001good evening ladies and gentlemen welcome to the november 18th 2021 board of education meeting of the horsehead central school district board of education ladies and gentlemen we apologize for the lateness however at the start of the meeting we had a few individuals that could not comply with the mandatory masking indoors on school facilities authorized and required by the new york state department of health we apologize for the dynamics of being late but we also must remind people that at this point all school districts in new york state are governed by indoor masking requirements we will be having a discussion about maybe trying to have a little better seating position going into the winter later in this meeting but at this time anytime you're in school on the property indoors all participants must be masked thank
002you at this time i'd like to turn it over to our board president miss christine dale okay good evening everybody i have everybody join me in the pledge of allegiance 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 okay first up on our agenda is item two the approval of our minutes from october 14th can i have a motion please so moved second any comments questions or discussion on the minutes okay all those in favor say aye aye all those pose nay any abstentions okay item three on our agenda is our um time for community questions and comments so the way we conduct this session if anybody would like to make a comment
003or ask a question um i'd ask you to come up to the podium you have three minutes so please um when we get close to the end of the three minutes i will i will give you a warning when you do come up to the podium please state your name and address and then you are welcome to to make your comment so i'll open it up right now if anybody in the go ahead just step up to the podium to the microphone please yeah the microphone will pick you up yep we need to leave our masks on my name i'm going to ask you to wait till you get to the microphone because we are live streaming for the community thank you okay my name is gerald fernkrans 4191 main street millport new york it
004was in the early 90s when i wrote my first letter to the editor regarding what seemed a breach of integrity in the horsehead school district sad students against drunk driving held over under night at the rusty nail underage students were allowed entrance to the party without access to alcohol those of age imbibed to earn money for their sad efforts seemed hypocritical introducing underage students to the drinking culture under the guise of anti-drunk driving certainly lacked common sense as i looked through my letters and memos on education over the years it blazed the trail to where we are today the story of our education system lacking even shunning integrity a trend locally on the micro level watching news today we see the corruption of the national education industry on the macro level on the same path
005from loudoun county virginia to california where school board members mocked parents for their concerns of the schools being closed during the pandemic in loudoun county the national school board association marshaled federal government to send the fbi to investigate parents expressing concerns at board meetings labeling them domestic terrorists critical race theory infiltrating our curriculum all across the nation social engineering taking precedent over education of disciplines thomas jefferson saw good public education essential to democracy i say poor public education is essential to socialism the dumbing down and degrading of america's education system serves that purpose having served on a school board i witnessed the superior elitist attitudes those boards had not just horse heads but shared with the districts in the area board members asked me you have no children why do you want to be on
006the school board my answer was i'm concerned about all the children and their education i then realized many school board members were there with their own special interests and advantages for their children or themselves the major part of the student body has little to no representation self-serving the motive of most members our education system has been hijacked by what i term elitist pseudo-intellectual bottom feeders those people thinking themselves the smartest in the room with the arrogance to lay out the world for everyone extensive schooling indoctrination in how smart they are not endowed with critical and independent thought molded into smart alecks unwise guys dangerous to the world around them sir i just want to remind you we are at three minutes so if you can try to wrap it up in the next 30 seconds
007that would be great thank you okay i'll have to move on okay how do i know this being out of the loops along i'm talking about local now in the horseheads that unnecessary monstrosity stadium out there costing so much and serving so few of the students that tendency for today's education leaning heavily to show over substance as america degrades to the bottom of education in the industrialized nations ostentatious symbols so much more important than educational results a monstrous monument to greed gluttony and elitism if our education system is devoid of integrity so will our society be without integrity our culture our society is headed for tyranny thank you if you want to if you want to leave that with us we can make sure we all get to read it thank you i appreciate you
008coming i'm sorry i had to cut you off we have to stick to board policy and give everybody equal time thank you appreciate it thank you [Music] do we have anybody else that would like to speak this evening okay go ahead you can come up just going to ask you to state your name and your address and like i said we have we have three minutes for each person my name is vincent azarelli i live at 11 clubhouse drive one of the things i'm very concerned about is the expansion program and all the remodeling that's being done the 120 million dollar program i think it is i'm very concerned about it a lot of people are concerned about it especially now that southport closing has been announced and there's a consideration for the number of
009families that'll be moving the area and how that will affect not only the county but also the school district we've looked at the program and the plans the 19 slides that were put on the internet and we really would like to see some more information on the planning and the phasing of that and how it's going to work that's really what we're concerned about it's a lot of money and with anywhere from 250 to 400 families potentially leaving the area we think it's going to have a real effect on the school district and the rest of this the county so please consider that and make some adjustments if you think they're necessary thank you thank you very much do we have anybody else that would like to speak mr azarelli i'll make a comment after
010we get through the others so i can try to help you with your comments i'll make a comment after we're done if you want to stick around for that i know you're in county government so i understand hi my name is christy harmer and our rds is seven hunters running horse heads uh about a month ago i sent an email uh through nancy perillo to the board after a decision that was made i was unhappy with a request i made of the district i wanted my child to stay at big flats for the remainder of the school year my request was denied so i followed up with an email to the board i trusted dr douglas shared that with you so i don't want to necessarily take up my time to go over the details
011of it but i felt like i still needed to come and advocate not just for myself but for other families i think that the board plays an important role in guiding outcomes for the district for all families and i i sometimes wonder how much information you're given on day-to-day situations how much you know about decisions that are made it seems like i hear a lot of frustration from other parents about things that happen that really caused the divide to be even further instead of trying to connect home in school to be on the same team it seems like there's a lot of frustration in particular you know covet has caused a lot of frustration for everyone so when i say that you know i was really hoping the district would be more understanding like they've
012asked of us to be uh throughout all of this aside from all of the details that i shared in my email i was shocked by the process to get information to the board so i i follow rules i think they're important i think that it's important to have a process to filter and organize information that comes to you obviously everybody can't bring you everything they're unhappy about so i understand that and i think you have to go to the right person at the right time if you have a complaint i did that i met with mr gill i spoke with dr douglas and then when i still wasn't happy my complaint went back to the same people who i had to trust would get you the information so it just seems you know my i
