001We are calling to order the May 5th or May 6th, sorry, 2025 meeting of the Beacon City School District Board of Education. Please stand for the pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God, indivisible, liberty and justice for all. Um Vicki, can you call the role? Here. Excused. Excused. Excused. Here. Here. Excused. Here. Here. Matt, can you review the fire exits? Uh, exits are in the back of the LGI. Okay. Uh, let's stand up again uh for a moment of silence for Rodrik um Lavali. I hope I'm saying that right. He was a lifelong educator focused on science and he retired from the Beacon City School District. Thank you. Okay. Um, next we have uh open to the public.
002Does anybody have a public comment they would like to make? Seeing none, uh we will move on uh to the workshop. Tonight is the budget hearing. You have to open up the budget hearing. Okay. Okay. Can I get a motion to open the budget hearing? So moved. Second. Second. Okay. Comments or questions? All in favor? I I I passes 5-0. Is that Thank you. Good. Yeah, we're good. Okay. Um Okay. So, we are excited to talk about uh the budget tonight. So, I just want to talk about how a budget hearing is slightly different than uh our board presentation. So there's some required information that's a little bit later uh in the presentation that Anarie will go over and also uh to people who are here for the public hearing um you can ask questions
003and things like that. So if you want to wait till the end or if you want to just like raise your hand I'm looking you know because you're not to pick on you uh but it's uh it's it's not like a typical uh sort of board meeting. So, and then once and then once we're done the public hearing closes and we go back to a normal meeting. So, uh so uh board some of the slides uh you'll see tonight are ones you've seen a few times in the last uh month or so. I I you know I'm not going to spend an arms amount of time on those. And then we have um not new information but just some information that either you requested at the last meeting or that the state requires that we
004go over tonight. And so I will do the first part and Amry will do a bulk uh a bulk of the presentation tonight too. Um so again uh just a reminder I say this uh at the beginning of every single budget talk uh in here that I've done probably for the last eight years is that uh the budget um really uh reflects uh what we value here in the district. And so we try to organize uh our actions and our thinking around academic e excellence and community and communication, culture of care and uh facilities and fiscal sustainability. Uh so there's a lot of actions underneath those things. Um represented in sort of the budget over time. Um but we uh certainly have tried to really organize our thinking um and our work in this way.
005Um I think this we made a little change to this uh because you know we had curriculum at the 2021 curriculum is really something we have done every year. Uh but I think this is a great graphic because it represents um some of the um some of the additions to the budget uh over time uh really over the last eight years. And so, you know, again, just to kind of quickly go through this, we really started um seven years ago a pretty big class size reduction initiative in the district focus at the elementary grades. Um our class size average is now between 17 and 18 students uh in a classroom, which I think is uh great and and that's one of the best class size averages in in Duchess County. Uh music, we added fourth
006grade instrumental music. We first started with a grant, then we took it over uh in the budget. And this isn't like the only cause of this. Uh but uh when I was at um Guys and Dolls uh over last weekend, um they had the in the program they had a list of all the pit musicians and they had an asterisk next to each uh Beacon student who was in the pit and the number was 26 students uh that were in the pit. When I started here years ago, not that I'm taking responsibility for this or uh when I started here, it was maybe one student in the pit. Maybe none. Uh so so that uh I also the other number that was in my head was uh when I started eight years ago, the jazz
007band encompassed both roundabout and the high school and there was four kids in it plus two teachers. And now we have a roundabout jazz band, a high school jazz band and three or four ensembles like you know where kids can really uh do a lot there. I think fourth grade instrumental music has played a role in that for sure. And then uh the board funding all of these additional music groups um that that is part of the budget. Mental health uh over time we've added two social workers and addition an additional guidance counselor to the middle school. um extracurriculars. Um in 2021, we started to really exponentially grow uh our clubs and extracurriculars, especially at the elementary and middle school levels. At high school, always had a uh a lot of different club offerings. Um
008the thinking with this is that we're really trying to uh offer opportunities for our students to explore different interests, learn things about themselves that they didn't know before. also uh has teachers, you know, exploring some of their outside interests too with kids. It's been a really great addition. And um at I think all four of our elementary schools were close to um 50% of the students are involved in a club at least at some point during the school year, which is and before 2021 was about maybe 3%. So that's been a huge growth. PreK, uh really proud of this one and this we're also very unique. uh in not just Duchess County but the region we've moved to uh a full day model um just like you know the state says with their UPK funding
