Board of Education Meeting, 5-6-2026

001I'd like to call the meeting to order to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you everyone. No interest. >> Any announcements? >> Uh just that it was am I'm sorry not amate savers day at the elementary school. Like I needed to give the disclaimer for Mr. Josh. >> He asked if he should go get the jacket and I said no. Um, I have one announcement and I'll repeat it again later, uh, but because it's abnormal, our next meeting on May 27 will not be in this room. It will be at the high school because we have a retirement and tenure reception beforehand and there's not enough room for everyone in here. So, anyone

002who's planning to come will be at the high school on May 27th. student highlights. >> So, I'm actually gonna turn it over to Mrs. North and Mrs. Ne and talk about students. Uh that is fostered through our our Bose program and students from many schools come together and have opportunities for leadership and discussion and they also complete project district who was their club adviser this year and you want to share anything. >> Yeah, absolutely. So um first of all I just want to say that I am so incredibly proud of these four kids. They have worked so so hard this year have faced a lot of trials and tribulations to come up with the most perfect project that Okay, now we are moving on to the public hearing which is your budget hearing. >> Library

003first. Yes. >> Okay. Thank you very much. We're actually going to launch our budget hearing this evening with our library proposition information. So, we have folks from the William Williamson Public Library to share some information. I'll just give a moment to get your slide deck. >> You want the clicker or >> Oh, sure. Yeah. Okay. >> Speaking um tonight is Kim from the public library. >> Hi. Um I'm Kim March. I'm the director of the Williamson Public Library. And with me tonight, uh, some familiar faces, Michael Collins, who is our president of the board. Um, Amy Prader, who's our vice president, and Diane Luke, who is our secretary, and Katherine Gray, who is a trustee, and Kate Weaser couldn't be with us tonight, but she's our fifth board member. So, we have five board members.

004Um, we will have a ballot proposition uh on the school district ballot. It's been a while since 2015 since we've had one of these. So, just thought it would be good tonight just to kind of walk through it and why we're doing this and a little bit about it. Uh, it's a $13,143 increase, so 3%. That still remains within our tax cap because we haven't had any changes since 2015. And it runs2 to3 per 100,000 of assessed value would be the change in tax or 2 to three cents per a thousand of assessed value. So a lot of times people say why are you on a school ballot? You'll see a lot of them this time of year for my fellow libraries. Uh the state gives us a few ways a very limited few ways

005to have funding. One is a library levy using school ballot on the school ballot using the school taxing boundaries. The other is a general election ballot in November using the town taxing boundaries. And then there's special district. There's only one of those in the 42 in the library system and that's requires state legislation to create your own taxing boundaries but it still goes on a school ballot or a general election ballot. So uh and then the last way is town government makes an appropriation through their tax dollars to the library. That was the model we had up until 2015. Uh but the town had told us going forward uh that it no longer wanted to move forward with that type of model. So we went directly to the voters starting in 2015 through a school.

006Uh we do need operating funding. We couldn't do it without any funding. So our current levy is $438,96. Uh the school district collects this levy. It is not the town doesn't provide funding to the library. The school district this doesn't of their budget. This is a levy just for the library. Uh we are governed as I said by the five board members of trustees that are appointed by the town and we do report to the owl library system. We do report to the New York State Controllers's Office and also to New York State Department of Education Library Development. So same with school districts or municipals. Um why no increase in 11 years? Well, we've reduced staffing due to attrition. So we're kind of at a really point now where we can't make any more decisions

007like that. uh and up until 2025, we had a payment in lie of taxes through CAM Davies that really helped us offset those yearly increases that we were seeing for operating costs. Uh then that pilot has just expired. So now we're kind of moving forward without that pilot. Uh we also had a very generous request from G Shivy. Uh and that has set up an endowment that we can generate some interest revenue in off of. And then we've been very fortunate to have special grants through the Alam Library system, Assembly of the Magalo, Rochester Regional Library Council, and we got a national grant through ALA and AT&T. This helped us offset some programming costs, equipment costs, capital improvements, but still not enough to keep pace right now uh with what we're seeing in increases. So

008that 13,143 needed now uh is due mainly to minimum wage. We have been really hit like that like all municipalities and school districts. Uh increases in benefit costs because they all kind of move together. Increases in insurance, utilities, supplies, materials, just overall operating costs. Uh we are now at the point where we have to have an increase. We're still going to have to make budget cuts even if we have an increase. So we know that that's ahead. Uh, and we're still working on a budget that's kind of not narrowed down for next year because we still don't know what minimum wage is going to be in New York State. It's tied to CPI. Some people are saying that's a 2%. Some are saying it'll be a 3% increase, but until the state gives us actual

009numbers in the fall, we're not going to know what that's going to impact. So, it could be worse. Right now, we're going with a 2%. Uh we don't know what that's going to impact. We also know that whatever that impact is, it also impacts benefits. VICA, New York State retirement, medical and workers comp. Uh library materials have increased. Our postage, our utilities, our operating costs have all increased. Utilities with heat. So even with the increase, we're still pulling about 20,000 from our reserves. Uh that's not sustainable. So, the board knows they're going to have to make some additional belt tightening. Uh, without the increase, if it doesn't pass, we would have about a $32,000 shortfall, which is going to be a lot harder and a lot more impactful um going forward. The good news is

010Williamson uses and values its library. So, we just wrapped up our 2025 review. Uh, we are a top 10 circulating library in Owl out of the 42 public libraries in Ontario, Wayne, Wyoming, and Livingston counties. So this community over you know almost 60,000 checkouts between digital and uh materials checkouts in house 27,922 library visits lots of program attendance 7,674 so definitely a community that uses its library we were named in our CV library of the year last year and that's mainly due to our summer reading and just to kind of input we have from the community and the amount of visits and just overall use by the community. So, we hope if there's any more questions, you are welcome to come on um May 12th at 6 p.m. We will also be talking more in

011depth at the library. We want to do a deep dive. Uh but we just wanted to give people a heads up so if they see that on the ballot, it's usually towards the back of the ballot just so you know why it's there and what it's about. So, >> thanks. >> Thank you. Any questions from the board? >> I just remember when my daughters were younger, the summer reading program is fantastic and that would be great if every student and every child actually utilized that. >> We have stronger readers. >> We have great numbers and that's one of the things when I came into this uh library in 2013, Pete Wright was our board president at that time and he said, you know, our school here is wonderful, our library is wonderful. It's a great

012collaboration. We really value education in this community and it's really evident it's true. >> So, >> thank you very much for joining us today. I greatly appreciate the strong display. >> And if you have any questions, please come to the library meeting or if you have questions, you can reach out to us through our website, email us. Glad to answer any questions you might have. Um, and we are here to uh provide guidance for anything that you can do if people ask why. >> So, our viewers at home watching this meeting, if they have questions, they can direct them right to you. Go to the website and just email you directly. >> Absolutely. Great. Thank you very much. >> Greatly appreciate it. >> All right, we're going to move forward with Williamson Central School District

013budget hearing at this time then. So, I want to thank everyone for being here again this evening. I won't read the agenda, but these are the areas that we're going to take you through this evening. And so we're just going to spend about 30 seconds setting the stage. And I've said it before, but I'm going to continue to anchor the board and also our community into the board of education should be considering and our community should be considering our district budget as the mathematical expression of our vision and mission of our work, our purpose, why are we here, and how are we going to make sure we can execute those actionables that allow for us to get those outcomes for for students. And so really thinking about anchoring in with the board of education back

014in July of 24 upon my arrival. And then again in summer of 25 spending hours days thinking about what is the vision and direction of the board linked to the four essential objectives you see on this slide. And then underneath the four essential objectives you see the subheaders and that is the work and my hope is that throughout the course of 2526. You've heard this work reflected in every single administrative report that you've heard during our board meetings. That is the work that is reflected in the 2627 budget moving forward. And so with that, I'm going to pass on to our business official, Penny, who will take us now through the uh revenues and expenditures of the budget. I just wanted to start by letting everybody know um here and at home that we do

015have a budget disclosure finder um posted out on the district's website that gives a lot of um more detailed information um for anyone to view um some of the items in it. It's not everything, but um we have line by line detail of um the whole budget. uh the New York State report card, salary disclosures, and um uh the school tax report card, and um just the New York State report card as well. Um to start off, um I want to talk a little bit about the revenue side of the budget, um which, um I'll first talk about the tax levy. In 2012, New York State implemented the uh tax lemmy limit calculation. It's a it's a detailed calculation. Um and it it caps how much the district is allowed to increase taxes every year.

