BOE Meeting, March 3, 2025

001welcome everybody to the Tuesday March 4th 2025 regular board meeting of the West son cenal School District um if I can have our friends of the ambassadors from North would actually Step Up For The Pledge want to take the mic open I think we'll be a I pled alance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all thank you you're right okay uh we'll begin the meeting um after the pledge with a roll call um Mr Li is excused today so we'll do a quick roll call Jeremy present Sarah present Marlo present Loren present Laura present Ed present and our wonderful superintendent present thank you present um today we have our school Spotlight again at Northwood Elementary

002and we will begin with that need to take the mic what we're going to have them do is step back over this way so we can get a better shot for them for the for videotaping if you want to take him the mic sh to him stand off the side do it right over here hi good evening I'm Mrs FY I'm the building principle at Northwood Elementary School thank you so much for being here I am here with Mrs valoff and Mrs Noak who advise our student ambassadors at Northwood Elementary School this is a new program this year and this good-look group of students they will introduce themselves and tell you a little bit about what makes Northwood Elementary so very special good evening my name is Camden maak I'm a student ambassador at Northwood

003Elementary School on behalf of Miss Ferry Miss Zach anino and our advisers miss snok and miss voff we would like to thank the board of educ and Dr Krueger for inviting us to present this evening we are excited to share all the wonderful things happening at Northwood Elementary School being a student bassador is an important job to become an ambassador we were required to fill out an application explaining why we we should help lead our school 10 fifth grade students who are chosen to be student ambassadors our job is to increase school spirit and help our community we are excited to be part of this new program in our school good evening I am student ambassador Nolan lip each month we focus on a project to help our community and build school spirit We Begin

004our meetings by discussing the needs of our school and the West senica Community we then work together to plan and organize the projects in in addition we create posters and make announcements to share with all the students and faculty hello my name is Emily derero and I am a student ambassador I would like to tell you about a couple of the service learning Pro projects we have organized and participated in at Northwood during the month of October we initiated sotober our student body collected 170 pairs of socks to be donated to the West senica Clothing Closet the class the classroom with the most collected socks earned a popsicle party in October we volunteered at the PTO Halloween party while working at the family event we interacted with fellow shining stars and passed out candy bookmarks

005and whistles it was a great evening for everyone hi I am student ambassador Jack Penner I want to share about Northwoods November food drive we asked the student body to bring in non- perishable items to donate to the Lions Club we counted and collected over 275 items for donation we are lucky to have many generous care in students teachers and families at Northwood we were thrilled to help feed community members during this time of year hello my name is Michaela alasco and I am a student ambassador in the month of December the teacher Union put together care beds for nursing home residents in addition to the products put in the [Applause] bags students at Northwood made holiday cards to place in the bats our goal was to put a smile on to put a smile

006our goal was to bring a smile to people in need good evening good evening I am student ambassador Blake buio as you know it can be very chilly here in Buffalo during January we decided to help keep others warm by collecting hats mittens and scarves each classroom was given a bag for donations as always the student ambassadors collected and counted the items we proudly collected over a 100 items for the month's donation to the West senica Clothes Closet the class with the most donations won extra recess time hi my name is Ashley polarski and I am a student ambassador in February we focused on showing how much we value our local veterans to show our appreciation the Northwood students made over 200 Valentine's Day cards we hope the veterans know how much we appreciate the

007services they provided for our country hello I am student ambassador Noah Pope we are very proud of the work our ambassador program and school have done so far since September we have learned to work as a team plan and organize projects and strengthen our commun communication skills we hope to have made the lives of others better and with the work we've accomplished and look forward to planning the next project on behalf of my fellow student ambassador bors thank you again for allowing us to come in and share the great things we are doing at Northwood thank you shining stars from Northwood that was excellent thank you all for being here tonight and thank you to the parents and caregivers that brought our students here for this evening's presentation thank you you hand it over to

008Dr Krueger for your report thank you happy to share some excellent um updates on some great things going on in our school district the first thing that I'd like to share is that under the leadership of John delbo we have successfully successfully secured a $300,000 Grant um I am thrilled to be sharing this with you as you may recall last uh spring through the budget reductions we lost our Tech integrators and we have certainly felt the pinch and the pain of not having those Tech integrators uh to support our schools and so we have a $300,000 Grant and the grant um is intended to help us to increase and enhance student engagement and our parent engagement and so we have a variety of things that we've planned through this grant to be able to utilize

009technology to better communicate with our families to utilize technology to increase student engagement and this will all be done with the support and assistance of a tech integrator so um kudos to John who really um first brought this idea to me and then he simply he ran with it so he gets credit for this in a real creative way to reinstate a position that we lost last year I'd also like to give a huge shout out to East Senior last weekend uh they had The Musical Shrek the Musical it was an absolute joy to see what a fun show our students um not only sounded great musically but the choreography was incredibly impressive so great job Eddie senior also want to just highlight some other things going on in our schools Clinton Elementary brought in

010a dental hygienist to help with dental health month to show our student great brushing techniques we have several elementary schools that are right now participating for the month of March in the one school one book program where the entire school is engaged in reading the same book to help promote literacy throughout our school and literacy with our families and we also have a number of March into literacy events going on this month for example West Senior is uh doing a villains versus heroes um event taking place to help promote literacy we just heard from our friends and shining stars at Northwood Elementary but I did also want to give them a shout out for the awesome student attendance program that they have where each month they recognize their students that that have a perfect attendance

011for the month and those students get entered into a drawing and you can see here the winners from the February drawing at Northwood Elementary School recently our students at West Senior High School um participated in a performance at Disney Springs in Orlando Florida so the belcanto singers under the leadership of Mr Keith uring represented us well in Disney and made us incredibly proud so kudos to them we also had a great program that was through our Academy of Life Sciences where students participated in CPR AED and first aid certification and that was brought to us by a professional through Catholic health so some real authentic and Hands-On learning experiences for our students in the academy program during the month of February I had highlighted at our February board meeting some of the events that e

012senior had participated in such as the hip hop dance class that they had to celebrate Black History Month they also later in the month um brought in an African drumming session for students after school and in the photos here you can see our students engaged in that session after school it was very well attended now I'd like to transition and highlight as we begin to wrap up the winter sports season a number of athletes and teams that performed except exceptionally well this season uh we had a student who participated at the state level wrestling competition made it to the second round of the tournament when he un unfortunately suffered a concussion and was no longer able to participate but um he made us very proud and happy to recognize both he and his coaches our

013indoor track team had an impressive season as well we had a number of students that participated in uh the competition last weekend in Long Island and I've highlighted a few of those students um and athletes here for your review our basketball players um had quite a season we had a number of school records that were uh broken this year a three-point record that was broke by Alex whand and a number of other records that were broke um by our girls basketball teams so great work by all of our student athletes our cheerleaders participated in sectional competition recently and our West Senior varsity cheer team placed third and our East Senior varsity cheer team placed 9th so congratulations to them and this next is hot off the press that isn't even on a slide but I

014do want to recognize uh that our unified bowling team uh just competed uh recently and they play second in their division so congratulations to our unified bowling team I have photos of that event that I just got this afternoon so when I send this out to the district and we post it on our website we'll also be able to to uh recognize our unified bowling team shifting gears to some of our ongoing work that we've been engaged in this year I did want to share an update um with the Board of Education many of you were in attendance for our community forum for redistricting that was held last week on February 27th we presented a number of options that we considering for both redistricting and reconfiguration to help alleviate our enrollment concerns and our class

015siiz concerns that we have specifically at both alendale and at Clinton Elementary and also the space and capacity issues that we have at West Middle School right now we're Gathering feedback from that Community Forum where we presented plans uh there's a QR code here and also I've linked a Google form where we're seeking feedback from our stakeholders from the community that is still open right now so if anyone was not able to be in attendance last week for the community Forum we recorded that Community Forum it can be found on our website along with these two avenues for giving feedback so that that feedback can then be given to our committee uh to me and to Tony day who is helping us to facilitate the redistricting work and we can take that feedback into advisement

