go from here again just a reminder currently the preliminary budget stands at just over 100 million dollars an increase of 6.9 or 7.4 percent in terms of the expenditures that are being budgeted for and the pieces of that our salaries and wages up just over seven percent overall that doesn't mean people's salaries are going up seven percent that's spending in that particular particular area so for the number of people and when we're bringing positions back in federally funded positions that area will grow
034as well employee benefits are up five percent and that would include health insurance the Retirement Systems that we pay into etc those aren't our retirements those are systems were required by Statute to pay into BOCES costs of just over 10 percent supplies and services 10 and a half and the debt transfer area up seven and a half percent as well in terms of how does it break down for allocation of unrestricted spending and how then the revenue coming in gets allocated to particular areas Foundation Aid is 5.9 million dollars of the increase in revenues and we would look at the tax levy being just about a million dollars a budget of 400 million dollars right now that would allow for the contract wages benefits again to go up just under three million dollars Financial Planning
035in the yellow to go up a million dollars mental health interventions as well as a big funding portion in our budget tuition Services contract Transportation which is of course an increase as well that that is all being paid for through these increased revenues both Foundation Aid and tax levy and then new positions class size uh continue to keep class sizes low and the mandated Services increases in our costs in those areas also and other inflationary factors within the budget we're experiencing those like people are at home in their budget the salary and wage budget factors that we would point out to you those contractual increases and the increase in the minimum hourly wages so we negotiated new contractual agreements at the end of last year and we have to budget for those of course each
036year and the increase in hourly wage has to be accounted for as well and then new positions related to continuity and programs annual needs three teachers at the K-5 level to maintain small class sizes and in some cases be able to decrease that the chart on the right hand side right hand side shows you the preliminary class size allocations and what it means for the ratio and the number of students in every class so as of November of 22 we have 12 kindergarten sections we would love to increase that to 13 for next year 12 in grade 113 for next year 11 in grade two we would maintain 11 10 in grade 3 would go up to 11 next year so that accounts for the three ft increases and then maintain 11 at both fourth
037and fifth grade and you can see the impact then at kindergarten iron is going from 20 students on average in each class to 18.2 in the first grade change 19.3 we'd be looking actually because of the big number there 23.4 that class would currently be at 20 so it'll go up a little bit next year and then at grade 3 where the other increases scene would go from 24 down to 20.6 and then we're bringing positions that are currently federally funded the expiring federal dollars commonly referred to as the Cova dollars in the Brighton support center literacy intervention math intervention reading school counselor school psychologist bringing those into the general fund so they're not depended dependent on that grant funding or that one-time Federal money those are a regular part of our budget and those
038positions are then considered permanent so long as we don't decide to make program changes going forward those would move over and then the budget factors relative to BOCES both in business and technology funding the one-on-one repair the replacement program and upgrade leads to the applications and our infrastructure we're particularly focused on the cyber security risks filtering Microsoft Office and SMS FMS upgrades as well and then in special education the increase in the number of students attending programming at BOCES that is a more cost efficient and often effective approach to supporting some of our students there's an increase in that cost and then itinerant services that we are providing to private schools with more students who we service in those schools both Brighton students and students in those schools that are of other districts attending the
039schools that are within Brighton we are reimbursed for some of those costs as well by their home District and services and supplies we mentioned to you last time some of the notable increases change in legal fees we're budgeting additionally for utilities and custodial as well up three hundred thousand dollars this is again the cost you're seeing at home ours is just on a bigger scale the special ed contracts and tuitions I mentioned to you up 164 thousand dollars in contract transportation again Transportation costs increasing for everybody across the board up over 544 thousand dollars and the additional funding for our instructional technology learning spaces of 156 000 and their revenues we're projecting going into that again overall we're looking at a difference of up 25 percent in state and federal AIDS overall sales tax up
040an increase of eight percent investment income that looks fantastic 75 percent increase that's 9 500 and 100 million dollar budget so the percentage looks great remember the dollar amount is very very small we're not out investing people's money we don't have the opportunityability or desire to do that either refunds and recoveries up uh 12 as well and as I mentioned state and federal AIDS up 25 so the subtotal of those sources is 22 percent and then in terms of financing sources really for us that's the property tax levy that we are anticipating going up 1.7 percent we are not proposing nor will we be proposing going over the property tax cap that you adopted at the last meeting either so the subtotal of property taxes are rounded up to 1.8 percent or a total of
041seven point four percent which again allows them for a 7.4 increase in spending Community feedback is important to us in this process as well we had one budget Community budget Forum we have another one coming up next week and we went out and asked the community what are your top priorities for the 2023-24 budget receive feedback from 311 participants they shared 152 thoughts so 300 311 people went into the exchange an interesting twist to it this year is we asked a question at the beginning about level of satisfaction you know one through ten how satisfied are you uh again one being not at all satisfied 10 being extremely satisfied uh 13 answered extremely satisfied but if you look at the top three so seven through ten was 48 of the total um and 69 if