009um we're not able to offer it at this time for every single interested family but we're getting close um you know uh we're getting close to that so this has been an initiative that started in a pilot manner and it's become really popular and it's been a a great um use of our resources and then partnerships some of those partnerships we've had for a long time. Uh but we've been the last couple years piloting a new partnership with Compass Arts which we've been really excited about. Um and then specifically in this budget this year, uh summer student workshops at BHS. So one group we're targeting is incoming nth graders. Uh I think it's a a really great idea to bring as many of them in as possible to uh to do like a prepping for
010high school kind of experience for them. And then the other group that we're offering some summer work uh work workshops for kids who are trying like an AP or GCC class for the first time. Um so we're excited about that. Uh on the mental health side we um we are going to be offering a sitebased mental health clinic at RMS. Uh at BHS we're going to be doing the Bright program which helps students transition um from hospital hospitalization type settings back to school. also focuses on helping kids with school reluctance. Uh we're adding a halftime speech teacher uh to help us with uh um IEPs, intervention teachers at the elementary level. Um right now uh we're just looking at student need uh and trying to figure out, you know, uh um like sort of who
011goes where on that. Um but we'll be working on that probably over the next month. And then professional development, a lot of it is focused on science of reading. Obviously, we have other PD going on as well. Inclusion has been a big area, professional development, um along with some other initiatives, but we we have a really robust professional development in the budget. And I want to back up and just say a lot of this work uh we did a community survey last fall and we had a huge number of students fill it out. We had a lot of parents filled out, we had a lot of staff. It was really uh was a really good number of folks this year and a lot of these ideas came from that um in terms of focusing uh
012continued PD on reading more academic support especially at the elementary level mental health focus um so we can't you know so much comes through in a survey it's hard in one budget to accomplish it all but that's why it's fun to look at this like over time we kind of keep adding things and if a few board meetings ago, I said one thing we're really proud of here is that all of these things we've implemented in a way that we haven't had to pull back on and so that's something um that we've been really pleased with. All right. Okay. Um and I know the board has seen this slide, but I thought it was important to talk about it a little bit more. Um so our t our tax levy is generated based on a
013calculation of the tax cap um based on New York state law. Um so some of the things that are important to Beacon um we are able to raise our levy by the tax base base growth factor. Uh Beacon is the highest in Duchess County and one of the reasons for that is the amount of new construction that is going on with in Beacon and everyone can kind of see that as they walk around um Main Street and the surrounding areas. So that allowed us to raise the levy a little bit more than than others. Uh the allowable growth factor is the um the lesser of the consumer price index or 2%. Um and the 2% number is kind of how people look at the tax levy, but that's just a portion of the calculation and
014the capital exclusion. So uh principal and interest less any building aid that you receive gets to be added back um to the to the tax levy as well. Um, in our case this year, um, we had voted last May for a $49.9 million capital project, which we told the voters, um, that we would have to raise the levy. So, this is the start of that. This is adding some debt, some principal and interest payment future, um, to make to make to actually pay for that um, and capital improvement project. So, these are some of the things that were voted on in the $49.9 million project. More secure school entrances um in the five um school buildings. Glennom had theirs done last year as part of the 2021 capital project, the creation of cooling centers, an
015addition of air conditioning up to 50% of the classrooms, infrastructure improvements like roofing, um upgrades to the baseball and softball fields. um not on this slide. We're also resurfacing the tennis courts at Beacon High School and some renovations to the Seagar Theater. Um and I know later on we will talk about it, but we just had a facilities committee meeting right before the meeting with um it was a great meeting and it talked about timing and how we were going to move forward. So um I'm sure we'll get more information about that. So, our Beacon budget that we're putting in front of the voters um in two weeks from tonight is $87,720,000. The budget tobudget increase is a 4.61% increase. Um I thought I'd mention something about the state budget. Um this is probably the
