Board of Education Meeting March 11, 2025

001stand for the pledge please pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America to The Republic stands one God indivisible liberty and justice for all I have a motion to approve the agenda for the March 11th 2025 board of education budget Workshop as presented by Laura second by Rich all in favor osed really the only item is our budget discussion which unfortunately Christine is out ill so Tom anden are gonna pitch H they need the Lefty brought me in all right thank you Mr Flynn thanks folks for being here uh this is our next phase of our budget development process uh we put together information item we're really focusing on the expense side of the budget we then transition into an enrollment and Staffing presentation uh I will be taking this first portion

002of things uh and I'll be talking about uh the budget as a whole a little review of what we've done with the draft expenses and Then followed by the expense side of the budget I ask qu and remember like with the budget Workshop this is a conversation that goes on between the Board of Education and the presenters and uh and and we're here to to help each other out we are missing Christine tonight uh and we we hope hope she's feeling better feeling better soon uh this is the work of a lot of folks Christine and her office did uh a ton to make it happen as well uh and then with the enrollment and Staffing uh that'll be trayed back and forth between myself and Colleen on things so here's what you're going to

003see uh you'll get a review of the final tax cap calculation our estimated revenues then we'll go into the new information of the estimated expenses I'll talk briefly about the capital outlay project and we'll talk about our budget deficit to date uh we'll then go into Staffing and enrollment in their next steps from there all right I always want to ground our work in what matters most and that's our vision mission and core values and that's something that you can see uh at all times or at least we're aspiring to see it at all times in our buildings and in every area of responsibility that we have um I Heard It mentioned at a conference that I was at uh over last weekend the beginning of March that the budget is designed to be that

004that's the that's the the numerical expression of the values of the district all right which doesn't mean that you were always able to get everything that you want at that time but it is trying to prioritize what it means to give our kids the best experience and to make sure that it's a responsible one that can be supported by our community uh and that's something that this board of education this community has done wonderfully over time here's your tax cap uh your tax cap formula uh this is something that Christine has gone over um with you plenty of times uh but it's still something that until you're really immersing yourself in it it can get a little complicated so tax cap the shorthand is a lot of people think 2% and 2% only but it's

005really not 2% because when you count the fact that our district and districts throughout the state are often using their own money like their local share of the money for Capital Improvements to fund Capital to have a portion of a funding towards capital projects towards buying equipment and things along those lines those become the capital tax levy which is an exclusion which means you can then add it to what your number times 2% roughly would be and you can add that so that's why you see uh halfway through the screen total Levy limit before adjustment and exclusions of 41 mil 758 uh the capital tax levy at the bottom like the third row from the bottom that's 2.8 million we're able to add those together and that's why our tax levy limit the one borne

006by that we're asking you to consider having the taxpayers bear uh and as the local share uh is at 3.7% we go on to the draft revenues this go ahead Mr Hall so question on the so the there was a little difference this month as compared to last month with respect to the exclusions for capital okay uh Capital tax levy exclusions so do you know do you know where she came up with that difference that I imagine that's just a review of the expenses we've made towards Capital so it's from like from last year like that 2.2 and forgive me for not having it at the ready are you talking about the the bottom version of the capital tax levy well the yeah the last time we saw that 2.8 number it was 27 yeah

007and I actually I do address that in the next slide not that specifically but it is something that she is like that was a snapshot in time in at the February meeting and I can't tell you specifically what changed but presumably something changed with the amount that we're forecasting that we're going to be spending towards Capital towards Capital type improvements okay you good okay we go on and ask questions at any time I will try to do better on my wait time somebody great once taught me that that I got to be conscious of those types of things uh the draft revenues estimated of today uh March 11th and Truth to be told this slide was made probably at the end of last week so maybe it wasn't exactly March but there are some changes

008on there as well I think the state aid number may have been a bit different from what it looked like in February but you can see the draft revenues as being this is the money coming in of 86 milon 488 4113 this is the number that was used uh local media do a great job but they did put a headline out that said that was our budget for the coming school year and that's a bit of a Miss we've contacted them we don't think it was made uh that the error was made with with any degree of intent but that is not what we're looking at in terms of our expense budget this is our revenues coming in of 86,4 188,000 you can see the change in that of about 2.5 million over the course

009of 2425 and what we're proposing for 2526 and that was information that we went over in large part last time we now have a visual a visual well I guess the other one is a visual too but this one's a little bit more gripping all right so you can you can get the get the sense as to the increase in terms of tax levy uh we in Erie County benefit from having the sales tax uh that to the tune of uh of 5.3 million doll um which is which is great and not not All Counties have that uh and then uh you can see the increase in state aid there's a portion of that which is our foundation Aid increase our foundation Aid increased at 2% which was the minimum that any District would receive

010plenty of districts got 2% uh and we are now considered we're in what they call the safe harmless Zone with this because as our enrollment decreases if the foundation a formula is applied strictly that Foundation number would have gone down but instead our increase of about $415,000 of foundation Aid this year that would have been an increase of about 60 or $70,000 because over $300,000 was from because we're a safe harmless District we're not the only one and our enrollment isn't crashing or anything but because we have less that impacted the formula with it Mar flick it up there you go nothing is that flicked up that good my question [Music] fantastic fantastic because we got question marks there right now so foreshadowing we're going to talk about how we're going to solve the deficit

011with that okay so fund balance right now like the in terms of the fund balance that was used fund balance and reserves last year the fund balance was somewhere around 1.77 or somewhere in that which contrasts to what we've done several years before it in a row of borrowing $3 and A4 million from that uh from from what we call our our assigned fund balance or allocated fund balance with that okay so you'll you'll uh be be ready for it all right so we'll have the uh the expense side of it right now and here's what we've got in terms of our draft expenditures and you can take a look at that the right hand side column uh is the one that really illuminates either if things are increasing or decreasing and anytime you see

012a a parenthesis there around the number that is a number that has decreased so you can see that as in workers compensation and you also see it in terms of a 14,000 decrease in special ed tuition all other expenditures are for forecasting remember draft expenditures we're forecasting to increase all right so there in lies some impact with why we are at you know 83 million in in you know 80 what whatever was 839 from one year to 88 7 which is substantial you're at $4.8 million there you know the the phrase of you know the the simple way of saying everything's going up true uh our debt Services going up quite a bit uh that's you know that's in keeping with our Capital Project work that's happening uh as well um but this is something

013that everybody is facing you're certainly facing it in your own homes as well uh and we're facing it uh as a district just like so many other districts are all right and there's your visual for it this doesn't have the uh this doesn't have the the fund balance or the uh the Surplus is quite yet with it but it shows you that distinction green on the left being the projected look at 25 26 and then you have the current 24 25 I I I know we talked about this last month but there's a couple that are actually lower than I might have expected meaning increased less than I might have expected um so I'm just wondering if there's any risk there specifically around the TRS ERS I mean that's a that's that's a that's a

014pretty modeste and the health insurance and with with uh with with TRS and ERS we are given the percentages by the state of what we need to increase by like when the stock market was going gang busters in the 90s like there was times when the state would come out and say 0% you don't have to increase what you're doing at all the districts like this these were these were hugely positives that's not where we are now but right now like the the the ERS and TRS that is something that has increased an amount but not as as as as huge as it was but we also you know when we get talking about our reserves we've also got some money in reserves there in case that number should go up we're not anticipating it

015to to happen though although uh I'd be I'd be remiss if I didn't say there's some volatility out there so for for right now that's that's where we're at um the other one in terms of health insurance with it we've done quite a bit in terms of the self-funding of our own health plan which came out in the spring of 2020 uh that we started doing that um we have been able to have good agreements with our uh pharmaceutical benefits manager uh especially with the with the shift that we made uh and and we're we're comfortable with where that is there's no there's no chance that if Christine youngberg was here that she wouldn't say I'm going to triple negative this but she would would tell you that she's conservative and that is like those

016estimates come from her research on this and her discussion with other people in similar positions so we're we're comfortable with where this where this is at although if you know reading reading the news you'd think it would go up even higher than where we're at nope you're welcome the capital outlay projects which we have been doing for several years it's not something that we've done all the time but the capital outlay projects you might remember this these are the $100,000 projects that have to be isolated to one building one trade and it's to basically allow us to have something that the board approves that doesn't have to go out to a referendum but it's included within our budget and that $100,000 scope of work and true it does not pay as much it doesn't doesn't

017get you as much as it used to that 100,000 has been devoted to uh Union Pleasant of late uh last year like this year they're finishing up with the some ceilings and light improvements they're not finishing up with it they're doing an amount of rooms you might remember I think a couple months ago we added some more rooms because we had some more money available and 10 more rooms 10 that's great uh 10 total good I'm reading poorly uh in any case uh and we're going to be looking at doing the same we're going to continue with Union Pleasant for that if that and that's something that's up for approval tonight uh as as an action item all right so that's something that the board decides can be included within the budget um there is

018I was just on a zoom call today uh Senator Gallivan he had a bunch of area superintendents of areas that he represents and there is a push to try to get and you've heard this before uh if you've been on the board before a push to try to make that Capital outlay project a limit of 250,000 rather than 100,000 so you can do a little more we don't know where that goes that's been brought up to brought up before but it's never quite made it to the final execution final acceptance of uh of the of of the budget um for each year that yes yeah that's so the Senate rewrite is gonna this will be part of my report uh but the Senate rewrite of it uh their their proposals are going to come out

019tomorrow and one of the things that they're asking for is a 1% more increase in Foundation Aid which would put us from 415,000 so roughly you know 627 in through there with a with a with an increase in 1% bringing us to 3% and and then that $250,000 piece too so that's two of the things that they're looking at all right any questions on the capital outlays Mary Sor right any other questions that's like yeah but it's not a separate item for May I Tom I'm gonna like research that because as I seem to recall there being one uh in a a at a at a district that I was at previously but uh that's that's not neither here or there for for for my part but that'd be great me that was uh just

020coming off our facilities meeting uh we seem rare in to go with that yeah you're just putting in the regular budget right uh this slide these next two slides are things that I wanted to put in there to uh to to give at least a little bit of a picture of what I consider to be like the growth that we're making in terms of Financial and fiscal Health um what we here have here is our are a list of the reserves that we fund so at the end of each year you're able if you have money left over there's there's money that can go into different places and this is something that in some cases voters approve it in some cases the board uh sets it up but the like some reserves that we have

021unemployment insurance Reserve retirement contribution Reserve that's a combination of ERS and TRS uh and uh actually I'm sorry that's I I had that I had that in air retirement contribution Reserve is the ERS then TRS is the teacher retirement system and then we have what's commonly known as ebl um which is employee benefits and and accountability liabilities uh capital reserve that's going to be money that can be used towards our Capital project uh local share uh assigned appropriated fund balance that's the money that you typically would go to that your deciding is going to go into to help with the budget process help close that deficit of each year at the end of the year so last year we took $1.17 million and put it into the budget to help close that Gap and we

