001good morning ladies and gentlemen today is December 20th this is the early morning shortened scheduled board meeting from the snow day of last Thursday evening as we have many conflicts in the evening with concerts and stuff we have collected as a board to do a sort of a business only um board meeting and that is today at seven o'clock in the MMC this is being broadcasted as well as recorded for others as well as we have our regular four minutes that will be produced so at this time I'd turn it over to our board president is Christine down thank you please join me 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 right okay um first up is the
002approval of our minutes from last meeting but before we do that I just have always briefly that I just wanted to point out so I apologize for reading but um so the last board meeting there was an announcement regarding a candidate we were not coming along the election it is important point out that we as a board do not formally endorse a particular candidate for political party so I recommend that we strike the announcement and comments regarding it from the minutes so since we have the minutes on I'd like to ask for a resolution to amend the minutes from last meeting to remove that announcement and those comments second so any discussion or anything on that or anything else related to the minutes okay so can I have a motion to approve your limits okay
003sorry so the resolution to amend to strike for the comments from Google next there was no discussion so all was Affairs of that all right now on to the express of the content of the minutes [Music] all those flavors say aye aye aye all those clothes May really any attention okay this is the time that we open up for any Community comments or questions so if anybody hears from the community I would ask you to talk to the podium state your name and address and you have three minutes to talk to us about what you uh I do as the superintendent have a letter that we received from a community group that I'll enter into the record I'll just summonize it as best I can but it's in question of a group of seven laymen
004and so local churches they have sort of a breakfast Gathering I won't say where but they were trying to considerate by putting in a writing versus being in person at the board meeting and that they represent some concerns from others and they're reluctant to necessarily be here or sign the letter because of past issues with attorney general Meredith Gardens various action and parents brings in search of public schools just on behalf of the board this good Lord has not had any problems with parents who have brought their own viewpoints as long as they've done professional courteous as we've had over the past several years and to my knowledge Ireland has not done anything in the war said nor would we ever ask him to do it because we have been very purposeful and honorable due
005diligence in working with local law enforcement if something is threatening or other nature which I don't believe these individuals so I just wanted to do that for board members I got in each one of your letters here but basically they uh they're proud of the Horsehead School District honor the students and graduates from one of the finest school systems in the state and that you also very important positions they want to promote excellence in education but they've been seeing in recent reports in many Public School Systems across the the nation that no longer is focusing their curriculum historical Reading Writing arithmetic but rather Reading Writing radicalization what started and thinking about this is they just recently got their Public School tax notifications which I hope everybody understands we've lowered the tax rate substantially over the
006several years and I I hope they were talking about that too but we'll leave after another discussion and those individuals are welcome to give my office a call but as far as their concerns are is that the public school education General suggests the report suggest that a number of such issues affecting students in today's classroom Nationwide parents are pushing back against critical race Theory post-emotional learning gender identity sexually explicit materials most concerning their academic regarding taking the back seat radical cycle psychology based and social politically biased educational programs I'm happy to report we see that and if we do here see it our Administration and our faculty sort of take action to make sure that we concentrate on education uh their concern is a school board members should evaluate any and all curricula which you
007do you put it out to our curriculum advisory committee but we follow the New York State curriculum which is required by law and we cannot they deviate from it so I don't think they have a concern but I wanted to bring that up but that you should be diligent during your budget discussions to make sure that we are increasing education as well as making sure that our education stays focused on education not politics not radical issues and so forth which I think we're doing they did mention that you know the USA ranks 33rd in a world of group in the world 27th in Reading 22nd in math and science and despite the fact that we spend strongly more than any other Nation unfortunately uh I would help them understand that you can use the national
008rankings uh worldwide but they don't necessarily measure Apples to Apples because of the fact that every country does education differently we are one of the only Nations true Nations that educate every child that's dropped at our doors and we're very proud of that because every child deserves to be Advanced they just wanted to be you know they were greatly appreciated being assured This Global School Board through a public statement and the proof curriculum being utilized are in focus of academics and not politically by itself it's signed by several people on admit to put this into them and it's like we normally do I just don't call out their name but they should know they can come as long as they're professional courteous they have their agreements like everybody else so I think public statement wise
