001this is a special presentation from the brighton central school district board of education i welcome everyone this evening to the brighton central school district board of education business meeting and budget adoption for april 13th 2021 i do apologize for a slightly late start the board was an executive session prior to the 7 p.m meeting tonight to discuss uh probationary teacher reviews along with manners of real estate and employment of a specific individual so we are starting slightly late tonight so thank you um and as we get ready and i read forward here i will remind folks that we will shortly have uh opportunity for public comment if you're a member of the public and you wish to ask a question make a comment uh this evening please enter your name and address in the chat
002use the chat feature at the bottom of your screen and we will call on you shortly during public participation please take note that the board of education of the brighton central school district in response to the continuing emergency circumstances caused by the covet 19 pandemic and consistent with the new york state governor's executive orders is conducting its scheduled public hearing public meeting uh this evening april 13 2021 7 pm to be held by a zoom and zoom webinar feature through our district website public wishing to offer public comments shall be allowed to do so shortly and again we ask you to please enter your name and address on the chat feature at the bottom of the screen and we will call on you shortly you're welcome to ask a question or make a comment to
003the board of education as we begin this evening before we ask for public participation i am going to turn it over briefly to dr mcgowan to provide a brief community update on the latest guidance and return to in-person learning dr mcgowan yes we want to be crystal clear with our community which i think many people know this already we're thrilled to be welcoming our k5 children back on monday and hoping to bring six through 12 children back also on monday the 19th this coming monday a couple things have happened since we would have last reported on this or had this discussion in the community which again has gone out in several communications to community members parents in particular the new york state department of health adopted largely the cdc guidance that was issued on march
00419th and as we had explained to the community that was what we needed to have happen that was the switch that needed to be flipped so that we could have kids come back and it is different k5 than 6-12 in this way we are currently as a region in what is considered the red zone by cdc definition this isn't the state's previous zones this is the red zone by the cdc's definition which means our cases seven day average per 100 000 residents in monroe county on the cdc covet data tracker which is the source to look at uh currently exceed 200 cases per day per 100 000 residents it needs to be under 100 for secondary students to return and here's why grouping or cohorting of students is required if students are to be in
005school with three feet of social distance and that automatically happens at the k5 level because of classrooms set classrooms stand-alone classrooms first grade classroom kindergarten classroom second grade classroom etc so the very nature of them being stand-alone means they're grouped or cohorted k-5 kids can return despite the infection rate six through twelve kids cannot be cohorted or grouped which means they cannot return until the infection rate drops to the point where that is no longer required and that would be again 100 cases under 100 cases very straightforward we're very pleased with the guidance from the state reflecting the cdc guidance based on that science based on the progression and that discussion over time it gives us the room to do this and we're very glad that that has happened now we just need people to
006make sure they're wearing their masks doing everything they can and that they have been doing to keep that infection rate low and to get it even lower so from a public health perspective of course we want people to be healthy so the rate doesn't go up but also that helps our secondary kids return so keep your distance keep your mask on and 6 or 12 kids will be able to come back we will make a decision by 6 p.m wednesday tomorrow on 6 through 12 kids but k through five kids are coming back monday period all the kids five days fully in person and then if it can't happen for six through twelve kids and we announce that six pm tomorrow we will look at it then for the 26th and make a decision by
0076 pm next wednesday and continue on that rolling cycle of looking on a weekly basis and whether or not we can return we have been asked well when is the limit when is the point of no return when kids wouldn't be able to come back because the infection rate hasn't come down and we're too close to the end of the year there is a date i just don't know it yet so we will continue to monitor that and internally discuss the disruption to kids and families and what that would look like and make a decision when that seems reasonable but we don't have a date yet in mind haven't determined a date we'll communicate that when we do let's hope we don't get to that point let's just simply hope that kids can come back
008and that infection rate is down we also received guidance this week uh just yesterday late yesterday regarding end of year events such as prom ball graduation and our other gatherings that we have at the end of the year we're carefully carefully reviewing each of those doing everything we can to maximize that opportunity for kids and we do see some opportunity there it won't be simple there's complications to it but we we feel like we can make a lot of really good things happen and the ptsa has been great about planning those events as well and we're meeting this week to determine more about that and expect announcements over the next couple weeks everything won't be determined right away as we have from the beginning we want to be really thoughtful work with dr mendoza in
009the monroe county department of public health to make sure we understand what can happen we will submit plans for those events to the department of health and work to make sure that they are as safe as possible but also that we maximize the opportunity for our kids within what the guidance will allow and so that's underway right now i think that's it mr kanovich you've heard me talk about it over and over again or any other board members any other piece that i've communicated to you or that's gone out or or to any of the principals or lou anything that we also should be communicating out to people i would remind uh dr mcgowan that thursday night at 7 p.m thank you we will be holding a town hall specific to the return of in-person
010learning and the guidance from new york state and where we are and we uh that's that that information is posted on the website and we encourage all uh all residents to tune in and join the webinar on thursday evening 7 p.m and you're welcome in that evening to ask any specific questions that you have and we will we will work through all of that the one thing that i would add to what dr mcgowan has explained a couple of things from the board thank you to our entire leadership team our building principals uh kevin lou debbie deanna everyone i mean to continue to work every single day to deliver for our kids all of our teacher leaders our individual teachers to continue to make this work and then now to have plans ready in place
011to see more of our children returning to in-person learning putting teachers and students together beginning on monday is fantastic and outstanding and yeoman's work so we really appreciate everything that's gone into this from from all of our staff standpoint the other thing that i do want to communicate to our community we have been transparent and we have been excessive we have communicated in every way known to be possible including dr mcgowan's new monday morning uh video show we will continue to do so we understand that there is a lot of information out on local media from other districts on facebook and social media pages we will continue to communicate to our community as we have going back 14 months now on everything available all the current information where we stand and we will continue to
012follow the rules regulations and guidelines and keep everybody as safe as we possibly can as we move forward so we just want to make sure that people are on board with that no i appreciate you saying that and yes to everybody in our district you know from staff preparing to uh continue to think about how to support kids in quarantine and how to shift then to having uh their full class back at the same time and continue to service remote uh folks at the same time who need that program uh you know to buildings and ground staff making sure that the furniture has been moved back in and is ready to the health staff thinking about how this would work and how we manage that to people around pick up and drop off the layers
013to this are just innumerable and i think i had mentioned transportation figuring out how it would work so food service everybody and uh and it's been really remarkable and i would just say in terms of a tone we're not frustrated with what's come out in fact this is an opportunity for our kids we cannot wait this is like you know whatever your favorite holidays are and i feel like we're gearing up for that on on monday and it's and it's really really exciting finally more of a return to normalcy and uh and that's shared you know universally there is certainly caution and people that are concerned and and uh you know within our district and i don't want to take anybody's health or safety at all lightly we feel very very comfortable with the approach
014and feel like we can follow the guidance to a t it has given us the room to do what we want to do which is exactly what we had asked for and harped on with with both the governor's staff and the health department for this to happen and now we have the green light to do that and it's it's just really exciting lots of opportunity there and the reality is there's nothing frustrating about following the infection rate for the secondary level that's a concern and we need to drive that number down so that less people are sick which is the benefit in and of itself but then secondary to that so that kids can have that return to normalcy and return to school too so we're really excited about that a great partner in all
015of this in addition to the leadership team all of you has been our parents supporting the work also communicating clearly with us i want to emphasize again 7 p.m thursday night k through 12 anybody's got a question comment suggestion thought please jump on to that zoom that zoom link will be in the covet update tomorrow along with the link to a thought exchange you can't make it you just want to share a thought a question or comment please do it through that format also look for the covet update tomorrow for that another great partner in this that can't be overlooked is our staff who has been willing to do this work to think about it differently to support it every step of the way to problem solve every step of the way their leader here
016is here tonight from the brighton teachers association judy wagman i can't thank judy enough for that partnership and that work alongside and i know judy wanted to offer some comments tonight too judy now would be a great time if you want to jump in good evening and and thank you kevin uh yeah i actually think it's uh a perfect timing uh good evening everyone and thank you for giving me just a moment or two so my name is judy wegman and i do live in brighton uh on topaz lane uh and i'm also just finishing my 31st year as a teacher in brighton a specifically a counselor at primary school and as well i serve as the president of the brighton teachers association and so this evening i just wanted to very quickly share uh
017some thoughts uh from uh from our brighton teachers uh association uh to the board and especially to our community and and families uh the members of uh the brighton teachers community writing teachers association have worked incredibly hard in partnership with our brighton families and in partnership with our brighton administration to navigate what is an extraordinary year bright teachers association is eager and prepared to welcome our students back to school since march of 2020 it has always been our goal to have students back with us as soon as it was considered safe and we are prepared to stand as students have the potential to return five days a week and now of course we know welcoming our k-5 children back uh this coming monday and hopefully our 6 12 children uh not much longer after that
018we want to take a moment to thank the brighton community for your support throughout this past year and whether remote hybrid or not full-time we hope that you and your children felt and continue to feel the care and support from all of us the brighton teachers association represents over 350 counselors teachers social workers speech language pathologists school psychologists academic support instructors nurses and school librarians and so we share in this the sentiment of all of you in in our excitement of having our children back with us for whatever time we can have them thank you thanks judy and she may just cancel her video or cancel my video or cancel something and be unhappy but i do want to point out uh that judy is wrapping up her career in brighton also and after such
