March 10, 2026 - Board of Education Meeting

001[music] >> I call the regular board meeting to order. All members of the board are present except for Dr. Spicer and ex-officio student board members Carkhuff, Maurice, and Perabo. Dr. Brown-Hall, would you please lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag? It will be my honor. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. May I have a motion to recess into executive session to discuss employment matters related to particular persons and collective negotiations. Ms. Fletcher? Ms. Pullen? All in favor? Motion carried unanimously. May I have a motion to return the regular board meeting to public session? Mr. Mana? Mr. Pullen? All in favor? Motion carried unanimously. I call the regular

002board meeting to order. All board members are present except for Dr. Spicer. Good evening and welcome to all in attendance. Please be advised that in the event of a fire emergency and an evacuation should be necessary, an alarm will sound. Please note all marked emergency exits and evacuate well away from the building. At this time, we request that everyone turn their cell phones and other electronic devices to silent. Thank you. Dr. Brown-Hall, I turn it over to you for our school spotlight. Thank you very much, Board President. Tonight's school spotlight focuses on Mill Middle School's Ed Camp, an exciting an exciting highlight of students' fifth grade ELA journey. Whether fascinated by the life of a historical icon or the mysteries of the universe, students have the opportunity to research and design an engaging presentation for

003families, teachers, and their peers. I'd like to welcome Principal Chris McDuffy and Mill's fifth grade ELA team to share more. Dr. Brown-Hall, thank you for that. And good evening to Dr. Brown-Hall, our members of our leadership team, and our Board of Education. We really appreciate and thank you for having us tonight. Uh as Dr. Brown-Hall already alluded to, the Mill Middle School Ed Camp research project provides our fifth grade students with the unique opportunity to explore and become experts on a topic of their choice. During this process, students engage in meaningful research, strengthen critical thinking skills, and take ownership of their learning as they take a deep dive into subjects that spark curiosity and interest. Once students have completed their research and developed expertise in their selected areas, they share their learning with members of

004our school community. Peers, teachers, parents, and community members are invited into the school to learn from our students and see firsthand the time, effort, and dedication they have invested in their work. Ed Camp has has become one of the highlights of the year at Mill, and it truly reflects the creativity, the collaboration, and commitment of our fifth grade team. I am extremely proud of the work our teachers and students have accomplished through this project. This evening, we are fortunate to have three of our outstanding fifth grade teachers with us, Mrs. Diane Dellinger, Mrs. Christine Dorschner, and Mrs. Megan Quino, and I'll now turn it over to them so that they can speak more to the hard work, the commitment, the time that goes into Ed Camp, and really what makes Ed Camp such a successful

005event every single year. Awesome. Hello, everyone. Um Principal McDuffy did a wonderful job um sharing pieces of Ed Camp already, but we just have a little bit to add to it. Um so, Ed Camp is the culmination of our nonfiction reading unit in fifth grade, and during this unit, students learn how to research a topic of their choice and become experts on that topic. The presentation portion, thank you, also builds our students' public speaking skills. Thank you so much for bringing attention to this wonderful, like, very proud moment in our careers, and it's just a really feel-good day. So, we can we collaborated with our librarian. Together, we gathered information for both print and digital sources for students to research from. We also collaborated with our technology integrator, where students created digital images, where they

006used Canva, where they uploaded a photo of themselves into a background related to their research project. Awesome. So, on our Ed Camp presentation day, our fifth graders presented their trifles that they created or Google Slides presentations, and they created those projects to really show their new learning and their expertise on their chosen topics. So, we invited fourth graders from our elementary feeder schools, so from Forest and Maple West, to come and celebrate this day with us, along with, of course, parents and our Mill staff. So, really, all together, we were celebrating the hard work and learning of our fifth graders. So, we're so glad that you are able to, you know, share in this, you know, special learning of our in hard work of our fifth graders, and you can enjoy, you know, a um

007a video that was created of, you know, the work that went behind it and on our Ed Camp presentation day. Thank you so much. >> Awesome. Thank you. So, everybody's really excited. We've been working really hard for weeks. Ed Camp is the culminating piece [music] of our tackling text complexity unit, where students have learned all of the skills to use as researchers to study [music] text that are complex and become an expert on a topic. So, this is their time to shine and really show all the knowledge that they gained in their research. Basically, what we did in the library is Mrs. Wedel showed us how to find the book that we wanted, and then you would just like search up the topic that you wanted. I chose sea turtles because I think they're really

008cool animals. There are seven different types of sea turtles, and the temperature of the sand when they're in eggs determine if they're going to be a boy or a girl. Middle school in general, that's a huge shift coming from the elementary schools, is the choice. Giving them the ability to choose from animals to science to history [music] to studying people is the motivating piece because that made them want to become [music] the expert, and it makes them even more excited now to highlight everything that they learned because it was a topic of interest [music] to them. What we're practicing is how to teach well, how to speak clearly, how to use an appropriate voice level, how to make eye contact, [music] and that skill is going to take them throughout the rest of their life.

009Taylor Swift was born December 13th, 1989 in western Pennsylvania. I like most about Ed Camp is you you could pick your own topic, and you could pick if you wanted to do a Google Slide or a trifold, and it turns out really, really fun. Tomorrow's the day we've got our fourth graders visiting and our parents visiting. They can't wait to see what you've done, too. We really wanted as many opportunities as possible for >> [music] >> the year, kids would get more and more nervous about coming to fifth grade. So, we decided, let's invite the Maple West and Forest fourth graders. They get a chance to come and see the building, come and see what fifth graders are doing, come and see what maybe they're going to do again next year. Everyone should learn as

010much as they can about different things. Last year, when I was in fourth grade, I would just was amazed by how cool this is that you just research as much as you can and >> [music] >> get to create a cool project that you can show to everyone and help them understand stuff. For my Ed Camp, I researched space. Our technology, it helps us better understand [music] space. Telescopes helped Galileo discover a bunch of stars. The spectroscope helped people figure out the composition of celestial bodies, and then the Mars rover has taken back many samples to help us just better understand Mars. [music] This project is really all about building community. It's become, like, not just a fifth grade day welcoming the fourth graders and parents, but it really is, like, all of Mill like

011gets excited about it. Um Mill teachers and staff were invited to this as well. So, everybody really cheers on these fifth graders and just the incredible research that they've done and just the hard work that they've put into this. [music] Awesome. Thank you, Principal McDuffy and the fifth grade ELA team at Mill. So, as I said, you heard Bong's I tree as you came in. In total, 15 Williamsville middle and high school students were selected to participate in the New York State Band Directors Association Honor Band Ensembles. Please welcome Jamie Pittel, the district's director of art, music, business, and family and consumer sciences to share more on their selection. Hello. Thank you so much, Dr. Brown-Hall, our executive leadership team, and our Board of Education for having us tonight. It's always exciting when we have

012the opportunity to come together to celebrate the talent, creativity, and excellence found throughout the Williamsville Central School District. And tonight, we're very proud to recognize a group of truly exceptional young performers. As Dr. Brown-Hall mentioned, this year we had 15 students from across our middle and high school selected to perform at the New York State Band Directors Association Honor Bands, Nisbeta for short, because we don't have enough acronyms. Um and it's really quite an outstanding accomplishment and a testament to their dedication and artistry that we get to see, we're lucky to see, every day in our music classrooms. This past weekend, these students traveled to Syracuse for an intensive multi-day musical experience. Throughout the weekend, they got to participate in hours of rehearsals under the direction of distinguished guest conductors, while also collaborating with other

013top student performers from across New York State. The weekend ended with a final performance that showcased an impressive level of preparation, skill, and really professionalism that I would say is beyond their years, which we're very proud of. As you arrived this evening, as mentioned, you heard our students performing bonsai tree, as well as a couple extra selections from the evening. If you take the group that you saw back there and add maybe another 85 to 100, you probably have some of the sizes of those bands, if not more. So, we were lucky, we had some pretty balanced instrumentation, but please join me just another round of applause for our performers tonight. Thank you guys so much for performing. Thank you to Mrs. Michelle and Miss Evic for being here and helping organize it as well.

014Thank you. We're incredibly proud of our students and the hard work, discipline, and commitment that they demonstrated in preparing for this prestigious opportunity as well. Experiences like this not only highlight their artistic abilities, but also their perseverance, teamwork, and passion for the arts that they get to demonstrate every day in our schools and outside of our schools and in our community. I'd like to also take a moment to recognize our outstanding music teachers who guide and support our students every step of the way. Their dedication, expertise, and encouragement are instrumental, pun intended, in helping our students reach these levels of achievement. And it's because of our educators like them that our district continues to be recognized as one of the best communities in music education. When our students succeed, we all succeed. And their success

015is truly a community effort. That support begins at home, and we would also like to take a moment to thank our families for their continued encouragement, driving to all the lessons, the rehearsals, the concerts, the musicals, and Syracuse for the concert this past weekend. So, round of applause for our families. Kudos, don't forget to thank your family. And we are also very grateful that the district and Board of Education for your unwavering support of our music program and the many opportunities that it provides our students, and for recognizing the important role the arts play in supporting the whole child. At this time, I would like to recognize each of our students. So, when I call your name, please stand. And we can acknowledge and celebrate the remarkable achievements that they've shown us. And we are

016incredibly proud of each and every one of you. Clayton Best. Victoria Atanasov. Larson Evic. Carter Petrie. Henry Rauber. Ning Zhao. Yuhan Yan. Olivia Chang. Ali Combo. Ethan McMahon. Sophia Scanio. Alex Scanio. Ariana Scanio. Peyton Special Nelson and Shumi Liu. Please join me again in congratulating our students. >> [applause] >> And at this time, would all the kids please come up and take a photo? That's nice. >> And I'd like to invite our music teachers who are here to come up as well and join us for that. So, you guys come right on up over here. Thank you very much. I turn it back over to you, Board President. Thank you, Dr. Brown-Hall. Are there any board acknowledgements this evening? I do not see any, so we will move on. We are on item number four,

017public expression. I call on Parliamentarian Pollin to review our public expression format. Welcome to all who have come to observe this regular board meeting. Per policy 1510, the board allows for up to 30 minutes for this first public expression period. This is a time when we invite members of our school community to share ideas, opinions, and concerns with us. While we are here to listen carefully, and we take your concerns seriously, public comment is not designed to be a discussion. Therefore, please do not expect us to respond tonight. Instead, you will receive a response by email after our meeting. Because we want to maintain mutual respect and civility, please ensure that comments are delivered in a respectful manner to the board directly. Also, under state and federal privacy laws, we are unable to entertain any

018comments related to employee personnel information or any topic that may disclose information about a particular student. On these matters, we ask that you go through appropriate administrative channels. >> [clears throat] >> Please note that individuals are required to sign up prior to our meeting, and each speaker is allotted 3 minutes for comments. You'll be signaled at 2 and 1/2 minutes, so that you may conclude your remarks. At this time, we will begin public comments. After I call on you, please step up to the podium and state your name. Jacob Wixom. Uh good evening, members of the board, Dr. Brown-Hall. My name is Jacob Wixom, and I'm a parent of a student in the district. I'm here tonight because student safety is our shared top priority, yet our current execution of policy 7560 regarding the notification

