001hello good evening everybody and welcome to the work session at wanica Central School District Tuesday February 25th 2025 and if we can stand for the pledge and Jason would you lead us in the pledge please sir I pledge alance to the flag the United States of America and to the Republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible liy and justice for all thank you um just uh let everyone know uh Sarah's just going to be showing up a little late today and we'll start with a roll call Vince I'm present Jeremy present Sarah's running a little behind Mara pres Loren present Laura Ed's here and a wonderful superintendent's here thank you I'll hand it over to you okay great thank you um I'd like to invite will feel our business official up to join
002us um for the discussion that we have tonight which is an update on our budget development process uh earlier this week in fact just yesterday afternoon our budget advisory committee met so they got a preview on what we're sharing tonight with the board of education but I did want to start by giving an overview of the results of the thought exchange that we shared with the community I'm seeking feedback from the community on the priorities that the community has and wants us to be mindful of as we develop our budget so we had 113 responses to the thought exchange and uh there's some emerging themes that came out through that thought exchange and I've highlighted them for you here uh there were themes related to our facilities uh the Improvement of our facilities including air
003conditioning of our facilities was um comment that was made through the thought exchange enhancing and maintaining our programs specifically named in the thought exchange were our music programs arts and athletic programs there was a resonating theme related to class sizes especially at the elementary level and we'll talk a little bit more about that Financial uh responsibility and financial Prudence is something that our stakeholders um certainly voed their opinions on and then a continued focus on the social emotional well-being of our students uh is something that was resonated throughout that survey I've highlighted here some of the comments that were some of the top rated thoughts that were shared on the thought exchange so how a thought exchange works is unlike a typical survey where you're going with what the majority says on a survey a
004thought exchange allows an individual in a free form way to share their thought and then participants can respond to that thought if you agree with that thought you would rate it highly a four star rating for example if you disagree with the thought or it doesn't resonate with you or your values you may give that thought only a one star rating as an example so here are the thoughts related to class size um there were concerns regarding class size and specifically class sizes of 25 students being too large at the elementary level additionally there were thoughts regarding our music program um funding for music programs and you see in the last thought that is listed here on the screen replacing outdated technology to support our music programs thoughts in general regarding our district and District
005facilities uh facilities being updated was a highly rated thought and also the infrastructure every building in The District in desperate need of updates doors windows bathrooms uh ceilings leaky roofs parking lots was was a top rated theme and then some related to fiscal responsibility and a desire for taxpayers um for us to be thoughtful and prudent about our expenses and having reasonable taxes so one of the thoughts um resonated with me and it it really um I think exposed a a problem or a weakness that we have and that's regarding communication or lack thereof with some of of our residents the particular question that was asked through this thought exchange is what has been your primary source of information regarding the upcoming budget and this individual responded that their primary source of information is social
006media that since their son graduated in 2020 they've not received any newsletters or emails from the district and so that um is something that uncovered a wonderment for me of I think we do a a great job communicating with our families those that have school AG children through a variety of means there's school-based Communications we have remind and seesaw as tools to communicate our schools often have school newsletters that they send out but for those parents who have preschool age children that are not yet affiliated with a school or those who have students who have graduated they may feel less connected to our schools than those who have children in the K12 system and so in order to respond to that we're going to be launching a community a community email group as a way
007for us to share information with community members so this would be a separate communication from those that we target to our parents um to launch that Community email group individuals can sign up by sending an email to Communications at West senica Central schools.org um in addition we're going to have a QR code that can be um utilized to to allow individuals to sign up to be on our email communication group what we're really envisioning is this would be community-based um Communications so when we are releasing our tickets for our school musicals or there's a large event coming up like an East versus West game that might be of community interest that that would be something that would be sent out to the community email group in addition of course um as the topic at hand