042you look at the top four if you go all the way from six through ten so uh definitely weighted towards people satisfied what is interesting is on the report itself when you click on the the link that you're sending that will be posted on the website you can filter the results or the thoughts the ranking of the thoughts by level of satisfaction so for example if you took say the people that answered one through five so not at all satisfied to the middle of the range and you just click on those five indicators you see where the thoughts rank the ratings rank for all the thoughts for just that group of people and then if you take just the most satisfied people the top five and search you see a really interesting difference in what
043is most important to people um and the analysis I think is in the eye of the beholder so I wouldn't present to you uh tonight and assume that all not satisfied people feel one way and all satisfied people feel another way I don't want to characterize people that way but it is interesting for you to do that yourself and take a look at what does that mean to you how does that jump out at you in terms of what are people's priorities if they're satisfied versus not satisfied this tonight is a holistic View at every of everybody one through ten in terms of balance and who responded uh pretty even across the buildings across the board some community members without children in school 18 members actually jumped in as well I would attribute that to
044Dan and his ability to get more people uh signed up and and receiving our e-news and understanding that we'd like them to participate whether you have kids in school or not I think that's great five people with caregiver of caregivers five caregivers of children attending programs that announce School outside the district as well in some private parochial school parents and also which is great the Wordle I'm not sure how beneficial this is other than a quick visual representation of the number of times particular words are used in people's responses but accelerated programming Excellence retaining was a big concept through a lot of the thoughts in other words keep the great things that we have don't cut programs don't cut staff members none of which were proposing anyways but people I think are in that mode
045of making sure we know please don't cut the programs that are most important to us the key thoughts the top thoughts in the entire exchange show of the 152 academic Excellence follow the Brighton blueprint don't cut accelerated programs a quote from the blueprint so I love the fact by the way that people are digging into that provide each student coursework that is challenging in order to promote individual growth how can kids develop a growth mindset without challenging work great news I want to be very clear about something we are not cutting any accelerated programs there is no budget reduction for any accelerated program so we are uh discussing and we are going to be Shifting The Accelerated math program Shifting the program we are not cutting the program and there is zero budget impact it's
046the same number of Staff we're talking about a programmatic change that has a very important philosophical reasons why but we are not cutting any extraordinary programs where we will be doing that second thought providing rigorous courses and curriculum that meet the needs of all levels of Learners and challenges students to continue growth if academic Excellence is actually valued it has to be prioritized in order to prepare our children for the future could agree more in fact the programmatic shift we think will expose more children to challenge and acceleration just approaching it different a particularly third grade fortunately for all of us Dr Allison we are our assistant super time for quick construction has been working on this project and will be presenting right after me because clearly in the exchange there needed to be some
047clarification around accelerated programming and what we are or are not doing and then maintain strong programs to continue Brighton's tradition of Excellence couldn't agree more great feedback those are the top three thoughts in the exchange from everybody the the algorithm of the computer looks at particular themes and puts into uh buckets the different uh themes that arise in the exchange and then shows You By Priority area where people are at for the thoughts that go into there again when you hover over these bars in the report you can look at the specific thoughts that were under for example accelerated math or academic Excellence or Administration or class sizes or taxes or the Arts whatever it might be you can take a look specifically at those thoughts some examples of those for example The Accelerated math
048thoughts the top thought follow the bright blueprint don't cut accelerated programs couldn't agree with more not going to how can it possibly be that math acceleration is being cut great news it's not mandating that students tread water math rather than continuing to grow is not right Fair Point what many of these thoughts reminded us of is the importance to communicate really clearly around the shift in accelerator math for next year so my response is not one at all of sarcasm or cynicism but rather a good reminder that we need to go out and make sure we're explaining to people clearly exactly what we're doing we are not cutting that program to the point the third comment please please do not cut accelerate math opportunities some kids are not gifted at sports or in the Arts
049but our gift in academics great point we just think that a shift in the program is actually going to help expose more kids to coursework and give a better entry point for students so that more over time will be a part of that type of programming academic Excellence again top thoughts in that area provide rigorous courses curriculum meet the needs of all levels of Learners challenging students continue to grow maintain strong academic programs academic Excellence hiring and retaining excellent teachers absolutely and by the way couldn't be more proud of the staff that are here currently or the staff that are starting with us each year we really feel like we have the opportunity to review and have conversations about some staff members with our board tonight are leading up to tenure recommendations there are incredible