019of sex offenders on campus is failing. In recent In recent correspondence, the board stated that the building administrators are familiar with this policy. I am here to tell you that this is factually incorrect. My direct interactions with school administration and local law enforcement have revealed a disturbing lack of awareness regarding the specifics of policy 7560 and how it is supposed to be applied. If the people charged with our children's safety do not know the rules, the rules effectively do not exist. I am happy to provide the specific dates and names of the interactions that led to this conclusion. Currently, policy 7560 grants the superintendent the discretionary right to notify parents and staff. The problem with discretion is that it creates a subjective safety net. Right now, the burden of safety is placed entirely on the

020parents. The district's current stance is to provide links on a website and expect families to manually cross-reference registries every day to know who has a child and at what school. This is a passive approach to a high-stakes issue. If a registered sex offender is granted written authorization to be on school grounds where our children learn, play, and eat, that information should should not be hidden behind the superintendent's opinion of what has a need to know. Every parent and staff member has a need to know. As the committee reviews this policy this month, we are calling for three specific non-negotiable updates. Uh the first is mandated transparency. Uh to change the language from reserves the right to notify to shall notify. If a registered sex offender is is authorized to be on campus for any reason,

021the stakeholders, including teachers, coaches, parents, must be proactively informed. Verified training and accountability is the second. Since current interactions provide prove administrators and law enforcement are not currently briefed, we require documented annual training for all staff and security. Uh the last one is standardized au- authorization. We ask for a clear public protocol on how written authori- authorization is vetted. It must be a rigorous safety assessment, not a rubber-stamp formality. Transparency is not a threat to the law. It is a fulfillment of your duty to protect the student body. We are not asking for the the district to do the impossible. We are asking you to close the gap between what you say your administrators know and what they actually know. Thank you. Kelly Wixom. Good evening, members of the board. I am speaking on behalf

022of Christine Yang, who couldn't be here today. Um also regarding the district policies concerning registered sex offenders on school property, specifically policy 7560, which addresses uh notification procedures under New York State Sex Offender Registration Act. While the policy outlines how the district receives information from law enforcement, many parents in our community are concerned that it does not go far enough to provide clear safeguards when it comes to the presence of registered offenders on our school grounds. Importantly, New York law gives school districts the authority to adopt stronger safety measures. Under New York Education Law 2801, districts are responsible for maintaining codes of conduct and regulating behavior and access on school property in order to protect students. In other words, state law establishes minimum requirements, but local districts retain the authority to set stricter rules when

023it comes to campus safety. With that in mind, I would ask the board consider strengthening district policy in several ways. First, the district should adopt a clear presumption that registered sex offenders are not permitted on school campuses except in limited circumstances, such as when they must attend an event involving their own child. Second, if an offender is permitted on school property, the district should implement mandatory safeguards. These should include advanced administrative approval, former check-in procedures, and continuous escorts by staff or security while the individual is on campus. Third, parents and guardians deserve transparency. If a registered offender will be present at a school event or activity, parents should know and receive information so that they can make informed decisions about their child's participation. Finally, registered sex offenders should not be permitted to volunteer in classrooms,

024participate in school activities involving children, or serve in roles that place them in close proximity to students. Beyond policy language, this is also about community standards. Individuals who have harmed children should not expect to move through our schools and community in comfort or anonymity. Protecting children requires awareness and vigilance. We should be shining lights on risks, not obscuring them. Children walk into school every day believing it is a safe place. Parents send them there trusting that the adults responsible for our schools are doing everything possible to keep them safe. When policies are unclear or safeguards are not in place, that trust is weakened. Strengthening these rules would not conflict with state law. It would simply use the authority already available to this district to establish clear expectations, stronger safeguards, and greater transparency for families. For

025that reason, I respectfully ask the board to refer this issue to the district's policy committee for formal review and place a discussion of potential updates to policy 7560 on the a for- sorry, future board agenda. Our responsibility is first and foremost to safety of children in our care, and I urge the board to take this opportunity to strengthen these policies so our school truly reflects that priority. Thank you for your time and consideration. Thank you. Our next speaker is Paul. Hi, my name is Paul. Good evening. My child is a student in the district. Though he's he has been excluded from school since November. He has a complex medical history, and because of that, his physician issued a medical exemption. A New York State Supreme Court judge reviewed the full record and ruled in January

026that his exemption is valid and that he should be allowed in school. Despite that ruling, this district has chosen to keep him out pending appeal. I want to be direct. The judge explicitly determined that our son is not a public health risk. That finding should be enough for this district to allow him back into school now. The district should have been happy that they can legally allow a medically fragile student back to active learning amongst his peers. The district has covered its bases. You have supported your administration. You did your due diligence to be sure that our son, by the law, should be allowed in school. That was answered with a yes in January, yet the district continues to exclude him pending appeal. The district is choosing to rely on CPLR 5519, the automatic stay

027available to government entities. Let me be clear, this stay is not a court mandate. It is not a judicial order. It is a choice you are making. You have the authority to permit him to attend while the appeal is underway. If our child were enrolled in private school today, he would already be back in class. Private institutions must follow the same immunization regulations, but unlike this district, they cannot use the automatic stay to keep a child out of school for the better part of a year while waiting for an appeal. This is not an anti-vax debate. Our son is fully vaccinated except for the Tdap booster. The Tdap booster does not prevent transmission. There is no pertussis or diphtheria outbreak in New York County. Tetanus is not spread person to person. Medical exemptions are intended

028for all kids like our son. Teachers, staff, and coaches are not required to be up to date on this booster. Yet our son, who has received Tdap 5 years ago, is being treated as though he is uniquely dangerous without any evidence to support that claim. The district is aware the appeal is scheduled for the October 2026 term. By choosing to invoke the automatic stay, you are knowingly denying him meaningful in-person education for all of sixth grade and much of seventh grade. For a medically fragile child, this is not a minor convenience. It is profound disruption to his education, his mental health, and his connection to his peers. The district has a right to appeal, but that strategy should not come at the cost of a child's right to be educated while the appeal proceeds. You

029have the discretion. You have the authority. You can correct this today. I'm asking this board to do what is right, what is lawful, and what is humane, and allow our son back into school pending appeal. Thank you. Crystal. Members of the board, I want to ask a simple question. Is the board aware the lack of education occurring while my child is barred from school? My child has a 504 plan, and we have repeatedly shared our struggles with the district and asked for educational support. However, we have been told the teachers are not allowed to provide direct instruction, remote learning, or even administer tests while he is home. In fact, we were told if we don't like it, we can always hold home school him. Is that really the district's only solution? The teachers' hands are

030tied. They want to help, but they have shared that in-class instruction cannot be replicated. We as parents cannot replace trained educators or the classroom environment. As a result, my child has not taken a single test or assessment since October. If we were asked to take have him take a test today, he would fail. Not because he lacks ability, but because he has not been given the opportunity to learn or demonstrate what he knows. This is especially concerning because my child was previously an honor roll student. Assessments are meant to measure understanding, identify learning gaps, and help teachers and parents support a student's academic progress. Without them, there is no true meaning of learning. My child is also being exempt from most assignments. In one of his core classes, my child received an 87 last quarter,

031despite not being given a single assignment, a single test, or a single project to complete. That raises an important question. Why is he being exempt from most of his work instead of being taught? It's not because of lack of interest or effort from my child, his teachers, or us as parents. Worksheets alone are not an education. My child has not heard his teacher's voices since October. Teachers have not been allowed to provide him direct instruction, engage him in discussion, or help him complete or understand complex concepts. Beyond academics, he is missing critical peer interaction, teamwork, and daily support teachers provide when they see a student struggling. The longer this continues, the greater impact on both his education and his well-being. My husband and I both work full-time, and we both work second jobs. I am

032sharing this because we aren't a family that is already home, and we don't have money to burn. He cannot get the vaccine, and we are doing everything we can to support our child. My child did not choose to have these medical conditions. His medical exemption has already been deemed valid by a Supreme Court judge. There is no evidence that he's a public health risk. School staff are not required to receive the Tdap booster, and there's no court order requiring him to be barred from school while this appeal process continues. For all these reasons, at-home instruction is clearly not providing my child with meaningful education, and the district knows it. So, I I ask the board, why is the school choosing to restrict my child access to a meaningful education while also barring him from the

033classroom? I respectfully ask the board to review this decision and do the right thing by allowing my child to return to school in person while the process continues. Every student deserves access to a meaningful education. Thank you. Cara Pomeroy Hello. I'm here to act as an advocate for an individual whose voice has not been heard or responded to. Um, my niece is a senior at AIM, which is >> cannot speak about any students, provide any information about a student unless it's your own child. I'm sorry, or you're the guardian. >> I'm a guardian, so I'm going to continue. Thank you. I just wanted to be clear. >> That's okay. Will you give me my time back for those couple seconds? Sounds good. Thank you so much. So, my niece is a student at AIM in

034North, and due to various medical reasons, she was required to have a service animal. Her dog, Bentley, who is a registered service animal, was approved by the school district to accompany her to school. According to the school, there was a plan put in place that would have my niece leave class early to allow enough time for her to move through the hallways without a large masses of students during passing time. This was for the safety of my niece, her dog, and all other students. The plan failed to specify how many minutes my niece needed to leave early from her class, but only indicated she needed to leave with enough time to move from one class to another before passing time bell rang and other students entered the hall. Thank you very much. We're going to

035stop you right now. You are not the guardian, and I just verified. Please have a seat. Thank you very much. >> Okay. Okay, so that is the end of our expression period. There is no one else on the agenda tonight. I just wanted to make um some folks aware there was some speakers this evening about policy 7560. Our Board of Education Policy Committee will be meeting on March 31st to review that policy. Our current policy is in line with state law, and our district's Megan's Law webpage is linked to the Amherst Police Department Sex Offender webpage, which lists offenders and the required information. We will be consulting with our attorneys to ensure there are no additional steps we should be taking, and we'll be discussing this at the March 31st meeting. So, thank you, and

036we are moving on to item 4B. Dr. Brown-Hall, I turn it over to you to introduce the presentation from Erie 1 BOCES. >> Thank you very much, Board President, and I apologize, Board members and our community that has come this evening for that outburst. I sincerely apologize. We are very excited and happy this evening to have our district superintendent, Dr. Mike Capuana, who is our BOCES superintendent, in attendance this evening. He will be giving a presentation about BOCES, the services that BOCES offers, and that we participate in, and also the BOCES special education expansion. I'll turn it over to Dr. Capuana. Good evening, Board of Education and Dr. Brown-Hall and leadership team here at um Williamsville. Thank you for the opportunity to be here and present some updates on our partnership. Uh I look forward

037to um giving you some highlights of the work that we're doing as an extension of your school district, but then also talk a little bit about some of the regional reform and state reform work that we are partnering with Williamsville and our component districts on. So, I'll start with a little bit about Erie 1 BOCES just to uh set the table. As an organization, we're an extension of your school system. We partner with the 19 districts across Erie County, and our school uh partners in Buffalo Public School as a big five district. We have such a variety of services, all of that driven by BOCES aid and the ability for school systems in different areas of the operation to be able to access student programming at the K-12 level, um our administrative and operational services,