016as we look to narrow our scope from many plans that are under consider ation to really narrowing that down to what the Board of Education gave our committee as a charge was to bring forth two to three semifinalist plans for your consideration so in order for us to do that we are seeking feedback and we'll have this open um until next week Friday for us to get feedback from our stakeholders additionally I wanted to share some updates regarding our strategic planning committee and the work that the Strategic plan planning committee has been involved in since this fall our committee really started with analyzing some baseline data what is our starting point so that we can best determine in what areas are we already performing well and in what areas do we have some opportunities for

017improvement or growth so our committee embarked this fall in analyzing student attendance data in school and out of school suspension data and the types of behaviors that our students are engaged in our graduation rates Regent exam data and our academic performance on the 3 through eight New York State assessments those would be the Assessments in ela mathematics and science our next steps um are going to shift gears a bit from that academic data to really look at some other indicators of success or opportunities for growth to support our families and our students we're going to be doing some work around the social emotional well-being of our students and also family engagement to help us with that we are exploring opportunities for a family support center and also exploring the possibility of a Boys and Girls

018Club here in our own Community West senica does not presently have a Boys and Girls Club so to help us in the exploration of that the strategic planning committee and I will be visiting the Boys and Girls Club in East Aurora on March 6th we'll be meeting with the program director of the East Aurora club and then from there Our intention is to launch a survey a survey through th thought exchange where we can gather feedback from our current current students faculty and staff parents and community members so that in addition to the data that we looked at we can have real Forward Thinking feedback from stakeholders of what the community would like us to be mindful of and looking at as we look to set our 3 to 5e long range planning goals for

019our strategic plan next I just want to up uh highlight some upcoming events we have uh East Middle School's production their School Musical will be uh Friday March 20th and two performances on Saturday March 22nd at both 2 and 700 p.m. they are presenting something rotten Jr uh later this month so you're welcome to get tickets if you're schedule allows you to see our awesome students at East Middle School and then also just wanted to draw your attention to some other things going on this month this week is National foreign language week so there's a variety of events that our world language teachers have planned this week just a reminder that on Friday we're hosting our superintendent conference day so we have no students in attendance on Friday March 7th then coming up uh we

020have two United uh band concerts we have a band concert and an orchestra concert on both March 11th and March 18th at East Middle and East Senior if you're not familiar with these events this is an opportunity for our middle school students to play side by side with our high school students and the goal of that program is really to increase retention in our music programs that our middle schoolers become really excited to stay in the program and continue on playing their instrument at the high school level on Thursday March 20th we have a redistricting committee that committee meeting is from 5: to 7:00 p.m. and the committee will be taking some time during that meeting to give thought and consideration to the feedback that we're currently Gathering and then lastly just to reiterate our

021School Musical that we have at East Middle School March 21st through 22nd thank you thank you Ed we um we should do like a season pass like shades for our musicals we what do we have we have five going this year right if you count the middle school or the elementary school one yeah that's awesome and and actually two at West West did one in the fall as well date instead of a play dat did uh yeah okay that's six we can do like a season pass anyway on on the board president's report um I want to picky back on you and thank the registering reconfiguration committee um last week I believe we had a work session I think it was last week it feels like it was where we looked into we heard from

022them we kind of got caught up on what's going on and then two nights later we had a meeting the um the public forum and um it was a lot and then and these people are meeting every month for multiple hours so I'm really as a board I want to just give a shout out to everyone involved in that committee and how much work they put in in the past I've been involved in them I know it's a lot so their dedication to this district and improving it is um is is it's not unnoticed and I don't know that we can really do much more than maybe one of these days I got to buy my coffee or something because they're long nights I'm sure um and of course Tony day who's uh you know

023the captain of the ship with that program I do appreciate it so that's it board presid for report we will move on to public comments if we have any I have not been handed a list of names there's not a a parade if people looking to come up Mr cervone is there anything down there okay anyone from the audience care to have anything to say no okay then I don't have to read my speech we'll move on to the consent agenda if I could have a motion please on consent agenda which is items 3 through 7 I'll make the motion Jeremy motion to approve to approve 3 through 7 Sarah with a second all in favor I anyone opposed passes 60 going to do our um recognition yes thank you thank you Nicole if you

024don't mind just pulling up the Personnel recognition and as they're transitioning to do that I actually um left out one slide my final slide of my superintendent update I wanted an opportunity to thank the board uh the board supported my attendance uh this past weekend at the nisus winter Institute uh so I had the pleasure to go out to Albany Saturday evening and participated in a variety event of events there a few that I wanted to highlight for you that I was able to participate in I'm a member of the leaf um board for ncus and we had a board meeting uh on Sunday morning I'm also a board member of naawa which is the New York State associate from women administrators and I participated in their board meeting on Sunday morning and then Sunday

025uh and Monday there was a variety of learning opportunities for school superintendents and assistant superintendents to participate in uh I participated in sessions in leadership but the ones that were most interesting to me I attended a few sessions on artificial intelligence and the use and how we can utilize artificial intelligence as a tool for us to be more effective in the work that we do as school leaders and also how to utilize artificial intelligence in the classroom with our students um and so I had the opportunity to be among some of the leaders not only in the state but in the The Nation on these topics and we'll be looking to do some work with our leadership team this summer in that area and then I also uh participated in sessions on employee benefits for

026individual and collective bargaining agreements so thank you again to the board for your support of my attendance in these learning sessions much appreciated thank you for and now I'll ask Dr Cerone to um join us as we recognize our Personnel appointments those that the board just took action on we have a number of new people joining our team and Dr Sone has a few words to welcome them thank you very much I always appreciate this opportunity uh my understanding is none of our appointments are here but if someone is here and I'm unaware of that you please stand to be recognized okay well I'm sure they're tuning in they're all watching from home yes apprciate should we I think we should go back on the vot on for no some are bus drivers on there

027we don't go back on anything got a point out it's it's great to see multiple bus drivers on this list but certainly welcome to our labor Subs bus drivers uh we have seen an influx in applicants across various positions and I'm grateful for that and I think it's a wonderful place to work so congratulations to all of our new appointments and thank you for having me up thank you John and I Echo what John said we welcome all of these new teammates um to West senica and hope they have a long and happy career [Applause] here thank you we will move on to new business may have a motion on 8 a through 8 e [Applause] I'll make the motion to approve I'll okay you know what I'm going to hold on I didn't hear

028you guys you didn't say anything um I want to read a couple of um things from the resolution that we have to read um we'll read it before I make the motion so you guys can hear it clearly you've all read through the stuff that's been emailed out to you and you have it but a public reading is nice um the first one is the capital outlay project it's uh uh number it's number c we go letter letter C instead our resolution dated March 4th 2025 of the Board of Education of the West son cenal School District Erie County New York the district declaring the district's proposed Capital outlay project involving modest upgrades and improvements at The District's Northwood Elementary School building to be a type two action under uh SRA I get that right

029s seeker seeker sorry seq and authorizing and directing the inclusion of funding for such project in the district's proposed 2025 2026 budget and then everything underneath and then the other one is D um why am I getting C of seeker seeker seeker resolution proposed 2025 Auditorium infrastructure project and oh wait I'm not going to read under where is right okay I'll go under e sorry I'm going to jump to e resolution calling for a public vote on proposed 2025 Auditorium infrastructure project a resolution dated March 4th 2025 calling for the submission of the voters of the West Sonica Central School District Erie County New York of a proposition authorizing a 2025 Auditorium infrastructure project at the estimated maximum cost of 8 million that's A8 uh $8 m5000 as the number5 $88,500 th000 and directing that