019a distinguished career uh leaving us uh to retire could not be happier for you or um more sad about the the the hole in the vacuum that that leaves and just grateful for all you've contributed to all of our children into the district k-12 in so many ways and as a resident friend and neighbor and personally to me as a parent whose kids have worked with you also so as much as she will be upset i do think it's worth us all saying thank you very much to judy i know that was not your intent duty but thank you everyone it's uh it's been an honor a wonderful career i'm very fortunate to have been in brighton thanks judy mr kokonovich thank you very much kevin thank you judy and thank you for joining us
020this evening and thank you for those uh those outstanding words and and your continued support and uh and again our our thanks from the board of education so thank you very much uh dr mcgowan or or dan goldman do we have anyone in any additional brighton residents i should say in the chat that wish to address the board this evening we do not mark they're all saving it up for thursday night at 7 p.m at the uh at your town hall that's what they say uh then uh the board of education i will entertain please a motion to approve our agenda for this evening so moved second moved by larry seconded by karen uh does anyone have anything additional corrections or that okay then all in favor aye any opposed we have seven in favor
021and none opposed thank you motion please for approval of the minutes from our march 24th 2021 executive budget proposal and budget hearing so moved second uh moved by sue and seconded by andrea correct all in favor aye and he opposed thank you very much that's carried seven in favor not opposed as we mentioned tonight is our budget adoption uh session along with our business meeting uh the main portion of that uh of the evening discussion of our budget proposal and then a a uh vote of approval of the board to follow so i will turn it over to dr mcgowan to begin please absolutely so very excited to share with you our executive budget proposal and ask for your adoption this evening this has been adjusted from the original presentation on march 9th with some
022really great news that we'd like to continue to talk about with our community first of all key points of the state budget which has now been adopted foundation aid is funded at a floor of 60 percent if you remember we've been receiving under 50 percent of our foundation aid and the governor's proposal kept that flat the legislature was successful in working with the governor to adopt a budget that sets the floor at 60. now it should be 100 we know that but 60 is a significant jump for us also uh very important to point out is the budget included language to guarantee that it would go up again next year and then the year after go up to 100 that type of promise has been made in the past and not fulfilled especially if we
023go back to the beginning of foundation aid so there's a an amount of caution with regard to that but we find it to be very promising and more within reach than it ever has been before it's an important moment to stop and say thank you thank you to our community members that did so much to advocate in this regard thank you to fight for brighton the community group that drove this conversation from an advocacy perspective and the leaders uh part of that uh dr claire mclaughlin of course dr rachel rummel dr cindy gowan miranda mcdave clay leslie seltzer many people involved in that conversation and so many community members that helped to make this happen we appreciate that the work of all of you as board members advocate and lou for his tremendous analysis that
024has been a big part of uncovering this wrong and uh making it right throughout the state of new york has made a big big difference this move for us to 60 means an additional amount of foundation aid rounded to 2.2 million dollars future increase again up to 100 and we need to keep in mind this other key point which is pandemic relief funds which are going to be able to come to the district to supplement the budget not supplant state aid which was a concern as we went into this budget process and something the governor has been prone to do over time to take federal monies to replace the maintenance of effort that the state needs to provide so this is really really good news for us our response to that on the bottom of
025your screen is to continue to emphasize with our community that we are able to comply with the tax cap this is a budget that does not break the cap that is compliant with the tax cap we are able to provide permanent funding for full-day kindergarten so as we had announced before we are adopting that program we are able to restore the sixth grade foreign language reduction that was made in last year's budget we have an improved long-term financial outlook the next two items are key to that as is the notion that we are these other previous pieces kindergarten and foreign language we had communicated especially with regard to full day k that we're going to be able to use funds from the future to pay for that now leverage fund balance to pay for that
026now well the next two items are key we are able to reduce by three hundred thousand dollars our reliance on the savings account we don't have to duplicate that again in revenue next year to pay for that one-shot revenue we are able to reduce that by three hundred thousand dollars and reduced by three hundred thousand dollars our reliance on margin reserves in other words the additional six hundred thousand dollars beyond the 1.6 that pays for full day k and foreign language and the other restoration and maintenance of programs right so when we knew about 60 even before that we were leveraging 1.6 million elsewhere we're now able to take the additional 600 thousand dollars that we didn't expect and reduce our reliance on margins which is in every area of the budget there is planned
027reserve that can then go at the end of the year towards fund balance but protects us from the variances through the course of the year so in some lines when a program may cost significantly more for a student that is an unanticipated need that comes up through the course of the year or student who's into the district with an additional cost there's a margin no different than when you go to wegmans with maybe a budget of a certain amount you might go a little bit over that hopefully you have a margin to protect yourself from that because the price of milk went up further than you may have expected it to you budget for the trip but you know you have a little bit of extra just in case we're able to restore those margins
028which means we're able to protect ourselves from those variances that impact your ability to fund your fund balances or your reserves going forward we also recognize there's an opportunity for healing and innovation going forward in the future in other words how do we look at the programs from the past several years while we were very constricted in terms of our spending and are we able to restore funding in different places but are we also able to restore that notion of being innovative and thinking differently about the work adding new programs we've had people say to us in our budget forms this year yeah it's great you can key program but i actually moved here for you to be innovative in adding program and thinking about that but finding the right balance for healing also relative
029to the burden that taxpayers have had over time that is we think exceeds what it should be and it exceeds what it may be in other districts that have had the benefit of additional aid over time how can we over the long term think about ways to ease that increase or ease the burden in any way that we can that'll be a big part of our conversation going forward but we know now with this adoption of the state budget we will have that opportunity we're excited about that conversation um there is a uh so if we take a look just at the revenue breakdown what does that look like for us and walk through very briefly each of those lines we know our our adopted uh proposed budget amount is a change of 4.7 million
030dollars in other words a 5.7 increase in spending overall that we are requesting from the community and the budget adoption is a spending plan there is a tax implication that we want to talk to you about tonight but when i emphasize over and over again we ask for an approval of a spending plan from the community in terms of revenues other than real property taxes we're seeing that go up 1.1 million dollars unrestricted foundation aid up 2.16 or we've rounded in the in the previous slide to 2.2 million building aid will go up 1.5 million dollars and we will use um fund balance towards the tax levy of 1.7 million dollars so the total non-property tax revenues are 3.1 million dollars add to that the increase in the tax levy of 1.5 million dollars and
031you see a percent change in revenues of 2.85 percent um in other words the tax levy the request is to the community the result would be that it needs to increase 2.85 the rate is not set by the board until august the actual levy is not set and the rate depends on the assessments as well the property tax levy limit is 57.1 million dollars and again we're pointing out the amount in excess of the tax cap levy limit would be zero dollars and on the right hand side there's a breakdown specific to the aid the state aid categories foundation aid makes up 47 of our aid that's the relatively unrestricted amount other small types of aids are 12 percent boces 8 in particular is 13 transportation 13 those are the expenses in one year that
032are funded them by aid the next year the reimbursables building aid on the capital project being 15 of the total aid as well so why not lower taxes immediately is a really good question for people to say wait a second you said we've been burying this burden for a long time why wouldn't you just lower with this what would be perceived as a windfall i would say first of all it's definitely not a windfall remember it's only 60 percent it seems so much better because we were so low before we should be getting 100 that's a game changer of a conversation 60 percent is a great increase super grateful for that but it's not 100 yet so that's one key part of this and although it is anticipated and promised we've got to see it
033actually happen and it hasn't always happened in the past very confident in senator cooney and assembly member clark who are such a big part of helping to make this happen our representatives in this area that it will happen but we're not there yet so that's one reason also just analyzing the state budget it relies on 12.6 billion dollars in temporary from washington that's the state budget relies on 12.6 billion dollars remember the governor pointed out even last week he had asked for 15 billion got 12.6 so there's a concern for us there when we look at the state of the state's finances that we need to do some forecasting and some hedging of our bets because they have set their budget up based on some pretty significant contributions of one-time funds what's going to help
034with the new york city economy that has a huge impact on the rest of the sea you know when people complain about it they talk about you know we're so much different from new york city and uh we should be our own state etc don't forget that city residents account for of the state's adjusted gross income just between 2011 2018 and an even greater share by job location in other words if you just looked at a few square miles in manhattan by wall street it makes up a huge amount of the personal income tax paid in new york state it accounts for 71 of the state's job growth between 11 and 20. but again a huge part of the highest earners in new york state or a huge proportion of them are in that location
035and with the new york city economy the way it is with people working more mobility leaving the state of new york there's a concern that we need to be aware of going forward will the state inc tax increases have negative effects will the highest income earners who are being taxed at a higher level go somewhere else when they can work remotely what happens when they expire they are temporary some of those tax increases and there's a supreme court case new hampshire versus massachusetts that challenge states taxing income of workers who are now working entirely remotely out of state and so that's a concern as well even though they're earning income from new york state being taxed if they're entirely living out of state there is a lawsuit right now that is a concern for us
036to watch and it's a supreme court case sorry about that um remembering that non-new york state residents right working new york state but non-residents account for 16.6 of the personal income tax receipts in 2018 the most recent data we have that's more than all of upstate and so that's a real concern if that supreme court case goes a different direction so those are all reasons why when we look at this we need to be really cautious going forward and we'll study that carefully it will be obviously better if the state is able to fund foundation at a higher level again next year we'll have a higher degree of confidence and be able to look at this a little bit differently increasingly every year finding that balance between an opportunity to ease that burden and the