038and the regional information center and technology services. We as a BOCES also have a Board of Education, seven members, which represent um our component districts across the region. And um in the role as the district superintendent, I also have the privilege to serve as the commissioner's representative to the field here in Western New York. For the organization, we're really structured into three branches. That starts with our administrative services, focusing on all of the kind of back office support services for school districts, labor relations, communications. Uh the regional information center, Erie 1 is proud to host one of 12 RICs in New York State. Our RIC actually serves 100 school districts across Erie, Niagara, Orleans, um and CA BOCES area. And that is everything from networking to connectivity to cybersecurity service and all kinds of applications

039that educators and students take advantage of every day in our classrooms. And then finally, our instructional services program, everything from our career and technical education programs to um our exceptional education, which includes uh special education and alternative ed, and then workforce development. We train um roughly 2,000 adults across Western New York annually in both part-time and full-time programs. So, in working with Dr. Brown-Hall to prepare for this evening's presentation, wanting to make sure that we I was able to cover some areas of interest, and starting with particularly career and technical education. So, um you'll see there the breakdown of students from Williamsville by our now uh four campuses in CTE. Um the most popular programs for students from Williamsville are the health careers program, which leads to a CNA um credential, the culinary arts, animal

040sciences, and criminal justice. Um Ty on the right-hand side up there is one of our students in the sports science career program over at the Kenton Kenton Center. Um and in addition to that, I wanted to just highlight uh one student in particular uh in addition to Ty. So, in the upcoming edition of Nisba, um you may be aware uh and we're excited about, there's going to be a highlight on Auto Borden, who is a senior at Williamsville South High School. And Auto's a student in our electronics and applied technology program at the Harkness Center. So, Auto was nominated to be featured in the upcoming edition of On Board, which uh focuses on his innovations around engagement and achievement. So, Auto has taken an ambition ambitious engineering challenge, designing a building a 3D printed visorless

041helmet that allows the wearer to see through a fully enclosed face mask. The custom-built helmet integrates a digital display screen, a camera, a Raspberry Pi computer, and a mobile power supply. The system streams live video from the camera to the internal display, effectively restoring visibility inside the opaque mask. In addition, Auto's work extends beyond his individual project here. He also partnered with our Erie 1 BOCES P-TECH program, BUILD, which is focused on construction trades areas, um to help develop a do-it-yourself computer-controlled router for the building trades class. The undertaking was made more complex by the lack of existing documentation. And according to his instructor, Auto's a great example of a titan in the making. His generation and the next big innovation that shapes our lives could very well come from him. So, much to be

042proud of there. >> Absolutely. In terms of the CTE programs and enrollment in those programs, uh career and technical education is very popular uh across the state, and of course with the New York Inspires Pathways to Graduation, it's a great opportunity for school systems to take advantage of those programs. So, for the process of enrolling, districts annually recommend students for the CTE programs. The team at Erie 1 then takes all of those applications and applies a percentage-based formula to distribute the seats among the districts based on student interest, program, and the different centers. The district determines which students will fill those allotted seats. So, we come back to the school system to work with your high school counselors and make sure that that alignment is there. And then remaining recommended students are ranked by the

043district for any waitlist situations that we have. Um the CTE or office works really collaboratively with your guidance counselors and your high school principals. I will say that the Calspan Center, that addition of that fourth center for us has alleviated much of the waitlists as we're able to open additional seats at the Potter, Harkness, and Kenton centers. In terms of exceptional education, I'll just share the enrollment numbers for the district there. So, you will see by our different programs and centers um in exceptional education the programs that students are attending. And I'm going to talk a little bit more specifically about our expansion project. So, we are really excited and I would just want to make sure to say thank you to the Board of Education, to the Williamsville school community for supporting this project.

044We have all 19 of our school districts contributing to the development of this new campus. We are um building a school, and that school is set to open in September of 2027. Uh this is going to be more than just a school building. It is really designed um to be a unique learning space for students from all across Western New York with uh different learning needs and exceptionalities. And we're designing that space with research-based design elements and with our partners at Buffalo Construction Consultants and Ben R. Development to develop the space out. We're also adding capacity at this new campus. So, we will be serving uh really an additional up to 180 students across the region. So, we are taking our roughly 350 students from our different campuses across Erie 1, bringing them to one

045site with all of our faculty and staff, and then opening up seats for additional programs. There will be 75 classrooms on the campus. And um just to feature some of the buildout so you can see what's coming together. In addition to the classrooms, we're going to have a town square concept in the center of the building where you'll see some of the design elements. Um we're going to have multiple cafeterias, both a larger cafeteria and some smaller cafeteria spaces because we know that our students benefit from that smaller environment at times. There's going to be a marketplace where students will earn the ability to have privileges to access that and and um you know, treats and different things for the classes individually. And then a actually a clothing boutique as well, uh which will be

046staffed by our students from the different programs there. The campus is not only going to serve um our exceptional education students. We will also have CTE programs embedded. So, our early childhood education programs will be on site there. We're also adding a classroom space for our education pathway students who are high school seniors in partnership with Buffalo State interested in education, and all alternative education programs. I'm happy to say the construction is well underway. So, this new campus will be on the corner of Dick and Walden in the Depew school district region. We worked very closely with the superintendents to make sure that we were centralizing that location and able to deliver on what is a demand for additional programming. Um across our 19 districts, classifications of students with disabilities in the last 10 years

047has gone up 14%. We now have upwards of 55 school districts referring students to our programs at Erie 1 for exceptional education. And I would just share at the end there's a link there. So, if you have some time to take a look, there's a full website and a video and all kinds of information and construction updates. Shifting gears, uh two last updates. One is on the regionalization plan. So, we're proud to say that all 19 school districts and our partners at Buffalo Public have agreed to the regionalization work to continue. And that is just that, a conversation that we are moving forward on behalf of Western New York schools. So, we submitted our final plan to the Commissioner of Education this past October with feedback in multiple sessions with school district leadership teams, board

048members uh to develop those priorities. The specific priorities identified by the 19 school districts, uh one is graduation measures and New York Inspires, you know, taking that pathway work that needs to happen and centralizing that in our conversation. The second is tackling chronic absenteeism and social emotional learning. And a focus on out-of-school opportunities. A lot of this conversation has been about what happens in [clears throat] school, but we know that it's really important to have that out-of-school opportunity maximized for our students across communities. So, how do we do that as a network here in Western New York? Uh the fourth is focusing on transportation, which we know is a continuing challenge and cost increase for school systems. How can we be more efficient and innovate in that space together? And then the fifth is looking

049at the analysis of course offerings and barriers to equity. So, how we can ensure that students across, regardless of the school district that you're coming from, have access to high-quality courses that are differentiated based on student interest. And college and career readiness. There are some advocacy pieces built into this plan. So, thankfully the Commissioner and the Board of Regents have asked us for what else would you want and need in order to move the work forward. We've identified regional transportation innovation and funding and resources for that work. Uh supporting family support centers across the state and our region specifically, teacher and leader and educator certification as we are working through challenges with pipeline in those areas. And then finally evaluating extracurricular and community excuse me support opportunities for the out-of-school time. And then finally New

050York Inspires. And so, the graduation measures work, which is well underway here in Williamsville and across the region and state. Um in unpacking that, of course you're familiar with the different critical areas that the Board of Regents have identified that we should be preparing our students for. Um and more specifically, I would just share what we are doing currently. Williamsville has been participating in the uh this year's New York State Civic Readiness Consortium group. In addition to that, exploring and implementing in the individual arts assessment pathway options for students. And then finally, in-district technology pilots on a variety of levels. In addition to that, we are preparing for next year's rollout already. So, those meetings have started with the school systems to look at how can you participate? And we're making sure that we're focusing

051on project-based learning and assessment, thinking about student choice, preparing our teachers and our school counselors for readiness for this work. Um I feel very confident that there's going to be a wide range of choice for school systems across New York State. But at the same time, that can present a challenge in the sense that we like to know what are kind of the rules of the game so that we can play by those rules. And so, we are working very closely with State Ed to push for guidance and resources and partnering around that. I expect that you will see some regulatory reforms coming in the next few months. Um and then in addition to that from the technology side of the house, we're working with uh developing RFPs for some of the technology platforms that

052will be necessary for the school systems to adopt these shifts. Um things like how do school counselors track a student's coursework if they change systems or through that and credentialing and making sure that we are um having all the opportunities documented so that students can take advantage into college and career. And with that, I'm happy to take any questions and comments. Thank you very much, Dr. Capuana. Any questions, board members? No, I just want to thank you for this overview and specifically for your discussion there at the end about um portrait of a graduate and those initiatives. I appreciate Erie 1 BOCES' support and any guidance we can get from the state sooner rather than later would be much appreciated. We've heard we've heard that, yeah. Yes, I know you have. >> Continuing to push,

053[laughter] yes. Thank you so much. Yes, thank you. Thank you, Dr. Capuana. Have a good evening. Mac Intyre. Thank you very much. Our next presentation deals with student outcomes. We provide a presentation to the board because we know the Board of Education's one of their primary roles is to ensure that our students are achieving and that you are receiving that information so that you can accurately monitor that. So, Dr. Balan, who is our Chief Academic Officer, our Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum Assessment and Instruction, will be presenting our student achievement outcomes. Dr. Balan. Thank you so much, Dr. Brown-Hall. Dr. Capuana, actually the presentation that Dr. Capuana just gave is a wonderful segue into the information we're going to share this >> Absolutely. Dr. McInally's going to assist me by forwarding the slides. So, thank you,

054Dr. McInally. Um good evening, Board of Education and members of our school community. Dr. Brown-Hall and I are pleased to share information with you this evening as part of our annual agenda. Information reflected was made possible tonight through efforts of district administrative colleagues, and we are grateful to to them for their contributions. Tonight's presentation includes review of assessment philosophy and approaches, annual student achievement outcomes including New York State 3-8 testing information, high school Regents exams, and graduation outcomes, computer-based testing, supports and student opportunities, as well as an appendix with supporting information particularly as it relates to assessment types as well as additional graduation data. In addition to this evening's live presentation, this presentation is also made available on BoardDocs. Next slide, please. Next slide. A cycle of assessment analysis and action is reflected on this

055slide. Assessment and data analysis in Williamsville are part of a comprehensive system. Reliance is not on any one assessment or score. What is utilized is an encompassing and dynamic approach with diagnostic, formative, and summative components. We've included the various types of data and their purposes in the appendix to this presentation. Assessments from a systems perspective includes numerous qualitative and qualitative quantitative measures. This provides greater context and affords the most beneficial in-depth information about student performance, progress, and achievement. We recognize that no one assessment or data point is used in isolation or as sole determination of a student's learning. However, all data points are important and serve as the basis for meeting student needs through differentiation and personalized learning. An effective system focuses on growth and achievement. The delivery of instruction or model of teaching and

056learning is informed or driven by information gathering and acting on the data responsiveness to each unique learner. Teachers gather and examine data highlighting student strengths and addressing areas of emphasis, monitoring progress, and individualizing learning. Next slide, please. Next one. The outcomes in this presentation are largely based on state summative data. Grade level participation rates are reflected for the state and district level on this slide. This offers a macro and the most general view and is inclusive only of those participating in this assessment. As a reminder, New York State allows parents and guardians the option to decide if their children will or will not participate in these 3-8 assessments. A note regarding eighth grade. Grade eight students who take high school level math and ELA in middle school are not double tested and therefore do not