030such proposition be included in the district's notice of annual meeting and vote you did it I did it I'm proud of myself um okay so those are part of what we are asking you guys to uh make a motion on so that would be a motion on 88 through ad I'll make the motion and I'll second oh Sarah we l on a second um any discussion on any of the items in here anything um obviously I want to thank uh whoever did the donation let's find that out 1,500 from the Northwood Elementary PTO to help fund their steam night activities and vendors on March 8th 2025 how I mean that's really cool I know our PTO and PT do a lot so try to recognize them and I love seeing donations um anything else okay

031all in favor I any one opposed pass the 6 thank you for your support just to um let those in attendants know and to remind the board the capital outlay project that you just um approved the resolution for allows us to replace exterior doors at Northwood Elementary School so that entire project will focus on exterior doors at Northwood and of course I think you know the details of the $8.5 million Capital Improvement project for our four auditoriums to focus on the rigging Sound and Lighting at both our East and West Middle School auditoriums and East and West High School auditoriums so thank you very much for your support of that yeah going back to how much we love our musicals and those rooms are used every day so appreciate that okay um this is item

0328f uh if anyone is aware of uh the what we're doing here um there seed there three seats open on the area1 Bose board and the terms that begin July 1st 2025 we've received three letters of Interest so I'm looking for a motion to nominate Mary busy Mark Mecca and cam Hall um those are the people we've received the letters from um so I'm going to ask if anyone wants to make the motion second discuss I'll make the motion to nominate U Mr Hall mrca and Miss bie excellent a second second okay is there any discussion on the matter it's nice to see Mary's name popping up again everywhere she was a longtime member of the board I know she's been about the postage for a while um all in favor I I anyone opposed

033passes 60 next I am looking for a motion on items 8 G and [Applause] 8h and uh eight eight he G is the people that we're um going to use when we run our um budget vote and 8h the student calendar I think that's an exciting one to approve I'll make a motion to approve 8 G and H Laura may I have a second Sarah uh anyone have any discussion on anything for that excellent all in favor I anyone oppose final report oh sorry now we can move on to irie1 bosies I believe we have Michael kwana he here going to come up we have a seat for you actually with a name tag oh thank or unless you want to stand at the podium it's up to you stand there whatever you're the boss

034Dr kapana is the ar1 Bose's district superintendent and he's joined here tonight by members of his leadership team I want to thank Dr kapana for being here tonight and also for the support of of he and his team as I transitioned here to West Sena so thank you for being here thank you I just um want to thank the uh Dr kruer and the West senica board of education for having us here this evening um it's been a while since I think irone has been out to talk with the board directly so we appreciate the opportunity to be here I want to introduce um our team as well here our leadership team so we have Miss Anita trout who's our assistant superintendent for instructional Services Mr Jim filetti our executive director for administration and operations

035and Dr Lizabeth free who is our uh assistant superintendent for the win Rick and Technology Services um sorry just the slide deck could you pull up Dr kapana slideshow thank you so to start with you know the the goal of our conversation this evening and presentation is just to give some updates in terms of our organization and of course that starts with the idea that we are an extension of our 19 partner school districts um we are a service organization that is focused on supporting all needs of not only your students but your faculty and staff through the bosis Cooperative model so our goal tonight is to share just a little bit about um the organization itself uh high level around Bose's Aid and how that is a benefit to um our school districts across

036the state um and certainly here in West senica and then talk about some of our regional work and priorities that we believe um are focusing on the needs of students and Educators from all across Western New York and some previews of work that's emerging across e one so to start with um no different than uh sorry there we go um so we function through inter Municipal collaboration that's the notion through the Cooperative services that we provide and um there are many of them we're able to leverage not only technology professional development student programming for k12 and also um all sorts of supports for back office work and administrative operations from our component districts and the notion of that is that there are 37 bosies in the state we are one of 37 we are also

037one of the 12 uh Regional information centers which provides all the technology connect activity and um those important pieces we know for our students in our classrooms today we have just uh right around 1,200 employees in the organization our Board of Education um and thank you for uh the motion this evening for our board we have six current members of the board um that are representative of our 19 component districts uh they are an incredible group of leaders and support for the work that we do on behalf of all children across Western New York so we thank them for their efforts and service our organization at a high level breaks out into three different branches so to start with we have our administrative Services which Jim will talk a little bit about the win Rick

038and Technology services and then [Applause] instruction so the administrative Services aren't the the most glamorous services in the world uh but they are the ones that um we feel are are very important um they back office and central office operations so anything from uh policy Services uh we do student hearings so we do support in both HR and and the principles and in schools um we we do section six in ecic so we do Sports coordination sub uh sub Recruitment and sub uh calling in for um when teachers are absent uh we have a a fairly robust uh communication division um that provides um in in-house special IST uh four districts and we place the specialists in the district and they provide the um the web support and the the media for for that District

039um and one that that's been growing a lot lately is you know and many of you probably have seen that we it's hard to find positions uh in the business office so we do Central Business Office support uh we run um both payroll and accounts payable for for many districts [Applause] so similar to Jim um technology Services often are a lot of the behinde scenes folks um working within your district and supporting hardware and software uh implementation and that can be anything from the instructional software pieces to uh Finance systems that the district may use cafeteria systems your special education system um I think probably um most folks are most familiar with our data services we do house the data warehouse on behalf of the 12 Ricks from across the state so all of the

040data that's reported through your student Management Systems uh filters through us and then up to the State education department for um federal and state reporting purposes uh more recently uh we've gotten involved in the cyber security business so we spend a lot of time ensuring that all of that data that we are collecting that your districts are collecting um on students is protected uh through Ed law 2D in the part 121 regulations and then lastly the winny Rick also has the distinct pleasure of working with teachers and administrators through instructional supports um and here are some familiar faces that you might recognize if you've been out and about in The District um Brian Blazek who's been with the team for a very long time is a CSO model schools Tech integrator and so um he

041really supports software programs with teachers in classrooms Nicole Kerner is our uh resident expert around um the culturally responsive and sustaining education work uh she does a lot of our diversity educ um equity and inclusion work as well and she's also trained in restorative practices Molly Gallagher um Maria la Ronda and Greg rosowski round out the team and support on a variety of different um district-wide initiatives including mtss multi-tier systems of support and special education Services which are so important for our students and our teachers to be working um and trained well in supporting our special education students good evening uh my name is Anita Troutman as Dr Keana Sheridan I have the privilege of overseeing Career and Technical education where we uh provide services to over 2500 students here across Erie County at our

042three locations of Kenton harness uh Potter in our newest location at calpan in addition to that I also oversee the exceptional education department providing the alternative and special education students currently at our Edge campus marville campus North towns and Winchester and then also we have our Workforce Development uh programs which are all housed now on the corner of Walden and Harlem um in Chik daaga so we actually have a north campus and a South Campus [Applause] they're giving me the money piece so um Bose Aid you know it's kind of a Mis Noma right Bose's doesn't receive the aid the school districts do and it's it's based off of the money that you spend with us so for example um the way our services are broken out they're broken out into an administrative side a

043program or service side and a capital and Rental side um based off of what um what senica has purchased uh because it is an expense driven Aid uh you will be getting in in 23 24 um you you receive 5,162 773 that was based off of a return rate of 65.8% so for every dollar you're going to get 65 almost 66 cents back um the way the a is is broken up for school districts it is based off of wealth it's a wealth that's on property values so what you you're probably going to see is is that the property values is they're they're climbing in the area sometimes you're your Aid ratios start to decrease a little bit so you may see that over time um but um it is also based off of an

044attendance or an enrollment number the it's called resident weighted average daily attendance so uh what they the state does is it Compares West Sonica to a state average and so if you look wealthier uh your um your Aid ratio goes down if you appear a little bit um poor um then what'll end up happening you get a a well or an aid ratio such as 65.8 which is a pretty good Aid ratio in Erie County we're talking about about 50% so you're a little bit above uh the average for Erie County so in addition to um all the different programs and services you know our our role as well is to make sure that we're connecting the school systems across the region and our students and so we facilitate a variety of monthly meetings Dr

