001to order the April 7th, 2025 meeting of the Beacon City School District Board of Education. Please stand for the pledge. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, and justice for all. Vicki, can you call the role? Here. Uh um excused. Sorry. here. Miss Kush excused. Mr. Shedder here. Mr. White delayed. Miss here. Here. Uh Matt, can you review the fire exits? Exits are in the back of the LGI. All righty. Um so now we have open to the public. Does anyone have a public comment they would like to make? You sir, go. Oh, thank you. Hi. Can you hear me? I probably do. I need this. You can give it a shot. Thing probably. You're good. Okay. Good evening.
002My name is Bryce Holland and I am seeking your consideration for election to the Duchess Bosey's board of trustees. I attended Arlington Central School District. I was going to mention I was actually a student of Dr. Shedddters. Oh. I recently graduated from the University of Virginia with a self-designed major I called Cradle to Career Education inspired by the famous Harlem Children's Zone. On March 5th, I was nominated by the Pikipsy City School District uh for the Boseies, which I have the honor of serving in my employment at the Pikipsy Children's Cabinet, a nonprofit collective impact organization. When I was in college, I was soulful and sentimental. I knew I wanted to study education to help children. Having been born into poverty in the city of Peripsy, I felt I had something to owe to the
003kids who were just like me, who may not have gotten to go to college as I did. I avidly searched during college for a silver bullet, the answer in education that all kids, no matter their backgrounds, can grow up to have successful careers. And I was constantly thinking about this powerful statistic that 80% of a child's waking hours are spent outside of school and how to account for that time. So I say all that to express firstly that I am a proud native of the city of Pikipsy and resident of Duchess County. The second is that is to explain my personal commitment and belief in the power of Bosey's programs such as career technical adult education resilience academy and special education to eliminate opportunity gaps across the county. I believe BOSI serves a vital role
004in helping students with diverse learning needs to achieve their goals and ultimately realize this dream of socioeconomic mobility for all of our children. all. So for me to be home on a mission to eliminate opportunity gaps is both personal and purposeful. In this polarized age where fear and crisis are normalized, no solution has ever made more sense to me than the importance of local work like education. uniting communities with the shared understanding that for our children as well as our democracy, neighbors must work hand in hand against adversity. I believe Duchess County can be a model of that and inspire others to do the same. I believe an America where place-based cultures thrive, where each and every person is passionately working in their communities and doing their part would be a much kinder America. One
005better prepared to face the challenges of our time. So to that end, I hope you will consider me for your vote for the Boseis Board of Education. I'm very deeply thankful for my education and its opportunities that led me to my passion to pursue education and local advocacy. So it would be my honor to be of service to all of you on the Boseis board. Uh with that, thank you very much. Thank you. We appreciate your time. Of course. Thank you. All right. Anyone else? Seeing no one, we will move on to the workshops. Tonight we are starting with our instructional budget workshop. Okay. Good evening everyone. And I am gonna time myself to make sure because you know I can stay up here for two hours. So I'm gonna actually time myself to make
006sure I stay on track. All right. So I think everyone knows me. Sadi Rudes O'Neal proudly serve the Beacon City School District as the assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction. So I just wanted to just this is going to be very quickly just wanted to kind of highlight all the different learning opportunities and topics that our teachers have been engaged in throughout the year. Many of these courses have been outside of the school district either through our local Boseies that um facilitates a lot of the learning and partnership that we're doing right now. Um so these are just some of the topics that our teachers have been engaged in. You will see there's been a lot of opportunities around literacy, around math, around science, around AI, social emotional learning, classroom management, um, uh, supporting students
007with disabilities, ENL populations. So, anything that you can think of, our teachers have been involved in all of course with the goal of ensuring that we are supporting our students in the learning standards. We've also done several uh book studies. Two that I would like to highlight is the building thinking classrooms because our entire math department at the secondary level is involved in this book study and I'll talk a little bit about that later on in the presentation as well as at the elementary level shifting the balance and that is a book that's kind of been the anchor of the work that we've been doing around the science of reading. And of course we always want to support teachers going off to conferences. That's a great opportunity to continue to learn as well as to
008meet other folks in other school districts and share best practices. This is some of the on-site curriculum support and coaching that we have been engaged in. So, in addition to the coaching that I've been doing, we've also had partnerships with the Mid Hudson Regional Center that has been working with us around our vocabulary acquisition through K12. That was the goal of our district this year. Our academic goal was vocabulary acquisition. We've also been working doing some in in-house coaching with Boseies as well as uh curriculum development at HMH I Ready um and what have you and of course the positivity project some highlights and then of these are new courses that are going to be added to the and I don't think we've always we've ever really had an opportunity to kind of look at
009our Beacon High School course catalog which you can look at your leisure. You can see 54 pages of wonderful things that our students have available to them. It is on our website. So, if anyone's interested in all the different electives that our students have an opportunity to engage in, it is right there. Okay. But we're going to be adding I'm very excited about lights, camera, literature, the art of film. Hi. So, um, the budget proposal that I am going to be presenting tonight, of course, is anchored around our portrait of a graduate. And while the New York State portrait of a graduate has not been officially voted on by the board of regents, we know it's going to be um made official within the next two months. So, a lot of the work that we
010are doing is in preparation for that, making sure that everything that we're doing are within the seven components of a portrait of a graduate. The portrait of a graduate is aligned to our learning standards. This is just something different for in terms that our students no longer will be required to pass a region's exam. So for those students that choose not to take doesn't mean that we're not giving and we just want to make sure we're we're clear about that. We still have to administer the regions exams but it is unlin from the graduation requirement. So they do not have to pass a region's exam. And those students that are not doing the regions route will be doing performance assessment and how we get our students able to do the performance assessments. We have to