013just wish there was a better process a more transparent process so i'm happy to answer questions i i'm not looking for anything necessarily just to share some frustration on my my own behalf and other people thank you thank you i appreciate you coming do we have anybody else you can step up i just want to remind you um to state your name and your address and you have three minutes my name is catherine safaya and we live at 31 south carroll street in horosetts i'm here on the topic of the quarantine policy that we have mr douglas and i have spoke about this before i have the new york state education health and safety guide for the school year 2021-2022 and i'm just going to read from it real quick the cdc guidance documents defines
014a closed contact of someone who was within six feet of an infected person for a cumulative total of 15 minutes or more over a 24 hour period exception in bold letters it says in the k through 12 indoor classroom setting the close contact definition excludes students who were within three to six feet of an infected student if both the infected student and the exposed student are correctly and consistently wore well-fitting masks the entire time this exception does not apply to teachers staff or other adults in the indoor classroom settings so i did speak with mr douglas about this and he explained that it's not necessarily this that you guys are going by and that it's the health department but i since then have been asking around at our sister schools and i found that corning
015actually and maybe it's because their health department is a different county they are just if you've been exposed you get a test if it's negative you go back to school i'm wondering if there's anything we can do to move forward into trying to get rid of this 10-day quarantine it's very disruptive most importantly to the children's education i know some kids did very well with homeschooling mine did not as well as many other families and i'm just concerned because we're going on now our second year here of back and forth in school out of school and [Music] of course i'm concerned with every you know everybody needs to be safe and the kids don't mind wearing masks mine don't anyway and they take their hand sanitizer and wash their hands constantly um i just i
016don't know how many more 10-day quarantines i can go through having to take off work and the kids not really getting the education that they need because they don't listen to me when i'm trying to explain things to them for school-wise they do much better in indoor and in school settings so i was hoping to get some answers on that and wonder why these you know new york state education guidelines are put out but then we're not we're doing something completely different when 20 minutes up the road there they go right back to class if they're not positive so that's why i'm here that's my concern um that's pretty much it thank you do we have anybody else this evening dr douglas i'll turn it over to you if you want to address any of
017it yeah i'll try to address a couple things first of all on the quarantine just because that's right in my mind we are about to have a little discussion later tonight about what's known as test to stay that the county just authorized last week we are getting the testing we are planning and i'll do this later but we are planning on making that available to new direct contacts right after the thanksgiving recess so that will help but there are severe and strict protocols and rules to that as far as the cdc yes the cdc put out that new york state department of health put out it but they give official guidance to our local health departments and each county's health department is ultimately charged with making that for their county steuben county is different from
018shimon good or bad i believe and i'm not sure i think stu ben has selected to do test out of quarantine which is a program shimon county has not we talked about that on our bi-weekly call and they're researching it but they're not ready for that first of all trying to get tests is more difficult at this point we hear that those tests are starting to free up we're waiting on our own shipment so that will help test the stay so unfortunately we don't quarantine as a district we enforce just what we have all quarantines are ultimately orders of the department of health they're the only ones that can we just assist them and if we have something we know you're going in the quarantine we turn it over to the county but we tell
019you to try to get it started as quickly as possible so any questions like that we i hate to say you'd have to call the county health department they do try to use all of those metrics before they put somebody in direct contact that's the difficulty hopefully we will get towards the end of it but right now we're just not there and we are obligated and the board is basically charged my team and my administrative staff with following new york state department of education new york state law new york state department of health law or the county law when it comes to anything covet related so i hope that helps and that's what we're doing at this point okay christy i know that you you spoke the board has gotten your letter uh we will
020have a response the only correction i would make is i've only spoken to you once on the phone saying i'd bring it here i have not had a sit down with that so i hope you understand you sort of went to tony i can't go back to you because you've already went past me okay but that doesn't mean one thing or another i'd probably tell you the same thing as tony but i've talked to the board and then i will give you the district's position probably in the next couple days uh mr frank krantz if you want just because i know you got more in yours i'll be happy to talk to you about our building project what it means i'm trying not to be ostentatious about about it but i'm also lowering the taxes
021and trying to build the district for the future which has been my charge i will always keep fiscal responsibility and integrity at the forefront of what we're doing to try to make sure your hard-earned money everybody's hard-earned money as much as possible comes back from the state to this district but you know me we've talked before you're welcome to come in i'll sit down and talk but i'll make sure the board gets your letter as for mr azarelli who came in and made a statement and then left i wish he would have stayed around because if it's important enough to make the statement you should stay around and get the answer the answer is we have had multiple meetings over this next capital project over the past five months two in the past two weeks
022that one was even last night for full presentations discussions questions answered by the board there will be a public hearing on november 30th in the multimedia center from six o'clock before we go to vote on a board authorized resolution on december 7th we have the cost implications i'll be happy to talk to anybody or any group we've been out doing that as well the district cannot take a position on yay or may for the project we leave it up to the voters and the voters decide so i hope that answers mr azarelli and he's welcome to come back to our public hearing as well but we have extensively reached out so to come at this point would be a little more difficult to say it's just 18 pages it's been significant amount of work for
023this board this community as well so we'll always answer questions but you got to dedicate the time to come get those answers too ladies and gentlemen that's all i have into my section thank you and thank you to everybody who did come and speak um we we really appreciate community members coming and speaking and sharing their concerns with us so thank you very much so i'm going to turn it over to our our student representative caitlin [Music] all right good evening everyone um we'll start with sports winter sports have started and the end of fall sports results are in jv girls soccer won their stack championship and girls volleyball also won their stack championship they also won their sectional title and competed in the regional semifinal girls swimming won the sectional title and one diver
024emma barchar barter will be headed to uh state's competition the marching band ended their season at the end of october in the carrier dome placing fifth in large school two in high school club news the academic challenge team competed in their first competition of the year twin tiers quiz league the mock trial team will be starting up again this year and will compete in the si in the state mock trial competition the green room players presented their show all together now last week to great reception cast and crew are very proud of what they put out for our community in only five weeks and are extremely happy to be back on stage performing after a 616 day hiatus upcoming our auditions for the variety show as well as the spring musical speaking of i'm happy