016The calculation starts with the amount of the 2526 levy and it takes into account the taxbased growth factor. the pilots for the 2526 year and um what we're expecting for the 2627 year. It also takes into account the growth factor. Um CPI, which is also known as the inflation factor. When people hear about the 2% tax cap, um it's kind of misleading. The the 2% cap is just on the inflation factor portion. Um, so if we were to have 8% inflation like we did a few years ago, the district is only allowed to adjust for 2%. Uh, we are also uh allowed to take into account some exclusions, but this year we did not have any exclusions. So the proposed tax levy for the 2627 school year is 12,869,261. That is a $320,616 increase over

017the 2526 school year, which amounts to a 2.55% increase. Now, looking at the school tax rates, when determining school tax rates, there are different entities that have input into those rates and um that help determine the appropriation and what the individual town rates will be. The town sets the assessment value of properties. The office of real property tax sets equalization rates. And then the school board adopts the tax levy every year. And then in late summer they um approve the aortionments of the levy. Last year's true tax rate was $16.77. We are estimating uh the 2627 true tax rate to be $17.25. That is an estimate. It's important to note that we do not have the 2026 assessment values and we do not have the 2026 equalization rates. Uh the only thing um is is

018we're basing the levy amount on the projected 2627 levy. Uh so this uh true tax rate could fluctuate. Based on a $1725 true tax rate, if you had a $100,000 home, we can expect about a $48 annual increase in um your tax bill. Uh which would equate to just over $4 a month. If you have a $300,000 home, we're estimating an increase of about $144 annually. Now, equalization rates have an effect on uh tax rates. So, if you have a 100% equalization rate, your tax rate is going to be uh lower than someone with a 50% equalization rate. Since the district is going out at the tax cap, in order for our budget to pass, we have to have a 50% approval rate of all votes that came in plus one. If the uh district

019was to go out to exceed the tax cap, which we are not doing, uh we would need a 60% super majority approval rate from the voters. Another source of revenue for the school is state aid. Our biggest uh portion of state aid is foundation aid. This slide here shows the executive uh budget that the state released and then what the district is projecting to receive. Uh the there's a difference because the most of these are expense-based aids and in order to get what the state released in its executive budget, we'd have to spend every dollar that we budgeted. um the likelihood of that happening is is very slim. So the the district has done um an adjustment based on what we project. Um and then back to the foundation aid again foundation aid is the

020largest component of our state aid and this year we are only expecting a 1% increase um which amounts to about $95,000. Um the New York state budget has not been um approved or released yet. Uh there is a chance that amount could change, but we don't know that at this point. We are expecting a total of about $394,000 um increase in state aid for the 2627 year, which accounts for about a 2.61% increase. We do receive a few other types of revenue, um but it's pretty minimal compared to the school tax revenue or state aid. We receive about a million dollars in other forms of revenue. This slide summarizes a lot of the revenues that we just talked about, but it also shows how much we are using in appropriated fund balance and appropriated reserves.

021Those are used to help balance the budget um with expenditures. The pie chart shows a good visual of how much um state aid and school taxes represent together as a form of revenue. So together it represents about 94 to 95% of our total revenues. When looking at the expenditure side of the uh budget, there are some big cost drivers. The first one being healthcare costs. We are expecting an 18 and a half% increase in health care costs. And put that into pers perspective um for the district that's about $650 to $700,000 this year. Contractual obligations and inflation are also uh important factors to consider when developing the expenditure budget. Then just quickly some enhancements. So thinking about full transparency for the community certainly while we're developing the budget factoring in the essential objectives and the

022subheaders underneath of the essential objectives there are some ads for next year I'm grateful and fort we're very fortunate uh to be able to share that in in most cases the enhancements that you see on the instructional side are budget course cost neutral meaning that the administrative team worked vigorously to make sure that if we were going to add something to the budget that we could look for and see if we could offset the cost and so I'm not going to read the entire slide to you. But again, most notably would be the inclusion of an additional 1.0 FTE ENL teacher. ENL is English as a new language teacher. Uh we do have a professional obligation, moral imperative to ensure that every student gets what they need and deserve to be successful and Karen's been

023doing a lot of work specific to our ENL services. And so we will be onboarding an additional ENL teacher that's actually already been posted uh to fill out the remainder of this year. On the operational side of things, uh you're going to see that we did add a 1.0 FTE dispatcher. That's actually a replacement position upon looking at conducting an informal desk audit of our current services in the transportation department. Uh we deemed that it would be more effective and efficient for us to have a dispatcher as opposed to clerical to better meet the needs of our transportation department. So while that is an ad you're going to see on the reduction sides, we're actually not backfilling a clerical position on the reduction side. Uh capital outlay and our bus purchases Penny's going to speak

024to a little bit later, but those are certainly ads for the district. Important to note for everyone here tonight, but also for our community, these are gas and diesel fueled uh vehicles that we're making a recommendation to purchase. They are not electric. Next slide. We are also proposing a capital outlay project, which is a mini renovation um project that we can have for up to $100,000. By doing this, we are able to receive building aid up to um our $100,000. So, we have an 84.9% building aid ratio. So, that would allow us to get back in the following year $84,900. If we did not do this work as a capital outlay project, the whole $100,000 would come from the general fund and we would not receive any aid on it. These uh projects are very

025important. We plan on replacing more doors in the high school to help um with security. And then while we shared the budget enhancements for 2627, also want to be transparent about the courageous conversations that the administrative team had to engage in beginning as early as January through this time when the board adopted the budget on April 22nd. You're going to see that. Uh similarly, I appreciate and respect the public library your open forthcoming uh resolve around looking at right sizing and the school district is no different. We've had to uh have those courageous conversations to make difficult decisions about where we have naturally occurring attrition. Can we actually take the reduction and so uh you'll see the FTEES attached to the naturally occurring attrition and what that means is that we don't have to tell

026anyone they don't have a job. we uh optimized anyone that was uh retiring or uh had a resignation for any other purpose. And so those are the ones that we will not be backfilling in 2627 to ensure that we could accomplish a balanced budget. Uh likewise uh some of the positions we deemed were essential and that we had to backfill but we are able to uh achieve some level of breakage. And what that means is often when you have someone leave a position when you get the replacement person they're coming in at a more entry level salary. And so that does allow for us a little bit of uh cost savings uh in some cases. And then lastly, uh myself, Penny, and the administrative team, we are 100% committed to continuing to look at efficiencies

027and right sizing. And so we are capitalizing on some efficiencies for the 2627 budget, and we'll continue to look at those as we move forward. Next slide. Next, I want to take a look at the expenditure side of the budget. Employee benefits and instruction make up close to 75% of our expenditure budget. When looking at the administrative component, it is going up about 1.16% overall for the budget. A major component of that is the benefit cost increase as well as um some curriculum development and supervision with the instructional program component that's going up 2.38% over the total budget and a large portion of that again is benefits and then programs for students with disabilities. The capital component is staying relatively flat and only increasing by 0.02%. Overall, the expenditure budget is projected to increase um1,37,979,

028which is a 3.56% increase. And um that does match the revenue side of the budget. So we do have a balanced budget. >> Before you continue on, if we could go back one slide. Just it really is important to note as Penny was sharing the expenditure drivers thinking about that 18.5% increase uh in health insurance costs if you recollect what she said the dollar amount it's about $700,000. Uh the fact that we have a difference from uh 2526 to 2627 of just over a million reflects our efforts at right sizing uh taking those reductions and uh looking at efficiencies because really the bulk of that increase is healthcare costs. Next slide. So as we talked about a little bit earlier, we closed the gap between the revenues and expenditures. Um on the expenditure side by

029attrition, breakage, efficiencies and right sizing. And on the revenue side, we used appropriated reserves in the appropriated fund balance. This just shows that we have a balanced budget at 30,164,644. And that brings us to almost the conclusion. So, of course, we are scheduled for our annual election and budget vote on May 19th. It's going to be right here at the middle school from 1 to 9:00 p.m. Uh, we actually have four propositions. I think it's really important that our community understand what the four propositions on the ballot are. This is a little bit of a unique situation because in addition to us having three, then we have the library prop. Uh, so we have four propositions this year. And so, the first proposition is the actual budget. And so, uh, our voters are going to

030be asked whether they approve or do not approve of the budget as outlined, uh, by our business official this evening. And that dollar amount is 30,164,644. Our proposition number two is going to be specific to our bus purchases. The Williamson Central School District pulls out its buses from the general budget, and that's why we must have voter authorization to approve purchase of any of our vehicles. if they were part of the general budget, you wouldn't have a separate proposition, but our structure requires voter authorization. And so, we will be asking the community to approve the purchase of two 28 passenger gas fueled buses and the purchase of 364 passenger diesel fuel buses. Again, there is no mention of any electric purchase at this juncture. Uh this is an important slide. I'm just going to pass

031back to Penny just briefly so that the community understands of how we engage in our fleet replacement and the actual cost of district in taking the approach that we do. So the cost of a large bus right now um is about $180,000 we get 81.3% back in transportation aid. So over five years. So after the 5 years, that bus is expected to cost approximately $34,000. By the time we trade that bus in at year 6, we're looking at um a cost of approximately 22,000 because we have to factor in um one year of maintenance and then we subtract off what what we are going to get for trade in. So that actually reduces the cost down for that bus in year six. By the time you get to year eight and year 10, you're adding

