Board of Education Meeting - 5/7/2025

001No executive session starts. Do you have any announcements? Everybody will be unable to attend. All right. No announcements. Um we're going to jump right into the budget hearing. the propositions for 2025 2026. And Penny, I'm very excited to share this evening the budget presentation. We've been warming up for you. We did presentations over the last couple days in each of our buildings. And poor Penny, I keep sharing her secret. She does not love public speaking, but boy, we're warming her up and she's been doing a lot of public speaking over the last couple days. So, she's all polished tonight for you. So, it's our pleasure pleasure this evening to present our budget. We're going to take you through our revenues, expenditures, the ballot propositions, and then certainly open up the opportunity for any questions around

002the budget. Uh the first thing before I pass off to Penny is just anchoring into the idea of that when we think about the budget, we want to consider the mathematical expression of our hopes and aspirations around our work at WCS. As everyone knows, the board of education provides the guiding direction and vision for our work. And we need to make sure that our budget reflects the direction of the district. and we feel very confident that our budget for the 2526 uh school year does that. Uh we also want to make sure that in the way that the board has identified the essential objectives that the budget aligns with us being able to execute the work of the essential objectives. We also feel very confident that we have aligned our budget to the essential objectives

003identified by the board of education. And so that I'm going to pass on to Penny who's going to take you through the financial side today. I'm going to start with talking about the revenues on the budget. Uh first type of revenue I'm going to speak about is the property taxes. In 2012, the New York State in sorry, New York State um implemented the New York State tax cap which uh sets the allowable growth rate factor which is also known as the inflation factor. Um they kept that at 2%. It's important to note that there are other factors that go into the tax cap calculation that can cause the uh tax levy to increase more than 2% or cause it to be lower than 2%. If the school district goes out uh with a levy um

004that's meeting the tax cap or going below, the budget needs to pass by 50% plus one vote. If the district was going out above the tax cap, in order for the budget to pass, it would need a 60% super majority uh vote yes in order to pass. This slide highlights the tax cap calculation. Um I'm not going to go into it in detail, but it is here for you to review if you are interested in looking at that. There's a quiz for that for Jeff Governor at the end of the presentation. Just making sure he knows. I got a lot. This slide shows the tax levy limit calculation uh for the 2526 school year. It starts out with the 2425 tax levy. It takes into account the tax base growth factor pilots and then the

005inflation factor which is that 2%. Um and down at the bottom of the calculation is where you would show any exclusions. This year we didn't have any exclusions. So the tax levy for proposed for the 2526 school year is 12,548645. That is a $341,250 change over the prior year which is 2.8%. I'm going to talk a little bit about school tax rates. The town sets um the assessment values for all properties. The office of real property taxes issues equalization rates. Assessment values and equalization rates play a big part in setting the tax rate. In July, the district will start to aortion the tax levy using the real property tax figures. And in August, the board of education will adopt the tax levy. The 2425 true tax rate was$,774. Now what that true tax rate means

006is if all the properties in the district were assessed at their full value, they would have a 100% equalization rate. And that means that the tax rate would be lower. Um the lower your equalization rate, the higher your tax rate would be. Um the true tax rate for 2526 is just an estimate as we do not have the assessment values for 2025 yet nor do we have the equalization rates. What that estimate is based on is the 2526 tax levy that we are proposing of 12548645 but it is using again those assessment values and equalization rates from the prior year. Based on this true tax rate estimate, a $100,000 home is estimated to increase about $50 um a year. $200,000 home about $100 a year. And a $300,000 home $150 a year. Now again, it's

007important to note that these are just estimates as we don't have actual figures. Some other things about the school tax rates, I kind of already uh touched on some of them, is that you really do have to factor in the impact of equalization rates. Towns with equalization rates below 100% will have a tax rate higher than districts higher than the district true tax rate. Some of the other revenues that the districts receive is state aid. Foundation aid is one of the biggest state aids that we receive. And this year we are expecting an increase of approximately 2% which will equal $182,000. It is important to note that the foundation aid could change as we are still awaiting the New York State budget to be finalized as that was due April 1st and we still have

008not gotten those figures yet. This slide um shows the state aid breakdown that the state released in their executive budget. Um these are all tenative numbers. They're not final numbers. and what it also shows what the district is projecting to receive for aid numbers which do vary from what the state is projecting. Um the biggest difference is the building aid line where um and that is because in December um all of the final cost reports and early aid claims for any capital projects that are winding down are due in December and these runs do not include those December reports. So, we worked with our municipal advisors and came up with a the number of $2,150,000 um that we could expect in building a this year, which is about a 9 or $850,000 difference. Some of

009the other aids where there's a variance, the Bosey's aid, transportation aid, um the state bases their um prediction for aid off of what we budgeted. We're not at the end of the school year yet, so we don't know where um those expenses are going to lie. So, we're taking a conservative approach and saying we're not going to spend all that money, and we reduce down our expectation for what we're getting um as aid for that. The year-to-year increase in state aid is expected to be about $447,000, which equals 3.06%. We do receive other types of revenues. Um they are not as um as big of a part of our budget as the other two that we've just talked about, but they are important. Um we are not uh expecting much of a change in those

010revenues. This pie chart shows you that uh the state aid and property taxes make up about 95% of the district's revenues. Here you can see the breakdown of those revenues that we talked about and then also what we plan to use to help balance the budget with the expenses. So appropriated fund balance, we're not expecting to use any of that this year. um we used about 275,000 last year and we are lowering the amount of reserves that we are using this year to help balance that budget as well. So the overall budget increase is expected to be $436,765. Bridget's going to set the stage for the expenditures and I'm going to go through this very quickly because we have presented on this a couple of times now. And so just thinking about the drivers meaning

011the negotiables when you're putting together the subsequent year's budget. Uh certainly we have to attend to expected healthcare cost increase. It's ironic when we shared at each of our presentations in the buildings earlier the last couple days. Uh we were thrilled when it comes in at 10 to 14% instead of the 22% we saw a couple years back. So again a significant increase. We are also bound by contractual obligations for each of our units as well as administrative contracts. So those are guaranteed increases that we need to attend to with salary. Uh the district is currently entering into negotiations with CSEA. That's factored in. Uh as part of our uh contractual obligations with our units, both CSEA and WFA. Uh there are retirement incentives, meaning if an employee works for X number of years, they

012may anticipate certain uh retirement incentives upon retirement. And so we have to factor in those as we're building our 25 26 budget. And then certainly inflation. Thinking like thinking about things like utilities, gas, electric, water, etc. the prices of those things are going up and so the 2526 budget reflects those things. Uh enrollment. While I'm not going to spend a lot of time talking about declining enrollment, I think it's important to address the concept of declining enrollment. Uh WCS, like most small rural school districts in our state, have experienced declining enrollment. And it's unfortunate because there's a misconception that because we have lesser students that it should cost us lesser amounts of money to actually educate those students. The reality is that that's not true. There's diseconomy of scale and the reality is we still

013have to fund having our three buildings open for elementary, middle school, high school, etc. So that disconomy of scale, while folks want to think it should cost us less, it really does not cost us less to educate our students. We're an institution of public education, meaning we have programmatic considerations, we have an obligation to ensure equity and access to a world-class education for the students at Williamson. And so everything that is listed here are the things that we must attend to as a public education institution. We also want to make sure that we have multiple pathways for our students at Williamson. It isn't a one-sizefits-all and we are preparing our students to be life ready. Gone are the days where we say it is just a college pathway. We have to be thinking about career,

014college, military pathway so that all of our students leave Williamson life ready. And that includes WTCC programming. It includes Gemini AP courses. It also in it also includes ensuring that our special education and 504 students get everything that they need and deserve to be successful at Williamson. In just a few slides, Penny's going to speak about the actual breakdown of our expenditures. It's important to factor that we're an organization of human beings and the reality is we are 248 strong at Williamson and there's the breakdown of how our uh personnel is distributed. when you look at our actual expenditures and as it should be, it's predominantly salary and benefits for the folks who are working to educate the students at Williamson Central School District. Additionally, operationally, we have to attend to our facilities and to

015transportation. So, when you drill down into the budget, into the expenditure side, what you're going to see is us attending to the eight buildings that we have. Yes, we have three school buildings, but we also have five other buildings that are attached to the Williamson Central School District that we have to report to SED on. We have three operating kitchens uh totaling uh over 335,000 square feet. Our fleet is proud to boast 26 vehicles to transport our students from doortodoor safely. We have to ensure that they are transported safely and we transport over 36 square miles. Uh lastly of interest uh thinking about the proposed budget for 2526 there are some ads and the ads reflect our commitment to the essential objectives identified by the board of education at the elementary level. We recognize the

016need for us to ensure that we have early intervention and so we are building in more academic intervention support at the elementary and both ELA and math. We are also ensuring that our ENL population, uh, those are our students who require additional support, English as a second language, we want to make sure that they get what they need and deserve to be successful and that we're also in compliance. And so this budget reflects a 1.6 FTE to a 2.0. We're increasing our ENL support by a point4 FTE. uh tech staff. Uh we currently have a small tech uh tech uh staff configuration and so the recommendation in 2526 is to include an additional.5 FTE in our tech technology department to attend to a number of different things. Number one, day-to-day operations. Number two, cyber safety