008Communications regarding our upcoming budget Capital Improvement projects and redistricting maybe topics of interest for those who have children that are preschool age for example what we won't be using this communication for are those things that are really geared towards parents reminders of report cards being available or parent teacher conferences or a reminder about an upcoming half day uh those will not be going out to the community email group and so this is something new um that we're going to be trying I'm eager for feedback from the community to see how the community uh receives this it will be featured in my column that we have in the West senica B that will be um early in March as another way for the community to stay connected to what's going on in our schools that's awesome
009thank you do we know of the 113 was it like specified whether taxpayer a parent of a student a student faculty member yes I have that that information I can share the entire thought exchange I just pulled a few things out with the board but we can extract that information um people were asked to identify the level if they're a parent the level that they're associated with elementary middle or high school and then also their role within the school district if they're a taxpayer and Resident if they are a staff member or teacher or if they're a parent and of course many people wear multiple hats so they could check all that apply but we do have that I I will say that my recollection of reviewing it is the vast majority were both um
010employees of the district and parents just a thought on that with the getting this out to um all West son community members is there anything that the town sends out that could be somehow to have this included with that way that it's already we know that it's reaching reaching homes just a thought that's a that's a great question I can follow up and ask um supervisor Dixon on that I I don't know offand if they have an email group that they utilize for communications um but certainly this is a way that we're trying to fill a void that I that I think we have I think it's a great idea make sure that have quarterly newsletter sorry no no it's just you know we keep trying to draw people to the light and try to
011be as transparent as possible but it just seems that it sometimes difficult to get them to that place and how do we reach them well we know that the town you know Town sends out tax letters we know that right um are there things that the town sends out that this is going to somehow be reach all of our our citizens that's all that's a great suggestion and I think one of the things that that I'm happy to to be doing through this is right now some of our Communications are are passive you have to go looking for the information if you want to find out the latest on the budget development process we redistricting we're being really transparent by having it all available on our website but it does require someone to go and
012find that information whereas after our redistricting committee meetings we are sharing a a digital summary of that and a digital newsletter to our parents where they can click and find out what was the meeting agenda what were the resources in the meeting and ultimately the meeting minutes but again that's just going to the K12 um group our employees and parents of of children who are that K12 population we hope that this will be a more active way for us to push out information to those that are our community residents so um in addition to the thought exchange um we we wanted to share a few things related to that that I think shows the responsiveness and the thoughtfulness that we have that really is in alignment with some of the themes that emerged in the
013thought exchange as I gave an overview of course class sizes is something that came up in the thought exchange specifically Elementary class sizes and that's precisely why we're involved in a redistricting committee and a redistricting process right now we have two elementary schools where our class sizes are really higher than ideal and other elementary schools that have much more reasonable class sizes but through through redistricting It's Our intention to balance and to bring about better class sizes uh at the elementary level for those that were advocating for support of our Visual and Performing Arts uh just at our last board meeting we had an overview from Young and right Architects on how we intend to reinvest in our Middle School and High School auditoriums the rigging the sound and the Lighting systems which I think
014shows our investment and our commitment to the Visual and Performing Arts um in in addition utilizing our building condition survey one of the themes that I shared with you was related to the condition of our buildings we've undergone a building condition survey this fall we should have the results of that survey in April and from that our facilities committee will begin to really prioritize those items that are in most urgent need of us to respond to or to repair to be able to rein invest in our schools and we anticipate that that will be remedied through a future Capital Improvement project and then throughout all of our budget development process um we intend to maintain fiscal responsibility and we'll be intending to present to the board for your approval a a budget that is um
015underneath the allowable tax cap so I think those are some of the responses really to the themes that naturally emerged through that thought Exchange uh this is our running uh timeline that we have for the budget development process we keep adding to this and putting in bold where we are in this process right now we are in the final tax cap calculation phase that will be finalized this month and as you can see at our meeting in March we'll be presenting to the Board of Education the first draft budget followed by a second draft budget later in March with the ultimate adoption of the budget by the Board of Education in April that then leads to our public hearing of the budget where we have the opportunity for the public to give us feedback and
