Board of Education Meeting January 18, 2022

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 public board meeting for tuesday january 18th great day to be at bruin call the meeting to order and we will start with a public hearing for a special vote for the land purchase and capital reserve as has been advertised on the front lawns of the schools as well as uh through some mailers and some electronic mailings and i think dr mcgowan you're going to do an overview a couple three slides thank you very much mr davis we're very pleased to be talking to you and the community about this opportunity the opportunity specifically is from park center properties that obtained an independent appraisal and approached the district about interest to

002purchase parcels of land currently owned by 12 corners presbyterian church two different parcels you can see on the slide letter b is .92 acres and that runs parallel to the current brighton high school parking lot includes about halfway over maybe a little bit more in terms of the parking if you think about the perpendicular shape of newton and whitton and where that parking lot would line up pretty much directly across from newton but if you're standing at brighton high school parking lot to the left of the parking lot and includes that current outbuilding from 12 corners presbyterian and lat c right up to the jv baseball field in fact quite frankly that corner of lassie probably shows you right where the visitor's dugout is and the dugout probably overlapping already on that corner of the

003property protecting the green space on that end of the property and a unique opportunity provided to us by 12 corners presbyterian as neighbors to purchase that going forward the proposed site and i'm just reading this because it is a hearing so i should be technically reading what we're talking about exactly propose lot b proposed site contains a total of 0.92 acres and has a rectangular shape site is located on the northernmost portion of the church campus and has 99 feet of linear frontage on the east side of winton road south with a depth of 406 linear feet the northern boundary boundary abuts the brighton high school parking lot and the southern boundary boundary is mapped to be the center line of one of the entry points to the church campus the topography of the site

004is level and even with the road grade the parcel is covered with a lawn area with a few mature trees along the front and an asphalt paved parking area along the south and rear with striped parking spaces for 48 vehicles the parking areas have three overhead light poles the utility service box is located at the midpoint of the parcel frontage and lot c proposed site contains a total of 1.36 acres and has an irregular shape and does not include any road frontage the site is located on the easternmost portion of the church campus and has 352 feet of linear frontage along the existing church parking lot with a depth of 144 linear feet along the southern boundary 194 linear feet along the northern boundary and 338 linear feet along the rear property line which abuts

005the brighton high school athletic field the topography of the site is level and even with the continuous grade the parcel is covered with a grassy lawn area with a few mature trees and there are no structures on this site the proposed project budget the legal representation of six thousand dollars mrb engineering fee was six hundred fifty i'm sorry sixty five hundred dollars project management seventy five hundred dollars miscellaneous administrative expenses two thousand dollars for a total budget of twenty two thousand dollars it praised the value of four hundred thousand dollars and so their asking price of us is four hundred twenty two thousand dollars so each of those fees etc are not amounts that we are contracting with somebody they're partner of the total sale price and their budget from 12 corners presbyterian the source

006of the funds that we propose is using the district building reserve fund the current balance of that is 6.6 million twenty six thousand five hundred ninety four dollars and it requires voter authorization to withdraw so i just wanna make sure i make this point very clear the reserves that the districts have require voter authorization to withdraw the funds the capital reserve so that is why you have to vote to have people withdraw the funds so different than when we uh and currently still in the process of selling the brookside property that did not require in fact did not allow for a vote of the community unless compelled to through a majority of voters signing a petition that is an entirely different process so in case there's any confusion with people why would you have a

007vote for one and not for another this is required to withdraw the money from the capital reserve so we're talking about 422 thousand dollars being withdrawn from a reserve of 6.5 million dollars also important to point out to people that that has no impact on any kind of tax increase acknowledging that the money in the reserves comes from revenue at the end of the year or surplus revenue at the end of the year which is composed of whatever is left over from state aid and all of our revenue sources including and most importantly tax revenue so it is taxpayer dollars that certainly are already in that reserve and we have several reserves of course set up that act as important savings accounts for situations just like this for a variety of reasons that you at

008the end of the year very publicly very transparently designate how much money should go into the reserve at the end of the year from unspent money at the end of the budget year but to withdraw that money then requires voter authorization the appraisal used as a basis of the offer was prepared by midland appraisal associates market value is defined as the most probable price which a property should bring in a competitive and open market under conditions requisite to a fair sale legal legal authority in the process school board may obtain real property by gift grant device or purchase that's in education law this is clearly a purchase when authorized by a district meeting school authorities of central school districts are authorized to purchase property as may be necessary for school purposes the district meeting being

009a district vote what are the procedures review the fair market value appraisal which was done pass a resolution that authorizes the district to enter into negotiations with the owner and to enter into a contract for the purchase contingent on voter approval which you did at a prior meeting prepare and deliver a purchase and sale agreement with contingencies which also has been done and have a resolution of contingencies including obtaining voter approval typically requiring 60 days proposed timeline which of course we're at the step now the public hearing being january 18th tonight and the date next week for the special meeting or the vote 7 am to 7 pm here in this building central office where the vote will be held other considerations we're also on that at that same time asking the community to vote

010on the establishment of a new capital reserve the current reserve has exhausted its funding limit so when the community first voted for that capital reserve they vote on the time frame the amount of time that that reserve would be in place and the amount that it can be funded up to the new reserve would have all additional contributions being made from year-end surplus similar to what happens now and proceeds from the sale of the brookside property so we're recommending the board establish a 20 million capital building reserve to have an estimated useful life of 10 years important to point out we're not asking you to fund a reserve of 20 million dollars we're not asking you to designate at the end of the year or u.s taxpayers to fund 20 million dollars that is the

011upper limit of what that fund could have right so over time that is the balance that it could have that's the uh parameter we're not asking you to designate 20 million dollars and put it into a reserve at this point this just literally sets up the structure for the savings account the reserve that we would have and the resolution would also be considered in the special meaning as a second proposition which is what would be voted on next week one other uh point that we have talked about and want to make sure we share with people if you look at lot b this would give us the opportunity for parcel b we have not developed a plan for uh you know the architectural plans the drawing the environmental review the work that would be needed

012but if you take a look currently at where the exit is on the winton road and those of you who have made particular left turn out of the high school driveway after an event in the morning in the afternoon arrival dismissal times this would give us the opportunity to explore creating a safer exit and entrance and to really study that further but the space to do it which right now we wouldn't have the ability to do that we don't have the space to move that over and perhaps line it up with newton and be looking at a traffic light which we have begged for in the past but because it's an offset driveway in addition to the light being at greenwich the county because it's a county road has not have not been willing to

013do that this would give us the opportunity to look at that again and go back to them with a much better plan for what that could look like again that's a possibility but shows you and certainly communicates to the community why we would be interested in this particular property and going ahead with this and asking them to vote on that any questions from the board before we open it up for any comment as part of the public hearing no we've obviously been having uh conversations about this for a few months now and i say no not from my perspective i'll ask the board if there are any additional questions beyond the discussions we've had no thank you okay great thank you i'll take a seat and we'll open it up for public comment and questions

014yeah so i'll make note of that on the agenda tonight there is the normal public participation as item three but we are still on agenda item two which is the public hearing if there is uh comments or questions associated with the special vote next week or the proposed acquisition still under agenda item two we have the opportunity for participation specific to this subject again agenda item three will be public participation for everything else um i've got a few folks who want to speak is there uh without calling anybody out is there anybody who'd like to make comments or ask questions with regards to the proposed acquisition i don't have your name so if you okay great yes if you go to the podium and i'm sorry i'll i'll put this and i appreciate it monica

015thank you very much um if when you come to speak and this is for anybody in participation agenda item three you can state your name in your town don't need to give your street address for security reasons we'll go from there thank you my name is monica i live in brighton um my well i know it's not a q a so my concern is with uh partial c and as uh kevin had mentioned the dugout and what all i don't know how i guess uh specific that shading area is that we are being sent um but it looks as though some of the fence and maybe even a little bit of one of the baselines is you know in the land that's being purchased and so what is going to happen to that field if