017for the school district. And then number three, also thinking about how do we enhance our instruction instructional technology integration for our teachers because we know that's a way to really hook our learners. Um, city Boseies, this is one I'm very excited about. WCS will be participating in a coaster that allows for us to maximize the use of distance learning equipment. I want to thank Rachel Liberator who uh two years back uh there were a number of districts in the region, myself included, in a different district. We all successfully applied for grant funding to allow for us to obtain distance learning equipment. We have it. We're getting ready to actually uh utilize it. And so moving forward next year, this coaster allows for us to actually offer more opportunities for our students. Uh whether it be

018AP Gemini andor electives and that's very exciting for our students when we're having conversations with students to know what they're talking about, more opportunities for classes. This is a means by which for us to do that. I mentioned I believe last board meeting or two, I apologize, I don't recle exactly which one, our new athletic director has stumbled upon the need for us to really consider our athletic equipment. And so Brian Roco requested a meeting with myself and our finan our business official and said we need to invest more in our athletics equipment. And so he will be working this summer on putting together an equipment replacement plan and he successfully advocated for us to add to that budget line so that we can actually engage in the equipment replacement. So that's factored into the

0192526 budget. And then lastly, at our last meeting, anticipating that we may see additional uh state aid funding, uh our our middle school principal has successfully advocating, saying, "We have a larger cohort coming up to fifth grade." If the district is committing to early intervention and supporting students so they get what they need and deserve to be successful, we really need to open up another section in fifth grade. And looking at her enrollment trend data, we need to support that. So for the next five years, she's going to see large enough cohorts that that extra section really makes sense. Uh on the operational side of thing, not going to side of things, not going to spend tremendous amount of time. Penny's actually going to speak to the capital outlay and our uh transportation purchases in

020a subsequent slide. Thinking about balancing a budget, we we just added, right, we just added a number of things that are really important in meeting our essential objectives. Uh we started this process, if you'll recollect, at about a $ 1.9 million gap between revenues and expenditures. The way we were able to balance the budget is through these four important concepts. Number one, looking at attrition. When there are retirements, are there ways for us to potentially not backfill those? And there are a number of positions that we did not and will not move forward with back filling. Number two, thinking about breakage. when there are retirements or resignations, oftentimes what happens is the individuals that we backfill with uh come in with lesser experience and don't cost the district quite so much. Uh the administrative reconfiguration

021um big change for Williamson Central School District moving forward in 2526, but that was really a cost-effective savings of about $330,000 for the 2526 school year. And lastly, continuing to look at right sizing across all areas, both instructional and operational. um admin operations. Uh what that means for Williamson, just to be as fully transparent as we can be, if we're thinking about where the reductions are, you're going to see that almost all of them are naturally occurring. Uh for CSEA, it means the reduction of one monitor and one aid. Uh and again, those are attributed to retirement purposes. For WFA, that's our instructional staff. It equates to two teachers who retired, who resigned for purposes of retirement. and we are able to successfully move forward next year without backfilling those positions. It also includes a

022number of TAs. Uh in the other category under WFA and full transparency, you'll recollect we started this year really struggling to find a Spanish teacher and it was a significant upset for our high school. It was an upset for our students and we're really sorry we were unable to backfill successfully. As a result of our experience this year posting that position six times, that's not hyperbolic. uh we have made the decision we're going to move forward in a diff different direction. We're going to try and work with shared services with a neighboring district to still offer Spanish and French but in a different model. And then lastly, as already alluded to, our administrative reconfiguration was a cost-savings measure for the district. And with that, I'm going to pass back off to Penny, who's going to

023talk more fully about our anticipated expenditures. Our expenditures are anticipated to increase 436,765, which equates to a 1.52 increase over the prior year. On this slide, you can see on the pie chart that instruction and employee benefits are the two biggest expense drivers of our budget. I'm going to discuss the expenses in a three-part budget format. U the first part of the three-part budget is the administrative component. The administrative component provides for the overall general support and management of of the district including the business office, the superintendent's office, um along with all the legal and accounting services. This part of the budget has seen a minimal overall increase of approximately $11,000 over the prior year. The second part of the expense budget is a program component which includes all of the instructional expenses including the

024costs for the teacher salaries and other program costs related to that education. Um, it also includes transportation costs that allow us to be able to transport the students to and from school every day. The third part of the budget is the capital component. The capital component provides the funding for the overall maintenance and repair of our facilities, the upkeep of grounds as well as utilities. It also includes the debt service portion um which are payments that are on our uh completed capital projects. Um it is important to note that we also receive building aid on those completed projects. So that is off the the debt service payments are offset by the building aid on the revenue side. This slide summarizes all three parts. And as you can see, the the year-to-year change is the $436,765

025yearover-year change. In the 2526 school year, we're proposing another $100,000 capital outlay project. The importance of capital outlay projects um is that the district is able to do many renovation projects while receiving building aid. We're allowed to do $100,000 a year and next year we want to replace some doors in the high school that need to be replaced um due to deteriorating um conditions of the doors. Of that $100,000, we're expecting to get about $84,300 back in building aid. If we were not to do these repairs as a capital outlay project, the h the full $100,000 would be at the taxpayers's expense. These are some pictures that show some of the doors that we will be replacing. This slide shows you how much um a large bus could cost and a small bus would cost

026the district. Um I'll go over the purchase of a large bus here, but the small bus um the small bus follows the same pattern. Um, if we look at the large bus, it will cost us approximately $176,000. Over five years, we will get 81.5% of that back in aid. So, after the 5year period, $32,65 will be the cost to us. We are on a five-year uh bus replacement plan. Um, by the time we put the order in for that bus and you get the bus in, we do keep the bus approximately six years. Um, the first five years, we don't really have much in maintenance costs because we of all the warranties, but in that sixth year, we estimate an average cost of about $2,700. When we go to train in the bus, we think

027we'll get we typically get around 11,500, making the cost of that bus after six years $23,843. If we were to keep that bus eight years, the cost of maintenance goes up, freed in value goes down. So therefore, the overall cost of the bus does go up. And then again, the same scenario for 10 years. So by the time you get out to 10 years, you're looking at a cost of $54,894. For the 2526 school year, we are looking to purchase two full-sized buses, two smallsiz buses, and a van. The full-size buses are often used. we can transport more students and which means that we need less drivers because we can transport more kids at one time. This is extremely beneficial due to driver shortages that exist all throughout the region. This year we're p purchasing

028two small buses. Um they're a little bit different than what we have purchased in the past. uh these buses will have a capacity of 35 students versus the typical 25 to 28 passenger bus that we have bought. This will allow greater flexibility um to accommodate students who are on who have IEPs where they may have specific uh transportation needs. For instance, if they need to be sat in a seat by themselves, we are better able to be able to accommodate that. There are also some anticipated benefits specific to vehicle maintenance with that. The van can be utilized for transporting students that are in out of in out of district placements where only maybe one or two students need to go. It's a lot more efficient to drive a van than it would be a bus.

029The first ballot proposition that we are going to have um at the vote is for the budget which is going to be 29,126,665. And the second proposition will be on the buses that I just spoke about. The proposition is authorizing us to use 660,000 um from our reserve, but that money is offset over five years with transportation aid. I also included on this slide the budget notice which shows you the um 2425 budget, what we're proposing for 2526 and a contingent budget. It also um shows you the tax levy for both the 2425 year and the proposed 2526 year. This will be included in the community newsletter that is going to be sent out. I think we're making really good time. Our presentations are about 40 minutes in the building and we're almost so budget

030timeline just thinking about tonight reflects actually our last budget presentation. Uh the next time we meet as a next time you meet as a board and we're here with you budget will happen which is on May 20th. Uh for those folks at home and those of you here tonight, we do have budget videos if you're interested. are linked right to our website. So, you can certainly refer back to those uh videos. In addition to the budget vote, it's also the annual election on May 20th. And as you're likely aware, we have two seat vacancies for the 25 school year, 2526 school year. And I'm thrilled to see we have our two candidates, both Sarah Shambry and Ray Burridge here this evening, who will be participating next in our meet the candidates night. And that actually

031concludes our presentation unless there are any questions. Any questions from the public as well to the budget hearing question answer? There is one that was submitted online. Oh, all right. Sorry about that. It's okay. Um, it's asking if WCS is running at a 2 to1 deficit, what is the plan for correction? So there are a few things that are being considered. Um we are looking into shared services um which will help to lower the cost if we can partner with other neighboring districts or even run through BOSIES. There is the option for deficiency audits. Um I know there's one for utilities. So we could look in at cost look into those to see if there's any costsaving measures there. Uh there's also the option to pursue grants and alternative funding. I know that there's currently

032a grant that we are looking into um to help pay for some expenses that we have on our building condition survey. Honey, can I ask you to when somebody was a question that got two to one, can you explain that to the public what that what that actually Yeah. what that actually means? So right now districts all across the state are experiencing um where our expenditures are increasing rap more rapidly than our revenues are growing. So with health insurance costs going up 10 to 14% this year and contractual uh increases you know that we are obligated to to make um they are not offsetting by the amount of state aid increases or um what we can raise the tax levy to. So, um it's just basically what our how our gap is growing. Yeah. I

