Board of Education Meeting February 15, 2022

001this is a special presentation from the brighton central school district board of education welcome to the brighton central school district board of education public meeting for tuesday february 15th to begin we're going to have a quick public hearing regarding the first responder property tax exemption that was discussed at our last meeting i'll do a quick review on that just a quick one paragraph that talks to what it is for those who weren't able to listen or beyond this document that explains the first responder property tax exemption is also a public document on the school board web on the school excuse me website recently real property tax law 466 k was passed into law this law allows towns county and school districts to opt in to authorize a real property tax exemption of 10 percent of

002their homes assessed value for volunteer firefighters or ambulance workers who reside in the town they serve the property must be the volunteers primary residence to enact this exemption the board of education must pass a formal resolution after considering feedback from the community at a public hearing there any questions with regards to this exemption i know i have to manage the agenda i'll do that in just a second okay i'm not going to make a motion to amend the agenda to add a new item number three which is a resolution to approve the real property tax i'm sorry the volunteer first responder property tax exemption so the current agenda will have a new item three and all the remaining items will knock down by one so motion to approve the amended agenda so moved moved by

003karen second seconded by susan all those in favor all right seeing no questions or comments regarding the uh first responder property tax exemption motion to approve the first responder property tax exemption moved by andrea second seconded by esther all those in favor new uh agenda item number four is public participation um is there anyone here who would like to make a comment at tonight's board meeting scene no one we will move on to new agenda item number five which is a approval of the agenda we did that i'm sorry i'm going to keep moving it down here approval of the minutes from january 18th and january 25th we've all had those minutes any edits or comments to either of those meetings minutes motion to approve the minutes of the january 18th business meeting in the

004january 25th special vote moved by julian second seconded by karen all those in favor all right minutes are approved uh next up is item number seven which is the coveted relief spending updates and overview dr allison rio and deanna spagnola so while uh dan and nelson are walking up to the podium i just want to preface their presentation by saying that at this time of year normally in the blueprint and budget process the update we give in february is regarding any potential spending items or proposals that would have a budget impact related to blueprint efforts we don't have any of those this year although frankly because it's the work of the district most of the work of the blueprint is what drives spending going forward but we're not talking about new expenditures several times over

005the last couple of months we've been asked about the allocation of federal funds people are curious how does this work a lot of different numbers out there as you'll see the numbers are not what necessarily have been quoted or thought of or are available in other publications these are the numbers we're presenting to that we are actually receiving and how we are spending that money it's actually fascinating information or maybe some of us just need more hobbies fascinating though relative to when you see the real impact of that funding and what is happening it's really being put to use both to make for a healthier environment given covet but also to support the very direct and very real needs of kids and staff members so we're really excited about that and to share that information

006so nelson oh go ahead two things can be true at once we all might need more better hobbies and this is also fascinating information second thing i noticed we have received a lot of feedback from the community about how and where and estimates of how much we've received so this is extraordinarily helpful because we can put some real numbers in concepts to what we're talking about here houston take it away thank you thanks for the intro so this first slide just gives an overview of how we've been using our money and the left-hand column the gear funds is really targeted more towards covent response so you can see some of the items listed there we've spent some of the money tents outside of schools air purifiers ppe equipment for students for staff and then a

007big piece of that was the technology infrastructure to support the move to one to one for all of our students here in brighton and what diana and i will chat about today are the columns that are listed there in green and blue talking more about our support staffing wise and supports program-wise so we'll talk a little bit more about that today but this just gives you an overview of kind of the bigger picture and we'll start with some hiring updates share with you the people that are part of this work and in the academic land we have some reading specialists and math specialists that have joined our team here in brighton for a reading specialist we have angela dana who is a reading teacher at the middle school and at the high school 0.5 at

008each building working with individual students small groups of students trying to build that reading base especially for our kids 809 and some of the needs that we've seen through covid at french road we added an additional full-time reading teacher and part of that was so that we could release reading teacher jan gallo to do some instructional work to help us look at our bigger picture and and use her leadership expertise to guide some of our ela planning and pavett has joined our team actually just a couple weeks ago as our newest reading teacher and we're working on hiring a 0.5 rating teacher at council rock we have a job posted right now and stay tuned for more about that in the land of math we have heidi who joined our tcms and bhs team 0.5

009at each building very similar to angela working with small groups of students in both buildings and then we have two leadership positions two of our current teachers moved into these leadership positions opening up additional teaching positions at both the high school and at french road we have stefano monokino as our k-5 math intervention leader and andrew doyle is our 612 math intervention leader and both of these teachers have been doing a phenomenal job helping to support really that gap of student learning helping teachers to identify what we should be focusing on looking at data to identify student needs differentiating the curriculum like you name it they've been doing it doing a phenomenal job thank you so as we looked at needs across the district we were able to also hire some mental health staff and

010we posted earlier in the fall for either social work or council work background we wanted the strongest candidate to be in these different positions so we were able to take a look at a counselor now over at adding to the mental health staff at council rock dana peterson at french road catherine katie huey has begun over there and just because she was recently appointed in the position filling for meg goodman who took on the family navigator role malika knight has joined and excuse me dr mcgowan and i hired a wonderful candidate last week we're waiting for the ink to dry there a wonderful strong candidate to fill our k-8 district psychologist position and again i mentioned meg goodman who is now assumed the family navigator position is working 612 supporting families students and staff connecting

011them with out in the community additional resources above and beyond what a school-based mental health team can provide alternative a little trade-off here today so as far as our program updates go in the land of instruction and curriculum we really noticed a big need in the area of math as we looked at our year last year of hybrid remote mixed instructional models actually students didn't you know perform as poorly in reading as you may have thought their reading was pretty stable across the board and that was a trend that was not just here in brighton but across the country and the math gaps grew quite a bit so we targeted some specific math intervention programs to um work with students either in a one-to-one basis or a small group some are individualized like computer programs

012and some are interventions that teachers are running in small groups through academic intervention so i ready program for students at bhs and tcms and number worlds is being piloted as an intervention right now for certain groups of students at council rock and at french road and we added an ixl upgrade which is a math program that we use at k5 we added that for our sixth grade students and then additionally we have fev tutor which you've heard me talk about before but just that any time of day or night support that kids need they can log in they can schedule a session or they can just log in and say hey i need help with this homework or i'm struggling i've gone in there to see what kids are asking about and they'll say i

013don't know what to do for this math sheet and that's how they'll type it in and then someone will pick it up and help them with that so it's been a resource that has been really helpful for kids who are just struggling after school hours and to support the people to support our students with some direct instruction we were able to add some um pre-k units for to support our kindergarten students who are now full-time full day at council rock so some additional second step units which came out of a request from the mental health staff there we have continued a partnership with puri partnership in restorative in i always say want to say interventions but initiatives i keep this word initial interventions on my brain so our staff over the summer building staff and