037opportunity to grow program and service our kids differently over time which is awfully important and restore things that have been reduced what does this mean in terms of the budget that we are proposing staffing increases et cetera and restoration of positions the total number of ft staff positions identified in the 2021 budget were 600 this budget would be 628 that accounts for new positions full-day kindergarten but also positions that had to be added during the year which were significant as well a variety of support positions that had uh to be added and again that goes all the way down if you look at the bottom of the screen to that 5.72 increase overall each of the different appropriations so staffing is up at the top equipment will go up that's replenishing some of that work
038again not a significant dollar amount but a significant percentage in the need to replenish places that we held back and didn't spend on because of more austerity measures we will be restoring those and our principal and interest payments on our debt pickup that goes up 23 again all planned anticipated over time but that average is 5.72 in terms of spending this is just a breakdown of those positions that we're talking about what's being added what we're proposing if you look all the way over at the changes on the right hand side we're talking about 14 positions overall in the teaching area largely around a full day kindergarten that is identified in the middle column you see nine positions uh total 2.4 budgeted for the sixth grade uh foreign language and then parts of positions across
039the board relative to full day kindergarten adding special air support uh for those in special education support as well we're able to reduce two positions based on class size adjustments grades one through five that's still part of the spending plan property tax report card as adopted by you already does spell out each of the variables from new york state what we are responsible for and ultimately each of the balances for the reserves on the right hand side without reading the numbers at the community again the property tax report card the middle number being the most important uh the proposed tax year levy 2.85 percent and an under the cap number this is all provided posted on the website for data for people to review at their leisure and each of the reserve balances is indicated
040on the right hand side as well and remember those help defer greater tax increases from happening because we can draw from reserves to pay for particular expenses taxpayers have put this money aside over time and you've been thoughtful stewards of finances to be able to offset big increases in expenses necessitating a larger tax increase along the way and that's the value of those reserves those savings accounts for specific purpose they can only be used for those reasons as well what is the impact on property taxes again ultimately you'll decide that when you adopt that in august but right now the levy increases would look like this particular table let me walk through those we'd be looking then at a difference so on the left-hand side the tax rate for 2021 was 25.99 per thousand in
041brighton 26 dollars per thousand in pittsburgh remember there's an equalization rate uh to true that up between our different taxing jurisdictions and the next column over shows you 21 22 the estimated tax rate per 1000. it's 26.69 per thousand in brighton the town of pittsburgh it's 27.87 per uh 1000 there's an extra dollar 35 per thousand it's a one-time reassessment due to the equalization decrease of 95 in 2020. that was post of the adoption of the levy and that now needs to be assessed in this year's budget instead of assessing people during the year the law allows that to be made up in this year's particular budget and assessed in this year's levy so that's a one-time change again based on the equalization rate decreasing and that happening after that calculation happening after the adopted
042levy last year by the district and our choice and the board's choice as explained in audit committee and then publicly explained to not assess that during the course of this year but in this year's tax levy the next column over is then the estimated tax bill in brighton 100 000 home an increase of seventy dollars two hundred thousand hundred forty dollars three hundred thousand a two hundred ten dollar annual increase we're looking at the equals equalization rate officer real property tax sets that provides that to decrease to 95 percent and then in the town of pittsford excluding the re-levy amount that dollar 35 we're mentioning is an increase of 1.87 or 187 dollars on a hotel at a hundred thousand dollars at 200 000 562 at 300 000 and again that is also due to
043the equalization rate set by their office of real property tax decreasing to 91 percent capital project spending the balance in the capital reserve is 7.6 million dollars we're proposing to the community to withdraw 1.5 million dollars the new debt authorization then a 3.6 million dollars and that would go towards rehab of the locker rooms and the lockers at brighton high school site work in front of the building uh really redoing that whole uh front concrete which through construction is damaged pretty significantly planned by the way to replace that with a brick entrance replace of the head and system for the public address rehab of pool bleachers as well which is due hvac upgrades in the pool new pool filtration systems all part of maintenance that has to happen and can be done this way instead
044of through the general fund brighton high school and the middle school replacing stadium lights with led which will be more efficient energy efficient over time better lighting high school renovations um to makerspace which we've received a significant donation as well that we'll be able to discuss more going forward to cover part of that cost and middle school partial roof replacement as well again pretty standard operational replacements maintenance items and we would propose matching the building aid with debt service uh to utilize the capital reserve funds that would offset the impact on the tax levy in other words no impact on the tax levy because we'd be getting building aid that would match the debt service on these projects other budget details are all available in these documents listed on the left hand side of this
045slide at bcsd.org backslash budget you can go to this presentation click on that live link and go see any of these items every single single detail is provided for the community in great transparency all available to you final point remember budgets communicate priorities where you devote your resources says a lot about what you feel is best for supporting children we say that every year and we feel that this budget communicates that very very clearly in the proposed spending plan it meets and exceeds all of the state mandates to support every learner across the spectrum funding fully in support of blueprint plans respects taxpayers honors commitments again real keys here additional foundation aid is significant for the district allowing us to have full day kindergarten allowing us to to be better prepared financially longer term and
046make those decisions over time and restoring sixth grade foreign language certainly something communicated to us by community feedback next steps in the process we have a budget hearing 7 pm via zoom as well and we'll get the link out to people will be regularly communicated as well and then of course the budget vote new location in the central administration building given covid everything else that we're working on traffic flow hopefully more students back in the building at that time the central administration building we believe will be much better space for this and more accessible for the community easier access for the community so we're very excited 7-9 central administration building and i'm really thrilled to tell people that although gretchen schaefer god rest her soul is no longer able to have this conversation with us
047about the spaghetti dinner from kiwanis on the budget vote day brighton qantas will be sponsoring a food truck rodeo in the loop by the middle school during the dinner hours on the budget vote day please get a bite to eat really excited about that the ptsa will be sponsoring one again the next week with a modified homecoming type activity for our students stay tuned for those details also so those food trucks will be available both on the budget vote night and then from the ptsa two nights that you don't have to cook and you can come to the food trucks and that money of course goes to scholarships for brighton students and the ptsa support of our students as well excited about both those fundraisers plenty of opportunities to eat and support kids at the
048same time any questions on anything that's been presented tonight that i can answer for the board board members does anyone have anything that they would uh either like to ask kevin or or of lou or make a comment on pretty quiet i guess uh well that does show that the clarity with which we've been discussing this over the past many months and looking at it carefully since the final budget adoption from new york state further understanding where we are so i guess that i will make a comment that uh thank you kevin and thank you lou and everyone else we do often talk about budgeting being a 12 month a year situation and trying to work through everything this year and then with the uncertainty over new york state funding and then having really fantastic
049news come down for us both for this current year from the state and from the federal government but then also being prudent looking forward we have to really pay attention to the federal money to be distributed can only be used for certain items and we'll continue to have conversations about that in a very detailed way public conversations transparent conversations involving the community over the next few months but then also dr mcgowan made a point that i just want to emphasize to the community new york state has promised a lot of things to public education in terms of funding over the past 35 or 40 years we hope that what's going to happen is what they've told us will happen that over the next three years we will be brought right up to 100 percent of
050the foundation aid money do which would be fantastic and allow us to grow and allow us to add and allow us to look at uh the property tax levy in a more detailed way and brighton like we we do need to do but we have to see we have to see what happens with that we will have the ability to make adjustments as we go and um we'll know i think much more about that situation with next year's budget than this year's budget this budget right now tonight that we've just taken a look through is uh is certainly a value statement on where we are it allows us to restore a number of items it also very critically allows us to restore margins to areas that we have really cut to the bone over the
051past few years and we do need to make sure that the public is aware of that to get by over the past few years lou and kevin and the rest of leadership have really worked hard to cut margins very clean you know very uh you know finally let's say and look at balance fund balance look at reserve funds and utilize uh really paying for the current we have to restore some of that margin and this budget does take that into account also the other thing is we have a heavy lift with full day kindergarten in those positions even though there is new york state aid to convert over to full-day kindergarten that only lasts for three years and it diminishes quite a bit from year one to year two to year three so we are
052moving forward in a very prudent way i believe and i think the board believes based on the conversations we've had thus far and um i do endorse and i uh ask the board for a motion to approve and adopt the executive budget proposal as outlined this evening for our 2021-2022 budget to be presented to the brighton voters on vote day on may 18th so may we have that motion so moved that can be ruled by karen seconded by christina any further conversation or comment amongst any just that 60 mark as you point out is the beginning we still have a long ways to get to 100 we shouldn't take anything for granted but if met it will create some opportunities for us absolutely larry very well stated then i will call the question everyone in
053favor aye anyone opposed and that carries seven in favor and unopposed and we will present the budget as outlined to the public for the vote on may 18th so thank you everyone thanks to everyone's support thanks to the administrators their participation in crafting a sound budget for the community consider and lou of course for your financial leadership stewardship et cetera it's so much appreciated thanks ero absolutely thank you thank you very much kevin uh then let's move now to our agenda item number six and our principal reports we'll start tonight with our traditionally council rock and principal matt tavin good evening everyone um so i submitted this uh before we had guidance um so there isn't a slide but if there was a slide it would be right here and it would be celebrations and
054excitement for the possibility to bring many of our students back five days a week next week we've been working hard as dr mcgowan shared getting all the details ironed out they won't be completely unwrinkly but we will we will certainly continue to make sure that we are staying safe but we are just really excited and again grateful for the support of our parents and my incredible staff at council rack um who is busily preparing to to get everyone back so um that would been there um but last month in march we celebrated music in our schools month mrs granat our in-person music teacher and mrs button who is our remote music teacher this year asked everyone including students what is music to you and there were displays all over the school um and staff and