016we don't get that land um are we going to have to move our you know spend a bunch of money to take down the dugout take down the fence take down the backstop move everything forward you know a few yards in order to continue to have that baseball field also my question is on the other side of it is the soccer field do we have the space to move the soccer field or will we lose a whole soccer field because of the fact that part of our soccer field is on that land um you know they were nice enough to let us use it but now we're kind of used to it and possibly going to get screwed over by this so i guess that's just my again i know it's not a q a

017but that's you know where where i'm coming from is what's going to be the additional cost to us if we choose not to purchase this i want to respond to part of this because you pointed out something that i'm not sure everybody understands and i had two boys play baseball for 10 years so the dugout in its entirety basically the visitors dug out in the tiny piece of the baseline and part of the fence have existed on the church property for a while in the church as a good neighbor just sort of said and i'm paraphrasing we're fine like it's not an issue so there's not necessarily a defined answer to if we don't get it what happens because in theory anything could happen but um this is land that we're currently using in some

018segment and i think it's important that you pointed that out and i'm sorry i interrupted you no you said exactly what i would say i mean i think it's a good point i don't um i don't know what would happen i think that's an unknown uh you know and i i don't i think you bring up a really good point i don't want to belabor it as if to scare people like well we better get it otherwise we have to tear everything up because i don't know somebody could purchase it and say the same thing and say you know it's just it's fine the way it is it's just on the corner um but but that is certainly part of our thinking is you know we're already using that space it would be uh better

019to be able to protect our interest in that area like like most people if they have an opportunity to purchase land adjacent to their land and protect the use of that space and think about how they can better use that space it gives you some flexibility that way too but yeah you bring up a really great point thank you guys thank you any other comments or questions related specifically to the public hearing that we are holding yes right there my name is susan and i do live in brown and i've come to this meeting very you feel informed so your description of the acreage and so on it didn't answer my basic wonder and that is what is the purpose of purchasing this land what do you intend to do with it and do you

020have any notion of what the church plans to do with it if they keep it i'm sorry you said your name was susan correct yes thank you yes so the let's talk about the two parcels so parcel b is the one that runs right next to the parking lot and can we bring it up kevin yeah referencing it yeah thank you perhaps [Music] so this parcel right here i'm really going to turn you guys off yeah you don't get the chance for the camera very often so this person right here so the current high school parking lot exits right here many kids cross right here to come to school oh so your purpose is to get the crossing hopefully but i don't want to sell it to people as if we have a plan and

021that that's definitely going to happen okay we don't know that but that's what we would in all likelihood what we would want to do is to develop a plan to expand the parking lot into this space and be able to enter and exit right here which would be directly across or newton okay and actually have a traffic light there yes i understood that part but i didn't know okay go on right so that so that's that parcel right and we can't do that without owning that property which we don't so when they came to us and presented this as an opportunity we said well that's a unique opportunity to take a look at how do we improve the safety or input the other parcel right here parcel c was offered with it so they weren't

022offered as a separate transaction they were offered together and this currently is land that we are already on so the concern to monica's point is if you didn't purchase it and somebody else did purchase it would they be okay with you continuing to use that and then what else could we do with this green space right here currently in terms of being able to expand use of the athletic field which right now we could use we have tremendous use of those fields and to protect that from other developments so if that is developed for example by somebody else that would be interested in this piece of property um which there are other uses of the property the 12 corners property over time that have been sold would that then prohibit us from being able to

023use this in the way we currently use it both for this field but anything else that we would want to do in this space right here okay the church's interest i think to the second part of your question and what would happen otherwise we don't know for sure other than it's clear to us that they are interested in uh gaining revenue from selling pieces of the property they're not interested in selling the whole property or the building but we are under the impression also that they're looking to lease space in the building to different programs and different community use etc so certainly it seems as though it's an effort to generate revenue to support their existence i would guess that if we were not purchasing we have the sense that they would be marketing it

024to other entities that would be interesting does that help very much great thank you any other comments or questions related to the proposed acquisition okay we'll proceed to uh public participation and they'll do the little speech i do every time which is uh we allocate generally three minutes per speaker asks you to identify yourself by name and town you do not need to give a street address um and again this is not set up as a debate it's intended for us to receive feedback as your board and then take that feedback under advisement and review and respond as appropriate if there's a factual situation that we can address we will be happy to do that so um i've got three folks here lined up and so i'll go ahead and call the first speaker that

025have and i'm sorry dan goldman raise your hand please in the back there if you'd like to speak please contact dan and he'll bring up a card and um we'll be able to get you lined up here first up i have karen malecki karen from brighton thank you okay when seeking a position in the school systems most young people go into the educational professions for the love of children although the summers and holidays offer very enticing i say that with jealousy as a nurse who's worked shifts weekends and holidays the act of teaching and guiding our youth seeing their faces light up their curiosity their innocence and zest for life must have been felt in your hearts early on i'm not a teacher nor do i have any experience in school administration i'm not even

026a parent or any school of any school-aged children as you might think why would i even concern myself with what happens at the brighton school board meeting the answer is very simply because i care i care about my community i'm fully vested member of this community i pay taxes here for those taxes i expect to feel safe have access to the services that my taxes help pay pay for and have a say in the current and future direction of my community when i see that my share in this investment is being used to take us in a destructive direction feel compelled to get involved this is my community it's built on a foundation of services that consist of infrastructure security emergency services commerce and education arguably the most important of these pertains to the future

027of our community is education my tax dollar dollars our tax dollars pay for all of this when we see the huge amounts of money that are talked about being used to implement new and questionable education programs or health policies we need to keep in mind that all that money is from the taxes that we pay into so how is our money being used on march 27 2020 congress passed and the president signed into law the coronavirus aid relief and economic security act the cares act created an education stabilization fund to prevent prepare for and respond to the coronavirus under which new york state has received a thousand 137 billion dollars in elementary an elementary and secondary school emergency relief esser also known as esser funds this was the most money ever given to school by

028the government in december 2020 the cdc recently released a support a report saying it would only cost 25 million dollars to get every single school in the us to be up and running to date schools have received over two billion dollars it has it was used to help schools with things like teleschool to help kids attend school online which was great to do the money also went towards a lot of health related issues such as improved sanitation but if covid was so deadly and masks are so necessary then why are there not any ocean hazmat bins in the schools the issue can't be about health and safety like we've been told the elementary and secondary school emergency relief total is more than and a half billion dollars new york state received more than one billion

029dollars brighton school district got six million on the cares about three million on the s are another three thirty seven hundred on the grier and arp was 2.5 million that's a total of 12 million dollars in the american rescue act in order to receive the elementary and secondary school emergency relief money every state had to submit their district's plans these plans have to be submitted every six months through september of 2023 in order to get the money new york state school districts have to prove they are fulfilling the following requirements universal masking of children physical distancing hand washing and respiratory etiquette cleaning contract tracing quarantine and isolation diagnostic screening tests and vaccination for all students staff and teachers this is why school districts are getting the money to mask and scare the kids and eventually

030vaccinate them for all for a disease that has a zero percent death rate this has nothing to do with health and safety it's designed to our children and every single state is doing this there's lots more the elementary and secondary school relief fund is also pushing first critical race theory ms malecki i'm sorry you're at the five minute mark i wanted to give you a little bit of extra time but you're not the five minute mark okay i'll speak quickly the critical race theory theory is rebranded as social emotional learning into our public schools through these federal grant monies this is a free race theory for white educators thank you i appreciate your time tonight thank you very much i'll finish next time okay thank you luke can you uh what is the exact amount

031of rsr allocation there's three different funding sources as you said we presented plans closed at the november meeting right you just wanted the dollar amount yeah uh next up i have a melanie bernhardt melanie if you want to get up and be prepared and um i just want to wait for lou to provide a number to dr mcgowan please sure so i enter the gear puns their latest round was 335 000 000. the carissa of the sr funds was 2.9 million dollars approximately and the arp funds 1.8 million dollars so that's what's coming direct to the schools the allocation may be going to the state whatever the difference is but that's our direct allocation so it's a it's ballpark it's 5.3 million dollars 5.2 million dollars not not 12 million uh i'm just telling you