045Krueger comes on a monthly basis we meet as a group of the 19 School District superintendant from across irie1 um that usually follows in addition to my role with the irie1 bosis organization I serve as the commissioner of education's Representative to the field here and to our 19th School District so once a month I travel to Albany and meet with the State education department and the commissioner for around two days and then on the heels of that conversation come back with our districts and make sure that the districts are informed in addition to that and I would extend to the board and certainly to the West senica School Community um it's really important the State education department the Board of Regents and legislators are hearing back from Western New York school systems and leaders and

046boards to know as they develop reforms and initiatives what the impact will be for us as a school system and for our students and our teachers and leaders so as you are uh working through processing those reforms coming down the pike things like the blue ribbon commission and the New York inspirers grad measure changes uh we'll talk a little bit about regionalization uh the literacy shifts the math shifts that are coming those important components we want to make sure part of my role is to bring that feedback back to the department in addition to that we facilitate leadership teams from across um all different roles so idab is our assistant superintendent and directors for curriculum and instruction special education advisory committee the business officials HR and labor relation Specialists so we really serve in that

047convenor role for the region in addition to that some work that we're really proud of as an organization on behalf of all students um and and and teachers and leaders one is P20 we know how tough it is to find um qualified certified teachers support staff uh Rel Rel ated Services administrators and so we are directly partnering with higher education Partners the universities and colleges in Western New York and our school districts to make sure that we are building and expanding that pipeline so that every classroom has a qualified certified teacher and every school has the supports that are necessary so that work comes down to just making those connections again and as the board of regions are recommending certification reforms we're responding to that and preparing for that in addition the smart collaborative is

048another effort we've taken on we're in the third year of that really focused on um our mental health and supporting students and um faculty and staff in that work so we have partnered with Erie County and the county executive's office along with all of our school districts across Erie County and we pull together usually four times a year and you have not only the schools but you also have office of Social Services and mental health and the providers and Prof professionals from those fields coming and meeting with the school system so our social workers counselors leaders are able to understand how those systems can better connect to support all of our [Applause] families and then uh very exciting project that we're uh moving forward with is the expansion of our services and programming particularly for

049supporting um our special education exceptional education students from across Western New York so um as Dr kaana shared we have some exciting news about our project and our mission so our goal is to create a centralized state-of-the-art facility uh founded on research-based design in partnership with component districts where students with different abilities and their families can thrive in a community that instills pride and a sense of belonging [Applause] uh we currently have a pref a preferred location which is a single story um facility that is safely nestled conveniently uh access to all 19 components here in Western New York the footprint meets our need and also allows for room to grow in collaboration with numerous stakeholder groups many of them even from your own districts we are designing student spaces and learning Labs specifically to

050meet those unique needs of our um special ed population including special spaces for that um around apartment living home economics Labs a school store um a student cafeteria but in addition to the cafeteria which will be designed on a smaller size scale um smaller dining rooms because we have a lot of students who are not ready for that cafeteria yet uh sensory and common Comming rooms and then research design speech occupational and physical therapy spaces for our students uh this re research back design space will also support skill development daily living and and work-based learning skills for our students with different disabilities to allow for maximum capacity sorry to allow for maximum capacity this campus um will also uh include Courtyards to ensure that all of our students have access to Natural lighting during the

051day but in addition to that it also serves for a safe play space in an outdoor in the school but still outdoor setting for our students Jim um you know you know is a need I mentioned uh what we're trying to do is is make sure that we're meeting the needs of the the districts of Western New York um and part of what we're we're having is is and many schools are finding out that you know there's there's a a rapid increase in the the number of students that need um special services uh right now we have a capacity of around 514 students um with the addition of this new building uh we would be looking at adding an additional 100 0 or up to 180 students uh bringing it up to 694 students uh

052next okay so um this is a big undertaking so um we started this process about a year and a half ago uh with a superintendent focus group um you know and we recognized early on that we were going to need uh some professional help and and services so we uh contracted with a uh company called buffalo uh you know construction uh consultants and um we did that because they uh not only work with a lot of districts in Western New York uh they've worked with us so they had a familiarity of about our programs uh but they also have worked with a lot of developers um their Partners uh came from simonelli and so their their knowledge of the Developers realy uh was was important as we were moving forward um right now we're at

053a process that we're finalizing um our lease uh negotiations with with the developer and we will be um moving quickly and we've been working with the Architects um on the project uh for them to start um looking at going to um the local board um and um uh that it'll be the town um oh boy um the the oh the town Authority uh as we're looking for um the approval so we can start the construction project and the intent is to have this building open by September of 2026 or [Applause] thereabouts um I would just add that you know in this we are really basing this off of the data from our partner school districts we know that um certainly we want our all students to have programming in their home school district but when

054we think about the Continuum of special education services bosis is often the next uh place for a lot of the students to be referred and right now we're not able to meet the need um or the projected data for uh those enrollments and in addition to that the needs of the children we're serving are changing and have been changing and I think that pandemic and other factors have come into that but we are really trying to build something that is unique and built specifically for the children that we're serving in the families not only the kids but also their families and so very excited about this project it is a significant undertaking and it is not without the support of our 19 School boards and superintendents that this work can move forward and so we

055appreciate your continued consider eration uh last but not least in um is regionalization and probably didn't start off as the most popular Topic in the state but um we have been working really closely uh at the request of the State education department to look at ways to bring school systems together and focusing really primarily on two areas Equitable access for students and efficiencies and so what we've done is we've worked directly with our superintendents and um initial meeting with the the boards of Education board president was invited and have since moved into multiple meetings after that with the district leadership teams to look at the different responses to um the work and where we might go as a region and the notion is that this plan should ultimately reflect the needs that are unique to

056Western New York schools so our timeline with this plan um we appreciate all 19 of our school districts completed the strength and needs assessment this was around a 250 question um survey all areas not only from academic but also the capacity of the district some of the social cultural pieces and looking at overall efficiency so we appreciate the team from West senica and completing that that was done and um turned in by January 15th um we had our initial convening again back in October with the board president or an alternate and the superintendent from each district um we had a recently All eie County Schools meeting where we invited District leadership teams to assess the details from the strength and needs assessment and try to discern some tangible areas where we'd like to pursue cooperation

057across the school systems and to be clear this is not a Bose service or a Bose's program this is us bringing school systems together to connect school systems in ways that you can share and support opportunities for all kids um there is an interim progress report that is due um I have to submit that as the the district superintendent to the commissioner by uh April and so we will work on the highlevel um areas of concentration for that and then ultimately the regionalization plan will go into the commissioner of Education in October each individual district will affirm the pieces of that regionalization plan that you would like to participate in and I also would just share that there are conversations happening around regionalization and opportunities there that make may not be part of the plan

058but ultimately are other connections that school systems are going to make on behalf of students and staff and so it's uh challenging work because it has not been a very specific script that's been laid out for us to pursue but at the same time there's an opportunity there for us to make sure that we're maximizing opportunities for kids in addition and this is a key point the commissioner clarified in memo that participation in these plans is optional for school districts and again that's the piece where the districts will affirm their participation moving forward and with that happy to take any questions or comments from the board thank you for presentation I've never been to the one up on Jenna SE your location right that I that opened a few years ago right kelman yeah yeah

059love love hearing that now I'm excited about the other location that's going up um and I do appreciate you commenting on the last things I've had people approach me and say things like we're not going to have one District in Erie County and they're like they hear regionalization I think they get kind of worried that we're going to have one superintendent for all of like eie County just one school district and so it's it's nice to see I mean I think that's a great idea though how try to find a way to collaborate so thank you for addressing that absolutely thank you for being here and I just want to I know you mentioned it in your presentation the undertaking of trying to find a new facility that really meets the needs of our increasing