022took some money from reserves uh from uh from another areas well I forgotten exactly what that one was but the rankings that you see are a combination or the rankings are taking all the schools in eie 1 and eie 2 and saying where we rank in terms of the amount of reserves that we have and at the end of so this is reflective of the end of last school year all right the attendance that I have on here the enrollment that's for 2425 that's the only reason that's up there on the top left but the these numbers are indicative of where we were last year the Year prior to that we were even lower all right so we made some Headway with getting some reserves some some money into our reserves this year yet we're

023still ranked 41 out of 45 in terms of our assigned appropriate fund balance we're ranked 36 in terms of Reserve uh in terms of what they call elar 32 in terms of unemployment insurance Reserve so there's room to move on here you don't want to put everything in here but in terms of being getting back to an area of fiscal Health um these are steps that have been taken um with regard to that so that's just I just want you to know where that is so uh that that we're that we're that that Christine has done a great job of taking a look at that and through your decisions we've been able to to make some Headway on that but you can't make it up in one year Mary please in in something that would

024be easily to understand no cor correct yep yeah and that's a that's a sign of that three and a quar million dollars year after year after year to put in the assigned appropriate fund balance to help close the budget Gap each year so that's that's part of it okay well I mean that's I I completely agree with you yeah yep could I offer a slight rephrasing like you sort of positioned it as as rainy day funds some of these are are really I mean some of these are allocated for certain purposes right like it's a good idea to bank on some of your employees retiring and having money set aside for the purpose of paying vacation and things like that so a lot of those we just didn't we we we're just adopting the discipline

025in doing that right great thank you again okay no thank you thanks to everybody I and then I what I did is uh these numbers uh things that uh that that Christine has worked on as well I put them in the chart form here uh and this is just what it's going to look like projected for the end of this school year so that's on your right so you're June 30 of 2025 and the unassigned unassigned fund balance that's your savings account that's 3.5 million there their assigned fund balance we're we're suggesting and this isn't this isn't the budget hearing but what we are suggesting right now that we consider is taking $2 million for the assigned fund balance which is yes more than last year but it's a million in quarter less than that

026three and a quarter that we've been carrying for all those other years uh in terms of reserves we want to still in terms of the capital reserve want to still build up that put another million in there in terms of Debt Service looking at 500 ,000 there unemployment we're just going to take the interest on that because we feel comfortable with where we're at uh with with that number uh and then adding you can take I believe it's 2% of your teacher salaries and put that into uh your ERS TRS that retirement fund and then again the employee benefits and liability Reserve um we'd like to be able to put some more money into that as well that and so you see our total reserves going up we'll see what this does in terms of

027well first of we'll see what your thoughts are on it um but we'll also see what that does in terms of making us financially more healthy one thing that I put on there which is not connected directly with the reserves but something called the fiscal stress score there's a link that you can go to and anybody can but in based on the uh the the the chart that you that uh based on the uh the link that you have um but it's just going to go take you to a New York state the New York State Controllers website and they're going to talk about the fiscal Str addess uh basically how that's how that is decided if you you might remember that begin the maybe January of 24 a list came out and we were

028on the list of districts that were what they called susceptible to fiscal stress which is not the list you want to be on all right there's also moderate and severe but we are on the susceptible range of it we're at 38.8 it's out of 100 uh the link will show you how they derive that number based on the decisions that were made last year in terms of some of our finances we were able to move down to 23.3 which took us off that susceptible to fiscal stress list but just barely because that starts at 25 okay just so you know like so in terms of trending um and I'd be like totally remiss to say like like there were there were like really excruciating decisions to be made last year and there people impacted by

029that but there were certain like to be able to keep us in a solvent mode something had to move on that and and that's that's a little bit of what tonight's about and we know we're certainly going to get some questions on it but that 23.3 tells us that that trend is moving in the right direction any questions on that yeah yep I need your you're my AI Mary e that's that's I I think that's a great shorthand way of saying it yeah and we don't know we don't know what other things might happen you know we don't know what other needs there might be but those reserves will be there and we think it puts us we think it puts us in a like the the community puts a lot of trust in us

030for a lot of reasons and we think this is one and and let's I I don't want to forget that our initial slide is vision mission core values like that's got to be the center of what we're doing but if we don't get this right we're going to be hardpressed to be able to keep up with the rest no worries M yeah I think think that's I think that's very much part of it and I also know that we're going to be talking about Staffing and we're going to be talking about some some you know we're talking about like you know like how how that's shifting and an addition that we're going to be making too so I I or additions that we're going to be making too so I know that's part of what

031we're yeah it's going to allow us to respond to those needs as as we as we go like Colleen's gonna be talking to you about an academic intervention uh service specialist like that's no no no hey that's these are good things uh so thank you Mary um let's see we'll go on here so this sort of wraps it up very very briefly here uh but total draft revenues as we said before 86 milon 488 and then we've got our 88 m708 in terms of our draft expenses that's shortfall $2,220 th000 to 291 and what our thoughts are is the you know our our what we're suggesting ing is that you we go with the um the assigned fund balance taking two million out of that all right that still has us at the three and

032a half million of the unassigned um which is like our our savings account uh and from there in terms of the additional 220 that's going to be the work of the next month to try to figure that if we get another percentage in Foundation Aid great that certainly helps with that all right but that's where we are at currently all right uh and that allows me to ask any questions on that and we'll be moving on to enrollment and Staffing uh if there are none or after we're done answering decent okay all right great we're gonna transition I've got a couple slides and we're going to turn it over to Colleen for a little bit uh so we're going to do just let's let's let's just keep reminding again the budget being that numerical expression

033of our priorities we're still focusing on our vision mission and core values uh certainly the idea of uh honoring every learner as a unique person has never resonated more uh than what we've been doing over the last the last few months uh let's talk about Staffing changes first all right retirements and parenthetically you can see up there all retirements will be filled uh elementary teacher wanted armor prek special education teacher shared between armor and Charlotte health teacher at the high school TLC teacher at the high school teacher aids uh at Hamburg High School cleaner at Union Pleasant and then we have a new position at uh that we're proposing being added and that's AIS reading that would be in first grade for Charlotte that will allow the 0.5 AIS teacher the the person who's doing

034AIS uh 05 at charlot point5 at Armor to be full-time to be 1.0 at Armor um with that and then new positions added due to enrollment we're going have two with that and that is at armor at level one and level three now we go to kie K there you be hi um if I can just make a real quick correction that AIS reading teacher that Tom mentioned is um for K through five not first grade that one is just representative that it's one staff member um so if I just click back real quick um and then just remember that we have a 0.5 reading teacher at Armor the 0.5 reading teacher at Charlotte that person who currently holds that position will go over to armor full-time and so then it will be a 1.0

035that we're looking for at Charlotte so in total it's an addition of a 1.0 reading teacher um and that's something obviously um that we've looked at that we know that's in need we also know that um the earlier we intervene the better our kids do so um when we can provide sport support in those early years in elementary um it does us well not only in elementary but middle school and high school well sure um let's see if I can do this from memory so at Armor we have two reading AIS and one math at Boston Valley we have one math AIS one reading AIS at Charlotte for 2526 we'll have two reading AIS and one math AIS and then at Union pleasant we have three reading AIS and two math AIS and so it's

036basically due to the size and the need also of the buildings sure also about the need sure we kind of balance both of them okay so when we talk about enrollment so Tom went over a lot of the numbers that we talked about and what you'll see now is kind of the thought process that we did that's based on enrollment that led to our staffing U what we'll call projections are kind of our decisions in Staffing U what we heard from you as a board is that you would like some more granular information at secondary and so you'll see that um clearly in this presentation um so some of this will be what we've done four years in the past um but some will also be some new slides and just some new information that

037we can share with you so you get a better understanding and a better picture um so again this is a snapshot at some point when we're doing the budget we have to take a snapshot things are changing daily we have students that move in students that move out but in order to be able to predict for the budget we have to do a snapshot and so this snapshot is now um but one of the things that I want to remind you is that we are constantly monitoring that and that's now until August um and that's because over the summer we have a lot of move outs movein um if students move in with significant needs we have to take care of that um but it's something that we work with our Administration on and we're

038monitoring closely between now and then but at some point you have to take a Snapchat so that you can make decisions on Staffing uh the next St point is guidelines uh so about 10 years ago we set some guidelines so K through two uh we look for a CL class size around 22 3 through 5 a class size around 28 or less um and then prek this is actually set by the state um 18 students or less um and that's with a teacher and a teacher Aid in there um when we get to a slide we're excited to share with you a little bit of change that's happening with our prek program uh we think the community will be really happy about it um we' listened to the needs of our families um but there's

039a slide on that so we'll get to that soon um and then the other thing I want to point out too is that we make sure that when we're talking about our students with special needs k through five um we have that highlighted on some of these slides as well um when we're talking about our students that are in our ICT rooms our integrated co- teaching rooms you'll see those included in the enrollment um they're part of our gened classrooms and then we do have um different classrooms within the district that house our students with special needs that are in special class and so that would be um a classroom maybe with eight students one adult or one special ed teacher and one teacher Aid um and so we have those reflected differently just so

040that you can see the breakout of the students in the enrollment um and we reflected that a little bit different this year too um hopefully to ease with the understanding so what we always do first is we kind of take that 30,000 ft View and we do the total enrollment of the district um here hopefully is a nice graph that you can see um kind of the trend that we're seeing within the past 10 years um one of the things that we really want to point out again at this point in time we're projecting what it will be for 2526 part of that projection because it's really hard to figure out our total number of prek students and our total number of kindergarten students we always Max that number out we have 144 slots for

041our pre- students so that's reflected in the 3384 and then at kindergarten we always Max those classrooms out at 22 um just so that we're prepared because we really don't know as much about prek andk it's just harder to predict um we certainly look at Trends we look at um when families register and they have siblings in that but we just don't know it as as well as we know our first grade through 12th grade or Beyond absolutely um I wish I had the number from last year that we used projected at 2425 because I could tell you that it would be higher than 3317 that would have been a great number to have prepared I can get it for you though we can send it to you um and then when you look at

042the next slide here's enrollment but it's broken down by elementary middle and high school um so in yellow you'll see our elementary numbers um a slight increase but remember again that slight increase is due to that um kindergarten number that we're maxing out at 22 in those sections um you'll see that middle line is our high school um for a very long time we were a high school of at least a thousand or more and then we've been consistently under a thousand and then you'll see that last line is our um Middle School number um and again we're trending right around 750 740 okay so this is a little bit different than last year um but something that we're excited to share so prek um if you remember two years ago we took our prek

043program and we moved it to armor and Charlotte um due to adding a section and being able to um give those classrooms the appropriate I guess space in need that they had So currently right now we have seven um teachers that are devoted to prek so that is um five of our own prek teachers one is a prek teacher from the YMCA which were're required to collaborate with in order to apply for the grant and then two years ago we added a special education teacher for preschool um known as a c teacher but that is our employee so that's the seven you see reflected on the left hand side the Staffing imprint for next year will be exactly the same but there's a change this year at Armor we have one full day classroom and

