001good evening all I'd like to call to order this regular meeting at the Boston Spa Central School District Board of Education for March 1st 2023 can we all rise for the pledge I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic which it stands one nation under God and indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you good evening everyone and welcome good evening to those watching on the live stream we've got a packed house here for music recognition and just a reminder if there was any reason why we would have to vacate this Library the two exits behind me on either Corner that lead outside and the entrance way out into the hallway would be our methods to exit so I want to welcome everyone back from the
002midwest winter recess we're back at all of our activities academic activities Athletics robotics science olympiads student athletes and section and state tournaments there's a lot going on in the district as always which is wonderful to see and it's wonderful tonight that we're going to do our recognition for music I will let superintendent duka yeah yeah take us off absolutely I'd like to get started let's call Brian runnersdorf up for some music recognition for many many of our students across the district come on up right [Music] uh good evening my name is Brian redderstorf I am the K-12 music coordinator for the Boston spa school district and it is truly a pleasure to be up here tonight we have a record this is the largest number of students we have ever recognized at this event and
003uh it is truly an honor to be able to share this with all of you uh first off though there's a lot of people that make this possible and we'd like to thank the board of education for all of your support the superintendent Dr duka and congratulations by the way we haven't really got to say that to you yet all the administrators community members and especially our music parents and music families our job would not be what it is if it wasn't for all of you bringing them to school bringing their instruments to school making them practice we are truly grateful for all of your support because it makes this all possible um we are here for music in our schools month music in our schools month has been in existence for over 30 years
004to really showcase and highlight the different music departments across the country our music department has been very fortunate in the last six years we have been designated a best communities for music education department with that means we have tremendous support from our Board of Education Administration and more importantly we have more support from our community our student population in our department did not fall with covid our skill level did not go down and as we'll you will see with the case in the numbers we have actually improved in so many different areas our trial music Honor Society has a record of 103 new members or total members this year which is absolutely incredible it's a highlight of what our students are doing not just in the classroom but community service in music and in the
005community uh this year they decided to create post every year we create posters for our Pops concert and this year the posters are absolutely incredible and the posters are for each senior in the department Band program has 42 seniors this year and if you go back 10 years ago 12 years ago there was only eight seniors Orchestra program has over 30 and choir has I think 13 which our numbers again are going up so thank you to triumph which Kelly Seymour and Chelsea Reeves are the advisors for that for creating those they do music spirit days throughout the month of March and they also did cards of encouragement for our elementary band students or student students and choir students um a couple other things you saw them at all the elementary concerts this year at
006all the Middle School and High School concerts they were the one wrangling all the cats trying to get out play their instruments out in the hall running wherever they were absolutely amazing great teachers in the future I cannot wait for all of them to do that um and they make our jobs so much easier leading up to the Pops concert I know you guys want me to stop talking but I got more um we have a pops Cox coming up next Saturday and this is our senior scholarship we give out over 40 awards every year totaling over 2 700 and the only way we really fund it is through our Pops concert tickets are only three dollars please come it's the 912 combined bands 9 12 combined jazz band Orchestra choir and it's a night
007of awesome fun incredible music we start in the cafeteria go to the gymnasium jump to the auditorium and back and finish in the gymnasium it's a great time a lot of fun and our friends of Music which is our next plug is our new uh not for profit charity and booster club for the music department and they need your support they're running the concessions for that and they're also adding 600 in senior scholarships this year and looking to also do middle school scholarships in the future among other things so thank you to friends of music by the way there's a meeting after if anybody wants to join us for that you probably don't but we would love to see you there um last thing and can we pull up that foreign before we get to
008the official recognition you know thank you this year we were recognizing 112 students which is a record our last biggest number I think was 71 so you can see our numbers have skyrocketed we are honoring students from 17 different honor ensembles and that is out of a total in New York state that we offer 19. so we have 17 different honor ensembles being recognized today 24 students who have been designated with two or more honor ensembles or positions eight elected positions for Triumph voted on by the students and a total of 141 designations tonight we did a 912 music survey just to see how involved our kids are and here's just a quick highlight 135 out of our 9 through 12 music students participate in a school sport 24 in different sports some overlap there's
00985 students that currently have played in a Varsity Sport in the last three seasons 203 play a sport outside of school 173 do a school club or activity 26 different clubs and activities are included in that 171 community service members 107 worked during the school year and 147 take a job over the summer 199 have earned some form of a school designation that's whether it's an honor Ensemble principles list by literacy Civic seal of civic engineering this year we have two more members who are possibly in the final salutatorian valedictorian of the class 24 participate in an outside ensemble and really the most important number that is going to help with the next thing is the 39 only 39 of our students study privately yet we had 112 students make it into an honor Ensemble
010this year so not only do we have those 39 going above and beyond but we have so many students working with our dedicated teachers who are increasing their skill their work rate the work the Beautiful music that they're doing and there's your results these kids are so active they're so involved and yet they're still finding time for music they're still finding time to play in those ensembles and they're actually getting scholarships now in college by the way you Albany if anybody out there is going to go to UOB and you're making a plug here they're trying to double the size of their pep band and you're getting scholarships for it money and you don't even have to be a music Major look into it it's awesome awesome stuff with that being said I gotcha um
011it's time to recognize our students thank you for listening to me rant um we're going to call them usually it's by individual we have too many you want to get out of here so we're going to call them up by groups as soon as they're all up here please give them a round of applause we're going to shove them off to it we're going to ask them to go off to the side and we're on TV awesome um we're gonna ask them to step off to the side and we're going to call all the bands up and then we're going to take a group picture hopefully and then we'll do the same with all the other groups without further Ado we'd first like to recognize our all-county 1012 band students coming up a round of
012applause absolutely and while they're doing that because that's going to take a while let's call on up our eight nine students as well please come on up and this is a staggering number it's very unheard of to get a lot of kids in the six seven group and you can see up here just the incredible number of students we have our six seven All County band members come on up and they all look so happy to be here you're gonna do it right there you guys squeeze on in all right thank you guys while they're heading down just uh we're doing our spring musicals coming up troop at the end of this uh March Mean Girls it's going to be a great show half of these students that were up here for the 1012 group
013and the 989 are in the pit as well they're also in the cast they did rehearsal until 5 5 30 today went home maybe got a snack did some work and now they're back here doing this and then some of them are going to robotics they're just amazing students so thank you for that let's go on to our choir we have four different choirs and we'd like to recognize the 1012 mix choir come on up please [Applause] our 912 treble choir come on up she even had to come back and work our seven nine choir please come on up they are here in spirit and our 5-6 choir come on up [Applause] hey guys [Applause] by the way not only the students but all of these people are involved with the show as well and