060special ed population I know it's a huge undertaking for your team but we have felt the impact of that here locally in this school district the board is well aware that we started this fall with several kindergarteners on weight lists awaiting programs and it's not due to us not wanting to provide the needed education to students but there are weight lists through bosies and also private agencies so your response to that need is going to help not only West senica but all 19 component districts we've had a great partnership with bosis using our Winchester Academy I know we're we're in discussion of what might our partnership look like once your new facility is open um but we certainly look forward to continuing our partnership because that's the best way we can meet the needs of

061our kids so thank you for being here tonight night thank you have a great evening thank you we'll move on to our budget update I'll hand it back over to you and Mr theal thank you well if on your way up if you could grab the remote that would be helpful thank you oh thank you [Applause] so will and I have some updates as you may know this has been kind of an ongoing budget presentation where we're adding the foundation and extending and adding to it as we have details uh and as our budget picture comes into more clear light at our last presentation I had shared with you the results of the thought exchange at the time we had 113 respondents that engaged in the thought exchange that is now up to 191 participants

062the themes of feedback are still the same uh the same messages around uh sensitivity for class size at the elementary level was shared advocacy for the Visual and Performing Arts and then also a resonating theme from our community around fiscal responsibility and that our taxpayers are expecting that we have fiscal uh responsibility in the way that we operate I was able to take that and with the help of an artificial intelligence tool built into um thought exchange it gave us this um great way to view the feedback what are the differences in stakeholder feedback that we received and what is some common ground some ground where where both sides May um be seeing this through the same light so for example on one side we have advocacy for increasing student programs and sensitivity to class

063size that's specifically summarized there on the left hand side where music and arts programming is highlighted the challenge that we have as a school district is balancing that with the voices that were expressed on the right hand side a desire and advocacy for us to employ reasonable taxes and reasonable spending um and so where there was Common Ground from both of these sides is that both sides agree that students um students should be at the heart of our decision and programming that directly benefits our students while being considerate of the financial constraints that we have we still have um available for community members as an increased way for us to enhance our Communications with the community one of the pieces of feedback from that thought exchange was that our parents who still have prek through

064grade 12 students feel connected to us they receive emails and updates from our schools School Community but someone for example who has a child that graduated a few years ago is not getting that same level of communication so that led us to problem solve and we have launched a community email group where individuals in the community who do not have schoolage children can still get information that would be relevant for community members through this community email sign up uh it will be something that is featured um or actually was published in Friday's West Sonica be and so the Greater Community can be aware of this new um communication tool and if they would like to increase their communication with the school district they can certainly sign up to be part of that email group so

065in responses um to the budget development process and our thought exchange I think some of the reflections that we have is that there is um our response as a district to some of the feedback around class sizes is it's particularly aligned with the work of our redistricting committee that is precisely why we are exploring redistricting um the advocacy for uh investment in our music and Visual and Performing Arts is why we are going out to voters on May 20th to enhance and improve the infrastructure in our four secondary level auditoriums and longterm the investment in our school facilities is something that will be guided by our building condition survey that building condition surve survey which assessed all of our buildings this fall we anticipate having the results of that survey to us in April for

066our review and for the review of our facilities group and then lastly our goal in presenting a a budget to the board of education and to our community is being sensitive to the voices of our taxpayers and residents and we will be proposing a budget that is within and under the tax cap our budget goals and Milestones remain unchanged this is the running timeline that we have been sharing with you throughout the budget development process we are uh here at the first draft budget at March uh 2025 so you can expect that we will be presenting that to you so that you see where we are with anticipated revenues and anticipated expenditures and any budget Gap that we're anticipating at this point and we'll be able to go over the details of that for you

067tonight keeping our budgetary goals um budgetary goal and guideline number one are the instructional priorities that we have articulated those have remained unchanged and we've previously reviewed those with the Board of Education in addition to our budgetary guideline that speak to our operations things like the maintenance of our facilities and our equipment the reinvestment and investment in technology in addition Transportation Main maining our existing Fleet of transportation and you'll see as part of our budget proposition to voters replacement of school buses so that we can maintain our buses and replace our school buses that are are aging and in need of replacement and then certainly long-term Financial stability as a district we are always sensitive to our use of reserves and the maintenance of Reserve funds and presenting a plan that will not only satisfy

068us for meeting our needs for the 2526 school year but will also position us in a good position long term for the long-term Financial Health of the district our intentions around communication and proactively and openly communicating throughout this process and communicating in a way that is transparent has led us to do a few different things this year for example we launched this fall a budget advisory committee the budget advisory committee has been meeting throughout the year and gets a preview of things before we share them with the board of education so that we can get feedback from that group which might influence our next steps our publication of budgetary documents um are in the works right now we had a save the date postcard that was already mailed out to Residents but we'll be continuing

069to um enhance our communication so that we can be doing so in a very open and transparent way I'm going to turn it over to will now to discuss some of the details of the budget development process and then I'll have some comments uh as we go on in the presentation thank you Dr Krueger um we'll start with Appropriations again this slide hasn't changed uh salary and benefits Bose's budget um other codes codes 200 through 489 they all have specific meetings which you can see attached uh Debt Service budget and transfers is the way a School District budget is pulled together um we have not changed this slide except for the little note at the bottom this slide is based on a rollover of all existing positions and does not factor in retirements um retirements

070remain under review we look we're looking at a variety of uh new position requests and support of special education and other services so we've got all that together and we'll be making decisions on those in the coming weeks one of the things that I'll just add to this is that we're really working under the the notion of being as Staffing neutral as possible so in order to respond to the increased need of special education we are scrutinizing and analyzing our retirements that we have or other vacancies to really determine is that vacancy in need of filling and can we respond to the increased special education needs that we have in a different way this is just a graphic representation of the healthc care cost you can see that they largely split between the teachers uh

071unit cost that's the Wisa benefit trust and our self-funded plan um in a small piece for the Wisa or administrator's benefit trust um you'll probably see these numbers do better on the paper I apologize it's just a lot of data to be there um again these haven't changed I will tell you that uh as we talk about budget uh deficit at the end of the slideshow um this will be the area we will be focusing on uh we've already begun having discussions with various departments and buildings across the district uh looking to see what expenses here can be cut back and curtailed for the current budget of the Year our Bose's budget is uh being developed currently uh last year we spent we're spending this year about around $12 million uh we've tried to hold

072that flat the last couple years the goal this year is to have it flat once again um special ed services are a little less than a third of this CTE services are a large number buried in this budget as well we have 200 students currently in the bosis half day CTE programs up from 171 in the past excuse me uh we also all our technology software and infrastructure that we can purchase through bosis leveraging the bosis aid which uh Mr filetti talked about in the previous uh presentation we try to do that to get as much Aid back as we can on these services this is the uh debt service line uh currently we're planning on borrowing about $27.2 million uh this spring usually in June um those monies will support the Final Phase of

073a 2028 2023 project 2020 it should say 2018 project not 2028 there you go it's first typo the day and uh 2023 project um that's a new money of 15.7 million and a refunding of 11.5 million we B we borrowed last year we're currently borrowing on one-year Bond anticipation notes because of the interest rate environment it's very volatile right now and I don't think today's actions are ni speeech will assist with that so uh we're going to continue to vrow short term and look for more rate stability down the road it gives us a total appropriation uh of $164 million up about 5% over last year graphically represented you can see that salary and benefits are if I follow the Li and share of those expenses um and that other category the red category is

074where we'll be focused on on looking for some efficiency going forward there any questions about the appropriation side and where we are at this point again this is a first draft to be followed by a second draft later this month and then hopefully a final version early in April for the board to adopt um Revenue comes locally Statewide and federally local share obviously the largest contributor there is a tax levy uh Erie County sales tax is also a very heavily weighted contri at about $9.5 million and so we'll we'll run through those slides next this is our tax cap um again either I'm getting older or the print's getting small uh 2.75% increase uh $1.9 million taking us to about 71.8 million um a little bit higher than last year because of the change in