014administrators were trained in restorative discipline um and how to take a stronger look at that and then also looking forward to our superintendent's conference day in april when we'll have the opportunity for our staff they can choose we're structuring the day is kind of a choose your own adventure where staff who want to take a deeper dive into academic learning circles we have many teachers who use those in their classrooms but beyond a community circle now having used an academic circle and so people have the opportunity to take a look there continuing our partnership with bavona and those direct lessons have started in our buildings and that also has included the professional development and training with staff and that's an ongoing partnership and ongoing training that we continue to use and utilize on a regular

015basis we also as we spoke last month um have a partnership with panorama in fact we had staff who were part of a training today i know both allison and myself were getting taxed throughout the day either people sending us resources for their feedback from that training but this is a social emotional learning screener and a part of that will be an assessment that's a culture climate survey that will be conducted with our staff again i'm referencing the superintendent's conference day in april faculty and staff will have the opportunity to take that survey and then our students and our families between april and june so this is really going to give us a sense on where else do we need to put our resources how do we need to shift resources what do we need

016what do our families need what do our students need what does our staff need in terms of making this the best that we can beyond just the academics as well taking care of that whole child so part of the survey questions this is just an overview i'm not going to read each of these to you we shared this last month but just again an overview some of the possible survey topics some folks will be have questions based in these areas and i'll pause so people can take a peek at that and again the survey will begin for our faculty and staff on april 8th the superintendent's conference day and we're all set any questions for the both of us no i appreciate the explanation there's a lot of detail there obviously like everything else this

017is available on the school website for people to go and ask questions or get questions answered if they want i think this helps a lot with some of the questions we've received in the past from the audience about where the dollar is going and what are we willing to do for the dollars and both of you done an excellent job sort of letting us know how they're being applied with a pretty clear student first focus so thank you thank you thanks great work uh let's see agenda item 8 very excited to hear from one of the newest leaders on our team and that's jeff green who's got responsibility for student and family engagement projects so jeff the podium's yours good evening everyone to the board members it's nice to meet you some of you have

018met in first person others have met you over a screen a couple of times thank you so much for having me one of the things i would like to say before i get started is that the community here has been so welcoming and i would like to publicly give a huge thank you to many of the people in this room the principals cabinet dr mcgowan everyone miss lazar fame everyone's just been great and there's other people i haven't mentioned your name but it's it's a testament to the leadership in this community and i'm really really excited about being here so thank you for having me and i am the new director of student family engagement here in the district and today i'm going to communicate to everybody a little bit about what some of the

019work i've done in my very quick three weeks here in the district so i'm going to be discussing some of my roles in central office some of the work have begun at tcms with the leadership there and the other buildings i'm across the district so in central office a couple of things i am going to be supervising is registration residency and the tutoring center um with everything as being a new member of the school community and coming in halfway through the school year i'm coming in as a learner so one of the things i've had an opportunity to do when it comes to registration and residency is work with our district registrar uh natalie pinkish she's done a really amazing job of teaching me all of the ins and outs of registration we've had an

020opportunity to also work on a couple of situations that have come up when it comes to residency and i look forward to continuing to work with her in the tutoring center i've been working with the alternative education coordinator deb appleton it's been uh just just as good working with her learning the processes and the ins and outs and we are continuing to work and develop on uh assessing the systems that we have in place trying to fill any gaps and to continue all the great work that has happened another part of my role is going to be the liaison to the urban suburban program i've also had seven several meetings with the program director felicia smith i did have a prior relationship with her prior to me being here so it's been a that's been

021a nice transition for me and i'm looking forward to working with her and all of the families that have made an awesome choice to join the urban suburban program here in brighton so tcms this is one of the air this is one of the places where i've been spending most of my time danielle's been doing a great job of welcoming her and her team and i've really enjoyed it i spent a lot of my time there during lunches when students not to take them out of instruction and for a chance for me to connect with them it's a balancing act of me being like the new shiny toy and also giving them opportunities to uh socialize with their friends because that's a time that they all look forward to so sometimes i'm there interacting a

022lot of times they want to interact with me and other times i'm just there kind of giving additional supervision um i've been attending weekly meetings and learning um about the school culture and working through some of the systems that i know danielle's trying to put in place that's a work in progress and the eighth graders what a wonderful group of kids at uh 12 corners middle school trying to build some relationships with them and um yo you're here soon but i'm going to be working with all the schools with transitions and i know that's a group that i'm trying to build some relationships with to assist with that transition a few months from now i recently uh joined the brighton or the brighton support team meetings where i get a chance to learn about the

023protocols procedures that the school uses when it comes to interventions and trying to figure out when is it what's going to be appropriate for me to join in and partner with some of the counselors and some of the families to better support students and or families and up also friday night an opportunity to go and beat a couple of students in air hockey it was a good time um but i did give up i give up the uh i give up my turn because i didn't want to continue to you know i want everybody to have equal opportunity to win so i had to continue to move on with that so i'm looking forward to attending more of those events and then uh lastly like i said uh transition meetings i've been working with building

024leadership and counselors some of you have seen on some of the a couple of weeks ago we had some evening events with orientations and information nights um i attended that for tcms and um as well with the high school so i'm looking forward to being a an additional support system for families and students during uh you know transitions can be tough i know because i'm doing it right now so but the more that we can support one another the easier it can be and i'm also just trying to make myself visible a big part of my role is building relationships with students and with families and various community members and i'm trying to make sure that i uh and present when i'm able to in some of the events friday was awesome black history month

025celebration in the uh the high school gym that was awesome and got a chance to dance and clap our hands and feel the groove a little bit that was amazing and saturday night my wife and i had a great opportunity to attend the beauty and the beast show my goodness the talent is unbelievable um i was very very impressed and so is my wife and i look forward to um to joining a lot more events and see the amazing talent that we have from our students here in brighton so some of the things i'm going to be doing moving forward is definitely building relationships with students that's why we are all here and it's going to take me some time to for people to know who i am um over next week over break i'm

026going to be making personal phone calls to all of the families that are part of the urban suburban program to introduce myself as a liaison i've already reached out to some of them but i'm going to make sure that i continue working through that i've had people in the community reach out to me i'm looking forward to meeting more community members i had a chance last week to also meet with the president of the uh brighton ptsa so i'm looking forward to partnering with that group as well i'm going to be going on the washington dc trip which should be a good time i can't wait to see um what that experience is going to be like but i'm a former social studies teacher so i love washington dc there's a lot of history and

027i'm very looking forward to connecting with the students i'm in that capacity um transitions i'll continue that work i'm gonna be working with the building registrars throughout the district to look at systems and see how we can streamline some of the processes and procedures and create some transparency i'm really really looking forward to partnering with dr hall and the culture climate team at brighton high school as i said before i've been spending a lot of time at 12 corners and i'm really really looking forward to listening and learning from the student leaders at the high school i've already met some of them when i introduced myself to them they're like oh okay cool compared to the 12 pointers they're like oh wow who's this guy the kids were calling me shaq and all types of

028fun stuff so um and i'm just going to continue uh to try to attend community events and try to be a part of this great community so i'm really really grateful to be here and i'm really curious on how long i was um but that being said um thank you again for having me are there any questions um about anything that i may or may not have said uh i didn't time you first of all but it seemed great um i would say one thing you described yourself sort of when you started as being in a learning mode i'll also remind you that we have the opportunity to learn a lot from you as you see things for the first time so it gives us an opportunity to be in a learning mode when you