014have been here straight through since after school they worked with students right after school then they went and did Pit worked with the cast took a tiny little break went and did more work and now they're here so thank you to our staff again [Applause] Orchestra oh they're smart they're coming up before I even call it thank you All County 10-12 Orchestra in this group we also have two people who are already committed to colleges by the way yeah I'm calling you out Reese Ahern setson and Maddie blue have committed to Crane uh Potsdam School of Music all right nine Orchestra please come on up [Applause] and our six seven Orchestra come on please [Applause] foreign [Applause] our next group is the Suburban Council Music Festival we are very fortunate where we live to have
015two different Festival opportunities uh Fulton County Montgomery County where I'm from only has one and it's not even every year that the band students get to do it our students get multiple opportunities so we are very grateful for Suburban Council for being a part of that we would like to call up our Middle School band members please come forward here we have our high school course all orchestra's coming up too all right Orchestra come on up [Applause] and our high school core students come on up please [Applause] can't walk away yet they're in the picture by the way to get into these ensembles these students have to work outside of the school day learn a solo perform a solo on the weekend for one judge them and the other judge in the room maybe with
016an accompanist practice for six months hope to get a good score and then they have to apply against all the other different students in the county or in the council for the capital region win Ensemble which is a Professional Organization they go through the same process to have students perform with them at a professional level and they do three rehearsals and then perform at the concert and these students with their nisma scores and recommendation from teachers were selected this year to participate in the capital region when Ensemble please come on up [Applause] you're good to go [Applause] and our last honor Ensemble the zone seven area I'll say area Allstate is the second highest level in the state that you can be a part of and we were fortunate enough to have this many students
017I can't do the math even though it's very little at this point um to get four students in the area Allstate band to get three in the orchestra and to get two in the choir is quite the achievement and we would like to call I'm just going to call them all up at once come on up [Applause] and last but not least our trium music officers not only are they doing their ensembles they're doing honor ensembles they are purchasing clubs and activities they're somehow finding time to meet on Tuesdays and then on Thursdays with everybody else to try and get them organized and motivated and doing things across the district and in the community so we'd like to recognize our different members our president Maddie Burns vice president membership Madison blue Selena Selena Bayer teal
018secretary Maddie Wilson vice president Lee McKinley Brook kearly and Charlotte tan treasures and our publicist Fiona Hughes come on up please [Applause] all right thank you I promise next year I'll find a shorter way of doing this um but thank you for giving us this platform to do this board of education everybody we are truly grateful I true I say this to everybody I'm grateful to be in the Boston spot Central School District I am grateful for the support that this department has and I would not trade it for anywhere else thank you everybody for everything and thank you to our students families and you guys and I'm sorry just one moment I'd also just like throw in there um congratulations to all our students this is an incredible achievement you know music education and
019music um skill is something that you can carry with you your entire life it could go much past your your high school or your college Years with Community bands Community orchestras Community Theater groups and their need for musicians it's truly something that you could carry with you the rest of your life I'd like to throw out a special thank you to all the parent caregivers grandparents Guardians who are supportive of our students and I'll just end by saying You must be doing wonderful work because while we were doing the pledge of allegiance the choir back here was doing it in harmony thank you all do you have anything else [Applause] and we will just take a moment for everyone to leave and head out thank you you're doing the certificates oh yeah for sure that's
020great yeah okay thank you okay we're ready to resume uh next on our agendas our first public comment period as I always do I'll read our guidance for public comment the Board of Education welcomes District residents parents and other interested persons to its meeting Community involvement at board meetings is encouraged that the board can better understand and represent the views of its constituents Please be aware whoever that information such as individual student information or particular Personnel issues cannot be discussed at public sessions of the board speakers will be called upon individually when recognized by the board president will be asked to approach the podium state your name and residence statements are restricted to a maximum of two minutes speakers will be notified by the board president when his or her time is expired when we
021get to the two-minute Mark I will ask you to please conclude your comments your comments should be addressed to the board as a whole not to any particular member of the administration or the board the board and the District staff take the public comment very seriously the board will not respond to comments or questions during the public comment period the board asks the Public's cooperation of maintaining a safe and respectful environment the board president reserves the right to limit individual comments if it is deemed necessary to achieve this speakers will not make slanderous attacks on any group organization or individual a member of the board an employee of the district a member of the audience or a member of the public speakers will not use profane vulgar threatening or disparaging language or racial or ethnic
022slurs speakers will not please disrupt the meeting with loud outbursts or other disruptive conduct or behavior either during the speaker's assigned time or at any other time during the meeting speakers understand that a failure to comply with these rules for maintaining respectful and productive environment may result in early termination of the speaker's allotted time a denial of future requests to speak any other actions deemed necessary by the president of the board or where appropriate in the matter of healthy health and safety measures the superintendent of schools we do have a people signed up for comment and first is Joshua memos I hope I said that correct please approach the podium hello state your name and residence and then you can begin uh my name is Joshua memos uh residents I live in Boston spa and
023that I'm sorry you can begin oh my comment yeah yeah I actually forgot my comment okay if you do not have comment that's fine yep you were just on the sign-in sheet oh okay I didn't know it was on the side sheet okay well then I apologize if we put you on the spot no worries no worries this was a public comment sheet not just a attendant signing oh okay yeah I was looking for the agenda sign in for the for the meeting okay well I mean while I'm here I may as well say that Boston spa is the best high school around yeah thank you you're welcome thank you we're all set next uh up is um Steve galish thank you as was said my name is Steve galish I live in the town
024of Milton I like to take this opportunity to not only to address the board but also the taxpayers and all the parents pretty much sums up everyone on January 4th of this year I attended a Board of Education meeting as one of your administrators was attempting to explain the results of the State Testing conducted in May frankly I'm having a little difficulty understanding all the numbers presented in all honesty I haven't seen so many numbers in one place since NASA was attempting to achieve lunar orbit in Apollo 8. but as a former manager a much bigger business than our school district I've Seen It All Before there's a wonderful saying by the world famous 20th century philosopher WC Fields who said if you can't Dazzle them with Brilliance then baffle them with I think you
025know the rest I find it hard to believe if not impossible that our board members were able to adequately decipher much of the information provided but let me provide you with a few numbers I was able to extract from the presentation in grades third through fifth there was less than 42 percent Proficiency in ela also there was a less than 54 percent efficient Proficiency in math in grades six through eight less than 55 Proficiency in Lea Ela I'm sorry less than fifty per seven percent efficiency in math and a staggering 13 Proficiency in math for grades eight there's one last number I want to leave you with or share with you twenty four thousand five hundred and twenty one actually that's twenty four thousand five hundred and twenty one dollars that is the number two
026of the number of cost for educating one child repeat one child in this school frankly based on this numbers provided involving Proficiency in math and Ela I find that poor testing results highly disturbing there's an old saying there's another old saying that says you get what you pay for well I'm sorry to say that might be true in some cases but I dare say it doesn't seem to apply to the children in Boston spa firmly I firmly believe our money's being wasted nevertheless I must confess that this is not solely the fault of the responsibility of our school teachers or Administration here in Boston spa all parents including the folks who are here right now and the folks that are viewing this on the computer they have at least a 50 percent share in that