009the board would you agree that we follow the New York State educational curriculum and we follow anything that requires uh Title IX anti-discrimination and all laws of the United States as well as New York State and the board affirms that we do that is that pretty much how we would feel so that's our public statement so I hope that helps but again if anybody from that group would like to reach out and contact me you're welcome to I'll be happy to set up the time where we can meet or I'll meet you for breakfast so thank you very much thank you so now we have our report from good evening members of the board at level sense Community I'm Tatiana top and welcome to the student representative report of today's meeting this is there a
010multitude of exciting activities or pregnant courses throughout the past month we'd like to send our most hearty and congratulations to our unified Raiders Mario Kart Esports team for their advancement all the way to championships on Wednesday the 14th we are so proud of you and all that you've accomplished in your successful season and we have loved watching all of your achievements additionally this Saturday December 17th our girls wrestling team competed at the union Endicott Tradesmen girls tournament in which seniors Haley Berry and Caitlin wheeler both won their weight class many incredible wins were also brought home on their December 4th tournament in which Marianne and lihei and Chloe Owens were uncompeted we are sending our girls wrestling team the best of luck as they Advance throughout their season Council hosted an ornament making take for
011students on December 8th as well as setting up a table at Holiday Inn I swear this past Friday for kids around the community to create festive holiday decorations student councils also selling candy grams Monday through Wednesday for one dollar each during lunch periods we highly recommend you consider supporting our Supreme Council and all of the amazing things that they do the Horseheads High School orchestra put on a lovely concert for us December 14th conducted by director Ms McDonald if you are looking for another opportunity to support our musicians you can consider coming to the annual Christmas choir concert this Wednesday at 7 30 PM in which alumni will be invited to join us first with firstening our final traditional song selection Halloween course finally we would like to congratulate our very own career and Development
012Council representative Mrs Lynch on being selected as a recipient of the 2022 Shamong County Chambers of Commerce partners and education career achievement awards we couldn't be luckier to have you better in our schools every day this was truly an incredible start to my day and I thank you very much thank you okay now we have our presentations we're holding those until next video yes the presentations will have a little longer meeting because we'll probably have to do a little catch up oh not catch up with the prize but you know get back on track uh next next month and we'll do the uh athletic participation as well as extra curriculum I do have a couple things just to inform the board about and the community uh mascot image selection is ongoing I hope Tatiana you've
013heard some things about it as well you know we've received some already that goes through the end of January so if you haven't please go to our website uh the board is going to I would just say have to deal with an electric bus issue sooner or later so be prepared for that we are looking out at trying to get a grant and doing a study and getting that paid for to find out what our overall needs are as well through the bus companies uh because honestly we don't know if it will fit our district very well but we're required by 2027 to buy nothing but electric buses and that's almost double the triple the cost so we're trying to see if we can um get ahead of it as much as possible and start
014to work into it with that I've already reached out to Elmira Heights because we shared a bus garage I've already notified them that due to this possibility of electrification of our entire bus garage as well as the possibility we may need to add more buses and more Fleet because of the short duration times thanks to the state that it will become almost impractical to have a share any longer so seeing how we've got a little lead time I have a letter that's being prepared to send and give them formal notification so they can work right now tentatively we're looking at the end of the 25 school year sort of when we start to make our whole shift if we can look beyond that for an additional year because they're really going to have to build
015another bus garage but they are they are aware of it they've been made aware of it at the beginning of the year this is more formalizing so I just want the board to know um Community engagement discussion we have safety committee meetings later today from our community engagement uh one of the things is informing our public about what the board's world is and Ward issues we'll be bringing that to the next month but on the safety side we're trying at the end of January beginning of February setting up a community night to come in and talk about what the school does for safety in our buildings in our region and cooperation that we have with the town sheriffs and local a lot of questions so that would be a topic for our Safety Committee today
016we've recorded that we've had some vandalism at the high school in the bathrooms I want to thank the high school administration facilities as well as the students because the students out as well that we have reached out three situations uh which the students have been addressed and they will have merited out some type of issues with the school and through a hearing process but on top of it we will be seeking remuneration this is more certain warning for everybody the money that goes along with this is in the thousands of dollars and parents will be shocked when they find that they are expected to cover that cost I think we've seen we've seen less of it but we still have that ongoing and we've done this at the graciousness of our school community and we
017want to continue doing it but we have a responsibility to restore it to the situation that the community so that's just that um two last things we talked about last year in the Grant in the budgeting the grant position we've got it set with the c c s e a Civil Service Association that we've got that formalized now we are ready to move forward with it this is actually very well timed because we are going to have to seek a lot of grant funding potentially for the electrification as much as possible because we don't necessarily fit the low the low poverty behind me School District definition so we need a grant person to specifically work for us and that was the focus so we're ready to move forward with that if the board is okay