057take the grade eight ELA and math tests. Of the remainder of eighth grade students, parents also have the right not to have their children participate in the grade eight ELA and math tests. Next slide, please. As Dr. Capuana alluded to and I will share this a little bit, we have some links in here. So, I would encourage anyone who's watching this evening or referencing BoardDocs to please check out the links. We're not going to open them this evening, so we're going to move swiftly through our presentation. So, results for the 3-8 testing were released in December 2025. This link provides access to the New York State Education Department information. Next slide, please. Regarding proficiency levels, our students and school results have demonstrated consistency with regard to positive performance outcomes and they continue to rank among

058the highest regionally and in comparison to the state. Assessment levels are reflected on this slide as you can see, level one, level two, level three, and level four. Level one indicates well below, level two partially proficient, level three proficient, and level four more than proficient. As far as our students' performance is concerned in level three through four, you can see that gains were made in grades three ELA and math, uh grade four ELA math, grade five ELA, grade six math, grade seven ELA and math, and grade eight ELA, just to name a few. The next two slides have subgroup information. This information is also provided publicly on the New York State Education Department side slide. It is important to note that group sizes range and students may and are often included in one or more

059subgroups based on information that is self-reported. Group sizes are as small as zero and a number can be a single digit while others are larger. Asterisks are used to indicate the that the number is too small for calculation. Here you can see that for our state and district, students are performing at the highest levels three and four for grades tested three through five. The next slide is the same type of information for grades six through eight. Next slide, please. As a part of the presentation, we have included a slide on computer-based testing. New York State schools and districts including ours have fully transitioned to CBT. Like past years, Williamsville will will use WITS to collect participation information. Sending letter to the building principal is no longer necessary. On February 25th, a notice automatically appeared in

060in parents' WITS accounts prompting a response for participation, yes or no, for each assessment by March 13th. If a response is not confirmed, the district will plan to administer the assessments to the children. There are no consequences for a child who does not participate in a New York State 3-8 ELA, math, or science assessment. In accordance with New York State guidance, accommodations may be available for students with an individualized education program, IEP, or and English language learners during New York State assessments. For specific details regarding individual children, we encourage parents or guardians to consult our school to discuss if and how these may apply. Next slide, please. Next are student outcomes for Regents exams taken in June of 2025. Passing and mastery rates are included as our state level results on this and the next

061slide. Next slide, please. This continues the Regents testing for June 2025. The New York State Education Department site includes this information as well as as additional data. It is noteworthy that New York State has continued to refine their own assessments including assessments in math, science, and ELA. For the purposes of developing state scores, a number of processes are enacted as a result of this. This includes early administration, score collection, and standard setting. This process involves establishing test scores that represent performance levels and establishing cut scores for classification into each of the performance levels. Next slide, please. Summative information and a historical view is seen here for the past 5 years. Graduation rates with advanced designation in parentheses are shown on this slide. Next slide, please. The next two slides also reflect graduation rates along with

062different diploma and credentials. New York State defines the types and requirements for each. Next slide. This slide represents students who met graduation requirements in 4 years. The figures in the chart above represent the 4-year outcome for a ninth grade cohort, 2021 year cohort through August. Students who complete the requirement or who earn a diploma, excuse me, in a period outside of the cohort or in longer than a 4-year period are not represented. A note for clarity has also been added to the bottom. It is noteworthy that 28 students continue to be enrolled as compared to last year where 14 students remain enrolled. Filters on the New York State public data site also include other important figures and cohort information. These include five and six-year uh results. We have depicted this information in the chart format

063and included this additional five and six-year cohort information on the slides in the presentation addendum. These charts reflect the positive impact on our students when they are provided the additional time necessary to complete their graduation requirements. This is evident in the subgroup totals for students with disabilities as well as all students. Efforts also continue. It is anticipated that through targeted professional development on co-teaching and specially designed instruction, these will impact rates and work towards the achievement of our special education strategic plan goals that focus on improving graduation rates for students with disabilities over time. In addition, the addition of teachers on special assignment for special education will assist in further enhancing the co-teaching model. Next slide, please. Advanced placement and college level coursework continue to thrive in Williamsville. This is evidence in exam >> [clears

064throat] >> participation as well as results. I am also pleased to share that our high school course catalogs released this winter reflected a new course option for next school year, AP Business and Personal Finance. The last section included in tonight's presentation addresses student support and opportunities. Numerous college credit options continue to be afforded to students. Descriptions for these opportunities and detailed information can be found with the course information in the high school course catalogs available on our district website and the respective pages for each of our three high schools. Information can also be found on the district website devoted to advanced coursework opportunities along with the letter that we send each spring to parents and guardians of students at the middle and high school levels. There's extensive information on what the district provides beginning at

065middle school and continuing through high school. Next slide, please. The Office of Instruction and the Office of Exceptional Education and Student Services have partnered along with building principals to update and standardize the CST or or support process for students. This has included updating the name of the process to MTSS to align it with New York State Education Department terminology as well as piloting a digital repository that supports its implementation. Initially, seven buildings began the pilot at the beginning of the 2025-26 school year. The remaining six were added to the pilot in March. These efforts allow for intensive analysis through an electronic customized system that can assist with effective implementation of the multiple tiered system of support process from grades K through 12. Included here are goals for students along with bullets reflective of New York

066State Education Department's portrait of a graduate. We are excited to provide information on this vision and initiative moving forward including the release of the district's portrait of a graduate video. Last, we have included a link to the New York State Education Department website announcing the state's launch of their transformative plan along with the implementation of the Blue Ribbon Commission findings regarding graduation measures. And while we won't go through it, I just wanted to highlight the appendix is here at the end of the presentation. The next several slides include the appendix mentioned. This is helpful information on assessment types as well as slides with the five and six-year graduation outcomes. All of this will be on our district website and is available for BoardDocs. And with that, that provides the conclusion to our presentation. I wish

067to thank the board and Dr. Brown Hall for the time and opportunity this evening to share this information. Thank you. Thank you very much, Dr. Bellin, and thank you very much, Dr. McGinley, for assisting. Very thorough. All the information is in BoardDocs and I would encourage everyone to also look at the appendix for additional information and additional charts because there's a lot of additional information there and the links that Dr. Bellin has placed in there because you can really go to the state website and see a lot of the detail that's available about our student success. What questions might you have, board members? Yes, thank you. Thank you, Dr. Bellin. So, my my I'm encouraged your plan to address the the I'm looking at the the pages aren't numbered, so pardon me while I scroll

068through. It is the slide called graduation grades by subgroup starts at 2021. Where do you see that? >> Page 17 Okay, I didn't see it then. Thank you. Page 16 >> Oh, so I'm I'm sorry. >> [laughter] >> Thank you. I'm encouraged that you have a plan, but I but I just I'm confused when I look at you know, the students with disabilities in the years 2021 at 67%, 79, 74, 64. Then I scroll down to the sixth year outcomes as of June 25 by subgroup. That group students with disabilities is 85%. Explain why the difference is. So, thank you for the question and I'll invite anyone to Mr. Skinzo or Dr. Brown Hall if you'd like to jump in, please do so. So, the reason we included those is our first initial slide on

069on 16 is a four-year cohort. So, that aims and what the state is pulling there is a four-year cohort model. That does not, however, capture students who finish their diploma requirements in more than four years and we do have a number of students and that's something that's afforded through them through many channels who stay longer than four years and finish and actually earn a diploma in five or six years. As all of you are aware, we have many students who stay beyond the four-year model. So, unfortunately, while the first chart doesn't include that, the state does release and and you can actually search quite a bit on their their website through the filter that I mentioned, you actually can also locate the five and six-year model. There are also students that earn the CDOS credential

070and other types of diploma. So, we wanted to make sure all of that was out there because that very first chart only includes any student who completes requirements within that four-year four-year model. And we know that many of our students with disabilities, they are allowed to stay and be educated in the district until the age of 22. So, with that, we want to actually show that many of those students do graduate, do do receive their diploma and that's why you see the increasing graduation. >> Thank you for that information. I guess my follow-up is how do you know, this group specifically students with disabilities, if you know, benchmark with other like districts in the area? I I don't have that information with us this evening. That's certainly something we can look into gathering. I do

071that, but we we don't have that as part of this evening's presentation. Thank you for the information. >> I just like to say that we have a very large contingency of students with disabilities compared to other neighboring school districts. So, we do better in some against some school districts that are closer to our size and then those that are much smaller. You know, their statistics may may seem like it's they're better than ours because there are fewer students that they can form they can have more attention on getting them through and having success rates that are a little higher than ours. And if you one question that was asked previously, I know was looking at the number of students as opposed to the percentage. And if you look at the number of students year over

072year, it is the same, but our denominator increased with the number of students who are classified as students with disabilities. So, we are graduating the same number, but we have to make sure it increases the overall percentage. I'd like to also note on on slide 16, we put the note at the bottom of what our number comprises. Besides the students who stay for longer than a four-year period, we do have a number of students who are earning a Regents diploma as well as one with advanced designation. I think that's also noteworthy. Board member Bellin, I also have a question on what our board president I know that's your job. What uh Mark Manahan uh about the students with disabilities. The graduation rate, do you think it's just the cohort of the individual kids because there's

073a lot of variants and is that just you just stock that up to the variants or the services offered by the district? They're they're simply from a state perspective, what they're doing is using a certain defined period of time and that's when they're grabbing the information. So, that's why I think it is helpful that we do have the five and six-year charts to account for the longer programmatic components, but that's squarely just a metric that they're using. Thank you, board members, for your questions. I'll turn it back over to you, board president. Wonderful, thank you. We are now on item five. May I have a motion to recess the regular board meeting to conduct our budget work session? Ms. Flash, Mr. Manahan, all in favor? Motion carried unanimously. I call the budget work session to

074order. Dr. Brown Hall, I turn it over to you to introduce the budget development presentation. Sorry. We are on the budget development presentation. Thank you very much, board president. Just like high school, I get distracted easily. I apologize. So, we are and we are very very fortunate to have our acting assistant superintendent, Dr. McGinley, here to present where our current budget stands right now. And so, I am going to turn it over to acting assistant superintendent, Dr. McGinley, and then we'll be able to answer any questions that board members or our community have regarding the budget. Some items will look similar to the presentation that was done on February 10th and then some items will look a little different because Dr. McGinley has done a lot of work day and night on the budget to

075bring you a budget in this shape and form right now. Dr. McGinley Great, thank you, Dr. Brown Hall, and thank you, board. So, at this time we're going to provide the third update to our budget development process. So, in January and February, we saw this slide which included those items where we'll likely see the most significant cost increases to sustain our current programs. There have been no changes, but I'll briefly outline them again for those who may not be familiar. So, on the left side with the yellow heading is the budget development for the 26-27 school year and on the right side with the blue heading are the projections of the increases seen this year and their future impact of continuing programming into the 27-28 school year. I just want to point out that in