016make comments regarding the budget that we have presented and then ultimately the final vote um for our community on May 20th the budget goals uh these slides have remained unchanged we've simply added to this presentation as we continue in the budget development process so we have the goals and our priorities guideline number one which is related to our instructional program guideline number two related to District Operations and the maintenance of our facilities and our equipment in addition to the maintenance of our technology budget guideline number three the long-term fiscal responsibility and financial stability and number four communication and I just shared one way in which we intend to improve our Communications not only through the budget development process but in general for our district I'm going to turn it over to will at this point
017to give an overview of some of the specific areas within our budget and some updates related to that thank you um the pl for tonight is not really to go into detail on the the data that you have in front of you that's been consistent from the last meeting we can do that more at the March 4th meeting and talk about what our strategies are March 4 we'll put the revenues and expenses against each other uh measure the amount of a budget deficit that we Face uh last year we ended up uh settling on a $6.3 million deficit and funded that with our fund balance uh we can review a little bit about where we are on on this year's budget to to give us a better picture about fund balance and then we'll identify
018the the deficit for this current budget planning session for next year and uh and what our plans are to try to to close that Gap um to an acceptable level again investing fund balance as as we planned last year as we we work our way through so if you want to go to the tax levy slide I mean stop me if you want to go back and look at it right there um this is finalized now a 2026 uh tax levy limit is uh 71 m886 it's a 2.75% increase over last year um primarily the change is a result of the change in the capital exclusion calculation we had talked uh I think at the previous meeting that the capital exclusion had dropped last year facilitating a lower tax rate increase it has returned to
019it historical level that was just a timing difference and so we're back to where we uh where we've always planned to be somewhere around 2.6 to $2.7 million um this is the calculation that will be finalized with the state com controller's office um as soon as tomorrow morning so I can get it off my list of things to do um the state aid from that these runs have not changed um the governor's state aid proposal is based on data that's frozen as of November 1st there are new data runs as of February 15th which shows some changes and we'll review those a little bit at the next meeting two ways to close a budget deficit one is higher revenues two is lower expenses they work to our benefit so some balance of which will will
020get us to the proper number so we'll we'll we'll have additional columns on this next month as we talk about what potential Aid might be in a final state budget hopefully on time you know at the end of March fingers crossed um hope I didn't jinx myself um flip right to the capital exclusion I think is the best one what so that's the capital exclusion calculation um and the history of the capital exclusion uh is at the bottom of that page so you can see it was as high as almost 3.2 million in 2022 and we've tried to maintain it in a $2.7 million range last year it got a little low but again that's timing of state aid and uh and Debt Service expenditures um and that this year we're back on track at
0212.6 so the goal was to try to maintain that 2.6 um going forward um and again it's it's a timing issue sometimes regarding when capital projects are approved how much work can get done in the summer you know we don't want to finance more than we're doing just to try to balance some equation somewhere so um you have to be responsible in that regard so I just want to make sure I get this and I'm I'm hoping I'm I'm on track here the reason it's excluded is because it's money we've already spent from the past and we're getting reimbursed for it it's money that's been voted on Capital expend are all voted on by the public right all right so the debt service that comes with them and the building Aid um are already baked
022into the cake in the previous one so when we get it back they don't hit us for it again right so we try to maintain a flat number there not to impact the tax rate um last year there was nothing we could do the timing just didn't work out this year it's returned to the normal level okay so uh let's go to Capital out project uh these are $100,000 projects that we do annually uh and we receive back our building Aid somewhere in an area of $76,000 76% uh in the following year so you really only F fund the full 100,000 the first year you start these and then each year thereafter you're really just funding 24,000 because you got 76 coming back in the door so the last two years capital outlay projects have
023been in this building um turning the once swimming pool into a a wonderful auxiliary gym facility downstairs so this next year's is proposed to be at Northwood Elementary School um a replacement of the doors and any other related work we can get done um based on a conversation today with our Architects it appears at the doors will eat up the great majority of the funds um apparently doors are high on the expenditure list these days and tough to get into supply chain so we have some doors that really need the attention and we're going to put the money there what's nice about a Capal outlay project there are some limitations usually you're you're really working with one subcontractor on it as opposed to a more in-depth project but with this Capital outlay project it's going