018with us continuing okay so we're all set to go ahead and start closing at that point and then the last thing is SRO and safety we will talk to you about that I know Katie has been working with the village uh we are uh trying to get the sixth officer we are uh in the process of trying to finalize that going forward however there's been about a request for an additional 42 increase in the cost uh of our Sr program and I guess whether or not it's valued by the district we will be finding out what would precipitate a 42 increase in cost all of a sudden so we will report back to you more on that the next board meeting but we find it highly unusual because we already pay one of the higher
019costs uh because we also include Fringe and stuff because you want to be fair we don't want the abilities to have additional costs as well so once we know more on that we should be at that point I think we're ready to bring on the sixth officer very close and all of our buildings would have something if there is this type of a substantial cost we will proudly reach out to the Village to ask what is the issue because we also have another program if we have to we may have as well and I think it's possibly trying to forcefully issue but yet not say it's I'm positive I'm really disappointed that no one has reached out until the 11th hour with a 42 increase so we'll try to ferret what's going on and try
020to work it out in a reasonable manner I think this board has been very good if there's increased costs that are needed we have not tried to put that on the village but 42 is a stiff asset all of a sudden at the last minute so wouldn't you agree she's not talking to it this morning okay uh other than that you know it's a holiday season for everybody the kids love the snow days we have two more snow days left we are reminding people that once we get to those two day two two snow days I proudly have another day to give at the Memorial Day week but we are going to be notifying our staff just like we're required uh with the piloting that if we get to that point at any time we
021will move to a flexible work day schedule and try to save it in the days because everybody does deserve those breaks as well so we have a little time hopefully come two days in a row again like a couple years ago but we're moving forward and that everybody should be expecting that flexible uh work at home schedule to save the days that the state has graciously allowed us other than that wish everybody Happy Holidays sure so are we prepared them for the students who don't have enough one of the things is we throughout all of this we have a very high percentage of students that have access it's not necessarily the computer issue it's the access issue which is a little lower than our ability to have the devices at home so a lot of
022it does not mean that you're online every minute of the day the high school is only compatible the middle school would be compatible but we just have to have contact throughout the day so a lot of this is really making sure that the information is up that people can get on it if anybody has connectivity issues we still have our local resources from the pandemic of the Wi-Fi the Wi-Fi's that can be signed up if somebody is really indeed all they have to do is contact the building principle and they will reach out but for the most part the digitalization across New York state has done very well especially in our outer regions but we can still have problems okay um our board reports so audit committee so we met last week uh Tom Zimmer
023Zuber was there to present a couple of the audits along with the extra colostrum activity funds he had noted that there was um you know definitely an increased activity over the previous year where the pandemic had been in effect but overall Giada was much much better than it has been a number of years ago five six seven years ago even someone on it some of the items listed included a limited number of profit and loss statements or some of the activities each group is supposed to uh of a platform loss statement a few untimely deposits in requirement to monitor inactive clubs the other um there's a single audit and um they're real training series which is great news and key to review the action credit action family group a number of them have been completed
024already it will be completed this month another one of the ones by the end of January and the other one the end of June and they investigated the four clubs that have been inactive during the Audits and they had currently all had Financial activity in 20 20 22 2023 so they were removed from the list and the full corrective action plan is in that package sorry policy committee okay so the policy committee met on December 8th we had uh the core policies that we reviewed as a first reading uh you'll see those on the agenda for the board today two of those were deleted in their entirety because they were one was folded into another related policy and another was determined to be not necessary and then we had two policies that we reviewed for
025a second reading uh both which are on the agenda for approval and they were we didn't have any additional changes to those so they looked the same as to when they came through for first reading the last meeting and there was no good of the order to report thank you Finance items for Action we have not gonna have emotions please any comments or questions on any of these um I'll just abstain unequal 22. okay any others well instead or obviously we ever received that contract ever foreign [Music] foreign about no on D2 and D4 I know it's um the policy allows for it I disagree with the policy we iterate as they did when the policy passed I don't know these people um I'm not voting against them I don't know who they are I
026just disagree with with the policy I'll join Mr Compton on that kind of in a situation because the university that I work for encourages that so I would say any other comments okay all those in favor say aye um and then the extensions we have two on uh with two days I'm sorry two days all right our miscellaneous signs for Action we have 10.02 through 10.44 all right any comments or questions I just didn't understand maybe it's me what 10.04 was in regard to someone just explain that that's approp Tony I'm trying to beat 7 30 today so the uh the state requires um certainty exams to be used for apbr rates for growth scholarship teachers the high State assessments three through eight the two sides and other regions the um the fourth grade science