032in more years of maintenance. And as the years progress, your tradein gets less and less. So six years is really that prime spot, and that's what the district aims to do. Um, so by the time you get to year 10, that bus is going to cost you approximately 55,000 versus the 22,000 it would at year six. Proposition three, this is also unique. There is regulatory language around maximum amounts that you can have in a capital reserve amount. And so the Williamson Central School District does currently have a capital reserve. In fact, our voters authorized in December for the 2025 capital improvement project which we will be taking a significant withdrawal from that reserve to pay for the local share. That was a costneutral project. That said, while there will be room in that account potentially

033to add to it, the way the regulation language is, we can't add anything to that account. For us to start another capital reserve uh fund, we have to have voter authorization to establish a new reserve. And so, we are asking our voters to allow for us to be fiscally responsible and create the new uh way for us to potentially uh save as feasible around potentially the next project that we'll have in the event that there's any excess funds at the end of a school year. And again, that is educational law that is required that we must have voter authorization to have the new reserve. And then lastly, and where we started this evening for our budget hearing is Proposition 4. And this is the actual language that our voters will see around Proposition 4. And

034again, it is voter authorization to allow for the 3% increase on the Williamson public Williamson public library uh levy. And again, that is required by regulation. There can't be an increase unless the voters authorize it. It has been 11 years since uh you initiated uh having the levy to go through the Williamson Central School District uh budget. And so this is just one of the snips from their slide deck. And again, if there are any questions following tonight, we heard they're very willing to answer any questions, just email them directly through the website. So that concludes our our propositions on the ballot. Uh the next topic is thinking on the 19th. It's also the annual election. And so typically we're electing board members on the night of the vote. And we actually do have two

035expiring terms. The term of Angela Deficer, board pre president, and then secondly, our expiring term of Jeff Governor. Uh, interestingly enough, and I'm not going to read the slide, we didn't get any petitions turned in. And so, I'm going to pass off to our board president to share legally what that means for the Williamson Central School District and what voters may expect as a result of that uh unusual turn of events. >> So, I read this last time. I'm not going to read the whole thing, but basically what it means is there will be no named candidates on the ballot because no one turned in petitions. So there will be two slots to write in candidates. And the way New York state law works, the two people who get the most right in votes, assuming

036that they meet the criteria, which is you have to be a citizen, you have to be 18, you have to be able to read and write, you have to be a resident of the district for at least one year prior to the election, and you cannot be an employee of the district. So the top two vote getters in the rightin camp or uh the rightin votes assuming they meet that criteria and agree to serve are then duly elected to those two open seats for a three-year term. If they refuse to serve or don't meet the criteria, then the way the law works, the board can leave the seats open, which this board doesn't think is a good idea. um hold a special special election, which is kind of a good point because we just would

037have held an election. Or um the board can appoint one or two, depending on how many vacancies there are, individuals to serve in those seats for one year of the three-year terms. And then this time next year, those individuals would either choose to fill out a petition and run for the remaining two years of the term or not. And anyone can run for those twoear terms. So in 2027, we would potentially have a three-year term because there's one expiring next year also. and one or two two-year terms depending on how this plays out. >> For those uh folks here, but then also at home, if you're interested in getting more information, uh the district has put together three budget videos. We have a series of three. The first talking about what the three-part budget is,

038but v video two being a about revenues and then bu budget video number three, uh the expenditure side and a balance budget. We also have put all of our presentations on the website uh right from the very first budget presentation on so you can see the development of the budget right from January through the point of time when the board adopted the budget on the 22nd. And in fact tonight's budget hearing is already on the website. And that concludes our budget hearing for the 2627 budget. At this time we would open up to any questions that there might be. all at once. Do you want your hear motion? >> Thank you all very much. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Um we'll move on to reports for the >> uh a short and brief uh report.

039Um sadly I wasn't able to promote the two juniors in the uh elevating student voices uh positions to take my role because um guess what uh the due the due date for um emailing uh superintendent Ashton is this Friday I believe >> we have the candidate and actually >> oh that's awesome this is um and mostly what I have left is uh highlights as it's towards the end of the year and it is busy as as students and say lock in period. Um so uh the gym floor is done. Students are very happy about it. It it looks looks good from what uh most students could tell. And um and the buses, oh the the new buses, they look they look great. Um students have highlighted how they like they enjoy the quality of the

040buses because they look a little different and they're uh awesome. Um and as well as uh some NHS project projects are coming to flow and we've had one uh really successful one uh between selling lemonade to uh an organization that helps save uh children from uh kid kidnappers I believe or something like that. Uh and it's raised over a thousand I believe now. Um it was just great. Um, and lastly, the student council. I just wanted to highlight the student council's uh fundraiser for mental health awareness. Um, it's I think the the merch is wonderful. And I think you guys, if you guys get a chance and you want to definitely please buy some. It's good. It's for a good cause. And besides that, that wraps up my >> Was there something that went out?

041>> It's in it was in forum, but I don't think it was sent outside of the community. There's posters all over the building, but that's Yeah, it's about it. >> It's reports from district administrators. >> Thank you very much. We'll start with the elementary school, Mr. Drestler. Sabers day. >> Yes. today. Um, one of the benefits of being the principal of an elementary school is we have days to celebrate all the time. Um, one of them culture last Friday I walked into the building and it was dressed like a principal day. So, there were people in the office that dressed just like I do on Fridays typically, like sport coat, hoodie, and jeans. And it was that. And then the students walking in, there was a student that put on a swim cap and put

042cover up on the swim cap and threw in a beer and did a whole arm tattoo. And so, we It was fantastic. Absolutely made my day. That's just one of the the examples of of the great things that are happening um cultural caring wise. So, it was amazing. The this week we just finished our New York State math testing which is aligned with how we're utilizing through the um our action plan. Of course, we we shifted it. Last year we had heard some rumblings that the network may be up and down during what our anticipated dates were. So, we made the decision to shift it this week. Everything went out without a hitch. Michaela did a great job making sure we had everything we needed to support all of our students and they definitely put

043in some some effort today and yesterday which is great. We are working feverishly with our building planning team to continue looking at our tier one instruction and our tier 2 instruction. And what we're doing over this month and the next month and end of the summer with parenting is looking at some some different instructional models that we can continue to meet our students at their instructional levels while shifting really if you think about our intervention model sometimes it's referred to as a triangle. trying to shift it into a diamond approach where we can extend our students that may need um further extension in their learning but then meet our students where they're at and then continue to meet our students that are not meeting the needs that they need statewide or school classroomwide or grade

044level wide. Um, again going back to this spring and our pride assemblies, we pushed back our pride assembly. We are going into excellence is the E for pride which our fourth graders just practiced today the skit that they will be performing in front of our students next week which is exciting. And then that leads us into the spring events of such thing as being a newbie. A first year grandparents day I cannot wait for it. I heard it's absolutely fantastic. from the federal arts is also something to look forward to as well. >> Thank you very much from the middle school, Katherine Taylor. >> Good evening everyone. Uh again, under our subcomponent of student achievement, we also have completed both our ELA and math testing. We do have our five and eight science testing next

045week. Um our students um took the test very seriously. They worked for, you know, all the way through. um the general consensus amongst the students and this is I'm very happy to report that particularly with math they found it very fair they reported to their teachers you know there wasn't anything that was surprising to me although uh Becca Oliver Lola was like oh I'm not sure if this is fifth grade if they remembered to flip the reciprocal when they're dividing fraction and she's concerned but that was her but that was one feedback overall most of the students were very uh and again I'm speaking uh particularly to math pretty confident and pretty comfortable with math. Um, also uh again in our culture carried it was a teacher appreciation week and so there were again snacks

046glow for our staff and and teachers and they really appreciated that and we just continued to work on you know our students focusing still on we are still here to learn and education. We're not quite to the celebration season yet. We still a little bit more to go and so far we are still pretty much locked in as far as our school year and learning >> from high school. Dr. Snider, >> we have a culture of surplus right now at the high school recently. So for school appreciation, um I ended up with three large black coffees by the end of the day from different people. So that was great. And then to kick off teacher appreciation week on Monday, our Chelsea theme was don't you know we care about you? So we bought a bunch

047of donuts. And so Chelsea, I think, bought seven dozen donuts, but then student council also bought seven dozen donuts. Um, so we had we still have a lot of donuts at the high school. Um, they're starting to go bad, but >> you could have brought some tonight. >> They're starting to get a little more like Sabers hockey play. Um so first uh this year uh Nicole Cole and Pat Verbridge uh for public policy they're launching um the project those revitalized that you typically do. Um they're trying to increase rigor but also build on some other uh interpersonal skills of our students and so they're going to be doing presentations. Uh and board members are welcome to join if you're if you're interested send me an email and I'll send you the sign up to come