044then we have a section that is half day and then at Charlotte we have two full day classrooms so kids go all day and then two half day session so some kids come in the morning for a.m. they leave another another group comes in for the PM when you look at Charlotte next year that footprint will be exactly the same two full day two half day but what we're doing based on the needs that we're hearing from the community we still have a weight list for our full day program we're increasing armor and taking the one half day program and making it a full day program so that's the big change for next year so at Armor instead of having a full day and then a half day program we'll have two full days which

045makes our program in total to have four full day programs and then two halfday sessions the reason why we're continuing to have halfday sessions is that we really believe that it's important for families to have Choice that's a really early age some kids can't handle a full day so we want to be able to give families a choice and we want to be able to meet the kids where they are at that age um but we're really excited we had a couple of meetings with all of our pre- team um we worked hard I'm looking at Caitlyn in the back we worked hard back and forth the try to figure out um exactly what worked and so we're proud that this is where we'll head for next year and we think the community will be

046happy as well that does effectively minimize the number of students that yes redu say minim reduce the number of stud correct yeah correct um one right two actually but but what it does is so what we've been finding also is those half day sessions aren't full and so what this does is maximize the number of kids that we have through our door is really what we want to be doing those classrooms that are full day will absolutely fill up you know we always have a wait list so um one of our objectives with the prek program is to get as many kids as we can as early on as we can through the doors of our school so that will help I could sure so yeah so one of the things we also do is

047work with our partner Fisher bus in this so before we did any of these changes um we talked with them about how this could look um but what really comes into play here are the students who actually register and attend um and where they're located because as you know there's two buildings that we're working with between armor and Charlotte but obviously we have kids that come from the Boston area and Union Pleasant area as well so all that will be looked at so potentially reducing for sure yeah we're really excited about that and it was a good team effort there was a lot of good discussion um thinking what our core values were in prek and that um big shout out to Danielle Lango and Tom ridock the administrators at Armor and Charlotte as well

048um and just the whole prek team because it was a really big discussion so what you'll see for the next couple of slides is each Elementary School we have outlined um on the leand side you'll see K through five you'll see what our actual Staffing is what our actual enrollment was at the end of February so again that snapshot we talk about and what the class average is and then particularly what you want to pay attention to is that bottom number so on the left hand side you'll see the 14 that's the number of sections we currently have at Armor and then when you look to the right in green you'll see that we need to increase by two sections and that's due to enrollment the numbers that we know when we take a snapshot

049now and we roll them over to next year so you'll see that in first grade next year it goes from two sections to three and then in third grade we also go from two sections to three which puts us up a total of two more sections at Armor Elementary um and just remember keep in mind that 307 that you see on the right for the total enrollment if you go back to the top where it's in yellow that 3 section 66 remember we're maxing out those kindergarten numbers at 22 um again just being conservative and making sure that we have the Staffing that we need so Boston you'll see two slides and that's because we have um some special classes over there um and one of the things I want to highlight here is that

050recently Barker our director of pupil Services met with a team of special ed teachers for well they had a couple meetings and they had a dayong meeting just to talk about our structure in special ed and uh what's it like for our kids are there any changes we want to make so right now we're looking at not an overhaul not additional Staffing but are we doing what's best for all of our kids and are there any changes we can make and let me tell you that dayong meeting came up with a ton of great ideas all of our teachers involved um So currently this year we have K through 2 which is an 811 again remember that's eight students one teacher one Aid and then we have a 3 through five that's also an 811

051at Boston Valley um remember eight is the max number of students that you can have in those classrooms this year we have six students in the one four in the other we're projecting the same number for next year but I will tell you that that always changes and we're kind of figuring out some of that between now and the end of the year um I don't expect that that's going to change dramatically um but it's something that we keep an eye on for sure and then when we look at Boston Valley similar slide to armor um you'll see K through 5 here and you'll see that they have 12 sections and that we're predicting the same number of sections for next year um Boston typically has those two sections per grade level and we're seeing

052the same thing for next year when we look at Charlotte Avenue um same type of thing K through five you'll see that it's the same number of sections um you'll see that every um grade level on the left hand side is matching the same number of sections on the right hand side so 15 sections this year and we'll have 15 sections next year when we look at Union Pleasant you'll see two slides and again that's because um we have some of our special classes over at Union Pleasant um these classrooms at Union Pleasant currently this year are 1211 so again that's 12 students one teacher um one Aid um we have one grade level that's mixed so we have kindergarten and first grade students together and you'll see that that class is maxed out at

05312 um and then you'll see see the other classrooms at 10 or 11 and then we're doing some predicting for the following year again that five that you see for second grade um we believe that will change too based on some of the needs that we know are happening with our students currently right now and then for Union Pleasant next year you'll see if you go to the bottom that the number of sections will stay the same but within those sections there are some changes so you'll see that at first grade we go from four sections to five sections next year based on enrollment um we have a decrease at second grade where currently we have six sections we'll go down to four um and then you'll see at fourth grade we go from four

054sections to five again based on enrollment when we take those numbers currently as our snapshat now and then we roll them over to next year so we'll have 28 sections at Union Pleasant and then I'm going to pass it to Tom who's going to dig in a little bit to middle school and the wonderful thank you Colleen uh so we're going to hit the middle school and high school class is now we've selected some we've selected a lot there it's not all of them uh but we we do have we do have many here and just to so you get the layout of how this looks uh on the leftand side directly after the grade six or the subject um you've got the year and we did a bit of a look back uh it

055seems if if if my understanding of it is correct after the 2011 12 school year there were some staffing uh reductions that led to some class sizes uh from 1213 which gives you a look in terms we just did average for those for the year 1213 then we did a look back of two previous years to this year so we did 22 23 23 24 we know averages doesn't always that they don't give the full picture we tried to um we tried to flesh that out a little bit more for the current year by showing you some of the larger the the largest class uh and frequency of them if if that was more than one and then the smallest class as well uh and you can just for the sake of our you can

056take a look at what grade 6 Ela looks like for 2425 averages 22 and a half 23 and a half 21.6 but you do have a largest class at grade seven of 29 with that and then your smallest classes uh on the right that's a challenging of Master scheduling at the middle school level and at the high school level also there's a lot of different things that pull kids in different directions different Services they might have you might have some different enrichment programs that are only offered like one time or two times a day and that will have an impact on the size of the classes why you can't have just a standard 22 kids for each of your five classes that you're teaching uh and in terms of mathematics you see the same we

057did some things within the building in 2425 that allowed algebra to be lower and that into in in concert with that that allowed the grade seven and eight classes to be lower as well um there's a change up of the way we provide our a AIS Services uh and that's something that building Administration will take a look at and see if that's the way they want to go forward with it for next year but that's very much a building level decision with that uh and but that's a reason uh for for those differences there and let's see why don't we move on to uh we can take a look at science and social studies uh I want to turn your attention to let's do grade seven and grade eight uh science and the b in

058living environment or biology uh first why don't you take a look at the averages from 1213 25 23.6 23.5 at 2425 we do have these higher numbers and you might be thinking why would that be higher at 7 and eth grade for science than the other core classes with science we're able to offer our students three sections three sections for our eighth graders of biology with Biology comes Labs all right so that means that that teacher is not teaching five sections of biology but rather three with two sections of labs and again there are some changes that can be made in terms of building building level Administration can can take a look at that and see if there's any other way to offer that so you do have the larger class size of 29 and

05928 at grade seven and 8 26 at grade six uh in your smallest class that's a more consistent feeling the effects of the reductions in staff from last year science probably feels it the most at the middle school level and you can take a look at what social studies looks I think that's one that I shared with folks before on this uh but social studies has the same has uh you can you can see what it was like in 1213 and then you can follow through from 22 23 23 24 and then subsequently to 24 25 uh we can go further with this and show world languages um we don't want to ignore the fact that you've got a 30 up here you got a 31 up here um that was what happened with Latin

060this year where we made the transition to one section per grade per level of Latin so what you had at Latin one which is really Latin 8th grade normally that would funnel into two different classes so those 31 students would have been in two different classes last year averaging 15 and a half kids per class they meld it into one which is 31 and then they'll go up now in terms of the number of students who will go into ninth grade and taking Latin 2 always remains to be seen our students in e8th grade if they pass the Proficiency in their world language sometimes they often they continue with it but sometimes they don't and sometimes they might go to a different school so we might see a different number than 31 uh on there

061for Latin 2 for next year with things uh and you can see the numbers for French numbers for Spanish Spanish numbers are a bit higher that's something that we're taking a look at to see if there's any adjustments we can do within our staffing to be able to impact that uh and and lessen those a bit uh now we come to some of our special area classes we've got art and we've got fed uh again i' I'd point out the averages from 123 and on into the two years prior to this year to take a look at that uh and it like we do have this wide range between smallest class and largest class that is a uh as somebody who uh tried to develop a decent master schedule uh as a middle school principal

062for 17 years it's something I never quite cracked so if you look at that and say who did the master schedule he's holding a microphone right now and all those like if there's critiques of it I I got to I got to bear that uh and it's and true like you work awfully hard at it you get people to help you out with it but but getting that evenness is just very elusive at the secondary level uh in terms of Music you've got your uh music classes that you can see there uh and band Orchestra and chorus certainly uh very much higher uh some of the lower numbers have to do with space and student schedule as eighth graders might have opportunities to take different courses it also has to do with the fact uh

063at the old levels in the middle school you don't have to take the general music if you're part of band course or orchestra so that's some of the reasoning behind behind that uh and then we have health uh and that's pretty self-explanatory there we move to the high school uh now and you can see uh how those numbers are impacted again we did the 1213 we weren't just picking numbers that like reflected positively on things uh you can see that there's that the in terms of uh but in terms of the averages it's pretty cons like that 217 in grade n and 1213 211 in 24 25 not all of those are looking as favorable but we feel like we're in a good range and we're giving our students great experiences with teachers who we

064who we know and trust and feel like they've been really um they've been the ones who've been living that vision mission and core values uh as as much as as much as anybody and again you've got the sort of the wide range between largest classes and smallest classes uh you can move on to science and take a look at the averages there uh very much the same so why don't I ask you if you've got questions specific to any of these rather than me giving an overview each time and uh not really giving giving Clarity perhaps of what you want why don't you ask some questions based on any of the class siiz information um that you've seen thus far rich great question that I'm probably going to defer to at the middle school level

065you typically wouldn't have that situation just because Middle School is full of required classes yeah music skate with the four yeah like as the person who made the master schedule I'm cringing on that right now I need to like personally I just need to see where I missed on that which means most likely I created a section where there was already like a band course or orchestra type like that the bulk of the kids were in there and and didn't need to take that section because music alternates off of fed and it's just like that's a that's a master schedule eror so that's a that's a that's a user error on my part with that I I went to a last this is not to stop questions but I went to a last slide here