033just for the people that are listening at home, I think it'd be helpful to just And then the one final uh thought that I had to answer that question was just advocating for increased uh state aid. um you know there's lobbying that can be done to Albany to make changes to the foundation aid formula and um other dates. And then the last thing I would just add is obviously uh we're working with financial planners. So we're going to keep a pulse on where we are with our fiscal trajectory. And so in the same way we approached the budgeting cycle this year with the $ 1.9 million gap between revenues and expenditures, we're going to continue to engage in those same practices. And to Penny's point, shared services are very exciting. Uh thinking about what other

034additional opportunities we can bring to students, but also looking at other pathways. So, um yeah, think that covers that. Thank you. Thank you. All right, there's no further questions. We will jump right into the candidate. Hi guys, we're going to have you uh come up and introduce yourselves. We'll go in the order of um the ballot. So Sarah, you first podium. Get used to it. Yeah. No pressure. And when you're done, we'll have break up. Introduce yourself. Then you two can stay up here and community submit questions. Let me take introduce myself. I'm reading. You can read this very lengthy bio. However you'd like to do it. Um, however I'd like to do it. Yeah. Okay. Good evening. I'm Sarah Shimy and I'm honored to be here and I'm looking forward to working with board

035members, the community, you all in a new way that I haven't done before and I really don't want to read this bio. So that's my introduction. Thank you. Good evening. It's a pleasure to be here. My name is Ray Burbridge and as a proud resident of Williamson for the past 18 years, I am thrilled to run for a position on the school board. In my prof, sorry. In my professional life, I'm currently an account manager for a telecom software company. Prior to this role, I worked as a local realtor, proudly helping many families find their homes right here in our community. I enjoyed my time serving as a Girl Scout troop leader, a role that gave me the opportunity to guide and mentor young girls as they developed leadership skills, confidence, and strong sense of

036community involvement. In my personal life, I'm a mother of two daughters who are deeply involved in sports and various extracurricular activities. I've witnessed firsthand the positive impact that these programs have on students personal growth, teamwork, and academic success. I believe that such experiences are vital in shaping well-rounded individuals and I am passionate about ensuring that all students have access to diverse opportunities. My vision for the school board centers on creating an environment where parents, teachers, and community members are actively engaged in decision-making processes. I advocate for clear, consistent communication channels between the board and stakeholders, aiming to build trust and collective responsibility. My approach will emphasize the importance of inclusivity, ensuring that every voice is heard and considered in shaping the future of our district. Understanding the crucial role that a strong school board plays

037in the success of educational institutions, I'm committed to policies that support both academic excellence and the holistic development of our students. A main focus of mine is to prioritize student outcomes by fostering growth in both knowledge and skills. My firsthand experience as a parent coupled with my dedication to community involvement positions me as a candidate ready to advocate for the needs and aspirations of all the students and families right here in Williamson. Thank you. You are you guys are supposed to stay up here if you come up and uh we have uh questions the community has submitted. Kelly Yeah. Is it first of all? Is anybody here? I do. Yes. Hi, I'm Veronica. I'm the PTSA president. Um, question for both of you. Um, one is, do you understand the amount of dedicated time you

038need to put into this role? I know many of our board members take vacation time off of work, miss their student events. Um, I saw they both are have students that are involved in different activities. And are you ready for that commitment because you will have to step away from your families? Also, in addition to that and running for the board now, why makes you do it now and being involved as I've never seen you at board meetings in the last year and a half? Well, I mean, at least not on a regular basis of involvement. So, two-part question in whichever order we're going in the same order as before. Sure. Okay. Um, well, I I don't know what I don't know. So, I I think I know this is a lot of work, but

039I can't quantify it until I'm there, right? It's going to be a commitment that you don't know what you don't know. I think it's going to be a lot of work. I can't quantify it until I'm in the scene and I'm living it. Um, in deciding to run thought very deeply about this. Um, currently in the position I'm in, I do a lot of extras. So that means working nights, weekends, breaks, summers, and part of running is to shift that energy back into this community because currently I work for the city school district, which I'm from there. So it's been a pleasure to do that work, but I would like to shift that energy and love back into where I live currently. So, in doing this, I'm not doing all of that extra, all that

040extra. Um, also, our family is shipping as well. So, we have three children, my husband and I, and they are all pre-teen teenage age. And so, we had to do a household audit and really start asking ourselves, are we installing installing the values and are we role modeling what we need to to the kids where they are right now? And so, Doing that, we started thinking our kids need us to be different right now. We need to ask them to prioritize what they're doing, put value to what they're doing, share the family resources, and see their parents in a new way, and we think that this will be aligned with them. Um, that was the first question. The second question was why now? And I think that kind of answered a little bit. For the

041last five or six years, I haven't been very involved, especially since co I've been pouring a lot of my energy elsewhere and so I feel like it's time for me to lean in. You feel like this is the proper first step into putting your energy into the district? I do. I feel I know I didn't read my bio. It's so long. If I knew if I was going to read it out loud, I would have made it shorter. But um I really do feel like it aligns with my core values. The the upper echelons of my core values are growth, innovation, and partnership. And I think that aligns very well with this work. I'm an educator from a background in administration. I've worked in forprofit, nonforprofit. Um before all of that, I I started off

042my career in science and engineering. And so I love data. I like collecting it. I like analyzing it. I like using it to make decisions. So I think This is very aligned with who I am, what I like to do. Um, well, I've made this role a top priority already. Uh, I switched from listening to jams and the cards and listening to audio books on how to be the best school board member uh, possible. And, um, I mean, it's a good time in my life. Right now, I work from home. Uh it's pretty lenient. I've already taken days off to attend the uh learning sessions that we'll have in July. And uh my oldest daughter just started driving, so I kind of take the load off my uh Uber schedule here. But um I mean,

043I'm no stranger to hard work and I'm going to do my best and do my homework and attend the meetings and I watch from home. I started uh attending meetings when we were talking about the virture. I became more interested and yeah, I mean thankfully uh we ran the only two, but I think it's going to be it's going to be good and I hope to show you that progress in the next year. alternate, right? You can come in if you want. Um, we're just going to alternate answer. Kelly, you want to start with questions? Does anyone else have any questions? Okay. Uh first question up is identify one topic or issue brought before the board in the last year. State the topic, how the board voted and how you would have voted and why.

044Well, um it's it's kind of tough because although it's not something that uh has been voted on, the lack of transparency has been brought up and uh so I suppose it would have to be the the merger uh just going through with the actual study and I know some people a lot lot of people were disappointed that we didn't do that. So that's probably my answer. Um um well to your point and you can't see me get around much so I'm going to jump on that. So I haven't really been following board activity over the years. So I really kind of jumped in right before um the reorganization topic came up and so I went to the sodas meetings and it seemed like the the board voted not to continue with the feasibility study of

045the reorganization area in Williamson and I would have voted the same way. I can tell you why. Um I don't really feel like it addressed the the problem that brought us to the table. So, we were all there because of declining numbers, increased costs, and I feel like even with the incentive money that was on the table, if we went forward with some kind of merger, it wouldn't have solved the problem, and it was like kicking the can down the road. When we were through spending the money, the problem still could be defining numbers, increase cost. Um, I don't think that I felt comfortable with either of the vendor presentations and working with that group of people going forward based on the presentation they gave us. I'm sure they were a group of people with

046a lot of expertise. Um, one group I just felt like wasn't really available because they had full-time jobs. Some of them were overseeing more than one district it sounded like. Um, and the other one I just thought the presentation was a little bit disorganized and I was wondering how that would translate to daily um, correspondence with them. Um, and lastly, I just thought that going right to the top, right to a reorganization plan like that was very disruptive and there was things we could do were less disruptive first. So, looking and inventorying at what we were already doing and um making the most value out of things we were already spending money on and looking at smaller partnerships that maybe were a little bit easier to manage. Thank you. All right, next question is seeing

047how the board collaborates with educators on curriculum rollout and assesses it its effectiveness in in meeting student needs. Discuss your thoughts and share statistics on how well Williams how well Williamson is doing preparing their graduates for either higher education, the military or the workforce. What would you propose be changed to make our students better prepared for postgraduation? It's not easy. Um, okay. Um, statistics, that's the thing that jumped out at me. So, it seems like right now we have about a 94% graduation rate and that's really impressive to celebrate. I know it's not 100% but that's a really solid number and it's higher than the state which is 86 I think. Um, so that's a good step towards postgraduation is just graduating. Um, how are we how are we preparing students for graduation? Uh, well,

048I see there's a portrait of a graduate on the budget. So, there seems to be some kind of vision for what our graduates need to know and what they can do and the qualities they have when they graduate. Um, I don't feel comfortable speaking to what we can do to change or improve what we're doing because I don't know all of the details on what we're doing specifically. Um, but I think I can speak to a process that Williamson might already be doing, but one that comes to mind, and that is just taking what we want students to walk away with and plugging it into a district-wide plan. Um, thinking understanding by design, UBD. I'm not sure if you're already doing it, but I bet you are. But if anyone's listening that doesn't know, it's

049like a three-stage process. You start with stage one. You're just plugging and chugging what the results are that we want. So, what we want our students to know, do, and what qualities they have. And that's more like district-wide if we want that nice vertical alignment from kindergarten all the way up. Um, but it could be school level. And then the stage two is we're just planning out what evidence we're going to be collecting to measure student progress, to evaluate our outcomes, and maybe that's department level. And then the very last stage, we're talking about subject level. where the learning experiences students are going to be engaged with to develop their their knowledge, their skills, and their qualities. And so I I guess I can't speak to like what the exact vision is and what we're

050doing in our our um senior portraits, but I'm thinking that's a good place to start strategic planning. um what the board can do because I don't think the board manages the details like that but maybe just starting by looking at how the curriculum aligns with standards that that we need to to live up to. So a lot of the standards that are coming down the pike and that have already happened are very centered on active learning and that alone prepares students for the next step. So just trying to get the curriculum to align with that students learn experientially doing the work. Okay. Um well, my answer to that is that I think it's important that we have certified teachers and educators uh who are prepared to deliver the content that will make our students successful.