050people that are working here Nicole yearly is at the table with you each and every meeting is a great example of that so couldn't agree more when we talk about it every year we own that part of our budget looking at that being our biggest cost area which is what it should be we are people-centric business that's what we should be investing in uh couldn't agree more administrative stability at French Road a great reminder tonight is we have lashara here visiting with us sadly I say visiting because we miss working with lashara who is in an incredible position in the city with a tremendous level of responsibility and opportunity to impact change in the place that she grew up in and went to school and is very excited about we were heartbroken well Char was
051excited for the opportunity heartbroken to leave fres certainly not to plan for the shower for any of us but we're in that hiring process now we would like nothing more than that same administrative stability keeping principles the one former administrator that interacts with kids you seem unable to retain them although I know doctoral is not here tonight he is definitely retained for a very long time as his mats happen and Danielle Edmonds has signed a 27-year contract he just doesn't know that but an unbelievable person that impacts our kids I think about man I mentioned this a couple times lately the kids walk across the stage now are Matt's kids and we do do recognize how important that is and want nothing more than that type of stability however if that type of stability meant
052Allison staying at French Road don't get that comfortable because we miss you terribly over here as well we had the opportunity when helson came here also to have an incredible person impact the whole District so the hope would be of course in the process that we achieve that but we want Excellence for as long as we can get it it's great when it's Matt tapping and Tom Hall tenure and Daniel Islands but it is also fantastic when we could have it for even just a little while with the shower so we're very much looking forward to the process of filling for us thinking about that notion also keep class sizes low we completely agree no teacher cuts please absolutely we're not proposing any in fact adding staff positions low class size and funding for our
053youngest Learners and as you saw at the beginning when I talked about the funding for staff that's what we're focused on is low class size small class size we recognize is important in this community and to our kids and staff provide clubs to students good news also included in this year's budget is a proposal of several new stipends for new clubs at French Road the middle school and the high school those are all included student clubs Brighton does a horrible job with student clubs we have no FRC robotics team or an elementary school chess club it's embarrassing I share this with full vulnerability that we may see that differently but this is somebody's opinion that's important we may not have those clubs we do have other clubs we have a huge number of clubs at
054the middle in high school we could build our capacity at the younger levels and we'll continue to look at doing that over time we also recognize them at the younger level our kids are stretched very thin with outside school activities also that parents are involved in so there's always a conversation about whether or not our kids actually have the capacity to do that and remember the French Road day starts later and ends later having after-school clubs has not always been something that parents would have opted for and early morning clubs would impact the activities that our kids are involved in currently in terms of the Arts which are very important also there so there's you know the potential for addition but subtraction when we add as well so we want to be very conscious of
055that and then other thoughts are on kids keep accelerated programs especially Math and Science more extent study speech reading resources for all students who need extra support to both be on par and Excel not to just those who fall below my child feels uncomfortable using the bathroom at Brighton High School and TCMS due to an inappropriate and illegal activities if you are as a parent reading the message is sent home by Mrs Edmonds and Dr Hall we agree with you and we are constantly in the mode of working with our students to help them understand making better choices I do not want to characterize our kids though all of our students as kids who are spending time in the bathroom doing things they're not supposed to be doing but Dr Hall's been very open in
056particular the high school level about vaping in particular and about challenges and telling kids you know those are not things that should be happening number one at all from a health perspective number two in school and absolutely not of course in our bathrooms as well so we do feel like we're addressing this all of the time but we would recognize yeah it's a fair point and kids do not want to be around that so if you're somebody who's doing that recognize it it makes people feel uncomfortable and you shouldn't be but I feel like Dr Holland Miss Edmonds are on that working hard on that with their teams as well please consider evaluating the administration costs or been increases in this portion of the budget that appear to outpace resources in the classroom uh and
057I only point this out as a point of fact that's actually not true we have a relatively thin administrative team added one position last year mid-year Mr Green's position and I say added it actually took the place of other administrative positions uh Ms Mrs Edmonds was in an instructional administrative instructional technology administrative position that we did end up trading essentially for the position that Mr Green is in and we never filled an additional assistant principal position that was reduced at the high school funding that was used for the remote advanced placement classes and other electives that we wanted to add as well so we've had some changes there and the administ the assistant for humanities position that used to exist is now an assistant director previously who had an assistant director in Diana's back knowledge
058program at the student Support Services area in other words what I'm saying is we still actually haven't completely restaffed in that area and have a very thin administrative team so overall that funding in that area would not have increased over time to the same degree certainly not to the degree that we've added on the other side of that we also agree though that our resources should be with kids in classrooms and that's something we've supported for a long time so these are clarifications I'm offering not at all defensively but so that people know what actually is the circumstance responsible spending taxes are already extremely high one ensure that every penny spent is a meaningful value to student education that could be the theme of our budget process that every penny spent meaningful value to student