055uh students alike shared what music was to them and why it was important as well as throughout the month uh on wednesdays i typically do a read aloud i shared read-alouds that connected to music but also we had some videos that were submitted by our staff and then members or family members of our staff that shared their music so our librarian mrs mozgovichis is an accomplished cello player she shared her love for music and what it did for her as well as one of our ta's sons who shared some drumming from uh eastern asia it was just really awesome to be able to share such great things and our music teachers are amazing and engage our kids in really awesome ways so we also celebrated at the same time the display to the rightmost is
056our brand new library display outside of our library that will be opened in about four months uh and then this is actually outside of mrs youngman's second grade class uh who helped to craft this um great women in history and some facts about them doing some research so uh this is a traditional first grade writing project the best part of me where students think about what is the best part of them and this is actually mrs files and mrs baker they are both remote teachers these students worked on this remotely and then um sent in their products uh when we did our pickup and drop-off phase and these are displayed outside of their in-school traditional classrooms for all the clubs at school to be able to see who are in person to connect with their
057remote students this is also so it's kind of a highlight of our first grade remote classes these are our other two remote classes mrs allen and mrs bruce they did an author's tea they did research completely virtually obviously using pebble go which is one of our library resources and they did it on an animal of their choice and then through writer's workshop and support with the teachers online and the teaching assistants they created a brochure and were able to share it with their class as well as invited guests and it was just great you can kind of see their amazing expressions um and these authors were really excited to share share the work that they did in second grade uh one of the units that you've seen before in the past years is our urban
058suburban and rural these are outside mrs eurovi's classroom who is on with us and we'll be reporting later but just some really unique and different takes on um on how to represent urban suburban and rural in a pictorial way but also some persuasive writing about which they would like to belong in the most and trying to convince people about that and then a connection uh that mrs youngman's class did was to math um so they created an array city um and in math they're learning about arrays um repeated addition that leads to multiplication and so you can see the big the picture kind of scrolled far away they built buildings and put arrays in and connected that to their study of urban suburban and rural particularly urban communities so great to see the connections and
059then i think the most important thing often um before board couple weeks before aboard i always have my camera out and just taking pictures and i just was in awe as i walked around uh of the writing and the art and the work that they did together and the work that teachers are doing to give kids their creative outlet but also inspire the writing so in here you've got love is which is really still a hangover from valentine's day in um in february but describing what love is and kindness um supporting our habits of mind and our bright and beliefs traits but then a lot of goodbye winter hello spring and all the things you say goodbye to when we change to the seasons but really inspirational in what kids are creating and then using
060that to spark their writing and that just was evident as i walked through through the building for sure in these last few weeks so we have an exciting event it happens you couldn't do this if you tried uh it happens to be our first and second days back all together um but we will be welcoming author julia cook who has written many many many amazing books that really cater to student social emotional growth and kind of social learning she one of the books we use a lot at council rock is my mouth as a volcano learning how to control those thoughts you might have that don't come pouring out but she will be at council rock she will be presenting virtually to all of our students both in-person and remote the 19th and the 20th
061we're really excited about that um and ready to welcome her and then as part of bringing her along the following tuesday so april 27th we will be having a uh virtual parent night with her where she connects to what she's talked about um and talks about balancing parenting how to help with anxiety and worries during covid and really just reinforcing the social skills that she teaches within her books and helping parents understand the power of of books and again i can't say enough uh thank yous to the brighton education fund who helped to fund this um in during these times this unique kind of experience that we weren't looking for an author but um it kind of landed in our laps and they were amazing in helping us make sure that we could bring them
062so uh so coming up besides a return to school we will also have as i just said the author visits to all of our students the 19th and 20th and then the parent presentation on the 27th and just a reminder to parents that the following friday is a superintendent's conference day so there will be no school on that friday which was previously planned and needed before uh the return to school any questions thank you very much matt and uh all the best for wonderfully successful monday i mean i'm sure all the building is looking forward to that coming up so thank you so much awesome thank you moving over to french road elementary school the other building that's looking forward very much to monday and dr rio good evening everyone i'm happy to be here
063and um i want to echo everything that matt said as well we are ready for our students to come back five days for in-person instruction on monday we're excited i'm really proud of our teachers for you know making this happen for our kids so quickly and you know ready to welcome them back and bring the two cohorts together and new students and ships and i'm excited to see the school full again next week so more to come but we are ready so today i have a few different things to share that are going on at french road but um i always like to share our yearbook cover contest winner this year our theme was unity and we had over 100 entries from the kids and maybe that's because we're in a pandemic and drawing has
064been really fun but they were really really great and we are so proud of them so the students voted on their favorite cover and karina one of our fifth grade students her cover is here the one that's on the screen with the world picture with the rainbow she created the unity theme bringing everyone together we have lots of runners up here four on the right side will go on the back of the yearbook but you can see kids really trying to think about things that were important to them this year and things we would remember this year by and lots of different coveted pieces and zoom and so many things so so proud of our kids who contributed to that i want to touch on brighton believes day which seems like such a long time
065ago now but it was just last month and we focused at french road on change makers following the work that we did around black history month and looking at change makers throughout the month of february we carried that over into brighton believes day to make connections to other change makers in the world and also for to help our kids just think of themselves as chains change makers and we started off with a school-wide virtual assembly from the rochester museum and science center where we talked about and learned about what is a change maker which connected to the a lot of the work that we were doing at french road in the classrooms with our students and learned about change makers from the rochester area students got to hear from one of the education experts at
066the science museum and hear a little bit about the exhibit that was there as well but that was a big success for our kids and it connected to all the work we were doing and then they continued on that day even though it was a wednesday they were at home but they made change maker signs for their homes and also to share with neighbors so these are some pictures of the work that our students did at home a lot of things happened in their driveways and their windows you'll see kids sharing with other people hanging signs around their community and these are ones that were shared from family so even though they were home for the day it was a really special day for our kids and it was nice to see them participating and
067so excited in addition we ran a change maker change challenge and the students at french road in one week raised seventeen hundred and fifty dollars to donate to food inc and that was pretty fantastic so this is our giant check that we have made to show them that was going to foodling but they were so excited because we asked them to only raise 500 at least 500 i should say which we thought was a lot of money for one week to have a school-wide dance party in their pjs and obviously they did more than that so you'll see our first ever zoom dance party that miss o'neil and i led from the main office conference room zooming into classrooms and students homes around brighton definitely not a skilled dancer but we'll do anything for the
068kids so we had a lot of fun you'll see all the kids checking out from home here some classrooms in there too the kids really had a good time the teachers got on and it was adorable so really proud of the kids and impressed that they were able to raise that much money for a great cause in such a short amount of time and then another one of my very favorite nights at french road is our science and social studies fair and we had to cancel that last year because it is in march right around the time we went into coven and the pandemic this year we didn't want to cancel it so we took it virtual you can check this out on the french road elementary school website under the student page there's a
069science and social studies fair page and what we did is had students contribute videos of the projects they were doing and there's all sorts of projects on there just like you would see if you are in person in the science and social studies fair there are lots of different categories and we had a night where we all came together on zoom and we went through kind of just an introduction to all the work that the kids did and talked about being an inventor and um you know an innovator as a student and then they had an opportunity to go to this website and visit some of the different exhibits and leave feedback for other students on a form that we created that we're in the process of sharing with the kids right now but these
070are some links that i put in the presentation i'm not going to go through them right now but anybody can check these out on the website and you will be so impressed with the work that our students did some did it on their own some had some support for videoing some had partners but very popular items like just the things we would see in um if we were in person and that was really fantastic and they had a great time we had a lot of participants in that too so here's just a few pictures of some of the things that the kids shared i like this do i have to make my bed a bed making machine that i would totally buy into but lots of different ideas here for kids and our classrooms our
071special area classes are all going to be back in their classrooms so we've been slowly integrating them back into their rooms instead of our teachers homeroom classes as we started off the year and the teachers have been so creative in giving the students different experiences this year and our tech teachers mrs harp and mr o'neal have really worked to build in some other opportunities for kids because in the past we would spend a lot of time on our ipads and looking at computer skills but now the kids are learning that in so many different ways through all the other work that they're doing this year that they've taken a kind of a different approach and these are some pictures of one of our quiffering classes working on electric cars that mrs harp did with them
072they're testing them out outside of the school but um it's been awesome to see the innovation that covid has brought about in so many ways and this is just one example of that we have a few things coming up our state tests starting off next week right when we come back to school which is totally fine we're going to rock those and move on with our week we also have a special education meeting with the principal next week and we are moving our ice cream social to a virtual ice cream social and french road families more information will be coming out to you this friday in my newsletter but we are looking forward to sharing what's going on in the school via an awesome video with some ice cream pick up so stay tuned more
073to come any questions thank you very much else and i i guess i'm looking forward to the virtual ice cream social i mean traditionally we board members volunteer at that and another one of those events that we miss uh greatly but uh that will be interesting to see you you're gonna have to eat it from the comfort of your home but that's okay like everything else for 13 months right but again another great example in all of your reports of continuing to make it work in any way that you possibly can and not losing traditions and not losing things that are relevant to kids and but making it work in a way that we can make it work so thank you so much we continue to appreciate that and now we'll take a look at