016first year in my 20 years here that we have not had a state budget uh passed before we are asking the voters to vote for the school district. And why is that important? um because we don't really know definitively what our state aid number is. We're using the governor's number. Um we're hoping that's the most conservative. We might get a little bit more money, but it does not allow us to grow the budget anymore. That is what we have. That's what the board adopted and that's what we're going to put on the ballot in two weeks. Can I just uh Yes. If I get a chance to rant about this, I will for a second. Uh so you know like Anmarie said this is we're entering um somewhat unprecedented territory here. Uh I it's concerning
017to me because sometimes I feel like it's there's not even updates coming out about like where things are. Uh the but you know we don't have control over that. The one thing uh that is also it's not necessarily budget related, but obviously everyone is aware that the governor has been speaking really clearly about uh like a what she's calling a bell-to-bell cell phone ban. So, it would be helpful for school districts, not just us, to like get the exact information of the language of that bill. uh we're obviously preparing for it, you know, behind the scenes, but um just, you know, if any of them are listening in Albany, it'd be great to have this wrapped up at some point. Um but I think just in further advocacy, and I know this is something that
018we have no control over. Uh this is a hard way to plan and it's a hard way to present budgets to the public and I feel like some of the language out of Albany has been almost dismissive of that. Um, and it's just I think it's an area where there could be maybe a little bit more thought from like the governor's office regarding what school districts uh what goes into planning for school districts. Okay, rant over. Okay. Uh, this slide shows how what what makes up the revenue for the budget. So, we talked about local property taxes. So, that's the tax levy. The state aid number I just spoke about, that's the governor's um estimated amount of state aid. um that could go I'm going to say up because we have talked about the legislative
019in the senate um may increase it but we don't know so we go with the more conservative estimate um interest earnings um there's interest in penalties on um taxes and pilot pilot payment in lie of taxes and uses of reserves and fund balance and some miscellaneous income. So that makes up the $87,720,000 budget number. So, one of the requirements is that we present to you the three parts of the budget um expenditure. The administrative, the instructional, and the capital. Um, and I can briefly just give you an overview. The administrative is is basically what you're thinking of. It's it's it's the central office staff. It's the building level administration. Um, it it's all of the services. It's all of the salary and staff that work underneath them. You would imagine the instructional part of the
020budget would be the most. So that is everything that relates to children. Um so that's the teachers, the teacher aids, teaching assistants, it's the school psychologist, all the related services. Um it's the it's the transportation area, anything that has a direct uh relation to children. And the capital portion um is the facilities and operations department and the debt service, the principal and interest payments. Um so which equal again that's the comparison from 2425 to 2526 um projected This is just a graphic of how our expenditures break up percentage-wise on um and a pie chart to give a little different perspective and understanding the tax levy. So, we had talked about this at prior meetings. Will my school taxes go up next year? Um the tax levy number is exactly what we calculated. It is at
021the tax cap. Um it gets spread over um all of the businesses and the residents in this within the city within the Beacon City School District. Um it does it I think some people misunderstand that if there's more um building that you can get more money. Um but that doesn't it work that way. What it does do though it does spread the levy over more people um which could be a decrease in people's taxes. And I can get a little bit more I can explain that a little bit more um there. So I I also want to say that um the the budget that you're voting on with the tax cap is at is at the limit, but we do only need a simple majority. We are not going over the cap. We are at
022the cap. Um so we just need 50 50% plus one to pass the budget. And we had spoken a lot last year um in May about the purchase of the EV buses. So I one of the things I want to talk about is there is no bus proposition on the ballot this year. And why is that? We're still awaiting the EV buses. There hopefully will come August or September is what um we were told. Uh we did get a grant from um New York State that will that will assist us in paying for the two EV buses and two chargers that we will need to actually install them in the bus garage. um those two buses can be used and the chargers installed without doing any major upgrades to the bus garage or the or
023the actual electric coming into the bus garage. So, we're very excited about them coming. Um we also last year on the proposition asked the voters to vote for for 372 passenger buses. Um they have not arrived so we haven't even been able to use them. Uh so we you know between those five buses that is plenty for us to to kind of work into our fleet. Um and so we decided not to do a bus proposition this year um and just use the the the transportation equipment that we're we have or that we're getting. And uh at our last meeting there was some discussion about the federal funds. So we do receive federal funds for um through the title fund grants and through special ed section 611619. So uh one part we do get roughly