048and watch some of the presentations. is going to take place over a week at various periods depending on when they have public policy, but we're going to do them in the library. Um, and so we invite all to come and check out um the presentations on topics related to uh citizenship that they're passionate about. So, it's a wide range of those and you're welcome to join for that. Um, we also have some openings at the high school. We have a nurse, a special ed opening, and a senior clerk typist opening. I'm happy to share we have four applicants for the special ed and the senior clerk typus. We are still looking for a nurse. So if we see a nurse as far as one >> urgent care. >> Yeah. >> Are you happy here? >>

049We have flexible hours and great benefits. >> Summer's offices. >> That would be allowable. Also happy to share that over the last month, we've been doing a lot of work, myself and Bridget, uh on our overnight field trip policy as we start to prepare for a trip next year with our students. And so we're cleaning up that. I think the idea is risk mitigation um as many ways possible, make sure it's the safest trip um in addition to it being fun for our students. And so we will uh we delayed uh bringing the Disney trip forward. So we tighten that a little bit. Um but the Disney trip for next year will be coming um for the 27th for our board meeting 27 and promise this weekend also welcome to come volunteer that Jeff loves

050watching the park. >> I do a nice job last year. >> Thank you very much. >> Uh athletic director Ryan Racko. So, I want to give an update on uh the the weather update. It's been very uh amazing. No. So, um and specifically for softball and baseball. So, the uh section 5 has opened up these seven uh days a week to play. Um so, open up Sundays, which that means um it really doesn't do much for us in terms of player safety. like so what I'm getting at is that um I will be advocating tomorrow for um we need to extend the season. So right now we have a the state is looking at um when the they're going to start the tournament. So sectionals that run into the state tournament. However, we're not keeping

051in mind of our students uh safety with the weather and what's currently going on. So, I'll be uh sitting on that committee through section five to advocate for extending the season for player safety for softball and baseball. So, excited about that. Not excited about what's going on with our weather. Um and again, like I said, Williamson is not um alone with not being able to get certain games in. Actually, Williamson is at the higher end of getting games in even though we've had two home baseball games. Um so, it's a little negative, but uh two points of pride. So, um, what I, uh, think about, what's super important to me and, um, us as a district is providing opportunities for our students. And like I said, we started modified football for our girls. And last

052night, they had their first victory. And walking around this morning, taking the girls, talk about uh, their win and how excited they were to play in the stadium was like that that did it all for me. So, they beat Mercy last night. And a little story, uh, my first time walking into the middle school to meet with Kate, there was a gentleman sitting on the bench, as we call it, and he was upset because he had a little altercation with another boy over football, I found out. Um, and I asked the student if I could share this and he said yes. His name is Gabe Walda. And Gabe has been very adamant about um, starting like wanting football in Williamson. I sent an email to to Rob and I last year. We sat down with

053Gabe a handful of times and last night I received I was sitting um at my counter and I received a text with pictures and it was a bunch of our Williamson boys that were at Bishop Carney training for football. So they were involved and Gabe was right there. So kind of like a full circle moment for me like he was the first guy like first student I met here in Williamson and then um him sharing his his passion for football and why and just seeing it come full circle was pretty cool. Um also in those picture were seven students that do not currently are participating in sports that were at Bishop Carney for those uh conditioning which was pretty cool. >> Very cool. Thank you very much for all the extraordinary work you launch that

054very excited for our kids from people personnel services. >> Hello. Uh so I think I mentioned uh a few weeks ago we are in full planning mode for extended school year. Um we hope to have a fully staffed extended school year. It looks to be that way. So I'm excited about that. Um, another uh point of excitement is I've been working with the CSSE chair at Marian to maybe come up with some consortium classrooms this summer um which will help with our staffing and help us maybe make a little money back through summer school. So, that's an exciting um thing going on. I plan on visiting Mary next week with Mr. Dresler um so we can put some eyes on those students and make some final plans. Um, I've been working with our community schools

055coordinators. Um, thinking about community connections. We've had advisory boards the last few years. We intend to end the year with a community schools advisory board. So, we may be tagging some of you to join us. Um, so we can make plans going into next year using our community connections, making sure that we have um complete programming for our kids here at school in support. Um, I continue to have conversations about our strengths and needs assessment. based on conversations. A real point of pride in our PPS department is the strong relationships our teachers are making with their students. Um, we advocate for our students and that is clear through every conversation I have with staff and people in our district. Um, one thing I will be working on this summer is making sure that we have

056clarity and refinement in our roles and expectations across the PPS department so everyone knows what their job is. We're clear on our expectations moving forward. Um, in addition to teacher appreciation week, today is school nurse day. Um, and we are very appreciative of Haley Muscow at the elementary school. Right now, she's the district's only full-time nurse. Um, so she's carrying a heavy load. We are working with WorkFit, um, a staffing agency, and we do have great nurses in our high school and our middle school. And so, we are very thankful for them today and every day as well for coming and helping us out in a real time of need. >> Thank you very much. May I add one small little detail? I just yesterday we had to call Haley and I said, "Haley, you've

057probably never heard of this one before. Um we our otoscope, which is for ears, looking at the goo. Uh ours had um the battery had gone and we had some children potentially with earachches and so Haley generously lent us her autocope and Mr. Roco went over and got it and we're like she's like, I have not heard that one before. So she is our stuff we do as an RN urgent care. >> Thank you. Uh this will probably be the last time I introduce you as the coordinator of instruction intervent innovation and intervention. I am asking the board to take action on a title change to better align uh Karen's work specific to curriculum instruction and assessment uh with uh positions that mirror mirror what is uh found across the region. And so it's my

058pleasure to welcome parent Cody to provide an update on instruction. >> Well, thank you very much. Um, a little bit of a recurring theme here as as we talk about summer school. We know we have the ESY summer school. We will also be hosting a regional summer school for grades 3 K through eight. Um, and the regional high school will be at Wing and the regional Marian Williamson summer school is also looking for a nurse this summer. So there is a theme here. There seems to be a shortage of nurses. Um but that was just interesting. Um I while everybody every teacher is getting ready to wrap up their school year and the administrators are looking for ways to close out their year successfully, I have been working um diligently on the professional learning for

059the teachers. My goal is and with Bridget's permission uh is to spend as much of the professional development budget on the teachers as I can to provide them exactly what they need. And so that's what we're doing. Um at the beginning of April, we sent out a uh flyer. I should I wish I printed it out for you just with a plethora of opportunities around our essential objectives. So focusing on literacy at all three buildings. Um specifically math for the elementary and the middle school. Um collaborative um activities where teachers can have professional dialogues around c something called curious conversations. How to have difficult conversations or how to navigate difficult conversations with your students in the classroom. Um and teaming up for success. Chelsea and Nancy are have volunteered to run two sessions for us.

060Um, one supporting teachers as they co-e with other teachers in their classroom and while they work with other staff in their room. So, looking for a lot of great opportunities to offer teachers. Um, although we've pushed that out in April, we've since added a few other things because we've noticed we just need to eb and flow with the interest. So, what is not being picked up is from an interest level perspective, we'll leave that out and we'll add something in. The goal is to get as much teacher interest and investment in that um in those professional development opportunities. Additionally for the um admin team, we are going to have some professional development this summer from Boseies around our accountability data. Um, and not that accountability data is new to any administrators here, but it's good

061to have that common understanding and that common perspective around what Williamson's accountability data looks like so we can plan forward with that and also bring you into the fold as well as we do that work. >> Thank you. And from the business office, I'm sure Penny has a lot more to share after delivering the budget presentation, but I first wanted to give an update on the time clock situation. Uh we had initially planned to have time clocks fully installed by the end of this school year. We have hit some de delays. Um one of the key staff members uh involved at Boseis with implementing this has retired. There has been some Boseis personnel trying to fill in the gaps but has definitely slowed down the process. Um, so we're trying to, you know, keep it

062keep the momentum going and I know that there's some technology that still has to be downloaded into the systems to be able to get us to fully up and running. So, we are trying to to push that along as fast as we can. Uh, as far as uh approaching year end, the business office is trying to close things down as much as we can in preparation. Uh so we are working on closing out purchase orders and um we had a purchasing deadline as of uh April 30th. So we are expecting minimal um requisitions coming in at this point um to ensure that you know we can get everything all cleaned up. Uh we've also um as far as the early college access coaster um we've been working with that. That poster allows us to receive

063uh Bosey's aid on some of the Gemini courses that we teach here. We have had an agreement with FLCC um for these courses. We've also just um entered into anou with um MCC um as well. So hopefully we can get some more opportunities. >> Thank you very much. Any questions for any of the administrators? Okay, I'll wrap things up with just a few pages of notes. Uh first I do want I do want to start out, I guess, just acknowledging it is faculty and staff appreciation week. I think everyone at this table is trying their uh diligent best to try and make sure that our faculty and staff feel valued and appreciated this week. I will share with you uh there have become so many different celebratory days for all of the different roles really