027responsibility in fact truth be told the number is much higher in fact I believe that the parent is a hundred percent responsibility for their child's what their child learns or doesn't learn is the sole responsibility to teach values to our children such as discipline respect hard work persistence fairness courtesy honor integrity and determination just to name a few it is your soul I'm still talking to the parents here it is your sole responsibility to get involved in the lives of your children and hold this school and its Administration accountable if you don't think please conclude don't think for a minute the school responsibilities who teach such things because it's not most School administrations and many teachers are so woke they won't be able to Define what a woman is is again the success of our
028children is always always always been and ends begins and ends at home to allow schools to teach their beliefs is a complete abrogation of your responsibility as a mom and dad [Music] thank you for your comment that concludes our first public comments period next up our Student Government report good evening everyone I hope everyone had a great break on March 7th and 8th the senior class is holding their annual dodgeball tournament in the high school gym from four to eight and admission to both of those days is two dollars the junior class will be hosting a volleyball tournament on March 18th from 12 to 4 in the Gordon Creek gym on March 15th members of student government will be attending a leadership conference hosted by the Saratoga Springs student council in addition we will be
029hosting one in school on April 21st where members from all of the high school clubs will meet to discuss how we can best support them as well as discuss what they would like to see happen in the high school moving forward student government is hosting our Spring Fling dance on April 21st from 7 to 10 in the high school cafeteria and finally student government is helping middle school students with a drive to support a local veterinary shelter this drive is taking place in the high school middle school Gordon Creek and Malta Ave from March 7th through the 17th information regarding specific items to be collected in each building will be distributed on Monday March 6 from Mrs Brandt in the middle school I believe this drive is one of the community projects being completed in
030the Middle School pilot program thank you very much and uh if you wish to excuse yourselves go ahead out please do so next up on the agendas are approval of minutes may I have a motion to approve the minutes for the February 8th 2023 regular meeting any amendments or additions okay not hearing any all those in favor uh I opposed abstentions minutes are approved next up is our superintendent's report thank you tonight we have two reports and first I would like to welcome Mrs Pam mottler and Miss Kim pusateer um on up and they are going to provide a professional development overview what is just forward it oh okay just some Logistics here so good evening I appreciate the time tonight to talk to you about professional development in our district and it's important to
031say that I think that professional development here in Boston spa has changed pretty dramatically I would say in the last few years [Music] um no it didn't forward um so this is a slide of our professional development committee members there are 28 district-wide and a few years back the committee makeup looked about the same but we operated very very differently there is no professional development department in this District I have oversight of professional development but I could not do the work without this committee without Kim pusateer who is the chair of the committee we also pulled a teacher out of retirement Allison Paley used to teach Middle School English and we could not co-chair five subcommittees without the help of Allison as well so I think it is important to say that our department here
032is a group of investigated investiga invested educator volunteers so this is like a three and a half year overview that I'll try to go through rather quickly so as I said we had a committee of uh about 30 teachers teaching assistants and administrators we met um once monthly for about an hour and so four or five years ago the charge of the committee mostly was planning superintendents conference days planning all of the learning activities for staff for those Department um for those conference days excuse me our other charge which is um pretty important and it's still our charge is to update the professional development plan every district has one you as a board approve that plan ours happens to be a three-year plan so every three years that committee has to revise and make edits
033and update and then submit it to be approved lastly the group would meet once a month and brainstorm like possible trainings that we think were important and the problem is that we would meet for an hour and we would talk about these great ideas and then we would leave and then we would come back for an hour and pick up talking about the idea and then leave so the the enemy here was time to actually build some of the things that we kept talking about building so why we changed how we operate we we have a philosophy that professional development plays a role in retaining employees and good professional development has these three facets to learn early and often make learning a ritual and provide coaching we have the capacity to do all of this
034if we have the time to build it so where we are now 2023 we still meet an hour a month as a whole committee we assess and identify needs that we have in the district we prioritize uh five of those a year and then we form subcommittees and those subcommittees work on addressing the needs of those top five priorities the difference is those subcommittees and Kim and I and Allison chair all of them we go to all of the work sessions they are not meetings where we're talking about uh you know getting ready to get ready to do the thing we meet for half day work sessions sometimes full day work sessions and we build the thing and when we leave for the day it's ready to be offered to be put in our front
035line system and and be offered as a training so uh we'll delve into the five subcommittees and the first one is the new hire subcommittee this actually was the first subcommittee we ever formed and it came out of a need to on board our new employees in in a in a more thorough uh meaningful way four years ago here is the agenda and this was our one day agenda for Summer Orientation for new employees right so it's about six hours um you know with with out counting lunch it was meeting a lot of people a curriculum a K-12 curriculum overview some technology but a lot of introducing to our different district office departments those people who run those departments and um and then I think maybe bargaining units had like 15 15 minutes to speak
036with folks so that's what it did look like and if we talk about um you know learning early and often we wanted to build something to prepare our teachers to feel more confident uh to to walk in on the first day and work the first days and the first weeks and then you know continue to offer them things throughout the year so now we have a three day orientation and I won't read the agenda to you um but it it is enough time now we have sort of one-off trainings in things that we think are important like effective communication and how to utilize a teaching assistant um we did move the bus tour I will say also for like 17 years the bus tour used to fall in mid afternoon um and uh our employees
037were suffocating so no offense Stuart it wasn't it wasn't Stewart's tour it was the midday Sun so we moved it to just you know we ate breakfast and got on the bus before it was sweltering hot so um and this was you know meeting a lot of our district office personnel and our administrators but day two you can see was was a curriculum day you know and they they had the whole day with our curriculum director secondary had the whole day with um their instructional teacher leaders or department heads to look at Curriculum maps to be given their pacing guides and resource guides and the third uh day they spent with their mentors every new hire gets a mentor and they also had time to spend in the building that they were going to be
038working in uh for I think it was yeah half day after lunch they ate with the principal and then the mentor sort of showed the Malay of the land in their own buildings and previously they would come and see this library and not ever see their building until the first day that they worked here so we're pretty proud of that we do have great feedback we survey them this will be the third summer doing it this way and we do survey them in September to ask them what they think that we should change for the next year uh just some offerings now throughout the year for those new hires release time half days for curriculum and assessment and then all of the after school trainings that all of our employees are eligible to to take
039they also can take all of those uh our next subcommittee is our per diem substitute subcommittee so a subcommittee for Subs two things are true about Subs uh one of them is that they impact what we do every day it it greatly interrupts our operations when there aren't enough subs and right now there aren't enough and we're competing with the neighboring districts to secure substitutes so um we had to look at you know what do you think that it is you know where are all the subs where you know and where are they going if they're not working here well money could be a factor but we did look for two years in a row at our comp for substitutes and the rest of our BOCES and there were only two districts who pay more