029see something and bring it up so while you're in the learning mode we also should be considered to be in the learning mode i want to make sure that you feel comfortable to say hey i saw this i don't know why we're doing this and i hope you ask a lot of those questions because i think in my work experience when we bring people on those first six months are like a treasure chest of asking questions that just because you don't have the background and we learn a lot of things so i hope you're feeling confident and comfortable to be able to ask a whole bunch of questions we have great leaders over here who i know will welcome it but we as a board and then kevin everybody else would welcome it also if

030you see something say something as they say like why do we do this because i think there's a golden opportunity in those first in your first six months for us to be in the learning mode too thank you so much for uh for saying that i appreciate it and i will hopefully not bombard you with too many questions then impossible jeff you started by uh thanking everybody we just want to thank you for choosing us because you chose to come here into a brand new situation and position that we're trying to figure out because you can have such a great impact on kids and families so thanks for doing that what a great start pretty fantastic so thank you so much thank you thank you welcome geez from that presentation to a budget update well

031don't time me get the cardboard all right so uh very briefly to introduce this because lou has he is better for everybody we'll go through the more technical pieces of it but i want to start and tell you that we are going to walk through today the revenue projections impact of the executive budget so the governor's proposal what that looks like here for us at brighton the final tax cap calculation which is on your agenda for adoption later in the meeting those are you know that you adopt that but that is a technical formula that although you're required to adopt there's no uh choice in the matter the tax cap is what it is and then we're going to give you an update on spending projections based on the reconciliation of the boces request for

032services so we sign up for those right now and so we can get a sense for what that uh spending piece is what contract transportation is as it looks right now which i you know preface this by telling you we are subject to pretty significant cost increases just like people are seeing the consumer price index and inflationary costs go up in their everyday life same thing is happening with transportation in addition to some mandatory services we provide through transportation that are going up as well and then an update as we know them right now on salaries and wages and what that impact is on the budget at this point so this is just one step of many in the process i'm then going to jump into the community feedback which we will give again at

033the seven o'clock community forum so people coming specifically to that event can hear that community feedback as well that was through the thought exchange just to let people know what this current sentiment were for the people that jumped into the exchange i think we ended up with 600 uh responses from the community so we'll go through that with everybody and give them a sense for that lou is going to start out and give us the technical pieces like i said the one better at that estimated revenues good evening so tonight i'm going to present just the first pass of our revenue development side of of the budget and this is a summary that we present in our budget binder just taking through some big components of it so starting with the very top and i'm

034not going to go through every line in them but just the most significant piece of it we were conservative in estimating the impact on sales tax from cobit we have seen that recover and we've seen actually growth in that so we're taking advantage of that growth and re-establishing our budget base coming into the next year with the 294 thousand dollars we see the rental of real property and pretty significant decrease there and that is attributable to the sale of brookside and when we close on that we expect to lose obviously the the rental income that's associated with that so that's what's uh what's driving that decrease in revenues um this year some other minor ones but then we have a pretty significant increase in in state and federal aid and again as the state tries

035to fulfill the promise of paying the full amount of foundation they do we see us getting up closer to the 80 percent in foundation aid and i'll break that down on the next slide when we're looking at our financing sources now these are not revenues that are coming in from an outside source this is existing resources that are in the district last year the board of education increased appropriated fund balance from 2.6 million dollars to 3 million dollars at the time that you adopted the tax rate so i'm carrying that forward because that's that changed our property levy base and you'll see that on the property tax cap calculation so i'm carrying forward that three million dollars monthly i give the board of education budget to actual projections so i expect we'll be able to

036replenish that this year and reappropriate that going into the next year we also have a budgeted use of reserves preliminary i'm i'm estimating and this would be coming from our retirement retirement accounts so as we put money into our ers and trs accounts the pledge was that that would be tax levy neutral so as those rates increase and our salaries increase we'll offset those to maintain stability in the tax levy so preliminarily allocating 250 000 from those retirement reserve funds and then we get into the property tax piece of it still most significant part of our of our revenue this is the tax cap number the 1.2 million dollar increase that's um calculated through the through the tax cap so that would be our tax levy limit in factoring in all the exclusions should the

037board adopt that as as the as a revenue source up to that amount or over the amount and then uh pilot payments which are the property in lieu of taxes so overall 5.3 percent in revenues and financing sources when we look at and we disaggregate our state aid so this is a portion of or looking at where we are today versus what the governor proposed in her budget in mid-january so we see an increase in foundation aid as was was promised so that's the biggest component there we look at our boces excess cost aid and instructional materials aid that's the ima so those are all expense based reimbursements to the extent that we are spending goes up in any one of those revenue follows the subsequent year so as increases in those uh happen in

038the year year one same with transportation we don't see that revenue so it's always initial pressure on the tax levy and then there's a revenue source the year afterwards so you could see some of some of those components an increase in transportation that's because of the cost savings we had when we shut down schools in the 1920 school year so if you remember when we shut down in spring we saved money on transportation but then we also lost money the following school year so we're having a full year transportation last year with the hybrid learning model so we're seeing that money in the 2122 22-23 school year excuse me so this is our tax cap calculation and again what's important to remember is the the intervention and the application of appropriated fund balance here our

039budget last year if you look at all our budget documents it was four hundred thousand dollars greater we use the current resources to reduce taxes at that point in time that carries forward in the tax cap calculations this year so that's the starting point what i point out is some significant factors so this is normally a growth factor that's computed by the office of real property tax services as they look at the growth of the brighton central school district which is comprised of town of brighton mostly and then portion of pittsburgh they assigned a zero growth factor for uh for our school district so there's no escalation in the tax levy that's associated with real property growth we're a mature community in that regard not a lot of new development so it's generally a small

040amount but this is the first year it's actually 1.0 so so no new money associated with property growth then you see the change in property taxes uh pilots excuse me you see 164 dollars last year or in this year the 21 22 school year and we see 157 000 so the extent that pilots go down that money shifts to the tax levy calculation and then you have the in this portion here the um capital levy exclusion and this is fully uh phased in now the impact of the 2017 um brighton facilities improvement plan so you can see this 1.7 million dollars to 1.8 million dollars approximately just some interest that's coming on um in this last year but now we have stability for the next couple of years as it relates to property tax computation

041so overall the tax levy limit adjusted for the exclusions is 57.9 million dollars which represents a 2.12 percent increase and allows for a spending increase of 1.37 percent just some updates now on on the spending projections as we're going through and reconciling the different object codes within the budget we wanted to take the opportunity to share some of the the updates and spending pressures uh specifically from our boces services so this is the chart that i present every month to the board of education and i look at where were the initial services that we signed up for um with boces and i just want to highlight some of the big ticket ones which are the business and technology services and instructional technology services that's all related to our one-to-one um program really we we ripped