027is no longer they've moved into fifth grade starting next year this year there is no fourth grade science to be used by the state to factor some kind of crazy behind the scenes score for teachers that teach the fourth grade science or having fourth grade science with their students it's always been a minimal impact because most of our assessments are fourth grade teachers they're Ela and their math same assessments full of majority if not all of their growth score so the state said okay we're no longer doing the fourth grade it's in your plan we have two courses reopen and renegotiate the whole plan which we're not set to until July or through this form and remove more Exposition okay so it's removal of the it doesn't make sense okay thank you Tony could you
028find Bill Goulding attacks thank you any other questions or discussions any extensions okay our board policies 11.01 11.02 for a second reading plan on the motion release second any comments or questions so I'm going to vote no on 1102. um part of 1102 as a provision where uh we can move our K through four students if it exceeds uh class size limitations uh well that may be a fiscally prudent policy I don't agree that it's an education we sound policy these are our youngest charges this policy only affects them if we had in the hypothetical and influx of uh fifth and sixth grade students that exceeded the class sizes we have policies and procedures how to deal with them and it's not not accept them into the 5th and sixth grade so what we're saying
029here is if um families move into whether it be Big Flats or Garden Road or Ridge Road and exceeds class size because we can we're going to ship them somewhere else as it exceeds class size we have policies and procedures that could address that this in essence says we're going to ignore it and I don't know when we send them to an elementary school part of what our elementary schools do so well as they build the culture and a sense of belonging and you send a young person there for one year and then you ship them back to their homebound School in another year it just doesn't make sense and the other thing now in all our educational reports we deal with the social emotional and I don't know if that's big or not I
030I think it is and young families moving into the district pick their homes sometimes based on where their grade schools are and if they happen to come after April 1st they could be told that they're going to be moved somewhere else so I'm against that provision of the policy and it only affects our youngest charges K through four it affects no one else in the district because we can't ship them anywhere else within the district so that's my rational for voting notes I will clarify this has been something the district's been doing for decades mostly because there's a limitation on paper for class sizes because of the HDA contract but it is the ability that we can just hire an additional staff that are not necessarily always relevant and the district does take great pride
031in trying to make sure that the kids are in their own School up to the latest possible minute however you cannot create new sections in the middle of the year for somebody moving in therefore we have to have a mechanism which we do we have done it very limited and we don't allow parents just to pick the schools that they want to and that's what this policy is really about the district does not have many needs of using this except with uh when there is an overcrowding because we do allow outside of students from outside the district for our employees come and they take the front of it because their decision is made the last we always keep in mind the social emotional features of students however we do also have to keep in mind
032in my physical and the timing of it the ability for the district to operate in a reasonable time so that's how the policy has been enacted over the past probably six years when it was changed to this by a lot of people on this board five five or six years ago that we moved up to April 1st because it really wasn't a deadline before so I just want to make sure that everybody understands we don't try to do this as much as possible but we can't help when people move in and we don't want to overburden especially when we have some class sizes of 14 15 new schools and other class sizes of the 22-23 that the educational preference for the kids are to try to keep the lower class as much as possible which
033gives them a benefit we don't like the ship but unfortunately we have multiple boundaries this particular year in August in some of our kindergarten that we didn't have appropriate section numbers in that one building and so in late August class sections are usually made in June so they're well established and even some schools have the teachers meeting the students that they're going to have the following year so we do as Tom said run into an issue when you create a new section and a timeline to do that or it's not going to happen during the school year so what happens next year those students are put back into the numbers of their home boundary we create the section if necessary so they automatically get to their home school no matter if students remove themselves and
034and or you know we have a decrease in enrollment or we maintain enrollment we just have to have a possession size if if a student um is not able to go to their home school because of that and they go to another school are they given the option then to stay in that other school when they know what they're following you they're not giving that option no we can't we cannot schedule from year to year to allow people just to keep going to other schools the board has a specific statement in those policies we have always put them in the boundary schools unless we can because we can't run a bus situation from Big Flats The Ridge Road or any place else in Wisconsin we have circumstances where our student in fourth grade we'll go
035to another home boundary in the fourth grade year those are taken under serious consideration to make sure that we do well by the child if they've been in that building for four years otherwise what we do have and we saw it this year and in the years past people picking schools where schools got overloaded because they were just going like when we first started we had 40 kids that weren't supposed to be at Ridge Road coming to Ridge Road and the other schools were under enrolled and the class sizes were over enrolled there that's not fiduciary and that's what the board assets correct in in 2016. that's that's hard on a kid that is but but this policy isn't really designed what had gotten out of control with families picking what grade school they wanted