025to announce that the spring musical for this year will be the show once on this island look forward to tickets going up for sale around february for the show in march the horses high school choirs will be participating in the annual arctic league broadcast that will they will each be presenting a coral piece the school acapella groups will combine for this event as well and also perform a piece this week's student council is hosting a food drive they encourage you to donate what you can to the food bank some of the most wanted items this time of year are canned food box stuffing peanut butter and canned fruit the powder puff football game will take place next monday senior girls versus junior girls playing flag football and some of the boys will be performing cheer
026routines the senior class is collecting donations to the arctic league and toys for tots toy donations will go to toys for tots and any monetary donations will go to the arctic league that's all okay thank you caitlyn next up on our agenda our presentations so we have the district energy consumption presentation with mike coghlan and dan delorme [Music] and if the board could send best wishes to dan dan is ill this evening so he could not come out so we have mr coughlin to give his engineering might on energy performance along with the trainings of dan dillor good evening everybody how are you [Music] well [Music] okay [Music] all right good evening everybody i i do want to speak for dan dan was excited we talked about a month ago uh it's been a while
027we've been busy uh i'm pretty proud of this program when i first came on district about 10 years ago dan delorme a physic teacher benny energy manager helping us as he's gone through retirement to bring on kevin clark and others but this is his world he does phenomenal things for the district data driven dan all right so i'll try to do my best on his graphs and explain an answer but he is very disappointed he couldn't be here tonight so with that let's talk a little bit what we do you know we we manage the purchasing and use of energy district wide we purchase our energy through ocm boces there's hundreds of clients in this purchasing group we get at a very reduced rate we trend to watch for that we've been doing that for
028a number of years from that trending we helped set the budget based off consumption from the past where we feel we're going to go working with katie in the business office the monthly audits physical walkthroughs breaks holidays weekends this is where we kind of get a bad name for ourselves because we go around and find things and uh hear all the negatives on it but it is a big you know we need to get in the buildings we come in the middle of the night you know to see what they're doing in the moth hours that we'll talk about that's a very important part for the amount of energy consumption we use in the district we manage and maintain the energy cap program usage database this is number one database for energy conservation uh in
029the country uh they you know they bring people in for dan dan has mastered this and there's not a time we couldn't tell you uh a space you know when the bus garage is leaving the doors open a little too much we fought jason because we know about the degree days um and things like that dan catches that uh something's not broken and i'm just picking a little on jason on that but we know that's how you know something was over there to cause us that energy based off trending data from the past have it been what the temp was what it cost us and what it should have been based off this data so it's real time information we've worked that out monthly recent something we're really excited about you're talking knowledge is we're
030managing and maintaining the new nyserda siemens smart schools data we've brought this program on that most of all our heating controls like everything have gone network we're online it's real data all the time this program to bring in we brought in with over 500 000 with rebates applied to the 2030 project working with siemens uh on multiple buildings currently gardner road and singh are ones and uh we get information from them once a month we review that that'll tell us stuff that it's monitoring it 24 7. the pumps not working to where it should be if set points should be changed we're giving information to stuff to review changes work with our engineering and that seems to be very exciting and it's real time information to maintain that we also maintain and monitor daily district
031climate control you know for instance tonight there's someone in this space literally daily set points for large groups not so much the classrooms and so forth we know we're there they're maintained there's going to be event in here tonight energy's brought on it's ready for you to be here if no one's going to be in here then we bring it down to a set point that we've designed it would be energy efficient then we got to bring it up and i make a note we it's not the 25 time we're going to talk about is that 75 of the time a building's empty if you count weekends summers nights and long it's kind of hard to really do that but that's the time 75 percent of the time that we've really focused over the last
032since i've been here it was able for us to bring the set point up into buildings without seeing a change in energy consumption so that's a big part of what we work on so i got a little case study here and it was kind of dan we challenged dan to come out with it a little bit because i know some of the conversations have been and all the stuff we're bringing on and uh what can we look at you know we have all this information almost 20 years now and we went back and looked at middle school and is the last time we had a big change in 1996 when it came to field house and then where we are 2019 field house and other things there so a little bit of a comparison i'll
033do my best with dan's numbers we tried to simplify it it changed the square footage as well as other investments we've made so when you get to that you know things that would lead to an increase in natural gas consumption addition to the field house in 2003 you know we based this off 96 because that was our baseline this represents equivalent to about 20 percent 20.5 percent of increase in square footage if you base it off energy we do it to be a two-story building square footage as far as heating and it's a as a rule gymnasium is a little higher consumption than energy so that was brought on in 2002 after the 96 this area needed to be heated at this complex the conversion from all the electric to largely natural gas was done
034in the kitchens in this project things that would decrease the gas consumption replacement you know at that particular time you know there are 50s there but there wasn't 50 boilers in there but the building had steam throughout of it we switched over to steam to all of its hot water now putting in the six erco hot water heaters boilers in the summer 2008. so what's that mean if we look at the graph a little bit so if you look on the left side that shows you the energy consumption in that building um and if you look at that case study we use from 1996. the yellow or gold lines that you're seeing is actually what we're using today all right and the batcc usage that's we didn't use a program it kind of shows us
035our cost avoidance but the the two graphs you really want to look at is what we used comparison on gas back then and what we're using on gas now in the building kind of uh that june july august and september that concept were virtually about the same exact concentration yeah you're going to see on the next chart dr douglas you know you won't see much in those months as a rule you've always bring buildings right down to nothing you know boilers are down when you can bring them down uh very limited activity you're not seeing the you know you come around in the summertime it'd be lighting and all so that's standard on those months you would not see those savings and that shows what's the difference in the outer months on both ends versus
036what we're using and what we're expecting correct and this this particular graph we're looking at excuse me mike yes um what does b-a-t-c-c stand for you i know i was going to get tested that one today this was dan's spot so uh dan took many points away from me for not having complete grabs when i was here so i made a note i knew i was going to be asked that that's baseline adjusted to current cost so that would show you not using a program where we'd be right now and we kind of use it that's when you see a lot in our reports the cost avoidance that's what that's talking so there's a value to that that's of nothing was being used all right so off that as dr douglas was shown and you