064going to be working in partnership with our PR team to make sure that we don't miss them. It's difficult even in the context of a board meeting to think about making sure we're acknowledging every single one that comes up. So, I appreciate uh Nancy for mentioning nurses day. I'm certain over the course of this year we've missed a couple that have popped up here and there and really looking at that as being a function and role of our PR team. Uh but I do want to give a shout out to our faculty and staff for the incredible work that they do here at Williamson. Uh thinking about budget, I just have a couple updates. We did just do the final budget hearing uh for the community. U Penny and I called the road show. Penny

065and I are currently on the road show. We traveled to a community uh presentation today at the American Legion. It was a full house outstanding uh group of uh seniors from the Williamson community who asked some great questions. Uh we had an opportunity to talk about football at Williamson and ask some questions about don't we have enough sports and we talked about making sure we had everyone's needs. Uh we also had some great questions about the merger conversations and so it was a great opportunity for uh me to share the differing pathways that the board is interested in hearing about thinking about the entire menu of possibilities for Williamson moving forward. So it was a great conversation with the group though they were asking all the right questions. Uh we will further be continuing our

066road show in each of the buildings. Uh we delivered a presentation at the high school today. We're at the elementary, middle school and transportation department tomorrow and we're going into classrooms next week. So I'm very grateful to our social studies teachers at the high school who have welcomed us to come in and to present to all of our seniors uh next week so that we can inform them about the budget and what it means to them because for our 18-year-olds, they should be informed voters. Uh there is still no state budget. That was alluded to earlier in our budget hearing. Uh on May 4th, they passed the ninth budget extender. Um really what that means to us now is we're still unsure if we're going to get that additional 1% or more in foundation aid.

067It's important for the board to understand even if we get an additional 1% or more, our budget now can't change, meaning you can't spend more than what you adopted on April 22nd. It's just important for you to note that. Uh we did get a communication from Senator Helming today. those of us on the legislative committee, she is hopeful that we'll have a budget or or news of a budget early next week. So, that's good news. I'm going to read the next one because this is something I feel extremely optimistic about and it's the first time I felt really optimistic about zero emission in a while. Uh, so legislation to delay the zero emission bus mandate sponsored by Senator Chris Ryan from the Syracuse area and Assemblywoman Michelle Salajis from Nassau County is moving in the

068Senate. The bill would delay the requirement to purchase zero emission buses until July 1, 2032. It would also put also push out the requirement for an all emission bus uh fleet till July 1, 2040. This is a huge step in the right direction. And so I want to say uh from the cso perspective, we are proceeding with cautious optimism, but it feels like we're garnering some momentum. And it's important uh that the entire entirety of the community uh know that this is moving forward. Uh Ronin, you mentioned the exeicio student board of education member. Actually, notices of interest were due today uh May 6. And so I am happy and proud to announce that we do have one candidate. Uh actually it was one of the individuals who was here this evening who presented um

069elevating student voices. I'm sorry I just lost the name. >> Aurora. >> Thank you. Aurora Higgby. So, Aurora Hickey will be our candidate for the uh exeicio board of education seat uh next year. She will continue in the process. She'll meet with myself, Dr. Snyder, and Ronin on Monday, May 12th, and then she will deliver a speech to the student body on May 15th. And then the student body will still have the opportunity to vote for our candidate on May 19th, alongside with the annual election. I want to continue to provide updates around those pathways we keep talking about. So thinking about the first one shared programming with the other superintendents from the western Wayne side of things uh we are very excited and think that we are very much ripe for continued conversations. Uh

070we are meeting again on June 1st and our action uh step for June 1st is to develop a plan to bring all of you into the conversation. We think an important next step is to bring a consultant andor facilitator to uh boards of education so that we can better understand what potentially might be the next step. So rather than us working in isolation without ensuring we have board commitment, we think one of the most important next steps will be to ensure that we're uh bringing you along with us as we continue the conversation. So June 1st we meet again. I'll make sure I provide an update at the next board meeting following that. I think it's June 17th. Uh and we'll see where we go from there. Uh an unfortunate setback. Uh one of the

071other pathways we've been discussing is programming here. Bosey's programming here, potentially leasing space to them in partnership. they have pressed pause. Uh in full transparency, uh we had a regional uh conversation as superintendents with actually our instructional counterparts uh uh Friday uh May 24th, I'm sorry, April 24th and one of the outcomes of those conversations was there is a lot of ask from the component districts for Boseies and so they just want to make sure they are thoughtful and intentional and strategic around what are going to be the actions they take first. So, while the uh director whom was leading this work with us said, "We're not forgetting about you. This isn't completely off the table. We have to slow our role a little bit." One of my favorite sayings, we have to slow our

072role a little bit uh and make sure we're intentional. So, again, not that we're not going to continue conversations about potentially leasing space here at Williamson. Uh it just might be not as quickly as we were hoping. Like, we were very excited. We were supposed to meet this week and I I have to share I was actually very disappointed with the canceled meeting. Um let's see what else I have. I just again want to bring to your attention I I presented uh a couple actually two meetings ago on the potential of us exploring an energy performance contract. I just want to again make sure before I u move forward with that that I have the boards I'm not actually going to take like vote on it but I just want to make sure all of

073you understand what that could mean for us. potentially we'd be having someone come in, conduct an efficiency study, and then make recommendations about how potentially we might move forward to shift some of the things that are on our building condition survey and do it in a different way other than a capital improvement project. Are folks comfortable if we move forward with that? Okay. And then lastly, just facilities. Uh, as Ronin pointed out, we are extremely happy with the outcome of the gymnasium floor. There is one item we believe is going to be on the punch list. We think something got dragged over the final finish. We're going to ask that they take care of that before we sign off and remit payment. But it does look beautiful. It actually looks more bold than it did

074the first time they did it. It looks it looks beautiful. I will have an update around the 2022 project during executive session because it is specific to litigation with the district. Uh and then the 2025 project, we are still in full swing with user group meetings, meaning getting the information we need to put together the design for the project for uh for hopefully start uh fall 26. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Uh district committee reports. There was a curriculum council meeting on April 23rd. Uh district events, we had middle school and history report cards available the 24th of April. Um as mentioned, we had grade three and grade four math testing May 5th and 6th and Solest May 2nd at Wayne High School and then the fifth through 8th grade math testing May 5th

075and 6th. Four county school boards association and rural schools association. Yeah. Are you still planning to >> I'm pretty sure no one else is able to >> I'm going to present or on a panel. Uh PTSA. Um so going over some stuff that we have done. Uh we had book fair two weeks ago. Um we had our uh family game night and shopping night alto together. The whole week was very successful. We had 170 people come on Thursday night for our game night. Um so that was really fun. We did not have any burning popcorn. So that is also a success. Um, also with our share the fair, which is the collection of donations to buy books for students who may not otherwise be able to afford them, we were able to purchase books for

076over 50 students this year. And um, one of the ways that we get paid out from the Scholastic Book Fair is they provide you two options. You can either get 50% of the sales to use as scholast scholastic dollars, which is respending it with them, or you can take a 35% check cut from what your total sales were. We always opt to go with the scholastic dollars because you get the bigger bang for your buck. And we earned over $6,000 again this year. >> So, Mr. D, you're going to have $6,000 on top of what's already there to spend. >> Amazing. Um last week uh we had skating parties for third and fourth grade and with that we had uh about a hundred students participate in those. Always fun. Um obviously some kids get their

077fingers run over but overall nobody nobody got super um also last week we did have our create with kindness program at the high school. First I want to give a shout out to Dr. Cider who was our last minute IT support when we could not get connected to the Prometheian board. Um it went well. We of course wish it could have gone better. We had uh 20 people with us that night. Um we also had last minute changes in our student panelists. Um our original two, Aubrey Frank and Aiden Oro um who signed on from the very beginning were there. And then literally on Tuesday afternoon, we had uh two other students step up like after 1:30, so end of the day. Uh Stevie Sarone and Kaylee Thornton um who stepped up to participate and

078fill those spots. Overall, I thought it was great. I they were more open with um what they expect and their experiences versus what I figured they would actually talk about. Um so that was really nice. Um, we had several people from around the district also volunteer for that. Um, we did have Anna's Little Bananas there to help provide uh, child care for any students that were there under the age of 13. Uh, originally we planned on doing that in the gym based on pro proximity to the cafeteria. Obviously, we couldn't do that and um, Amanda Johnson, the librarian, opened up the library for us to be able to utilize for space. And then um on Friday we are going to be doing our teacher appreciation. Um we have done the staff shoutout boards. Um are