032that's the money that we're getting so i we we don't bank on some of the numbers that they give us either so i would say to you that's the number we're getting we're not required there's no vaccine requirement cova vaccine requirement there are mandated vaccines in the state of new york measles moms rubella the typical series that children get so i don't know if it's referring to that but there is no no cova vaccine requirement whatsoever and there is not a zero percent death rate so purely speaking factually i just want to point those three things out but thank you oh and one other point sorry there is nothing about critical race theory whatsoever we have a culturally responsive curriculum we do not teach critical race theory those terms do not exist in our space

033uh that is a term used by critics of the work that we are doing that we are that is not the actual work we're doing social emotional learning is a very specific approach to supporting students and children throughout the curriculum and their mental health has nothing to do with race racism etc so just want to make sure i'm pointing those things off actually but thank you yeah social emotional learning correct has nothing to do with critical race theory we'd be happy to get you information on what it is though okay hi melanie from brighton um i'm just i know last time i read a letter from a doctor this time i'm going to read one from a nurse that i found and i know the vaccines aren't mandated yet but i always like to put

034this out there so that people are paying attention um because there are bills out there where they are trying to pass mandates for children um so this nurse she said among all the vaccines i have known in my life diphtheria tetanus measles rubella chicken pox hepatitis men type meningitis flu pneumonia and tuberculosis i have never seen a vaccine that forced me to wear a mask and maintain my social distance even when you are fully vaccinated i have never heard of a vaccine that spreads the virus after vaccination i have never heard of rewards discounts incentives to get vaccinated i never saw discrimination for those who didn't if you haven't been vaccinated no one has tried to make you feel like a bad person in the past i have never seen a vaccine that threatens the

035relationships between family colleagues and friends i have never seen a vaccine used to threaten livelihoods work or school or health care workers i have never seen a vaccine that would allow a 12 year old to override parental consent it's not new york but that is in some other states after all the vaccines i listed above i have never seen a vaccine like this one which discriminates divides and judges society as it is as the social fabric tightens it is a powerful vaccine it does all these things except immunization if we still need a booster dose after we are fully vaccinated and we still need to get a negative test after we are fully vaccinated and we still need to wear a mask after we are fully vaccinated and still can become hospitalized after we've been

036fully vaccinated it will likely come to eventually it's time to admit that we've been completely deceived and the reason i've brought that is i know with the recent omnicron going around i know a lot of you know teachers friends students who were vaccinated and unvaccinated all are catching this thing viruses are here to stay and i think we need to learn how to live with them and ask where your line is in terms of how many boosters are you willing to take how long are you willing to wear a mask and i do appreciate the latest copit update did not encourage vaccination and continued boosters i did appreciate that it did however have the antigen take-home tests which is again personal choice and i bet that you did put that out there i don't know

037if people are informed that those are not fda approved it says so right on their website so based on a previous speaker who had said do your homework i do recommend always researching and asking questions and never stop it is not fda approved it's approved under emergency use authorization same with the vaccines they are not officially fda approved you can call mederna pfizer the cdc fda and ask the question and you get some very interesting answers and when something's under emergency use authorization there must always be choice which is great you have always encouraged choice but i do start to see just a little bit of pitting against each other whether you're vaccinated or not and i don't know if you see it in schools but i've seen it out and about so i just

038want people to continue to do the research ask questions the ingredients on the antigen take home test you can google those and they're one of the chemicals the triton x 100 is actually banned in the uk they're trying to develop a better chemical because that one's an endocrine disruptor and those are going home in our children's backpacks so that is my concern that if you want to send these home this is great but it should say these are not fda approved thank you thank you melanie we gave people the opportunity to pick those up if they didn't feel comfortable sending home in the backpacks and the you're right the last update did not give vaccine information other than to thank people for getting vaccinated and wearing masks in order to slow the spread and protect

039themselves and those around them and we would encourage continue to encourage people to do that to the best of their ability we do know factually speaking that the infection rate and more importantly the hospitalization rate is lower in those that are boosted uh vaccinated and then certainly boosted as well again actually speaking so thank you for that thank you avram berman welcome berman brent resident board president larry davis says the brookside school building sold as of today january 18th no okay it hasn't closed propositions i'm sorry there's a clarification there i should say it differently it hasn't closed yet okay so you haven't received funds for it understood thank you proposition proposition 2 clearly states that you're requesting an additional 20 million from the taxpayers to fund a capital reserve account of which 4.2 million

040would be funded by the sale of brookside school mr burns can just interrupt you i just don't want people to get the wrong information the authorization is to create a reserve account that would have a limit of 20 million dollars it's not to fund it but that's an important distinction because i wouldn't want people getting the impression that we're asking for 20 million so it has a limit of so 4.2 million will be funded by the sale the brookside school with the balance of 15.8 million to be potentially funded using surplus dollars which would result which results every year when the district over bills a community and then redirects those surplus dollars into the reserves rather than paying down the tax levy resulting in less school taxes for the following year since the brook side

041has not sold to request that the community vote on a funding source which hasn't been realized is unethical and it's unlawful on november 30th 2021 the board of education unanimously approved a motion to approve the resolution of a special vote and i have concerns about how the information was disseminated to the community the beginning of the meeting contained 30 minutes of blank video footage the vote was done at the tail end of the video and no presentation was given dan goldman the communication coordinator waited 17 days to post information about the special vote on the school's facebook site which occurred on december 17 2021 and on a friday right before the weekend regarding the land purchase in proposition the intended usage of the land was not disclosed at the time in addition there were no

042details regarding the public hearing taking place tonight after i posted my concerns dan goldman would post the same facebook presentation three more times including a vague response to the land usage and only on the final post which occurred on january 11th of this year did he mention the day of today's public hearing a whopping seven days prior today there was no information presented by the school district about today's public hearing until 3 45 pm when kevin mcgowan shared a just so you know video which as of 5 47 p.m had 81 views on youtube this is paramount to voter suppression limiting the disseminate limiting the dissemination of information to the public and doing so in a way that is untimely vague and lacking transparency in order to keep the community uninformed and uh and uninformed

043and uneducated it's simple he who controls the narrative controls the vote is louis lamo the school assistant superintendent aka the accountant aka the freedom of information officer once told me but the law doesn't require you to understand what you're voting for and superintendent kevin mcgann on the board president larry davis along with the board of education who enable this behavior are counting on it i recommend that the vote be delayed until such time that the brooks side property sells and a presentation is offered to the community and what the proposed 20 million dollars may be used for in the last five years almost 75 million of new debt has been leveraged on behalf of the brighton taxpayers enough is enough i'll be happy to wait out and sit i'll be happy to stand up here

044if you have any rebuttal well i just want to point out you you used to quote that lou said to you something along the lines of them please correct me i i'm sure you will about the law doesn't require voters to understand what they're voting on and that kevin mcgowan and larry davis are counting on that right is that accurate that you just said that uh i think you're i think you're i think you're taking two things and putting together that are destroying no i'm repeating what you combined as two things that you put together i'll be happy to reread it for you no that's okay it'll cause more confusion i want to point out that the quote that he may have said to you in a much longer conversation that you had with him

045several years ago about the information that we provide to the community and you pressuring over and over and over again about what are you doing to make sure people understand it and you combining that tonight in a way to say and larry davis and kevin mcgowan are counting on it makes it sound like he actually said to you that kevin gown and larry davis are counting on that which is misleading so just want to make sure we're clear that you may have quoted an earlier conversation we've never counted on people not understanding something in fact we would hope let me just finish though we would hope that people have a great understanding of the opportunity presented of what it will cost people you know because we provide you with a tremendous amount of information regularly