037can look at those summer months again you know this is actually getting off the graph some raw numbers to show you uh that supports the graph on the other side just shows you after a program you know what we're doing now currently to what we've done in the past all right not only that square footage and we're going to get to it when we get over to electric here to show you other things that we've added into that building to change so moving over to electricity that i want to talk about things that would lead to an increase in electricity consumption approximately you know 1800 personal computing devices added with monitors laptops you're looking since 96 we work for bill a little bit they come up with those approximately 100 classroom presentation devices they were
038not present in 96 we've grown lighting the field house running fans etc things that would lead to the decrease of electric consumption changing the kitchen to natural gas that was that's big and we tend to go there the led lighting uh you'll you'll see another note on there how many devices we've added more fish efficient circulating pumps right along with the boilers now they're on a variable drive they just don't run all the time like they used to so those would be things there now so if you go over to the graph on electric all right you can see the usage there but you can see all those devices we've added okay and let's keep in mind we're going to talk a little bit about uh climate control that's part of us talking today as
039we're preparing for where we're going to go in the next referendum that added a chiller to the middle school during that time we added all those electronic devices during that time if you look in the classrooms and always growing and similar to in the past we our baselines tend to get to be about the same that's what you do in the summer but you can see our overall consumption you know all these years later is still below after adding all these devices so again i know some of the numbers and i don't want to break them down but you know you'll see in the summer where they're there but baseline after current usage and trend on electricity you're going to see these are the supporting numbers to the graph that we just provided to you
040so what have we been working on and where do we go from here i want to talk a little bit knowing on the chillers and efficient ways of climate control in the rooms i've heard in the room a little bit and some being talked a little bit hey we're putting air conditioning keep in mind in all the classrooms all these spaces when we're here we must run that unit interla into classrooms right right now we're probably not seeing the best energy numbers during covid we're above and exceeding there i'm running it longer we're all about health but regardless when the rooms occupy we have to have it at a minimum set point and that must run with a minimum of 10 outside air all the time the whole time the rooms are occupied or these
041large group spaces are occupied so on a chiller it's not traditionally like where you're going to be working at your homes you're just turning on your we're already paying energy to run that fan we're already paying energy to run that pumps now we're going after an energy efficient way of chilling water and it's more of a climate control rhythm will come perimeters that dan and i are working on to bring back to everyone currently we have a minimum set point we try to keep them in the room we'll be working on a maximum set point that we're going to be talking a little bit so i just wanted to define a little bit on a chiller versus it thinking it's ac and at home and my we all had the window shakers and put them
042in there and you're running them we're already producing the majority of the energy that we need it'll be the initial cost and the maintaining in them time so there's a big difference so what we've been working on to get back we've installed over 2500 led lights in the last five years i think it's actually six but that started with a smart bond all the way throughout the district and we're during constructions it's a little hard to trend because of the energy on it but we're definitely seeing it on the month we can see it the payback to the district what's been big since i've been in the district you know we've done the boilers at big flats gardner road ridge road and we're currently i did south about five years ago maybe six high school
043north we're currently working on it now uh we're working on that we bring soon going out to bid to center street for summer 2021 and that'll bring that'll be the end of these old steam and even the ones who are hot water not nearly the energy used on them and we have real-time information and we can have climate control better just for cooling and for heating um technology upgrades with energy conserving devices you know that seems where it's going now that everything's networked uh real-time information we're continuing to move forward we're embracing technology you know with working with our current engineers with hunt um and ourselves and siemens on our controls we seem to be on the cutting edge there and very very happy going to reap those benefits implement manage district-wide claimant controls we
044i did talk a little on that and that's what we're working on now is we'll roll them out to prepare for budgetary by no means do i see this being something just going to jump right out to us okay i think a little balance of anything i've been very very fortunate uh we'll continue to work with nyserda siemens district engineers at behind engineering as we bring on maximize funds i think here as soon as we close out the high school we'll be seeing another about fifty thousand dollars of rebates off some of this high energy efficient devices we put in that on that particular one we went through a nice egg to provide that on there the energy efficient saving ways for the for future 2030 capital project and development is where we're going questions
045i know i killed it for dan dan was ready we practiced we got together earlier this week and i'll give it my best dad's gonna be jealous um i want to thank you mike for that um the presentation and uh i went to the open house yesterday and i had a wonderful tour with chad who opened up my eyes as far as what's going on and the energy part of it i don't know if it's the only child in me that just kind of assumes everything based on my perspective but i see from how the presentation was structured the increase in surface area with the field house the added things and you were the added devices and you were still able to make those energy changes and i've been up front with tom i've been
046up front with the community as far as some concerns i have with the phase two and how it's necessary but you know what you know what if scenarios and this presentation really just kind of just checks all those boxes as far as what the energy would be and i guess you know i so i thank you and i thank you tom for allowing that to happen is this something as far as you know we looked at the energy component and expansion you know as far as the other components of expansion cost if the level of detail not even to this near amount could be provided such as you know we're talking about maintenance or insurance or anything that comes with adding expanding a footprint to the district um you know there again i was thinking
047that prior to this we were going to have huge energy bills you know air conditioning to me very unknowledgeable in that situation we have to increase that um so as far as other very specific and i think main ancillary costs to expanding is that something that can also be presented to the board in that sense i've in time yeah i got to comment on that too i think in time all of those things can be explored the hard part is we're still doing the daily operations of building planning and everything it's sort of like you know mr fern krantz was very nice he talked about the facility if mike were to take time and just break down how many times he did not have to line three fields over and over with the manpower and
048just the transportation uh we can put a number to it it just takes time to do that but that's one of the reasons why most every school has gone to a synthetic field because of the ease of use and turnover time where we didn't if we wanted to get two soccer fields and one football field ready it might take so many man hours right now to get that same football field mike will be able to talk to it but there's a significant savings that we would offset that savings to try to get him more health and also to mr azarelli's point we feel bad about southport but we also know that the state from what i understand is planning other uses potentially for southport people in this community and all over but mostly south of
