001oh good evening my name is scott benton wilson middle school principal and acting superintendent sitting in for superintendent carter while he is attending some family matters this is wilson central school district board work session dated march 22 2022 as always if you are watching from home and you have any comments questions or concerns with anything discussed at this workshop please call mrs pavan the district clerk at three nine 751-9399 and she will get the information to the board or find the answer to your question that's it for me right yeah yeah so items for discussion this evening board members you have the agenda in front of you and we will start with the first item special education staffing discussion this was mentioned in superintendent carter's weekly news and notes to the board we are currently
002looking into special ed special education staffing amanda shouse our special education director is currently holding annual reviews and determining programming needs for the 2022-2023 school year from what mrs shouse has reported to the central office the integrated co-teaching program and consultant teaching teacher model at the elementary classes has reached the middle school next year there will be a need for an ict and ct at every grade level at the middle school similar to the elementary school with this occurring we will be one teacher short in the special education department at the middle school at the same time our 12-1-1 high school life skills class students are aging out we'll have a bit of a dilemma and we'll have two and we have two options first we could bring back five of our out of district
003place middle school life skills students and hire a new special education teacher for ict second we could eliminate the life skills class and move that teacher to the ict position as mentioned in news and notes i recommend recommendation is to bring back the five students have the current life skills teacher teach them and hire a special education teacher for the ict sections the initial savings of bringing back five students from out of the district is about three hundred and fifty thousand dollars we receive a little bit of aid from that but not much these students will require some outside service which we could obtain from boces and we would still be ahead bringing back the five students and hiring an ict teacher does the board of vet have any questions or need further information my
004question would be if they bring the five students back um will this it be any bit of behavior is the life skills class going to need any extra aid health as a result of that or special needs i know you mentioned they'd be getting extra help outside of that which is fine there are some counseling and and therapist sections but i believe all of that is still going to bring us lower than or still be uh will so be better off financially that we can fulfill their needs absolutely we can yes we should we should be able to um trustee stewart from what the superintendent told me and and there may be an additional higher need of an aide but that's i think to be determined yet right this is oliver yeah well there is
005an aid right now that um could stay in the classroom so as long as they were uh sufficient in a 12-1-1 setting then we would be okay okay all right thank you yes yep thank you you're welcome anybody else board members and number one okay all right there are not any other further questions or concerns there will be a resolution to hire another special education teacher at wilson middle school for the 2022-2023 school year at the next board meeting april 5th which brings us to our budget presentation yes so if you remember last month i told you in march that i will just bring you any changes that we've made so there really have only been a few changes and most of them revolve around what you guys just discussed so i had two options
006ready for tonight in case that was a no go or sounds okay so it sounds like it's okay we're thinking about bringing those five kids back so what i need to do budget wise is increase the special ed salary line for one new teacher um so i will do that and then the only other change i have made to date since we last talked was i increased a boces line by 35 000 and this is for a potential new financial software package we're looking at in the business office we are thinking about changing our software which we've used since 2004 it was a great program kind of ahead of its time for a long time and recently um it's a company that kind of got too big for its britches and you can never get
007hold of them they call you back at seven o'clock at night and they close your ticket and they say we've we called you you didn't answer um we wait on the phone an hour and a half two hours just to get in touch with somebody and um we just feel that the service has just really gotten so bad that we're even thinking of putting all this time and effort into the summer and converting which is not fun to do but we we kind of feel like it's probably necessary the new software is boces supported they have six people at erie one that only answer phone calls related to the software um it's a new york based software only so they know every new york state report and everything that we're required to do so um
008we're just putting the finishing touches on making sure we get all our questions answered but um i think that we are going to take the plunge and uh start a conversion very soon so i did change that line i increased that 35 000 so what i lowered the 75 000 i took some money out of the other software contractual line that i had budgeted and some um tech contractual for some software training that i realized was already in the boces cost that we have so those are my changes to tell you about like we keep saying it's kind of a very quiet budget year i can go over with you guys the one house budgets came out that's where the senate and the assembly both kind of give their budget proposals so um the few