076the blue section, this is not the section we're developing out in the budget development process. These numbers could change next year, but right now we're really focusing on the left side. Going back to the top of the left side then in the yellow, we start with our current budget of $242,719,867. And below that are the areas where like I mentioned, we'll see the most significant cost increases to sustain our current programs. You'll note also that we've categorized these into mandated, contractual, inflation driven, and last is to support program. I do want to note that our BOCES number is is not finalized yet. These expenses are associated with supporting direct student programs, occupational education programs, and administrative items including purchasing instructional technologies. So, all of these increases right now total $8,763,108 or a 3.61% increase and

077an initial budget of $251,482,975. Moving to the next slide, our program enhancements as they relate to the special education services which we've seen previously and remain unchanged at $300,000 since February. So, now this slide has been updated. So, this is where we see our reductions. At our last meeting, we saw that we had a deficit and needs a balance, so we had to revisit some places and we've identified some of these reductions to balance the budget here and I'll outline them. So, at the last meeting, we discussed making reductions as far away from classroom programming as possible and we were able to accomplish this through several areas. We were already aware of the reduction to the learning lab doses of 525,000. In addition, we finalized our retirement numbers last week, which resulted in approximately 585,000

078in savings. As expected, we didn't see a significant number of retirements, so we needed to identify additional areas for reductions. These included lowering our equipment budget and reducing APPR expenses that had been previously budgeted. Um even after these adjustments, we still needed to identify approximately 2.5 million in additional reductions. And as part of part of our normal budget development process, we closely evaluate the historical performance of each budget code. And through this year's analysis, we're able to identify several codes where reduction reductions could be made. So while these reductions help us close that remaining gap, they do reduce our plan fund balance. And as you know, fund balance is essential it essentially serves as the district's ability to manage short-term budget challenges such as unexpected cost, revenue fluctuations, or emergencies during the school year. So

079when we look at the entire budget including our continuations, enhancements, and updated reductions, the bottom yellow section shows the adjusted budget increase is now 5,227,529 dollars or a 2.15% budget-to-budget increase. This compares to the approximately 8.5 million increase that we started with that we saw in February, which was a 3.52% increase. So in other words, the proposed increase has resulted in a total working budget now of 247,947,396 dollars. And as we'll see in upcoming slides, this expense increase aligns with our projected revenues giving us a balanced working budget. So I'll briefly go through these slides again. I know we took a look at revenues last time and remember that revenues often dictate expenses. And last meeting we explored how our revenue and state aid is minimally increasing. So I began by showing this slide which

080outlines our current year's budgeted state aid revenues versus our actual aid we're receiving. As we saw last time, while several of these categories fluctuated due to adjustments by the state and actual expenses, the total state aid received is 76,691 dollars more than what we budgeted, which is effectively right on budget for us. Looking here, if we return to this slide again that we saw last month, we noted that the governor's January state aid projection for 2026-27 was estimated at 74,056,068 dollars. This compares to the 72,022,458 dollars in the governor's run report from 2025-26 representing an increase of 2,033,610 dollars. But it's important to remember that included in this run are the UPK aid numbers. And UPK aid is not part of our general fund, so we must remove it when we see what the maximum

081impact to our general fund is. So after we removed the UPK increase, our net maximum state aid increase prior to adjustments as we just saw on previous slide that we'll need to do is 652,370 dollars, which is highlighted in yellow. In the bottom section of this table, we can see the calculation of the governor's state aid estimate with UPK removed giving us a total maximum state aid estimate of 70,666,068 dollars. So this slide examines next year's proposed state aid. So at the bottom of the left column, we see that maximum state aid estimate carryover from the previous slide, that 70,666,068 dollars. This slide is similar to the one that we reviewed two slides ago where we highlighted the importance that we have to carefully analyze each state aid category and adjust our projections to reflect

082what we realistically expect to receive. These projections have all remained the same since last month with the exception of building aid. So after completing a building aid analysis with state aid over the past month, we we were able to identify an additional 250,000 in building aid that we can recognize. As a result, the total projected state aid now shown in the blue box at the bottom of the middle column is 70,321,418 dollars, which is 250,000 higher than what we presented in February. However, when we compare this projected total of that 70,321,418 dollars to the current year's state aid, it represents an increase of only 404,880 dollars, which is less than a half percent increase in state aid revenue. So the other major revenue source that we must consider is the tax levy. We saw this

083slide last time, and since then we were able to apply a portion of that additional building aid to further reduce the proposed tax levy increase to 2.99%. This places us 221,448 dollars below the tax cap, and which you can see in the bottom blue portion of this matrix. When we bring all of the revenue sources together and look specifically at the middle blue column, which represents the budget we are currently developing for next year. >> [snorts] >> At the bottom of the chart, our total projected revenues of 247,947,396 match our total projected expenditures of the same, resulting in our balanced budget. In the blue dashed outline, we can see the projected actual state aid of 70,321,418 18 dollars that we reviewed on the previous slide. If we look at the white column to the right,

084we see the difference between our current budget and next year's budget in all categories. You can see that even though we were able to recognize an increase of 250,000 dollars in building state aid, our overall building state aid is down by about 1.7 million, making our net state aid increase that 404,884 dollars I mentioned, or that half less than half percent increase from the prior year. As previously mentioned, this is significantly lower than the roughly 2 million that was conveyed in the governor's budget. But as we also saw, much of the increase was for UPK, which has no bearing on our general fund. That said, moving down the white column, we see a reduction in our pilots, and we are expecting an increase in our interest earnings along with a few other minimal adjustments that

085were the same as February. Um so we've also kept the appropriated fund balance of 3,750,000 dollars to help us balance our budget. So in summary, we have a 2.15% budget-to-budget increase from last year and a balanced working budget of 247,947,396 dollars. Our proposed tax levy is 152,851,128 dollars or a 2.99% increase from the prior year, which is 221,448 dollars below the maximum tax cap that we see there, which could be 153,072,576 dollars. I've noted a few considerations as we continue to monitor and revise this working budget for our March 24th meeting. On the positive side, there's still the potential for added state aid. However, historically, there have been very minimal increases at this point. It's also important to note that even if the state provides an increase to districts, it's possible we do not see

086any increase since it's based on state formulas. However, if any increases are projected, we need to evaluate additional cost pressures, which include an anticipated increase in our BOCES budget and rising fuel and energy costs. Additionally, if no additional aid is received and there are increases in the BOCES budget, we may need to find further reductions in the budget and or consider the possibility of increasing the proposed tax levy by that 221,448 I think Oh. That is all. If you can leave it on here for a moment because something that I do want to bring attention to the board. We have historically and I know we've made it a point to keep the proposed tax levy below 3%. And this year we went right up to 2.99%, but we still have money that is left on

087the table. We are able to go to the maximum tax cap of 3.14%, and that will help us when we look at the BOCES budget that we do not have currently yet because we do anticipate an increase there, and it would help us plan for our fund balance. So I I would ask the board, you know, and like something that we have been discussing about the need to go over the 2.99% up to 3.14% so we don't leave that money approximately 200,000 dollars on the table. Mr. Mana? Thank you, Dr. Mana. Um I agree. And I I And I And I wouldn't characterize it so much as, you know, leaving money on the table cuz the money's going to be pulled off the table. You know, so I could [laughter] be right. And especially, you

088know, Dr. McGinley talked about the BOCES budget, uh increased fuel and energy cost. You know, today myself, Dr. Brown, Dr. McGinley attended a seminar on the future of zero emission buses. And what's that going to cost? Well, that's the question. What is it going to cost these districts starting in 2027, which seems like 100 years away, but you know, anytime our provider Student Transportation Association buys a new bus, it has to be zero emission bus. So, the big unknown is how much of I mean, how much of that does it What does it cost and how much of that do they put on to the district? So, I guess that's a long-winded way of saying we have the tax cap there for a reason. Right. We have absolute need and can use the money. Correct.

089So, I am going to support going up to the 3.14% cuz I know it will be used. Dr. Singh, if I may. Um we normally have a slide that will show the average tax increase for a household earning $250,000 in our district. Is that going to come in the next presentation? That will be the next presentation. We didn't want to present it tonight because with that BOCES budget still fluctuating a little bit, we didn't want to present something that wasn't completely accurate. Board member Pullen. Parliamentarian Pullen, sorry. That's okay. Um I'm going to say too, I'm concerned about us continuing to go into our reserves because that is going to set us up for the future to go into our reserves deeper. At some point, we have to stop. So, if we can add us

090a little cushion there, it might be helpful. Any other questions, board members? I appreciate that input and that feedback. Just one observation, not really a question. The building aid is coming down. Is it because of the state calculation or we are having less projects that to file for aid? So, building aid falls off after 15 years. And it just so happens that projects that started 15 years ago are starting to fall off, but pretty soon we're going to start to have projects come on such as the air conditioning. So, there's a little bit of a dip, but it is projected to go back up. Thank you. Board President. Thank you very much and thank you very much, Dr. McKinley. Uh so, we answered questions from the board. We will now have our public forum for

091the 2026-27 budget only. Anyone wishing to address the board regarding the budget only may approach the podium at this time. I do not see anyone approaching the podium. So, may I have a motion to adjourn the budget work session and return to the regular meeting. >> [clears throat] >> Ms. Blackinger, Mr. Buelin, all in favor. Motion carried unanimously. Dr. Brownell, I turn it back over to you for your superintendent's report. >> Thank you very much. I appreciate that, Board President. So, we will do the community update. And the community update is a little long today, so I will make sure I I I run through it and then answer any questions board members may have. We've had a lot of presentations tonight and I appreciate that and you know, that's our job to make sure

092our public and our board are informed. So, first and foremost, our draft calendar, the 2026-27 draft calendar was presented at the February 10th Board of Education meeting. We allow the calendar to sit and we review all the feedback and then we actually look forward to be adopted at the March meeting. We reserve received feedback on Thanksgiving recess, winter recess, and the start of the school year. And I I believe we're going to discuss that when we have the calendar up for vote later today. Um there was a lot of questions or suggestions about the start of the school year. We do start after Labor Day. We start on September 8th and um emails requested that we look at starting prior to Labor Day. Uh that would allow for an extended Thanksgiving recess and an extended

093winter recess. We also received questions about Diwali. Diwali is not noted on the summary calendar, our one-pager. Our one-pager, we're really limited to the amount of things that we can put on there cuz it's just a brief synopsis of the calendar. However, that holiday along with other holidays that are not listed on the one-pager will be listed in the printed version, the thick version that has many pages that are sent home with to our families and on the digital edition of the calendar. Holidays that fall on weekends are not listed on that one-pager and they will not be superintendent conference days. However, holidays that are designated and fall within a weekday are listed as superintendent conference days. And so, when the board decided to add additional cultural and religious holidays, that's what was discussed at

094the table and that's the way the resolution was passed and read. March is Women's History Month, Irish American Heritage Month, and Disability Awareness Month. These are the recognized months and we do make sure we recognize these in our district. Upcoming meetings. So, I want to remind everyone that the next Board of Education meeting is a special board meeting and budget work session 2 weeks from now on March 24th at 6:00 p.m. right here in the board room. After that, we will make our way down to the KC Middle School cafeteria for our spring community forum and that's where it will be held and it usually starts around 6:45 or 7:00. Our board make is very adamant that we get feedback from our community and we have conversation during these community forums. So, one is held