059education and no tax increase after years of tax increases an increase in CD we should be able to keep the property tax burden flat our challenge with regard to that that we will continue to talk about through the budget process is our cap number is already very low so the tax increase promises to already be very low we're also excited that the Whole Foods development now is able to move forward and additional tax revenue will come to the community from one payer in other words that property would defray the cost for other taxpayers so we would expect that the rate announced in August will even benefit from the additional payment of taxes on that particular property so if you fall behind though in terms of your Levy growth over time so for example if there
060was a zero increase going into next year that's a million dollars in Revenue that the district would not receive and would have to overcome eventually right because that Revenue our costs continue to grow up a go up outpacing that additional cost in Revenue so to make up that Levy later on when when state aid is not available would require a significant tax increase and we focused over time on making sure that we have a moderate low minimum tax increase that is balanced over a period of time and does not swipe and then academic Excellence um offered under the Arts category opportunity to learn music in the Arts more Arts and Music offerings my child loves to go to college for art and music mental health healthier food options in the cafeteria proper nutrition as a
061direct correlation to brain development Behavior mental and physical health academic Excellence mental health support required for that as well and mental health support 14. so we've continued to focus on Mental Health in this year's budget and commit being committed to those covid related I'd say covid funded positions that include several mental health positions now being brought into the general fund so they're not at risk of being reduced going forward they are part of the program so complete agreement later start times came up again I would just point out that we did talk about that and talked about that in a final report given last year we will revisit that again in five years from when that report was received last year but that that was not an option that our community overall supported when we
062went out and pulled and used thought exchange we received a lot of feedback at one for both the cost but also the impact on our youngest students that it was not a favorable approach in the district so we will revisit that again but that's not currently on the dock of the proposed changes we'll do another study again in approximately four years time and then interestingly some of the differences so the platform will take two separate and distinct groups of people who have rated thoughts in similar ways so on this particular screen 83 people the blue group will call them had similar starring patterns so they get lopped into one group as people who are like-minded and 52 people in the green group were like-minded and it Compares where they were apart or different and what
063kinds of things they agree on so if you think about this from a political campaign perspective a politician might use this to understand what the issues are that many people will agree to Unfortunately they would also perhaps look at it as where are the dividing lines among people also and in this case 83 people were on the side of raiding highly the thought about mental health absolutely need to have enough mental health staff in each building to meet the needs academic career cannot be met etc etc the 52 people on the other side of that though didn't agree with that entirely they just see that differently and they rated that low teacher and staff Wellness is a priority followed by student wellness 83 people rated that high the 52 people did not rate that high
064on the other side of the ledger so the same people that rated those thoughts low said don't increase the property tax reduce budget size cut expenses that was high for them Equity efforts are important but should not be the focus of school age for our kids they rated that high and rated the other ones low but what do these two people these two groups of people agree on academic Excellence follow the blueprint and don't cut accelerated programs French Road needs stable leadership this year has felt very chaotic for kids parents and teachers so it's just interesting to look at the differences between what people are thinking in our community honor and respect both of those think about how we can find compromise in the work that we do without compromising the importance of many topics
065that we receive lots of different feedback important also to point out that this is one source right the feedback you get is board members from people the public comments are offered the community forums that we open ourselves up to the PTSA meetings will present at Rotary we'll go to any group and have conversations about their budget we receive feedback all of the time this is one source of data but it's helpful to just keep that in context as well what do people agree on though accelerated program academic Excellence student leadership again in this difference 88 people 46 people they agree on those two items very very clearly they disagree on start times and very clearly one group 88 a group of 88 people rates that high 46 people don't they didn't have particular items that
066they thought similarly on high that the blue group disagreed with last example of that again academic Excellence follow the blueprint was an agreed upon topic educational online platforms that allow assignments submissions grades communication to be all in one platform and we've tried very hard to continue to standardize those we'll continue to think about that but where do they disagree amount of money in the budget affects our tax dollars uh 61 people 50 people feel differently about that cut positions that were created with one-time federal covid funds responsible financial management and these two groups of people there's disagreement in that as well where do they disagree on the other side project to improve high school entrance with newly acquired uh land it's a safety issue and the high school parking lot needs to be better as