046we will talk to anybody anytime which actually you've criticized before when i've said that to people we literally will answer every question that people have and be there for people and provide all the information that people are looking for we've provided information about this many many times including the postcard that went home you didn't mention this communication that went to every resident right it went out on the 11th which actually talked about today's get together what i was saying and i'll repeat myself well let me just finish also if you go back to the fall when we first had the introduction of this possibility at a board meeting in public session this presentation was given back in november so the date for tonight was first proposed on that evening so all along and you mentioned

047you know things like it was presented on a friday we send out an e-news every single friday that's when the e-news is posted how many voters would you estimate or in the brighton central school district i don't know if the time i had a second public participation is not meant to be a debate mr berman has been allowed to give that's fair his participation he's participated and i'd propose that we move on with our meeting well i i didn't debate him he debated me i simply presented there's approximately 25 000 district voters on facebook and emails that has never had anybody in this community in my life well you know what you know what the three the three postings from mr goldman that did not talk about uh today's event would suggest otherwise okay take

048a look at them look at the three posts and explain to everybody here in the room why you didn't go out and announce the the date for today it wasn't until the fourth post which was done on january 11th and the postcard that went out you know this is no different than when the pandemic took place thank you and there were and there was and there was one absentee ballot some very competitive our communication uh cycle for all of these right but there's 25 000 voters all right thank you i appreciate your time exactly uh just one more point clarification i want to make because this is important it was said that the setting up a reserve was unlawful that is absolutely incorrect the setting of the reserve actually is exactly what the district is

049supposed to be doing to have a reserve in place that could be funded when we receive those revenues and uh in no way is that unethical or unlawful as a matter of fact it's considered good practice so i thought it was important to point that out also appreciate that okay item four um actual approval of uh tonight's agenda there was a motion made to amend the agenda to add an item five which is a resolution of a pay increase for our harley staff so i'm going to go back to four for a second put them and ask for a motion to approve tonight's agenda with the addition of item five so moved second move by karen seconded by susan all those in favor opposed now we'll go to um item agenda item number five this

050item is the is a resolution to adjust the pay of several of our hourly employee groups in order to remain competitive in the marketplace and continue supporting our staff that does so much important work in the district based on the details provided uh in the memorandum and um i'll say specifically a reason um resolve that the board of education of the brighton central school district authorizes the superintendent of schools to enter into memorandums of agreement with the respective labor associations in order to adjust current hourly wages as outlined in order to be competitive with the changing labor market conditions impacting the recruitment and retention of employees paid on an hourly basis i think anybody who reads any of the papers out there knows that we are in a competitive labor market right now the wages

051we pay are a critical component of that market and it's important that we we've got sort of our ear of the ground as it will as it were and that we are in tune with how we're going to maintain these employees who do so many great do so much great work for our kids and our staff as well i can go ahead and send this yeah so motion to approve um pull the exec agenda so i get the word incorrectly here motion to approve the resolution for approval of pay increase for our hourly staff by julian second seconded by karen all those in favor aye all right opposed resolution passes oh that's next yeah item six approval of the minutes from january uh january 4th 2022 the education meeting we've had chants and have had

052those minutes for a couple weeks now um everybody's had a chance to review them does anybody have any changes to those minutes motion to approve the minutes still moved by astr second seconded by susan all those in favor all right motion passes next up item seven is the budget review and we'll ask lu limo please to go through an initial budget review for us okay good evening so this is a pic picks up from where we started at the november budget outlook meeting and it's the next level of detail in our budget development process so what we outlined before is our process using this cycle which we show every year so we're at the point right now where we're designing plans and then we're determining the financial capabilities and that's kind of what i outlined

053in in the presentation in the subsequent slides first we have the key budget guidelines that we're building our primary assumptions on and what i highlighted in green is the additions to this year's key budget guidelines so understanding the revenue and expenditure risk related to coveton potential future funding cliffs related to the infusion of federal funds so as the the community member spoke before we are receiving federal dollars and in addition where i think the 12 million dollar reconciles to is that the state is using federal funds to pass through in the foundation so that's probably where the 12 million is coming through that's coming through our basic uh foundation aid and through state aids so we need to understand the impacts of that both at the state funding level and the direct allocations that are

054coming to brighton certainly our blueprint which we're going to have a presentation later today and the priorities that are outlined there and then a commitment by the board of education to comply with the new york state property tech yet and understand its long-term impact on financial planning this is the budget development calendar that the board approved back in october you can see where we are right now is budget development process the enrollment projections which we touched on before and the preliminary budget and revenue expenditures based on all the moving assumptions right now i do not have a preliminary budget for you so i'm unlike typical presentations in the past i usually give a number at this point saying this is my best estimate at this point in time we're still working through a lot of

055the assumptions so i don't have a number for you right now as our starting point we'll be building that as we build the revenue assumptions and continue to process the macro assumptions that are used in in this in tonight's presentation excuse me so then you see all the opportunities for input and presentation at the public the public meetings so this is what we're working through right now we're working through the known budget factors and again the plans being designed as we outlined in that cycle understanding what our needs are mandates program priorities the staff that's in response to that we're looking at special education services the emerging needs of our students trying to understand understand those and and the programs that are required that are being designed what we don't know and this is a

056big part is the contractual labor increases the recruitment and retention pressures the action that the board of education took tonight is helping with that but we have many contracts that expire at the end of june so building in those assumptions for uh for the financial model is still yet to be determined the increased demand for specialized transportation as you know the mandate for transportation is 50 miles there is program shortages in the monroe county region so our program folks are finding available programs that meet student needs so we have had requests for specialized transportation with driver shortages that is uh that is a financial pressure that we're working on um computing the passion pension contributions on the rates are going up in the trs and the ers so we're factoring in so as wages increase

057we know that pension costs will also increase um based on the state or the pension plan's contribution rates health insurance rate estimates uh we look at our participation in our plans and then we try to guess guess really because it's going to be what the january 23 um rate increases will be so inflation trends for medical inflation have about 8.5 percent in our plan so we're beginning to factor that in along with our planned mix the current inflation rate this is something we're modeling closely it's going to be the gas that we pay for our buses paper costs uh custodial supplies uh everything that we're consuming as a business we are seeing inflationary increases so we're trying to factor that in it was we looked at as we look at our decentralized department budgets and

058trying to factor those in and the allowable tax levy growth it's not greater than two percent it is two percent so we know that inflation once it's over the two percent the tax levy limit the growth factor that's uh maximize the maximum is two percent so we know have a sense of what our what our revenue will be from property tax growth and again like i said the factors to be assessed uh changes in mandated student services and plans a lot of programming decisions are made in january february and march time plan frame so we under try to understand the impacts on that the student elective demands particularly at the high school the courses that will be offered student student selections that has an impact on on staffing and then again the changes in state

059and federal aids the promise of fully funding foundation aid that is something that we are banking on is the the full funding of foundation aid how the state is doing that though is is something that we're looking carefully at and you know we're costly optimistic that they're going to have a plan to wean wean themselves off of federal funds as well and again i talked about the funding clip for for federal funds enrollment we presented what our enrollment trends are we do see a decline from our hybrid model in 2122 we saw the forecast for 21.22 and then we see stability going out so about 3 500 students is what we're building the multi-year staffing plan for and then responding to mandates and changes in student programs the impact then on elementary class size this

060is a ratio that we show each year to look at our staffing and then the opportunity class size impact if we add one teacher or we reduce what teacher so these are the ratios that we're looking at as of right now in the preliminary budget we're maintaining consistent staffing at 65 general education teachers at the k-5 level the financial trends and again this is a big this is an important point to look at our budget to actual results certainly when we look at the original budget where that's going up we see increases over the last couple of years as we brought on more debt and then we look at the margin between the two so the actual average increase 3.1 percent versus the average budgetary increase and we're trying to always be cognizant of what