024$1.3 million in federal funding. Um that is separate from the information that we're asking you to vote for. That's separate from the $87 million. It does pay for reading teachers, academic intervention services, special education teachers, and professional development. Um, if these funds were to disappear, um, this amount would then have to be incorporated into the general fund budget. Um, and just to be clear, this is stating the obvious. U, that is not all of our special ed teachers covered by federal. It's just a small small portion. Uh we you know um but just just to be clear it does cover all of our reading teachers currently most of them most of them most of them um the title funds have progressively decreased over the years so they used to cover so um yes so we're
025we're this is uncertainty we're not we have no information that we're not getting this money but it would be important to let the community and the board know. I mean, the latest I've seen in the news regarding this is in this uh I I know the details are still hazy, but in this uh budget federal budget bill that's that's trying to be developed or passed. Um there is a reduction. Um I've I've seen at least in one of the proposals to um federal education funding. I think what they're saying right now is that's just to like the overhead of it and not to what states receive, but obviously um that would be we'll see if that's the case. And contingency budget. So, um a contingency budget is what happens if we uh have two budget
026votes and we do not pass the budget. Um and obviously that is not a place that we want to be at. Um if for some reason in two weeks the budget fails then um we go back to the board of education and we decide what we would have to do as far as a revote is concerned in June. If for some reason in June the the budget then fails again, we are forced to go to contingency and contingency is different every year depending upon you know what your budget to budget looks like. But for us this year it would be a huge decrease if we had to go to contingency. So, we would have you're not allowed to raise the levy more than the prior year levy. We would have to cut $2.4 million out
027of the proposed budget that we're asking you to vote on. Um, so that would be a lot of things and it would be a lot of things that Matt spoke about in his slide about things that we we were able to add going forward and others that aren't on that slide. So, we would have to look at everything and and um often times when we're looking to make reductions and we had to do some of that over the years. We always try to look at uh things that impact students the least. Um with that amount, there would be no way we could meet that without impacting students. Zero um chance of that. So, we would kind of have to do somewhat across the board reductions. So, we'd probably have to look at things like class
028sizes, extracurricular, um, you know, things that I think we've grown really used to here and and beyond that. Yes. So, a little bit about tax rates and and this um slide the board has seen before. So where we compare with other school districts in Duchess County, Beacon is more on the the lower side um at 11.98% that tax rate per thousand. Um and that's been partly because we have grown um in in Beacon mainly but a little in Fishkill and Wingers. Um and this slide shows uh assessment increases. So I I went back nine years um of of increases and obviously the blip in 2021 was a little bit of COVID related because it kind of exploded the years after that. So that's how much assessments have been increasing and I and I know that
029um at least in the city of Beacon everyone got their letter of what their new assessments are. Um, so it doesn't mean that every, you know, um, the reassessment happens, but the main part of that is all of the new properties that are coming into the tax role and that and that they they look at that every year. Um, when they send the letters out to the taxpayers, but what we've seen with these assessments is this is above and beyond someone reassessing your home. it's adding to um the businesses and the and the uh residential properties that are coming onto the tax roles. So to try to quantify it a little bit, we we had we started having this little conversation at the last meeting and I wanted to be a little bit clearer. So
030to estimate what your tax increase would be for the tax for the budget and the tax levy that we're proposing, we need to use last year's assessments because we don't receive assessments till the summer. I always consider that to be worst case scenario based on the prior screen because we've seen assessments increase over the last nine years. So um again, I also re-evaluated the median since the reassessments went out. So, our median home value in Beacon is a little bit higher than it has been. So, our median home val median home value is $420,200. So, um a yearly increase for the budget would be $240 or $20 a month. And I gave a couple other scenarios. If your value of your home is $400,000 or $500,000, what that yearly increase and monthly increase would be.