095during the fall and another is held during the spring. Board of Education uh candidates can pick up packets through our district clerk, Ms. Lynn Carey. Packets are due by April 20th by 5:00 p.m. Also, student Board of Education packets are available in each high school's main office and on our district website. So, we did review what the process is for any student to become a student board member. So, those packets are available in each high school's main office and the process is on the district website. So, I want to thank our PTSA Council President, Mr. Endel Osuna. Did I say your last name correctly, Endel? Thank you very much. Say it again. Osuna. Osuna. All right, it was a wrong vowel at the end. I apologize. So, when we attend PTA and PTSA meetings, there's

096always a request for additional volunteers. And that's what makes our PTAs and PTSAs work and they're so effective by all the programming and the additional programming they provide for our students and families. But there are some misconceptions that I just want to review here that Endel provided so that we can let everyone know in our district the benefits, number one, of volunteering for PTA/PTSA and number two, that these are some of the misconceptions that we want to make sure they don't cloud your thinking when you're looking to volunteer. Well, number one is not a misconception. Being a PTA/PTSA member is rewarding work that keeps you informed on what's going on in your kids, our students' classrooms and is a great way to contribute to your community. One of the misconceptions is that volunteering for your

097PTSA does not have to be a big commitment. Well, that is a misconception. It is not a big commitment. You are able to simply apply for membership and lend support in name only. How much time you put into it is totally up to you, but it is very rewarding. Membership is not limited to parents, community members looking to join and make connections are more than welcome to join. You do not need to have a child actively in school to join. PTA/PTSA is not controlled by the school or the district. PTA/PTSA works in partnership, but they have their own rules and make their own decisions regarding funding. Their role is not to make policy in the school. The role is to be advisory and advocacy based. We do look to our PTSA Council for a lot

098of feedback. They partner with us for the uh superintendent speaker and on a number of items in the school district. PTA/PTSA is a yearly membership. If you join, you are not tied to it forever. And also, you're not required to attend all the meetings. Attendance is not mandatory if you become a member. You must only be present if you want to vote on a cause. So, these are things that we really want you to consider. I know a lot of times because parents see so much activity going on in our schools that PTAs and PTAs essays are a part of, you please don't think that you have to participate in every single thing. It's really up to you the amount of time that you are able to volunteer, but I do want to encourage you

099to please volunteer in your school's PTA/PTSA and even if you can't attend meetings, if you can volunteer at some of the events they hold, that is also very important. Thank you very much. Portrait of a Graduate. So, partnering with PTSA Council this year, the speaker series focused on Portrait of a Graduate. Now, that will be released on Tuesday, April 14th at 6:30 p.m. on the district's YouTube channel. The video series runs about an hour and features five segments, an overview and introduction, part one, Academically Prepared, part two, Creative Innovator and Critical Thinker, part three, Effective Communicator, and part four, Global Citizen and Reflective and Future Focused. Dr. Capuana, when he was presented presenting, he did go over, he highlighted the portrait of a graduate, and this is our um initiative in the district, how we're

100going to really approach portrait of a graduate, and how many of the things we're already doing are aligned with portrait of a graduate. So, please review our portrait of a graduate informational page on the district website that is already active and really full of important information. Next strategic plan planning time. So, our current strategic plan goes until 2027. It's 2022 to 2027. It's a 5-year plan. Our next strategic plan will kick off July 1, 2027. But, we know that in preparation for our strategic plan, it is a year-long process. So, right now, we are in the process of recruiting and canvassing for committee members. Yesterday, we released a letter to our school community asking for parental involvement. Committee members will be finalized between April and May 2026. We will plan our monthly meetings to take

101place between September 2026 and April 2027. April 2027, we want to have a finished plan submitted to the Board of Education for review and a 30-day comment period. After that, we will receive all the comments, the committee will reconvene to review the comments and see if there's any changes that need to be made to the plan, and then we will have final adoption at the June 2027 board meeting for implementation on July 1, 2027. So, that is the timeline for our next strategic plan. SPACE, Supportive Parenting for Anxious Childhood Emotions, SPACE is the acronym. The community workshop will be on Thursday, March 26 from 5:30 to 7:00 p.m. at Mill Middle School. Background information on the evidence-based research that support the program's principles and provide strategies and tools that parents can utilize navigating a child's

102anxious behaviors. Eight-week virtual training will be offered through the Williamsville Family Support Center in April and May. So, we thank the Department of Student Support Services under the direction of Assistant Superintendent Skinzuso for introducing SPACE. And Dr. Steppenback is the district contact, correct? Correct. Thank you. We're hiring. We reposted again. We're currently hiring. We have many openings in the district, and you can click the link on our district webpage. You click the jobs link, it will take you to our current openings. If you end this presentation, click on current openings, it will take you there, also. But, one of the things that we're hiring for immediately is our middle school nurse at Mill Middle School. So, if you know of anyone that might be interested, please share this information with them. Our high school musicals.

103Williamsville North debuted The SpongeBob Musical last weekend. I was there. There was a lot of activity on that stage. These kids are so talented. They're acting, they're singing, and they're dancing all the choreography. Very, very great musical. And this coming weekend, I will be going to see Into the Woods at Williamsville East High School. I'm very excited about that. One of my favorite musicals. SYAC Spirit Week is coming up, the week March 23rd to March 27th. Um it's a #willpower spirit week sponsored by SYAC. The elementary, middle, and high schools will be doing a canned food drive for the Williamsville Food Pantry. The high schools will also be hosting a bake sale on Thursday and Friday, March 26th and 27th, with the proceeds going to the American Heart Association. School spirit day is also Friday,

104March 27th. I want to also acknowledge the alumni associations that are starting, and we've had a first meeting for every single alumni association. Alumni interest forms can still be submitted through our district website. We are in the process of developing executive committees for each of our high school alumni associations, and then they will take it from there. We want to keep our alumni involved. We want to make sure that they are supporting our schools, also, and they want to know what's going on in the high schools they graduated from. So, this is in partnership with the Williamsville Education Foundation. Our Wall of Fame nominations for the Williamsville Wall of Fame are due April 13th. Nomination applications are available on the district website. The Wall of Fame induction ceremony will take place on Friday, November 13th

105at the Country Club of Buffalo. Uh we will not meet again. We will meet again. I'm sorry, March 24th. Sorry about that. However, we want to remind everyone of spring recess. There will not be a community update at the March 24th meeting. So, we want to remind everyone now that spring recess will be April 3rd to the 10th, 2026. And that is the community update for March 10th. Are there any questions? I know that was a lot of information, but are there any questions, board members? Seeing none, I turn it back over to you, board president. Okay. Are you covering anything on 6B or 6C? Those are very self-explanatory. The capital reserve proposition and the facility update. If you look at those items in BoardDocs, they are very detailed, especially the facility update. It even

106has pictures. [clears throat] So, please, I encourage you You added the pictures, right? I know. So, yes, because they were in the weekly update, too. So, I I encourage you all to look at that so you can see our facility updates in there. Okay, wonderful. So, were there any questions on either of those items before we move on? Just one question. Dr. Singh? We have a new capital reserve for 36 million. Is there like a term limit on how long the reserve can be held? There is a term limit on how Isn't there? What? They can only go up to the 36 million. I'm sorry. Up to the 36 million over 18 years we can contribute into it. You can carry on beyond that, but your contribution limit ends at 18 years. Okay. So, we

107can draw upon it beyond that. Thanks. Any other questions? Okay, we are on item seven, which is our 26-27 draft student calendar. So, to expedite this, may I have a motion to approve the 26-27 school calendar as presented. Ms. Blacken share, Dr. Singh is the second. Is there any discussion? Ms. Pullen. Uh yes, I would like to propose that, given the feedback that we received from um our community comments, we also had the opportunity to hear from our students at SYAC, um and learning about some of the start dates of some of our neighborhood schools, that we seriously take a look at making an amended calendar to do go ahead and start Excuse me, [clears throat] my allergies really kicked in this weekend. Um start on that first week of September. Um give us that

108extra day at Thanksgiving, the extra day at winter break. Um and then we that gives us one more float day, too. So, that's not a bad thing. So, I would like to make an amendment that we make an adjustment to the school calendar. Are there any Are you making the formal amendment or let's continue with discussion, and then you Second the amendment. Okay, so that was a formal amendment. So, just to be clear, that would be starting then September 1st, correct? >> Correct. And then I would imagine having September 7th off, which is Labor Day. And I think we would I think we looked Fourth off, also. Dr. Brown-Hall, I think has If I may Yes, yes, please. What I would Okay. If I may, because we did receive feedback, and there were there people

109were asking about that. We brought this to SYAC. Uh the SYAC students, and one of you know, DSP was there. If he wants to chime in, they overwhelmingly were in favor of that. And you know, parents were asking about that. I I would suggest, and if we do start prior to Labor Day, we can start September 1st, 2nd, and 3rd for our students. By contract, we have to do a 4-day Labor Day weekend by teacher contract. So, it'd be September 4th and September 7th off, we will continue on the 8th. We may want to get additional feedback from parents, and then make a decision at the March 24th meeting. Um I would maybe suggest we do that. I I I agree with that. Well, don't we need to come up with the calendar and the

110days off now, and then republish that, or repost it, or whatever, and then we'll have a comment period. >> [clears throat] >> I don't know if you have that now. Well, so, um looking ahead, and knowing this discussion may come up, we do have a vehicle to um survey parents very quickly. So, what it would look like is starting September 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, having off Pie Day. It's the day before Thanksgiving, where people traditionally make their pies. Also, have off, because right now in our current calendar, the first day off for winter break is Christmas Eve. We would add a day there, so the first day off would be December 23rd, and then we would have a day where we would have an additional snow day. Now, we could also talk with our school

111community that if we use three or fewer snow days next year, we could then apply that additional snow day to a 4-day Memorial Day weekend. Um if we don't if we use three or or fewer snow days by April 1st. And we do have this in a format that um lists all that out and is ready to go if we choose to survey our school community. Dr. Brownhall. Any of our bargaining units have any say besides the contractual uh, day off before Labor Day? They they don't have a say. We always we send the calendar out to get feedback from our bargaining units um, and there was no feedback that we had one question that we worked through with the WTA, but there was no feedback. Now, the WTA did do an informal uh, survey

112of their membership and it was pretty evenly split about the calendars. Do we have any guidance from BOCES on what their start date is? Their start date is September 8th. It is September 8th, but we do all >> coincide with them due to like Harkness bussing? Sports. Yeah, exactly. >> We we coincide with them on a a few of our dates and some of the dates we don't. For example, many of the culture and religious holidays that we acknowledge in the district they do not. So, we have plans at our high school set up for students when BOCES is in session and we are not and vice versa. So, if we started earlier with that they would be all taken care of. They would be taken care of. We have just for example, when we

113and our excuse me, in our district we do not acknowledge for example, they are BOCES is off March 13th, this coming Friday for staff development, we are not. So, our high schools develop a plan for our students on those days. I will let you know that Tonawanda is starting before Labor Day, Grand Island is starting before Labor Day, Kenmore Tonawanda is starting before Labor Day and West Seneca I know is starting before Labor Day. They are, but some are not starting on that I thought Lackawanna They're starting on Tuesday or Wednesday. Say it again, I'm sorry. Not starting on that Monday. September 1st is the Tuesday, just so you know. I I believe Ken-Ton is starting >> We can't we can't start before September 1st. Okay. I believe Ken-Ton is starting the 2nd. Okay. So,