051across I don't know the local um statistics well regarding that but across the across the state only four in 10 students are truly college ready um so I think we need to do better and I focus on hiring strong teachers expanding career and technical programs um and look into offering dual enrollment and I like what uh Bridget you had said the city Bose sees it. Fantastic. Very exciting. Next question is, in your opinion, what is the greatest academic challenge facing our students today and how do you intend to address it as a board member? Um, uh, right now I think it's not having enough qualified teachers. Um my daughter's uh Danica is in eighth grade and the Spanish teacher issue and uh Cali wanted to take um physics in high school and we don't offer

052that any longer and I think we're looking for a chemistry teacher which those are you know my biggest um issues I suppose and uh yeah I uh that's about I don't know it's it's mainly just about having qualified teachers that's my answer question the biggest academic challenge um so I teach high school teach or science. And for as long as I've been teaching, which isn't that long, maybe five years, I've noticed majority of students struggle to start or stay in that productive struggle stage for like sustained amount of times. So say that again. So like productive struggle, they they are not starting it or staying in it for sustained amount of times. and the new president's really asking them to do that to do the work. So basically, you have a student that has a

053task that's challenging. It's not just like giving them 20 questions to answer is a challenging task that's going to help them grow. They want to get to the other end of that. They know what they need to do, but starting it sometimes is difficult for students. And then if they do start it, sticking with it, it's so easy to find a device and look up answers and try to just choose the best answers that are in front of you. Um so they're struggling to understand that it's not about the answer, it's about the process and just having that um just fighting that frustration that they feel and sticking with it and proceeding like that perseverance I guess is the key and pride right um that's the biggest challeng load and not just show up and

054receive information and some sometimes that makes students uncomfortable and I don't replace I don't know why it's age appropriate maybe it's just a lot of work but that's that's what I'm noticing that's okay next question is how familiar are you with recent events regarding potential school reorganization within the Wayne Fingerlakes region and what is your view on school reorgan organization and are sharing services with other school districts. Yeah, I'm trying to think of something new so it's more entertaining. Um I think there's room to be more innovative before we go down that road. So reorganization I said it's very disruptive. It's like a it's it's almost like a last resort instead of a first resort. So, it's kind of kind of exciting. We want these win-win solutions. And so, we just need time and space

055to be creative, innovative, and leverage community assets. And so, that can be a lot of fun and it can be very rewarding. Yeah. Um, I attended both the merger meetings and I was excited about expanding course offerings and electives and sharing well we do share a lot of sports with Marian especially and I do like that. Um, I just want to make sure we don't lose these things going down the road. I'm hoping to add more and not less. So, um, yeah, that's my thoughts. All right, couple more. As a board member, how would you handle a situation where you disagree with the majority decision of the board? Wait, no, it's me. Um, if I agree or disagree with a decision, uh, I'd make my case respectfully and that's back it with facts or community

056feedback. Uh, but once the board voted, I'd respect the outcome. Uh, I continue to advocate for what I believe is best for students. Uh but always professionally and um I think at first I had to self-reflect. I'm the only one I'd have to self-reflectively. Uh what am I missing? What baggage am I bringing? What questions do I need to answer for clarity? Um ask everybody the questions I had. maybe we center on the commonality like what we're working towards. Um just double-checking that all the decisions we're about to make um are centered around the mission that are strategic that are in the best interests of people we're serving. And if the answer to all of those is yes, I think what you said is just acceptance that that maybe I'm off or maybe we need

057to prioritize and what I'm thinking of is most biggest priority. So maybe Again, picking back up what you're saying, it's just making a decision, moving on, but keeping the conversation going about what was left off there. Yeah. And I'm really hoping there's a protocol for if if um we're in discussions and it turns out the decision that it's being made is unethical and not centered around what's best for people, I hope to follow as a person. Okay, next question. What do you know about the district's mission, values, and current initiatives, and how do you see yourself contributing to achieving these goals? Um, so thankfully we just watched a presentation where it was all over the screen. So I think I got the mission down so I can test myself. uh promoting a learning community to

058inspire students. Character, service, am I doing it right? Knowledge and wisdom. And um I've noticed that character and service come first. And is it vision? I love the vision. The vision is active learning in a supportive and respectful environment. So as a teacher, I'm all about the supportive environment, meeting kids where they're at. designing your work about around their needs. I love that and I love the active part of a science teacher so they've got to do it. Um, and how am I going to add the question? Uh, and how do you see yourself contributing to achieving these goals? Um, I think I spoke to a little bit. I think I could um relate to a lot of the people in this community in schools and administration because of our shared experiences. So, I'm an

059educator. So, I'm in schools. I see the daily grind. random in classrooms. I see what happens, what doesn't happen. I think I have a sense of a reasonable ask um of a school and one that's maybe a little bit of a big ask for a school in the classroom as a teacher. Um I'm a parent, so I have that experience. I I hear what my kids saying when I come home. Um I communicate with the school as a parent. Um and I have a background in administration and organizations where the bottom line is profit and organizations where the bottom line is service and go to ethics. So I think at the table with the decision makers, I think I bring all of those perspectives and voices. Yeah. Um so it's basically the same for me.

060Um it's a great goal. The character service knowledge was um um to reach it, we need strong academics at the core and I I'm uh ready to put forth what I can to make things better. How would you balance the needs of the district with the concerns of the taxpayers, especially in a rural community with limited resources? Um, so we just got to make sure every dollar counts. I uh I don't know that cut waste was on my paper. I don't I need to really learn about the budget more. Um and maybe even local businesses providing opportunities for shadowing. um anything when it comes to maybe using local resources and I think they need to have more conversations like you're saying more conversations so I can uh define the discrepancy more because I'm looking at

061the numbers from the budget and as a homeowner I was like that's not bad. I was feeling okay about those numbers. So, I'd have to I'd have to hear from other people to be able to find the problem and discrepancy um before I can understand what I'm balancing like how much I have to balance like to know what I'm mitigating. So, just listening and having open conversations with people. Um and again, I'm going to go back to innovation because there if there is a discrepancy and there is a way to mitigate it, it's all about time and space for ideas, talking about them, considering them. Um ideas never hurt. Um, what else comes to mind? Um, I'm gonna say I'm gonna pick back up said again. I just think what what we're doing. Let's look

062at what we're doing that works and let's do more of that and let's look at what we're doing that maybe doesn't have that same value and let's do less of that. maybe not adding on but just um knowing our essentials and the core of our work and doing it well and prioritizing off of what the data says and what the best practices are for us. Not necessarily what the trendy best practice is, but what are we doing and what's the best practice of what we do? So, I'm done. Yep. And then the other questions are kind of already asked in the same room. So we're done. Thank you guys. Thank you. We look forward to learning more. Yeah, for sure. Are there any other questions from the public before we move on? All right, then

063we're going to jump right into reports to the board. Uh we are going to bypass the student report. Okay. I thought we were going to roll for the high school. Okay. Yes. The high school. Okay. All right. Uh reports from district administrator. Thank you. We'll start with Ellen T from elementary school. Good evening every real quick. Uh it's staff appreciation week this week. So, I just wanted to give a big shout out to the wonderful elementary school staff and also a shout out to PTSA's here. Thank you very much to PTSA for their wonderful um staff appreciation breakfast today, which we most appreciated. And one other shout out to Megan France, our fourth grade band teacher, and Christy Byron, our fourth grade choir director. Last night was a packed house at the high school. Thank

064you for hosting our concert up there. They did a wonderful job. I've loved loved hearing the the kids sing and play their instruments for one more time this school year. They sang defying gravity incredible outstanding. Thank you. Kate Taylor from the middle. Good evening everyone. I would also like to echo Miss Saxby and thank the PTSA as well as our teachers for teacher appreciation week. Um it has been a great week and our teachers have felt I think valued and and lots of food. You know that's how we show off food. Um but also also like to recognize uh Ellen Baker and Ashley Valley and all the chefs uh who provided the opportunity to take our eighth grade students to the Washington trip. It was a great trip. I did not go this year. It

065was Mr. Roco's turn and it was his first time out. Um but they had a great time. It was a great lovely experience. Everybody came home safe although there was some bus sickness. Um but I cannot thank enough our staff who are willing to make that a part of our students experience. Thank you Dr. Snider and Mr. High School. Two quick things because we're presenting for a while in a minute. Um one shout out to Karen Hoodie and Governor and the junior class. We have prom this week. Um so that' be an awesome time. Uh should be great. Mr. Governor Saturday night. What's that now? Are you there Saturday night? I u not I'm not not sure. You haven't told yet? I think I'm told, but I might have forgotten because sometime as husbands we