079they put together Nancy? Okay. I haven't seen them yet. So um so those were put together. Uh we know how much the staff really loves to get those and I know a lot of the students especially the younger ones really like putting that together. And then on Friday, uh we will be hosting a coffee truck that'll go around to the different buildings. Um we put out a request to don for donations to our community. It's called thanks a latte to show appreciation for the all the staff around the buildings. And then of course uh Saturday is prom. We will be volunteering. Jeff, we are car pooling from my house if you would like to join us. >> Thank you. up. >> Test treats, >> huh? >> Test treats. >> Oh, test day. Test days got

080all spread out. We did have test treats for our middle school students. They were uh smarty packs and it says, "We think you're a smarty." >> And third and fourth graders. >> Oh, third and fourth graders, too. Awesome. And so those got distributed. >> Of course it is. It's sugar. >> Thank you. Okay, moving on to reports. I need a motion to approve the CSSE case. >> So, any discussion? All in favor? >> I opposed passes 5 quarterly achievement again. Can I use the It should be empty. So, first we'll start with a pop question quiz. There has been a theme to the first three um academia reports we've received. Wondering if you can guess what the themes have been blossoms. >> I am taking recommendations for next year's theme. So as you start to

081think about what you want to see next year actually theme big theme. Um yes but thank you. Welcome to the academic junior report. This report is going to be specific to the middle school and the high school um as the elementary school runs our registers versus um and again same place we sit with every academic achievement report. We're really focusing in on the student achievement pieces of our um strategic plan and our essential objectives. It's been um a a great Bridget and I had a wonderful opportunity to do some strategic planning with some of our teachers and we've met with them about the essential objectives and getting teacher input as well as on the professional learning plan to further inform that for next year and I'm happy to say that we feel like we're on

082a really good track good place and looking to expand that further. Let's check in on on third quarter. We'll start with our middle school. Um so did this being the third report. Um, so you you are seeing the three semesters back to back and there's not too terribly much of a shift in terms of performance. We did see an in improvement in grade 8 ELA and grade six ELA. Um, and generally our grade five remains strong and our grade seven remains um constant within our math. we do see a little bit of a dip in the uh math performance in in small ways in small areas. Um as we approach that third marking period, the kids are um reaching the end of the semester and the skills continue to get increasingly harder. So that is

083definitely something that we're keeping an eye on. Social studies and I would love to just make sure the board recognizes when we're looking at the data across the three marking periods, it's not intended to reflect growth because they're not being assessed on the same content. I just think that's important to say out loud. So, it's not like you could say, "Oh goodness, they were doing so much better in the second marking period and why is there such a decline?" The reality is they're being assessed on different content. And then as we move into our high school, uh we will take a look at the English. And despite um we know historically we've struggled with our ELA scores on ter on the 3 through eight assessment, our uh English scores in our English regions passing rates

084are really quite successful. Um so to me that speaks to a discrepancy in the assessments that are being given not necessarily discrepancy in what we're teaching. you're doing a nice job. And then our math, algebra 1 and algebra extended continue to probably be our mo our biggest struggle with our ninth grade kids and with sometimes repeating 10th grade students who are in a part of that who are part of that class. I will say one of the things that we are looking at for for next year um because we don't see it being um highly successful when our 10th graders have to take algebra one over again. We are looking at some credit recovery options to find a different way to inform students or get students up to speed with the algebra one. And so

085um we will hopefully see some changes in there and that kind of an opportunity. Um it will be one of the distance learning pieces that we will be exploring potentially for next year. Earth science is uh took a little bit of a dip marking period three. This is the roll out of the new earth science space earth science space >> earth and space science. Thank you. Um it is the roll out of the new labs and they are very rigorous. It is without a doubt they are very rigorous and so that speaks a little bit probably to the dip that we have there but certainly something that um Mrs. Mrs. Rasputic is right on top of she's running review sessions for the regents coming up and as are other high school teachers as well for

086math specifically to math science and social studies and there we have our social studies proficiency. Another additional piece that we wanted to highlight, you know, I took note that you were interested in learning about different things in terms of our academic achievement report. um each each time we present it. So, we are bringing you something that's a little bit different than we've done in the past. Um and please forgive me, but this is AI generated art. My children would be appalled at me for doing that right now, but I was so entertained by myself because they're in an apple orchard and they're reaching the finish line. Um, so, so as our students approach graduation, we are sorry, it's a little I sit in my office and I was looking at the numbers. I'm like, how

087do you make this one? So, um, very debatable with my kids though. They don't know I did it. Um, so we are planning for the future in that conversation. And so what I wanted to bring to you today was the work that our high school uh our high school counseling office the work they have done with Rob and um with the students in terms of really digging in with the kids and helping them understand the pathways to graduation. And so they spent some extens extensive time this year just talking about the different five pathways. We have a humanities pathway, a CTE pathway, a world language pathway, arts pathway, STEM pathway, and a civics pathway to graduation. And so that's what earns them the regions with distinction. Am I correct in saying it? The regent diploma

088with distinction. So not taking away the opportunity to earn the regents diploma, but for those students that really want to go the next step into something that they're really interested in, they've done a great deal of work with that. And this year, Mary and Shayla from high school were also able to go out and share that same information with the eighth grade kids so they can get ready to start that work before they even enter the door, start that thinking before they even enter the door of the high school. >> Can I ask a quick question? >> Of course. >> For the arts pathway, does that include music or is that a separate? >> It is specific to uh digital art, fine art. >> Yeah, it is specific. The music pathway is a little bit

089more complicated and we just haven't gotten there. I it comes a lot of it comes down to staffing in terms of whether we can offer something and the staffing behind it. So it's definitely um something that Mr. Smith and Mr. Tyler are interested in. It's just a matter of putting all the pieces together. Um so and on top of that we have all these wonderful opportunities for our students who are um to explore their college and their career interests. This is a listing of our WTCC WTCC students in the third marking period. So, this really isn't any new information. This just notes the number of kids that we have in different programs over at WTCC. I did notice and I apologize that in the middle of everything. Um, they are skipping some of the titles

090of some of the courses that we have going on there. But in total, we have 62 students enrolled at WTCC and their academic performance over there is in a 97% proficiency rate. So it just goes to show you that when our students get are are allowed to follow the path that you know what they believe they're interested they they are just thriving in that success area. Um some of them are very competitive. The new vision is medical and there's another new visions one they did they left off the title there. Um but those are very competitive and very soughta by the students for their um senior year experience. We also have our own CTE program through uh project lead the way in uh Williamson and that is uh largely put out by Mr. Kokoy with

091some support from some Mr. Cook. Correct. Um and so we're currently we have three of those classes that are running um for our CTE program. And so those are the numbers of kids that are enrolled in it which is pretty significant when you think our kid our senior class essentially most of our classes are around 60 68. I mean, that's what that's to me is a a really it's a testament to Mr. Kokoy and his instruction and the what he can offer. Um, you'll notice there's a a large a quite a difference in design and draw. Design and draw also can be used as an art opportunity an art elective. So, if students need one art elective, um, that kind of speaks to if they weren't necessarily interested in studio and art, they might have

092gone to design and draw. I will tell you design and draw is a very rigorous art course and I'm not sure that all the students fully can appreciate that when they step into it. Um but we do have again Mr. Kquid is wonderful getting those kids to success. So again there we have 58 kids enrolled in those classes with a 91% proficiency in those. >> Can students do either vote or project of the way to get to that pathway the CTE pathway? >> Yes. >> Yeah, they can do both. They cannot do them through both us in there. Yeah. Because the path too many classes um to one place you can get both. >> Well, that's neat though. So, if they don't want to go, they still have that. >> I will say the CTE

093courses, this these are done in conjunction with RIT. They do not um qualify for early college access or our closer. Um so, that is a difference between this and versus what's offered at WTC. when we look at those, we only had two kids right now that participated in courses through NCC and those were through WTCC. Um, but you know, now that that that poster has been set up, thanks to Penny, um, we will be looking at those courses as well to see if there's any pieces that might be a good fit there. And then in terms of our early college access through um the coaster, the work that we did with the coaster, this is the number. We have a total number of 85 students um enrollments in early college access courses. And that to

094me is just remarkable with a 99% proficiency rate. And these are all through FLCC. Um and the great thing I feel like I keep saying that I'm going to take I'm going to pass these out and take two on your way around because it's actually four pages long and I didn't staple. and a copy. Um, so a wonderful opportunity that we have is that in working with city Boseies to get our distance learning labs up and running, they've facilitated a lot of conversations with FLCC and what that would look like for kids that we have um in cases where students will walk out with at least a half of an associates degree before they leave the high school setting. And that's just so phenomenal. And so this is a a piece that was provided by