066um for bosis and I think it really really interesting to me 1213 we have1 kids who are taking skill trade CL courses at Potter Road and you know handful of heart in Ormsby 22 23 23 24 24 25 this amount of kids are taking like they're walking out of high school with that in most cases they've got some sort of an accreditation that's going to allow them to go into the workforce and something that they've chosen and they've also spent their days at Hamburg High School also uh I really am quite taken with that the fact that we've got this many students think about what happens following school and that there's a lot of different paths that they have that they can follow in order what equals success it's not just one thing that equals

067success for our kids walking out of high school some are walking out uh and they're able to do well I'll tell you they're able to do a heck a lot better than I was than I would have been able to do right after high school um with the amount of with the skill trade and and the knowledge that they have and the passion for what they're doing too so I just want and that's a again that's a complement to our Board of Education who's making those sorts of choices too and the environment that's created uh at at our schools currently yep it's a great yeah app e I and the only change I would make is it's a it's a we type of thing I I agree I I've been happily and I understand I'm

068not trying to to to pick like yeah it's that that's exactly like that is like how can we make sure we're providing the best experience for our students and our families and at the same time have a a budget that's responsible and can can pass can pass the the trust test with our voters too yeah I I tell you like well it's it's I I tell you like and that's like in in the the honestly the last thing that I would want to do is say uh to the community like we need more from you because what what I wanted and I guess I am doing that in a bit of a way but like I think the like it's wonderful that our foundation increased as it did but it didn't outpace what our draft

069expenses were I mean it was like $4.7 million in terms and our in our state aid may have gone up 415 for foundation in total you know more than a million I believe but it's like that type of commitment I think needs to be there for more than just the local the local level that we get unbelievable support from and I know you're not discounting that but we get unbelievable support but the you know the idea of one thing that came up today was the was the idea of you know we're allowed to save 4% uh of our of our budget and use that uh for our um for unallocated unassigned uh uh fund balance to be able to save more than that and not get dinged by an auditor by by the controller would

070have been no offense to the audit I know we've got it's a bad time for that I know we have we have an internal audit report coming up during our during our meeting it's not a knock but when the controllers come office comes in and crushes you for saving more then you know like there there's that we're trying to strike that balance each year and I've seen again like the I've seen that from building level leadership I've seen it from when I was in the classroom like trying to strike that balance is really the challenge but that's where your vision board wise helps so much with that yeah right I feel I feel a pass of the mic so I think one of the things that we have to be thoughtful about is that this

071is our snapshot right now we have a deficit of 2.2 million and we're still working on it right now so our job during like a budget session like this is to present the information where we're at and so that deficit that you see we're still working on it and in April we'll come back with some more information too so more to be done um I mean I don't know how many times we can go through the Bose's budget but we are right because that's our job is to go line by line and make sure we have everything in there that we need to be a successful District but also at the same time is there anything that may we don't need for next year that we can you know take out so we will continue

072to do that and then we'll be able to give a better update in April which I think answers your question a little bit about what happens kind in the next 30 days no yeah it's said it's that assigned fund balance is what we're looking at yeah I I fully expect during Dave Yen's report he's goingon to talk about Foundation at some point I I would I would almost guarantee ask need your mic for streaming okay no hey this is this is what matters right now and they matter too for real but this this is impacts everybody so for um are you appreciate the questions too and it actually gives an opportunity so when we see class sizes that are 27.5 in your right that's an average we don't have a .5 student um when we

073said we do a snapshot we have had scenarios that have gone both ways we've had a group of kids move in and obviously if you're 27.5 you know it doesn't take much to get to that 28 threshold remember that's a guideline um where then we're adding a section right we've also had the opposite happen where we've had a number of kids move out and we've had to reallocate our sections which is why it's a snapshot so um I'm not guaranteeing but a lot of times those numbers could fluctuate either either way right at that grade level you could have four kids move out and now you're talking about you know 23 kids in the class right so um that's why it's a snapshot now and then it's something that we're continuously monitoring so completely understand

074um and we can give you some more information on the 2228 as well as we go on thank you thanks Ashley all right some next steps that you'll be uh seeing as we prep for April is that we'll get our final numbers from Bose we'll finalize the Transportation uh any state aid revenues uh change when the runs are released in April balance the budget which is final use of fund bance it does say and reserves uh we're going to be looking to avoid the reserves uh and continue to monitor enrollment just like has been said there so yes indeed the last time I promise but late breaking news your question came about what was um our number last year so remember for 2425 it was projected at 3,3 69 and our actual enrollment number was

0753,317 so a difference of 52 uh thank you Brent Jordan for that quick number given to me so that's why we're a team for sure so thank you but okay that uh I just finished that with an okay which is the worst conclusion in history uh thank you thanks for your questions thanks for uh your patience with us thanks everybody for your patience and uh think will be transitioning very soon uh uh no other business for the uh budget hearing and I have a motion to adjourn the budget hearing so move by Ashley by La all in favor oppos passes we'll take uh just a couple quick minutes and we'll jump right into our main meeting start the meeting we'll start with a pledge again oh don't we have do we have a uh I'm

076sorry I forgot we have uh we have our student leaders hello Nora t one two I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all and have a motion to approve the agenda for the March 11th 2025 Board of Education meeting as presented so moved by Laura second by cam all in favor opposed passes okay um jumping right into uh presentations we'll start with our Hamburg Middle School building report got me thank you everyone for uh for having us as you saw when we walked in we have a fantastic crew here joining us tonight um one thing I want to say quick before we get started is um so for me coming in uh

077in December so I've been here for about 3 months it seems like I've been here forever um and and not to saying that it really seems like it's amazing to think that I was somewhere else at the start of the school year um but for me and as we went through and we created this presentation for me it's awesome because these are way more than just words um I lived it so I lived this belonging feeling that that's talked about in this presentation um as I switched from one position on a Friday had a quick weekend and then Monday I was here so I I live this feeling of belonging and people bringing me in and welcoming me right away so um leading that would be Miss Wilson who I think we formed a a

078really good team and and I'm excited about the things that we're doing so starting off as we talk about um our building Focus that Mr Adams and Miss Wilson worked on over the summer worked out really for me worked out really well for me coming into it because aligns completely on with what I was doing um previously what uh the way I look at things um as an educator Joy value connection our vision educating modern thinkers who create care solve and discover we see it every day every classroom we go into um Mission engaging all students in learning experiences that Inspire lifelong learning and Empower each for their future um for me the the key word there that jumps out is each um which is not an easy task on a daily basis making sure

079we get to each student but that is definitely what we're looking to do um so I I really had this cool um as much as at the time it seemed a little nuts this cool perspective um sometimes when you're living core values every day so you're in the building living it all the time you don't really see everything come to fruition because you're living it for me I got the perspective of coming into it and quickly seeing these core values in action um so for Honor every learner is a uni unique person adapt to the needs of each the amount of things that are offered at this school for all of our unique students is incredible Inspire the love of learning in every student same thing um ensure that our schools are places of innovative

080teaching and learning um any given time any given period uh I get a couple emails in and then I get out and I get to go to classrooms I get to walk down the he the hallways get to hear kids laughing I get to go into classrooms where they're doing glow-in-the-dark parties um playing games all kinds of awesome things going on all the time teachers here do not rest on their Laurels uh whatsoever um be proud of our past and committed to our future for me it's amazing the amount of people uh who are now colleagues of mine who um are alumni of Hamburg schools which is awesome it really gives a really cool perspective of the school um and taking ownership over it so I've loved that part of it and then ensuring that

081our schools are safe kind and welcoming uh so that we make every day a great day to be a Hamburg Bulldog um that's it like that right there is is why we come here and why we love being here every day so our building Focus for 2425 and as I I said before Mr Adams and Miss Wilson they did a lot of work on this um in the summertime leading up to the school year but works out really well for me in my um in my goals so growth and connection is a direction every single day um that's said over the announcements and it's lived every single day growth and connection is the direction I have my own so at the Hub of belonging at HMS we have our belonging wheel um we did take

082it from the ti Center which comes from the University of Minnesota uh it was designed for students who had some cognitive challenges and it was the purpose was to make every person in their school system feel not just that they are there but that they actually belong so with like so many things that are designed for special edit there's Universal design involved so this helps everyone and harms no no one so when I think about the wheel which I look at it literally every single morning when I come in there is such a difference between walking into a building and having someone like wave their hand at you or nod their chin up that's a middle school thing you get the chin um or if I see a lot of kids when they're with their

083friends and you can tell that they feel belonging because they're tell like come on over here I got to tell you what I did this weekend or what are you doing after school so that sense of belonging is what we're trying to Foster every single day um there is a link when if this goes out you can go to the wheel it's uh it's in-depth and absolutely stunning so if you're looking for something go so um I with Matt came into a pretty unique situation I'm new here too I'm not new to Hamburg but I am certainly new to Middle School um and what we found uh through my work with Tom and Matt is that Hamburg has a really robust Athletic program and we have so many students that find that sense of belonging

084in the academics but it doesn't end there you know I have kids of my own and when they were in Middle School one of their teachers told me something that I will never forget she said Middle School is the place where kids find their people right so I kept that like in my heart and then with Mr laow we have started to um really I think the best best word I can think of is curate okay so we're not just having clubs as add-ons we are looking at our students we are seeing what they're interested in and we're creating clubs that go along with that right so we have this wide variety of clubs we have uh kids I I wish I had a Ben diagram after talking to you today because we have kids

085that love Athletics and they love the musical we have kids that love the musical and they love facts we have like this whole vend diagram of ways that kids are involved in school and I won't name any names but someone did tell me that the reason why he comes to school more often than not is because he loves woodworking club and that's what brings him here and then we get to find that academic success so another example that I have not seen but I have heard tell Mr Adam said that once upon a time there were four students who played Dungeons and Dragons and Mr vdom even had a Dungeons and Dragons Club so the staff that's here watch our kids figures out what like Rings their Bell and then tries to throw that around

086them so this is my favorite part Mr Low's favorite part we have representatives from three separate clubs that we run at Hamburg Middle we have the fax service Club Members First if you want to come on up why don't you talk about fact service Club what is it um fact service Club is I really enjoy it because you get to be with your friends and you get to do a lot of really cool like activities while being with your friends and you get to like help the community too like we um made bouquet of FL flowers for Meals on Wheels and it was really fun cuz you got to like cut the flowers and then you got to also be with your friends while helping the community one thing that I like about fa service

087Club is being with your friends while you do enjoyable things one of my favorite things is to do is make food and we made food um treats for tonight and we also made some treats for um different clubs in the school um I like it because I get to like cook with other kids my age and not a lot of my other friends want to bake with me sometimes so it's nice to have other people who enjoy baking with and having people who like to do it and it just nice to meet other people who like to do it here one thing I like about it is that it's a lot better than just doing it in school like first the grade because you get to do it with your friends oh my name is

088mad Manel I'm Alexis o Conor I'm Marin Kerwin I'm Reagan bis our next club we have Mrs Hartman and two representatives from the musical we have someone from the front of the house and someone from the back of the house so I am Amy Hartman and I'm the vocal director of the musical uh we actually have 10 different staff members who are part of our musical team we like to call it um we don't just have one director we we all have jobs that we do um and we're not all music teachers we have art teachers we have um fact teachers we have a Spanish teacher we have a Tech Teacher so um lots of different people working together to make this happen and something that is really important for all of us is to