040than we pay so then you look at maybe proximity or familiarity with the district right and we can't tackle proximity we can't make people move we can't pay for their gas so what we decided to tackle was um familiarity so we created a per diem substitute handbook specific to our district that all of our subs have um we created a teacher guide for Effective substitute plans so that our teachers were leaving plans that were easier for substitutes to navigate we also built a five-hour professional online course specifically for our substitutes now all of the substitutes to be able to certify uh to be able to substitute in our district and in any District they have to take an online compliance course and this is not that this is specific to what we do here to
041familiarize them with what we do here so they'll be more comfortable coming in and subbing for us and that is a paid training they can take it at home they can take it one hour at a time take their time as soon as they complete five hours they submit and we give them one day per diem substitute pay and Kim is going to take our last three good evening thank you um our third subcommittee is the book study committee we took a deep look on the protocols surrounding how they were proposed and so forth and we revised our requirements this committee needs to review all review and approve all book studies before they're entered into our catalog we also recognized that inventorying and cataloging our resources and for a lack better term was all over
042the map so we decided to tackle that we spent considerable time here in the high school library and inventoried and then created a professional development catalog and entered each resource into our electronic library system so now the books can be checked out by staff if they wish to take part in a formal book study or actually just independently investigate something our fourth subcommittee which is brand new this year is our professional practice subcommittee this subcommittee emerged from surveying staff regarding their PD professional development needs and wants these are a 10 hour series that can be treated as Standalone learnings or taken as part of a whole series meaning that one our offerings are not a prereq prerequisite and they don't build upon each other but rather a menu of offerings that a person can choose
043to sign up for according to their interests and the amount of time that they're able to devote some folks have taken part in one or two offerings some have taken part in the old 10 series or all 10 offerings our first series was the academic series focused on classroom environment it included offerings such as building classroom Community differentiation strategies family engagement and understanding Why students are distracted our second series which is offered currently the spring semester is the staff Wellness series which focuses on the seven Dimensions of Wellness which are physical emotional intellectual social spiritual environmental and Vocational a sampling of our offerings are rest or best food is fuel the power of pause in mindfulness for your well um well-being it's important to point out as Pam referenced earlier that we couldn't build these
044Series without the dedication of our staff who are committed to providing professional development all of our facilitators for each of our offerings are our own staff members our fifth subcommittee is professional learning communities or commonly referred to as plcs so we looked at what makes a professional Learning Community authentic and what makes them authentic is the purpose for educators to engage in continuous learning and the members of the PLC to make a decision about what they will learn and how what they learn will serve their students the attributes of the plcs are listed here in our Boston spa plc's check each of these boxes structural structural conditions simply means that the district provides the time and resources for the group to meet supportive relation conditions our offers respect refers to the respectful interactions and Trust
045as all members are learning together and no individual is an expert in the room intentional collective learning refers back to the autonomy of the group to be able to decide what they are collectively all feel they deem important to research and learn here supporting peers incorporates the freedom to visit others classrooms if a classroom practice is identified by someone with an exemplary approach or if someone identifies themselves as needing support or assistance in a particular approach shared supportive leadership refers to operating an environment where the organization supports staff members taking leadership roles once they grow in competency as a result of their participation in the PLC this would be most commonly referred to as TurnKey training or offering a workshop to share what they learned with staff members who did not take part in the
046original plc we are in our third year of running plc's and currently we offer 13. the subcommittee reviews all the PC PLC proposals which are created by staff members for breadth and depth the of a topic and sometimes we will combine similar plcs and we see repeated proposals or at times what we'll do is reduce the topic to a one our Workshop to determine if there's enough interest to build the PLC around the topic currently just a sampling of our offerings our Multicultural sensitivity supporting a healthy work-life balance behavior management strategies trauma-informed teaching and the science of reading we can certainly provide you with a list in more detail about any of the subconscious wish any questions I have two things um just to clarify book study is for the professional Academia nothing to do
047with students I just want to make that very clear yes okay and then um I would just like to say as an educator having educators of all types on the committee for helping to develop their professional development is very meaningful and I commend you for that I really appreciate that thank you other questions yes please um well I really like the The Substitute because obviously we are buying for people that live in their General vicinity and how can we be more of the employer of choice even for for substitutes I know you said you had the five hour program does that could you also incorporate that as to maybe an on-site similar orientation like tour to tell substitutes hey here's Balsa Spa here's what we look like and maybe you already do this with uh
048how a typical orientation would go for a substitute but is that something you currently do and if not is that something you could incorporate into the five hour thing you talk about uh that and and talk about we have a number of Subs who uh recently most recently in the last two years we advertise for building subs and um that's someone who will come and sub per diem every day the the beauty of it for a per diem sub is that they know where they're going every single day they might not know what class they're subbing for we talked about those types of folks joining and doing something over the summer um and but the problem is uh you know paying them for that it would it would have to come later um they they
049get paid during a school year but it's something we can look at yeah okay and I guess the other thing is just any other perks that we can make both Spa a better thing you know I would free lunch while you're working preferred parking spaces closer to the building to something along those lines but just throw that out there so thank you thank you I would like to you know I mean as a teacher I teach sixth grade social studies I think I need clear plans well you know getting feedback from the sub that hey you know some plans you know they see a whole family plan so that was helpful which led to the teacher guy after we did the training um we surveyed them again and said now that you have this training
050what else do you need what we're currently working on that so we're trying to reach out to them to give us feedback to what our things would make them more interested and willing to work here every day rather than a neighborhood District other questions comments yes Julia um yeah just really Echo Katie's comment about you know sort of really involving the community of Educators and polling and and really what you all are doing is you know the sort of crowdsourcing and the drilling down to specific topics and getting that in-depth kind of training sounds really great I just had a question about the new the orientation for new teachers about how many new teachers are you talking about annually and you know in a just sort of or does it vary year to year just
051trying to get a sense of that scope yeah so my my first summer in this role um was like the biggest hiring season in in you know a decade and a half or something like that and I think we had 46 new employees last year we had 20 23 you know teachers but then you know other groups of new employees as well so it it varies any other questions comments I just had one um excuse me a follow-up on the uh The Substitute um planning guides is that actually a uniform template so that when a teacher comes in um they'll see the same template same information same space all the time we're getting there you know secondary and Elementary we're also getting there you know some some buildings are still leaving plans electronically uh from