049elmira definitely are majorly impacted i don't know what the impact will totally be here but i know this anybody there that's looking for a job we want them to come to us if they want to stay in this area whether it's facilities whether it's maintenance whether it's in our construction or contracting or we may even law enforcement at the start of our board meetings and so forth but the whole point is we will pitch in and help our neighbors just like they've always helped us i think when you look at the end result of a final build for the district just the transportation alone in a year for modified sports all over the district and varsity sports all over the district that almost comes to an absolute end and that's a daily cost in a
050yearly cost where varsity and jv would be here because the students are here modified would be at the middle school because the middle school's there all of that are savings that will reproduce in other areas and yet still be fiscally frugal with it to try to manage our budget and that's what we've been trying to do over the past seven years so i think we always want to look at it i just don't know if time and everything will do it but we'll try to do our best i know michael okay and that that's i kind of like if i needed to exemplify it kind of like a maintenance cost you know as far as we need more maintenance people at the end of this no matter what right and you know we're we're expanding
051our footprint we need more cleaners so i but i wouldn't curtail it and mr adams i'm we're already started the process you have i don't know i'll have it as global but it's us coming into budget time right now you know these are things we take into account that we're bringing on the there's going to be parts are there we're very fortunate we're in a project right now but that's part of even the budget process so it comes on in steps and will be delivered in smaller pieces probably to go back to tom you know i had to do a study before on a turf field versus the grass field elmira heights had the first turf field in alzheimer county 20 some years what was the value on that and even just water alone if
052you don't have irrigation you know we brought it out here off a hydrant our old field you might not seen that you have to do it during the day can't really do it at night it wasn't automated fire hoses it was weeks you know i could spend thousands enough that would pay for the lights for the stadium for a year so that's the balance a little bit as dr douglas was talking that we balanced but we take that into account um a little hard right now with some because you know we're heating areas that really aren't the most efficient kobits out and we're still getting it but i also want to just say how smart it is that we're thinking keep in mind when we came in to when we talked climate control and chad
053could say this wasn't part of the original 2030. it was brought up after talking to staff and the public where we're going in the couple years process and it was talked like right now some are saying why are they getting our why can't i if we would have tried to do it everyone at once we'd never be able to afford it so we must take some buildings we get so far next time we're back we'll get there so that's been our philosophy but it wasn't added but what brought it to my attention it's coming we have a minimum set point in the state of new york that from september 15th i must maintain the classrooms at 65 degrees good luck trying to do it at 65. it's because of different humidity and everything all that
054fresh air we bring it's not the same as your house but they are looking at maximum set points number one thing in the state i sit on a couple different state boards i don't think they'll ever be able to say tomorrow you must have a max but we have rooms right now in the 90s they're not educational settings i see that but i do believe as we go forward anything you do it'll be tied into the engineering that you must have climate control and that's the directions it's going and i feel we'll be planning for it wisely and i highly recommend that all right any other questions yes warren um five or six years ago the state was looking at solar panels and promoting solar panels for schools is that going to come back at
055all or do you have an idea where that means yeah and actually we signed up for that what that was the uh it went bankrupt all right so the program fell right apart we signed up i was up in chancellor hall in albany that day waiting in line to go with it when we did our case study it really only worked downstate on the island for electric our electric's too cheap here so i'm not saying that particular program we did not qualify i did all the paperwork and followed up and i think that might have even started with dr moreno and carried on a little bit with dr douglas but we fell in that that that fell apart we're always looking at it warren and i wouldn't our roofs are in a better spot right
056now we struggle on acreage very few spots we have the ground have a solar field but part of our whole thing and doing those studies still we have the roots of the changes and the money will come around you never know but we did sign up for that program and it folded before it went anywhere there's nothing currently there's always something but not at that level that you were seeing at the school board meetings you know they got a grant they got money from the state the company was running it so they just told you how everything was you can get it for free and that was fired us from the truth i do not know of one district that ever got off the ground with them i believe we were like 120 something on
057the list but they did come do the study we did not qualify based off energy in upstate new york yeah we're in our biggest acreage are roofs and yes you can put solar on the roofs my recommendation i know mike's will be we've got enough that we have leaks we don't need to put any more leaks in a roof there are a couple schools in the capital region that have enacted it from its onset south colony being one but they had a field and what happens is if you have the land you're at least recouping the energy and helping the company but it's more so right now if the district wanted to do something we'd be giving credits away and getting very little in return but yet giving our solar credits to somebody else and
058that may be not something that we're interested in at this point right now it's still it will come back i think you're seeing it's really more on the commercial side that solar is really taking off in this area you've seen major fields all over the place but they are also on the tax roll too so everyone that goes on that's good for every taxpayer in horsesets so you won't see the programs you could they are aidable if you were i think our needs are greater warren right now we're not some of the small candor school district big solar out in the field mile from there tied up with their town they had the acreage but it was all through different than the programs you're talking something comes out you'll be the first to know about
059it i'll bring it to you all right guys have a good night thank you thank you so okay next up on our agenda is our superintendent report dr douglas yes thank you miss dale i have a several things to go over with a couple discussion points but first of all as i mentioned a little bit we are trying to gear up now the county has authorized tests to stay and what people need to understand is test to stay is just a way for somebody that's deemed a direct contact to be able to attend school daily under daily testing it can't be broken up it has to start once the exposure starts and is known for this next seven days so we have a protocol we are getting ready to communicate that output we want the
060board to know that we plan on starting pretty much for those that become direct contacts right after the thanksgiving break and i'm just trying to find a date for that and that would be on november 29th so if you became a direct contact before november 29th we're not going to have you you're going to have to complete that quarantine we have to draw a sort of a line so the new direct contacts on the 29th will be available and we will give them information that they will have to download fill out and it will have all the information consent as well as the requirement for the testing and that testing location will be if the board remembers our drive through graduation we are going to use that same format for our daily test to stay
061for all levels at one site so that's where we're gearing it up that way it's out of the traffic patterns of the buildings it will require parents that wish to avail themselves of it for their children a little additional time in the morning but the way the program works no child can get on a bus or come into a school without having a negative test once they've been deemed a direct contact it is important to know for the families that if you are allowed to do direct contact test to stay to come to school it only applies for the school day and hours of instruction all students must after school they can ride a bus home if they've tested negative but they must go directly home and they must continue to quarantine through day 10.