114that's something else to consider. We don't have to start on that Tuesday. Buffalo's TBA. We have to give the day before Labor Day. So, if we didn't start on the Tuesday, people would be coming back Wednesday, Thursday, then off Friday, which I think is a little bit of a disruption. So, I mean and just to just to not to put too fine of a point on parliamentarian Poland's amendment. So, [clears throat] we're going to basically amend to change the calendar to what Dr. Brownhall explained, which would be coming back the 1st, 2nd, 3rd of September, off the 4th, off the day before Thanksgiving, and off the day before Christmas Eve, and then one additional floating snow day, or heat day, whatever. School closure. >> [laughter] >> Could be anything. Emergency school closure. >> [clears throat]

115>> Right, no more September 2nd and 3rd, if that's what we those would be days of student attendance, just not staff attendance. Will the staff have to be here if the students are No, no, I know. But I'm saying it wouldn't be like they come [clears throat] in the staff comes in a week before, Oh, no, the the staff will then come in the last week of August, like they did this year. Okay. Mhm. So, it's a Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, 1st, 2nd, 3rd of September. Correct. So, we have two different ideas on the table right now. First there was the proposed amendment, which we've sort of gotten off track of. It's No, that's okay. I think having the discussion first makes more sense. Um, or now potentially surveying our families on the choice between these

116two calendars, the one that we just discussed or the one that's currently our draft, correct? My opinion would be to figure out the amendment and see if we have the votes for that and see if the parents what their opinion is on the amended calendar. I think it gets too confusing if you're sending out two different calendars with you know, asking people to comment on and and have this voted on in 3 weeks. My my understanding Dr. Brownhall, why don't you explain how it would be done. Right, it would be a survey that was sent to families with either choice A or choice B. Choice A is our current calendar, choice B would be the calendar that starts on September 1st, students would attend September 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, and then we would list the

117additional days off during the calendar. Either way, I just wonder how the mechanism Yeah, it would be very simple. We would have the calendar up for a week and 3 days so that we can get the information, send it to the board so the board can make an informed decision at the March 24th Board of Education meeting. Ms. Fletch. Yeah. So, I just wanted to give my opinion. Um, I think that based on the amount of feedback that we got, in my opinion, I don't think it's necessary to send it out for another vote. And I do think another thing to consider is that AP classes, I mean schools start earlier around the the country and you know, we're always so behind you know, they have to squish so much in already. So, I just

118think I mean it seems like everybody really was for the the September 1st start date. So, that's just my opinion. If we had a vote today, I would vote yes. And that's up that was your suggestion, that's up completely up to the board. >> Well, I mean we know we got the comments back and the comments I I recall being all over the board. They wanted a 2-week break. They did. Which didn't which didn't coincide with what the actual school year was. Um, wanted more days off for for this, less days off for that. I mean I didn't get a clear sense of because this was the only option, they really commented on things that we couldn't do. So, I mean whatever the board's preference is to go through this whole thing of asking comments

119from two calendars or us just saying here's the amended calendar and this is what it is. I I Can we vote on it? >> Just for clarity, so Dr. Brownhall, how many comments did we get? Do you know the number? Just The number was in the uh, 30. 30. It was 30. So, I'm not sure we can base 30 comments on the whole school population. extrapolate to the whole I mean we're talking about 3 days. I don't know. It is a bit controversy though. I would like to see a vote as a as another survey. Okay. So, Dr. Singh. I mean I just I don't have a suggestion, I just had a question. >> [cough and clears throat] >> What was the district's reasoning behind starting on Monday? Say it one more time. I'm sorry,

120Dr. Singh. >> District came with a calendar to start on Monday. On Tuesday, September 8th. What was the reasoning for that when It's a BOCES That's what BOCES does and we've historically started the day after Labor Day. Okay. This is just the latest Labor This is the latest Yeah. The latest Labor Day could ever be. This is the superintendent's meeting. Correct. And last this particular year was the earliest it could be. Correct. Well, perhaps should we take a vote on if there's going to be an amended calendar and then decide whether or not we're going to put that out for another um, family Well, we could actually amend the amendment. Oh. Double amendment. We know we didn't take a vote on the amendment. So, I would suggest that we make whichever motion we're going to

121make, which is either amend amending the calendar now and trying to approve it now, or postponing with the idea of putting out the survey to families. Those are the two choices. Ms. Blackinger. Make a motion to postpone the amendment. Can I do that? To postpone the amendment and to put out a survey. To postpone the approval of the student calendar Yeah. and to put out a survey. That's right. Okay. So, Ms. Blackinger um, Okay. Mr. Mana is the second. All in favor. Is that of which one? We are voting on postponing the calendar so that we can provide a survey to families. All in favor. Okay, so we have 1 2 3 4 5 6 opposed or abstention. Ms. Fletch. >> Opposed. Okay. All but Ms. Fletch were in favor, Ms. Fletch is opposed. So,

122it carried 6-1. Okay. Thank you, everyone. So, we are postponing that and we will be putting out a survey to families on what. Yes. All right, we are on to item 8A. Would any student board members, thank you for still being here. Uh, like to provide a report on the activities and events at their high school. Typically, we've been starting at the the start of the table, so DSPs, who's representing South? Would you like to do that, please? Yes, I would. Who are my slides? All right. What's happening at South? Let's start with Oops. First for clubs and school events, our DECA team just returned from the state competition with some huge wins. We had Amina Bushra with her Sorry. She's our state champion in marketing professional selling. Then we had Mariah and Mia Abraham

123who took 3rd place for their business growth plan, and then Sophie Ann Hanson who also took 3rd place in the hospitality selling. And we're incredibly proud of them. Then moving on to the LEAF club who hosted a 3-day meant for more series in the gym class. This was a student-led initiative focused on mental health and community featuring guest speakers and student testimonies. Now, not to be confused uh Now, moving on to our fitness club news, they finished up their February plank challenges. Our student winners were Kevin Popp, who you can see on on the right, who held a plank for 11 minutes, and then we then our female winner, Amelia Burcardo, who held a plank for 4 minutes. Our staff got involved, too, with Ms. Gerth holding a 6-minute plank, and then our top winners

124even walked out with a Chipotle gift card. And then we also hosted a blood drive drive recently, where 38 donors helped supply blood for 111 people in need. Moving on to athletics, in track, Amari Westbrook uh 14-year-old Section 6 record in the 55-meter dash with a time of 6.34 seconds. And this past weekend, both Amari and Thomas Gervase represented South at the state level against the best in New York. In swimming, Carter Kowalski took first place at the sectionals in the 100 butterfly, and Bobby Miller qualified for states in both 200 and 100 free. Then for our skiing team, Declan Coleman and Claire Hauld both finished third in the section and competed at states. Finally, our girls basketball team, Tessa Petri was named ECIC first team, and Hannah Metz earned the second team and defense

125star all honors. Then some of our upcoming events that were going to happen that are going to happen at South is on March 12th, we're going to have the natural National Honor Society induction. March 13th, we have the spring spring charity dance, which uh proceeding all all the proceedings of it goes to the Wellness Food Pantry. Then March 26th, we have the Taste of South and Celebration Talent, which I highly encourage everybody to come. And they're going to be raising money for Sleep in Heavenly Peace to Oh, yeah. Yeah. To uh build beds for children in Buffalo who don't have one. That's all for South. Any questions? I don't think so. Thank you so much, DSP. Uh we will have Salil from East go next, I believe. Um we need to just double-check you're all

126set. We're checking on your video. >> [laughter] >> Sounds like it's working. All right, Salil. So, you will get started with your presentation. >> Okay. So, uh I just wanted to start off by showcasing our Unity diversity performance, which was the largest performance in the history of Williamsville East, and this club has been active for, I believe, 32 years now, and East is in its 51st year, so it's been more than half the school's history, so this is a huge deal for the school. Awesome. And there were 18 different countries represented, and the whole showcase lasted an hour and 45 minutes, which is just incredible what all the students did in all the performances that they put together. So, here's some photos from the performances. And at the end, I just have a small like

127video clip it to show you what like the performance looked like. >> [music] [music] >> So, yeah, I just want to say once again, uh great job to everyone who participated in the Unity performance. For our music department, as Dr. Brunelle mentioned, our Into the Woods musical play will be this week, Thursday, Friday, Saturday at 7:00 p.m., as well as 1:00 p.m. on Saturday. Tickets are $13 online and $15 uh in person if you go, and the seats are limited, so I'd make if you're planning on attending, make sure to buy them quickly, because they'll sell out. Um for sports updates for our winter season that just completed, girls basketball team finished as the runner-up in Section 6 Class AA in losing to North Tonawanda in the sectional finals. However, this was a great accomplishment,

128and congrats to everyone. Julie Cruise scored her 1,000 career points in the girls playoff match against Frontier, and varsity cheerleading competed in the Niskayuna championship, placing sixth overall. Lilly Ashton competed in the Niskayuna indoor track championships, finishing fourth place in the 600 meter. Uh Max Anderson competed in the Niskayuna boys swim championships, placing second in the 200 free. Max also broke a 40-year Section 6 record and broke his own school record as well. He also finished fourth in the 500 free, breaking a 24-year-old Section 6 record and his own school record, so great job. Absolutely. We had six student athletes sign their letter of intent to play um college sports. Max Anderson signed for swim at Loyola University of Maryland. Nico Biscalgia signed for soccer at Daemen University. Sarah DeLosSantos signed for flag football at

129Daemen University. Will Kowalski signed for lacrosse at Canisius University. Summer Shell signed for lacrosse at Daemen University. And Kyrie Smith signed for lacrosse at Daemen University. So, great job to all the athletes, and I hope they have a successful career. Um as for other uh school events, on the same day as our Unity Assembly, after school, French Honor Society held a bake sale on Word of Pâtisserie to raise money for uh international children in the Congo. On Wednesday, February 25th, we had a college informational night, where all adults, as well as students, were invited to come learn a bit more about the college application process and the finances of it for anyone who's just unfamiliar, and as for juniors who it would especially apply to. On Friday, March 6th, UNICEF had its Spikeball tournament after

130school to raise money for international charities. Uh I believe we had 16 participate, and it was a great success from what I've heard. Uh on Monday, March 9th, HOSA had a field trip to Jacob's Medical School Gross Anatomy Lab and Brain Museum, and as well as HOSA's online competitive events are taking place this week. So, students basically sign up to take an event of their choosing, such as um medical nutrition or medical math, and then they basically compete with other students across New York state. Uh today, uh in fact, in school, Mrs. Azarally Brown worked with the English department to host a guest speaker, who was Mr. Todd Roach of the Equal Justice Initiative from Alabama, who visited East to present on the initiative and legacy of Bryan Stevenson's work. So, students attended this in-school