089make sure that as many students as possible can participate in our musical so we make a point of having as many students on stage as we can physically fit and then um if there are people who still want to be involved we find a job for them so we had this year about 85 students on the stage and about the same number backstage and helping with other jobs um and like I said we had about 10 staff members on our team and then many many parents and community members helping as well so um it's really important to us that everyone that wants to be a part of it can be a part of it so I'm going to turn this over to let's go with Nora first Nora was one of our crew members hi

090my name is nor Apper I'm in seventh grade let me just say thank you everybody for letting me be here to speak tonight I bet some people in here went to this year's HMS musical willly Wonka and boy was a good thanks to our thanks to Mrs Harman our director also a fun fact our set for the musical was built by Mr shuna so thank you we had a total of five Crews if we didn't have just one of them the musical wi have been as good as it was this year the five Crews were lights and sound help with we lights and sound but they did spotlights blackout songs Etc which gave the scene SL l a mood the next crew was poster crew which made some beautiful creative posters to advertise the show

091another was makeup crew they helped with making our cast looked not as pale as a ghost and not as tan as a brown cow the while were they really talented our other crew was ushers they were super kind helping other people find their exact seat and lastly our final crew which was backstage crew which is the one I was in we held two props curtains and little things here and there on the set we even had to huge bed with four actual people on it I will be forever grateful being named the props Master my job was to handle all the props and crew kids I love staying after school running around the auditorium I had an actual job there which felt really special all crews are little pieces of a puzzle without without just

092one piece of the puzzle it would have been incomplet which that it was an absolute pleasure being able to speak up here tonight thank you and have a wonderful night go [Applause] Bulldogs hello my name is Lyla Stefan and I'm in e8th grade at Hamburg Middle School I am involved in numerous musical activities such as chorus Orchestra honors chorus ecmea All County and the musical here at the middle school the musical provides opportunities for all students even if they are not musically active students could take part of the cast and be on stage singing and dancing backstage crew who help bring set pieces on stage lights and sound who make sure the cast is seen on stage with lighting and plays music for the cast to sing to Art Club makes all the props that

093the actors will use on stage to bring the show to life makeup crew helps the actors put on make put on makeup because stage lights are very strong so you need makeup to really be able to see their faces and there is poster crew who makes posters to advertise the show to everyone the musical requires much dedication and hard work in every Department not just the cast it truly is a team effort and it is also very fun music has always been a part of my life and being in musical every year has made my life my love for music and acting stronger I have been involved in all the musical since fifth grade the musical has helped me find myself as a person and be my true self Miss rer Mrs Hartman and all

094the cast and crew really helped us bring this year's show Wily Wonka Jr to life I look forward to continuing my musical journey and to pursue my lifelong dream of becoming a Broadway actress and I get to know that I'm going to leave the middle school with pride in what I have done at what an impact music has made on my life [Applause] and lastly our uh uh woodworking Club is going to come up with Mr shakuna who uh works with our woodworking Club but his reach goes way further than that as well so come on up woodworking club and they have some awesome things they're going to show everybody truly truly incredible hello my name is Lily Jennings and we are woodworking students we are here mainly to talk about how our club makes

095us feel like feel makes us feel at home at HMS in my opinion woodworking is not just all Hands-On work but it's also a way to connect we all go to woodworking to do what we love and to socialize I have made several friendships just in woodworking alone this year I haven't always liked woodworking but this year when I found out there was a wood working Club again I decided I would join because I desperately needed a hobby because of woodworking I found out that I'm actually pretty good at building things my teamw working skills and my problem solving skills have improved woodworking Club has led me to try bigger things like ptech or even just doing little projects around the house woodworking has helped me gain that confidence that I can do difficult things

096without always needing the solution given to me there is so much potential for kids who are are interested in Woodworking and I fully recommend that any child who is remotely interested in building things or using power tools should join not to mention that Mr shakuna gives that confidence boost that is really needed in the tech setting especially you tend to fail a lot in woodworking but Mr shakuna helps you understand what you did and gives you that encouragement to keep going Mr shakuna also makes wood rcking not only hard but fun as well although at times we have to be serious especially when we are around the power tools Mr shakuna still make manages to make it [Applause] fun hello my name is Landon dler and I'm also an eighth grader in woodworking Club being

097passed out are some of the projects be we built that we want to show you the pens that are being passed around are for you to keep we made them on a lace with uh and sanding them all up to 10,000 grit sandpaper we then polished them with all gloss uh polished them with a glossy finish which made them smooth and shine more next one next one of our one of the most common projects we built our cutting boards the ones being passed around are considered butcher blocks and are made up of three T different types of wood Maple cherry and walnut one of them has an exotic wood called paduk which is more of an red color and really enhances the pattern of The Cutting Board the cutting board that looks different from the

098rest is called book matching cutting board a book match is when a piece of lumber is Resa in half and opened like a book and glued together this causes both sides to look the same feel free to take a look at all the pieces in their unique color and grain p [Applause] patterns hi I'm Anna Lily and I originally started woodworking Club because my grandmother is a woodworker when I first joined woodworking Club I did not think I would like it and but I actually have grown to love it woodworking Club gave me a skill that I can use in everyday life it also has brought me closer with my grandma and now I can help her make stuff that I would not have known anything about if I hadn't started wood working [Applause] Club

099um hi I'm Carla Jane and I'm saor Gregory um we're both in high schoolers last year I misinterpreted what tech was all about and I originally didn't enjoy it but woodworking Club has brought me to the realization that I do really enjoy Tech I realized too late that I like Tech and I missed out in apping to ptech since we don't have these opportunities at the high school woodworking has gave me the opportunity to expand my knowledge on Tech I'm very thankful that Mr shakuna allows high schoolers to be a part of woodworking it has gave me skills that I can use for a lifetime last year I made a river table for my family and this year I'm doing the same for my sister since I am a part of this group I have

100made I it has made me be able to help me with my dad and his tasks that he has around the house and as we build our cabin I wish there was opportunities like this in the high school so I could do more advanced projects and Advance my skills further it could be it would be great for kids who didn't get into to PCH who applied they could learn new skills and expand on them woodworking has led me to make new friends and has given me a chance to find a job I may want to do in the future thank you um other than um woodworking I go to PCH as well um and going to woodworking I can practice the skills I'm doing in PTEC and I'm glad Mr shakuna allows me um to

101go um and doing Woodworking and learning how to make like tables and uh shakery boards I made that um table made out of Walnut right there and I've made a I made a river river table last year for my mom for Mother's say um and she loves it and um I love Woodworking and it helped me get into PC and um yeah find my um fashion and like what I want to do so I'm thankful for that thank you all right we have one more round of applause for all of our awesome students it was really not difficult for us to find examples of really great kids and things that they wanted to share um one last thing we want to talk about quickly is when we have goals and things like that like we

102have look Force to see how we're doing with those goals obviously these students right here they show us that we're doing some really good things but we have we have almost 800 students in our school okay so we can go into cafeteras we can look in the morning to see if kids uh are sitting with other students and things like that but we want to take one step further we wanted to hear from all students so we developed a um student belonging survey uh we worked with teachers in a staff meeting we actually had teachers to get them in the right FR frame of mind to to come up with some questions we had teachers reflect on their own Middle School experiences and they were uh entertaining uh responses sad responses things like that like

103made you realize like everyone has a story from their middle school years for sure so we came with a bunch of questions that we asked students these are some of the quotes uh from the survey um the adults at HMS make me feel like they care about you by making sure we don't need help with anything before we start they also make sure you are included they help me when I'm struggling without making me feel as though I'm not as smart as others I love that one they talk to us and have General conversations with us that aren't always just about school but about other activities going on in our lives I think that means that they care about our personal lives too and not just about our grades and all that and then ask

104if I'm okay they ask me if I'm okay and how I'm doing they try to understand my point of view on things um so we did along with the survey we did ask a good amount of multiple choice questions too just to give us some important numbers like we said so we can hear from every student to see where we're doing some awesome things now but what can we do to get to all 750 800 students um one of the questions students responded to I am proud to be an HMS student so 64% of our students uh agreed with that a great deal 30% agreed a little so that's 94% of our students um agree that they're proud to be an HMS student um I have at least one trusted adult at HMS that I

105can go to if I need help uh 73% agreed a great deal 20% agreed a little so 93% of our students um agree that they have a trusted adult at least one um I like coming to school which if you know middle schoolers like to be above 50% I think would be pretty good but I like coming to school we had 49% agree a great deal and then 33% agree a little puts us at 82% so uh we'll take that for right now we obviously can keep getting that score higher and higher but we'll take that right now and then the one I'm super happy about um I have good friends at school 84% said they agreed a great deal 14 % agreed a little that puts us at 98% is that good enough no

106we need to determine those 2% and work with them as well and that's where we get into more tier 2 things and stuff like that when we identify those students we can come up with um different things to to tackle that now the last thing um that is going to lead us into our planning for next year so kind of where do we go with things one question the last question we asked was that students are nice to each other at HMS this was our lowest agree score um so this is really what we want to Target going forward so 66% agreed that students are nice to each other at um HMS 10% disagreed a great deal so that is absolutely something that we're going to work on tackling um when we work on our

107building Focus for next year and lastly two things that we have going on right now that uh that are fantastic that are really uniting our building um uh the picture here the high school Paul Thompson at the high school started a group called The Good Fells and he worked with Shan vidam so the Goodfellas are awesome High School Role Models male students um who are doing great things in the community so Paul Thompson Sean vinam got together and we now have a group uh of middle school students called young Bloods that work with the good Fells the good Fells come over um they're going to work as mentors for some of our HMS male students uh at the same time we identified some Future Good Fellas that were getting into the mix so that we

108can keep having awesome Role Models going into the school so the first meeting happened um a few weeks ago and that's what the picture is my favorite part this maybe one of my favorite things I've seen in my um 1920 years in education so in the cafeteria the high school students The Good Fellas were all already there they were sitting at tables they ended up having pizza with the the middle schoolers and things and seeing some of the middle school students go in that that I know need a connection that I know um I'm looking for them next year to find something in high school to have some confidence going into it when they walked into the cafeteria um the middle school students announced their names and the high school students went crazy for him

109cheering for him clapping for him it was a it was really a fantastic thing to go in and then they sat down and Paul Thompson said uh high schoolers how many of you guys are going to be friends with these middle schoolers when they come up next year and they all raise their hand so that feeling that those middle school students now have that they think that they have these guys that have their back when they go to high school it was one of the best things I've seen um in a long time so and one last thing Miss Wilson's going to talk about it's never one last thing so I I I couldn't look at myself in the mirror if I didn't mention one of the works that we want to continue is this