095us um associates and it's a conversation for Rob and his counseling team on the regular is to look at these and see what are we offering and can we make um getting an associates degree more accessible. We cannot cover all of these courses. But I can tell you in what uh the high school is offering right now, we can accomplish all of the English credits. we can accomplish the oral communication classes, um the DEI classes, mathematics, natural science, humanities. I don't think we can do the arts, but we can do world language. The the um challenging ones, US history and world history, FLCP is very pretty territorial about those and are not super anxious to support those kind of Gemini classes in our district, which is why we went with AP for those opportunities. and

096I didn't include AP in there as a reference point. Um, so we have a a great opportunity for kids to walk out with a good chunk of an associates degree um done. And so that conversation is also becoming more prevalent at the high school as the kids reach that point. And to me, that's just very exciting. We're always looking for creative ways to bring these things in. Some of them are Gemini, some of them are distance learning courses. Um, and that just is a constant conversation for the high school. and said that the thing for me with the early access that I'm most proud of is there's the financial benefit students. Um, so so many kids are capable of going to college, but with the cost of college today, we have those tough conversations in

097the counseling office a lot where kids are like, I'm going to do something different because college is $50,000 a year. And this helps release some of that burden for them that they would long-term feel. I think it's encouraging for kids to leave and say, oh, I can do it in three years now because of this. Um, so it's just encouraging for kids and we're saving them, you know, kids ends up at a U of R and they get free year because of these early college access classes, you save $75,000 long term. >> Not not only that, but I know for for our kids not having to take gen eds when you get to college, that's amazing. Like they can go right into the things that they really want to study. >> That's that's amazing. >>

098It's truly amazing. Um we do and if you look at right now we have the current senior population juniors and senior population we have 32 kids in in college level English at that grade level which is just phenomenal. So, just one dip into a different area that we don't typically talk about necessarily when it comes to the academic tutor report, but I thought it was worth celebrating. And I'm sensing by the conversation we've had about different um reports and things that you want to see in the binder this summer that these might be other areas. There might be other there will be other areas of course like this that I will be bringing towards in the future now that I've uh dipped my toe in the water for a few times and am ready to

099kind of launch out a little bit. I don't know if anybody has any questions. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Um, moving on to the consent agenda. I need a motion to approve consent agenda items 5B through 5T. So move. >> Any discussion? >> All in favor? >> I oppose. Passes 5. I need a motion to approve the retirement resignation as presented. So move. >> Any discussion? Thank you to Miss Whitmer. Congrats on 25 years of service. All >> in favor? >> I oppose. Ches 5. >> She's like, "Can I vote?" Okay. >> In a position like that, you know, they do more than they're probably realizing. >> Okay. I need a motion to approve the retire the second retirement resation as presented. >> So moved. >> Any discussion? Again, congratulations on your chairman. Thank you

100for your service. Um all in favor I >> opposed passes five. >> Old business policy discussion. Thank you very much. We have I believe four separate I'm sorry two really policies that we need to review. I'm sorry we've been on the road show today. Losing my rhythm. I feel like we did really good earlier today. Uh the first one I'd like to bring forward to the board is policy 8250 which is animals in the school. Uh we did this as part of our policy review and then an issue/incquiry came to my attention that I wanted to bring forward to the board just to make sure I'm clear on what the intent and spirit of the board of education is. If you have the policy in front of you it's specific to paragraph number two second

101sentence. The sentence reads, "It is the principal's responsibility to ensure that there's an appropriate educational purpose if any animal is housed in a classroom. I informally surveyed the principles to ascertain if in fact all pets that were in classrooms had an educational value or purpose. And I'm not confident that we can say that's true. Certainly at the elementary level there's a strong argument that having pets in the classroom uh provides instruction and humane treatment of animals because oftentimes students are associated with different tasks i.e. feeding cleaning etc. So I want to make sure I'm clear on if it's the will of the board that if we have any i.e fish tanks in a middle school or high school classroom if it does not serve an instructional purpose our principles would be required to ask that

102they are removed in many cases i.e. Again, for example, a fish tank may have been in a classroom for a period of time. So, this would be a shift culturally for us as a district. And I want to make sure before I task any of the administrative staff to remove fish tanks that that's the spirit behind the board's policy. >> Sorry, we're clarifying what animals. I mean, >> well, you know, we can define animal. We can spend a lot more time on policy and talk about defining animal. Can you remind me is this one that >> should be elementary school but it's one that we are required to have correct >> animals. I don't believe this was required now. >> We are including it. >> The thing that comes to mind is like a social

103emotional something to teach mindfulness that maybe it's not an educational purpose but it's a therapeutic one >> and I would think that there would be a need for something like that. >> So here's the thing. I don't want to strike that part of it. and or with authorization from the building administrator. If we're confident, then a teacher is going to assume full professional responsibility for the maintenance and upkeep of the habitat for the animal. I have no qualms about that. I do think this would be a cultural shift and there are things where we don't have latitude, i.e. things like well you can't have a coffee maker in your classroom, you can't have a microwave in your classroom because those are insurance issues and that is a cultural hit as well across the district. This

104is one again if the professional is willing to assume responsibility and the building administrators given authorization. I if the if it's the board is comfortable I certainly could supporting my administrators in making that determination. >> I am I know we've heard about it like when we've done student focused groups and stuff. There is a a social emotional component to it that might not be strictly educational but I know because we've heard about it from kids. So I would hate to say oh get rid of it because there are kids who benefit from it. >> I appreciate that. I feel this is academic. >> Yeah. >> So the recommendation uh could be to ensure that there's an appropriate educational purpose and or with um administrator authorization if any animal is housed in the classroom. I'd like

105to give that professional autonomy to the building principles to ascertain if it's an acceptable uh environment for the pet. I mean certainly there might be some where they would say that can't happen. Uh but this would allow for us to continue the ones that are currently housed in classrooms in our district. Are you comfortable with that? >> Okay. So Kelly, we would have to update that language for policy 8250 to grant the administrator the uh latitude to provide consent for that. Okay. >> And you'll send me that? >> Yeah. Okay. >> I will now. >> I'll remind you. Okay, the second policy in question is 4310 is currently our board policy uh specific to superintendent and board relations. When we were looking at it originally during policy committee, uh there were some questions and so

106ultimately we left policy committee and agreed that I would send you the Erie 1 policy uh which is 4310 and 4320 and Kelly Dixon reached out and got the NISBA policy which is numbered 2240. And so if we're looking for brevity, 2240 says it. What is the role of the superintendent? What are you tasking me to do? If you're looking for more content, then it would be my recommendation that you adopt the ER1 policies 4310 and 4320, which speaks to what my role is and any subsequent superintendent for the district, what their professional responsibility is, and uh what that relationship looks like between the superintendent and the board. I don't know if you had a chance to review the policies yet, the policy drafts. >> Does anyone have a strong preference? >> Any none of

107this uh our policy number 4310 is not a required by regulation policy. So it would be uh really the jurisdiction of the board to say do we need a policy and if we do what is our preference is it the old not old I don't mean like age the current >> 4310 uh NISBA 2240 or ER1 4310 and 4320 they just did them separately but 4310 and 4320 speak to the professional responsibilities very clearly around the role of the superintendent 2240 really does as well just in a very different way and much briefer. >> I like the eerie. >> The only thing I didn't like about the eerie is I feel like it's very it's maybe too formal compared to the one that we had before. I feel like the the one we have in

108place now is more collaborative with superintendent and that one is more, you know, more formal in the in how it looks to that. >> So, and it's more language than anything. Is there words you could >> I think in this to make it have the same spirit? >> You know, it just that's that's what I kind of when I looked at both I was like this one they're saying pretty much the same thing. Just one seems like we're working with the superintendent rather than the superintendent is the CEO with the corporation. Does that make sense? >> If I might, I think one of our mantra statements we've been saying is clarity is kindness. I think the Erie 1 frankly does a better job delineating the role of the superintendent versus the role of the board.