061those margins are and what the budget surpluses are as we look at that we also look at the bottom line which is the current uh budgeted reserves so we have three million dollars that we appropriate each year we know we need to maintain that going forward in future years so then we're also looking at the risk of operations so those are the key metrics for the district is looking at the budget to actual and then the also the impact on appropriated fund bills when we look at the tax levy we've seen an increase over the last couple of years and that's as our tax levy limit has increased as we brought in more debt and that's an allowable exclusion to the property tax cap and then we've seen increases in foundation aid we've seen increases

062in our reimbursable aids so we see an average of 6.9 percent over state and federal aids so looking at this in the foundation of our of our budget just looking at the object level now certainly we're a people a people industry so we're looking at our personnel costs those are closely related to our employee benefits about 70 percent of our budget allocations then we look at the services that are provided in the orange here and we're looking at the growth factors and inflationary factors that are in there on the revenue side you can see our primary revenue sources a real property taxes no surprise and then we have state sources which are driving it within here is the sales tax not a huge opportunity for growth within that area so the pressure really is always

063on property taxes in our state sources our starting point looking what the budget allocations are so just give you a sense the 70 salaries and benefits disaggregated into the area so when we're deep diving into our ex where we're spending our money we're looking at obviously the programs and then we're out looking at opportunity savings looking for opportunities for optimization so we have our teaching staff instructional support staff which are paraprofessionals academic support instructors and we have our non-certified our classified staff non-teaching staff seven so that's our custodians clerical staff and administrative staff three percent again we look at all the areas our debt and capital at this point is a fixed cost so we know what that's going to be over the next couple years we look at and desegregate our boces services most

064of which is driven by transportation costs and special education costs and also our technology spending so here's the working budget assumptions that we're we're building the preliminary preliminary budget we're we're looking at the salaries and wages rolling board current staffing levels and what we can predict uh will be future mandated positions in response to student needs we're continuing to adjust for the increase in minimum wage we think that's going to go up another 70 cents next year based on what we're seeing at the macro level so we're trying to stay ahead of that minimum wage to be competitive from a recruitment and retention standpoint and again the hourly what was presented tonight error positions that are competitive across industries our clerical staff our buildings and grounds maintenance maintenance our paraprofessionals who are providing direct support

065to students we're looking at the health insurance again we look at our selection mix and we look at medical inflation trend trs we see the increase which as wages go up the pension contribution has an increase on that as well boces they're struggling as well with staffing and retention so they're trying to uh also compete in the labor market so we're seeing increases in their labor costs that has passed along to us so we're seeing four percent five percent possibly in transportation considering the fuel impact and then point five percent that's what their macro budget uh parameters the touchdown trying to stay within that service again our financial planner gives us those numbers equipment generally zero-based budgeting our departments do not get an allocation for equipment they justify what they're asking for on an annual

066basis and then our department allocations generally we're holding the department allocations the decentralized budgets to what is this year and then we're responding to inflationary adjustments if need as we talked about at the outlook meeting this is our capital project planning so we have our debt we have our building aid and then we have the net impact on the levy prior to the capital project we were receiving more building aid than we were reinvesting in our buildings with this capital project we built up an investment in our buildings that was about two percent um contribution to the tax levy so that's what we presented as part of the 2017 project is about a two percent increase in property taxes to have a consistent investment in our facilities and our long-term plan is to maintain that

067portion of the tax levy um for investment in our you know each of our school buildings so this is the plan to be able to do that and when we're looking out we could see that our debt begins to fall off and then there's the decision to be made a business decision to be made by the district they're either we reduce our investment in our facilities and we reduce the tax levy or we maintain that portion of the tax levy that's committed to investment in our facilities so that's something that we'll have an annual conversation over but right now we have stability and the impact on our and our property taxes relate specifically related to capital this is the preliminary tax cap calculations so you can see we're going into the 2223 the number that

068i don't have at this point to finalize that is the capital exclusion for our boces so i have to get that number but generally i know the other components of it so you can see what our starting point is and you can see the allowable tax a levy limit is just about that two percent 2.07 we get very little growth in a tax-based growth factor based on our the tax base within the brighton and the small parts of pittsford that represent our school district and we lock in now i see for the foreseeable future at the allowable growth factor of two percent remember it's the the lesser of uh cpi or two percent so we're going to be stuck at the two percent i don't see stuck judgmentally i just think that's where we're going

069to be over the next several years if inflation continues the same way it's uh it's trending right now so then our next steps again my responsibility is to present and to quantify all of these assumptions into a budget document we're continuing to scrub every month we look at budget to actual projections see where there's opportunity to manage those margins and to start start with our baseline budget and to do that we collaborate with our billing principals and department managers assess opportunities for efficiencies and evaluate impact of cost reduction strategies to we're just not going to accept inflationary adjustments we're saying what can we do to offset those those increased costs for the consumables or the services that we're procuring the plan is to develop a community thought exchange to be launched next month and reviewed

070in in march and then it's our responsibility to continue to advocate for for the funding levels make sure the state fulfills its promise for foundation aid that they're thoughtful and and planning for the drop-off in federal funds so we're not seeing that swept out of out of foundation aid and impacting their ability to meet the basic state aid that the formulas require with that turn over dr mcgowan or entertain any questions i think that you know the other next step uh i know we'll mention this but we're just tonight about an hour ago getting runs from the state in terms of what our stadium looks like so we'll be able to give you a much better picture as we go in the next couple presentations as to what that big dynamic is coming from the

071state so thank you thank you thank you appreciate that it's uh completely appropriate that we'll be getting a blueprint update next blueprint as we often state is our update it is the list of our priorities it is where we focus our energies and time and it will inform the budget in terms of how dollars are spent so very excited to get some updates on the existing blueprint from dr ryu luolimo deanna spagnola and betsy baling hello we are going to provide some updates again um following some of the same slides as the fall but just to give everyone an overview of just our district priorities under academic rigor for all our systems ndi work and mental health and wellness and lou and diana and betsy will jump into the other two categories and i'll start

072today with academic rigor for all so again here's our goal for this year our objective for all of our students and our faculty maximizing their potential based on needs and interests we'll focus on being culturally responsive and celebrating and accepting differences and support developing a growth mindset by all just to touch base again as we get started today around what culturally responsive and sustaining education is and it's really grounded in the theory that we are looking at all forms of diversity in our students race social class gender language sexual orientation nationality religion ability and more and we are recognizing them as assets for teaching and learning so as we get into our work around culturally around academic rigor for all we'll talk about culturally responsive and sustaining education and building opportunities to learn for faculty

073and one piece where we've been focusing our work this year is through curriculum council and curriculum council has taken on the task of digging deeper into habits of mind and looking at how to extend habits of mind and the work that's been done so fabulously at council rock beyond that into french road and the middle school and the high school earlier this year year we had greg alques come to do a presentation on growth mindset and habits of mind he has done a lot of research around growth mindset and brought that to our work together on curriculum council and right now we're getting into establishing what it would look like to have this common language around habits of mind for our students as learners in all four of our school buildings as we move into

074next school year so we're kind of looking at the bigger picture of how do we kind of build this out over time and the benefits of having students have this common language amongst themselves and also for our faculty because we see the great results from our students at council rock as they come up to french road i'm not going to read through this whole thing but just to give you a little uh visual this was put together by maria our director of our teacher center and kind of pulling into light just all the pieces that we're working on in the district around equity student agency and looking at each student as individuals and allowing us to reach their individual needs culturally responsive and sustaining education which i talked about already but looking at the assets

075that students bring to the work and habits of mind so all of these pieces kind of tie in together and are really the bigger picture of equity that we're looking at for all of our students as we continue our work we're looking at opportunities to learn for faculty we're continuing our school-based equity teams and betsy balling we'll talk a little bit more about this in her part of the presentation but we are partnering with panorama education to do a culture and climate survey of staff students and families in hopes that that will help give us some really good data to continue to drive our work because we want to hear from our students from our staff from our families about how they feel about our school environment and that'll be a big piece of the