131field trip, where they were in the odds from periods 5 through 9 to learn about working on themes of equity, justice, and social emotional supports that are able to bring positive change in their community. Students learned a lot about just challenging false narratives and what they can do to basically um tackle racism and other um challenges within our community, and just because of how diverse of a community we are, it was just a great series today. Um on Wednesday, March 18th, there's a college fair visit for juniors, where there'll be over 200 colleges attending. On Saturday, March 14th, the Class of 2029 is celebrating Pi Day with Pi on Mine, where they're telling students to buy purchase pies, and if they mention the code Williamsville East, they'll get a small discount. And on Friday, um

132March 13th, math club is having like a Pi Day celebration after school, where they're just giving out pies to students, so that's great. And our spring spirit week will be taking place on from March 23rd to March 27th. Monday is going to be ER Day. Tuesday will be dynamic duo / group day. Uh Tuesday will be blood drive actions in the commons. And Wednesday will be monochrome day. Wednesday will also be a heart CPR practice, where students can learn CPR techniques to gain certifications. And then Wednesday will also be our Flavors of East, which is an after-school event, where clubs, and not necessarily clubs, but students of diverse backgrounds who may want to share their cultural dishes from home, can sign up to host a table, and students basically receive tickets like a punch card,

133where you go around and you sample foods from all sorts of different cultures and you know, cuisines, so that's a great opportunity. On Thursday, March 26th, will be Jersey Day. Uh Friday, March 20 6, or Thursday, March 26th, will also be the phys ed volleyball tournament, which will take uh place in school. And Friday is the school spirit school spirit day, so all East students are told to wear red. Now, Stu Co is also launching a fifth student council position known as a social media campaign manager. So, what they've been doing this year is they've had basically the secretary who's been sort of managing like records and all that, but they've also been wanting to launch more social media like sort of campaigns. And one example of this as I can share with you would

134be the East Olympics which is taking place for the first time. So, homecoming is where all the fall athletes, basically all the seniors get to come out and just like share um they just get to like run out and talk to like all the kids. But, the Stu Co what they want to do is they wanted to celebrate all the spring and the winter athletes, too. So, they're launching the winter or the East Olympics to basically commemorate that. Should have a Hey, what's going on? What song? No, what's going on? Oh, the Friday spirit spirit week student council's hosting the very first East Olympics assembly. We're looking for teams of four to five people to participate. There'll be three games in this assembly. What game? Our first game is musical chairs. Oh. Hey, don't push

135it. My second game will be trivia. Two people from each team will participate in this game. Our third game will be head, shoulders, knees, cups. Two teammates from each team will participate in this game. Heads. Shoulders. Knees. Shoulders. Knees. Cups. >> [laughter] >> Now, first team to get all the cups >> [cheering] >> is out. This assembly will also feature an opening ceremony, a torch lighting, a sports parade, and of course a medal ceremony to see who takes home the gold. >> [bell] >> We'll be traveling with sports from North and East teams throughout the assembly. And the top four teams will go to the final round. You'll have to wait for this assembly to see what that round is. So, basically they just want to launch a position to sort of make these sorts

136of videos and just promote more of these events at East. And other than that, on Tuesday, March 31st, there's a Connect Life blood drive in school gym from 8:00 to 2:00, and all blood will be donated locally in Western New York. That's it. That was a lot. Thank you so much. [laughter] Yes, just to clarify, the speaker that Ms. Azarally Brown brought in today is also the keynote at the Challenge to Change conference tomorrow, correct? I believe so. >> Yeah, I'm quite sure. So, very exciting. Yeah. Wonderful. Thank you so much. Giselle Morris representing North, would you like to provide your report? >> Yes, thank you. Um as Dr. Brown-Hall mentioned in his media update, uh this past weekend we had our musical which was SpongeBob musical. Definitely a very lively performance. The choreography was

137amazing, amazing performers, and congratulations to all those who were involved, especially with uh tech and behind-the-scenes work. Um on April 1st, we have our first Fusion Fest which is going to be an in-school assembly um full of multicultural performances so much of that at East um from around the world. And parents and community members are also invited to attend this. So, it is not just open to students. Um I believe it starts at 9:00 a.m. I'd have to double check that. Uh but we welcome to this to the community to um share their cultures and uh watch some students will be able to perform. Uh this Friday, on March 13th, we have our uh biannual blood drive like other schools. Um we also we have our annual Taste of North on March 23rd, and this

138year we have a new expert panel of judges, and they're hosting a culinary champion contest with valuable prizes for whatever table has the best dish. Um as some of you guys know, uh one of our most important events at North is our homecoming week. Um so, this year all the festivities will be paid for by the Krolak's fish fry and chicken dinner, which is also this Friday, March 13th. So, you can pre-order meals or you can buy them at at the school on the 13th, and all the proceeds will be going to our bonfire, our dances, games, and prizes. And as student council works to improve our homecoming each year, the funds also have to increase, too. So, uh stop by and get dinner for your family, either fish fry or chicken fingers. And today

139was our seventh uh Biga Duga Tuesday, and uh the initiative was I'm lucky to have you message cards. So, students were encouraged to write a note to family, friends, or teachers and let them know how much you appreciate them. In our athletics department, congratulations to Amelia Kapchenko who is now the state champion for the 1,000 m and broke the section six record. She's also second in New in New York state for the 1,500 m. So, she is just breaking records, and she moves on this week to New Balance Nationals. Also, Lily Bauer is seventh in the state for 55 55-m hurdles, and she also is going to Nationals this week. Arya Castro is third in the state for triple jump, who is also headed to Nationals. And a few other track athletes headed to New

140Balance Nationals and Nike Nationals in the upcoming weeks. So, ladies of DSP, we also had the DECA state championships, and five students qualified for ICDC, which is uh all the states across um our nation. And uh through this DECA competition, I believe we have had multiple students place at ICDC. So, congratulations to those that made it, and hope you do well. Um also, next week we have our side-by-side concert. Um as you guys heard at the beginning of our meeting, we have an amazing musical department in the district, and it is definitely evident. And we want to welcome our new students. So, um I definitely would encourage coming to the side-by-side concert, which is combined of East Oh, sorry, North, uh Higham, and Casey. And that's all. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much.

141[clears throat] Thanks to all of you for sharing your reports this evening. Um and now we are moving on to item 8B. Um I'm just going to say that all of our events are listed in BoardDocs. One that new one that was scheduled recently is our after-school conversations with staff, which is April 21st. Um are there any comments on any of our events? Okay. Item 8C, our board candidate information. 8D, district voter information. 8E, ECSB. 8F, NISBA. And 8G, liaison assignments are all listed in BoardDocs. 8H, we received correspondence from community members on facilities employment and on district policy 7560. 8I has info on the Erie 1 BOCES annual meeting notice and vote, and later under 18A we will have a call for those nominations. Are there any board member comments or questions related to

142any of those items? Okay. We're on our consent agenda. May have a motion to approve the agenda items 10, minutes. 11, personnel. 12, business and finance. 13, district facilities and support services. 14, exceptional education, special needs, and student activities. 15, instruction curriculum. And 16, other business as presented. Ms. Blackinger, Mr. Bulin, is there any discussion? All in favor. Motion carried unanimously. We just approved the appointment for the assistant business manager at district office, Sayed Shah. Congratulations, and thank you for being here. You are welcome to say a few words if you like. If not, that's fine, too. Um thank you very much, uh Board of Education, Dr. Brown-Hall, and all the committee for trusting on me. Um it's really honor for me to attending the today's meeting. And uh yeah, I'm so excited. I'm going

143to join on April 7th, and I'm looking forward to collaborate with all of you guys. Thank you very much. >> Wonderful. Wonderful. Thank you. >> We're doing a picture. Okay. >> [laughter] >> Dinner reservations. Thank you to the following retirees for their service to the district. Diane Burger, teacher Heim Elementary School with 26 years of service. Jennifer Englert, teacher East High School with 31 years of service. Kim Fornes, teacher Casey Middle School with 26 years of service. Deborah Graham, physical therapist district-wide with 29 years of service. Cheryl Lazaro, director of special education with 16 years of service. Diane Audinger, teacher aide Heim Heim Middle School with one year of service. Deborah Pope, teacher Maple East Elementary School with 26 years of service. And Paula Rogers, teacher South High School with 33 years of service. Congratulations,

144and thank you to all. We are now on item 17A. May have a motion for the second reading and review of policy updates 1620, annual organizational meeting. 1640, absentee military and early mail ballots. 7513, medication and personal care items, and students with life-threatening health conditions and/or anaphylaxis as presented. Ms. Buckinghame, Mr. Bulin, is there any discussion? All in favor? Motion carried unanimously. May I have a motion to adopt these same policy updates? Ms. Bulin, Dr. Singh, is there any discussion? All in favor? Motion carried unanimously. We are on item 18A, which is nominations for two [clears throat] Erie 1 BOCES board trustees that are due to the Erie 1 BOCES district clerk by March 20th. We received requests for nomination from the two incumbents only. Would someone like to make a motion to nominate a

145candidate for the Erie 1 BOCES board? Uh parliamentarian to Bulin. >> [laughter] >> I would like to make a motion to nominate Janet McGregor Plah for um incumbent. Yes. So, board member Bulin has moved to nominate Janet McGa- McGagger Plah, the incumbent located in the Frontier Central School District as a candidate for the election to be held on April 21st, 2026 to serve as a trustee for the Board of Cooperative Educational Services First Supervisory District of Erie County in a term beginning July 1st, 2026 through June 30th, 2029. Is there a second? Mr. Mana, is there any discussion? All in favor? Motion carried unanimously. Is there any other nomination? Mr. Mana. I'd like to nominate [clears throat] John Sherman, the incumbent is located in the Tonawanda City School District as a candidate for the election

146to be held on April 21st, 2026 to serve as a trustee in the Board of Cooperation Educational Services First Supervisory District of Erie County in a term to begin July 1st, 2026 through June 30th, 2029. Is there a second? Dr. Singh, is there any discussion? All in favor? Motion carried unanimously. We are now on item 19A, our second second public expression. If anyone in the audience would like to speak at this time, please step up to the podium. There is someone stepping up. If you I will I will [clears throat] have parliamentarian Bulin review our public expression format and then you can state your name once she's completed that. Yes, just a reminder that you have 3 minutes to speak. You may not uh reference any individuals by name at this time and please direct

147your comments to the board. We will send you a response uh through email and not have a discussion at this time. All ready. It won't take 3 minutes. Your name, please? And I'll assume uh Uh just first and foremost, I just want to say to the student board members, you've done a really good job this year. I've watched you guys throughout the year on YouTube and you guys really set the bar high for future student board members. So, just want to say good job. Um and second, uh if anyone has any questions if anyone's still watching in the community and has any questions about uh PTSA, feel free to reach out to Williamsville PTSA Council @gmail.com. Council is c o u n c i l. That's all I have. Thank you, guys. Thank you. If

148is there anyone else that would like to speak during the second public expression? Okay. Item 20, there are no matters to discuss under legislative matters. Item 21, does anyone have a topic under committee of the whole? I don't see any, so this concludes our regular board meeting. The next scheduled meeting is our budget work session on March 24th at 6:00 p.m. And then after the budget work session, we invite you to attend our community forum in the Casey Middle School Cafeteria with an approximate start time of 7:00 p.m. Is there a motion to adjourn the regular board meeting? Ms. Flah, Mr. Mana, all in favor? Motion carried unanimously. Thank you. Good night.