110idea that there are good Fellas in young Bloods and we're looking to push this out so that we have a similar group for our young ladies um from the high school and from the middle school as well um and we're working on it it'll just take a little bit of time the second thing that I'm super passionate about uh we have two of our teachers Miss Perry and Mr berd bird I call him bird I birds bird eia I just call him bird uh they came to us and asked if they could kind of revive What's called the connected athletic league and the answer was a resounding yes uh we have a group of 15 athletes and we are in the process of going into our classes and talking about what the connected Athletic League

111will be our athletes will be paired with mentors we're going to have basketball practice on Mondays and Wednesdays through the month of April and a little bit into May and then at the end of May Orchard Parks connected athletic league is going to come here to HMS and foreseeably the HMS team will win I mean I would lay money no sweat um so this is brand this is brand new because we're approaching it with a different light and a different heart and it's really just a way again to make sure every single student that comes here feels connected to at least one one person at least but hopefully much more and then the last slide it really is the last slide um is our social media platforms only old people go on Facebook but lots

112and lots of young people go on Instagram um I Matt and I make a point of posting every single day there is at least one real part of our job is going into this building and binding the good shedding the light on all the amazing things that our kids do and our staff does and that's what it that's where it goes because that's where the kids go um to Instagram and then the old people follow along on Facebook so um I think that's really really it thank you I know we talked for an unbelievable amount of time we we both promised Brent that it was going to be super short tight 10 is what we said we we could talk we brought more we brought more snacks though yes you have more snacks thank you

113all thank you everyone for coming too um one more round of applause for our awesome students and have a good night thank you thank you there Middle School Mr shuna thank you for the of course of course I got I got three extras if anybody wants them I wasn't I was worried that there were going to be more than 12 so we got a Buffalo Bills one that [Music] wasn't but like the big one the two end tables we are um okay mov um moving on to our next presentation we have our uh internal Auditors from tranon Sagara hope I said that correctly hello um I'm Sarah Bowser um my colleague Mike and I are here to present the draft audit report um I was here uh doing field work uh mid mid January beginning

114mid January with my colleague Joel um where we looked at the accounts payable and purchasing process for the district um at the request of Christine and the board um so overall we noted minor overall risk within the purchasing and accounts payable area um and identifi two recommendations for improvement that can be remediated during routine District Operations um our first recommendation was noting that um the assistant Treasurer does not sign off and date completed Bank reconciliations as the preparer and that the business administrator does not include the date of herie review when she does her sign off so our recommendation would be for those tasks to be completed for the assistant Treasurer to sign and date each completed Bank wreck and for the business administrator to include the date of her review to ensure that her

115review is timely um of the bank Rex and then our second recommendation um we noted one purchase order out of the sample that we reviewed um where the list price for one item on the purchase order was lower than the amount invoiced by the company and that the higher price was ultimately paid our recommendation would be for the district to amend the purchase orders um when prices are different between the amounts invoiced and the amounts on the initial purchase order we noted with Christine that this is already done for U purchase orders of a higher more significant value so we would just recommend doing the same process for purchase orders where the variance may be smaller just for covering all the bases any questions that the board has for us on the internal audit right

116you correct um from our discussions with the accounts uh payable team it was um a variance where I believe this purchase was through Staples um and this sometimes happens with pricing variances with staples and other similar companies such as Amazon where the purchase order will be put in in one week by the time the order gets placed Amazon or Staples has adjusted their pricing even by Maybe by a dollar or two um in this case I I believe the variance was about $25 to $30 um so it was not a large dollar variance at all we would just recommend having some form of documentation or Amendment to the purchase order to indicate the situation that occurred the only instance that we I believe we review between 40 and 50 purchase orders from the current fiscal

117year any other questions it was what Christine had requested us to review was the accounts payable process y thank you uh just moving on for our information items our board briefings basically the U me uh minutes from the last meeting uh um there's too much at each of our desks for any kind of information upcoming um upcoming meetings uh next scheduled meeting is uh Tuesday April 8th uh we'll start again with the budget session at 6 o'clock moving on to a regular session at 7 that'll be at Armor um we will also have a second uh regular meeting in April on the 22nd which will also be at Armor um main purpose of that is for the Bose's budget um but we do have a couple business items sure that in it um Tuesday May

11813th uh is our budget hearing um that will be at Armor uh starting at 6 aiming for a 7 o'clock uh regular meeting start uh then the 20th May 20th the budget vote at the high school are we doing the farmers market again this year or no okay great there you go and and go and walk around the farmers market uh moving on to uh upcoming meetings workshops uh some nisba work uh some nisba um sponsored uh workshops these are all uh virtual um ecsb um or twist on Tech which is when they'll tour We Tour one of the BOS centers in this case it'll be Harkness which is uh I've gone to a couple of those those are definitely worthwhile to to go see law conference coming up in the summer Board office Academy

119and um the conference will be at the end of May um do have a couple of budget transfers just for informational purposes in there uh moving on to board committee reports we'll start with our student rep Emma you absolutely do all right so the junior class is holding another fish fry this year we've moved away from chicken barbecues and now we're doing fish fries I guess so the fish fry is March Mar 19th from 3:00 to 6:00 p.m. um if you want to buy pre-sale tickets email Mrs Owens at the high school and then our big news threaded together Student Government spring event is coming up quickly clothing collection week is March 17th through the 21st and there will be collection bins in each School in each School in the district we are looking for

120new or G gently used clothing and we're saying like we want sizes for school AG kids and up so just not like baby clothes um the following week each day leading up to the event on the 29th all students will be invited to help sort clothes in the library on the 29th there will be mo it will be more than just a free store Main Street ice cream will be there with their food truck there will be face painters along with other little activities for kids there will also be a BAS that will be run with the help of the PTSA the proceeds will be split between the Western New York foster closet and Journeys and Refugee Services I along with the rest of student government would love to see you all there and it

121should be fun it's from 10:00 a.m. to 300 p.m. so stop by and if anyone has any questions regarding it let me know that's it thanks will the clothing is free yeah oh from the basket raffle yeah tickets from that yep uh the transportation committee did not meet and neither did uh Tech so I don't have anything to report I yield the floor um I was at the alumni bashing cash and I didn't win anything for once yeah I know it's it's unusual but you know um but on the legislative side um we have a meeting coming up um March 20th but I was real quick this won't take long at all I was looking at the assembly's proposal for the budget and um under the assembly's proposal State funding for school aid would total

12238 A5 billion an increase of 1.1 billion over Governor hok's um executive budget um so but again you know we don't know once negotiating um starts you know what the the final number would be but they put in there uh in the executive budget there was 13.5 million towards the cell phone ban or the Internet connected ban whatever it is yes and um and the assembly has um up that to 30$ 38 million so a cell phone band's coming I I think it's uh it's something that we better start looking at you know it's something that's going to happen um I saw something on Twitter um they still okay you don't call it Twitter no more but um yeah Twitter and it's about the Department of Education being closed in the federal and I think

123that that does really affect us on the um I I realize it's tital one it's reimbursement but you know um you know that money is not coming back to New York State schools that money is obviously going towards whatever president musk um wants it to go to but um you know it's going to it's going to hurt us taxes are going to go up and it's something that you should be concerned about contacting your legislator and know Langworthy doesn't answer his phone or his emails but it's something that we should be concerned about because you're going to see our taxes going up for schools because of the tital one in the big five schools so um it's something we should be concerned about so um it just that's just my opinion you know so and

124that's all I have I love the super eval um presentation and I think that's something we should really look into but that's all I have thanks d um not much we did have a facilities meeting um prior to uh today uh to our meeting tonight um good stuff coming from our um construction Partners um go over a upper higher view of what that what we went over but uh great stuff happening that's all I got thank you uh not a ton uh we do have a policy committee meeting coming up I think you're on that Mary uh April 22nd uh we have a strategic planning committee coming up I know Mr Adams is going to talk about uh our shared decisionmaking which the strategic planning committee is a big part of so I'm excited for

125that my first uh as a member of that committee uh the building visitation committee we have our Hamburg High School visit on uh March 28th at 12:30 just to remind everybody of that we said that at the last meeting uh and I was going to mention super eval so thank you for whoever brought that up I think it was Dave um so that was a software package that we selected so thank you to the board for participating in that on your own time to to sort of help us review that uh that'll be a useful tool for us as we uh not only review the superintendent this year and in upcoming years but also um doing things like board self- evaluations which is a part of that process so uh again we we did execute

126that um that agreement just to let the board know and and more to come on that when Mr Adams and Mr Adams and I get together so that's it um so a couple of things um the facilities um meeting I was at prior to this and Turner as always will give their presentation in a little while they're always on point so it's productive meeting um basion cash I was at that too with several of my board members um Patty I'm looking at you you it was um an amazing night and I was struck by your presentation um Mr low and M WIS and then everybody that was from the Middle School particularly when you said you're working with a lot of colleagues that are graduates of Hamburg so when I was at the event the

127other night one of the things I kept thinking about was you know how the community comes together and how indebted as a district we are to all the work that's done with the alumni Foundation but also that I feel like part of your work is embracing people who didn't graduate from Hamburg and bringing them in and helping them to be involved in all the great things that we have here as evidenced by all the great things you showed that are happening at the middle school so um I'm thankful for the alumni for all the work that they do and have enabled us to be able to do um parent child connection um Caitlyn and and Colleen help me with the date we have that create with kindness Workshop that's coming up um with Frontier that's

128going to be at um Hamburg high school so I'm looking forward to that um March 31st okay thank you um and I'm also looking forward to strategic planning coming up as well um and that's all I have I love the student survey I love that raw data number that comes comes over you know it's just so real and and um you know and I love the attitude that you know we're just going to keep going at it and making the number better every every single day and I think that's fantastic uh no safety meeting and I did to go to the uh bash and cash as well I'm glad da I'm glad Dave didn't win he always wins but uh um other than that I attended the facilities meeting as well tonight and uh we

129have great Representatives on the construction side they watch our back for sure so um I guess that's it thank you uh thanks cam covered our um building visitation Laura covered PCC so I just have PTSA um was we just had a meeting last night it went really well Max our student representative talked about Emma's uh you being the leader on the threaded together um they also talked about uh student government uh giving $500 to support Carnival uh Academy of Finance is going to be selling Chick-fil-A sandwiches on April 2nd um band is going to Chicago April 13th and he mentioned the fish fry as well um all of our elementary schools had a lot of fun stuff going on uh ases they had their family fun night March 20 they have their fifth grade dance

130coming up they're working on teacher appreciation their book fair and end of year bash Boston Valley had their my date dance uh for their young girls and the dude's day at the movies which was also very successful for them at Charlotte we had health and wellness night bingo learning Fair we've got the Musical coming up in March which is going to be wonderful um literacy night Bulldog bash uh all up and coming Union Pleasant talked about their math B which I know we talked a little bit about that or heard about at our last meeting um in January they were able to gift their staff members each a $50 Amazon card for their classroom so that was really exciting for them uh they had their Winter Carnival in February they've got a movie at The