062there is no test to stay and do athletics or the play in the evening and that's something everybody will have to adjust to this is to avail each student of additional instructional time so we will have that one of the caveats however is if a student is a direct contact of a child or parent in the household they are not eligible for tests to stay because there's a high likelihood that that student will become positive and they must complete their full quarantine so those are some of the major parts of it we must have an adult accompany the students we are making exception for those students that drive to school regularly at the high school as long as they have their consent signed and everything but more details will be coming out to explain this
063via our communication that should be early next week to get ready it will be handled through the nurses we hired seven i think seven lpns they will be helping us along with our nursing staff each morning and this is program will always be in place as long as we are provided testing supplies from the county and testing will help the county numbers go down because right now over the past four days we have seen a major reversal in the infection rate here so that's just something we started coming down we're sort of leveling out and just like last year we have thanksgiving and the holidays that that seems to be close quarters everybody together that we ask everybody just to be mindful of that so hopefully we can get through this and as the is
064indicating uh potentially down the road hopefully in the near future they'll be making some adjustments to state protocols for coven so that's test to stay so hopefully that's good news that will help everybody and we'll have to start slowly and get it off and running in addition i've already covered local data we've sort of covered capital project a little we have a capital referendum that all the information is on our website that capital referendum is on december's december 7th from 7 a.m to 9 00 p.m the vote for that referendum will be in the south gym just like we do our regular annual elections but anyone who is a renter or a homeowner that has resided in the district for 30 days or more above 18 years of age or 18 years of age on
065that day and is eligible to just vote is allowed to come in sign an affidavit and vote that day on the project whichever which way that they wish to ladies and gentlemen for the board we just encourage everybody to come out and tell us which way they want horse heads to head in regards to capital construction uh we'd like to i'd like to just like miss odell said congratulate all the fall athletics and music seasons and extracurriculars we've been back in person and we're trying to make it as normal as possible although there are still difficulties and challenges in the way that is one of the things that each day hopefully brings and makes it a little stronger for our students our community and ultimately for our county i need to talk to the board
066about the retreat date but i want to just first go we have a situation where outside people can be unmasked because that's the department of health order they can be shoulder to shoulder we can have thousands of people at outside events we have not seen anything negative from that and that's a good thing you just never know however now as we head into the winter season almost all of our activities whether they're sports or extracurricular are indoors and for our students new york state department of health as well as for our adults require indoor activities must be 100 percent mass so we're complying there there is a lot of gray area on spectators like right now if some people are a seat apart some people can be sitting next to each other and so forth
067most of the district superintendents have already gotten together and said what we do for our sports we also need to do for our others and extracurriculars we did experiment with indoors volleyball where we allowed people to be shoulder to shoulder and if you felt uncomfortable we asked that you leave some room and parents have been very good grandparents have been very good in here you can see x's on some of the roads that whole row is broken up so when we had like the play the other night we only had two parents for each child and it was very sparse but still according to our rules for the winter but i have tried to sample and survey the parents that have come in on multiple events and said do you feel that this is something
068that's reasonable that as an adult you can comply with and would help the situation pretty much overwhelmingly something like an unscientific poll about 75 to 80 percent said leave that to us but we know we have to be masked let us fill the seats the county does not say no to that the all the superintendents are pretty much putting that into place and then if there's a problem we always reserve the right to go back so what i'm asking the board just like i said before we make a shift i'd come back to the board how does the board feel about if we allow indoor 100 masking somebody that doesn't mass won't mask is required to leave but at our sporting events at our gatherings at our concerts if there's room we'll tell people that
069you can spread out however you want but we're not limiting but we only have so many seats would the board be okay with 100 masking shoulder-to-shoulder seating capacity for whatever the venue holds so i'd ask the survey the board and see how everybody else feels i ask a question um just because i wasn't at any of the volleyball games what did you do about food we did not allow food in the area because one of the things about food is like we'd allow a bottle like a pepsi or a bottle of water thank you mr johnson i appreciate that and parents did what exactly what mr johnson is doing they took a sip they put their mask on the reason why we don't want popcorn another thing is because if you got skittles you just
070eat them one at a time slowly and it sort of defeats the purpose so on our regular events we would not have concessions however on our major long-term events we would actually require that the concession be separated from the event so that people could go there be spaced eat appropriately and if they want still bring their beverage in but still use proper courtesy so did you have people there monitoring in case people brought their own phones our supervisors really did and most parents we really did not have any major issue with it i think parents grandparents and even our students they just want to see the kids right others thoughts so i'm good with it i just um you know so situations that happen tonight that concerns me when we when if we get people
071that refuse right so as long as we have protocols in place and a process in place to to address that when it happens the board would need to know that if somebody refuses we will stop all activities i will clear a room or i will instruct our ad or supervisor to clear the room until the person complies or is taken out okay i think that's our public safety obligation i would support exactly like christine said i'd support it and i would be very concerned about the people that you know disobey the policy but as long as there's people in place to um to remove those people then i would be totally fine and if i can add we don't like banning anybody but this is a public entity but we also have control over the
072entity and we only use that when somebody is non-compliant if somebody is non-compliant what we will do is we will restrict their access from this property except obviously to bring their child and drop them off but don't get out of your car or we would say if you want to come you've got to get permission from the superintendent or one of my administrators first and foremost our intent is not to keep somebody from here but they do have to comply with the regulations and requirements that we're obligated to by the constitution warren i need to do this oh here we go all right um my first question would be do we have a a sense of you just said there's starting to be an uptick and i assume that's because we're coming back indoors from
073being outdoors in the summer and fall is there a number where you would say all right we got to not support this policy anymore and we're just going to have the teams there period do we have a sense of where that would be i think that's a fair question i don't have any set number but you're right we do have to monitor it i i think our bi-weekly calls with the county we always talk to them and say hey should we do something and we take our guidance from them we we have told pete pizzetti that these are some of the things that we're doing both county even stu ben everybody in the gsd boses is doing this but we also wanted to make sure we reserve the right because if it goes up i
074may go back to the four passes or the two passes but it's easier to shift to that now because we know we have something that works right now if we can move forward we just aren't seeing a lot of transmission like a gentleman earlier said i put nine ten thousand people in a stadium and we didn't necessarily have an outbreak and nothing was traced back to it but we always want to be mindful and safe especially if numbers are going up the problem is i don't know if those numbers are here in horse heads or if they're in south port or elmira heights or elmer or some other place the issue is is that we have to go with that consultation with the county and i think we do that enough that we can make