07412 corners middle school and mr nunez thank you for having me this evening and i'm happy to be here um go ahead and set this up before we start all right so things going on at 12 corners first off in our library as we finished up the final touches of the details they've had some nice aesthetic art to the top portion of the walls and what we have here are some really fascinating artwork we have students who um almost mirror um the actual characters on the cover of books and they put the books up to the side of the students faces and so what we have is an image of half the cover of the book and half the child and it almost looks like they're all in one as if they're reading the book
075or part of the book itself so it's really quite amazing when you walk into the library to see that image up on the walls of those students and the artwork and it's just fantastic and it's a great addition to the library as you walk in to see that next up we have a a lot of kindness going around the building at 12 corners we have these postings going up today today at the end of the day we had several students walk around posting signs of kindness on students lockers walking up to adults and others and just handing them individual words and thoughts and sayings of kindness just lifted the spirits of people as they were walking around it was just a really nice touch to have and there'll be several students who are surprised when
076they come to school to find these cards on their lockers so it was a really nice touch for our students and our staff to receive over the course of the day in social studies sixth grade they have just got culminated um in their studies of ancient china and so with that there are some of the word postings of confucius um but with that the follow-up to it is really what's um really going to be fascinating and interesting for our students mrs falter is working um with this guest speaker amanda jensen who is going to come in and and teach the children about authentic chinese calligraphy and so it's going to be a wonderful opportunity for our students to work with mrs jensen um it's something that mrs falter has been very excited about and also
077the idea came from a student in the class who made the suggestion to contact mrs jensen and so fortunately she was available to come in and so those times are being coordinated but our students are gonna have a really great opportunity to work with her and learn some calligraphy in sixth grade they have been reading the novel the watsons go to birmingham and so with that we've got some work outside that showcases some of the most interesting aspects of the book for our students and for me it's quite interesting because i'm also reading the book with my daughter at home and so we get a quite good laugh out of it and some of the favorite parts that noted here from our students are the same that my daughter and i have experienced with the
078first chapter one of the students gets their lips stuck to the um side view mirror of their car in the midst in the middle of winter in detroit and so it's a great book but with that you know great lessons and history great um lessons in the civil rights movement and with the work um that has been done with our teachers they have also tied that to some really great poetry and writing um there is a follow-up with social justice um unit with their writings and our students have done a really nice job of expressing themselves in different ways through haikus and different forms of poetry and they're nicely um posted throughout the halls of that sixth grade in our building and um so it's been really nice to to hear their their thoughts and
079their feelings um of these uh current times and what they've learned over the course of the year through their readings and so it's really impressive to see what our students are sharing and showing at tcms this is just a follow-up to more additional poetry that's there over here on the on the left side you see a piece titled fair written by daniel gasparino so it's a really well done piece there as well but really great work that our students are doing there and kudos to mrs parks for her and the work that she and her students are doing with this here we have some award winners in writing and poetry from the bright memorial library alice b wilson annual literary awards contest and so we have several of our students from tcms who were recognized
080for their efforts we have tara lama who won in the category of poetry for pros and non-fiction etta sorensen tara llama almo also won in the section of prose and fiction along with ariana cater jocelyn case and maria shinen so we're really proud of our students for their efforts and what they've done and being recognized for that throughout our community just some upcoming events here as was noted earlier we have the new york state assessments in ela followed by our math assessments um in june we'll have our teachers recognition lunch for our staff and then our eighth grade bonfire which will be excited to have and have something for our students to culminate their year with any questions thank you very much jim we appreciate that and it's again it's great to see some of
081those every year events still in there and making it happen so thank you again and thanks for sharing and finally wrapping up this evening dr hall in brighton high school okay you're on mutectron okay are we good now all right sorry about that i want to start out with um a topic that many of you heard about last week dr mcgowan and i sent out an e-news to the entire district student staff and community about some recent reports information that came forward regarding sexual assault and sexual harassment in the in with students with students in the high school so we sent out that communication last week wednesday and i wanted to just share a quick update on kind of where we where we are in basically about a week from uh when all of this
082kind of hit social media so we've put together several resources for students and mainly for students but community members as well in terms of what students can do to report uh take action and discuss any concerns when it comes to sexual assault or sexual harassment we list it out from talking to any trusted adult for sure to start with you come to any administrator all of our counselors we've listed their calendly connections where you can schedule an appointment with them or just go to the office two social workers two psychologists list the phone numbers our safe schools helpline put that out again as a resource it can be used for anything typically we've used it for reporting mental health it's been used a lot for mental health and social emotional issues and or threats but
083it's also there for reporting anonymous tips on any sexual assault or harassment that might be going on or abuse um we also put together several resources we're lucky in the rochester area to have restore which we actually have that comes every year to speak to our freshmen um dealing with domestic violence and sexual violence will domestic violence center uh bavona child advocacy center and of course colin brighton police and i over the last week so it's been just about a week we've worked with several students and and parents um many hours on june just discussing issues having a dialogue and i think that's you know a huge part of our community is that we'll sit down and listen and clarify things that might not be so clear to students who you only hear a part
084of maybe what goes on or something that a friend shares with you so we've had some really great conversations with students and as i said clarified the school's approach and what we can and cannot do how the police interact with us and then what we do typically if a report is made to us and we've come up with also several points that we will be moving forward with again this is in less than a week of things that we haven't typically done but we'll emphasize those as we work through this issue working with all of our community members and working with our professional staff and we will actually have them in the building starting next month for a flex or two every month depending on the interest of students who want to meet with them
085people who are coming or specialize in sexual assault and violence they will be there at the school to listen and make appointments with kids we're actively going to publicize more in communications with our state schools helpline and if you see something say something it's for all concerning issues not just threats we've also made flyers and stickers that would be going in the bathrooms actually the students who reported most of this in the beginning will actually be helping us to put those stickers in bathrooms so that the information is there for students all year round and in a place that sometimes students go just to get away from it all so that'll be there more direct instruction and sexual harassment forcible touching with our students we're looking at link crew seminars and health class and any
086other additional places we can do that more opportunities for small groups to talk with each other and our counselors and having more conversations with students in clearing up the understanding of what schools can do and cannot do when it comes to these sort of accusations um and then when we're dealing with these very sensitive uh confidential issues we're also looking to have bavona willow and restore with our administrators and counselors this summer to work through different case studies talk about issues that popped up and how we've handled them and then work with the professionals to see kind of where we fell any additional things that we could have done or maybe would do moving into the future then thanks to dr mcgowan he's already set up for next tuesday the 20th a 7 o'clock panel
087presentation forum with brighton police administrators counselors from the school and the bavona um child advocacy center that we'll be presenting next week so we're looking forward to that and all students and parents are invited to that to hear just about what we do and how we work as a collaborative team together and i just want to say thank you to the students who helped bring kind of this issue forward we've always dealt with it uh of course but um i think with the dialogue we've had and listening that we've done i think we're going to make it better for everyone involved fantastic food drive we had the best food drive we've had that was part of our day of caring you can see the picture here there were pounds and pounds of food that were
088collected by all of our students thank you to everybody who participated we continue to have various student events and club competitions science olympiad is well uh running and and doing very well actually and as professor einstein says use your hand sanitizer and social distance so that's what we do during the competitions all virtual of course happening at school but virtually football boys volleyball and girls volleyball happening march 3rd april 12th actually our last football game tonight for a regular season and then we'll be going into sectional play next this was what the first football game looked like some snow on the field kind of a rare thing to think about football and no leaves in the tree but trees but that's where we were everything's going well program planning continues to move forward we've developed
089our courses that we're offering students have signed up course um verification sheets oops i'm sorry we're going home um by middle of next week with the report cards and i want to give a huge kudos to mr como who worked very hard over the march april break and he's pretty much finished the master schedule um there's obviously uh conflicts and things to work through but he's pretty much scheduled all of our courses and put our students in there for next year already and i just want to give a big shout out to him we'll continue to work through the process lots of student events as we come up um into may and june we'll be publicizing an updated calendar shortly um but we did make some big changes some changes with dates the senior car
090parade is going to be on may 22nd not in june senior signs are going up very soon on the lawns ap exams three different times in may we had to change senior ball this saturday junior june 5th and our junior prom saturday june 19th 7 to 10. we will not we will also have some exams but only four regents exams in june with classes some days and exams the next probably our last day of school will be june 21st will be the last day of classes and then we have graduation on the 22nd and just immediate dates that are coming up um our varsity and jv spring sports start on monday and our fourth marking period begins on monday so with that i will give back my screen thank you very much tom and uh
091just such an unusual year to look at those sports schedules right and the timing that we're uh making them work but uh thank you so much and i guess just quickly just a shout out thank you for your leadership your leadership team the entire high school this issue around sexual harassment sexual assault i think being very proactive as a district you at the high school providing resources as many resources as we possibly can as often as we can in every location that we can for anyone who needs them so thank you so much for that and again just a reminder you mentioned it but next tuesday the 20th 7 p.m we have a town hall set up to to discuss this there'll be a panel discussion there's information posted to be more sent out but