052from our covid time when we went electronic some have gone back to folders we meet with uh building principals secretaries who are typically the the folks who sign in all of our subs we just had a meeting with them a couple of weeks ago to talk about all of this stuff and and getting things a little more uniform as we move on I think that would be incredibly efficient for our staff but also incredibly useful and potentially a positive selling point to our our perspective substitutes you know as you said someone who's either a building sub where they're all over a particular building or you know at the elementary level they might be in fourth grade one day second grade one day third grade the other day but if they're looking at the same exact
053form every single time regardless of where they are I think that could be very comforting you know and very much positive thing for them so any any efforts in forward movement in that direction would just be wonderful I think and potentially if it's like a fill-in form sort of thing for our staff members to film nodding and smiling because it's all things we've thought of before but some some some people uh have habits in in the way they do things and so we're we're pulling them along right well well any step is a step yes you know it's a step of progress so baby steps I understand that's wonderful great thank you okay okay siriani for another budget presentation okay good okay so good evening everyone so tonight's presentation is going to be a little
054bit shorter than uh the other ones that you'll be seeing in even the last one I'm just going to do one section of the budget and that is going to be the general support section so you've seen this every year for quite a few years this is General support the budget is broken up into General support instruction and then Debt Service and fringe benefits and this is the front end of the budget it includes all the areas that you see there and it's up 3.3 right now is the projection so where is that coming from so you can break down uh Central uh you know into three category Central offices facilities and District services so Central offices of just what you think it's the Board of Education Superintendent's Office business office HR Etc um tax
055collection purchasing you name it facilities are literally the facilities the operations and maintenance of the district and building security and then District services are things like Central I.T management it's our servers our Network things like this attorneys it's actually a big piece of this is actually a BOCES charge for both these services for administrative fees so Central offices is up uh 1.1 percent facilities is up quite a bit and that's what I want to talk about and then District Services is 2.3 remember we've been facing uh inflation rates of six seven eight percent uh over the last year and our battle this year is to you know contain that and not let that impact uh the budget and that's what we're trying to do we were able to accomplish that with Central offices and District
056Services facilities we have been able to do that but not to the same degree and and this now breaks down uh that facilities into those three categories operations that's literally the operation of the building when you think of the custodians electricity gas all those things cleaning that's all in there maintenance is the maintenance staff that's HVAC all the subsystems you know mechanical electrical Plumbing uh that's all in there also grounds is in that maintenance area and then of course building security most of that is our sros but in includes lots of things associated with like the front desks and the badging and software for you know looking up people who arrive at the school district and other security systems security system monitoring Etc so it's it it's really kind of self-explanatory there isn't any mystery
057there but let's look at operations uh what is what is going on with operations well it's utilities so down at the bottom of the screen there I've listed the two budget numbers for last year and the upcoming year the projection is uh up 15 percent so right now we expect that you know on our budget of 850 000 we're going to spend a little bit over a million dollars so we're well over that budget that actually obviously has to do with the the changing cost in electricity and natural gas and that's what's included there we're hoping to um you know contain that for next year we're hoping that the price of those two you know Commodities are going down and we're going to be able to capture that with some of the things that we're
058doing and changing how we purchase and how we're scheduling the buildings it's not easy these buildings seem to be particularly the high school is in service and have people in it you know all hours of the day and even on the weekends and we've got to find ways to manage that the good news is is that over the last you know 15 years as I've talked to you before we've been able to update all of our hva system all right so that that takes electricity and natural gas for you know the heating and cooling and a part of that is the control systems and I won't look everybody with this but there are control systems on all these that are now all digital control systems that we have a much better grasp of when the
059systems are on how they're working if there's a malfunction you know what are the temperatures what are they what are we aiming for and we do all those things electronically now and we have a wealth of information that we didn't have even 15 years ago it used to be an old attic system and if you know that kind of system there's compressors and it pushes the air and then you turn the thing on and off and you know if you've been in any building even modern Office Buildings it seems like you know one one area is hot one area is cold well we're much better at that now because of uh the money that's been spent on the facilities over the last few years but let's just take a little look uh further in on
060those utilities I I went back in time because I remember back when I first got here in 2005 I remember that we were over a million four that we were paying for electricity and gas now this is the actual expenses you know and I took some time periods and so back in 2007-2008 this was pre-all the construction okay so one thing that's happened there's really two things that are causing this one is is the improvement in our systems but also uh into the late you know teens there and early 20s there was a dramatic decrease in the cost of natural gas and that was a great thing for us and everybody everybody that that uses natural gas but back uh before the buildings were renovated and before that that change we were spending about a
061million three a year uh for our electric and gas it started to go down all right both in terms of the cost and in terms of the efficiency of the systems and you can see that in 2014-15 and then even further in between 1920 um you know we're down into the 700 000 range now like I said uh you know in 2023 we expect to be over a million dollars the budget in 2022 was 8.45. uh that I'd like to say I'm a genius and I figured that out but that's not true that was pure luck you know you can't predict the weather the other piece of all this is the weather and you know we've had some mild Winters but that isn't as much of a an impact as the cost of the gas
062and the efficiency of the systems so and I I find this interesting I think maybe you know law does too but nobody else but we we enjoy looking at this and it's helpful because it's telling you and then we want to find out well why and then we dig into this and we're looking at these things and I mean that's a half that's a half a million dollars difference in that time period that we're saving annually all right when you look at a million three versus eight hundred thousand and that that helped the budget for years unfortunately right now we're going to see that kick up a little bit and again we only went up if I I don't know if I can go back but um we're only up to the uh the figure
063was uh you know 981 and you know again there's a lot of assumptions there and nobody you know can know where the weather's going to be or what the next Crisis is on on you know energy but surely the the war in in Europe has impacted the cost of natural gas and we've seen that dramatically so anyways um that is the reason for that increase in uh the operations or uh yes in operations if that wasn't there when I showed you the figure that was operations was 5.4 and then the total of facilities was 4.3 percent increase without that change in utilities would only be 2.3 so the way we were able to do that and and this is another piece of all this is um we're seeing large increases you can imagine with covid
064and with uh the cleaning of the buildings we have large expenses in cleaning all right and all of the chemicals all of the paper products that we use have gone up significantly over the last two years and what we've done is we basically have kept those those budgets the same we're looking at different ways to do it uh we're trying to we're hoping that the cost will come down there's a little bit of uh hope uh in you know ingrained in this budget but we have to and I think it's going to happen inflation is already coming down the cost of a lot of the products is kind of leveled off and and we look ahead and we buy and volume up we do all those things that you know a large organization will do
065um but the trend is is the trend and we have to be careful of that but to be at 2.3 minus those utilities is is well below inflation um and and hopefully is a good representation of what we've been doing to contain costs so what are the challenges in in facilities and security I I used this last time for transportation and one you know the number one item is inflation again if we didn't if we hadn't had to increase that that uh uh utility line we'd be at about a two percent increase uh and that's pretty awesome uh quite frankly um new athletic fields we've got the new field to the South actually it's this way um and uh that's a big field and it's putting a strain on our facility staff we have no