075a rapid adjustment if they're worried and then one follow-up if we go with this plan and there are members of the community that would be uncomfortable with that are we going to live stream events i mean i guess some still be live streaming honestly the one thing that's probably positive about kovid we're going to continue to live stream because grandma and grandpa they're in florida or arizona or something they have done nothing but say they love being able to see their kid okay [Music] all right thank you you're welcome others here we go i i just wanted to clarify that the question is in regard to the distancing as opposed to masking right in other words under current policy we're talking about school building masking is already required masking is required it's not about masking
076it's just making sure that the board's okay katie if you could move one seat over please just for a second no i get it i get it it's about social distance that they can sit yeah they're not related next to each other right says that right i just thought there was it was a little unclear so i i wanted to reinforce that the and i'm supportive that but that masking is obviously required the question is about distancing and i think you know subject to what we've talked about in terms of monitoring rates going the wrong way i'm comfortable with the idea that we allow people to sit as close as they're comfortable doing so so far to my knowledge i mean mr phillipo we have not contract trace to any spectators at this point have
077we and that's through the full fall season indoors and outdoors other questions could i just get a thumbs up thumbs down and moving forward with the shoulder shoulder as best possible unless we're asked too differently and or unless we need to because of potential rise that is negative from everyone we will move forward starting with our next indoor concerts tony you can communicate that out then ladies and gentlemen the last thing i have is retreat date and that is for january we are trying to bring the administration as well as the board and i might even be inviting some members of our educational instructional and instructional support staff to come and sort of as we as a board in a district work through diversity equity and inclusivity in our district which is something we've always
078done it's just that now we're trying to make sure that we bring it back as we come back from covid to make sure that we're always dealing with everybody's individual differences and trying to make sure that this is as best place for all to learn as possible we're looking for if i can see january around the second or third week before we get into regents week would be the target that would be the 10th through the 21st and the 17th is mlk day so it would not be on the 17th is there any preference for somebody to throw out a date we do have a board meeting on the 20th so i would probably try to shy away from that week and if you can go to the week of the 10th that way you
079don't have two meetings in a row we've been trying to minimize that happening lately i'd propose the 11th tuesday the 11th or wednesday the 12th 11th through 12th i prefer the 12th both work for me warren how are you either one either one neither one either one 12 12 12 12 yes 12 it is how's that that was great you guys did well didn't even have to go back and forth from like four to i would say four to seven for our discussion and seven to eight for a board discussion we will have dinner for all participants and that way the board can have some time uh in work session uh just for themselves to work on board dynamics what would you say again it was four to four to eight forty eight so four
080to seven for the ultimate discussion on our policies and opportunities moving forward and then seven to eight for board discussion on board dynamics nancy do you have all that and you'll take care of that in the update thank you ladies and gentlemen there's a lot going on we encourage everybody to come out again we have a hearing on november 30th 6 o'clock in the mmc that will be our public hearing where the public can give us comments and concerns as they would do like with a budget meeting and a budget vote at that point we'll move towards the vote on december 7th 7 am to 9 pm in the south gym just like we do every year for the community to decide on horse heads 2030 continuing our build thank you very much [Music] okay
081next up we have our board reports i do not have anything specifically to discuss tonight we did not have an audit committee report but we do a policy committee report so i'll turn over to the policy committee okay uh we had a meeting on november 4th and uh we may look like we didn't do anything at that meeting we tabled all three topics on sexual harassment and diversity equity and inclusion but there i'll show you everyone got their money's worth because we were there over an hour discussing these things but we tabled them for legal review and the diversity equity and inclusion i believe we are looking at that as a board retreat discussion so we get everybody's viewpoints on that we had a short discussion on curriculum guides and course outlines and for that's
082up for our second reading tonight but otherwise there are no first readings for that we're recommending for the board tonight thank you moving on to our finance items for action um we have 8.02 through 8.18 can i have a motion please so moved second any comments questions or discussion on any of these items warren okay so on 8.15 the cyber insurance i just i have a couple of questions for information so um for the aggregate liability it's five million dollars is that the standard for school districts could we get more could we get less should we get more should we get less when we purchased this last year the finance committee looked at policy limits of one three and five million dollars you can certainly always ask for more um it just depends on what
083our our threshold is for a premium right so the the consensus was to go with five million that was the intense yeah okay i don't think that's a standard across the board i think it's just a district that was sort of our safety tolerance okay and then on page five um highlighted in red it appeared that we had to meet um all of the conditions in red before we could have the insurance i'm assuming we met those conditions i guess i needed for how did we meet the conditions what did we do um so our insurance agent um helped us out with a large portion of them sending them the reports of documentation that they needed um bill john coley and his tech team um helped solve the safari montage issue which was really the
084the main issue we had with some of our internal software that they they weren't too jazzed with so that issue has been resolved building needs to pair that this week so as far as i know i think we're in good shape to design sign off paperwork and buy the coverage okay but i'll touch base and make sure that we're all good tomorrow comfortable and then on eight 8.12 the additional services with wellever could somebody talk to that issue so this agreement came up uh came up for two reasons one our initial contract with welliver went through the end of this calendar year but recall we had some delay in the construction because of the refitting we had to do at the high school so the construction schedule was delayed until the end of next calendar
085year so this document one um acknowledges that fact that waller is going to continue to provide their construction management services for our fee through the end of next year while also acknowledging um that we'll pay down their four percent fee as we've done with other vendors for the work of the annual capital work that we do okay and then i don't know if this is the appropriate place but i just thought it was great that we were getting a donation on the weather system 8.16 so kevin uh the question for the cyber security what was the change in premium costs from this year over last double nearly double our current provider didn't renew us for a variety of internal reasons mainly so while we were paying 29 000 with our previous provider this one is
086upwards of 70. any other questions or comments on any of these doug as a business employee i am going to abstain on 8.07 budget transfers and the 8.14 gst boces cooperative bids resolution to avoid the appearance of the impropriety [Music] okay all those in favor of 8.02 through 8.18 say i almost pose nay and then the abstentions we have mr johnson's abstentions okay moving on to our personnel items for action we have 9.02 can i have a motion please so moved second any comments or questions on our hr recommendations okay all those in favor say aye aye all those pose nay any abstentions thank you our miscellaneous items for action we have 10.02 through 10.06 can i have a motion please so moved second any comments or questions on any of these just so at
087a normal procedure we would normally have more time on a couple of these overnight field trips i've made the emergency authorization on the one for the jv varsity basketball unfortunately oneonta did not know whether they were going to have it just because of colbit now that they are they submitted that as well as for the overnight for florida for cheerleading that is only if they qualify but they were trying to get it ahead of time so they can also do fundraising okay all right all those in favor say aye aye almost pose an a any abstentions okay we have our five board policies for second reading 11.01 through 11.05 can i have a motion please so moved any comments or questions on any of these okay all those in favor say aye aye almost pose