024to allow us to respond to the needs that we have at Northwood for replacement doors sooner rather than waiting for the next Capital Improvement project vote so it does allow us to do some work in a a more timely manner than then as I said waiting until the next Capital Improvement project so we just try to prioritize what um we what priorities we have that would fit well within this budget and as well said we'll get 76% state aid reimbursement on the project can I throw out something too was there talk ask a question wasn't there talk of increasing the yes there's been proposals the last several years to run the number up to 250 and to make it more than one building um those proposals have not made it through the legisl okay nothing
025okay nothing really came FR then no and it's obviously more and more difficult to do anything of a capital nature for $100,000 or less um but I I also want to point out we converted downstairs from a pool to a wreck area um the pool we have four other pools and the pool is costing a lot of money I mean I look at that as a great investment that sort of thing it's not just like we made a gym out of it but we got rid of one of five pools and it's used every day so it's it's great any questions on that so there'll be um an environmental review conducted to allow us to do this project you'll see uh what they call a negative declaration which means we're not impacting grounds uh at
026the next meeting as part of moving forward on this this is not voted on if the budget passes this passes and it goes forward um the next is our bus purchases this will be voted on because we fund it with our bus reserves um I received an email literally moments before I came up here from uh Jen our transportation director who's uh doing a great job these numbers will change slightly the total will be pretty close to what's represented here but she's working with the vendors um to try to find out what chassis are actually available doesn't do much good to order buses you can't get so she's working very hard to with the manufacturers to determine what buses she can get so some of the details may change to 30 to 35 passenger buses
027or whatever and the numbers but we should be settling in a number in the 1.1 million do range so um this will be voted on and we'll continue to we'll update this slide for March 4th and then hopefully have the final numbers and begin to construct the proposition around [Applause] it we talked at length about uh this next slide at our last meeting where we had young and Wright with us uh to give an overview of our four auditoriums the two Middle School auditoriums two High School auditoriums and so our Auditorium infrastructure project as I mentioned earlier would uh take care of the rigging needs that we have replacement of the rigging system lighting system and sound system in our four auditoriums as you know from our overview with young and Wright the total project
028would be an $8.5 million project the district would be utilizing $2.1 million that we have in our capital reserve fund uh and that would allow us to offset any local share from taxpayers so we would be taking on that burden as so that it's not directly impacting our taxpayers so there would be no additional tax impact uh for this work to be done this would be uh something that voters would be able to voice their their response to at the May 20th vote um and I think it's just important to to underscore the use of our auditoriums that not only are they used for performances but they are daily used as instructional spaces they're used by our communities um and for us to have functional safe reliable equipment in those spaces is critical um I
029shared with you at the last meeting that our rental expenses that we have to supplement our lighting right now exceeds $10,000 in ongoing rental expenses um just to get adequate lighting for our auditoriums so we would eliminate some expenses reduce our maintenance costs because replacement light bulbs uh and the replacement and repairs of our failing systems only continues to escalate uh every year so this would be an investment for our future we have linked uh here and this will be again shared on our website but we have the full presentation from Young and Wright and will and I that we presented to you on February 11th is linked here so if anyone who may be watching this didn't get to see the February 11th presentation it's here for their reference and for their review can
030you just go to the summary side slide so as we said March 4th first draft we'll look at the funding Gap how to potentially close that and again that can be on the revenue and expenditure side and we can look at in detail uh items that you're interested in um the we already talked about the capital outlay Seeker will be on the agenda as well we there will also be a Seeker State Environmental Quality review um for the $8.5 million Auditorium project thankfully not disturbing any ground when you reconstruct an auditorium stage so that'll be a negative declaration as well and we'll have a resolution for the board to entertain that would approve it to be on the ballot for May 20th those documents are coming from Council today and tomorrow for our review and
031we'll get them on the agenda because the meetings are back to back here March 25th would be a second draft of the budget uh where we're at what progress we've made on uh closing any funding Gap and how many how much reserves we will put the use and then any final instructions from the board moving towards an April 8th budget final um and hopefully uh adopted by the board at that time um that'll set us up for the budget hearing in May and the vote uh in the middle of that that's all I got any any questions that the board has for will or I related to this thank you thank you well you're welcome appreciate [Applause] it now and know it's anxiously awaiting a redistricting update uh is he GNA join us you want