066have selective memory. So just a secret. Not all not all husbands. Just me. That'll be a great time. And the other one is we're really excited. Uh we were able to partner with the Wayne County Sheriff's Office and we're doing an impairment simulation with our students on Friday. Um so that'll be a great experience for our kids. We're really emphasizing the juniors and seniors to experience that leading up to graduation, but it's going to be open to all students throughout the day. People personnel services, Kelly. Um I will be short and sweet tonight. It is nurse appreciation day. So I really just want to recognize our three nurses. So Beth Moore, Haley Muslo, and Nick Weise for all the support that they provide our students. um and staff and medical office of the assistant superintendent

067Rachel Liberator. Good evening. Uh I just have two quick updates or celebrations. Uh one is on May 16th, our intercultural coordinator for the district, Pat Baldwin, who is also our middle school art teacher. Um she has really um spearheaded an international festival here at the middle school. Um but she's worked very closely with Kathy Abdinaser as well as our community school coordinator um just really to bring some very authentic learning experiences for our students from um cultures all over the world. So I'm really looking forward to it. I met with her last week um to just have her run through some of the details and you can just see the spark in her when she talks about it. Um, so this will be year one and I would say when we first started these conversations

068I had to say Kath we got to like start small year one and then we'll go big you know um and she went big I think. So it it's really great to see uh just the dedication that she and the others are putting forth in that. Um, and then also I would just like to say that um, just reflecting and thinking about all of the staff members that we have here in the district, each and every one of them brings a level of expertise, a level of joy, and a level of compassion. Um, but not only just enhances the culture that we have here at Williamson and and makes us truly a family, but also helps us to move the work forward in a really positive way. So just thank you to everybody who come

069to work each and every day to impact the students that we serve. Everyone I have to tell you you have to come um again tour the building. Every building has chosen a country. Uh the main office of course you've chosen Scotland. So um there are of course flags. Yes. Flags have been ordered and uh plaids will be worn in the main office. So I just let Mr. was ready to wear that killed and tell you right now. So people are people are very people are very excited and I would agree with that has done an amazing job for the most artwork all about the building as well. And Leslie from the business office. So last week I spent some time down at the uh bus garage um where I met with Vicki, the transportation director,

070and two of our mechanics, Chris and Scott. Um they were very excited and willing to show me everything and tell me everything about buses. Um they brought in um every type of bus they had on the lot. They showed me um all the differences in them. Um it was very eye openening and um hands-on and I really enjoyed it and I appreciated the time and uh willingness um that they showed in being able to share all the knowledge that they have. Um I've also been working with Boseis to coordinate um professional development sessions for the transportation staff who are participating in a team building initiative that's focused on collaboration, trust and effective communication. Um the professional development will consist of two three-hour sessions and um will be completed by the first week of June. And

071I would just like to close by thanking them um for all that they do and ensuring that our students arrive every day to school in home safely. Thank you very much. How much time do I have tonight? More than two minutes. The timer going for it. I want to start with a shout out. We'll do a complete year in review, but I want to give a huge shout out to all faculty and staff at WCS. Uh, this month reflects my 10th month at Williamson Central School District, and I am in awe and wowed consistently by faculty and staff. If I were to take you on a year in review, we've had plumbing issues. Oh, yeah. Again, plumbing issues, roofing issues, leak issues, bed bugs, too soon. Uh, bed bugs, cold weather days. Uh we've had

072uh staffing shortages trying to figure out how we were going to accommodate for Spanish that didn't exist. Uh staffing leaving the year having to backfill uh the amount of turmoil and change for the staff. Oh, by the way, did I mention in the uncertainty with regionalization conversations? I appreciated your word disruption. People felt that. And so I just want to give a huge shout out and a huge uh debt of gratitude to the professionals at Williamson who really made teaching and learning happen doortodoor getting them getting them here and then getting them home at the end of the day despite a very disruptive year frankly and so I would they're all I give you a round of applause because it's just been an incredible uh demonstration of their commitment to this work and I am

073honored to serve beside the incredible uh folks at Williamson Central School District. Uh beyond that, I do have a couple other updates. I am very proud to share with you uh you're all aware that we are required by regulation now to have an exeicio student board of education member. I am thrilled to share with you that we have four candidates. I'm going to share their names. So Ronin Martinez, Liam MacArthur, Satie Stal, my apologies, Satie, and Madison Story. We have four candidates who are going to run for that office for next year. That is extremely exciting. uh going into a process not knowing if you were going to have even one student who would uh decide that they would express interest and think about the commitment as you're thinking about a commitment as board of

074education members and we have a student who's going to participate one of these four uh over the next several weeks they will be campaigning just like our board of education uh candidates who are sitt seated here this evening uh we will have an election that will take place at the high school on the actual date of our annual election uh the election will occur by ballot Dr. Snider and his uh office staff are working to make sure that we have ballot box and that our students all have access to casting their vote. It will be by vote of the student body grades 9 through 12. Just so you all understand, in the same way that our candidates here this evening had to go through a process. Our students also had to go through a process.

075Uh all interested candidates had to alert me in writing by May 1st. And so all four of them did such. They had to meet with myself and Dr. Snyder on May 5th. We had a meeting during 10th period where we talked about the roles and responsibilities of potentially this service as an acticio board of education member and I'm going to share with you I tried to alert them the time commitment because it is a big commitment. Uh and so I shared with them they're going to have to speak during a meeting and share with you what's going well and also potentially what concerns they have as members of the student body. On May 16th our candidates will all present their speeches during forum. very excited to go be present uh on that morning when they'll

076deliver their speeches. Well, I'm sorry. I apologize that I misspoke. If by the 16th, Dr. Snder has to approve their speeches. We do want to make sure that they put the time in necessary to deliver their speeches on the 19th by mistake. On May 19th, they'll deliver their speeches on that Monday morning before the annual election on May 20th. So, kudos to all four of our students and good luck to each of the four of them. Could not be more proud uh that they have all stepped up. Along those same lines, also want to uh revisit the idea of the superintendent student advisory council. We have over 20 students participating grades 9 through 12 meeting with me typically on Friday afternoons. Could not be more proud of the students and their contributions to those conversations.

077Very insightful, thoughtful, talking about not what not only what's wonderful about their experience at Williamson, but also how we potentially can enhance those experiences for them. Thrilled to invite Dr. Snyder and Mr. Prey. They're going to actually meet with me this Friday with our juniors and seniors and next Friday with our freshman and sophomore so they can learn a little bit more about what's on the minds of our students as we think about enhanced programming and opportunities for students. I was going to talk about another great experience for our students, but Dr. Snyder and our student guests here are going to talk about elevating student voices in just a moment. Uh there's been a number of references this evening to shared programming. I am very excited to share with the board of education as well

078as our administrative team that myself and the superintendents from Wayne Sodus Ananda Kilmac and Marian we are scheduled to meet for a half day on May 12th and that's where we will launch our initial discussions around what other possibilities what might we bring to our districts whether it be uh distance learning and or in person thinking about offering up different pathways. So I will certainly present back to you once I have more information after that meeting. Uh it would not be a board meeting without a capital improvement facilities update. So I'm not going to let you down there. Uh we are still waiting on trespa panels for the middle school. By the way, that uh $800,000 in additional aid that was referenced in our revenues, that is because we were able to close out the

079elementary and high school projects, I'm sure it's not a surprise the middle school project is still open. Uh so that project is not closed out. We're not receiving aid on that yet. uh middle school trespa panels were due to arrive 421 from Colombia. We are told they are uh somewhere in a port somewhere but we have no idea which port they are sitting in. So I I cannot give you an update on when those cresa panels that's where the black painted plywood in the middle school uh that's where those are supposed to go. Uh we're still waiting on cleaning of curtains in the middle school auditorium. Uh we are on on track for a replacement of the middle school fluid to the boiler and the kennel that needs to be installed. you'll rec have to

080update and replace that boiler at the middle school. That's going to have to go on the next project. The only thing we'll be able to attend to uh wrapping up this project is the flu. At the high school, still looking to address the plumbing problems in at the high school. Uh we have a survey completed on May 5th to make sure that we don't compromise water and electricity. Now, we're just waiting on a a finalized date for when they're going to come out and actually take care of the plumbing issues at the high school. Also at the high school, we were hopeful that on April 25th, our gymnasium floor would be finished and ready to be uh used again. Unfortunately, that's not the case. I want to share with you that the reason for the

081delay is they installed our logo crookedly and so we were unwilling to accept the work and so they had to go back and do it over again. We did not accept the work uh as is. And that has unfortunately put us at another delay where it was supposed to be a couple week project and now it's a couple months. I'm sorry, but I think you need to know uh elementary uh school roof. It is my hope that by the next board meeting on May 28th, we'll have a finalized determination on how we hope to pro proceed. You'll recollect we really have two pathways. One will be an emergency repair if we have to take care of attending to that uh before the next capital improvement project or we will wrap it into uh next capital

082improvement project. Which leads me to that topic. Uh as I brought to your attention uh I think throughout the entirety of this year, we will not have the luxury of waiting a couple years before we think about another capital improvement project. Uh there are some needs in our facilities that are too urgent for us to wait. And so myself, our architects, Penny Johnston, and our facilities director, we met and went through our building condition survey. And I'm proud to share with you that we have now a prioritized list for each of our buildings around what what work must be completed uh most urgently. So those would be considered category one. On top of that, we've scheduled user group meetings to make sure that we're listening to our constituents uh in our buildings who are actually