076work that we do and for our faculty we'll continue our learning on our april superintendent's conference day where we will really let faculty have choice around the professional learning they do around diversity equity inclusion social emotional learning lots of different opportunities for them outside speakers and presenters and teachers and staff within our district offering sessions that day as well as well so that will be a day where they can dig into whatever they're interested in kind of in their own learning path and as we continue to share opportunities for families we are looking at ptsa meetings scheduled throughout the spring to share an update of the equity team work with each of the four school buildings so more to come on that as we enter the spring in the land of actual curriculum we are

077continuing to already we're already in summer so it's january right now we've already stepped into like what are we looking at next summer we did a lot of work last summer revising units within the crsc framework and right now we're looking at across ela and all of the buildings what texts we're using for our students what units they are kind of connecting to and making sure we have a good scaffold up through the grade levels and thinking about our unit revisions for summer has already begun we continue to try to support individualized student learning coming back to school this year we have put into place the last time i presented we were just getting rolling out fev tutoring for all of our students we have that up and running now students can receive support anytime

078after school after 3 p.m to midnight on the weekends whatever they need when they're stuck on an assignment when they have a question they can pop on for some on-demand tutoring and we've had several students accessing that quite a few actually in addition to considering it as an option for our students who are in quarantine or home because of kovid it's just another resource for them to use so what's next for us school-based equity work will continue throughout the school year really diving into that assessment of the curriculum and instructional strengths and needs of each school building and using that culture and climate survey data with panorama and then another piece of our spring conference day will to be looking we'll be looking at developing a toolkit of resources for teachers and faculty around culturally

079responsive practices and tools for student learning so lots more to come even though we're halfway through the year thanks any questions no it's an impressive slate of work though right next up so under the systems work we have a couple of updates looking at in the area of diversity equity inclusion health and well-being and then alternative learning alternative learning environments so specific to our hiring practices in year one of our work we built the playbook in years two and years three we've been executing the playbook we're now really in year four and our partnership with recenter is creating the opportunity for for an audit if you will using my you know kind of a technical background an audit of the work so what we're going through is everything we've been doing really these last two

080years getting re-center's take on it really what questions are you answering how have you trained your hiring committees what have you been what have you been doing and then it's an opportunity for us to reflect on our practice the last couple of years and refine what we have in that playbook and again another opportunity in this hiring season to execute what we have the opportunity is more data this year so what dr rio talked about was using the culture climate survey from panorama that's going to be a great data tool for our hiring practices committee to to utilize as well as the work that's happening at the building level committees we've been really at the macro view looking at things big picture and again to really understand what's happening at the buildings the effectiveness of

081of the work from a hiring practices perspective we need that feedback from the buildings and the building equity team model gives us a great opportunity and insight into that school start time um so what we just completed was a community thought exchange on the school tar start time and a scenario that stemmed from the 16-17 school year and so we met on january january 13th to review that thought exchange and we looked at it based on the feedback from several stakeholder groups we looked at it from faculty perspective we looked at it from parent perspective at both the secondary and the elementary levels and what we did is we tried to theme the concerns that we heard in the in the thought exchange and we've developed action plans or strategies on how to best represent

082the information or strategies that mitigate the concern and the theme of the concern that we heard so for instance we heard a lot from the council rock community about concerns of moving their school day earlier so what can we what can we do in response those are the strategies that we're developing right now some of it is education and presentation of the science some of it is taking a second look is there other opportunities to close up that close up that time um another theme was ending later in the school day at the secondary level and the concern that that would have an impact on extracurricular activities would push um workload later into the evening and it really wouldn't achieve the objective that were that we're seeking so again some of that is going to

083respond to additional education and what the science is saying but it also requires us to look at the logistics of our school day and see if there's any opportunity to maybe mitigate those those concerns and then certainly financial cost was one of them the scenario that we um the vetted that seemed to have to be the most attractive back in 1617 absolutely has a financial cost so is there things that we can do within the organization of the school day that would mitigate our reliance on additional transportation so that's what we're working through right now we are going to take a deeper dive into the webster central school district and to better understand from their administrators and their logistics people how they were able to achieve a later start time the hurdles that they overcame

084so their next meeting uh the objective is to have a panel discussion with webster how did you address this are there certain things that you did to mitigate like concerns so that's that'll be our next step hiring practices again now that we have a defined scope of work for the remainder of the year we're going to be meeting with a monthly with recenter and going through the different components of of the playbook again with the goal of you know march april hiring season to make sure that we're ready to implement any feedback that we receive from recenter and the reflection that we're able to um to take advantage of as as a hiring practices committee start time i said what the next steps will be and then the third bullet is the learning environments and

085again we're still that's ongoing we have not um completed that yet but we need to establish building level facility planning committees and we're working with campus to be able to do that to get a foundation on the bricks and mortar and the systems piece of it and then we can expand into the program program enhancement opportunities so with that i'll turn it over to mrs paddock and mrs spiegmore thank you here is our goal and objective for the school year as we look at supporting the whole child emotionally and physically and the mental health wellness and dignity of all students staff and community integral supporting each child each day is right so since we last came and reported we are excited to share the increased staffing that we see across all of our buildings the

086names of our recent hires we've added to our mental health staff again as i said across all of our buildings currently in the process of seeking some references for our district psychologist a very we had a strong applicant pool so very excited about that conducted some interviews uh last week uh so as you see how the breakdown is across all of our buildings there including what's not listed here in a focus for our family navigator that position held by meg goodman to support and continue to support connecting our families to outside providers in needs at the 612 level these the addition of these resources thanks to betsy's work which is going to describe those in a few moments but betsy's work looking at needs and assessing and talking to our mental health providers working with

087our building administrators mental health staff where do we need boots on the ground to help us support our students in the area of mental health and wellness and with that i'll let betsy take over thank you deanna and um it's a large group of us that all do this together i wouldn't want to take all of that credit and i am so excited to talk about the work that we're going to be doing with panorama so we've been researching sel screening tools for about a year and we finally found one that is research based that is valid and that is reliable and it is panorama we vetted this through our k-12 mental health team we vetted it through our mental health steering committee we have talked to panorama on many occasions now and we're just

088really really excited to go forward so that's one of the things that we're going to be doing in terms of sel i'm also going to share with you tonight some of the sel happenings that are going on throughout the district um it's amazing to see what everyone is doing and i'm also going to talk about our partnership with bavona the vivona child advocacy center and the lessons that they'll be doing with our kids this year so let me just shift here sorry so panorama provides tools for pulling together all the data behind student success to make it visible and so there they have screening tools we'll also call them surveys to measure both student and adult social emotional learning and so we will be serving our adults and we will be doing that on superintendents

089conference day and then we'll be serving our students in may and june and the beauty of these survey surveys is that they are customizable and that panorama offers so much support behind all that we do so it would be workshops professional development so that we can really dig into the data and then we can come up with the interventions that are appropriate for working best with our students and our staff we recognize that covet has affected everyone on lots of different levels and so we wanted to make sure that we aren't just supporting our students but we're also supporting our faculty so i wanted to show you here some of the potential survey topics so under student skills and competencies these are some of the more individual areas that we can survey students on these

090are just four of the topics that were mentioned so growth mindset self-management social awareness and learning strategies and then in order to build that community looking at student supports environment and well-being we have cultural awareness school climate teacher and student relationships which we know are so critical school safety equity and inclusion and that school safety piece is so important too because we know that when students feel better about where they are it frees up space in their minds so that they truly can learn we can choose between four and six different topics to put in any survey so we will work together with our mental health staff with our administrators with our department leaders to come up with what we really want to take a look at first and then i'm thinking that the best

091thing that we would probably do is then survey again we would do these surveys three times throughout the year on those same areas so that you're always matching apples to apples and we can also look at different areas too but we might do those in shorter snippets throughout the year the mental health team will then be able to look at this data in the summer and we'll really be able to take a deeper dive into it we'll all be trained by the team from panorama and we are we are really excited about this opportunity i also wanted to share some of the things that are happening across the district in terms of social emotional learning so at council rack the mental health staff push into the classrooms to teach learning for justice lessons these lessons