067well they rate those very high and they rate low cutting the positions that were added uh around uh covet so from that and from our conversations and and our discussions with you and our work with staff each and every day that are looking at what we should be doing for kids all of our program evaluation that we're doing we recognize one that need to minimize the tax impact and to continue to be focused on that is stewards of the community's resources that's been important to you that's important to us in recommending it to you that continues to be a priority ensuring that resources are targeted to student needs and staff supporting their needs being very respectful that don't cut programs don't cut staff academic Excellence that's a huge priority in our community we recognize that
068that will continue to be a priority in this budget process as well and build fiscal stability we are a very fiscally stable place and we have been we need to continue to build that physical stability over a period of time we have more Foundation Aid now we need to recognize what it could mean over time when the foundation Aid formula is redesigned and next year when the promise of going from 68 to 80 percent 100 in next year's budget is realized what happens then after that bringing those positions in that were coveted funded that are so focused on the needs of kids to the general fund right now with Foundation Aid that we will be getting next year is a way to make sure that we are financially stable in the long run so we're
069not having to go back to the community to say we need a much bigger tax increase to make up for those federal dollars because we're not dependent on those positions so we're doing it now where the resources are available which creates again that stability for the long term and supporting new and Innovative programs and continue to think about how we target the needs of our kids in our spending allocations we think is most important as well do you have any questions for me we'll continue with the next steps of the budget process sorry Larry interrupted no I was going to say I appreciate the the all of the efforts we're making to get feedback from the community and that the feed the community is giving feedback yep we do too I mean it's an important
070part of the democratic process if you're voting on it we want your feedback we want to know more that's who we are in this District so we'll continue to monitor our budget to actual projections and make sure we're adjusting in the proposed spending plan for what happens in our programs this year and what our needs are going into next year for students specifically and collaborate with building principles department managers to find efficiencies make sure we have the right resources in place and to evaluate our spending allocations and our priorities looking at fund balance also included in that notion of fiscal stability is less Reliance on using money from the savings account right the appropriate fund balance to support the budget that's a risky strategy we've had to use to make sure we don't cut programs
071over time but less Reliance going into the future on that will be important and that's included in this year's budget and then continue to listen to the school Union gather feedback being responsive to needs and everybody's priorities are is important also so the second piece of this is a very brief overview from Allison about the accelerated math conversations so that we want to be very clear with people we're not cutting excited about programming but redesigning program to a strategy that we think will be more effective more inclusive and more thoughtful for our students thank you okay just brief presentation here but just want to give a little more context for everybody as some of the questions that came up in the thought exchange and wanted to just provide a little more information so everyone has
072the same information so just um a little history about math acceleration it's been going on for a long time in Brighton but last year we had our math program evaluation and one of the pieces that came out of the evaluation was just considering a review of the math acceleration process and a review of the research around math mindset and our Brighton student data so that's kind of what drove us into looking at this this year and I have some points up here but I just want to speak to them a little bit for all of you and take any questions that you might have we're not getting rid of accelerated math at French Road so I want to make that loud and clear we are just shifting what that looks like for when kids would
073begin to enter the program so this is really only impacting students entering third grade next year and there have been some really thoughtful decisions around why we've made that decision for our third grade Learners in Brighton we have seen through the research and through looking at our student data of our Learners across Beyond French Road and into the middle school and the high school that there is a big impact on mindset of our students at the elementary level so as students enter French Road there's a lot of shifts they're learning a new school they're they're social emotional learning that's still happening and they're still developing themselves as a learner at the same time we want all students to feel comfortable and confident in their ability to learn so math mindset and mindset in general is
074something that we looked at when we considered this decision so thinking about our students knowing that all students have the opportunity in their class to have access to what they need across the curriculum from our students who are struggling to our students who are high achieving giving them the opportunity to see themselves as a math learner to see themselves as somebody who can participate in things that are hard and challenging and work across the classroom with their peers who are of varying levels is something that is important for children when they're eight years old so putting students in kind of a tracked situation at a very young age often impacts their mindset and and they're thinking about their own ability as an individual learner we don't want to exclude anyone from doing acceleration we we