031We also wanted to do it based on if we have an increase in assessments which I've just shown you we've had right so I did an average over the last nine years and the assessments have risen about 7%. So I being the accountant always goes a little conservative and I said okay let's assume we had a 5% increase in assessments across the board. The median home value now's taxes would only go up $31 for the year or $2.58. So, what that means is, excuse me, that means the other properties that are coming onto the tax ro are absorbing some of um the tax levy amount that we're we're setting. It also means that um you may have gotten a new letter saying that your assessment went up 5%, but your neighbor might have gotten a
032letter saying that it went up 10%. So, they're going to pay a little bit more than what you're going to pay. So it it it's kind of um difficult to understand but it does generate the decrease in the tax rate per thousand every single year. So Fishkill um I wanted to kind of do it off the three municipalities. So Fishkill median is about 444,500. The yearly increase at worst case scenario would be $253 or $21 um a month for a median. And then I showed the value of the 450 and the 500. And then again, if you had an increase of 5%, it would be similar to what the Beacon tax rate uh tax increase would be for the year. And whoers the median home value is a little bit less at 387500. And again,
033the yearly would be about 225 1875 a month. We're at 100% equalization. And that's why you're seeing it be similar in nature between fish go who wingers and beacon and then wingers with the 5% increase. And again it's a lot of information so I I will be putting this presentation up on the website um with all the other budget information and you know if anyone who's watching that has a question about it I'd be more than willing to talk to them about it. And again this is our comparison. So we were using again the home the median home value was was probably a little bit lower than what it currently is but just to give you an idea of the calculation based. So our medium home value our tax rate is lower than our neighbors.
034And so a house valued here in Beacon would be paying a tax estimate of a little over $3,000. That same house in those four municipalities that's what the taxes would be. So, we are getting a lot of things for not as much money as other people may be paying for the same thing. And uh these are our three candidates uh that will be on the ballot. So, we have three candidates running for three seats. Um so, next Tuesday when you come and see the ballot, you will see a um the budget and you will see to vote for three um school board members. um last last year was a little confusing. So we wanted to try to keep it simple this year. So it's it's two two things you're kind of voting on and again
035our next step. So we have done the budget adoption. We're in the middle of doing some community outreach. Um tonight's the budget hearing and May 20th there's the budget vote. Um the just in terms of community outreach really quickly, uh we'll be pushing out information tomorrow. So, we're doing a Zoom webinar Thursday this week at six o'clock. We'll record it. We'll try to keep it fairly short so people can submit questions and spend time on the questions. Uh we're we'll publicize this. Um but we're going to do just a public, you know, conversation about the budget at Beacon Rec Center on Monday at 6, right? Monday at 6. And uh and then we have starting tomorrow we have spring concerts like going all the way through the next couple of weeks. I'll be at each
036of those. I'll do a quick you know discussion not discussion just a quick reminder about the budget vote uh at the beginning of the concert and just you know if parents have any questions after the I'm happy to answer them. And obviously um all the folks who receive my emails can always just ask me questions about um what's going on too. But that's what we have planned right now. And uh our budget newsletter which is on our website right now. It's going to the printer today and it will be out in the mail and you should be receiving it over the next couple days. Um school data sheets we are still working on. And that's another project that we will be putting out through. Yeah, principles will be sharing those out with those their community
037the school data sheets. There's one for the high school, one for roundabout, one for the element, like a universal one for the elementary schools. And it's just going to show some of the things that the budget supports so people can kind of uh see in a in a kind of a clear way like how it impacts each of our schools. So, first, does the board have any questions? Anybody? No. I don't have a question, but I can tell you why I'm here. Maybe that'd be helpful since there's I'm in public. Do I have to go up there? I have to do that, right? I can just sit here. Yeah, that's fine. Never got to any public hearing my life. Um, so I'm a parent. My kids go to JVF. Um, and they are in kindergarten,