092promote social justice and engage students in discussions about diversity so they created a quilt when they were doing exploring the concepts of same and different and the quilt represents it every student has a square and so they can see themselves within the larger community in in talking to matt i know that he shared that before but i thought it was really important to bring it up again because it's so important for kids to see themselves as part of a greater community they've also been doing a lot with their staff as we mentioned staff wellness is so important so the support staff spruced up all the adult spaces they've been doing wellness bingo and they've also had some pretty neat prizes from what i understand at fres uh they're doing circle time daily they have interactive

093bulletin boards i know that they did this in the past where you really take what you need um they're little sayings on the board and you can take one of those sayings and it can really fill your bucket the mental health staff pushes in for bruin time they also are doing the learning for justice lessons and then they're having staff friday feasts at 12 corners middle school where i'm located we have something called what's the bruin doing and this is really neat it's a huge teddy bear we have a tcms t-shirt on it and a mask which i think is very important to point out and we every couple of weeks we give that to a staff member who we really feel has gone above and beyond um steve leon has received it kristen halligan

094has received it and we gave it to the phys ed staff for being so flexible recently we also did an mlk activity which was school-wide after we did our cbt simulation and it was just great because kids were coming down and they were asking can i fill out one of the stars can i fill out one of the stars if they hadn't completed it and so we were able to do that and then we'll put them around the school and then at vhs they have where's the bear and i know that dr hall has done so much and continues to do so much with the culture and climate committee which is a combination combination of teachers and and also admins but the bulk of the committee are students and so he really is able to

095get a lot from what the students are saying and finally we have a partnership with bavona child advocacy center this year they presented to the ptsa on january 11th and they will be doing direct instruction lessons to the students at the 3 8 level so we have come up with a schedule so they will be going it as february through mid-march they will be pushing into the health classes at tcms mid-march through may and then at sea at council rock they will be doing indirect lessons and that they have the mental health staff has gone through train the trainer model through bavona and so because they had already created lessons and they've been doing them for so long they're taking the pieces of aaron's law that weren't part of their lessons and they will be

096delivering those to students in the later spring and i'm going to turn it over to tiana so quickly here some things to come of what's next for us in the area of mental health and wellness obviously you've heard a couple different times in terms of the survey implementation for panorama that will be completed with staff in april and then also as you see on the spring conference day not only the implementation but also opportunities for our mental health staff to be trained so that they can when we get to work over the summer we can take a look at interpreting that data so they have the training under their belt so they can look at that in a meaningful way and then that'll also help us with our second bullet listed there how do we

097continue to review and assess the needs where do we need our resources where do we make need to make some shifts we'll have some data behind some of the decisions or to affirm some of the decisions or what are our curricular needs and how we actually implement some of those pieces we're exploring some partnerships with some outside agencies um i believe betsy you kind of use the phrase of the equivalent of almost like a match.com for helping our it is not match.com we are looking at how we can help connect our families with outside agencies we continue to hear i'm sure many of you hear the access to outside mental health providers is limited at times availability and it's helped connecting people with folks who do take appointments research insurances just to help increase access

098to supports that are out there in the community so more to come and we look forward to touching this again thank you thanks to everyone for that presentation there's just a lot there all our blueprint as always is available on the website and is is a single sort of focus document that helps keep us uh in line with what we're trying to do and it sort of dictates where our resources are applied it helps retain the focus great great work being done there next up uh item nine we have reports i'm sorry did you want to make another account aggressive i think you said it all i mean that that is the work that it's so impressive what people are doing and i think you know these are regular reports that are given if anybody

099ever wonders what what their investment is going towards and the high quality work that's happening for kids and and being done by staff each and every day we report it it's there regularly we plan it we include a lot of people in that conversation and then follow through on it and it's great to see so thanks to everybody that that contributes to that it's the universal answer to what are you guys doing yeah that's what we're doing i wanted i i don't want to let the moment pass it's amazing presentation and you know you speak so effortlessly about it but to to to have the vision and actually execute and then go and evaluate is so much harder i think than people really understand so it's amazing how clearly you speak about it and how

100passionate you are about it and i think the partnership with panorama seems amazing so i just um i want to commend you it was an excellent presentation and there's so much work i know that goes on behind that so it was really excellent so it's nice to see it coming together fantastic thank you other comments next up our financial reports which we have received they include the executive summary budget status report for the period ending november 30th 2021 the treasurer's report for the period ending november 30th 2021 the brighton central school district single audit report for the year ending june 30 2021. finally approval of the financial report extra classroom activity funds and single audit report for the year ending june 30th 2021 myself andrea costanza and christina lee are on the audit committee and

101will continue to report that the dollars and resources are allocated correctly and accounted for perfectly um i will move uh ask for motion to approve the financial reports as presented i'm just going to amend it i'm on the audit committee not andrea thank you carol i appreciate it but i so move okay move by karen thank you for the question seconded by christina all those in favor motion approved student representative lila congratulations on your old county all greater rochester status you were one of two brighton uh young women [Applause] and also know before you start dianna spagnola who we just heard from had a daughter on that as well for her school of districts so congratulations with that the table is yours um thank you so hello everyone and again thank you for having me

102here to speak to you tonight um so first i'd just like to express my gratitude to the high school's black student union um so this morning the club played a video and that they prepared honoring dr martin luther king jr everyone in the video was very well spoken and it was just a nice commemoration of his life next i want to applaud all the teachers with how they're handling the omicron surge i know that in my classes and in many others there have been several students out however all the students are working hard and making class the best that it can be for both those in school and at home personally all my teachers have been really great with kids on zoom making sure that it's easy for everyone to participate in class even if

103they aren't actually in the class additionally from the student's perspective the new five-day quarantine seems like it's working out well um it is a big stressor having to miss school so everyone is very thankful that the county and our district could adopt the shorter quarantine period as most of you know and it's been noted today already the school has been handing out coca tests to all the students um like from my like what i've gotten from everyone is that everyone thinks it's like they've been so useful and important and not only does it catch more cases but with the tests it's like with the test being so hard to come by it's giving everyone a sense of comfort so that's just been great from my perspective at least um so for lighter news right now

104there's a winter art show going on um displaying students work throughout the high school you can stop by through january 25th to see the art on display in the library atrium and auditorium foyer some additional exciting news is that ham jam is back on the schedule for this year so for those of you who don't know ham jam is brighton high school's talent show um is run by the student council the senior student council sorry as a fundraising effort for their end of the school year activities um people are already talking about preparation for hand jam and there is an interest meeting coming up at the end of the month ham jam is slated for march 11th so you should all come out and support the senior class it's always a fun event another event

105that is back for this year in collaboration with brightening your wardrobe to say yes to the dress so say yes to the dress is an event where students can take home dresses and other formal attire for free this year it's all school day february 17th so in past years they've had humming services which is also like great for students who might not be able to afford that um it is a really great event and everyone has fun trying on clothes with their friends and so many people go home with new attire that they're really excited to wear for the end of the year for all their dances and stuff so that's it for tonight and that's it for tonight and thank you all for having me thank you very much excellent report next from the

106board of education first as we always talk about i think that last count there were 33 different statewide county wide and local committees and teams that we are all on and we don't need to hear from all of them tonight given the time but we'll hit a couple the monroe county school board association labor relations that is me and andrea that i do remember um that that bro that launch is actually tomorrow so i'll um uh report on that in the first uh first meeting in february um information exchange that is myself and i did not have a chance to attend this past month i got it excellent um sarah visingal from um harris beach spoke and she talked about the state division of human rights issues involving students and staff and particularly one of

107the main points that she talked about with the statute of limitations for sexual harassment claims has been increased from one year to three years and some of how that affects both employees excuse me and students and their families and the next meeting is february 9th and they're going to be talking about the 2024 solar eclipse rochester museum and science center is planning on educational opportunities so hard to believe you're talking about two years from now big questions will we still be wearing masks and sunglasses all right that was information exchange thank you julene legislative that's me so the good news from the legislative committee is that we really are starting to see movement on the bus driver issue both from the federal perspective and the state perspective first governor hulkel has announced that they're looking