075Embrace acceleration we want to meet all of the needs of our Learners here in Brighton and that's one thing that we love out our school Community that's why we are not getting rid of this at French Road just kind of adjusting our expectations a bit for what this will look like as students enter the building we also you know don't know the students as well as math Learners at that level and it gives us an opportunity to continue to enhance our instruction enhance the curriculum and you know find the right path for all of our students Additionally the tracking that sometimes happens at the elementary level actually leads students to not being able to participate in accelerated courses as they get older because they've developed kind of a fixed mindset about this is my ability
076as a learner it's not going to impact kids who are going down that place where they're going to get into acceleration double acceleration take more of those math classes in high school this won't shift that path for those students but instead it'll open some opportunity for all students so as a school building French Road and at every school building looks at student data to make sure we're being as inclusive as possible of all students that are should be part of these programs and will continue to do that but with less tracking at that Elementary level at the very early Elementary level we'll hopefully be able to provide more opportunities for all of our students later on so as we get into next school year just to again say to be really clear that we're reviewing
077our approach to acceleration for just our entering third grade students at French Road we're going to continue to offer enrichment and differentiation and math class and to a higher ability than we do right now we're going to spend some time reviewing our curriculum looking at our work that's happening in Everyday Math for the third grade students and making sure that embedded in our daily instruction our opportunities for students to really be pushed to a higher level or get what they need where they are and most importantly work together so looking at how students learn across the board with heterogeneous groups will help us to set them up to be successful wherever they are in the math program and we'll spend some time reviewing that this summer preparing for next year as we welcome our third
078graders this is what the process looks like in general at French Road and 12 Corners middle school so the process will not change for anyone who is a current French Road student right now if kids are in third grade accelerated math they'll continue on to fourth grade fourth and fifth grade both still have accelerated math and we will still review our third grade students this year at French Road to see if anyone else should be included in single art double acceleration and the process will remain the same at the middle school it has been any questions oh it's a great clarification I know that some of the board members had received some feedback from within the community some had heard things but nobody had real facts so I appreciate you taking the time to sort
079of outline the strategy because it will consider all kids and it will allow kids to continue to accelerate also this extremely helpful for clarification because you know we've also all had the chance to review the thought exchange feedback and it seems like you know this concept of acceleration is important to the Brighton Community and I think that you know just the clarification that we're not cutting anything if anything this is you know it's it's more inclusive it's more Equitable it's just you know we're evolving and you know this is Cutting Edge stuff that you're bringing us Dr Rio so I think it was a great presentation and I think it'll help answer a lot of questions good job I will now move on to um item eight which is the reports we've received the financial
080reports and questions on those because those are up for approval all those in favor um it doesn't look like Eliza is able to make it from a student rep standpoint we'll hope to get a report from her in the future and now go to board of education and before we quickly go around with the reports and we'll remind everybody that Board elections are coming up in May and there will be a seat three seats up for election anybody's interested in running it's probably not a great time to do that before we go through all the stuff we do but just wanted to bring that to the Forefront Labor Relations is first that's mine since our last update we haven't had a meeting yet that will be next week on March 22nd it's gonna be more
081Trends in regards to Rochester Health proposals and things like that associated with the medical benefits and all so that would be next Wednesday and I will be at that one uh information exchange information exchange is 2 [Music] of Technology operations we'll discuss parent Square stakeholder engagement in your community there you are I am planning on attending me too uh thank you legislative well that's me so uh the legislative committee actually was in Albany on March 8th advocating for public organization the Monroe County School Board Association and actually our debrief is tomorrow so I will have a better update for you but our next meeting is in April and I believe we're going to have a couple of Regents visiting us right in April yeah uh next up is both season I do have a report
082here from our former board president Mark okanovich as with us and every other school district we're in the budget season and so Mark provided a couple updates with regards to their review of the transportation budget as well as some of the challenges all of us are experienced experiencing with student transportation and then reviewed a bunch of budget 2023-2024 budgets including the administrative and capital budget for BOCES one BOCES Monroe one excuse me finally and it sort of ties in with legislative committee Mark was one of the people who made an advocacy trip to Albany on March 8th trip included 20 area Board of Ed members along with three superintendents assistant superintendents and total representing 13 of our 23 Association districts so great representation in Albany Other Board member reports I'll start with Karen and work
083towards me March is a busy month um so far I have met with both the curriculum committee and the multi-tiered systems of support committee both of those groups are beginning to wrap up their work they both have some great documents to present to the board in the coming months so I'm actually I'm really excited to see um how our systems work and then how we use data to work together to tighten them up it's good stuff I've had a meeting this morning with the Monroe County School boards Association steering committee to work on their budget for next year we met with audit this afternoon where we spoke about some corrective action plans reviews our claims audit report and talked about some Capital project planning and then to tomorrow I'm with the PTSA Thursday I'm with