042off the band-aid we were forced to go one-to-one in all the right ways but now we need to support that long-term so that requires infrastructure that requires a responsible repair replacement reserve for the student devices and it also we need to be responsive to the increasing cyber security risk so a lot of a lot more services that they're not inexpensive services that we need to subscribe for to protect our infrastructure and to protect um and maintains continuity of operations as it relates to instructional technology so some spending pressures there and then in special education as i work with dianna spagnola's office and pupil services we look at trends in special education and we look at forecasts there's still a lot of meetings to add but as we see likely placements or potential placements i need

043to put that into our into our cost projection model so we're seeing an increase of special education costs specific to boces placements and then itinerant services that we subscribe to for boces increasing uh 773 thousand 000 and you could just have a sense of what the tuition so as there's an out-of-district placement generally the tuitions range from 55 000 to 88 000 for each student and then related services or itinerant services that are required could increase total cost up to 110 120 000 the second area of spending and just to set the stage for some of the pressures that we're looking at on the on the spending side of the budget is contract transportation so what i've tried to do here this this looks really complex but it can be boiled down pretty simply is

044looking at our the current fleet that we're utilizing right now versus what was budgeted so i just looked at current invoicing to what was in our cost projection model last year and we see for first student we've had to increase the bus at least one bus in the morning and in the afternoon and the average cost of that requirement was 68 940. a portion of a deficit due is last year we were budgeting if you recall from prior tax calculations we were less than two percent for for a long time so we were budgeting a cpi percent increase and then as covid hit and inflation started go the actual cpi for contract transportation was 3.2 percent so we were under budgeted on what that cost escalation was and then we have rmt and transpo so

045that's what we use for our alternative transportation if you could see budget to actual this year and there's a memo that's provided to you as well asking for a budget transfer we're up five buses for transpo rmt and that's for buses that cannot be accommodated with our first student fleet so those are generally out of district uh transportation and in i think in all instances of those five buses it's one-to-one bus transportation so we needed to bring on a new bus to transport one child to a placement outside of the district and you could see the associated costs with that in many instances that out of district placement is also required and attended on the bus so you can see we've had to add three attendants from rmt compared to the four that was budgeted

046so all of those factors just kind of rolling forward at a high level analytic from contract transportation we we started with a 3.7 million dollar budget in contract transportation we look at just where cpi is right now and what we're forecasting the inflation or the contract adjustment to be for for our existing fleet that's about 282 the estimated cost of the additional buses that are being utilized today and that we expect will carry forward into the 22-23 school year another close to half a million dollars and then the estimated cost of additional monitors of 143 so that's almost 900 000 of cost escalation in just contract transportation without providing for any risk so if these trends are to continue and we continue to get more placements out of district whether it's move in whether it's

047placement because of because of need you know approach appropriate placement based on need this is not even budgeting for a risk provision of one or two buses should the need arise and so lastly a third item and this is obviously our biggest item is part of the budget the budget factors that are impacting spending specific on salaries and wages the district minimum wage adjustment for hourly workers that was approved by the bud uh by the board last week we've been carrying that we've understood what the cost implications of that were going to be prior to the board considering that resolution so we were accounting for that what we weren't necessarily accounting for was some of the new positions in response to mandates so as we're looking at our staffing projections and just response to mandated

048appropriate services we're looking at a 1.0 special education teacher to be added at the middle school and also at the high school we're projecting increased needs of speech at the primary level so we're budgeting for a position there and then we've needed to respond and increase school psychology services at at french road so we're budgeting for a 0.2 increase there the other thing that we're trying to consider is all the great work that's happening with the federal dollars in year two and when those grants expire the needs that those services and programs are addressing we don't expect are going to go away so we need to be really thoughtful about the services that are going to be required and sustained long term what's going to be our financial plan to slowly bring those into the

049general fund and have those supported with local dollars so we're looking at mission critical positions right now that that we're looking at funding in the 2223 budget and that's again to support our technology and just the maintenance of program that we have continuity of program to have technology integration specialists at the k5 level that's from application specialist cyber security specialist everything that we need for for continuity of service and program and then we're looking at along the same lines network administrator and then rti and academic intervention specialists the work that's started this year that's proving to be effective we know we're going to need to continue that in the future so we need to put together a responsible plan to blend in those those programs and services from from federal sources and then what's still

050unknown obviously is some collective bargaining implications so that's yet to be um yet to be determined but something that were obviously needs to be considered with that i'll turn it back over to dr mcgowan thanks a great job appreciate the thoughtful details so we went out and asked the community what they thought uh what their priorities were in the budget process essentially what you would be thinking about what should the board be considering as we move forward in building the budget and preparing it for the community to consider the specific question as we plan the budget we really need to know what you think should be prioritized what is most important to you what would you like us to be considering as we review our expenses taxes for next year programs that are in place

051programs that have been reduced or any other aspects of the budget i'm going to preface this by telling you i will not ask the question i don't think the same way in the future and here's why when you purposely ask such a wide open question there's a tremendous amount of feedback which we value but i think what we need to do a different job of and think about it differently in terms of a framework next year saying to people this is what it would require to have no more of an impact on you as a taxpayer it would require x y and z how do you feel about that i think that's really the question that we need to understand better and provide an opportunity for people to express the other great thoughts that they

052have but i think sometimes out of that context it's not very clear to people because i think just about anybody would say well i don't want there to be an impact on my taxes i don't think anybody in this room would say i would like to pay more taxes i it would be the first time i've heard that i will tell you what i hear often though is i'm willing to pay more taxes if it protects the programs that are important to my kids i'm willing to invest in the great work that's being done that is a common refrain from many people in our community so i want to think about that when we go forward that said here are the results from that question we had 600 people enter the exchange which is a

053pretty decent number actually for people to go into something like this far more than what we had in typical surveys actually when we would ask for responses that way they shared 374 thoughts 29 000 star ratings which means almost nothing to me but i share it with you in case it means something to you uh it's really just the number of stars assigned to each of those thoughts caregivers uh so in other words parents from any level in the district uh parents grandparents somebody who's giving care essentially um a parent or guardian 64 of the respondents are 370 367 people 14 82 people community members without children in school that's pretty good number actually and 22 percent were staff members we asked them to weigh in as well it's an important consideration uh how did

054that break down relatively even across the board uh council rock 26 percent 25 french road 27 percent ccms 36 percent the high school and then 10 k12 so in other words not one building but maybe more than one building and not applicable would be likely the people outside who don't have children in school would answer that way the wordle essentially what words were mentioned the most just like a quick visual glance what does this mean not again a ton snow clearly on people's mind many comments about snow days at that time they threw that in there for sure trips field trips things like that enrichment there were several thanks as well foreign language being important academic enrichment support common words used throughout the exchange what were the top thoughts i'll give you the top three

055keep academic programming don't eliminate classes it's why our kids are in school number one thought in the entire exchange when looking at all groups together second thought quality of instruction great teachers engage kids and make learning prioritize writing and communicating these skills will be required in any and all jobs and life so our top three thoughts of the 374 shared again this is among all participants how the how did they rate them all about instruction essentially the artificial intelligence in the platform themes the comments as well and it broke down to specific comments around kids taxes different types of classes programs pay staffing support snow days a bunch of accounts about somebody's even found that shocking later start times and then a whole bunch of different comments uh about 127 or so fell into the