038second grade, and they both have IEPs. Um, and we've had one of our first IEP meetings and it didn't go great. Um, and we have another one this week. And so I just realized a lot of this is attached to what happens with this budget. Um, so that's my Thank you. Thank you for coming. I don't know. Is this like on the record kind of a thing? Well, it's being recorded. Okay. So you can say who you are. McIntyre and my kids are um Lorenzo Laura McIntyre and Miro Laura McIntyre. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Well, I I just wanted to say um that I really um enjoy is not enjoyed is not the right word, but I really appreciated the budget process this year and the way that we sort of slowly built on
039our understanding of it and built on the public understanding through having these ongoing discussions. And I think that the context um that that is in this presentation is so valuable um not just to understand how we arrive at the numbers that we arrive at, but what's at stake um in this vote uh you know, not just what we've how far we've come, but what we're trying to achieve moving forward. So, I really appreciate you guys making it so clear and um so clearly connecting it to what you know what we're doing for students in the district. So, thank you so much. One thing we'll do postbudget vote if it's successful is I'll start laying out some early thinking about like you know the future. Yeah, I know at the beginning of the process I talked
040several times about trying to do a nine period day at roundabout. It's a huge goal of mine, not just me, but uh many of us in the district. So, we're really targeting that as like a 26 27 budget initiative. So, I wanted to be clear while we're all talking about it like that is definitely not forgotten. Um there's a huge interest in it amongst the teaching staff. Uh I think it gives kids more options. Um, you know, I was probably being a little bit overly optimistic like uh earlier in the winter about our ability to do that, but that's part of it. And so I think what's good for me for this process is we've already established a goal for next year's budget and that's trying to fund that. Um, so we haven't done that
041in the past either. We've always been sort of yeartoear. So that's something that we're going to try to really go after next year. Yeah, that's great. Okay. So, uh, can I have a motion for 3.03 to close the budget hearing? So, moved. Okay. Meredith. Second. Second. Second by Simra. Uh, comments or questions? All in favor? I I passes 5-0. Okay. Thank you guys. Um, so reviewing the agenda, we have two changes. Uh, first is a very minor edit to um 11.02 in the consent agenda. That's policy 5620. Uh we just needed to include the word uh like the abbreviated word for reference at the bottom to indicate the list of uh references for that policy. Um and then also on the consent agenda is the addition of 15.06 um to approve the rejection of um
042of a bid for the boiler placement at Glenn Elementary. All righty. So, uh, we are going to have our exec at the end, uh, tonight. So, I guess we will move on to your superintendent report, Matt. Um, I was I was going to talk about some of the budget outreach stuff, which I mentioned up there, so I'll just say it again. Uh, we're doing a Zoom webinar Thursday at 6. Uh, we have the concert starting tomorrow night. Roundabout kicks it off and I think Forest is Thursday night and then uh the following weeks and um and then we also will do just kind of open to the community at the Beacon Parks and Wreck at Monday at 6. Um and just to we won't that one we won't do like a full slides. We usually
043just kind of talk folks through it and the budget webinar, we also will try to go through the slides pretty quickly and people can submit questions that we'll try to answer. Great. All right. So, moving on to uh board of uh education comments and committee reports. Uh Elena, do you have anything? Um I just want to say this is probably the best budget presentation situation that we've had since I've been on the board. Um it's it's I can understand it better. Um and I feel like I don't know if we're doing more because we had to raise the levy. So we wanted to explain why. I think it's something that we should do every time um regardless showing what what different um how we've used the budget budget and how we've increased and how we've
044done certain things and um and showing what the tax levy is cuz a lot of the young folks that are coming up that are having kids that are owning or whatever may not really understand. So to be able to see it, the slide specifically about like what your monthly may look like because you just hear increase and you're thinking everything else, but the way you break it down I think was amazing and I think we should continue to do that even if it's a budget where we feel like okay it may pass it's still good because it educates your community, it educates the students. So but so thank you for that. But that's it. Okay, great. I totally agree. Uh Samra, um I'll just say that um I'd encourage people to come out and vote
045on this budget on May 20th. I think it's in my opinion a very thoughtful budget that is is really student focused and [Music] um ve you know very thoughtful considering what the you know ramifications are of of budgeting impacts on us um that are out of our control. So thank you for that. Great Eric. Um I echo what uh Seamur and Alina have said. Um just a couple of things. Uh we have uh had a facilities meeting tonight as um Ann Marie had mentioned before. Um we have a scope of work for our new um uh project capital project uh coming up. We actually have already submitted things for state ed approval which is awesome. Um, we are looking at the possibility of a presentation on the capital project work possibly in July for the