075the capital exclusion which I believe is on the next slide that's the capital exclusion calculation think of this as all Debt Service payments principal and interest less all Aid received that applies to those payments so we get about $6.4 million in Aid against $9.1 million of total uh Debt Service expenditures um that includes some Debt Service that's included in the Po's budget remember uh Mr fed lady spoke about Capital costs that are in there and rental costs and a portion of those are allocatable to this formula as well this is our state aid for the current year the governor's proposal based on uh data from November uh is at $6 69.2 million historically we budgeted A number close to the governor's proposal when the State final numbers are available we can adjust to the State

076final numbers but there has been situations in the past where they weren't available prior to budget adoption um and we'll talk a little bit about state aid in our Summit of slide at the end there State a highlighted there in the middle uh total revenues before any application of fund balances of just over 155 million or 4% growth from last year again that's 2.7 5% growth on the real property tax levy and uh the rest of the growth is a little over 4% on state [Applause] aid graphically represented that's the tax levy in Blue uh New York state aid in the uh pumpkin color and you can see that the Dynamics of our school district financing have changed over the last five or six years going to a 6040 split local to state to a

077current year expected 5545 supp so the the state has increased their share of the revenues to the district uh disproportionately to the local share um the slide this is the first time we bring uh revenue and Appropriations together so there's the revenue number of 55 and the expenditure number of 164 that leaves us in initial first draft budget deficit of $8.3 million uh last year for reference we ended the budget deliberations with a deficit of just under 6.4 million and we allocated uh reserves of the same amount to cover any deficit that we ran the district has a fund balance as you can see below as audited as of June 30th 2024 of $35 million so we do have fund balance available to carry deficit operations as we continue to move the district forward the

078question of the day is strategies for closing the budget Gap I spoke a moment ago of New York state aid um these Aid runs are updated every month by the by the uh State education department so the governor made her proposal based on November's data the last the latest data in February indicates we'll receive an additional $1.4 million in building Aid so we could choose to increase the our revenues by 1.4 and put that against our our budget deficit that it is that is money we will receive and I don't have a problem doing that and we'll we'll just keep monitoring that number to make sure that that is what the state approves on the budget time we talked a few minutes ago about looking at those non-personnel related cost codes 200 through 489 um

079we are talking to departments and making progress and and widowing down those numbers and we be able to present the budget advisory uh smaller numbers on several of those codes and to to the board itself at the end of the month so I anticipate some success on that line in moving and moving the deficit to a lower amount so there two two opportunities there uh the superintendent spoke about how we're scrutinizing retirements and needs within the district and how a retirement in one area May fund a need in another area we're we're intensely looking at that and we'll have more to say on that at the March meeting second March meeting um TRS has approved a lower rate than we had in our original budget forecast uh we I think we had 10% in our

080original estimate it's around 97 now so that could be another $300,000 in savings assuming we have steady stable uh salaries uh to consider um and fund balance uh you remember we talked about we put $6.4 million of fund balance against the current Year's budget we file final cost reports on uh two phases of the 2018 Capital project in December that is going to generate about $2.5 million more in state revenues in this current budget year than we had in the budget so I just wanted to let the board know that instead of anticipating a deficit as large as 6.4 million that 2.5 should directly reduce that and then if if we continue with our budget discipline for the end of the year I would think that you know we would still spend reserves a net

081fund balance loss year-over-year but to a much smaller extent than $6.4 million so the long-term plan is to continue to scrutinize the budget present the board A reduced budget Gap in March ask for feedback on whether we're at an appropriate level or not work towards a final presentation in early April uh at which time we hope the board adopts and we get busy uh working to get the budget approved and and so the point point that will is making here there's only so many variables that we can control you either reduce your expenses or increase revenue and of course with the tax cap there's a limit on the revenue that a school district can can increase and maintain um if we receive higher state aid numbers that will certainly help our situation tremendously and often

082the final state aid number is higher than the governor's initial proposal but we're trying to be very conservative in our planning right now because what we can plan on is that Governor proposal um it would not be prudent for us to hope we get more and then what happens if we don't so we're working under conservative numbers so that we can responsibly plan for a budget and doing what we can to trim our expense expenses which we'll talked about whether it's scrutinizing supplies and equipment expenses or also Personnel expenses what we can do to try to trim those um to reduce that Gap that we're facing on the capital Outlet project thank you for approving the seet for this project um it will address the Northwood Elementary doors primarily uh there's some outside doors that

083are deeply in need of repair and we we look forward to getting that off the checklist it it'll certainly drop off any item that incurs and on the building condition survey again this is part of our budget based on your vote earlier tonight so the budget passes this passes automatically and it just gets worked on immediately our next proposition that will go before the voters would be a proposition to use about half of our remaining bus Reserve to purchase buses um M Jones has looked at the fleet and you know made her analysis and recommendations uh two 65 passenger one wheelchair bus 3 30 passenger and 235 passengers this number has moved around somewhat as we basically had to find available chassis I mean it's difficult sourcing buses these days uh we continue to buy

084uh buses fueled uh with gas or diesel um and not electric at this point we're we're not prepared at this point we don't have infrastructure and I I would suspect that'll have to be hammered out after we find out whether any of the rules and regulations on that change as a result of the budget deliberations in Albany and uh what our what our building condition survey says in our next Capital project vote beyond the $85 million Auditorium infrastructure and I'm not sure if the board is aware there is a proposed bill right now Senator galin proposed a bill to make the movement towards zero emission bus is optional for school districts we have to wait and see whether or not that uh is supported and Garners some support So this I I think right now

085it's prudent for us to plan on on what we need as a school district and certainly we do not yet have the infrastructure electric wise or in our within our bus garage the lifts for our buses are not um designed to be able to tolerate the weight of a zero emission bus and so we'll certainly keep an eye on this so that we can get ourselves in the best position long term if we should have to move towards zero emission buses the 22 2025 Auditorium infrastructure project thank you for your support earlier and passing both the uh seeker and the bond resolution um we'll be working with you on the write on materials to advertise and get the Salient facts on this out of the public um and uh a copy of the original presentation

086is highlighted and that's a live link and it appears uh this will appear as well we only put it on the website um for the public to access um want to go through this one sure so next steps um on Friday March 7th during our superintendent's conference day I'm going to be delivering a state- of the district address to our faculty and staff and sharing some information within that presentation on our budget and additional proposals the proposal for the purchase of school buses and the auditorium infrastructure project I think it's critically important that our faculty and staff is aware of what's going on not only are many of them taxpayers and residents but they also speak to taxpayers and residents at arrival and dismissal and on a regular basis so that'll be an opportunity for

087our faculty and staff to learn about this year's budget but other things that we have going on currently within our school district like redistricting efforts and also our strategic plan on March 18th that is the next meeting of our budget advisory Council on March 25th we'll be presenting again to the Board of Education a draft budget hopefully honing in and fine-tuning some of the numbers as we continue to get additional information we just learned recently of another retirement so another factor for us to consider so those things are evolving as we develop our budget and become much more crystal clear as we get closer to the board adopting the budget and then on April 8th we anticipate the final draft that would be presented to the Board of Education um certainly along the way if

088you have any questions or feedback for us we are open and receptive in wanting of that um but at this point I'll just see if there's any questions from the the board for will or for me regarding where we are presently in the budget process I have um thank you this is a great presentation I really appreciate it um and I appreciate the additional transparency that I know that um you guys have really tried to Foster with the community over the last year um two questions I had one uh and I know that we probably don't know the answer to the first one um but when do we typically start to see that um state aid materialize uh more uh substantially I know sometimes it happens after the that yeah it really depends on when