032I'll hand it over to Lisa sure thank you um with us tonight is Tony dayve from the Western New York Education Service Council I'm going to ask Tony to join us at the table we're going to have just a few brief updates here um before we break before we break um before we break and go into our our Board of Education Retreat so we we will be breaking in a that's okay Tony we'll be breaking in a few minutes to go into our retreat but we did want to just share a few updates regarding um where we are in the process as a general overview prior to our community Forum that we're holding on Thursday night so I did want to remind everyone and of course remind anyone of the public that may be viewing
033this that on Thursday night we do have a community Forum scheduled at 6:00 p.m located here at West Elementary in the Board of Education uh conference room we will be live streaming that as well and also recording it so if someone cannot be in attendance they can watch it live stream at home and a recording will be made available um at that time the work of the committee has been incredible and the leadership and Guidance with Tony has been um really stellar and excellent and thorough um I think you're going to find as you learn more about the plans that we're looking at and the overview that we're going to share at the community Forum Thursday night that we really started this process um working within the parameters that the board set forth but um
034really brainstorming to make sure that we were looking at any and all solutions as to how we can solve the problem that we have at hand and the problem that we have at hand is as you know we have some of our schools where our enrollment is over capacity leading to less than ideal instructional spaces and class sizes that are that are Beyond um what we think our preferred and ideal class sizes for our students so we're looking at a variety of solutions and it really did start with brainstorming of what if some of our solutions that that we're going to be giving an overview to the community on Thursday night maintain our current configuration and so by current configuration meaning K5 elementary schools 68 middle schools and 912 high schools that was a request
035that the Board of Ed had that at least one of the plans that we um problem solve maintains our current configurations some of our other plans do look at different configurations and as we look throughout Western New York you you will see that there are school districts that have primary schools and intermediate schools a k to2 building and a 3 to5 building for example or middle schools that are not 68 buildings middle schools that may have different grade levels and so the committee had that latitude and that freedom to be able to explore what if our buildings were configured in a different way how would that respond to the challenge and the problem at hand and so some of the solutions that we've been exploring do entail different configurations and different use of our buildings
036um and with Tony's leadership and assistance we've really tried to dive into what are the pros and cons of each of those possible solutions some of the solutions were eliminated because they truly did not solve the problem uh or would have created other problems in the process and those that are still remaining um will be the ones that we'll be taking a deeper dive into when we present those in the community Forum on Thursday night um but I just wanted to say a few opening comments and then I'll I'll see if Tony wants to share um any additional words before we break for our Board of Education retreat but uh I do just want to say again that I have appreciate the commitment of time uh and energy that our redistricting committee has uh invested
037some of these committee members have been involved in this process for more than two years now they were uh involved in the process going back to 2023 um and have continued on to see this through and certainly the amount of time that Tony has invested in really analyzing what different models and different configurations would mean for our enroll is the kind of analytical data that's necessary to make sure that that whatever solution we come up with actually solves our problem and doesn't inadvertently create other problems or uh results in something that would be a short-term solution so that was just a very brief overview of where we are I'd like to offer Tony if there's any additional kind of General comments that you'd like to make before we pause and transition to our Retreat well
038first the committee has been fantastic uh and there's a number of committee members here uh from the administrative team you know Kim mccarton and Kate Welker Jackie fower will field Kristen froley uh who's put up with me a lot because I visited West a lot trying to figure the building out uh and also Jason dreadfall who's a Community member and he's been uh and the committee has been outstanding and engaged uh you never think two hours you know 2hour meetings people don't look forward to them but they go quickly because people are engaged throughout the process uh there are no there are no answers without cost you know there was there is no answer to the issues that will please everyone so what we try to do is create um solutions that not only will