009highlights that are different from the executive budget is they are um proposing to increase capital outlay projects you know that we do capital la projects here they're a hundred thousand dollars so word is that they are both the senate and assembly are asking that that gets raised to 250 000 so that would be great um we've always been in favor of an increase i you know president waters myself and mr carter when we meet with our legislators we always you know have been asking for that recommendation so we are excited that it looks like it might go through so one thing for you all to think about is how would you feel about raising the amount of money we transferred to capital fund next year for an outlay would you like to see the outlay
010increased potentially would you like me to budget for an increase would you like to wait till a year after i can tell you for 22 2223 we're looking at a renovation to this room for sound and lighting issues that we've been having over the last couple years so we began talks with the architect with the play director with the music teachers here and they have quite a quite a list of things that they would like to see improved here that's much over a hundred thousand dollars so we are thinking we would have to do it in a couple years if the limit was a hundred but if the limit's more and the board's interested we could potentially raise that amount in the budget for a bigger project next year other than that the foundation aid
011they agree on the executive budget there's some reporting issues that they are trying to get rid of there are some prior year adjustments that they're trying to change the rules on there's nothing expense based aids they um the governor proposed to freeze the claims in november the senate and the assembly are rejecting the freeze there is they are um asking the senate is asking for more money in the upk which you know that's already being increased but they have asked for even more money and they are both kind of in line with those zero admission busing rules that the governor put out you know she wanted as of july 2027 all buses will have to be zero emission and any new ones that you buy and then as of july of 2035 all buses in
012action must be zero admission so they're both kind of in line with her on that so that'll be a big change to how we get our kids to school and how we charge these buses if they're all electric vehicles so we'll have to you know begin to talk about that and work on that so those are my only changes for you tonight everything all my function totals have stayed the same that i i propose to you they're all on my two january my february presentations are on the website um so you have any questions for me budget wise questions outlay increase how do we go about um doing that so it's so choose yeah i'll have to keep you informed in news and notes and if it goes through um when the state budget is
013passed what i would propose to you would be you would ask me to increase the expenditures on the transfer to capital and how i could offset that on the revenue side i was thinking was if you were interested in me using a little bit of debt service where we're proposing no usage of it at all next year so if you wanted me to use some of that of course that would be used to pay the debt interest in principal payments but then that frees up the money for the capital outlay i'm just moving it no no we sh and that's something that really should be done today because we're adopting before we really know that right mrs olivari i mean don't we have to adopt a budget we're adopting the budget on the fifth so
014um i would keep you updated yeah definitely i mean there's word that the budget might come out friday which would be really early it would be very early yeah so if not it would be the following friday would be the first i think um so it's just it just is a a late thought you know it's one of those things we never thought we've always asked for that to be increased but it never is but there's kind of a good feeling that it might be i was just thinking if it were and they were able to use it in here the extra 50 000 to me it's a no-brainer to go for it but you know of course we have to yeah that's good that's what i want to know and we would get aid
015on it the next year so after that year it would be affordable at the higher level through the aid that we received you know question when will we uh hear from jim bird or the town about the total assessments in the town and the equalization rates you know if that comes i can look because march 1st is the deadline for any changes to be proposed so i can check for assessment i think i think i will check and get back to you but um it's another good point that's always something to keep in mind for you guys when you're talking to the public remember we are going out at a zero tax levy increase that's not the only factor in determining the tax payments right we have the equalization the assessments it so it doesn't
016mean that your tax bill is going to be exactly what it was last year it's it can go up a little and down a little based on those assessments and the equalization rates so you know someone might come up to you and say why is my tax bill you know a little different i thought you went out at zero you know so it's good information for you all to have um but i can check on the assessment rates on the orps new york state website thank you anything else yeah can we go back for consensus board members and then asking mrs olivier to add that additional 150 000 to the capital outlay line does anybody have an objection to that is an additional 150 000 or an additional 50 thousand 115 000 that's 200 because
017it's 100 right well it's not like it's free money um but it's uh it's as close to free as it can be with the amount of aid that we receive on it so if you can i mean good financial sense to add it and then we float it for a year basically and then we'll receive the eight on the following year so it just me it makes sense we honestly quite frankly be stupid not to which i think he already said so and i will keep you updated on whether that went through or not but so i will increase the revenue side and the expenditure side um bottom line total and i'll give you that news and notes so you have it thank you anybody else on budget all right all right our board members