066new grounds staff at this time and we're gonna work on that and how we're going to handle that and I'll talk about that in a second and the other thing we're having the same problem in facilities as we do with the busting staff is that we're having an employee recruitment problem you know if we pay 17 an hour that used to be a great wage now you can get that at uh you know the local fast foods uh place and um it's been a problem for uh filling out our cleaning and custodian staff so uh we're working on that and we have uh some ideas on how we're handling that I just point out every year you know the size of uh the district uh the buildings are uh just a tad over 742 thousand
067uh square feet uh we have 202 Acres about 150 of that is is under management about uh 50 of it over at Wood Road actually uh is not you know it's just woods and it's not being used um and the buildings as you can see the last building was of course the Gordon Creek in 2013 and the first building in 1900 which is you know the district office so a wide range of buildings but all those buildings now have new subsystems and to me that that you know I'm not an instructional person I'm a background in that but I'm a business person and I understand those buildings and the money that we can save by taking care of them and planning in the long term on those um so what are some of the initiatives
068initiatives that we're doing here long-range planning is critical to this we're already looking at you know out we have a we have a actually a 10-year uh long-range plan in facilities but really it's it's really tight in in the first five years and the next the next five years is really placeholders for things that we know we need to have uh the number of items that were on that list when I got here in 2005 were dramatic and unbelievable and seemed overwhelming uh they're not anymore the the the district's facilities are good they'll be good for another 15 20 years we do have uh some roof projects that have to come up in the next year or two but nothing like the uh the projects where we've done where originally it was you know 50
069million dollars and then uh 25 million dollars so um that's all good news but that takes planning and we need to stay on top of that uh Cost Containment we're looking at you know the old labor versus Capital uh formula and how do we how do we buy equipment that can substitute for some of the labor hours that we have and it's even more important now because we can't get the employees so when you take for example the field space and the additional Fields what we need are bigger more efficient mowers to deal with all those athletic fields that we have and and less people we don't need we don't need 10 people on 10 tractors and need one guy on one tractor and uh so there's a there's a trade-off between the costs and
070those things and we're working on that and the other thing is we're trying to find the right mix of full-time employees part-time employees and third-party vendors to do some of the the work that needs to be done in the district and again I'm talking about operations and that mix is difficult to find because part-time labor is almost kind of disappeared uh unbelievably I mean we used to have four or five substitute bus drivers that could Sub in at any time we have zero now zero will take that job as a sub because they don't necessarily get called in and they just won't take it so without part-timers and that applies to custodians too we're really with this whole part-time labor our excuse me full-time labor and what will we need to move out if we
071can't get it done a part of an example of that for example is snow plowing uh we we've got some of the equipment to do that we have some of the people to do that but when we get a big storm which we haven't had I mean no storm that we've had this year well there was once kind of last year has required us to go to our contracts we put in place contracts and you the board sees them where we have people in place ready to do things uh recently or if it's on the agenda now there's an excavation contract where where a couple two years ago we had a water main break over at uh the uh Wood Road complex we can immediately call on this third party contractor to come in and
072dig that thing up and be ready to go so that we're you know we we had to close school that day but then we could move on and so again the the how we do that mix of part-time full-time and contractors is a big deal and it's it's helped us allow or excuse me allowed us to control and offset the changes in inflation that we're seeing on everything we buy you can imagine for example copier paper I mean we were buying it at one point about five years ago for like fifteen dollars uh you know for one of those cartons and now it's you know sometimes it hits 30 on an open market and you know we don't buy like that so we don't have to overpay that but we might have to pay twenty
073dollars well that's a that's a significant number in a place that uses so much copy paper okay so um that's it for tonight uh we have we're going to go continue to go through each of the sections of the budget over the next uh two months and uh it's gonna really get busy at the end um and you know hopefully we'll have it to you and you'll be comfortable with it all when we when we're finished all right so now that law and I have had a good time anybody else have any questions yes I do have one you mentioned um the scheduling of the buildings I assume that's kind of for Energy savings like is there a broader plan of like for example the middle school doesn't seem to be in use as much
074as the high school because they use these facilities so like our lights and temperatures absolutely so the you know these are these are the setback temperatures so at certain times of the day now we can go on you go onto a computer and you can set when the systems will shut down when they will start up they're on a preset schedule and then actually what happens it's kind of the reverse is that you know like let's say the middle school isn't being used is that if it is being used then we have to go in and manually add it back I don't know if you noticed this last summer there was a couple at least one night of the board meeting where the heat all or the air conditioning all went off and it got
075very hot in here because somebody forgot to push the the time out for the setback on that air conditioning for the board meeting and and and so it's it's kind of the opposite we don't we don't take it away we only add it when we have have to and and so that's that's what we're working on and um it's again it's a lot easier at the elementary schools but the high school is just the high school and it is I've you know I've been at many many distance different school districts and and it's it's it's open it's open it's open but it's again it's it's very efficient we've got our Cogen plant um and so we're in good shape here uh compared to a lot of schools with the big high school all right do
076you think it's right it feeds right into my question with the code gem plant um when did that go online how long is it well I mean originally went online I think in 2002 okay so I just was wondering if it was in that time period that you showed where you went back to 20. no no it was it was here when I when way back on the one million threes one million fours it was already running back then okay it was part of the building bill which was 1998 right but it it didn't get it wasn't part of the original uh build and then it was added as a part of like the supplemental for that so it wasn't 98 when it was finished it was like 2000 2002. so okay um so it
077was yeah it was original that and then we just replaced that about two years ago um you know it finished up you know not last summer but the summer before and it was a a you know a change out of all the equipment in modernization gotcha and that runs off of natural gas natural gas so yeah so it it helps us but it hasn't helped us that much because natural gas in particular has changed the most that we've had to deal with right exactly it's kind of a you know balance of cost of electricity versus the cost of natural gas um I think once before you said it provides 90 of electricity it can it'll be between 70 and 90 for the whole not just this building but the middle school too the middle school
078too okay it's all connected these two buildings are all all together HVAC systems electrical systems everything is together which is both good and bad it causes some trouble but you know it's all broken down into you know quarters and rooms and and Etc gotcha um all right thank you very much okay all right see you next time uh just one more thing because I do find these very interesting um understand the whole balance between having facilities open and available trying to be as efficient as possible with the maintenance and upkeep and the cost associated with them you know just thinking about the fields and um you know the fencing we have around them the availability for them the ability to maintain them year after year so that we extend their lifespan and we don't have
079a big cost you know sooner rather and later we can push that out and and for the building so what is your time frame for like when you sort of do the review and say well okay you know how did we do with say our our temperature and utility usage in the Middle School versus when it was open you know and all that like how how efficient were we at that Balancing Act do you need a couple of years worth to do that or well we look at it every year because we have to and and we try to look at a lot of it every month and that's what we break down is because you know your electrical bill and your your gas bill and and there's other utilities I mean there's water and