039work in the now with the current staff and students you have but also in the future with more staff if you ever had the ability to hire to reduce class sizes or if there's unexpected enrollment increases but the plans as they've been developed have to check boxes you know against those goals and so the presentation that uh the the conversation we'll be having tonight and we'll be having with the community on Thursday night is here's the ideas that they're only ideas right nothing is in Lo etched in stone and here's how they weigh against the goals that have been set for you as a board it's really important for you to view and say how important are these goals in solving the this issue you know and for those that are more veteran we've seen
040this process continuing for quite a while you know to what extent are you you know are they important to solve and and what you what are we willing to do to get there and that's a conversation you know and in your seats it's not easy because there will be people and you're the front line and everybody knows your phone number when they're unhappy so it's an important conversation for you as a board like what do we think and what are we willing to do and where are we do we you know are these issues important enough for us to take on uh in a thoughtful way and I I think we have a ways to go still um trying to build determine what capacity is is the hardest piece because if you've been in the
041schools you know they're constructed differently in one building you know Allendale has lots of regular siiz classrooms but not many of those little small half-size classes here at Westell there are many little half and three quarter sizes that are perfect for things like intervention and resource rooms where other schools don't have them so really understanding the buildings and the work of schools is necessary to really determine if a plan will work so I give the team a lot of credit for engaging and indulging trying to make sense of a lot of data uh and I'm going to try to present to you tonight some of the summaries of it because you can get bogged down pretty easily of it in the end there's um you know I would tell you that the presentation that I
042gave I handed to you I would ask you to look at that cuz I'm constantly trying to add information that you will help you better uh and it'll also be congruent with what we're going to talk to the community about so you're seeing the same things but uh I'm you know I'm been thrilled with the support I've had um it's hard work but I think it's important work to try and move forward and and tonight the goal is to give you an update on where the team is kind of get listen to your conversation and get a sense of where we're heading the rest of the year thank you Tony and just in uh preparation for Thursday night's Community Forum I think um it's going going to be human nature that when we reveal some
043plans Thursday night through the community Forum a typical parents going to look at the plans and see how does this impact me and my family and that's that's human nature and so we want to be prepared for that and have an opportunity for the community to respond to the plans uh what do they like about certain plans what concerns them about certain plans throughout this process we've really tried to be proactive our Communications by having meeting agendas resources and minutes made available along with a frequently asked questions uh email account where we can take in questions and then we respond to those in an FAQ document so as individuals either have questions on the plan or simply need a place to vent so that they feel that their voice is heard we're going to keep
044that line of communication open because uh it is human nature when when you're faced with uh your family or your child your neighborhood potentially having to shift schools or go to a different school there will be inevitably an emotional reaction to that and so we want to allow that time for people to process through things and to have an Avenue to be able to to voice their opinion and certainly we'll be taking questions live Thursday night during the community Forum but for those that can't be in the room on Thursday we have other ways for people people to be able to communicate and share feedback with us going to move on okay thank you um we're going to move on to a board of education discussion I believe we only have one topic that I'm
045aware of but if am I correct yeah we only one topic that I'm aware of and I did not have um the ability to add it to the agenda but I want to bring up um just a discussion on the busing situation I know we have a lot of improvements but I believe Monday there was a little bit of a hiccup so figured Lisa can address and we can have sure I I think that some of our board members heard from community members or parents uh who had some frustration yesterday overall I think we know the start of this school year and and up until recently there's been remarkable improvements in our transportation department and Jennifer Jones is doing a stellar job leading that department um her organizational skills and and quite frankly the morale
046within the department is significantly improved however yesterday we had a number of factors that caused some challenges we had nine of our bus drivers that called in um five of which were very last minute uh Callins of of illness in addition uh our contracted bus service uh for student had two bus runs that they were unable to cover so that really hamstrung us yesterday um we pulled in every resource from having clerical that are trained as bus drivers and licensed to drive buses to our mechanics covering runs yesterday but despite that we had buses that were considerably late because we had to double up on bus runs um it's a factor of of illness and absenteeism that is not only hitting our transportation department but we're seeing it among our faculty and staff and our