056miscellaneous category so they were all over the place um this just shows you essentially the the the importance or the rating in each of these themes so pretty even across the board board in terms of uh star score pretty close to three and a half from one end to the other in terms of where the themes kind of waited in the exchange in terms of those themes just a quick sample for you classes that was one of the themes one of the buckets that comments fell into keep academic programming focus on academics uh replace teachers who retire rather than creating part-time positions or cutting positions all together so we've definitely looked at when there's attrition how do you replace that person is it necessary to have a full-time replacement or is that a particular position

057not a full-time position how do you do that as efficiently somebody clearly expressing in this case that you can't in their opinion attract as high quality a person with less than a full-time position and that it increases class sizes it it's hard to know what specific position they're talking about but sometimes uh there is a shift when somebody retires and you don't need to replace with a full-time person too so we just try and be conscious of that but point well taken from this person's perspective foreign language was another theme that came up introduce spanish to other common languages as early as possible even if just once per cycle for basic conversational skills star foreign language in elementary school this has been something people have talked about for years foreign language in sixth grade which

058we have reinstated so i think this person is certainly um suggesting support for that the younger you are to learn a new language the easier it will be to maintain it for the future and it helps with math learning best to start by age three also hoping that we will do that younger in terms of taxes increase the quality of education keep all the programs bring back things that have been cut and don't raise taxes that is a challenge brighton draws people with good schools grads from 20 century tell us about stuff we can't do now because the state cuts our funding get that back be careful of costs significant tax increases over the last five years and it cannot keep going brain needs to be willing to stay flat some years in cost per

059student please find a way to lower at least freeze taxes not the state funding is increasing just a quick comment about this so my my uh feedback is not at all to refute these comments but it is clear when you read comments like this that we need to think also about how we communicate about tax increases about the cost and work through that and provide a lot of information to the community what i mean by that is one the increasing quality of education in a very high quality place but continue to innovate and thinking about keeping all programs or bringing back things that have been cut which we really already have also requires then increased revenue to make that happen right that's very simple if you're going to put more on your shopping cart wagman's

060it requires more revenue to be able to pay for those things the being careful of costs we comb through the budget each and every year looking for the ways we can become more efficient efficient and that will not change no matter how much data we're getting but really important point here playing into both that and the next comment one if you look historically at our tax increases compare that to the increase people find again at wegmans or in other inflationary areas in their own spending the notion that there have been i guess i would say dramatic tax increases we would like to present uh historically how our tax increases actually compare to the consumer price index and the other areas that go up in people's lives and they have been uh i would say to

061i want to stay away from a subjective term but i would say as reasonable as we can possibly make them while still supporting programming so everybody's definition of a high tax increase is going to be different i think ours compare very favorably relative to especially what other people are paying in terms of other parts of their lives or in other municipalities but we would like to present that historical information and then finally we are still going to be in this budget year 20 percent less than what the state owes us so i know this is a mantra people are so tired of hearing from me but we are yes it is fantastic at 80 percent far above the 50 or so threshold that we were and then last year getting to 60 which is fantastic

062really is fantastic and grateful that the state's made progress on that just important for people to realize we're not there yet we're at 80 percent 20 percent less 20 years ago would have been an outrage a travesty we are excited that we're 20 less because before we're 50 less but remember we're still 20 less and i think if people thought about this in terms of their own household budget if they were to find out tomorrow that they're receiving 20 percent less of their income which we know people do find that out that's a pretty dramatic cut for most people in their lives and so for us not to get that other 20 is still significant and we will continue to pursue that expect that to happen next year but remember we're still 20 or less

063uh another theme that came up bus drivers invest in teachers they're first responders as well as cafeteria workers and bus drivers it just happened to lop in that category because the use of the term bus drivers drop off pickup situation is not ideal at middle school high school traffic flow and it's not helpful we have also looked at this for years and years and years and years and we don't disagree however it is a volume issue we're limited in space and the traffic conditions at certain times in the morning it is better if you come a little bit earlier or take advantage of the transportation system that that we talked about earlier as well that does seem to help do what it takes to improve drop off at tcms phs kids are in danger and

064so are the security guards safety should be paramount agreed also again would like to remind people please take safety into account when they are pulling in and out be respectful of our staff and make sure also that as people driving through those areas as we see often on social media many of our community members are reminding each other and i think that's important too to be safe uh field trip opportunities came up several times restoring field trips enrichment opportunities for students offer opportunities for k-12 students extracurricular activity sports arts again a lot of comments supporting do these extra things this is what i'm willing to continue to support as a taxpayer maintain language music programs education programs specifically regard to math science technology this person put in another high ranking comment controlling costs while keeping

065facilities and programs at high levels we're right on board with all that makes a lot of sense counseling service access to free meals for students and teachers need more leadership support as a parent i've watched teachers do wonderful things totally agree for our students and they are increasingly burning out also agree invest in our teachers this is staff-wide community-wide other school districts nationwide we're seeing this we want to be really aware of that and continue to think about how to make that investment as lou alluded to when talked about our costs going into next year and what we've already done and what you support as a board for many of our staff members quality of instruction prioritized writing communication focus on teachers in the classroom not on administrators we keep hiring later uh the latter

066where kids would benefit from the form we're going to talk about that as we go through the process actually we just want to remind people again uh these exchanges are a vulnerable moment for us to stand up and say hey this is feedback and we want to acknowledge this put this up on the screen and say it i will say to you we continue to be uh perhaps and almost certainly the lightest leanest administrative team actually regionally certainly in the county uh but even beyond that and so if you looked at the uh presentation that was given earlier two of them think about this the framework one being what alice and diana presented in terms of what's been done the number of positions specifically that are student-focused on instructional positions has been significant we've hired

067many many many many people so to this person's point that's exactly what we're doing and the position that was hired this year mr green's position director of student family engagement one i would just i should like just drop the mic and say his presentation but number two i would say to you that remember that was replacing an administrative position that was there already so we don't mind actually putting this comment up on the screen and speaking to it because it is important to give the right information to people about what this means i will also say though this is a very common comment that comes up in any type of organization anywhere and in school districts people saying listen keep the people that are right in front of my kids recognizing that that's the person

068they interact with the most and that they know the most so we we understand that also interesting comments this is the the mechanism where you can take a look at two randomly not well not randomly two selected groups of people who had similar starring patterns so the group a in this case on this side is 141 people that are the blue group side a side b being the green a different group of people that had similar starring patterns to the exchange so these are people that are seemingly like-minded and how they fall out on certain comments it's just an interesting analysis tool side a in this case prioritize later start times for middle high school students start times are better for their mental health rate of that 4.6 side b 1.5 you see some pretty