083in the buildings day in and day out. And so beginning on May 19th, we'll be meeting with folks specific to each of the buildings and also athletics and extracurriculars that will inform the work of our facilities committee meeting on May 29th. And so I think Jeff Governor and Francis Caspari, you're both part of that committee. We'll be presenting that prioritized building condition survey information to you at that meeting as well as sharing the user group data that we get from those meetings. That will be how we develop our next scope of work. Again, the long and short, my hope would be that by December of 25, we're able to put out another capital improvement project referendum to our voters so that we can start the work on our roofs, hopefully even as early as spring

084of 26. Time's ticking on that. Uh just so you're all aware, uh thinking about the next capital improvement project, it is the commitment, two things. Number one, it is solely on asset preservation. This is not going to be a glitzy, glamorous, fluffy capital improvement project. It will just be about m maintenance of our facilities. And the second thing is a commitment to our community that there would be no future tax impact to our community when we put that uh capital improvement project out to vote. Uh wrapping up about facilities, I am also very proud for the collaboration with Kelly Dixon, Brian Roco, building level administrators. You have at the table a facilities user agreement that we are actually going to go live with effective immediately. Kelly Dixon who's serving currently as our facilities coordinator. We

085work diligently to make sure a couple things. Number one, that we're giving outside user groups adequate information they need about using our facilities. Number two, we're really trying to tighten up our own communications between internal users and external users. Unfortunately, we've had a number of instances when we've inconvenienced our external user groups because of our uh previous process. And so we're really trying to be mindful of making sure that if we make a commitment to an outside user group that the facility and the space that they want to use is actually available for them to use. And that concludes my report for this evening. Thank you. Thank you. Awesome work on this. This is something that's been much needed and it will help standardize things uh especially as there's turnover in all of our community

086groups that used to use it and they knew how that used to work one way and kind of grandfathered in things. It's great to have that all tidied up. Thank you, Kelly. Sorry to add one more thing to your plate. Thanks for doing it. Appreciate it. All right. District committee reports. There was a grading and assessment committee meeting May 1st in elementary school library. District events report cards were available April 25th. Middle high schools. Grades 5 through eight. Math testing was the 29th and 30th. Grades 3 through 4 ELA testing April 30th and May 1st. Solo Fest was May 3rd. and the fourth grade spring concert last night, May 6th. Um, for county schoolboard Association, um, I'm not sure if you guys saw today, we received an email um, for the executive director's uh, annual

087evaluation that came out in your emails. So, if there's anything that uh, you want to report back on and need to let me know about, let me know. Or anything that you are pleased with or frustrated with, we can share that with team. Uh PCSA, do you have a report for us? I do have a report for you. Good evening, everyone. Good evening. Um so last night kicked off spring concert season for the district. We were at the fourth grade concert last night doing our typical hospitality with cookies and punch. The families were awesome. We have a giant pile of cookies that were donated. It's great. Um and the flower sales, we actually sold out last night, which was awesome. So families were very interested in it. we had families come up that didn't get

088a chance. So, they're looking forward to the next time. Um, and a thank you to Williamson Country Forest who we are working with and is doing a price match with what we used to get um at Lakeance. Uh, also special thank you to both Megan and Christy for helping to promote knowing that the flower sales exist. Um, and shout out to Ellen as well for recognizing us last night. Appreciate that. Um, well, fair week is this week. Jeff, I hope to see you tomorrow. [Music] Um, so the Monday, Tuesday was preview days for all the classes. The students and the staff have been absolutely thrilled and excited. Today was our first shopping day. Um, it went fantastically. Again, the excitement just carries through. Kids are wanting to come in on their non time. Um so

089we're looking forward to supporting them uh when they come in later this week. Uh we've also continued to do um collections during the fair and previous to the fair. Uh there is a program called share the fair. That's elastic hosts and we get to utilize and that collects donations so that way we can buy books for students in our district that are not able to afford to do so themselves. So, we work with the individual classroom teachers and say each student, you know, just let us know. We give them a little coupon. They get to pick out a book in a bookmark of choice and we send them on their way. So, we've done that the last couple of years. It's become, you know, incredibly popular. We we've done several dozen kids each year. Um,

090so we'll have a better number of that after this finishes up. Uh, tomorrow night is our game night focused on literacy. Uh, we've had a couple of volunteers organizing all of that. So, I'm looking forward to our first kickoff and then we have family shopping night as well running in conjunction. So, hopefully we don't have the giant long line of families waiting to come into the book fair. We get to kind of split them up. Um, and then obviously teacher appreciation week for our entire staff. Um, we have a nice little committee who put together wake up Wednesday. uh where uh iced coffee and different uh breakfast foods were delivered to all the buildings today. Um and then also the teacher shoutouts um that the students do. Thank you to the building leaders to help

091support getting their their students to do that with the elementary students. It all went home. We have multiple boards in the buildings. um in the elementary building. I've seen this week more shout outs have trickled in and gotten added to the boards by other teachers. But that it's absolutely awesome to see that. Uh next week we have our uh our monthly meeting. Uh Bridget and Penny are going to be joining us to do a budget presentation. So looking forward to that. And then uh next weekend during Apple Blossom, we will have a group of volunteers uh out supporting the rep committee and the Main Street Mile. So for all of our students that are participating in that, we will be there to cheer them on and support them in any way they can. Thank you.

092Busy spring. Did you say supposed to come to that board meeting and see the larger presentation? I'll pick you up on the way. That's what I thought. I can play along, too. I did there hammer on I just want to say I'm enjoying that. Hey, what are you gonna do? A lot of uh lot of volunteer hours outside work. You would quit keeping us here till 1 a.m. on Wednesday nights. Be a lot better. No, no, we're not going beyond night anymore. Good luck. Okay. All right. Um moving to board reports. I need a motion to approve the cse case summaries as presented. So move. Second. Any discussion? Kelly, I'll I'll spare you from my 2% rule. We're close. It was It's better than the last four years, but look at the student numbers. Like,

093that's a highlight for sure. Like, there's definitely increased student participation. Appreciate that. Appreciate that. I finally gave and gave Kelly my secret that when it's below 85% of parental um attendance, I have to ask the question. But you knew it was coming. Well, she knew it was coming. I always know it's coming. I think parents should just always be involved in their child's education. Get them when they can't. I know they can't. There's reasons why. All right. Um, you got a vote. Yep. All in favor? I opposed. Passes for zero. I was like going back. I didn't write down a vote. Okay. Moment you've been waiting for. High school spotlight is [Music] stand up. So our so our students are going to help lead our presentation because they're old enough to do that. Um so

094we are highlighting tonight uh something I think is really important to me which is that school reflects um the world outside right we want to have diverse offerings for our students. I'm also really competitive. Something that I think, you know, I know Miss Me and Mr. Frey both believe in is that although we're small, um, and sometimes that can be limiting in programming. Um, we want to be as creative as possible in what we're offering our students. You want it to be a wide range. Um, from CTE programming up there on the left, but we can do even in-house. Not all that has to go to Boseies over to taking students to college fairs and exposing them to things that um, you know, to weigh all their options as they go. So our presentation is

095going to focus on the essential objectives on student achievement and uh safe learning community for all. Um so when we talk about student achievement um some of the things we're doing instructionally at the building is we really took literacy pretty serious. Um but I still think we have room for growth. So throughout the year uh really challenge teachers to answer the question of how are you intentionally incorporating opportunities for students to engage with literacy? Um so they already do it every day, right? You're reading, you're writing, but what kind of strategies are you using? Why are you using strategies? We're not just putting books in front of kids, but are you teaching them to analyze text? Are you teaching them to summarize, to work through difficult things that are above their reading levels? Um, and

096what I found is secondary teachers often don't have that training. I was a secondary teacher myself. You learn content, you learn basic delivery, um, but a lot of those literacy skills are lost and we see that those are really, uh, important in life outside of school. So, I want to continue to build on that at the high school. Um but this year our teachers have engaged in PD uh specifically related to science and reading which I think is really cool coming from other districts. I know the secondary teachers are often not exposed to those foundational skills of literacy. So that's nice to see. Um we've done a lot of PD uh both regionally and locally. Um racial needs a lot of that work. Um we as a department I've had each department chair work with

097them to identify a strategy that they're going to apply each month. So at some point in the month we're going to try this strategy with the kids to advance their literacy skills. Then they report back out and kind of engage in a cycle of how's it going and hope leaders are building their toolkit of strategies throughout the year. Mr. Prey led uh the creation of a literacy toolkit that our uh teachers are able to access for a bank of skills. I want to teach students to we're reading a book in ELA. What are some strategies I can take and apply to build their literacy skills? Something that I think is really important is at the high school we're often talking like academic achievement report and we're presenting out on grades. Um I think that there

098is uh better data right that we can come up with that I think is standardized across 9 through 12. I would like to see in an ideal world uh working with district office next year to create an assessment that we can 912 administer to students so we can benchmark their progress in developing literacy skills. Um, right now what we're looking at is how many kids are passing US history. What we're not looking at is how many kids can read and write at grade level. How many kids have the skills to unpack a DBQ and they can put in front of them. Um, so I would like to see those skills because they apply to all four subjects and all really all the subjects at school. So I want to see that as a goal for