092uh thank you so much for your leadership on that and i think that's so important to to all families and and our students and uh many situations that folks are involved in so thank you so much going on now we do have uh two bids this evening uh board members uh maybe we have a motion please to approve both of those bids listed under item number seven bids a and b so moved second by larry seconded by uh andrea these are cooperative bid for art supplies and a cooperative bid for fine paper and as is our usual situation they are part of our boses ii cooperative purchasing program uh that all districts are part of to ensure the best possible prices on these types of commodities does anyone have any question or comment on them
093then all in favor please anyone opposed at seven in favor and none opposed motion carries thank you move to our report section first up our financial reports the board has and the items are posted on the website our treasurer's report uh for the period ending february 28th 2021 and also the budget status report for that same period dated february 28 2021 from uh from lou i do make note uh in the uh in the budget status report that lou prepares for us um the final page has a budget monitoring notes that he has been including this year that include all those items that we continue to keep an eye on how different this year is and you know prior to funding for next year but one of the things we've made mentioned before and i
094do want to make sure the community realizes that we are estimating a loss of approximately 160 000 for the year on the food service operation for all valid reasons but food service cannot run in a deficit so there's another additional item that has to be covered through uh through budget work so uh so thanks lou for updating us on that and types of things unusual in this year that we just have to keep an eye on and keep track of so can i know one thing about that i think i saw a question online that a community member had they asked uh what will you do with the money you're saving through our free lunch program and i think there's some misunderstanding with how the federal free lunch program we're participating in doesn't it adds
095or doesn't add revenue to that you know saves us money in some way so it's a really good address that at some point i think it would be reasonable that's a really good point lou could you just briefly explain i guess that's a great point thank you sure so with the uh the federal government department of agriculture picking up the um the meals um so that's the revenue source for it but if there's not the participation there to to claim those meals then we still have the overhead cost with the with the labor component um it's essentially covering for the cost of the meals served but we're not we don't have enough participation in to offset just the the salaries that are coming through and um you know we don't and we still have enough
096participation where we still have to staff it and to produce the food so we really need to drive up the volumes to be able to offset those losses but it's a reimbursement basis so there's no revenue coming in without an offsetting cost or an offsetting service thank you good point karen thank you for bringing that up uh you know many ways uh we've had questions from the community all year about the money we're saving and actually in so many areas multiple areas uh we have additional costs and then we have new costs to the year that that we did not have so we we will be able to report out lou will be able to report out at year-end as specifically but it's safe to say that we're not we're not saving millions of dollars
097we are operating we we're employing our staff we are operating this year so there are some areas it's costing less and there are other areas costing significantly more so thank you for bringing that up uh a motion to accept and receive those financial reports please so moved i can't move by sue seconded by christina all in favor aye aye any opposed has carried seven in favor and unopposed our student representative report stella is with us this evening welcome and uh what's new hi thank you i have a lot of updates this month um first of all i think the biggest thing on everyone's radar is schools fully reopening and on behalf of the students we understand that the administration is in a really difficult position right now and we're very excited for all of the
098younger kids to go back to full-time school one thing that i think is important to let you guys know is that there's a general consensus from the upperclassmen that even though it's obviously the best option for our education um going back five days a week is going to be a hard adjustment to make first of all with all the activities kicking back up uh kids are predicting that a full return to school could be exhausting and potentially overwhelming especially in the beginning since our aps are coming up everyone's going to have to re-organize their study schedules and will likely become very sleep-deprived very quickly um from going from waking up early two days a week to waking up early five days a week is a pretty big shift um and there are also concerns over
099where to eat and where to park in school but dr hall just sent out an email that will really help clarify that so thank you for that a full return to school is definitely the best course of action for student education but i think it's important to acknowledge the difficulty of the transition and to be patient with our students because we might struggle with it at first um we also appreciate the updates about the end of the year um and one question that i have gotten asked a lot is how many guests the seniors can bring to our graduation and i understand if that's not um decided yet but we'd really like to know because i know a lot of people have family coming into town to watch them graduate we also have spring sports
100starting like dr hall said um and this is particularly exciting for many students because this is their first season in two years so for example i'm on the track team and i haven't gotten to run a race since sophomore year um so i'm really excited for that this year and we also have executive council elections coming up we're doing our informational meeting for that on wednesday i believe and we'll start planning the class election soon after that um i also wanted to offer a student perspective on the session on the sexual assault issue it was brought to attention on social media last week and through a petition that gathered thousands of signatures really really quickly um from members of the community not just students not just parents like i feel like everyone was able to
101see this and sign it if they were interested and i'm sure that every student who is on social media is aware of the accused rapist name and actions so students especially underclassmen are watching the way that the administration and the police department handle this issue to make their own judgments about whether or not they can trust both authorities to responsibly handle their problems the emails from dr hall and dr mcgowan have been really helpful so far and i hope for the students sake that they continue to handle this situation well by communicating and keeping these resources accessible lastly i wanted to mention that we usually have a student senate meeting where the board of education comes in and answers questions for the students this year we would likely be doing this on the middle of
102a wednesday if we're on zoom and pretty much any day of the week if we are fully back in person um i'm going to work on scheduling that with the rest of executive council and i will send in some potential dates for that so that is it for tonight thank you so much for listening thank you very much stella and on that note send send a note to mrs lanza fame and myself we would definitely we will make that happen that that meeting that we have every year the board with the student senate is really important so if we can make that happen by zoom we will certainly make that we'll make that work so let's we'll figure out some dates and you want to send me a note and copy mrs lands of fame
103we'll make sure we get that done and then thank you for your student perspective we appreciate it that's why we have a a representative and we appreciate you bringing your thoughts uh to us and especially the fact that you really do work hard to gather other thought uh other thoughts from students in the building we we do appreciate you bringing that forward to us so thank you thank you i will i will send you guys an email as soon as okay we'll make that work thank you moving on then to our board of education monroe county school boards association standing committees our labor relations committee um last met i believe larry if you i don't know if anyone attended the 24th of march on the healthcare update was anyone able to attend that now march
10424th was my wife's birthday so i had to take her to lunch that day so i missed that one oh she didn't want to join in on zoom i mean you know okay i know it was march two we know it was march 24th mark that i can tell you you know the date all right then upcoming um april 28th is the next meeting on evaluating staff in a virtual environment that i if i got that done correctly so and again as as board members have seen uh monroe county school boards association is really working hard to meet everybody's needs so many of our meetings have moved back in person at the doubletree socially distant but also offering a zoom option and they continue to work on the zoom option the zoom option is not
105perfect as we'll talk about probably a little bit with legislative committee but they're trying to make it work and where they can so i would say as i've said to our group wherever you're comfortable with if if you're vaccinated and wearing a mask and comfortable attending in person it's an individual choice at this point but remember all all of them are available through a zoom option too information exchange that was march 10th on code of conduct julian did you attend i think we've already reported on that we're meeting again tomorrow and it's our last meeting of the year and the topic is going to be diversity initiatives there are four different superintendents who are going to be presenting monroe 1 and 2 boces superintendents as well as sean nelms from east high school and kathleen
106groutman from greece yeah this is important one this is the one and it's available by zoom link if you've registered or you can go in person this is discussing the superintendent's diversity initiative so this goes back to about a year ago when the monroe county superintendents got together and this will bring everybody up to speed i believe dr baker has reported on earlier this year kevin has on our participation in it that is resulting in uh sort of pilot curriculum uh one at elementary grade and one in a secondary grade and i believe that report out tomorrow is on that entire initiative so it should be pretty interesting i would just also point out it's a good moment to remind our community if you go to our website pcsd.org and look at our diversity equity
107inclusion tab there's a pretty significant number of resources and reports on what has been happening especially specific to this year including an overview of a response to the letter that we signed prior to the county letter entitled just don't just say it live it with nine commitments that the district would make measurable hands-on practical observable commitments to this work and there's an overview of our response to that and a follow-up as of this march everything that had been done in that regard including that curriculum work that is part of a county-wide effort but her letter also made other specific frightened uh commitments that went beyond that letter and if people in our community like to take a look at that that's all there uh for the viewing and thanks to dr baker for uh putting
108that portion of the website together and compiling those resources for community members as well thank you thank you kevin for bringing up it's a really great point um next up legislative committee that was last week april 7th last wednesday karen you mentioned earlier again you tried to join by zoom on that one uh i stuck with it the whole time so i was so excited i'm fully vaccinated i had a babysitter lined up for peggy and it didn't work out so i was like oh out of the house so i did join by zoom it was a difficult setup so i got about half but i'll tell you there i think i got the gist of it so there was a lot of discussion about reopening and again this is before the guidance had come
109out so a lot of those questions that folks had and were lobbying for have been answered um and then there was some celebration about uh the budget that was enacted on april 3rd um and about a floor for 60 that doesn't affect a lot of districts here in rochester but there was um there's just it just felt like this moment where we could let go and we probably can't because we still probably are under the threat of collapsing aids and who knows whether we'll meet 100 in three years and who knows if they'll redo the algorithm but it was a moment to breathe a little bit i think being together um in person for folks and then having that news was it was a genuine moment let's say um so the as the discussion moved