036to go we always said that absolutely controlled well it does but now in addition it says if we exceed class size so you said kindergarten at pink flats this year we can move but we also have procedures in place like you said we could hire staff and keep them in their home bound School District other possible solutions we would have to do that in fifth grade we would have to do that in sixth grade we just don't have to do it but Warren we have not had to do that in fifth grade or sixth grade my entire time here because we have managed our class sizes we are not near 25 per class and unfortunately the HCA contract says kindergarten through third grade must be 23 or less and if you go beyond that so
037we could have a school with 14 and we could have a school of 23. we'd rather put that class size to 24 than a child in a 15 classroom yes or one year until we can adjust and that's only after April 1st because of budgeting and after April 1st because it could all of a sudden happen August 15th and then we have to all of a sudden try to hire somebody which we may not be able to do because hiring is not that easy right now and there wouldn't be staff available that's one of the problems but we can help that student by getting them to a classroom that is very much more lower possibly of their choice for that year and then re-situate the next year in higher appropriate instructional staff instead of a
038teacher Aid so it's it's a timing issue no matter what the big thing is we very rarely do it in most cases we have people that wish to use this policy to say I want to choose that school and that we don't do they go to their boundary school and we're forced to try to put them in their boundary school at all possibilities but we have to have a mechanism if we can't do that either hire somebody or we have this option we look at both options but you have to understand if I have one student that goes in to I just use Gardner Road say Garden Road and now they're at 24 I have to hire one ta if I have two students that go into Gardner Road do I hire two Tas and
039make two classes of 24 officially by the contract I can put all those kids in that one th classroom and just stack that the district doesn't do that but we have a better situation for kids to get more one-on-one instruction with a certified teacher and that's the daytime and that's what the district's been doing all along those assets use I have a question that is in these voluntary moves with guardians of the students like they generally responsible for transporting their students to school so if I understand this you need to re-shift numbers you ask for volunteers if we're in a situation we can ask our volunteers and if they volunteer they're saying they'll take their transfer if we like first in first to move if we move them we are required to provide that okay
040all right if the parent doesn't have to transform them and we never really have had to ever ask for volunteers just has a procedural comment for clarification purposes the language that's being discussed has been part of the policy uh there are some it was Rewritten slightly but I just want to make we're very excited something that's being added into the policy it's bad in front of the policy as it's been in place well we changed that policy three or four years ago because I remember voting no one the policy was changed so it's you're right yeah language right now it's not a change but the language is only three or four years old it's not like a 40 year old language that um is being questioned at this point in time it was questioned three
041or four years ago that's fine it's not changing at this meeting or proposed to be changed at this meeting any other comments or discussions no I understand what Mr chocolate was saying and and others about social emotional needs of students being moved but um I also feel very strongly that the lower elementary grades really class size is vital thing and being able to keep those numbers low with a classroom teacher I think in some cases I'm not going to stay across the board it could be more beneficial to us to be able to be in room with smaller numbers I think it's the proven that their class size for adults to stupid ratio is kept at the size cut to the minimum and so forth that needs of labs all those kinds of things can
042be identified early and become more beneficial if your test will progresses and that is just the carry on with Marion coming that is something the district has been doing over the past couple of years to assist that which has been the product of the administration reward but also at my time coming in the average class size I believe only started Tony was like 1 to 22 what's the ratio the class size now is 1 to 19 19 so that is what and it's more balanced across the district especially okay all those in favor of 11.01 and 11.02 say aye aye on 11.02 award and any extensions okay moving on to our board policies for first reading we have 12.01 to 12.04 so any comments or discussion items to bring this back to the policy okay
043okay and moving on to our board comments I'm going to open it up to anybody anybody has I know but everybody else has had a chance to say I just want to um acknowledge that Mr Christopher Bell again had an NFL player uh on the Minnesota Vikings uh wide receiver Jefferson Jefferson uh where is artwork on a sweatshirt foreign for the announcement of women so thank you for your service and you still have the rest of the year but thank you for everything that you've done for our students and our students and many years from there getting younger every day as we approached me and then finally I just like to wish everybody in the district of staff students families fellow board members just just a wonderful holiday season whatever holiday we celebrate I hope
044you're able to really take the job time and have some quality time with the internal family so holidays so can I have a motion to return all those papers to add all right thank you ladies and gentlemen this concludes the December 20th Board of Education meeting at the horsepower Central School District wish everybody a happy holidays and we'll see you in the new year