099next year because I think that there's ways that we can really anchor in on strategy building and start to target those gaps that our students have. Um, next up is different programming that we're offering. And there's some points of pride in here that I really think is we're celebrating. Something I've shared before at the board meeting. There's a big point of pride for me is previously weren't taking advantage of the CEDOS, the career development occupational studies program through New York State. That allows students um there's two things you can do. You can uh engage in hours um through internships and you can earn a CEO diploma through that. But there's also an alternative pathway to graduation that allows students to sub that fifth regenc. So you get one of all four of the core subjects

100and then the fifth one typically a student will pass US history or another science and that will replace and give them that fifth exam to graduate. Um we've had students who really struggle with that um for various reasons. Um some students have disabilities, some students just uh struggle academically dayto-day at school. This gives us a pathway to give more students across the graduation stage. Um and so today it's it's only two students who've taken it in the senior class. That's a 4% increase in our graduation rate. And in fact, it's allowed a student who at the beginning of the school year was a junior um filled all nine periods of his day trying to graduate on time. That student is now going to graduate this year. So our graduation rate actually or the number our

101cohort has grown in size as the year went on because of this pathway. Um so that's like really exciting data in a small district, right? Two students can make a big difference in reporting out stuff. Um not to mention it's life changing for that student. um because we know students who don't graduate on time often don't come back. So that's a really big deal. Something else that uh Bridget touched on earlier is talking about distance learning. So we're excited next year uh a peeve of mine throughout the year is how many free periods students have. We have seniors who want to take ELA classes. We have kids who have free study halls. And a lot of that comes down to staff members, places to put the kids on teach them. Um this is a great

102way for us to build that. So, uh, up here I highlighted on the screen, this is the schedule for FLCC next year that allow students to engage in college level courses and there's pathways they can take. So, uh, for example, if you just follow, um, the gened pathway in the green up there, you may have a student with some holes in their schedule. They're like, I'm probably a collegebound kid. I don't really know what I want to do. Let's throw you in psych 101. And you're going to take psych 101 uh, Monday, this one is like a Monday, Monday, Friday class from 1 to 1:50, which almost perfectly aligns with our schedule. And so that student then will in the spring come back and enroll in site 200 and now they're going to leave with

103a course instead of sitting in a study hall um throughout the school year. So it's a really cool opportunity to do that. Not to mention because we're in the coaster we can then also partner with other districts who are offering things. For example, I think every district might be offering French and we're worried about our ability to offer upper level French. But now we have all this equipment and this co-ervice partnership that we can engage with those districts. um just increased so many opportunities for those students. And now we're going to highlight some of the CT programming that we're doing. I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Xavier Ayala who's also just what I think about eight weeks away from joining the take over. [Applause] Hi, I'm Xavier. I'm one of the seniors in

104Mr. Kway class, uh home maintenance. Uh, I've taken about every class Coke White offers in this school, but home maintenance is definitely one of my favorites of those classes. I feel like basic home maintenance is a great skill for people to learn. It'll help you save a lot of money down the line, even if it's just simple stuff. So, home maintenance is for juniors and seniors. It's going to be a half year tech elective. So, just a a nice little thing to round out your schedule at the ending of your your high school career. Then with this course, uh you'll be able to learn about framing, electrical work, how to hang drywall, drywall repairs, uh mounting TVs, flooring, plumbing, toilets, vanities, and trimming. To kind of uh negate downtime, we've been working on mini models.

105These mini bottles help us to kind of see what different aspects of a house we're not able to see in our full scale models. Like uh our doors and windows, we were able to actually build doors and windows in our full scale model. But in these middle mini models, we can see the different aspects and components of the doors and windows. So, with the mini models, we were able to do the the framing, the subfloor, we uh sheathed it, and we were able to do the windows and doors for it as well. Then with the framing, we had an empty space in Koko's uh little workshop there, and we needed to build ourselves a space to actually work with and learn how to do all this home maintenance repair. So, as a class, we uh

106we built the floor. We put the subfloor on. Then, in groups, we each made a 4ft section of the wall and tied it down to the subfloor. Next, we uh we went into electrical. We learned about all the different components of electrical boxes, specific heights to to put them in, and just the different components of wiring a house. Then with this, we're able to actually do the electrical stuff over on the the right where Chase is. Uh we have our own breaker box, which uh from there leads all the wire to the outlets, the switches, and the lights. And we were able to hang drywall. We had to cut out the the holes for the electrical boxes so the the drywall could fit nice and flush. Then after that, we went into finishing the drywall

107with mud and tape. We got to learn how to do all of that. Some little hiccups here and there, but it's a new course. So, we uh we went into drywall wall repair, which uh we actually got to do a little bit of demolition out of the class. We put hammers through the wall, scratches, nails, stuff like that. Uh then we learned how to repair with mud, cutting out the the bigger holes to to fit in some of uh extra pieces of drywall to to fix it up. Then we also learned how to do low voltage uh outlets. So if you wanted to mount a TV without the pesky wire being in the way, you can run it just straight through the wall and to the outlet itself. Then vinyl flooring. I know it's a

108bit messy in this picture, but rest assured it's it's clean by now. But we're able to to learn how to do kind of a a floating kind of vinyl flooring there and learn how to cut vinyl flooring, especially to where our plumbing fixtures are for the toilet and stuff. Then we uh we learned about different types of uh plumbing. We learned about uh copper pexs and hard plumbing. These pictures are of our copper plumbing. We learned how to cut copper plumbing, debur it, and clean it before you're able to solder it. And with those, we were able to to solder them together to kind of test to see if we made a watertight fit. And uh it's a learned curve for soldering, but it happens to us. But then we uh we had a guest

109speaker come in, Mr. Smith at the high school. He came in and taught us about uh PEX and how to use uh expansion PEX, which is kind of a a new thing they're they're bringing into to houses to kind of get rid of copper altogether because copper has very very hard time holding up over the years. But PEX has a has a pretty good life with not eroding away. And then shark bite. We were able to learn the different tools and stuff to put on shark bite and what shark bite was. Then we went to toilet installation and repairs. We're able to install the toilets directly to the floor. And then in these pictures, we're uh learning about how the flushing mechanisms of a toilet work and how to repair it if anything really goes

110wrong with it. Then what's next for later on in the year coming to the end, uh we did the toilet installation repairs. We're working towards vanity installation as well as sink and installation air repairs. Then after that, we're going to work on the trim work to just kind of tie our little mini apartment all together. Then if we have time, we're thinking about doing a little bit concrete work to to teach the students kind of what it's like to work with concrete. Yes, thank you very much. Um, so, uh, Williamson High School SL in action. These are some of the things that, uh, we've been doing, uh, for the entire year with a few little pictures. A lot of them are things we do every year. Some of the new stuff out the staff. We

111did a big pumpkin painting at one of the superintendent conferences. Uh, we had a huge Halloween costume contest, which was a lot of fun. Um, the, uh, cafeteria staff won. They were all condiments. You couldn't beat them. So, they were awesome. Um we did the snack card 15 days of holiday joy. Uh we did the students of the month s feast was yesterday. Uh coming up is something we started last year seniors with seniors. It's awesome. So that's for all the seniors and their grandparents or grandparent people come in and then we have the breakfast of champions come up. I do want to shout out to Mary Wild and Jessica Keml. They've spearheaded a lot of this work. They're part of the tier one group. So, a lot of their ideas and things like that.

112Uh, some of the new things that we did. So, there Williamson High School had a winter carnival. It was unbelievably fantastic. Um, tons and tons and tons of people. A lot of games, lot of kids there. Um, there were kids there. We're doing community service. Um, Mr. Blair, the sophomore class, and Paige Platinum. She was unbelievable. She was there every day working like crazy, putting stuff together. Honestly, Mr. Claire didn't need to be there. He's just up there because you know they'll get mad at me if I don't say anything about him. But uh Paige was awesome and the class. So that was really cool. Um another thing we did uh this year in March when everybody's like, "Ah, I hit everybody." We did a March Madness uh basketball tournament. Uh we started with the

113brackets up there on the left. These are final four right there down to two. And then we've got John as our ultimate winner that didn't just shoot baskets. And it was a lot of fun in the finals. We had a whole bunch of kids up in up in the uh uh gymnasium cheering them on. So, it's pretty cool. In April, we did Cart Wars. Uh it was really fun. Collected over 600 items. Those are the winners down below, the juniors. Um they get this little weird trophy. It looks like a grocery cart, frankly. It's got a little plaque on it. Um so, they did really good. Collected a lot of money for the Marauder Food Shelf. And finally, we get to uh these two wonderful young women here. uh participating in elevating student voices. It's

114a year-long program. Bunch of pictures. I'm going to stop talking because you really know what you're doing. So, you guys go ahead. Uh I'll pass up the stuff for you. So, we were involved in a program recently called Student Elevated Voices. We got the opportunity to meet with students from all over the county from Wayne to Mary etc. And we want to make this the goal overall is make a safer more healthy student environment environment you wake up to go to school right not have to go to school. Um and so every school district in every individual group um so our project but we just finished our summit ago which was what the climax was for. So we all the schools made up a great project and presented it to everyone. Um people did from