131Palace Theater in March and they have their learning Fair coming up Middle School would like to encourage us all if we are available to please attend the meet raffle it's super exciting it's going to be on April 15th um there's oh my gosh March March March this weekend Satur I know I'm going I just I said the wrong month I'm already there I'm already through March guys um yes this weekend Saturday night be there um come by meet I don't I don't know a lot about meat Raffles it's my first one so if you if you purchase tickets separately all right it's it's my first time so you guys are GNA have to tell me tell me what we do our first meet raffle together that's aaz it's your first meet raffle get excited guys

132it's my first yes we're all GNA be there and if you haven't gotten excited yet look how many people in this room are going bring your friends not your kids uh we'll be there uh they Middle School also had a successful candy gram and their parking lot or parking space raffle was successful and they're going to continue to look at that High School super exciting many grants were awarded and fulfilled they are helping with the basket as we mentioned for threaded together um they're helping they're working in connection with the PCC to put on the um March 31st event uh I would like to remind everybody that there are scholarships available through PTSA a PSA to parents out there um please apply for them it's it's a great opportunity uh they are also having a

133chicken barbecue on May 20th it is the same night as the uh budget vote so for my board members here who will be there eat your dinner at the uh chicken chicken barbecue help support high school thank you um SEPTA gave an update they are having a meeting oh on the 15th also that's a popular time uh at spot in the morning if anybody would like to attend they have um several presentations coming up I didn't get the date on their ADHD speaker are they having the ADH speaker was that in May I think so I don't know we'll we'll update on that May 7th they have a meeting as well um and last last thing from PTSA I promise it's a reminder that if you haven't gotten your membership yet hint hint everybody around

134the table if you haven't done it yet um please do $4 of your $8 that it costs to join go to pay our insurance that covers the events districtwide so it's super helpful and we appreciate um you being a part of that thank you that's all do I okay don't say who does I just wanted to make sure it wasn't me I was feeling it last night uh next up is our Capital project update from our construction Partners all right so couple quick things from the report you guys have in front of you uh just to highlight before we get in describing the pictures um from the schedule and Milestones um you can see that the the elementary schools basically all the classrooms are occupied we just have a few case workk items to wrap

135up in those rooms to to really get out of the elementary schools holistically um at the high school we've had work ongoing uh we'll get into that with the pictures on what we really accomplished the last few weeks but um we're looking forward to some nice weather to get up on that roof and start putting a lot of mechanical equipment up there being able to do the roofing as you go so looking forward to that April break and into may you could see a line item there for that you should see some big equipment and cranes dropping stuff up there when we get the opportunities uh as far as the maintenance Barn we appreciate the maintenance staff with our their patience on us getting that project rolling old man winter wasn't very kind in January

136and February but it's broken for us and you can see the Steels going up actually pretty quick they should be sheeting that building this week uh so should look like a pretty much an enclosed building by by next week sometime we'll be working on the inside from there um going into the financial updates real quick so just phase two the committed costs have not really moved from last time uh we do have a few change orders coming through for approval tonight um all that is captured within the change management dollars you've seen for several months running now really um and basically we have about 19 open potential change orders total that we're tracking at this point a few more of those will come through likely next month but going to the bottom of the change

137management box you can see we before the change order approvals tonight we still have 89% contingency remaining on phase two which is pretty healthy and uh we're about 2third of the way through our contract allowances which again are are in the base bid construction values so that's not money passing out of the the funds already captured uh just describing what we have up on the on the photos here so that is the high school main vestibule before and after uh we decided to give that a little bit of a facelift with some of the paneling that we had put up in the uh elementary school odds people like that so much um so over the break we did break that down get rid of some of the obsolete um um boards and and electrical components

138that were in there got the unit that the new heater installed and got new paneling on that wall down below you can see some of the pictures of the framing for that maintenance Barn going up just outside the middle school here next to the the existing building uh the roof framing is actually now on it as of the end of the day today um what you're seeing here is some work that occurred over uh February break this is actually the top two pictures are in the high school outside the nurses Suite we took on pretty pretty complicated little Space Project there but something we thought thought was important to get done before summer uh we had to open up the ceiling in the nurses suite and the and the hallways get a lot of stuff

139out of the way up there uh prep old steel for new steel and put up about 85 pieces of Steel in total over the break and got that ceiling closed back up with new lighting um the bottom two pictures is the armor Boiler Room another thing we went and did over break was uh get that floor nice and maintainable and put epoxy flooring down with caution strips around all the brand new equipment pads in that room this is now inside the top two pictures are inside the high school Boiler Room uh again over break we got the old window that used to be back there by the loading dock pulled out temporarily uh got it temped in with doors that can open up wood panel doors that can be opened up um and we actually

140pulled out that obsolute old water tank that was up in the air down there to start clearing the way for all the work we're going to be doing bringing L pieces of demol demolished uh old boilers and Foundations and piping out and new stuff in in the summer and then the bottom two pictures is room 153 in the high school um we had already completed room 151 next door and uh after giving those rooms facelifts in terms of the ceilings and walls over the summer we got the the new flooring down for those teachers so those rooms are are fully updated architecturally and this is just quick rundown of schedule again nothing new here but phase two instruction ongoing uh tent to be done fall of this year and closing that out uh December of

1412025 and phase three which will be armor elementary schools this coming summer uh updating that playground and about 37 rooms worth of ceilings and lights getting new grid ceilings up and new lighting that is in Ford review right now we expect it back by April get that awarded in May and and get after that work as soon as the kids pull out of there and uh have that all put back together and full of new ceilings by the end of summer also closing that one out before the end of this fiscal year and then phase four which was will be the big Union Pleasant project uh that will be summer of 26 and 27 work that is also in for S review uh that is on a a normal time frame in terms of review

142so we expect that to come back in September or October of 25 that will allow us to bid on a favorable time period in the in the fall next year get contracts awarded and that work will start in the spring of 26 and then this is just a really broad overview schedule of the next project that you know in the facilities committee meeting we're starting to talk about um Gordon Jones is actively working through the building condition survey expect that report in the fall 25 participating a vote likely October 26 and that that would be a project that would involve various buildings and start in 28 and run probably through 2030 anybody have any questions comments concerns yeah yeah so we talked about it thly today the facilities commun action because the Tariff thing is

143going back and forth changing daily um I actually talked toting team two hours ago uh to look at the estimation we're about to put out for phase three at Armor it's a smaller project we don't see the impacts being big either way but we're going to factor in something for tariffs in there just to be to be cautious it's actually changing by the hour they just dropped the the additional 25% an hour ago the threat is already gone on the on the Canadian steel and aluminum but we do factored in our our estimators have actually built in a category on our cover sheets uh for tariffs right now just to be to be covered time frame yeah yeah there are conversations about that it's right yeah yeah phase four would be one we yeah so

144phase four is a big project it would definitely have have an impact on that cost so that'd be something when SD is approved we know we're nearing approval we'd certainly take into consideration you know there's you have a few month the wig if you're still trying to hit your schedule for construction to move that bid period around gu else any questions thank you thank Sean moving on to our report from our superintendent Mr Adams thank you Mr Flyn thanks everybody thanks everybody for being here thanks to the middle school for your presentation it was outstanding uh and I too was winless at the bash and cash but uh that's that's all right it was a it was a uh it was it was a good scene and good to be able to support uh our

145alumni Foundation who does so so much for us also want to thank our construction partners for for all the work that they've been doing I moving from a very serious topic to the fact that I lost a race of how fast you can read Green Eggs and Ham in Miss mardino's room very recently at Charlotte Avenue uh 2 minutes 18 seconds I felt very good about my performance since she came in at 202 felt like it was like Elite half miler in high school running a 202 and she just absolutely destroyed me and the kids were just so happy that I lost um they were great I I another thing that I got to do recently was uh I got to go to the Palace Theater to see Cheaper by the Dozen uh and that

146was a uh com the audience was combined uh a combination of students from life skills classes of Frontier middle and high school and Hamburg middle and hamurai and it was tremendous um the the uh the genuine laughter uh going on uh and I mean it wasn't like Steve Martin it was great uh so that was a that was a really good scene and a great show of uh you know Crossing District Lines you know if Hamburg and Frontier can get together for something uh there's there's there's hope for all I I did mention uh oh you know uh another thing that I got to do and I wanted to point out uh we did a great Farm to school event uh here last week and and that was uh some special stuff by some special

147people um there that's you know Trisha Miller and Kim Abram and all the folks who help out with the uh with our uh with our farmer School whether it's the hoop house at the middle school or the giv Garden uh and they brought in folks from other districts there's folks from salaman there from Eden there from Springville there uh and and Beyond and it was I think iroy was there also uh and they're truly inspired by the work that's happening here and that's not a me taking ownership of it that's in everybody and what's supported here and it was just uh it was uh it was a a blessing to be able to be in that in that crowd um uh cam had already mentioned uh March 26 the strategic planning meeting uh uh that

148is the the heart of our shared decision-making process as we sort of uh set our vision for for the future uh I also wanted to uh note that on March 28th I believe we're all going to be going to the high school for the afternoon for the visit there uh and uh I know there's plenty of other plenty other events um to support as well um let me go into a little bit of what Senator Galvin gallin shared with us today on the zoom call with area superintendent uh and then I will talk a little bit about shared decision- making um so on this Zoom call uh some things that the Senate budget their rewrite of uh of Governor hok's budget some of their suggestions will be um possible 1% raise in Foundation Aid possible

149increase of capital outlay projects to 250,00 000 which is $150,000 more than it is now uh a possible uh the possibility of aiding those teachers who we have from bosies who we only get aided on the first $30,000 of their salary talk of moving that to 60,000 which would be uh which would be a a benefit I was I was thrilled that that was on their radar uh at all um possibility of moving they they're advocating moving the um the expectation of uh electric buses back to uh back two two years into into the future um so not not bring that closer to but uh we'll have a little bit more time to plan we don't know if these things will will come into play or not and then another thing which is more of

150like a wish list from some superintendent is the idea that the fund balance uh we currently can have 4% of next year's uh budget um looking for for that to to increase to allow districts some more flexibility there um but now I can turn to the shared decision-making thing and there's no way that I can talk about shared decision- making in this setting right now and and ignore the fact that we're talking about the distraction free schools uh initiative that is part of Governor hok's budget uh it's been a topic of conversation here and I just wanted to explain a little bit uh of some real good examples of how shared decision making has worked specifically at our high school because this rests in our high school right now that's where uh the cell phones

151among other things are are more uh are more prevalent um but if you take a look at class rank uh within our district um about maybe 10 15 years ago or so there began or there was strengthening conversations about the idea of maybe this push for a certain rank is actually hurting more kids than is helping maybe the level of stress that's being increased by the kids who are grappling with can I get in the top 10 can I be valorian can I can I be salutatorian or anything along those lines maybe maybe we could do something better um with regard to that so that idea which starts just is an idea is brought by an individual to what we call their core team members each School within our district has a building core team