080telephone et cetera but you know like telephone doesn't ever change at this point um but we we look at it annual and one of the things that we did a couple years ago and I you may remember this is we hired a an engineer and we've got a nyserda grant and this fella came in and he went through and basically after all of the work was done to set and and and optimize all of the settings in the district on all the systems across all the buildings and so just even this fall we were looking at that because you know we so that was like a year ago when he did it because the plant was put in place so then we're looking at it and see how we're comparing and you know the the
081it's a lot of work because you've got to mix out your heating Degree Days your cooling degree days and your changes in your your cost of utilities versus your your uh efficiency if you want for lack of a better term so it's not an easy calculation um I would say that um in another year or so we'll we'll have a good grasp and we'll have historical data on that plant and and for the other facilities uh to know but what we do know is all you have to do is like a classic example is to look at Milton Terrace it's always it used to be Milton Terrace North and now it's Milton Terrace and it's all new and the the amount of electricity and gas it used just went like that after it was renovated
082and so we know that now we've got to keep it there and make sure that the that all of the settings continue to be you know looked at and adjusted and and you know who knows I mean we'll we'll see how it plays out but hopefully you know natural gas will come down and we'll be in a better place and we'll be able to get back into the seven and eight hundred thousand dollars a year range okay thank you very much does that conclude the superintendent's report it does it does okay committee reports I don't believe we have committee reports tonight correspondence uh Dr duga correspondents to the district uh seven total this time we had two phone calls regarding student matters five emails two regarding student matter uh one regarding the stop arm camera
083one regarding a book Challenge and one regarding tomorrow night's eighth grade parent night just some a little bit more information on that okay and correspondence to the board since the last meeting we've received two emails one email regarding a social media posting and one email regarding bilingual programs and then the board is also cc'd on a few emails that generally are the ones that um Dr Duke is referencing announcements Mr Williams good evening so today's March 1st we started the universal Pre-K enrollment period so it goes on throughout the month but we encourage everybody who's interested in the Universal pre-k program to come out and learn more about it and to apply for it so that goes on throughout the month of March the eighth grade parent night you just heard about was is hosted
084by the high school tomorrow night they have a several there's four different sessions throughout the evening people don't have to go necessarily at all four sessions but they're available for everybody if you want to learn about what happens when the students come up to ninth grade so it's for the current eighth grade parents to get up here and learn what's going to happen next year as they go into 9th grade next week on the 8th they have the how the high school college Jump Start program and again that's for parents to get in here and learn more about the financial aid programs the college application programs actually that one's virtual so they don't even have to come in here so they can learn about that there's I think three College speakers that are lined up
085for that as well and the same night on the 8th we have our district-wide kindergarten orientation that's going to be in person and virtual so people can that are have the newest students coming in for next fall come and learn more about the programs that's hosted over in the Milton Terrace Wood Road we call it the cafetorium at 6 30 on the 8th and then that weekend our students go to the OM Regional competition it's being hosted by Glens Falls High School we have several teams throughout the district and students are all getting geared up for that so it's a it's a full Saturday program if you're interested it's fun to attend as well as they always need volunteers in that evening you heard Mr rogersdorf referred to the Pops concert so that's on that
086Saturday night on the 11th and your high school spring Sports start already on the 13th so it's already time for springtime so that's it unless you have any questions uh seven o'clock I just want one for tomorrow night we're anticipating a lot of eighth grade families going up to Glens Falls so we're going to record a few of the sessions and then post them later so people don't miss a couple of the informational sessions good any other announcements from board members okay old business any old Business from The District old business members time to new business I have a motion to approve resolution number 439 establishment of voter registration day second any discussion not hearing any all those in favor I I opposed abstentions resolution number 439 passes I have a motion to approve resolution
087number 440 appointment of machine custodian second any discussion not hearing any all those in favor I opposed abstentions resolution number 440 passes I have a motion to approve resolution number 441 appointment of chairperson Chief inspectors and election inspectors second any discussion not hearing any all those in favor aye opposed abstentions resolution number 441 passes I have a motion to approve resolution number 442 appointment District committee on special education second any discussion not hearing any all those in favor I supposed abstentions resolution number 442 passes you have a motion to approve a resolution number 443 appointment of special education subcommittees second any discussion not hearing any olives in favor all right opposed extensions resolution number 443 passes I have a motion to approve resolution number 444 appointment committee on preschool special education second any discussion not
088hearing any all those in favor opposed extensions resolution number 444 passes I have a motion to approve resolution number 445 extension of bid General excavation services second any discussion not hearing any all those in favor opposed abstentions resolution number 445 passes we have a motion to approve resolution number 446 obsolete equipment second any discussion not hearing any all those in favor I opposed abstentions resolution number 446 passes I have a motion to approve resolution number 447 budget transfers second any discussion not hearing any all those in favor I opposed abstentions resolution number 447 passes I have a motion to approve resolution number 448 field trip High School second any discussion not hearing any all those in favor I opposed abstentions resolution number 448 passes if I have a motion to approve resolution number 449 field
089trip High School second any discussion not hearing any all those in favor I opposed abstentions resolution number 449 passes you have a motion to approve resolution number 450 field trip High School second any discussion do we know what what's the event at Yucatan Mexico that they're going to so it is sponsored by a club I believe and it is for scientific academic studies there the um the application for the field trip had a one-page description of all the activities that would take in place there apparently it was something that did take place pre-covered they had gone a number of years to there and I was actually going to comment that it's wonderful that they're able to to bring this back up per uh you know post covet and uh and yeah there was more information
090it was in the application it was in the folder okay I just didn't see this one in the folder maybe I browse passive or whatever um but thank you for the explanation yeah okay I appreciate it yep any other questions discussion not hearing any all those in favor all right opposed abstentions resolution number 450 passes I have a motion to approve resolution number 451 placement of students with disabilities second any discussion not hearing any all those in favor I opposed abstentions resolution number 451 passes I have a motion to approve resolution number 452 placement of preschool students with disabilities second any discussion not hearing any all those in favor aye aye opposed extensions resolution number 452 passes resolutions number 453 through through 464 are recognized as a consent agenda for the purpose of Board of
091Education action I have a motion to approve the consent agenda resolutions number 453 through 464. second any discussion comment that packed within here there's a number of resignations for the purpose of retirement and um we absolutely look forward to celebrating all our retirees later in the year we have folks with 20 25 30 years worth of experience and we certainly thank them for their service to the district any other discussions comment I just I'd like to congratulate Sharon dagerstein on the 10-year appointment yes and we have MS D'Agostino in attendance here congratulations on your 10-year appointment if we approve it yeah the in-laws all those in favor I I opposed extensions uh the consent agenda resolutions number 453-464 passes and we also have a walk-on resolution tonight so uh I'll just read it since it's