089the budget is adopted sometimes we have what's referred to as an ontime budget and that's incredibly helpful to school districts because then we're going on solid numbers numbers that have actually been finalized through the budget process if it's not an ontime budget meaning it's after April 1 um we we would still be based on going on projections um so our hope is if we have an ontime budget we are certainly going to be talking about more solid numbers when it comes to any of those state aid numbers but otherwise we will be basing our budget on projections and having to do so in a very conservative manner will anything that you would add to that even after the state approves the budget it's still a projection because it's all based on what we actually get

090the following year is based on what we file in September so the number that would be solid there would be the Foundation aid number which is about 44 some million do of the budgeted number but all the other expense driven AIDS are based upon the actual expenses we incur so we'll file What's called the st3 report in September um prior to our audit results being available and then the final Aid calculations for transportation Bose special education will all be based on those but um I think that given our situation we need to be a little bit more aggressive than I would normally be in terms of booking revenues uh we were aggressive last year as well as increasing the interest portion of our budget revenues and our Medicaid portion of our budgeted Revenue so we

091we have been pushing the revenue side pretty hard um I think we'll be okay this year you know based on the additional state aid and I have no reason to believe that filing more final cost reports next December wouldn't again generate for us some additional Aid should some of the other expense categories FL so it's still a projection it would be nice to have on March 31st to budget adoption at the state and we can all you know cross our fingers thank you um I appreciate that my second question um has to do with the buses um I'm assuming that we are taking into consideration the redistricting work that we're doing um can you just explain a little bit more about how we're considering some of the options which are not yet final um as

092we start thinking about our bus needs sure I think Transportation has been a a theme throughout the conversations at the redistricting committee one of the things that that we're sensitive to is for us to do a thorough Transportation analysis that would be incredibly time and Manpower intensive and so at this point what we're attempting to do is to go from five proposed plans to get feedback from both the board and stakeholders through the feedback forums I described and try to narrow that down to fewer than five maybe two or three that would be truly viable options that that we are considering with serious consideration at that point then we will charge Jennifer Jones our transportation supervisor to do a transportation analysis so that it can be detailed and thorough on those but to send her

093off on a down a rabbit hole now with so many plans it would not I I don't think we would um have a solid analysis of any one plan it would be an inch deep and a mile long and so we need to narrow the number of plans and then really analyze whether or not it will be feasible with our current Fleet of buses some plans potentially could um alter the number of bus runs that we need in order to make that plan happen if we're talking about simple redistricting redrawing lines and some students go to a new neighborhood that we anticipate would be less impactful on Transportation than some of the reconfiguration plans make make require us to really rethink the way in which we transport our students and whether or not we maintain

094the four tiered system that we have currently so that analysis we know we need to do but it will have to come once we have only two or three plans to really do the Deep dive on it at that point makes sense thank you yeah sure on the uh Revenue slide uh the star reimbursement is blank for 2026 is that built into the property tax now or is it just right now it's on the levy line um this current year it dropped to about $7.8 million in sty because if you transfer ownership of property you no longer qualify for a startu against your school tax bill that's done directly by the state so it's not handled as part of your billing what happens now in the old process is you get a bill less star

095and then the state cuts us a check in January um under the new process you would get a bill there would be no star deduction and the state would cut you a check um in January so I don't have an accurate estimate of what the star number will be uh as we go forward we'll begin to get uh information on like a tenative tax rooll comes out of a town I think uh in May so that'll give us some feel as to what we're what we're dealing with there um but I would think that assuming that uh Equalization rates continue to increase our star numbers will continue to decrease they've been going down about at least $400,000 a year I think without booking any other questions I have just sorry one more question so um

096I know that federal aid is probably uncertain at this point and it seems like it's a relatively small portion of our budget do you anticipate at this time any significant changes there it it's small in the general fund budget that's basically Medicaid um on the federal funds budget which is not a voter approved um we received over $5 million in federal a split between Title One and idea funding for special education programs to the extent that any of those programs are in Jeopardy that those are expenses that would have to be absorbed by the general fund thank you they're essential they're essential expenses they're they're not expenses we would just do away with and really what we're talking about is those funds that support our our most vulnerable students our special education students and our

097students attending our Title One schools so it's not a luxury that we could simply later cut I would not recommend we simply later cut that unfortunately if we were to see a decrease in those federal funds we would have to find some offset within the budget it would mean Cuts elsewhere because we would have to maintain our programming for our special education students and other students so it would it would hurt if we if we had a reduction in federal aid great question though any other move okay we'll move on to see uh C uh smart schools Bond act and I'll ask uh Mr F to come up and have a seat okay great St and double sure thanks I'm going to let will talk about a lot of the details of the smart schools

098uh Bond act this is West senica's Second uh smart schools investment plan smart schools uh in general supports technology safety uh cameras things of that nature uh school districts can utilize it to uh make enhancements to their technology infrastructure servers Wi-Fi things of that nature so it does have a particular scope on what we can use the funds for and we have proposed how we'd like to invest These funds and utilize the smart schools uh funding that we have available to enhance our technology so I'll turn it over to will to talk about the details of that as Dr Krueger just said there's the eligible uh Services we can use this money for um our original allocation was just shorted of $4.2 million um and we can move ahead so spark schools investment plan one

099was approved in May of 2018 we spent almost $3.6 million of our allocation to do upgrades to our technology infrastructure we did not buy devices with it we we improved the network by which can handle more devices excuse me and the speed and Broadband capability given the changes in education can I turn to you for a second yes um I just want to point out how uh how much that's appreciated that the bond how long does the bond last for like how how long is it the state Bond yeah uh I think it was a 20e bond 20- year bond so again the the thing that I'm impressed with with what we did the board and administration is invest in something that's not going to be outdated in two or 3 years like buying the

100equipment and stuff I can't stress enough how much that's appreciated so appreciate that the infrastructure has been you know it's formed the backbone for almost everything we do in our in our building good invest speaking of backbone uh we use that infrastructure that wiring to do a a high school camera project uh that's just wrapping up now actually uh that when the weather breaks they'll be doing the final outdoor installation of some of the cameras high up on the high schools oversea parking lots and things like that and so really a pretty amazing resolution on these cameras covering all aspects of both uh high school buildings and we used a grant from the dormatory uh authority of the state of New York um to make that uh possible um can you go back one more

101second okay so uh in this current year well we'll be opening bids soon on the elementary camera or no we're going to be submitting soon the elementary camera project uh to state education department I would expect that uh we'll get that installed throughout the 2026 school year uh that will complete uh Elementary cameras at all five buildings as phase four of that project and we had a meeting the other day went over all the layouts with the principls um and so we're we're getting ready to go there so this uh smart schools investment plan number two we'll use the remaining funds just over $600,000 to do a high-tech security security cameras at West Middle and East Middle Schools um design the system design of parallel and coordinated with both the high school and Elementary School

102uh installations um we do go through the layouts as proposed by um the design Specialists with the school resource officers the administrators and anybody else in the building to make sure we've got um area of concern covered with the appr rate uh style and type of camera including outside spaces uh the elementary meeting took place like I said earlier was it last week and there was a lot of movement around of cameras uh because the designer doesn't really know where the woods are or where the playground is and those kinds of things and so uh principles and uh school resource officer had a a great deal of inlo um if approved this would go uh to state education for hopefully approval in early 26 with installation the summer of 26 smart schools has a process

103the process is is that we receive public comment on this plan um you can do so by mailing or emailing me um I will log that comment and keep it we will conduct a public hearing with the board at the April 8th meeting anybody who wishes to speak on the topic can speak we'll pass out the public comment as received um we will adjust our plan after that public hearing submit a final plan to the board for May 6th approval which would get us up and running on getting the design done for that project um and and moving for approval thank you will so just to underscore right now we are starting immediately in the 30-day public comment period so this allows us to get feedback from our stakeholders which is a requirement of this