110on it's really about keeping on our legislators to fulfill the promises they've made to us right we're we're we're getting there that was the general theme and then we do have one more meeting next month and on uh may 12th there are appointments there's an appointment to zoom with um rep with people from gillibrand and schumer's offices with our federal legislators so that will be good to keep up with what's happening uh with the new administration so that's great thanks karen i appreciate it yeah you're right i did follow up uh i was not able to attend that day i ended uh i would report out later at district-wide safety committee and at the same time but uh i did follow up with sherry on a couple of things and uh you're right we have
111a meeting set up with folks from schumer and gillibrand's office we're also setting one up with joe morelli's office people and one of the things that karen brings up is interesting for those of us that have been around doing this for so long you know legislative committee normally would make two trips to albany a year in addition to all the local appointments in addition to inviting our local representatives into our buildings and the first item the you know the the main item of discussion every single year is funding right fund fully fund the foundation aid formula so now the discussion about okay now what right well we do have to hold their feet to the fire number one to make sure in the uh upcoming years that that continues to be maintained but legislative committee
112is going to continue to discuss advocacy and all of the other areas of advocacy that maybe have been a bit on the back burner that we have a lot to do with state education department a lot of changes with the board of regents that currently is in place in the state of education department uh the chancellor the commissioner and so there's a lot there and along with a number of advocacy issues that we have brought up from time to time but always take a back burden well there's a lot of there are a lot of things that happen that affect education in ways you you won't understand you know the commercial driver's license issue is is one of them it's not an exciting topic to talk about at board meetings but that's the kind of
113work the legislative committee has always done and will continue to do but you know from my own perspective i said to dr mcgowan when we were talking about the floor of 60 actually happening i we've worked so long towards that goal it was in that moment it was hard to think about like how like how i felt it had actually happened like what do we like what did we do now it was just a just a moment i had a moment so we'll keep everybody posted as we move forward so thank you um those are those three committee reports and again that you mentioned those are winding down now it's uh you know typically the may meetings uh uh april and may meetings tend to be the final meetings and uh the school boards association
114annual meeting is going to be in person at the end of may we can talk about that further boces report i did attend last week was the boces annual meeting and i attended along with dr marv sax we were the only representatives of any component district who were there so we're proud for that uh that that event it's not highly attended event but sora also provided a report on some of the things that they're doing the full report will be in our minutes boces does have begun this year a large diversity equity and inclusivity inclusivity committee and it's got a mission statement working on curriculum they're looking at a three to five year time frame that they want to plan out and lay out for boces activity so that's that's underway they are also uh
115challenged as many of you know who've ever attended boces graduations there are multiple boces graduations of varying sizes spread out all over the area and so there's they're trying to put together their planning for how they're going to handle um all their graduations and the remainder of the report we'll have in the minutes for everybody to take a look at other board member reports does anyone have anything that they want to report out on as far as other committee work that they've been involved with or an issue yeah mark i can talk a little bit about that new york state um yeah christina that'd be fantastic so i'm the representative to this new um diversity equity and inclusion committee of the new york state school board association so i represent area 2 which is in
116the rochester suburban districts area one is the buffalo area and then area two is long island so there are 14 people on this committee and um we've been meeting once a month since um february so we met uh in february once in march and we have a meeting this saturday um it's really a new committee and and mark you could mr kokonovich you could probably tell a little bit more about the history of how this committee came to be but really you know we are talking about ways that school board members can support dei initiatives across the state and in our districts that we represent in our areas um really the first few meetings we did a lot of um you know community getting to know each other kinds of things we've already done a
117book read a book called seats at the table which were really reflections from board members across the united states um on dei efforts um and that led to a really interesting conversation about who should be doing the work who's doing the work and um you know how the people doing the labor feel um and then we also did we got a data walk from the national school board association really to look at what's happening in new york state so it's been you know it's been a really interesting group of people to work with i'm really happy to represent you know this area because i can share some of what we've been doing here in brighton so that's been good yeah thank you very much christina for reporting out and you know we we talked about
118this briefly back a few months ago when christina was appointed but i want to make sure we capture this is really significant new york state school boards association began like most every entity involved in public education began work on dei and how they serve school boards they get began probably two years ago but in earnest last year with a number of initiatives then this year they rolled out the statewide committee with one member one active school board member from each area they sought christina out they sought us out in christina specifically and she represents this area too is from batavia to waterloo from the lake ontario to the pennsylvania border so she is the board representative for that entire area it's a it's a huge thing for her and for us and and we're we're
119really well represented at that table so thank you christina i appreciate that so that's great work and it's ongoing and again that's to create more and more uh resource material lay out a multi-year plan for state school boards association to provide service directly to school boards in this work so thank you other board members with a recent activity just quickly mark from a facilities improvement project overall obviously a ton of focus on council rock but also the work going on at other schools i think we talked about this last time we're starting to clean up over council rock a little bit the work is not done but the construction trailers are starting to go and we're getting closer to being done i think in nfl terms we're like in the red zone or something we're
120getting there um the school looks fantastic kudo to matt and the entire team for uh just all that they're doing over there and what they've had to work through um the science rooms in in the high school are progressing very nicely and then typical of construction projects is something called a punch list it's all those little one-off items that go on throughout the schools that have to be taken care of and they could be cleanups they could be just fixing things that need to be addressed um so the punch list is taking place in all those schools uh we do this each time but it's important to do so the the folks we've got working let rob loose john navelli any of those guys in the schools just yeoman's work for all the work they're
121doing to make sure this work gets done but we're very much in a home stretch on the construction projects plural and um it's just very exciting because uh you know a couple of different projects were alluded to but when all this work is done we just really will have much better physical structure infrastructure and things like that um and schools you know from that standpoint that we can be that much more proud of but just really impressive the scope and breadth of work that's getting done and getting close to completion thank you very much larry and thank you for your service on that committee and that group i should say for the long haul so we appreciate you bringing that forward tonight too the only other thing i have marcus i think audit our final
122audit of the year i checked with lou i think that's next month for you me and karen i believe that's next month where we do find a lot of reviews yeah thank you we'll be upcoming on that any other board members any other reports yes mark just you know you mentioned it briefly about the district-wide safety committee meeting just so the public understands that like it's not just cdc guidance and then we're good to go we have a whole safety committee that's also has been planning and working all year and checking our plans to make sure that when the guidance changed we would be ready to come back and keep our students and staff as safe as possible and so um that committee has been making sure each and every classroom you know with the
123new guidance has desks that are the proper you know space apart that transportation um is not going to become an issue so there's like staggered drop-off times and dismissal time so that car traffic doesn't get overwhelmed at french road especially and that end at council rock so i attended that um it was a great meeting um i know you had to duck off mark you were there but you had to duck off to legislative meeting um you didn't much missed too much else um when you left so that work is ongoing thank you sue and i didn't get anything on the other one either so um thank you and i i do just to reiterate you know that that is a great point we do have a district-wide safety committee for the members of the
124public and everyone is around that table dr gasparino got added to that committee this year and her role as a board member but also as a pediatrician and we have community leaders from all the safety and first responders are there all of our security people all of our building people all of our leaders it was it's been great conversation this year it's technic you know on zoom but really covering all of our bases and checking in with everyone with regard to safety security how we're operating how we're moving forward the planning process lou chairs that committee does a great job on top of all the other things that everybody in leadership tries to do so thanks to lou and and that was a great meeting and we'll continue to have you know normally those meetings
125are spread far apart but those will continue to meet as needed and as necessary that committee will so thank you very much sue for bringing that up uh our brighton teachers association report nicole welcome thank you i'm i'll try and hit the highlights here i know we're entering our way towards nine o'clock thank you for the advance it's we've seen it it's fantastic so go ahead all right um so you saw from council rock some of the second graders the remote second graders they did a research data collection project just a huge being a hybrid teacher a huge shout out to those remote teachers and these students who are able to really um create present public speak um when we would normally be doing that in the classroom so they did a fabulous job and
126there are some examples there that kristen cooper and janice mix did um videos workout videos where they featured still a counselor act where they featured different groups within the building within the school community so teachers custodians um cafeteria staff administrators each did a particular dance and then it was pushed out to all of the k2 students um i can't remember i'm pretty sure that mr chapman did ride and broke them yep um so that was pretty awesome if you haven't checked those out and you need a little break you can definitely enjoy those um we also had sue gasparino come and share her expertise in zumba and they learn dances and games from all around the world um so a big thank you for spending your time contributing to that uh another piece our science
127this year for first grade and second grade at council rock has been pushed out by our extended studies teachers andrea yaman and judy wegman and for the first grade this unit is all about sound and being able to how do you think about sending messages uh they created a habits of the knights of habits of mind kingdom and um dr antoinette balwauchi which was the doctor of the kingdom um found a virus that affected dragon eggs and they had to get a quarantine um so a really great way to incorporate maybe some terms uh that students excuse me are hearing now but to go along with the uh lesson and then once they were able to get the the dragon eggs safe they had to figure out how to turn it into an instrument so
128really just clever ways to make that virtual work for our youngest learners pardon me at french road uh they celebrated down so down syndrome awareness day on march 19th and they had a parent come into the classroom and read and present a story about down syndrome and inclusion this was submitted by dory simmons and she had a student um and his brother who has uh down syndrome so she was very excited to be able to have that and i think those were the two photographs i put in um mrs close in mrs mazza's fifth grade classes they're remote they have zoom pals from honor students to rit and once a week they meet with their college buddy play games develop a relationship with someone outside of zoom and they are really enjoying that piece fourth