069significant division on that particular idea not everybody's in the same place on that in this exchange swapping start times similar comment 4.5 1.5 side b go all the way to the right hand side of the screen i am supportive of a budget that includes new and innovative programming i'm not supportive of a budget that includes five hundred thousand dollars in new spending to switch the start times of council rock and bhs very interesting again side a who on the other side of the screen wanted those start times rated that very low i don't agree with that because to them the way i analyze this is that 500 000 is not as important to them they feel very strongly about that particular idea side b is saying yeah i i'm not up for that especially when

070i see that price tag keep at least one to two snow days for kids it's a small boon joy for children living in the long land of winter that group of people rated that 4.4 interestingly though the other group of people that same group that is in favor of later start times not necessarily in favor of the keeping of snow days but where do they agree and this is really the point that i want you to take home what are the things that they agree on so in a world right now where people are two different ends of the spectrum on so many different things they all agree keep academic programming don't eliminate classes quality of instruction great teachers engage kids and make learning that's the sweet spot for us that's what our community agrees

071this is what you should be thinking about and if you take a look at the other differences slides look right in the middle please focus on academics spend money in areas that directly impact students these two groups of people are two different selected groups of people again based on their starting pattern that have these differences in those similarities they had several other you know disagreements they had disagreements on masking which was the most common disagreements on bringing back programs especially arts and music that may have been reduced or cut i didn't agree with that side a interestingly here said i appreciate the science serving approach i'm asking please continue to encourage masking as recommended by monroe county health department to keep everyone safe thanks keep our children staff community safe and healthy felt strongly about

072that side b didn't feel that way that same group that said you know i appreciate the science urban approach i said bring back programs the other group did not feel the same way but what did they agree on please focus on academics spend money in areas that impact students so just an important way to think about it and analyze the information the beauty of the exchange is the analysis is also in the eye of the beholder the people both that were in the exchange but they can review the results now with our upcoming information that we send out to the community we'll send a link to the summary report anybody can go in they can filter actually by the ways that people answer so uh the starting patterns of each of the groups and they

073can take a look at that for themselves and draw their own conclusions what do i personally draw from this in analyzing and reporting to you in making recommendations and in working with our staff develop the budget here are some conclusions i think are important maintaining programs is a priority for the community we saw that in all those a b sides every different combination of that maintaining programs priority academic excellence continues to be our priority continue to build programs and innovate is essential cost is an important consideration let's not gloss over that people are concerned about that they do want to continue to think about taxes and the impact on them i think that's important for us to keep in mind also if we took all of those expenses that lou detailed earlier rolled those forward

074didn't do anything differently the tax increase could be significant in this community we're not interested in that we understand the need to not be in that place so we will do everything we can to make that as minimal impact as we possibly can recognizing that to have no impact would require significant changes to what we're offering and that's just not supported by the feedback that we've gotten or the way that we've approached this historically our community supports thoughtful investment that is focused on student impact and i think when you go through presentations like jobs tonight which was just outstanding all the presentations that are done by our principals the presentation done tonight by diana nelson these are all student impact every time the vast majority of conversations in this room and what's presented to our

075student impact student impact student impact so we're in very much the same place as our community members and appreciate their feedback in this as well so what should we be considering going forward remember impact of funding we're not there yet just want to continue to point that out we're 20 sure and that's important to remember that number is driven by our need remember the formula is based on our kids we're not we haven't talked much about that mantra like we used to but we want to make sure that's still clear to people the money that we are due is based on our actual students their needs their demographics their everything we send the state the data and they say okay based on your kids and what their particular needs are this is the amount you

076should get and we're getting 20 loss of that so important remember impact of inflation a lot of those costs and as lou went through uh those particular costs for example the transportation cost nothing we can do about that that is the cost and the inflationary cost of transporting our kids you can't decide not to do that you're required to do those things impact of covet i think is important to continue to remember and everything that we're doing to support kids and families has a cost to it and covet has definitely impacted our need to support kids and families differently and yes there are those funding sources but to lose point we have to make sure that we can carry forward the changes that we're making those important programmatic decisions when that funding is not there

077and so that plays into the longer term decisions number four on this screen the impact of today's decisions on the next several years and how do we think carefully about this year's budget and what the impact is for the next several years and be really mindful and planful in that regard and then the impact of a tax increase on households what does that mean for individual households what does that mean in our community and the ability for people to continue to live in our community thrive in our community enjoy our community what is the impact of a tax increase on programs both positive but also negative and what would that do if we were to modify a tax increase in a variety of ways and how would that impact what we could offer for people

078what is it relative to other cost increases that people have in their lives and help people understand relative to frankly you know basic necessities milk eggs utilities etc i think that's an important consideration for us to think about and a framework to consider that relative tax increase also to prior years and what is our history what really has been a levee growth over time and provide accurate information for people as well so those are the considerations conclusions what are our next steps we need to continue to monitor those budget actual projections like we always do are we on track you get regular reports the financial report from lou but that's a big part of the budget process as well to understand what we need to plan for uh next year although it seems like we're

079like seeing home plate we're only in february so we still have a significant chunk of the year uh more than a quarter left it does impact then spending into next year we need to collaborate with building principles department managers continue to look at where we can be more efficient evaluate impacts of any cost reduction strategies what does that mean for program evaluate our use of federal dollars our fund balance reserves that appropriate reserve the appropriate fund balance that we talked about in terms of reducing taxes what is the impact of that long term and then we'll continue to advocate for equitable funding and mandate relief we have in fact a meeting scheduled next week lou and i do with both senator cooney and assemblymember clark to talk about some specific issues with regard to aid

080that's a constant conversation several of you are involved as board members in the monroe county legislative breakfast a week ago saturday talking about these very issues with our elected representatives as well and continuing to advocate so that's a big part of our approach also any questions from the board at this point it's pretty much budget season 12 months out of the year correct sure yes yes yes exciting i feel like this is where dr baker would jump up and say no it's not doesn't have to be yes it does great thanks everybody thank you and uh thank you to lua limo as well next up we have a resolution for approval of the 2022-2023 school calendar which is next year and as dr mcgowan is returning to a seat i'll ask him if he wants

081to make any comments about that calendar sure a few uh one next year uh we continue to maintain an approach where we'd like the most inclusive calendar we possibly can so we would continue forward with the practice that we began this year taking off eat however it is a friday evening into a saturday so if people look at the calendar and think well they gave up on that no that's not the case at all we just i don't have it on the calendar for next year similar two years when yom kippur rosh hashanah falls on a weekend we then obviously don't have a day off for that because it falls on the weekend next year we have designed a calendar that allows for one snow day that would be the traditional no classes either in

082person or remote but then the days after that would have to be remote instructional days and certainly aware of refining our approach on that making that the most impactful day we possibly can really making that meaningful that allows us to continue to have the other days off that people have held as important to them particularly the wednesday before thanksgiving and a day before i believe it's december 23rd that friday december 23rd so other than that it's relatively straightforward um there's no uh no other changes it's a step in the right direction we think in an effective calendar that honors the boces calendar as well which maximizes our instructional time for kids attending boces programs questions from the board for dr mcgowan in regards to the proposed calendar for next year motion to approve the 2022-2023