047students within our schools it's the time of year I will say that our efforts to recruit continue to be strong I am grateful for the board's support for our employee incentive program where we are offering a $500 incentive to both an employee and a new bus driver that that we're able to recruit bring on board and once they finish their probationary period they earn that $500 incentive you'll see on our March 4th agenda that we have a number of candidates who are being recommended for appointment as both uh bus drivers and also bus attendants so we are continuing to work tirelessly to recruit R attract and retrain retain bus drivers but yesterday was a challenging situation and I know unfortunately families were inconvenienced by that and and students were impacted and so we are continuing
048to strive to do betterk you um I know like I believe some runs were actually like cancelled but they didn't they weren't able to make it like is that that was just a short term thing um I mean it was we were back on track today I'm I'm sure you did not hear of the same situation good I'm not and by means of I judging but like a canceled run is like I don't know if that's worse than a bus being really late I'm not sure which is you know supposed to combining but is it it can't be combined because there's so many like in an area like what was the what's the difference between combining and cancelling I guess like so combining is where would have two let's say if it's West Elementary two
049West Elementary runs that if the capacity on the bus allows those two buses are combined and make one bus run obviously the bus run is longer as a result because you have more kids and more stops in some cases if we don't have the capacity to get two buses of of children onto one bus because of seating in capacity issues it may be that first you know bus 606 goes out drops off kids then goes back out again and so that would be another instance where we're kind of combining runs where we have one bus driver covering two runs where it gets nearly impossible to do that is our high school and middle school runs because if we are postponing them it it just compounds by the time we get to in a four tiered
050system of transportation that we have which is unusual we're one of the only districts that have four trans Transportation teers but everything backs up in a compounding way so when high school runs late that means Middle School runs later and Elementary ultimately can be incredibly late in those situations when we had any families that had hardship or could not get their child to school when a parent called Jennifer Jones was being as responsive as she could to get buses out and even bring kids in being here late is better than being here not at all and and she'd got as many kids in in those cases as possible yesterday today I'm glad to report was a a much better day excellent just some questions thank you anyone uh anything else no I guess Lisa could
051you just explo explain a little more about what a four tiered transportation system looks like sure I would say the the easiest Transportation run is think of a small rural District that might be on one campus K to 12 they can send out one bus to pick up all the kids in a particular neighborhood and that is one bus run that comes back to the school the way our system is structured because of the number of buses that we have and the number of students that we have we presently have a four tiered system so tier number one is our high school bus run tier number two is our middle school bus run tier number three and four because we have so many Elementary children grades K to five that's six different grade levels tier
052three and four are our elementary students and so tier three is the first Elementary that has an earlier start and end time of school but then those buses once they do a tier three school and drop off their students they are going back out and doing the tier four school so a typical bus driver does four different bus runs in the morning one for each tier and then in the afternoon they're doing that in Reverse they do four different bus runs in the afternoon in addition to midday runs runs to bosis for our students that have CTE programming so it's it's a lot we have a lot of kids and a lot of buses and a lot of moving Parts no pun intended I guess my next question would be with any of the redistricting
053options or with any of the new ideas that Jennifer has come up with are we looking or even possible discussions of start times of getting that down to a three- tier I would love to be at a three- tier but that would be a significant financial investment we would either need to purchase more buses to be able to pull that off or contract more bus runs uh with our contracted bus services either Western New York bus company or First Student in order to go from three tiers to four tiers Study last year last year found yeah I think it was I'm just asking the question yeah I do I do believe in the future we could know again with the redistricting and all that start times different different things but I I I think the
054three tier thing wasn't anywhere near feasible yeah when you when you think about a school district that has 13 different grade levels K to 12 in order to divide those 13 grade levels we really have about half of our grade levels grades 6 through 12 are on tiers one and two that's our middle school and high school bus runs the other half of our grade levels K to five are on the tier three and four so we really do have a system that balances um half in half of our district tiers 1 and two tiers three and four each accommodating about six to seven grade levels in order to impact that further we would need more more buses yeah I think one of the great fr ations is that we all know that those buses