018in front of you is policy 7535 student gender identity this policy was reviewed by our shared decision making team on march 16th and is before you for your first viewing this policy update was sent to us from the district policy service and they are recommending a change due to the revision of the gender recognition act the gender recognition act among other things amended the civil rights law 64 to require districts to update an individual's name on any document or record issued or maintained by the district upon the submission of a name change order or other documentation of name change failure to comply with this law may constitute a violation of new york state human rights law um civil rights law and any applicable local non-discrimination law may be the basis for a complaint in the
019new york state division of human rights policy services has revised the records section of sample policy 7552 to reflect the change in law the new for new first paragraph of the record section indicates that following the submission of a name change order or other documentation of name change for any current or past student the district will update the student's name on any document or record issued or maintained by the district please note that there is law the law is explicit in that districts must update all school records for current and past students and if you look at the policy itself obviously the red our crossouts and the blue our editions um and basically all the changes i've already updated you uh in that last paragraph that i've read um but if are any questions or
020comments this policy will be placed on the next board agenda for first reading on on april 5th so um are there any questions regarding this i'll do my best to answer them this is a federal mandate on this mr benton or yes sir in the policy uh pulse yeah it's from the gender recognition act so i believe that is a a federal uh policy okay what i'm looking at is the restroom and locker room part of them yeah we do have uh um single use bathrooms uh that that students are using that um or they're using the restroom where they see fit and what have we have we seen any problems or anticipate any problems with this policy at the middle school i have not had any problems i can't speak for mr galkovich but
021i would assume that i would have heard uh if he had any but um we have not i'm not talking about the transgender or the gnc student i'm talking about the students that are in that restroom when that person comes in it has to be used yeah they're single used right no this is a single use room that means it has to be its own individual itemized bathroom it cannot be a stall type cat room it will allow to extend your gnc student yeah rest in the locker room that corresponds to the district to the students consistently express gender identity at school it says they can use the one of their choices and that is i believe that is correct but we haven't had zero concerns we haven't had any we've had zero cases like
022that as well so right now um students are using these single-use bathrooms and locker how about locker rooms we haven't had they're either going to the single-use lockers uh like the down by the zip gym going into the officials locker room if they need to change okay yep yeah anything else regarding policy 7535 okay all right i'm going to give you the cliff notes on these next two resolution conversations uh the following two resolutions are before you uh before you for your consideration the first resolution calls for two covet 19 mandates to be discontinued the first coveted mandate being asked to end is the weekly testing of unvaccinated staff in the district the time and effort that is put into the individual having to test to work in the district does not equal the safety
023aspect of having them tested staff members who have been vaccinated or unvaccinated or unvaccinated have equally tested positive for copin 19 and there is no added benefit to our students or staff by having our unvaccinated staff members tested each week it just adds to the overwhelming covet anxiety and unrest wilson center school district is not a medical facility therefore we should not be forced to have our unvaccinated staff tested each week the second covet 19 mandate that needs to end is the daily reporting to the new york state department of health for two years our district clerk has completed a daily survey for each building that reports our covert related data the hours that she has spent compiling and reporting the data could be better spent in the operations of our district the new york
024state department of health gets the same information from the niagara county health department resolution number two the second resolution in front of you is asking the local representatives and the governor to support our parents right to choose whether or not to have their children vaccinated in order to attend school wilson central school district along with many districts across the state have consistently seen enrollment go down because of vaccine mandates parents want the right to make the decision to vaccinate their child with their pediatrician not because it is mandatory enrollment in public schools will go down if there is a mandate to vaccinate parents will choose to homeschool their children if we are advocates of public education then we cannot support anything that will force our parents to choose to homeschool their children and you should
025have two copies of the resolutions uh for you to review more of the legal jargon on there but there aren't two there there should be two i just have one it is there should be two resolutions no there should be two separate resolutions well you get the rest in your news and notes then um and um and review those with uh superintendent carter before the april 5th you don't have the two i gave you that second packet when i walked in was that resolution number that's okay we'll get it we'll get everybody will have them on friday all right okay those are the two that i have for the resolutions um but uh we obviously will throw those in your news and notes at the end of this week all right but i believe that
026is all that is on the agenda were there any questions regarding the resolutions okay all right board members do you have anything tonight for discussion no i'll open up for public forum if anybody would like to address the board please state your name and address prior and keep your comments brief all right i'll entertain a motion to adjourn we'll move second thank you thanks for coming