152so that idea gets brought to building Corp building Corp as a school-based group grapples with it talks about it those building Corps Representatives then talk to the people they represent so you might have somebody who represents the English Department uh at the high school they'd go back and talk to all department members and they get feedback gradually and it didn't it was certainly not an overnight thing but but over time that discussion became something that's shared with District core which meets once a month where our building core teams report back to District Corp District Corp talks about the ideas and the idea that came up with that is that we're seeing the fruits of now over the last few years uh is that we have we do acknowledge in honor of validator and salutatorian first

153and second of the class but then we go down in terms of more of a Collegiate style uh you know sumacum La Magna la uh type of Honor for our students uh and that's it that's just one example of shared decision-making another way and I won't go into the particulars of it but that's the reason we have a gender neutral bathroom in within uh the the high school and that it started the same way a shared decision-making type of a model that is absolutely supported districtwide supported by the boards that existed at that time supported by um board so since since that program uh since the shared decision-making model came into being uh the cell phone discussion right now keeping in mind the great unknown is this could very well be a discussion of implementation

154rather than any discussion about any policy because we don't know exactly there seems to be some writing on the wall about it uh about what will happen with cell phones at the high school level um but that is a building core conversation it's been brought to building core those building core reps have gone out to their groups and they have had those discussions they meet again next week uh be attending that meeting and we'll hear back from them uh and then that information will get reported on the district Corp I believe building Corp at the high school is already reported some of it back to District Corp or am I way off on that way off on that all right so that would [Music] be okay got it so that's like but that's the the

155shared decisionmaking model sort of in a global sense of well not Global but like in terms of how the high school does it but how all schools will do it but it gives you an example of how it's worked in the past and it gives you an example of how it's working now with it so that's that's something we that's something we we rest our heads pretty soundly on the idea of this shared decision-making model and you'll see that um with regard to our strategic planning session where you have representatives from the community you have Representatives uh from parents you have representatives from the board and then you have Representatives all throughout the school it is and just like this is like the the the caveat for everything I think uh Mr laow and Mr

156Wilson made made a great point with it just because we're extoling these things as being great things that happen here we know we don't hit 100% all the time like we're not like it is it is not saying like Hey we're perfect because we do this this is how we grapple with problems and let me be so bold as to say that truly is create care solve and discover all right we're caring about something so much we're going to talk about it we're going to try to create a solution that works and we're going to discover if our plan works or not and then we're going to work on making it better whatever that whatever that might be so that's uh that's in essence what I what I wanted to share uh regarding shared decision-

157making but um thank you for all your your support with things too so I will I will move on from there thank you Mr Adams moving on to uh business items for tonight um we will start with our consent items F and financial items G uh at this time any member can make a request to withdraw a specific ific item from the consent agenda for individual consideration is there any such request at this time seeing none can I have a mo u a motion to approve all consent items from F1 through G5 so move by Laura second by cam all in favor opposed item passes standard stuff about it got it no we just we just did it so go go for it okay so I just wanted to uh to congratulate Linda Reed she

158had uh submitted uh she's uh she's one of our great cleaners and uh she uh she submitted her her retirement that will be effective at the end of this school year so I want to just acknowledge Linda's uh work with the district thanks Tom also there was there was an extended field trip for the Middle School our usual warrants and such moving on to action items um action item H1 can I have a motion to authorize the Seeker negative declaration regarding the proposed sale of District property on Legion Drive ass by Laura second by Mary any questions comments all in favor opposed item passes item H2 can I have a motion to authorize The Seer secra um negative declaration regarding the proposed sale of District property on Z Zim Zimmerman Road by C second by

159Laura questions comments all in favor opposed item passes item H3 I have a motion to approve a resolution dated March 11 20202 that the Board of Education in the Hambrick Central School District uh declaring the district District's proposed Capital outlay project involving uh in this case involving ceiling and light replacement work related to improvements that the districts Union Pleasant elementary school to be a type two action under secra and authorizing and directing the inclusion of funding for such project in the district's proposed 25 26 budget by Laura second by dat or Rich questions comments all in favor opposed item passes item H4 can I have a motion to approve the change orders 2011-06 203-2 in 203- 01 for the capital project phase two work so by cam second by Rich questions comments on the question

160so there's there's two uh two that I question so we have our building control systems were insufficient in the class classes I guess to what extent have we Factor these sorts of things in future given that we have know this big boiler work at the high school okay yeah I'm not criticizing that I any questions comments all in favor opposed item passes item H5 can I have a motion to approve uh yoa with the Hamburg Teachers Association for return to school prior to Labor Day for the 2526 school year so move by Laura second second by cam questions comments all in favor opposed item passes item H6 can I have a motion to approve the 2025 26 school calendar so move by Rich second by Laura any questions comments I guess I would just have

161it feels like we're starting real early and we're going real late and I and I I mean I recognize I think it's just the way Christmas fell we have two we vacation there which thanks a lot is there Monday Tuesday THS I guess justay September 1 Labor Day is killer yeah that's that's a no matter no matter what and then calendar drives drives driving a lot of What's region you mean with respect to start no it's a didn't and that builds in what like five how many snow days you have built in I don't know if we ever say many do they always want him back so Thursday Christmas Is Back any other any other questions comments all in favor opposed item um item H7 I have a motion to approve uh upon recommendation of

162the superintendent Mo MOA between Hamburg Central school district and the Hamburg administrative Council regarding the APR APR outline and procedures for the 20124 25 school year so Mo by Laura second by cam questions comments but this isn't change right this is there's no change in our practice is there as you know yeah this huge yeah we can we can go we can go into yeah yeah Dave Dave and I can go into the whole deep dive into where APR started and it wasn't not good um other questions comments all in favor opposed item item passes item H uh h8 can I have a motion to approve on the recommendation of the superintendent M MOA between the Hamburg Central school district and the Hamburg Hamburg Teachers Association HTA regarding the a outline and procedures for the

1632425 school year so by Lura second second by cam questions comments all in favor I opposed item passes item H9 can have motion that the Board of Education of the hambur Central School District approves a resolution naming District lead evaluators for the 2024 25 school year as listed so by cam second by Laura any questions comments all in favor opposed item passes item h10 can I have a motion to approve an Mo MOA with the Hamburg Teachers Association for faculty managers for the 25 26 school year Z by Laura second by Rich uh questions comments good all right so it's uh it's it's this is the uh this is the way we've been running Athletics with the High School faculty manager and the Middle School faculty manager to assist the uh the person who will

164be serving as athletic director any other questions Kevin model it's it's we all still love this model this is it seems like it's work it's been working really well any other questions comments all in favor opposed item passes item h11 can I have a motion to approve an Mo MOA with the Hamburg Teachers Association for aossa uh athletic position for the 2526 school year so move by Mary second by Laura uh questions comments all in favor opposed item passes item h12 have motion to approve uh Mo MOA with the Hamburg Teachers Association for a licensed uh practical nurse position for the 2526 school year so move a cam second by Mary any questions comments I assume this is two questions this is next contract this will get looped in questions comments all in favor opposed

165it passes item h13 can I have a motion to approve the following new civil service position title licensed practical nurse so move by cam second by Laura any questions comments all in favor opposed passes item h14 I have a motion to accept the donation of instruments and Equipment uh for the district music department from the Hamburg music boosters so by Ashley second by Dave questions comments I mean I like the 24 class I don't know you guys did a great job I just at third grade recorder day Joy everywhere in thank you very much um all in favor opposed item passes that is the end of our action items uh the only thing we have left is public uh public expression um okay great thanks um uh just a reminder some topics are not permitted

166to be discussed in the public forum for example any topic related to employ to employee employee or that can be implied to be related to employee special education placements individual student situations Etc if the topic is inappropriate for the public forum the board president myself will instruct you not to speak but rather present your concerns in writing for the board's discussion in executive session uh starting out with Norah appler she still here oh sure oh sure did she feel uh Susan berer hi I'm Susan berer 5340 oakd Drive Hamburg New York uh March is music in our schools month and the Hamburg school music boosters are excited to be celebrating all month long uh you can check out our social media where you can hear from our students about why music is important to them

167and learn more about our music teachers in their own words through Spotlight profiles we've also kicked off our spring fundraiser with a goal of raising another $55,000 that's a lot of Kazo Mary I promise it's not all Kazo to Grant requests to music classrooms for extra equipment and experiences for our talented students you can grab a flyer tonight or scan our QR code to find out more about our April daily calendar raffle with more than $2,000 in fantastic prizes $20 for 30 chances to win you get a chance every day even if you win your ticket goes back in and you get an extra entry or really an extra 30 chances to win if you're a member of the music boosters and you purchase a ticket so thank you for your time and we look

168forward to updating you in April about how many great things our raffle proceeds will be able to fund uh jessicaa hello good evening um I actually love that the middle school did the presentation they did today and kind of put a focus on those groups and those clubs um because I wanted to come today and give you an update on Bulldog run club and our newest uh Venture this spring the it takes a village 5K so Bulldog run Club is a go we are opening registration for for students on March 20th and we will begin practices the week of April 22nd twice a week we will meet and we will have our season ending 5K on June 7th which will be the it takes a village 5K um I am so proud to bring this

1695K to Hamburg the Hamburg Central PTSA has been so wonderful to agree to host it which means every single dollar raised is going to go right back into this District to help fund clubs extracurricular activities Sports those passion projects that our kids really connect with um I did send information to Mr Adams uh link for registration because our website is up and live and we already have registered Runners um but I also sent over a Google form teachers or staff members who are leading clubs groups within the district they can fill out that Google form it's six simple questions um to apply for funding from this run um it is the same route that we did last year for the Hamburg cesco Centennial that run raised $10,000 I would love for this to raise that

170much but so much more because every single dollar is going back to the kids in Hamburg so um Mr Adams is going to be sending that out to our building leader so that they can go ahead and get that out to their staff but I would encourage everybody who is on our board to come out register to run we will be having the youngest Runners my six-year-old will be there running his third 5K but this is going to be a great community of event and we are going to put the focus on the kids and let them just see um how much their community supports them it's going to be amazing we're going to have Drone footage but all of our youth Runners 17 and under will be wearing purple shirts everybody 18 and over

171will be wearing gray so you will they will get to see a visual of just how much their community supports them so I will save a gray shirt for everybody up here and hope to see you on June 7 thanks and Liz Houston hi everyone so kind of repeating what um some great promos some of you have already given us in the fall the high school PTSA received a grant to conduct a create with kindness program from the national PTA and we've partnered with parent child connection and of course then Frontier will be here as well for this program on Monday March 31st from 68 in the high school at the high school the program brings High School families together not only to talk about um to have an interactive discussion with their teens about

172online experience and equip families with practical information and resources to enhance Online safety sju's various digital platforms but we're going to share a meal together so we'd like to invite you to join us even though we know your schedule can be busy come join us on March 31st for our create with kindness event I've got some flyers for you um if you can our SB so we know to count you in for dinner Coyote Cafe it's always a win so come on have some tacos with us and um as always thank you for your support of PTSA Liz um that is the final item for tonight so looking for a motion to adjourn the March meeting so move by Rich second by Laura all in favor opposed item passes and we are thanks everybody thanks

173for coming