104process so if there's any feedback we would take that under advisement as will said I just want to summarize by saying that this camera Expansion Project which entails uh will gave an overview of the plan for elementary schools and our two middle schools the plan and the placement of those cameras has been done in concert with Elementary principal input certainly our Middle School uh principal input and the school resource officers in those schools so we have taken their input and advisement as to where spots are where where cameras are most needed so that we can really concentrate on those areas having said that these uh this camera expansion will provide coverage for many many areas of our schools um areas where we don't have car cameras currently both interior and exterior so it will really

105enhance school safety um which is something that that we also heard through our stakeholder feedback and the thought exchange I think school safety is top of Mind of of parents Minds every day and this is a a great way to utilize funding available to us to enhance the safety in our schools excellent that any questions anyone else happy I I just have one question like a clarifying question um so with the cameras I am totally in agreement with the principles and the SRO having you know their input given who is that input given to and who actually has the final say to give the green light to go ahead and put those cameras there can the principal turn around in 3 weeks and say like skip any like you for example and just say no

106we want to move it from here to there no yeah KN knowing that that's been I think a paino previously in the district we've really strived to operate differently this year so rather than a principal meeting in isolation with Stark Technologies which may have happened in the past we held a meeting uh the meeting was held at the ebener building I see Mrs Ferry is in attendance tonight she was part of that meeting um all of the elementary principles were there I was there will was there our director of Technology Scott ferkins was there along with young and Wright and Stark Technologies mcar from facilities was in attendance our the way in which we're trying to operate now is under transparency and collaboration so that it's not one person in a room thinking this is

107the best plan and then hindsights 2020 or your SRO gets eyes on it and says why didn't you put a camera here that's what we're trying to avoid so there were 22 of us I believe if I'm not mistaken in the room when we met and youngan right now has the marching orders from me this is the plan unless it comes back to a larger group for review I would not want one person in isolation altering that plan once we've agreed upon the plan if we decide that there needs to be a revision to the plan we would again bring together a group to be able to review that what we want to do at the end of the day is make sure that we are making the best decisions with many thoughts and and

108Minds around it again as opposed to one or two people making a decision in isolation I appreciate you clarifying that and putting it out for the public to hear that it is a collaborative effort and I I think we've operated that way when we looked at the design of West senior's parking lot and some feedback came up around the the layout and entrance and exit of West senior's parking lot again rather than just a few people thinking this is a great idea we we pulled together a group of stakeholders and it does sometimes slow down the process and it entails um clearing schedules to get everyone together but in the end the hope and goal is that the decisions that we make are better and more informed decisions because we've looked at it from many

109different angles and many different perspectives my perspective as a school administrator is going to be very perspect different perspective than maybe an SRO and so we want to have different perspectives taken into consideration so that we come up with the best plan thank you you're welcome else I'm excellent thank you thank you we'll move on to Board of Education discussion does anyone um anyone have anything that they want to discuss we have nothing on the list and I don't I don't want to make that sound like like we we have nothing to talk about we're working so collaborative collaboratively with everyone all of our meetings that we're part of I'm just really impressed that like this used to be the time when we would bring stuff up we had issues with and we' work on

110it we seem to be doing a really great job of communicating and again even just the subcommittees were part of and all that so I don't make it sound like we're just blowing it off but nothing we seem to really need to discuss unless anyone's got something they want to bring up I do have one other question in regards to the budget do we have um an anticipated number of retirements versus is um last year we were constantly being given um information as far as possible areas we need to cut as far as the teacher positions went um I know it's not been laid out in this budget and that's not a place we're looking to make Cuts but do we expect that hopefully that will be an even that's that's what we're anticipating at

111this point we anticipate a a staffing neutral budget um the downside of that of course is there's advocacy for positions to be reinstated that were cut a year ago as you can see from tonight's presentation we're not in a position to financially be able to do that that any uh Staffing positions or analysis that we have is really shifting and reallocating of staff so it may not it may be not replacing a retirement in a particular area so that we can support a new need that that has come to light and come to the surface and specifically one that that I can highlight for you is special education we are looking to launch some small classes for our most intensively needy special education students in the younger grades that will require not only special education

112teachers but teacher aids to support those classrooms and of course with high need students they also have other needs like occupational therapy physical therapy Y and speech and so we are still striving to be Staffing neutral but in order to launch those new classrooms and that new program it will be with an offsetting uh reduction in another area but if you'd like data around our anticipated retirements that we have so far I can certainly share that with the board or will and I can work that into the next budget update so that you can see the numbers um in its totality I know you act on the retirements but when they come in peace meal one or two per meeting it may be hard for you to have a sense of the totality of of

113the numbers that we're anticipating and I did want to add something in just kind of an update on my time in Albany a couple weeks ago um we did Advocate on behalf of the Erie County Association of school boards and um all the local schools that we represented and met with numerous assembly uh men and women and a few Senators uh the two top topics that we were addressing was the Mandate for the zero emissions electric buses so we're really hopeful that that is pushed back and reconsidered just because that affects all the districts around here and that was certainly met with welcome welcome ears they all had great ideas and information and I think we're just waiting for something to come out of whether it is a percentage or get rid of it or

114whatever it might be but it is all on their uh Minds so we certainly advocated for that the other thing was the governor's mandate around uh the cell phone bands from Bell to Bell and we all wanted to really speak our peace about bringing that back to the local control um tying into budget considerations obviously the bus thing would be a big budget impact but so would this cell phone ban because we would have to purchase whether it's the lock bags or whatever it might be it would have a financial impact so we have also uh been very vocal about putting that in the control locally um as I know within our own District uh individual schools have different methods but some of them are very successful so it could be done uh in a

115way to meet uh needs financially but also um psychosocially I think as well and most importantly educationally where it's not an interruption to the class so I did just want to kind of update everybody on that uh it was it was a great time and getting to meet uh like I said our local reps I met with uh Mr Burke and Ryan uh along with the others from across the state so I appreciate your advocacy there's a few unfunded mandates facing us um if districts are looking to purchase tools to help them with the cell phone mandate that that certainly could be a burden on the budget in addition to the zero emission buses which uh you know is a noble and worthy uh aspirational goal but practically speaking it would be a huge strain

116on our budget and also keep in mind that we now have the maximum temperature regulation that we're dealing with in schools where if if schools do not have air condition spaces for students uh that's something that we may need to consider in future budgets or it may have an instructional impact on our students so those are three major things that have been put upon us from the state level where I appreciate the advocacy for local control I think I think we need to be able to make decisions at the local level that are best reflective of the needs of our communi so thank you for being a voice in Albany and for your advocacy my pleasurec anything else um I do think we at some point should add to the work session on that the

117impact of that cuz I think I last time it's currently going on right the heat thing started already so like we have that's approaching relatively fast I mean tomorrow is going to be 56 you never know what you're going to get in Western New York it it goes into a effect September 1 oh September one in effect but not until September one correct so it was passed but it goes into effect September 1 okay but that will have a big impact on us I mean I that in these buildings we anticipate so especially in a building like this that is three stories high um a building that's multiple stories will likely be impacted more so than than a one-story building you know there's a lot of factors to that but yeah schools are are concerned

118as to what this is going to mean for our school calendar and may we be having uh like we have snow days heat days and early release days or potential School closure because of this maximum temperature regulation that's been thrust upon us anything else I mean I was questioning if Stark what was it Stark Stark Technologies yeah I mean is that like Iron Man oh yeah just curious okay we get a visit from Robert dowy Jr um anyone else good I know you're very talkative this evening we all good yes weone have you okay how would we like to do an adjournment may I have a motion to adjourn I'll make a motion to adjourn Laura may I have a second a second any discussion on the matter yes sir awesome all in favor anyone

119opposed pass a 60 thank you e e e