092a walk-on resolutions number 465 field trip High School be it resolved by the Board of Education of the Boston Spa Central School District to Grant permission for the high school boys and girls indoor track team to travel to Staten Island New York March 3 through 4 20-23 B and is hereby granted in my understanding is this was just kind of late because of the students actually qualifying and being invited to enforce them to qualify over the weekend sure so may I have a motion to walk on resolution number 465 field trip High School second any discussion on the walk-on all those in favor opposed extensions resolution number 465 will be walked on now may I have a motion to approve resolution number 465 field trip High School any other discussion not hearing any all those
093in favor I opposed abstentions resolution number 465 passes any other new business from the district no board members okay we are now at the time in our agendas second period for public comment do we have anyone signed up we do not have anyone signed up for public comment uh yeah okay can you sign in please foreign my name is Jim Shear I'm from Glenville my grandson goes to uh the middle school or the elementary school and uh Chapman Avenue I just wanted to comment that the uh in the last couple weeks The Gazette has published several articles on the duanesburg board of educations five to two vote not to do a survey of their parental Community regarding vaccine mandates sound familiar um Mr Mitchell the board president said he would be it would be divisive
094to the community to send out such a survey I don't understand that but they didn't do it every I had to respond to that so I sent a letter to the editor to The Gazette which they published almost immediately and I compared your five to two vote twice not to do a survey with them in a fairly calm manner um and then will farmer a former bhbl board member also responded and he called at the end of that letter he called the duanesburg no voters lazy and cowards I don't generally go for name calling but it is what it is there's a lot of nasty bills sitting downtown in Albany there's a mandatory vaccination Bill most of them are from dinowitz there's a flu mandate there's a couple other ones that would require it would
095allow kids to get vaccinated without their parental knowledge or permission there's some really nasty stuff down there and our position in New York informed Saratoga has always been parents want choice you know if you don't survey them how do you know what they want and uh if the New York State legislature passes a law requiring a vaccine mandate you have no choice we understand that but our governor has a way of sneaking around the legislature with regulations he's got the containment Camp thing still going I don't understand why but please finish up yeah so uh proactive advocacy opposing bills often gets results if they get flooded downtown with negativity on a particular bill it doesn't usually go anywhere um both duanesburg and this board have obviously chosen not to advocate for their parental community on
096this issue that's a sorry State of Affairs thank you thank you for your comment uh Chris Dubuque good evening ladies and gentlemen on the board Chris Dubuque Kaling Drive um sorry last minute sign up one of the things was was brought up a little bit earlier with a presentation with per diem teachers uh substitutes uh you know whether it's for building and grounds you name it I know every school has some shortages that they need to fill one suggestion I would make and I've made the suggested suggestion excuse me in the past along many lines you're busy you're very busy you're volunteering your time you work full-time many of your parents you're busy one thing I will say you know I agree with the young man that is gone now but this is a great
097school it's a great community and one recommendation I would make I do know the village does this quite well is they'll have various committees that get together they look at these various uh issues and subjects that come before the board as a whole because they just don't have time to look into it themselves neither do you have time to look into yourself I know the building leadership team was passed around in the past as sort of serving as an ad hoc committee uh but I mentioned before and it was brought up before with by this board to have that sort of parent board committee uh I mean I work right right around the corner and my sole job is to focus on the labor market here in Saratoga County and I I have no information
098from the school whatsoever of the need that is here for per diem teachers or for substitutes I just had someone in my office today and saw the ad that I did have there for Saratoga school and was very impressed by it and they're now going to follow up with that school district about a couple leave of absences they're trying to fill school bus drivers you name it they don't care they're looking for work and I have plenty of people we are in a touristy area there's a lot of seasonal work around here there's a lot of people here just do not make enough on unemployment and are looking for part-time work and would gladly again be willing to look into the districts as well but I will tell you one thing here I was looking
099at the special education Aid that's getting paid 18.50 an hour I can tell you anybody can go right down now to Pizza Works and just take orders and make 1950 plus and not have to deal with three quarters of the stuff that a special education aide has to deal with so that's something that I would gladly recommend reach out but again this would be the purpose of having a board parent committee and it could be several different committees you have an issue you want to look into I've heard some concerns uh tonight whether it was getting grades up uh you know not just being about the Optics I know sometimes again the school does a great job with what it has to have you know the parents do have to be involved as well they
100have to put 100 in uh I'm keeping my young man here tonight after his uh recognition very much to his uh he does not want to be here right now but again he has maybe 98 averages all across in all his grades because again I'm there I'm 100 plugged in I'm pushing and I'm pushing hard but again this is why I'm recommending to do these committees again there are there's some great talent out there in this community that would be more than one the volunteer time to get together as other parents maybe one board member sits in on each committee similar to what the village does and the law can get done with just a few people putting our heads together I know there's another young man that usually comes in here after uh Cub
101Scouts with his uniform on and he was worried about some of the special education needs that are not getting met for his son and again he has some great ideas and he works for Amazon so he is pretty uh in line to come up with some great ideas just to stay in that company so again just a recommendation I know I'm beating on a drum here but I've been just pushing this for this a long time and I know some this the Logistics were in question does a such a committee meet in the auditorium no you could have meetings in in the cafeteria you could have meetings in the library and again it could be small committees and it could be on a volunteer basis whoever is whoever's willing to put that time in so
102I just strongly recommend that to address a lot of these issues even the advocacy that was mentioned earlier uh you know what other issues could be advocated for by the board what's important what do parents see as important free school lunches vaccine mandates what is the case but again plug into your resource out there and parents and again the students as well I'm sure you'll find some students whether they want to or not even if the class credits would be willing to uh to sit on those committees so again just some food for thought thank you thank you for your comment we have representation from our associations hi welcome it's always nice to see you might just come right up to the podium please I just wanted to announce our scholarship applications are due March
10331st we offer two different scholarships one is uh for the field of education for a graduating student who pursues pursues excuse me a career in education psychology social work that's a one-time Award of fifteen hundred dollars and the second one is a student pursuing a career in community service or First Response and that's a one-time payment of five hundred dollars they're available you know through the high school guidance office the web page I mean we encourage anyone to apply so thank you great thank you very much I don't see our PTSA president that Mr turbiak do you have any PTA I do uh information starting off with uh Milton Terrace uh the dying to donate event at Primo Pizza before the break was a success uh 10 of their sales from that evening went to
104the PTA um in terms of events next Friday March 10th is the annual family bingo night and they want to send a special thanks to the bacc for Their donation through this event um they are participating also in the read for Ronald McDonald House Charities which began today and their next meeting is on Tuesday March 7th to discuss upcoming events uh Gordon Creek their dance fit fundraiser was a huge success they ended up raising over 29 000 so you know very big success there glad to hear that and Malta Avenue they have new gear available including shirts tank tops hoodies and more orders are due by March 12th and are expected to be delivered the week of April 3rd great thank you okay um our next meeting is on March 15th two weeks from tonight
105we do have reason to adjourn to Executive session we will not be returning to open session after that executive session I need a motion to adjourn to Executive session to discuss the employment of a particular person all those in favor I oppose we are adjourned