084TCMS at the school-based equity team busy Run for the board they said it'll be fun they said only two meetings a month that's not so bad all I have to report is uh we represented uh the board of education at the district-wide DodgeBall competition perhaps not our best showing thank you very much winning teams next year I mean it's going to be it's going to be real next year so everyone will be ready Mr Tappan I'm looking at you sir um we also have our fres Equity meeting on Thursday that Dr Rio will be leading um I'm not sure I will be able to attend but I will get the minutes and report back to you following do you also want to quickly mention what you're doing on the 22nd I am also serving as
085the word of Ed representative for our fresh principal hiring committee so very much looking forward to that and it should be should be a good day I have nothing additional um you could talk about two Saturdays ago what you did on Saturday at the high school oh two Saturdays ago Larry and I both were at Festival of ideas where there were over 650 children who spent the afternoon going to three different workshops each and it was just incredible to see them coming into the school they were so excited and to to see you know some of our littlest Learners in the high school on a Saturday it's just really an amazing thing and I think it's something that's very unique to Brighton and thank you to the PTSA for always all these years 30 something
086years managing it but we should really all be very proud because it's really incredible former board member Martha scaramamo continues to just run a great event and um the buildings folks were there in force just making sure everything worked lights turned on doors shut it's the only it's a typical Brighton event and and Julian nice there at the entrance as somebody walked by carrying a miniature fighter plane somebody else came out of the fire extinguisher and a knack somebody else came out with a macrame blanket and somebody else came by with an enormous fake bat and I went yeah sure whatever Festival ideas right what else would it be flying from the ceiling in the gymnasium it was amazing you know one thing I'll say about Festival if your kids are on the fence about
087going please please send them um you know my middle child found a lot of the things that became very special to him he met with the BHS Morning Show in middle school and then he did that for four years he learned defense and then he became a competitive fencer it's you really can find your place at the festival in ways you don't expect so worth your time great Point thank you thank you Julie Christina uh I have uh the New York State School Board Association meets the Dei committee meets at the end of March and then uh Brighton teachers policy board meeting in April so I'll review those at the next right um construction meeting yesterday as we always do I do this every time because it's worth doing our facilities people are amazing in
088terms of making sure things happen the way they should as well as just fixing the things that break on any given day so uh kudos to them Lou gave a really in-depth review of sort of upcoming construction projects a lot happening there a lot behind the walls that we don't see and we'll have an HVAC discussion shortly but all great there and I had the opportunity today to be the board rep for the TCMS assistant principal interviews some great candidates out there a very exciting both Lou and Danielle did an outstanding job facilitating a team really really thorough process happy to be part of it so thanks to them for that anything else we've missed okay Nicole thank you always for the opportunity share some of the things teachers are doing we'll start at Council
089Rock back to the mindfulness piece we in March we celebrate mindful March both as students and staff so every day we receive something that helps students with their mindfulness we also have a calendar that we can Mark so that every time we do a mindfulness activity we can market and then submit it at the end of the year some of those themes are take three calm breaths or pause to watch the clouds and it's just a wonderful thing to have the kids just pause for that moment have us encourage them to pause and then of course we're asked to pause too as a staff and have our own calm corner and guided meditations which are just really nice we're shooting basketball all sorts of fun things Katie Fallon really Dre improve the the use of
090our have lab our habits of mind Lab at Council Rock and she used a green screen with Mrs ayalo and Mrs genzel's class for their all about animal projects hopefully you clicked on the links they were just incredible they traveled to the Arctic and read their reports about their animals and if they were just adore incredible Katie Fallon also at French Road she worked with Mrs pettit's class using the Sphero robots which were borrowed from BOCES to help with Black History Month projects they researched wrote a timeline and then coded the Sphero to travel along the poster and every time it stopped it would tell a fact about the person's life they took persistence teamwork trial and error lots of math skills and each robot you could have clicked on one to see the planning
091and then the final product so hopefully you checked those out Mr Simmons class fifth grade class also used the robots telling a story that they wrote they had lights animations brought the story to life and again there was a photograph of the students coding really nice for um in where they've been also practicing mindfulness and thinking about who they are and I love this quote in Bruin times students have been learning about their own identities what makes them them inside and out fourth grade has been creating bio bags and fifth grade has been making identity trees stuff at TCMS they have this beautiful display reading gives you wings and hopefully you checked out that PowerPoint of the students and some staff standing in front of the Wings and at the high school algebra 1 teachers
092um worked last summer to create a performance staff task sorry where students picked an item that they would buy at graduation and then they invested the money in a CD to see if they would have enough money to purchase it they zoomed with Mr Dom pullano a Brighton resident and investment Baker to learn about how this relates to the real world and if they could actually do that themselves masterminds so Heather bonadonna wanted to make sure we shared about some of the clubs masterminds have has a varsity njv they had another win for varsity and the JB team has not lost yet so hopefully you can see the names of the participants mock trial team also won their first case winning against Brockport work and there was an artist who author artist who came to