055run half full um many of them in tier one especially at the high school so um the other the other question would be do we look at our busing zones do we do we need to bus everybody we have students that are in walking distance that could reduce the number of students that walk I know there's funding that goes with along with that I know it's a much larger question but I just think for your average your your average um Citizen and parent like it becomes H you just you can't put it together I see over at the high school that these buses are half full yet there's not enough buses to pick up all of the kids and we'd have to buy more buses that would be running half full so is there a
056process for opting out of Transportation can a parent opt their child out and we no longer have to make that make that run so that would be something that that I think we could explore further one uh analysis that Jennifer is doing right now is ridership of the 62 children that are scheduled to be on this bus how many are actually riding on a regular basis and studying the ridership when she has that ridership data and she knows that buses 2 and bus s have very low ridership that naturally is an easy area for her to combine runs versus trying to combine two buses that are at maximum capacity you certainly couldn't do that so her analysis on ridership is allowing her to more effectively combine runs when we need to combine runs a few
057things that would be within the board's purview to do would be our our policy regarding walking distance to school and that varies District to District that is a local policy um some districts have if you live within a half mile of a school district of a school building rather that you would be walking to that school building but that can be increased beyond that there's a lot of factors to consider accessibility of sidewalks are you in a village setting versus a rural or or a more dense setting but the board does have that authority to set a policy regarding that right now and this was the direction and guidance as my understanding from previous board's directives was that every was to be scheduled for a bus there is some safe factors U that we have
058to consider for that in the event that we need to close school early due to an emergency water main break we have a gas leak in order for us to have the ability to drive every child home in the event of an emergency uh children being routed on a bus there is a safety Factor there for us to consider some school districts do pull their families and it's a opt in opt in or opt out if you intend to drive your child every day you can opt out of Transportation but that then means that we don't have a seat for you on a bus then what happens in the event of an emergency so these are all things that I think that we can explore and if you'd like to explore it further we may
059want to designate some time at a work session and bring in Jennifer Jones to have some conversations I'm open to looking at at solutions that would help remedy some of the problems I'm just cautious I don't want us to solve one problem that creates another problem no and I I agree with that wholeheartedly it's something that is a it's a continuous issue uh it's not an issue that I think is necessarily going to go away um I think that we're we're putting a lot of great effort into uh attracting bus drivers um and uh you know it's just a it's just one of those things that every once in a while when these things pop up you have to go back and ask those questions that we're asking so is it is it a a
060precedent right now is it a priority by no means I don't I don't feel that at all um we have bigger fish to fry and some of the things that we're working on may help with this so um just always you know asking those I think important questions is is what I look forward to yeah and if I can add one last thing on something that I learned in Albany um what almost two weeks ago that that um and please correct me if I'm off here that there are State reimbursement rates based on Walkers and if for high school it's 3 miles and for elementary it's two miles so I just want the taxpayers to be aware that West sonaka is doing due diligence knowing that we don't have safe sidewalks and walking paths for
061our students that we are offering Transportation because two and three miles for an elementary student to be walking that that and so some other districts do choose the half mile or but they're not reimbursed for that so I just want to get that out there that this is amazing stuff that we're able to learn and speak to when we're having these conversations so something like an opt in or an opt out full well knowing the Middle School saw you this morning Ed that line was longer than it's been yesterday and today trying to get in there so opt in opt out is it just the morning is it just the afternoon what is the I would love to see Jennifer's studies on that but knowing that we are offering our students a service that not
062a lot of districts are it does come with a price tag but I think it's needed because the town certainly does not have our sidewalks they don't even have crosswalks for the by the high school so you know we have to work within our means and with what we do to keep our students safe well little word of thought if you go around all those cars to dve your kids off it's La there I'm just kidding um everyone good with that everyone any ISS okay I you guys uh reaching out and getting this on so now we will probably take a brief adjournment to go visit the restrooms and say hello to everybody and then we'll come back and work on our Retreat and we'll we'll meet next door in the library when we reconvene
063oh great okay um I believe because it's a work session we don't do need to do anything official good so everyone good with that excellent sign yes anyone need a signature