088any abstentions okay we don't have any first reading policy so moving on to item number 13 our board member comments do we have any board members that would like to make a comment this evening kevin thank you um i'm not going to use my metal mask anymore the the one comment that i would ask and i would put this to dr douglas is that the one thing at the comments that were made tonight from the public into with miss harmers was that i don't believe that she came tonight asking about her specific circumstances but in asked about the process and which information and how information is received from the public to the board i have no stance either way but i do believe that it is in our best interest as a board in our
089school district to make sure that we are always investigating the best and most efficient ways that the public does feel that they are listened to and how we can do that and i would ask dr douglas kind of hard to make eye contact with you but if we can just look at processes and making sure that if community members do feel that we have the best or most efficient way of being able to access us access us and be able to make sure that their issues are heard beyond that three-minute comment that we have that's all and if if i respond mr adams the best way for them to come is they can weigh in also during the three minutes but they also can go through like miss harmer did through the process and that
090process gets communicated on up but the decision is not necessarily a decision that comes to the board all the time because that's not the board's role however all information that we have we regularly communicate to the board just like we have over covid and everything else when there is discernment when there's kudos and so forth a lot of times it's in our weekly updates that nobody will see because that's the communication to the board if they apply into the district clerk that goes to me and then i bring it to the next board meeting we do not do business over email so we do actively bring anything on to the board and i think we have and i asked the board if i haven't please let me know any other comments if there's nobody else
091one of the issues that i have to ask the board to look at new york state law because of the rancor and discourse for some individuals out there and this is now our i believe second or third meeting that we've had some discourse that has delayed the board for meeting the board has the option to go to 100 remote to stop this and provide public comments some people have i would not suggest that at this point because all we ask is people follow the rules however if this continues i will ask the board because we have to be able to conduct our business and i hope the board understands but tonight when the board was removed there was a personal threat made that said people are coming for me i've communicated that to the board
092i've communicated that to law enforcement no one has a right to bully or intimidate and especially if the law is being applied on school property i would ask the board what do you wish me to do to these individuals that have now not on once but two times come in and have now escalated because i have to have a conversation with law enforcement tomorrow first of all it was a threat to me second of all it could be a threat to anyone on this district how would the board wish me to react kevin it was my opinion dr douglas that you pursue the full extent of the law to you can to these people and to the actions they have made not only once but twice any other comments brian i i think we should
093look at a suspension too from school property i mean a second offense is pretty serious in my mind one you know we received a warning but after the second one i i'm not sure what that time period should be but i think it should be many months doug if boat action is required to have the superintendent be protected by pursuing legal charges or criminal charges i would move that the board support the district and dr douglas in that and that no staff member should be threatened by any buddies in the community with their life if especially if they're serious even but even if they're not being 100 serious these are serious matters and serious times then we need to support our superintendent dan i concur the only thing i just wanted to clarify i think
094obviously we were dealing with an individual and it was the second time and that was one of the reasons for escalation i think if you had someone and and i guess i'm in favor of barring exceptional circumstances you know sort of giving someone an initial warning removal and then if it happens again seeking these escalated kinds of penalties but obviously if in that first time someone makes a threat or acts violent or does something else inappropriate then i would support pursuing it to the full extent of our of our options and so that i can comment the goal is allow the operation of our students to perform safely the board to perform safely in the district to function i can understand somebody being irate especially in the situations that we've been in over the past
09520 months but when you've had a conversation twice both tried to offer twice each time just follow the rules and to be told point blank i have no authority i should resign i certainly understand that that's not a threat but then to say that we're coming after you that becomes a threat that now i have as well as my family has to worry about somebody and then when asked are you threatening me it says yes that's my concern i would do this for any one of you and i want that if the person has a child in school i want them to be able to take their child but they are giving up some of their ability without permission from either myself this board of education to be on property if that's the next step
096but i would like the board to motion and move to move forward and i will consult are legal to move forward to protect the students the school the board myself my administration my staff and my students and my family christine can i just make one comment to you i i want to just be on record saying that i think going back to the first time that this instance happened we were all in the room at the time and um barring other disagreements or changes of opinion i have with tom the one thing that i have been so proud of and what i have said many times in the community is that and we've all seen it on the national news and youtube on how superintendents let these meetings go ari and tom handled it amazing
097and we owe it to tom or to any one of the staff that we support him in pursuing the most all the options that he has in providing safety and security for anyone that is a stakeholder for our district okay agreed mr johnson would you like to make your motion again which i believe that's what you were doing before right uh sure i move that the board resolved to support any legal or criminal action that needs to be taken on behalf of the superintendent or any staff member who was threatened with their life or property or bodily harm after after initial discussion to uh resolve their concerns thank you i asked you to do it because you are more eloquent and more wording than i would have been thank you okay do we have a
098second second second motion okay we have lots of seconds all those in favor say aye aye all those pose nay any abstentions i wish to thank the board and this way we can keep our meetings open i will have an officer at every meeting from here on out thank you and and thank you for handling the situation the way that you did um you know we do want to keep our meetings open we want community members to come it's very important for us to hear from community members but it's also very important for us to follow the rules and it's not the rules of the district it's the rules of the state and and you know we all need to respect that so so thank you one final comment i have so i've had children
099in this i moved into this district in 2004 i do believe and i had children going through this district starting in 2005. and i've been at a lot of events participated in a lot of activities within the district i'm very proud to be part of this district but i will tell you there is one event that i've attended the past few years that does not even make me prouder to represent this district but the but the center street celebration for veterans day is bar none the most impressive event year after year that i that i attend um and i really missed it last year with kovid and even though this year's event could not be the same that they typically do the way that they accommodated and did it as a drive-through parade outside and
100and the kids were so excited and they had their their red and their blue ponchos on and waving their flags and flag masks on and and you can hear the kids saying thank you to every car and every veteran that came through um it was truly amazing and and i think it it's you know i am and i i haven't even had a kid that has gone through center street so you know i i but it it just it brings tears in my eyes every year and i just would like to thank um mrs sotero and the entire center street staff and all the families of center street that support your children in in celebrating this event it truly is one of the most amazing things that our district does so and i'm not trying
101to take anything away from all the other events and everything that happens but i think in this day and age it's just so special to teach our children respect um and and thanks and it's it's just absolutely amazing so thank you and i and i will always come to it and always be a part of it if i'm invited so i just want to thank center street anything else anybody has okay can i have a motion to adjourn second all those in favor say aye all right all those pose nay any abstentions okay thank you see you all oh i hope everybody has a wonderful thanksgiving sorry i forgot that i'm not gonna we're not gonna see each other um and then we will reconvene on the 30th for public hearings