093visit and talk about what it's like to be a graphic novel novelist the sophomores are reading persepolis so he spoke about how drawing is a form of Storytelling and that people have been representing that for tens of thousands of years and how to use that to help structure your story we had two students that went to Buffalo State for the Poetry out loud competition and then congratulations to many musicians to the senior high honor band the uh the Jazz Band vocal ensembles and then in the heist sorry Senior High All County and some ensembles there was band vocal and Orchestra students all accepted and then the last thing I have to share is Sarah third Jesus painting class they were given a challenge with unconventional materials they had to pick a theme the materials and
094do a lot of experimenting to create and then write an artist statement about their why they had to also curate their own show and the photographs just have some of the students not all the students that were participated in the show but just some really beautiful steps of work that they had this play case was really cool yeah oh they're just putting these together is I feel so honored to be able to take some of the work that people do and try and present it to you guys so they're really meaningful way that's really nice thank you so much thank you very much appreciate that Peter well thank you we had a very successful Festival of ideas and very well attended and we appreciate all the volunteers who helped out and after that it is
095status quo order report at the next meeting thank you very much um superintendent um I think I've reported a lot I I just uh would comment we did send a communication out as you were aware that a staff a former staff member um was in the media reported to have been arrested um you know in charge with several disturbing uh crimes having nothing to do with school I want to be very clear about that and we have everybody who works here goes through a very rigorous hiring process that includes background check that includes fingerprinting and um unfortunately things that occur outside of school having nothing to do with us sometimes impact our school environment in terms of the anxiety and concern that that causes when people receive that information and so we feel very badly
096about that kind of concern it causes for people but want to reassure them that one there is zero suspicion whatsoever and I spoke myself to an investigator today from the state police that these issues have anything to do with the school environment whatsoever they will continue to monitor that and keep us informed at this point but again zero concern for students or for our environment that doesn't make it necessarily any less concerning for many people and we understand that also people do continue to go through rigorous process and they will going forward and we always review that as well but this person also went through that process and unfortunately issues outside of school were not known to that process and wouldn't have been uncovered by that process either so if people have questions they should
097let us know but included in the communications information around a tip line and support for families through bavona and support from law enforcement as well but as always contact your child's counselor a teacher or principal for additional supports and information also but thank you thank you next up item nine or some bids for Cooperative bids for both art supplies and magazines any questions on those motion to approve move by Julian seconded by Christina all those in favor item 10 is approval of just some construction contracts related to some fres HVAC heating ventilation air conditioning took me a second there sorry I was just not trying to get some work done um it much needed work that's the example of that behind the wall work stuff that you don't see but more efficient uh circulation very
098things like that any question on those conference motion to approve so moved moved by Julian second by Susan all those in favor aye to the consent agenda there are Personnel changes uh recommendations from both the committee on special ed and the committee on preschool special ed um field trip approval that took place actually last week I don't know what this is but I'm going it's a meat raffle not in May for the softball boosters and then as I think Susan and others mentioned a dodgeball game on the ninth uh that included some temporary tattoos motion to approve the consent agenda as presented so moved moved by Susan second seconded by Karen all those in favor those are not as temporary as one month I don't want any discussion on who's got tattoos and where they
099are Peggy's came off without any issue oh forget it again apparently you're a wonderful sweet skin and my cheeks are very different oh boy yes yeah just just a couple of a very a couple of them back from that um one is we did a few of us had the opportunity to celebrate Dr McGowan's win as New York State and National superintendent of the year in Albany just a great event great learning opportunity um just very proud to be part of that thankful and grateful Dr McGowan that you lead us and I would say this equally very proud of a session we did after the February 28th board meeting which was a community Forum on anti-racism got a lot of great feedback from a very well attended Forum we're putting that into our current Dei
100plan to figure out how we can be better and that will be available in a couple of weeks to sort of say here's how we expect to get uh better in that area I'm just it's a great example of we're continuing to work hard and we also have a lot to continue to learn in that whole venue so just thankful that the community is taking the time with us um and I just want to say thank you for your previous comment for celebrating too it was that much more meaningful with this great team so thank you um our next meeting is March 28th which is is the executive budget proposal slash budget hearing and uh thanks to Evan our student assistant tonight and as always Mike and Bill behind the camera thank you to you
101guys anybody else may I have a motion to adjourn so moved moved by Karen second seconded by Susan all those in favor aye aye we are adjourned this has been a special presentation from the Brighton Central School District Board of Education