046entire board and for the public, which I think the public will really see um how quickly things are moving along and and the great things that we have in store for the next few years for the district. And the next meeting of our facilities committee will be June 2nd at 5:30. I wanted to mention that um it is uh teacher appreciation week. So, uh, thanks to our teachers, uh, and everyone in our buildings and staff for everything that they do. Uh, I want to mention that yesterday I went to our first unified basketball game. Um, it's one of the best things I think the school district has ever done. I know other districts are doing it. The baseball team and softball team were there rooting on the unified team. Um, just a great thing. If
047you have a chance, it's just a lovely thing to see. I also wanted to mention I see on the agenda um that uh Jean Sablinsky is retiring in August. I've known Jean a long time. I know she's worked in the district. She'll be greatly miss missed and we appreciate everything that she's done for the district. Um and finally, I want to um thank the two members running for the board again and our new member uh Katherine hopefully will stay on for the and get voted on. Um, I like to think that we're doing great work here and I think we have a very cohesive group here u as part of the board and I look forward to working with those three members again. Thank you. Great Meredith. Um, I wanted to make everyone aware there
048are five policies on the agenda um for approval. One of them we're asking you to wave the first read um because we need it for our audit um auditors. Is that right? Yeah. Yes. Um title like it's a title one audit. Title one audit. Um the other one is a um regulation about our as for our asthma policy. Um the extreme heat condition days based on the new law, new state law. And then availability of alternative format instructional materials for students with disabilities. And the last one is student harassment and bullying prevention and intervention. That's on for a second read. Um, I also wanted to mention Jean Slinsky. She is one of the first people I worked with when I was um working on the foundation when my kids first started school here and she
049was always super wonderful and helpful at um making things happen. And so, yes, I hope she enjoys her retirement retirement, but she will be missed. And um yeah, thank you for a really thoughtful budget process. I feel like um one thing that we really didn't recognize is we have the same superintendent um making this budget after eight years and that's that's an incredible that's an incredible feat for Beacon. Uh and but it also you realize how important it is for um for building for building this budget and keeping you know consistent programming and so um Matt thanks for taking the risk eight years ago. thanks for sticking with us and um yeah, thanks everyone for the work they put into it. I feel like it's a budget we can be proud of. We're, you know,
050we're keeping programs that we've worked really hard to build and we are identifying continuing to identify the needs of students and addressing them. So, I feel really good about it. Thank you very much. Great. Um, so in the category of new and interesting things that were were um opportunities that we're giving the students, I wanted to talk about um Beacon High School students trip to Albany last week to the state capital. There were about 20 students. Um they were from the mock trial club, the debate club, and the student uh council, including some of our very own student board members um who I was so excited to see. I happened to be uh working up in Albany that day, so I got to spend the day with them. And I just wanted to say like
051they were so thoughtful. They they came in for they met with um Senator Rollson. They met with the Assembly Member uh Jonathan Jacobson. They had such thoughtful questions about the budget, about how it connects to the federal budget, about what it's like to write legislation. They were super engaged. Um we all went to the assembly chambers. They sat in for part of a debate on a really high-profile bill. Um they were like dodging all the advocates and protesters that were all over the Capitol. It was it was a very like exciting day for them to be there. They took um they we did a tour. I got them lost about six times because I still don't know my way around. But they were incredibly patient and we all took a picture in the chambers and
052I kept saying, "I'm so proud of you guys." And they were looking at me like, "Lady, we just met you." But I was just I wanted them to know that like the way that they were super engaged even during the tour, during the Q&A, the way that they like that the school had sort of come together um to get them there and the fact that we want to make this a regular thing. Um I just want to shout out the students and also shout out um the teachers Erin Hadland who put the whole thing together and then um Matthew Steltz and Tim Newman who were also there chaperoning and doing a fabulous job of like keeping everybody sort of going and um and to the foundation for Beacon Schools for sponsoring the trip. Um to