083school calendar is delivered to the board second moved by susan seconded by karen all those in favor aye and that calendar is going to be sent to the community this evening correct it should be i think dan will probably send it within moments actually right so travel websites should be where and possible crashing right now i've already got questions hi i'm sure yeah no everybody does uh next up agenda item 11 which is reports we'll start with the financial reports we've received the budget status executive summary for the period ending december 31st the treasurer's report for that period as well in the student activity report for the fourth quarter october 31st 21 through december 21 in there under number four for uh number 11 a is also something lou alluded to earlier which is the

084budget amendment and transfer questions in regards to any of those items on the financial reports now i think i can pass them all at once as opposed to separate motion to approve all of the financial reports as delivered to the board moved by julian seconded by esther all those in favor approved next up our student representative lila monger um hello everyone i hope you all are doing well so first i'll start off by giving a little briefing on all the sports going on right now sectional season is upon us so that's really exciting for everyone boy swimming had had sectionals last wednesday and they got fifth overall nordic skiing sectionals were this weekend and yesterday and once again brighton did amazing in the individual girls race kate anzalotti she's a junior won the event and

085the brighton girls team won their fourth straight sectional championship so that's really impressive additionally the brighton boys for nordic also did well they finished third and miles maddens finished third place overall as an individual ice hockey starts their sectionals tonight with a game against geneva and alpine skiing has sectionals tonight or this morning and tomorrow today was the boys race for alpine and ben cuomo won his gs race and i'm not sure if he won slalom but i know he was like a top contender so that's really exciting um and then obviously most important track and field has sectionals friday night um so yeah it's live streamed just so you all know so then next i'm excited to share with you a really nice learning opportunity that vhs had so as you all know this

086month was black history month so to celebrate the black student union hosted an assembly for the school um the seniors were able to watch the assembly live in the gym and then it was live stream to the homerooms of the other grades so that was really nice for all the seniors to go down and watch so first dr sean nelms who's the superintendent at east high zoomed in and shared some words of wisdom with the school um the black student union then presented dr nelms with the truth and action recognition recognition award for his commitment to social justice and community building um next the black student union shared about how they went to a conference earlier in the year and were in awe of the african drummers at the conference so then they invited romba

087african drumming and dance from guana to the high school to share the experience with the entire student body there was a dancer and two drummers who came and they were like both groups were super talented overall it was a really nice assembly and i i don't know just a really exciting way to it kind of boosted school spirit and i i thought it was really nice um additionally the uh this past week and weekend our amazingly talented actors and crew put on beauty and the beast i'd not get a chance to go but everyone i talked to was amazed at how professional the entire performance was the students in the production as well as several staff members all put in a tremendous amount of hard work that clearly paid off and everyone had a great

088experience um that is all i have for today so thank you all for having me here tonight great thank you very much lyla board of education reports we'll start with the monroe county school board association reports labor relations our luncheon meeting is actually tomorrow and its regards uh in regards to rather the new marijuana laws and their impact on the schools so that will be an interesting discussion to be sure tomorrow um so that's labor relations information exchange did you get to go i know it was bad um information exchange i think i was at brighton believes meeting i think that's where i was and i couldn't attend information exchange but hilary chilson from the rochester museum and science center presented on planning and educational opportunities for the solar eclipse which is a year and

089a half away is it 2023 2023 i think i think you're stating that as a question the upcoming solar eclipse that's right yes the upcoming accelerator equipment right thank you legislative we actually had a legislative breakfast that i believe both christina and karen and dr mcgowan were at um it was a great event i can't always say that about past sessions of the legislative breakfast um but it was we had a strong attendance both with our local and regional legislators as well as school board members from across the county some from ontario county folks were pretty united school board members were pretty united across the board in reminding our legislators that we need to have a clear path forward when it comes to moving slowly out of the pandemic so we talked i talked to

090sarah clark personally i think dr mcgowan did as well about um the need for school districts to have the state set some firm metrics about conditions set for things like unmasking and how we move forward out of the pandemic dr mcgonn christine do you have anything to add i sat at the senators table and that was an interesting table just uh you know a lot of the school board members were really thankful for the federal funds that our senators had brought to our districts and so we talked a little bit how every about how people different districts were using those funds um there was advocacy around the busing issue and helping perhaps at the federal level to advocate for more staffing and then the other table i sat at was the new york state ed

091department and that was was also quite interesting there was a lot of discussion about curriculum i had the opportunity as karen mentioned to speak with assemblymember quite a bit about an off-ramp with metrics and clear parameters from the state and that the state should play a role in that and provide districts with support we also had really interesting conversations both with uh with sarah clark and with senator cooney staff around what will happen after foundation aid is fully implemented what is the plan then right so what kind of increases could we be thinking about to be strategic now in the long term where are we heading is kind of the bigger picture and what is the impact of reform of the formula so the demographics that we've talked about driving the actual need that i

092mentioned in tonight's presentation some are outdated some are not considered appropriately and and that formula probably needs some redesign we focused a lot on saying just fund the formula now because there is a formula but there is a really important conversation that needs to continue to take place around reform of the formula overall to better and more accurately reflect the needs of districts so really great conversations you know in thoughtful dialogue with the legislators so it was i would agree with karen christina well done and and an impactful event it's been a pleasure actually to work with our our current group of legislators they're incredibly responsive i know that there are needles they can't always move for us but i feel i feel like i'm getting more than lip service i would agree that's great

093thank you very much briefly on both seas i did receive an update from mark kolkanovic obviously our former board president and our representative to the monroe one boces just a quick update they held the minimum tree mini retreat on february 3rd which was a review of the 2021-2022 organizational goals they continue to do a significant amount of policy review including the 9000 series personnel policies and the 100 series covering non-discrimination equal opportunity and diversity equity and inclusion and they are already beginning speaking of budget season all the time to work on the 2022-2023 monroe one boces budget including special education program budgets and regional information center budgets so thankful to mark for his continued work for our community in regards to boces other board member reports and christina i might as well start with you

094and we'll just work down the table this way okay so um i've actually had two so i'm on the um i'm a representative for our area for the new york new york state board association for the diversity equity and inclusion committee and we had a presentation last month from the boces of new york state representative about their framework in terms of how they see dei work in our schools and how we can support our administration in doing that work this last month we actually gave some feedback on marketing materials that will go out to all of the new york state school districts in terms of the importance of the work that we're doing in diversity equity and inclusion and we also talked a little bit about what our role as board members were to support

095our administrators in terms of the curricular aspects that have been challenged recently thank you esther the hiring practices committee um met on the 31st of january it was a really inspiring meeting um continuing our collaboration with nataliesberger and recenter examining our questioning as far as interviewing the interviewing process um incorporating the need for students being involved in the interviewing process understanding that they are a huge asset and a natural evaluator of of potential candidates for who we may hire in the future the possibility of incorporating a 70-plus member base group of interviewing interviewing staff so that we are always available in case uh when people are coming in to interview for specific jobs and also to keep the to make sure that the questioning that the questions that we are asking our potential candidates are