129and fifth grade streaming students were able to attend a presentation um through one of the string quartets at the eastman school of music they have zooms that they are holding with 12 corners the fifth graders do to start to think about that transition to tcms um that's from mrs isham who's the fourth and 5th grade string lessons teacher this was i i know that this is the headline on the bcsd website right now the picture of mr dozer and the band students and when i opened the submission i don't know if you guys felt this way but i had this huge smile on my face because you can just see the joy in his face and the students faces um and what they were able to do was connect with real life musicians and see
130how music influences their lives as adults but then also kind of think of that connection but i i know that you probably have enjoyed looking at those pictures and we all get to see them now so that's really nice moving on to 12 corners they have been having many concerts for parents and teachers and each group is preparing and performing pieces and they invited parents and grandparents to be able to see them play so that was really special the french department for the middle school and the high school participated i'm not going to pronounce the site a money musical um with a french music cooperative with 2 000 schools across the world they design it like march madness where they fill out brackets they um pick different french and inspired music and then come down
131to the winners and they were very invested in this and actually got comments from the winners back so you know lots of great ways that we've been using this whole virtual life we're living now um in really great ways in sixth grade um social studies mrs cut statos's class have been having virtual tours they've been to the susan b anthony house they have zoomed with an archaeologist in corinth um in greece and they have visited nashville tennessee they've also been able to connect with the brighton town historian uh mary jo landfield and the librarian at the memorial brighton memorial library mrs boni um and this was really special i hope you guys got to read this part nicely for the fifth summer uh camp gorham is collaborating with brighton schools to send five kids to
132summer camp and that is made possible from the laura and larry davis scholarship fund at camp gorham and this was shared by mrs liebel at 12 corners and um the testimonials were really beautiful the two that i just want to read um where i'm incredibly grateful so this is from students that submitted this students have gone i'm incredibly grateful for camp it has helped me come out of my shell and i've noticed that i've been more excited to try new things after going to camp i'm also grateful for camp because it's helped me make friends that come from many different places that i still keep in touch with and thank you so much to the program to support this amazing experience so um what a great thing um that we're supporting students to have that
133experience in the summer not just what we were able to provide during the year and then at the high school um if you have ever read house on mango street by sandra cisneros mrs halls and mrs flynn's students have created a collection that they are going to be able to publish um about what it means to be a teenager in the year 2020 and it's actually going to be published by lulu books this spring so really exciting stuff this was a really nice report this time to put together lots of great things to celebrate so thank you thank you so much nicole and appreciate that and again your report is posted online it's always one of the best reports and including the links and all the different materials that again what i said earlier with
134the principal report seeing students and teachers working in any making it work in any way that they possibly can so thank you so much um next up our ptsa report welcome eleanor thanks mark i know i am between everyone and um the end of this meeting almost and so i will be brief uh but the buildings are the ptsa is really excited because they're now underway planning for these end of year activities including eighth grade closure night again the senior bash as well as our community-wide food truck rodeo if they're not tired of the food truck from the uh you know you can eat food many nights so june 4th we're having the community-wide food truck rodeo as well as tomorrow night at 6 30 p.m the ptsa will be presenting the slate for next
135year's executive committee and then the vote will be at our may meeting and then also following the brief meeting from 6 30 to 7 betsy balling and many of the counselors and social workers are hosting a mental health awareness meeting as many of our students are going back to school they'll be there to kind of answer questions and help you know provide information about the transition back for students and then uh the last thing that i'm going to announce is that the ptsa will be hosting a board of education meet the candidates night for the two seats that are open and all the candidates that will be announced shortly and that's on thursday april 29th from 7 to 8 30. they're also looking to hold a fundraiser with cabela's at the end of april and
136we'll have more news about that send out over email so watch your emails fantastic eleanor thank you very much and i don't think it's possible to get tired of food trucks but anyway thanks dr mcgowan you have uh you have the floor further report from you this evening sir i think i've said plenty stay healthy stay mask drive the rate down can't wait for k5 kids to come back and don't forget to vote on the 18th virtual town hall thursday night hope to see everybody have a wonderful night stay healthy okay thank you thank you for that report uh we have a couple more items of business this evening board and i do apologize but we do have back the approval for second read of those nine policies that we dealt with a few weeks
137back and we do we do have to address them individually so we'll i will tell you ahead of time that everything has been vetted internally i have no issues that have been raised with any of these so we can move through them if you have something specific though however this is second read so that if they're approved this evening they become policy if there is something please do bring it up so we will start please with a motion for approval of policy 6110 under personnel having to do with code of ethics for board members and district personnel a motion please so moved second uh moved by larry seconded by julene this policy replaces the current policy in its entirety and it's to comply with the corrective action plan from sed and again fully vetted internally
138does anyone have anything further for this policy all in favor all right any opposed that policies approved seven in favor and unopposed motion please approve second read of policy five five two zero uh under non-instructional business operations for extra classroom activity fund emotionally some move second vote by andrews this policy is a policy revision to implement the accounting gatsby 74 standards again fully vetted internally i have nothing further to add is there anything from the board all in favor all right anyone opposed that policy is approved seven in favor and none opposed motion police for policy second read approval policy one three three zero under the bylaws appointments and designations of the board so moved signed moved by karen and seconded by christina this is an existing policy that was revised in response to u.s
139department of education changes in requirements and again i have nothing further on that one does anyone have anything further on that this evening all in favor aye aye opposed that is approved seven in favor and none opposed a motion please for approval second read of policy one six two zero bylaws in the annual organizational meeting second we'll buy sue seconded by larry uh that is let me find it here my next one this existing policy and it was revised in response to amendments to education law with regard to the annual organizational meeting and we are up to date i don't have anything further internally on that does anyone have anything further on that one all in favor aye aye any opposed that is approved seven in favor and none opposed motion please for approval of
140policy one six four zero again a bylaws policy on absentee ballots so moved second well by andrea and seconded by julene uh this is an existing policy and again revised in response to those changes it's the same as the earlier policy in education law and from the commissioner and anything further from anyone all in favor aye aye aye anyone opposed and that is approved seven in favor and none of none a motion please for approval second read of policy 5681 non-instructional business operations covering school safety plans so move second move by larry seconded by karen uh this is the existing policy and again revised in response to the amendments for those same sections of education law that have previously been referenced does anybody have anything further this evening on that then all in favor aye
141aye anyone opposed but seven in favor and unopposed that policy is approved as second read a motion then for approval second read policy 3420 community relations non-discrimination and anti-harassment in the district so moved second moved by christina and seconded by sue uh that is uh existing policy this one was revised due to various changes in both federal and state non-discrimination and anti-harassment laws including title 9 changes from the education department so we are up to speed on that one anything further from anybody then all in favor and opposed at seven in favor and none opposed thank you motion please for policy second read approval 7420 covering students in sports in the athletic program somehow second move by andrea and seconded by larry again an existing policy and this is another policy that's being revised in
142response to the department of education at the federal level changes to the title ix legislation does anyone have anything further on that one all in favor aye i any opposed that motion or that policy is approved for second read seven in favor and none opposed and then finally a motion please for approval second read policy five six three non-instructional business operations with regard to gender neutral single occupancy bathrooms second moved by christine is seconded by sue i got that correct um and again this is a brand new policy we've talked about it previously it's a required policy covering the area addressed and uh we are up to speed everyone's reviewed internally and we're good on this does anybody have anything else that they would like to add all in favor okay all right anyone opposed
143net motion that policy is approved for second read seven in favor and none opposed thank you very much and we will try not to bring nine policies on one agenda ever again if we can but we're we've got to do what we've got to do so thanks everybody and then finally tonight a motion please to approve the consent agenda can i interrupt for a second mark i just realized that the uh the approval for the board election um that's not on the consent agenda i just i'm trying to go back and forth but i do i think it's missing approval for the board election no for the board um the election and school work yeah exactly the election that got moved off the agenda to the next meeting we're gonna have to find a few
144more so that's why i am ended the agenda so you're you're right it's not it's not on there okay thanks yes thanks thanks everybody but yeah christina you're right good catch but it is in our one note our internal onenote for the board members but the agenda was amended from the original as kim mentioned so that has to be completed but she kept it in the onenote for our information so thank you everybody but you know we're good on that so thanks and that will be next meeting we'll approve that and those would be the election inspectors through the monroe county board of elections which are now re have been required for a couple of years so thank you very much okay the consent agenda um a motion please for approval of our consent agenda
145so moved second moved by karen seconded by julene we made note of one gift this evening and we appreciate a gift from maria venette to the brighton central school district visual and performing arts department of a laptop and mixer tripod stand so thanks to maria for that gift all in favor aye any opposed consent agenda is approved seven in favor and unopposed thank you board members any other items of business for this evening can we talk some more about budget no just kidding just kidding well we can i'm not sure if we should that that's in the extended cut available only online i guess if you're a premium subscriber or something but meet the press green right dr mcgowan anything further for this evening absolutely not absolutely not we're all set all right thank you
146everybody a motion please uh to adjourn the move second by andrea seconded by karen all in favor aye there's no one opposed i'm certain we are adjourned seven in favor none opposed thank you very much everybody we appreciate it this has been a special presentation from the brighton central school district board of education