053me this was like a perfect encapsulation of you know the the like the potential for bringing these new opportunities seeing the kids connect what they're learning in class to like the real world and saying oh this really makes a difference in in the real world in life and it was just so inspiring and I was completely nerding out and so so grateful for that and that's it for me. Can I ask one Matt one question? There's um so there's a great video that Mike Gersh put together um for our budget season of seniors talking about what matters to them. Where will people be able to see it because it's really wonderful. Yeah, we created a five minute video. I think there's maybe like eight seniors featured in it and uh um I think we're I
054don't know when we're launching it. Soon. Will it be on the website or just like social media or uh both probably. I think for social media we might have to chop it into um you know minute to two minute segments but um it's seniors talking about the future but reflecting on their experience here and it's a it's it's really well done. They're really they gave really thoughtful answers. So, um, yeah. So, yeah, we we were trying to think of different ways, excuse me, to, uh, just kind of share out, uh, when I say we, the we had a meeting with the principles a few weeks ago. And so, one of the things the principles asked for was like a kind of an information sheet that uh, talks about how the budget impacts their school. Um,
055and then the other thing we talked about was having some of our seniors just talk about their experiences here. Um, and so, uh, so anyway, yeah, I I will also figure out tomorrow how to share it with the whole board so you all can see it because I know you're like, just let us see it. Uh, and then um and then yeah, we'll start sharing it uh widely. It is it's it's like once I once you see it, you're like, we need to do this every year. Uh it's really cool. So um so yeah, no it's been uh and and I just you know thanks for the budget stuff and Alina you mentioned something uh I don't see it uh as as like us trying to be a little bit um trying to be more
056detailed or or whatever because it I don't see it as a result of like a tax cap being at five or a tax levy rate. I um I think we've just been honestly you know the board I want to go back to like the board retreats over the last two years that have focused on financial planning. We've been looking at some what some other districts do regarding communication. Um I think my goal with this is like trying to figure out uh ways to keep it fresh every uh every year we do it. But um but I appreciate that and thanks you know to Anmarie and our principles and Heather and Saggy for putting all their thinking into it too. Um so thank you. All right. Okay. Thank you guys. Uh so moving on to board
057of ed business. Um 9.01 01. Uh we need to uh vote on one candidate for the uh Boseis uh board runoff election. There was a tie between um Bryce Holland and Mark Fleshower. So um Bryce is from Gypsy City. Um Mark Fleshower represents Reinbeck. Uh we can only vote for one candidate. So we um so if if you have somebody in mind, uh you can only you can only vote once. Uh, what I'm just going to do is I'm gonna I'll say who wants to vote for Bryce Holland and you can say yes or no or you every you can we can raise our hands. I guess that would make more sense just so we can see visually and then we'll know whoever gets the majority vote will get the district's vote. Okay. So, who
058would like to uh vote for Bryce Holland for um 2025 Bosey's board? That's unanimous. Done. follow. Thanks. Thank you for making that so easy. Uh 9.02. Flor, you were excited to get that done quickly. I'm trying to beat my record from last time. So, um so then uh 9.02 is a roll call vote for the superseding bond resolution. Um this Do you wanna Matt? Do you want to say something about this? I'll let Henry talk about it. Yeah. Um, this bond resolution allows us to borrow um, a note to pay for them. And these are buses that were on the ballot in May of last year, right? Um, so it's not new money. It It is new money to pay for the buses, but the buses didn't come in until now. So now is the
059time, right? So it's not a new resolution. Okay. So Vicki, you'll Oh, right. Can I get a motion for a roll call vote for the superseding bond resolution? So moved. Second. Second. Second by some. All in favor? I Okay. Oh, we're not. You don't have to do roll call. Oh, right. I don't know. Okay. Nope. No. Okay. As long as it's still legally acceptable, then that's great. Okay. Consent agenda. The use of the consent agenda permits the board of education to make more effective use of its time by adopting a single motion to cover those relatively routine matters which are included. Any member of the board who wishes to discuss individually a particular piece of business on the consent agenda may so indicate and that item will be considered and voted on separately, thus preserving
060the right of all board members to be heard on any issue. Are there any items that any board members would like to have removed from the consent agenda? Hearing none. Can I have a motion to approve 11.01 through 15.06? So move. Second. Second. Second. Second. Uh comments or questions? All in favor? I. Passes 5. Um can I get a motion to adjurnn the meeting and go into executive session? The board does not plan to return. So move. Lena. Second. Moved. Second. Comments or questions? All in favor? I passes five to zero. Good night.