096equitable and uh continue to um keep our line of communication open uh so we have a diverse group of people coming in well make note of the fact that typical of most of our committees that's a committee that's comprised of board members uh administration and staff and community volunteers so we get a good look from all the people who are affected by the hiring practice thank you very much karen good um i was scheduled to attend the french road building equity committee meeting but it happened on our early just not early dismissal but february 3rd we had sort of a snow day it was the snow day eve and they cancelled all activities that night so i couldn't attend and then julene and i represented the board at the school start time committee meeting that

097we had last week and the committee was able to hear from representatives from the webster central school district and their experience with implementing a later start time to give us more ideas for feasibility here in our district okay um i missed the special ad review meeting because that conflicted with the early start time meeting and i still haven't figured out how to be in two places at one time but the only other thing i wanted to share is that on thursday you say yes to the dress at brighton high school and all students are invited when they have some free time to come down and we have clothing that might feel just about anybody it's not just dresses for women it could be say yes to the suit it could be [Laughter] i'll make note

098of uh quickly just from a construction standpoint as we continue to uh and i give lou and the buildings teams and the principal's great credit on this trying to wrap up the final pieces on a number of projects there are a few items still to be completed at council rock and we met with the contractors in regards to those items and i'll look back at marin there for just a second we also have bleachers that finally need to be installed over at french road that may be getting installed over february break assuming everything arrives we've been pretty well guaranteed i think lou that they are going to be installed so is typical of projects of this scale there's what's typically called a punch list those last few uh items that you've just got to get

099at with the contractors to make sure things are it might be a particular light in one room or something like that and we say it every time but we have an outstanding buildings team and they've been out just incredible at documenting things having communications and noting things and making sure that we're only spending the dollars that we need to and that the contractors are living up to their commitment so grateful for those folks as well um where are we nicole you are next hey thank you so much for having me here um so hopefully you were able to open the report and look at some of the awesome photographs and listen to some of the stories and watch the videos um i'll start with counselors mrs flanagan's kindergarten class did a unit on civics and

100responsibility they were able to present via zoom to the families and then they also had a food drive for the brighton food cover they learned about responsibilities at home and within the community and at school they used mo willem's books and particularly pigeon who is not responsible to make some of those connections they made a responsibility to the rescue book and if you went to the link or if you go to the link you can hear students reading the books they also use the habits of mind creating the habit of mind creating imagining and innovating to think of their own pigeon books like don't let the pigeon fix the ipads don't let the pigeon be the principal they shared these ideas and then they had a pigeon day and you can see some of the

101food that they collected and of course the artwork they did of what the pigeons should not do at the beginning of february julie gray who's a mother of a first grader micah and of a third grader noah visited miss davis's music class for a violin presentation mrs files first grade class actually attended and she's a violinist who performs with rpo buffalo symphony and teaches at hobart and they have been using peter and the wolf to learn about different instruments and kind of the the tones and voices of those instruments so she came in and showed them her violin played for them had different sizes of violins and student including a student small violin and students were able to actually play so you can see some pictures and then of course our dog is in the

102picture when he's there she was enjoying it too for extended studies in second grade they did a habits of mind cluster group they were thinking flexibly and interdependently about ways to support the community so they actually made artwork with their handprints sold those note cards to families friends school staff they raised just under 1200 for wild wings at ben and ponds and then one group picked a dog rescue and was able to donate 250 to bell's bud's recipe head over to french road there uh janice mix who was i believe going to originally going on the israel partnership she had her [Music] health class actually make a presentation introduction video about what they do in a normal health class school day and the link was right there at 12 corners memorial art gallery partnered with

103the sixth grade and gave them 35 artifacts that were from different world religions students were able to view the items and start to make connections and understand similarities differences and you'll see some awesome photographs there the best part is the photographs showing showing the kids doing things marianne walter's 6th and 7th grade classes for german they were able to take regular items that they would have in their classroom and start to describe them they chose it wrote and wrote and illustrated their item maria consentos social studies classes put together materials for chinese new year i was actually a classroom that received some of these materials they were wonderful so the sixth graders created them and then also had themselves recording a reading books picture books on chinese new year it was great so some of

104the teachers listed there are first and second grade and then a third grade teacher there too so really really nice connection sixth grade life science students in julie whipple's class had a guest speaker michelle cavallaro who is the parent of a student she shared information about her job where she studies people with hemophilia and students in the class were are currently learning about genetics it was a great connection for them to make and see a real life person doing it and then um continuing on at 12 corners you can see students who made it into all county orchestra junior high all-county band and elementary all county band so congratulations to all those students listed that's what i have thank you very much thank you as always a lot going on as we like to say

105there's a lot dr mcgowan i have nothing more to add tonight all right uh let's see we have some approval of second read policies um these as noted were all um pretty standard i'll make a couple of quick comments and then push all forward all four of them forward for approval policies seven three two zero six two one three and six i'm sorry seven three two zero is for students alcohol tobacco drugs and other substances next two six two one three and six one five zero for personnel and finally uh d and i'll make note of this one as regards the masking policy this was discussed last time as we prepare sort of i think the expression you used was off-ramp and as we sort of understand what could happen over the next few months

106and in that area masking i'm talking about it seems as though it evolves or changes every day so we'll be ready for that questions in regards to any of the second read policies that are before you i have one small question you know and it's more for you all who are more versed in this in policy six two one three um for language acquisition certificates and continuing education they talk about employees holding an english to speakers of other languages certificate is that capitalized if that is like a certificate that someone holds it's a it's a wordy description anyway for a certificate someone's holds it's minor but i figured i'd bring it up since that's why we read these so and it's um an english to speakers of other languages certificate capped not capped yeah right

107i don't know the answer to that so typically we cut and paste those those are from the policy service the way they've written them and so if they capitalize them or didn't capitalize them was based on what they do that's what i figured but that said we'll check and find out okay it's on page two of six two one three you'd think if it's a proper noun that they would right it just helps to say that that's the name of the certificate that they hold correct okay i totally agree with you yeah so um would we put that forward to approve and then we would change it to a capital okay yeah with that possible change um motion to approve um item 12 a b c and d those four policies so moved moved by

108karen second seconded by susan all those in favor aye number 13 approval of the property tax levy limit submission this is something that lou went over earlier in the evening it is a state formula as we like to say it contains a lot of real numbers and a couple of estimates based on what we have from the state so far are there any additional questions for either lou or dr mcallen in regards to the property tax levy limit submission motion to approve that tax levy limit submission as in front of us move by andrea second second and by esther all those in favor item 14 uh consent agenda which includes approval of personnel changes uh recommendations from the committee on special ed and then preschool special ed uh fundraising activities there are three listed here

109and two field trip approvals as we like to say there's a lot going on any questions in regards to any of these things motion to approve so moved moved by susan second seconded by christina all those in favor okay anything else you would like to have at this point no we'll see people in about 20 minutes okay uh motion to adjourn some move move by andrea second seconded by karen all those in favor all right this has been a special presentation from the brighton central school district board of education