109And I think when we got our policy conversation specific to 4310, that really was a concern that I get. It felt a little bit like it was muddy >> around what the roles of the superintendent versus the board of education is. >> I I think Sarah would I like the eerie ones because they lay it out more. >> Yes. This is nice that it's short. But it doesn't really give you the specific things. >> This makes it very clear. >> It's the public. >> Yes. And that's the thing. If if someone's looking at our policies trying to figure it out, this makes it very clear. That leaves a lot of questions if you're not familiar. >> Same with if you have a new board member. This makes it very clear. The um this one is

110>> while it says it, it's very It's loose. >> Yeah, >> loose and tight. One's going to be more tight. Again, developed by team of attorneys. >> I personally appreciate the clarity, >> but you know, I talk often and about articulation documents. >> So, you can see why I would gravitate towards that. >> Yeah. Oh, yeah. I thought about you. I thought this is right at um the Erie policies don't really talk about the board responsibilities like the our current policy either, but I'm those are things that I wonder if you need in there at all >> or if they're in our our uh handbook already. That's >> it could also go to the regulation too once we get to that point which one is needed. >> I don't regulate the board though. regulations would

111be specific to me enforcing policy. So, I don't know that that would go in like there might not even be a regulation for that one just because again I don't regulate or have oversight over the board. If you go back to for uh the original 4310 that's really I think trying to delineate what is your role versus what the superintendent because you've been clear about what the superintendent is. You can infer well if this is the superintendent's role it's certainly not the board's role. >> Right. So you're saying that this one because it's more about superintendent board relations doesn't include all of the things the board does in addition. >> It doesn't list them out like our current policy. But I'm okay with that because I think that they're in our handbook. >> I think

112it is too. >> So I don't I don't know that it needs to be a policy. But the question is if someone's looking for it, >> is is it in a place where they can get to it? And our handbook is available. >> They should be able to find it. the work that's not included here. Is that something the public would generally want to know? >> I guess if they're looking up what the role of the school board is overall. Okay. >> But to your point, our board handbook >> really explain >> delineates that >> and that is accessible to the public. So, are we okay moving forward adopting Erie 4310 Erie 4320 and replacing our 4310 with those two? Jeff, >> how do you feel about that? >> Good. >> Yep. Okay. And then

113the last policy to revisit is uh Eerie 1's 5840 specific to artificial intelligence. Uh one was presented to the board is uh the Eerie 1 that then was sent to legal for the district through uh Bonik and King. Uh they did a red line and I gave that to the board and then the board made recommendations slash uh provided commentary. And so the last draft that should have been attached, I believe it is what's attached to the agenda tonight is the one that it encompasses Erie one legal input and then your input into the policy number 5840. >> What's that? You ready? You're ready to move. Yeah, I'm feeling good. >> Does um the revisions to this policy, the district expressing reserves right policy without is that even in there? Isn't that just a general

114rule? >> I'm sorry. >> Second to last paragraph. >> That was legal putting it in. When it says without notice, does that mean what if we don't >> not following typical protocol? If if it was deemed that it was problematic in any way. And again, if you'll recollect, my rational for bringing this forward to the board was really more about risk mitigation to the district. That's what this was about for me as a superintendent. So from legal's perspective, this is saying they can't possibly, Francis has been saying this all along, can't possibly anticipate every problematic facet of AI. And so this allows us the latitude. If something comes up and I'm like, "Oh dear, we need to update this, I could bring it to you. We could change it without having to go through the

115formal process of although you could do wave the two and get it done meeting anyway." >> But you could do it if it's not you're not at that point in the cycle. >> Correct. >> Which really you can do. >> I'd like done we could to make as comfortable as possible in uncomfortable times. >> So to your point, we really you could move to strike that I mean that came from legal and they're of course going to mitigate risk >> on the far end of the continuum, but the reality is you already have that right at any juncture. You can bring forward policy discussion at any meeting and you could wave readings and have it done in the night, >> right? >> So >> that's what I thought. >> Who would you put in as

116the as the next says, "If you have any questions regarding this policy, please contact We have to fill someone in there." I'm probably gonna name Karen as >> Oh, yeah. >> CIA. >> So, she's responsible for you. Just say network. So, >> I don't even know how to ask this. Is everyone as comfortable as they can be with this adopting this policy? Because I know no, not everyone's comfortable more comfortable than we've been. >> More comfortable. >> I I mean, I am more comfortable than I've been. And I I mean, I've read it over. There's probably some little tweaks that I would do, but I don't think that they're going to change anything that dramatic. >> So, maybe take this a little bit as a win. The reality is that now that there's policy language

117and it addresses the teach piece for students and for staff, like the reality is now Aaron has to make sure that that happens, right? Like so now we have to be very intentional where I'm not saying we haven't had intentionality around having conversations with our students and staff about AI uh but we really haven't said gee you know what this needs to be a strand of our thinking while we're engaging in professional learning and now it has to be >> right through Karen and I like I like the safeguards of you know having to read over everything you know that the final project can't be just all AI itself right like those are things that I think are really important So, would we be able to include these with the rest of the ones we

118already this year for 527? We're hopeful. >> If do we still think we could do the other ones and these might not? >> I I think >> I mean we barring any major computer crashing catastrophe already happened. Okay. >> Well, if these >> two four um >> we could always put those on June 17th and wave >> if we couldn't get to >> get to it with the rest wraps up our >> intentional >> and then next year the penny section. I'm sure she can't wait. I can't. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Uh, new business. Um, be it resolved that upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools, the board of education hereby approves the agreement between the Williamson Central School District and the employee identified therein, and be it further resolved that the terms

119and conditions set forth within the agreement shall be effective retroactive to the date of execution by the employee. And be it further resolved that the superintendent of schools and or board president are authorized to execute any documents necessary to effectuate the terms of the agreement on behalf of the district. >> So move second. >> Any discussion? >> No. All in favor? >> I oppose. Passes 5-0. I need a motion to approve the resolution to revise the 2025 2026 school calendar. >> So move. >> Second. Any discussion? >> This uh recommendation just addresses the fact that we had additional snow days built in. Uh this is the district's effort at a give back on those days and it reduces the length of the school year which most people are finding very celebratory. >> Thank you. All

120in favor? >> Opposed? Passes 52. >> I need a motion to approve the memorandum of agreement with CSEA and employee. >> So moved. Second. >> Any discussion? All in favor? >> I opposed. Passes 5-0. Um, we have some budget transfers. Anything we need to note about those, Penny? >> No. >> Uh, meetings, upcoming district committee meetings. We have a safety committee meeting on May 13th at 8:00 a.m. in the middle school cafeteria. A wellness committee meeting on May 14th at 2:30 in this room. uh technology committee meeting on May 27th at 2:30 also in this room and I don't know the date off the top of my head but I know we have student focus groups sometime between now and the next meeting I want to say the 21st 21st and I did send the

121document >> yep I was going to nudge everybody >> to look at those questions >> I can send that in the morning I'll reply all >> it's um the question she sent us the questions that we used last year I believe >> and we want to update them because we talked about we want some of them changed. >> So I'll make a note to send that in the morning. >> It was a while ago. >> I remember you want some feedback by a certain date on that. >> Um >> we should probably I got the calendar. We should probably finalize our question ahead of time. That's a Thursday. So if I mean even if we did it by the 20th because we usually just print it off and bring them with us. >> So just

122email. >> Yeah, that we can do it by email the five of us like if there's questions we want to remove, questions we want to add. Um because it was I think it's a couple pages. >> Um and we had added a couple in the last couple years, but I know some of them we didn't get to, some of them we don't really get thoughtful answers to. And then others we get a varying commentary on. So um but we can do that by email. >> Yes. Yep. And that's okay because that has happened before where not everyone is is there. >> Well, you'll get to read all the >> Okay. Upcoming district events. Um, as mentioned, we have the high school prom this Saturday at six o'clock at Oak Park Marina. Um, the fourth grade

123concert is next Tuesday, May 12th at the middle school at 7 p.m. Fifth and sixth grade or I'm sorry, fifth and eighth grade science test is May 13th. The annual budget vote and board of election or board of education election is Tuesday, May 19th from 1 to 9 in the middle school cafeteria. And that same day is also the middle school art show at 5:30 and the five and six spring concert, fifth and sixth grade spring concert here at the middle school at 7 p.m. End of the 35w week marking period is March or May 22nd. I can't believe that's already here. Um for the middle school and high school, we have the Memorial Day holiday on May 25th. Um, as mentioned earlier, on May 27th, we have a retirement and tenure reception at 4:30

124at the high school cafeteria. And then our regular board event meeting will be following that at 5:30, but we will be at the high school auditorium instead of instead of the English room. >> Am I remembering this part? Isn't there usually food at boat night? In the past there has been a chicken bar for chicken barbecue. >> There is a chicken barbecue. The class of 2028 is doing it. Um $20 a ticket. Nicole Cole is the adviser. So >> I have seen >> if you want tickets, we we can definitely get you some. >> I've seen some announcements about the kids. Um, and then the only other thing I was going to remind everyone, if you haven't already completed the Boseie superintendent search survey that came to us, we talked about it last time and

125I think I should get to Jeff on the phone. The deadline is Friday the 8th. So, if anyone hasn't completed it, try to go in and do that. >> Closing item board of ed highlights. Big thank you to our staff and our teachers. I mean, we wouldn't have a school without any of them and all of the work they put in. They do the teacher appreciation right the longest stretch of the school year that any other highlights any public comments I can make something up if you want me to do that make her reading >> I mean if you want me to the same goal meeting yesterday. I just want to organize the notes I took and then the next meeting. >> Interesting. >> Um I need a motion to adjourn to executive session. >>

126I move that we adjourn to executive session for the employment history of particular person >> and collective and litigation. Yeah. current litigation. >> All in favor? >> Opposed? Passes 5. >> Thank you everyone. >> It's 7:30. >> Yes. Yep. >> You know,