115fundraisers to making bracelets and bringing to little kids to volunteering at children's hospitals and all this amazing stuff and it all led back to individual school districts. Um it was it was such we got to learn so much. There was so many so many cool speakers we got to listen to of there's so many topics that I personally was so that were very prominent in other schools that I got to be educated on. Overall, I thought it was a great experience and I if I get the opportunity, we'll be doing it again next year. Um, so I think Laura will explain what our project was. All right. So, our project at first it started out as well if you see the poster it's serious inventing. Now, we are currently in the process of making a

116class link um link or app per se since the phone band is going into place next year. The QR codes would not be available to students since they would have their phones throughout the day. And um as you can see on the poster, this is predominantly for our high school students and we have a serious side which goes straight to the counselor's email and inbox. This does this will be shutting off after school hours and on weekends just so if you have a serious thing sent to you and you don't get to it on time you don't want to be held responsible for something unfortunate that could unfold. So the topics tend to range from all over mental health abuse addiction thoughts bullying hate discrimination or anything a student feels that is important for the

117staff and counselors to know or help them with. And I'm pretty sure codes. Yeah, they work. Yeah, the QR code works. So, if any of you guys want to test it out, you know, um but for venting, it's not all students. I can like let's say you get into a fight with one of your friends, just an argument, but you need to tell someone about it, but you can't tell any of your other friends because what if they tell the other friend? So, and also you don't want to go to the counselor and take up time that you might think would be available to someone who might need it more, per se. So the QR code for event goes straight to admin's email box just in case it is something serious and all students have

118to use the school email so we do know for most of that they do know who sent it in question and it's like family personal issues drama something that upset you and you can just vent everything because it is helpful to jot your feelings down or type it out to help get that off your chest. And we felt like this would be a good take for helping our students because it can be very hard to go to a counselor and say I need help. And so the student would obviously once this was sent to the counselor would be helped then. But it is hard to just like speak out words towards someone about something you are struggling with whether it's mental and uh you know cuz we you know students need their help with everything

119and you want them to feel like they can be safe with something. And as for you know the links that we have for serious let's say you select abuse it would take you to another part of the document that would say myself or other because what if it's not you being her at home? What if it's your mother or father and they get physical and you don't want to go to the cops just yet, but you need something and that would be a good start to help them personally. And for after school hours, for the serious side, because not all staff can, you know, look at their emails that late or on the weekends, it would put up hotlines for the suicide hotline or abuse hotline just so your resources are still there available. But

120yeah, [Applause] Those are our examples of ways that we are helping students. a great job. The three of you did a fantastic job on your presentation. She's impressive. Can I expect Mr. If I can take the class? I think I did all that. Just had the class come over. Just had the class come over. Kelly Dixon put on my schedule every day. Can they fix roofs? It's funny. I was doing the plumbing. I was like, we have some plumbing. We have a lot of examples. No, that's awesome. You guys did a great job. Brilliant. Thank you. Um, and thank you to our high school building administrators for helping to provide those kind of opportunities to be creative with solutions for our kids. And uh, I know that we always talk about what's next after school,

121right? And so those are awesome examples of how to prepare yourself. Thank you. And when you learn those skills, you save yourself a ton of money in the future. All right, moving on to our consent agenda. I need a motion to approve consent agenda items 5B through 5 recommended by the superintendent. So second all in favor or any discussion? All in favor is zero. I need a motion to approve the retirement resignation as presented. So move. Any discussion? I like your retirement. Sorry. Not good luck, but you know, 20 years is a long time. Would like to say thank you to one to one district. District one. 20 years is a long time. Yep. I agree with that. Um, it's dependable. I agree. I don't think I've done anything for 20 years, so it's impressive.

122Thank you to Beth and best wishes for the next chapter of her life. All in favor. All right. Under old business, I need a motion to approve the second reading and adopt the updated policy 11:30 number of members and terms of office. Uh I move that we read the second reading and adopt policy 11:30 number and terms of office. Any discussion? All in favor? I oppos I need a motion to approve the removal of the policies as listed below. So just note they're being removed due to not being required by state education law. So any discussion all in favor? I oppos passes. All right. Under new business, I need a motion to approve budget transfers for the 2024 2025 school year. So, anything means to note here if any. Okay. Standard. All in favor? I

123post this. I need a motion to approve the agreement between the Williamson Central School District and employee effective April 29th, 2025. So, second. Any discussion? All in favor? I I oppos passes. 4. I need a donation or excuse me, a motion to approve the donation of CPR and schools training kit from the American Heart Association. So second. Any discussion? Thank you. Um all in favor zero. Uh I have a question actually. Bridget, is that going to be a Is it a single? Is it to train people how to appropriate? I honestly have not looked at it. It is sitting in my office. I think I saw that question. I apologize. The letter said that it was to train students or Thank you. Okay. I'm glad you know. I'm sorry. We do have our other kits

124that we use for our staff training for the mandated training for coaches. Yeah. Okay. I need a motion to approve the MOA between the Musa Central School District and administrative employees covered by individual contracts. So move second. Any discussion here? All in favor? I posted for I need a motion to approve the agreement between William School District and employee effective July 1, 2025 and June 30th. Second. Any discussion? All in favor? I oppos. I need a motion to approve the agreement between the L Central School District and employee from July 1, 2025 to 20 June 30th, 2026. So any discussion? All in favor? 4. I need a motion to approve the agreement between the Mill School District and employee effective July 1, 2025 to June 30th, 2026. So discussion all in favor. Opposed passes. I

125need a motion to approve the agreement between Central School District and employee effective July 1, 2025 to June 30th, 2026. Second. Any discussion? All in favor? I opposed passes for zero. And I need a motion to approve the agreement between school district and employee effective July 1, 2025 to June 30th, 2026. Second. Any discussion? All in favor? I opposed. Passes 4 Z. I need a motion to approve the agreement to school district and employee effective July 1, 2025 to June 30th, 2026. Second. Any discussion? All in favor? I passes 4 zero. And just for the public at home so that they know that those are all contracts for our employees that are confidential uh in nature, but the board has already had lengthy discussions about those contracts. Um I need a motion to approve the

126creation of a boys basketball classroom account. So move. Next question. I have a question. Uh in the past when we've done this for various other sports, I think it was noted that AD was the one who then is responsible for Yes, that is administering it. Is that the case for this also? Correct. I assume so. But so that'll be because there's several there are. Yes. Yeah, he will be overseeing all of that with the help of Mary Joe Bailey the central treasure. Thank you. Good question. All in favor? We were a little late on that one. I was I was ready. Sorry. I'm very trained over here. Sorry. I need a motion to approve the donation of $700 from the L basketball club to the boys basketball extra classroom accounts. So any discussion? Thank you.

127All in favor? I opposed support. Okay. Budget transfers. Anything to note here, Penny? No. Okay. Does anybody have any questions? No. Okay. Meetings. Upcoming district committee meetings. Health and wellness meeting May 14th at 7 a.m. Safety Committee meeting May 28th in the middle school cafeteria, but I think that's during the 3:30 230. 230 kind of during the Yeah. All right. It rotates for elementary. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Upcoming district events, the prom, which Jefferson may attend at 6 p.m. So, I know you guys said that in public twice. So, hopefully hopefully no one's watching. I haven't seen you there. I will be there. There we go. I heard that right. Okay. Grade grades three and four math tests May 12th and 13th. Grades five and eight science tests May 13th. The annual budget vote

128and board of education election May 20th from 1 to 9:00 p.m. in the middle school cafeteria. Uh the same night is the fifth and sixth grade spring concert and fine arts show. Um, the high school spring concert is May 22nd to 7 PM and the end of the 35w week marking period already. Wow, it's May 23rd. And then Memorial Day, uh, no school will be May 26th. Closing items. Board of Ed highlights. Anybody have anything they'd like to highlight or share tonight? I mean, I think it goes again to say our staff and our teachers, our admin everyone that works in the school, I see them constantly getting way more than what they're paid for and way more hours than than they should. And uh that's what makes our school district so good. So, just

129a thank you to all that that put so much into our schools. That's what I was. Awesome. All right. Public comment. The Williamson School District Board of Education invites public comment at this time on matters on the agenda at this meeting. Please limit your comments to two minutes or less. The board of education is allowed 10 minutes for public comment prior to the meeting. Written remarks may be provided to the board of time expired before a speaker completes the remarks. We ask individuals to state their name and the specific agenda item they wish to address prior to comments and provide the district board with their contact information for purposes of followup. Although the board will not respond directly to individual comments at this time, items brought to the attention of the board may be taken

130under consideration for future response, action, or follow up with the speaker. Issues related to specific district students or employees, whether positive, negative, or neutral, must be brought to the attention of the superintendent of schools privately in order to safeguard privacy. The board reserves the right to terminate speaker's comments as their comments are in excess of two minutes, are repetitive, or are not appropriate for discussion in an open public forum. All visitors are reminded to abide by the district code of conduct and to be respectful and courteous both the speakers and its audience members. We're community focused on bettering public education for students, some of whom may be present. Thank you. I love how you guys just like to make me read through that. Just did the two of you want to say anything else? That

131just made me feel really guilty that I didn't read my bio. Um, all right. Uh, I need a motion to adjourn to executive sessions. I move that we enter executive session to discuss history. All in favor? I. It will not be 1:00 a.m. I'm just playing it out there. My water will run out before then. Starts at 5 a.m. Okay.