108at third parties being able to administer the cdl test and what we know is that there is a dearth of testing sites that are available in order to obtain the license and the other piece is that the federal government has announced that they are going to offer the carve out that would allow bus driver people seeking the school bus driver license to forego the under the hood training we know that that keeps many people from obtaining the school bus from getting that job and getting that license but the thing that i'd actually like to focus on is the fact that our newest crop of legislators sarah clark jeremy cooney our other local districts have really taken up this cry in a way frankly i haven't seen before it's not that our other legislators weren't weren't

109doing the work but they are paying i feel like extra close and special attention to schools and the issues that we face at that policy level and we really are seeing movement there that we haven't seen before and that's that's promising for us now we just have to get people to apply for the license so that they can take the jobs step two okay thank you very much um boces i'll just quickly note for boces i received a report from mark kokonovich who is our representative for boces just a couple of quick points um monroe one had a very good response to increased outreach including incentives and salary increases to fill multiple open staff positions relevant to something we proposed in past tonight recently 10 potential teaching assistant applications were interviewed and is expected that

110most will be offered positions i'll also note that the monroe and boces board of ed continues to review all department of program budgets and most recently reviewed the eastern monroe career center multi-occupational focus and operations and maintenance budgets overall they are struggling with some staff shortages some staff absences related to covet and they're sort of trying to muscle through it as best they can so that's just a very quick up there's a few other things here but that's a very quick update on boces piece we'll start with other board member reports for anyone that wants to report out if it's okay with you christine i'll start with you and we'll just work this way sure um so i sit on the new york state school board association for diversity equity and inclusion and um we've

111been meeting monthly for about a year now and we're going to continue we just got our charge for the next following year and if you look at their website you'll see that the most recent action just before the holiday season was to put out a statement from the new york school board association in support of a lot of the work that school districts are doing around diversity equity and inclusion and culturally responsive and sustaining education thank you esther i had the opportunity to attend the district-wide diversity equity inclusion committee meeting um mid-december and well we were visited by the re-center company that was already discussed in the blueprint report touching base on the progress of the cultural response culturally responsive practices and anti-racist education that we already have in place and to see what they're

112doing up close and uh really challenging what we're doing in this district and continuing uh our effort and um in progressing with this work it's been really educational excellent thank you i was able to attend the curriculum council meeting last week um allison described it um very well earlier but the the work is fascinating um and i i really do appreciate the idea you know having sent kids k12 through this district about to start over with my kindergartner next year of having a common language when it comes to teaching and learning we know that teaching and learning is very different from kindergarten through 12th grade but in essence there's so many things that apply when you think about habits of mind on that k-12 spectrum and it's it's fantastic to see the work being done

113thank you susan um my most recent thing i attended was the science program evaluation that we've worked on we had our second or third meeting dr rio had set up we actually had some data to review we're looking to see um how the curriculum is being implemented at the k-12 level we have a series of goals we'd like to know from some survey data and we're just starting to sort through that data to see how well our overall understanding of the new york state science standards are and to make sure with our diversity equity inclusion lens to make sure how we're doing in that area as well great thank you julian a lot of the meetings that i've attended have already been talked about school start time wellness is meeting this thursday and we're making

114plans to do some parent and community education um which will be my zoom and um special ed curriculum review had to be rescheduled from this last week and say yes to the dress i just wanted to add that if anybody has a tire that they would like to donate both for men or women that you can drop it off either at the high school or at brookside school between 9 and 12 monday through friday thank you you're welcome i'll know that we had math curriculum review as you did science myself and andrew was on that and continue through that process ably led by dr rio and um again consistent with what you talked about sue looking at some data coming up with some questions and and going back and sort of reviewing next steps so

115good math curriculum review has been very informative nicole bta um so again thank you for having me here to share some of the things teachers are doing there's not a very brief report because of the holiday recess and then we just had about a week in order to put some things in so it was two videos i don't know if you got to see them an orchestra video and then these two wonderful photographs of students fourth graders playing their instruments at french road and they are still having weekly lessons from chris dozier dave myers bernie hebron and lori isham and you can kind of see the joy and the little girl hugging her and her violin there at the high school and actually while lyla was sitting next to me she actually did the experiment

116i'm gonna tell you about she's like i did that um so students in brad allen's ap physics c they wanted to figure out how to get two rolls of toilet paper to actually land at the same time so one was dropped the other was held so they calculated ratios uh set it up and then did slow motion videos which i don't know if you watched it um but there was a lot that went into the thinking behind it and again by lewis we'll have a longer report thank you very much thank you very much peter ptsa online is also a quick report our activities our programs continue undebated and we're status quo thank you dr mcgowan superintendent a few different items uh to mention first of all in terms of covid i thought i'm always

117so struck by lila the obvious most inexperienced person at this table yet all uh no offense to any of you all due respect greatest voice of reason right like what a great perspective and uh her mention of people just kind of bearing with the omicron surge and where things were at i think was really just so thoughtfully stated and so i'd repeat the same thing people have really figured it out pulled together covered a lot of classes staff has done a really great job parents have been exceptionally patient and helpful as well and figured it out kids are taking it very seriously and understand where we're at and it's it's you know we're going on two years now this and so for kids that lila's around the bulk of their high school experience uh is

118is is kobit related so i'm so impressed with how they've handled the k-12 i'm really glad to tell you that today is the best attendance since the highest point or worst point for us on january 7th and we're seeing a downward trend each and every day that gets better that shouldn't um uh be you know give any sort of false sense of confidence people still need to be vigilant basket masking is still so important obviously vaccination booster and boostering people think you know if i i can't do it now because it's too late or it'll take too long my understanding is that as soon as you are boosted pretty much immediately the the impact is there and the the protection is there and so please go ahead and do that as well so i i

119just i think people have handled that very very well uh of course you may have heard we have a vote next week i'm not sure if that's uh clear to everybody but on tuesday 7 a.m to 7 p.m in this building obviously awfully important we think opportunity for people to participate in in that process um budget the numbers will be coming as i mentioned we'll have a sense we're just getting those now what that looks like and be able to report on that at the next meeting and just reminder to people to be prepared for remote days we don't have snow days in the calendar this year in a sense our snow days were the day before thanksgiving december 23rd any of the other days off that we've been able to take in a tight

120calendar year so we'll go remote on those days we feel like people are ready for that and we'll see how that works of course no predictions here no spoons under pillows no putting things in toilets or any whatever else people do or 20 bills my kids leave me none of that will work and don't worry nothing is coming but just want to make sure you remind people to be ready for that should should it come up we do live in western new york so certainly a possibility that's all thank you thank you uh next some bids to approve i'll quickly read a through e on the bid section under number 10. again these are cooperative bids for equipment repair and maintenance school lunch food custodial supplies medical trainer supplies and health and safety supplies you

121obviously have that information posted for us motion to approve the bids so moved moved by karen second seconded by esther all those in favor all right motion passes next up approval on some basically pro forma first read policies uh first one policy six two one three personnel registration and professional learning policy eight one three zero instruction equal educational opportunities and policy eight two two zero instruction career and technical occupational education can i do these as as one yes i'm okay to do that uh we've all had the first read policies by definition their first read we'll have a second look at a chance to vote on them after second read um motion to approve the the three first read policies as listed here some move moved by susan second seconded by christina all those in

122favor aye finally on the consent agenda there's a series of personnel changes that we've received approval of recommendations from the committee on special education approval of recommendations from the committee on preschool special education and finally a gift an anonymous gift in the amount of 500 to assist a brighton central school student for the cost of the eighth grade french class trip to quebec which is very nice thank you to whomever that was motion to approve the consent agenda a through d so moved by julene second seconded by susan all those in favor finally motion to adjourn so moved by karen second seconded by esther all those in favor aye aye we are adjourned this has been a special presentation from the brighton central school district board of education