011do a lot of professional development around that. Right? So again the rationale for the proposal and the plan is looking of course at our data that I shared with you back in the beginning of the year and that we have been tracking throughout this year. Right now our data is indicating that we need to continue to support our students in terms of phonics, phological awareness and phmic awareness particularly in the upper grades. So we do have this bubble of students that be that were affected because of COVID. We know that COVID caused a lot of opportunity gaps for our students particularly those who were in the early childhood grades who would have gotten that strong finest instruction but unfortunately could not get it because it was virtual. So we want to make sure that we
012continue to strengthen that, continue our emphasis on vocabulary as our data indicates and looking at literacy really making sure that our students are not just exposed toformational text but that we are making sure that we are developing the vocabulary within thatformational text. Because if we look at social studies, we look at science, we look at math, those are the things that our students have to be able to access in order to learn new concepts and the learning standards. particularly looking at the different tiers of vocabulary. So, one of the things that we've done a lot this year is is really differentiating between tier 2 words and tier three words. So, our tier 2 words are those academic words that our student must know in order to access the curriculum. So, words like summarize and analyze
013and uh cause and effect for example. Those are words that they see across all different content areas but may be applied differently depending on the content area. One of the things that we're doing at the secondary level is that we are actually are creating a bank of words that we require we're going to require everyone to actually teach at grade levels. So in ninth grade, these are the words that all of our students need to know the academic words in order for them to access the curriculum. Tier three words, which are words that are very specific to a course or content area. So for example, if you're teaching geometry, you have to teach about isosesles triangles. you have to teach about scaling triangles. That's not something that we actually discuss in everyday life, but it's
014needed for geometry as opposed to the tier 2 words that you actually need it in all of your different subjects. So, we really talked about that differentiation and having some commonalities. Um also looking at our data want we want to make sure that when students who are participating in our regions exams we want to improve their proficiency in those assessments as well as our 3 through eight assessment particularly our constructive responses that's the area of support that we know we need to work on when we look at math algebra 1 in particular not just for the regions exam but in in overall because we know that research says that students who are exposed to algebra 1 actually have greater gater success not just in towards college and career readiness but actually monetary it actually affects
015them monetarily later on in life there's a difference of 30 to $40,000 of income for students who actually have been exposed to algebra 1 so we want to make sure that our students have opportunities to take those courses so looking at literacy so our literacy plan of support is is in two tiers so we have our elementary and we have our secondary currently we have five teachers that are being trained in letters. Um, next year those teachers will be going to year two of their training. We talked last year that letters was basically a program where it's not a curriculum, but actually supporting our teachers in understanding how the brain actually learns how to read. So that science of reading, so it's a techniques and what the brain does to lift words off a page
016in order to gain comprehension. We will be adding a second cohort of teachers next year. So, another five teachers. Right now, all of our AIS teachers are being trained in letters. We selected our AIS teachers because they're the ones working with the students that need the most support. Next year, we want to see if we have a teacher in each one of the buildings, including RoundBout because there are some students entering Roundabout and currently at RoundBout that we want to give some extra support to. Um, we are going to continue our foundation's coaching. We do have two buildings that are being coached right now. Next, um, Glennom, which is a demo school, and what we mean by demo, they are a model school that we can send teachers to if they need extra support. And,
017uh, South Avenue. Next year, we will be using Sergeant and JVF to be our coaching sites. We are going to be next year uh, training teachers in just words. Just words is another component of foundations Wilson program because it's a Orton Gillingham program, but designed for the more mature student. So it's for our upper uh elementary as well as our secondary students and I'll explain that a little later. Um uh HMH interereing so K to 2 will be we'll be now implementing um inter reading next year and 3 to 5 will be continuing to get some support in that AIS we want to continue to support them in intervention particularly in math. Our data indicates that we really need to make sure that our teachers who are working with our math students that are struggling
018that we're giving them effective uh teaching strategies in order to help them uncover the curriculum a little bit more. At the secondary level, we are we do have some teachers that will be trained as well in round as well as one person at the high school in the just words program for those students who need that extra support as well. the work at the secondary level is anchored a lot around the literacy briefs because again at the secondary level it's a kind of a shifting for them to understand that they're all readers they're all teachers of literacy uh where uh I ready which is something that we've been using for these past couple of years they have a new feature called I ready pro and it's designed for the older learner so we've had discussions
019about the students engagement in I ready particularly at the upper level that maybe the students weren't as engaged age because they didn't find the lessons as stimulating. So, I Ready has addressed that and they are unveiling a new component for our secondary students that's a little bit more robust and more sophisticated to really help particularly with gaps in vocabulary. And then this year we do have a 100 students that are part of a pilot at Roundabout that are going to begin um engaging in the dibbles. So the dibbles is an assessment that we're using right now at the elementary level. the dibble what we do is we look to see if students can uh know letters, know sounds, their reading ability but also comprehension. So we are going to try to pilot this at round
020bow to have another data point in addition to classroom assessments and I ready. So these these are the different tiers of support under the Wilson reading program that we are using. We are using Wilson because it is an orgillingham program. or in Gillingham is a methodology of literacy where it where it's basically about scientifically proven strategies that help support reading. The Wilson program was designed for the older student. So Wilson in it in in its full inception is the the highest tier that you can get of intervention. It is designed to be 60 to 90 minutes a day for those students that are really really really struggling. And then the way we use the other two programs here in in uh Beacon is that the foundations program which is for K2, we call them baby
021Wilson is really um at a tier one. So that's something that all our students in K2 are being exposed to. It's 30 minutes a day. If students still need extra support, it can also be used as a tier two and that would be within the classroom where the teacher is doing small groups and doing another dose of foundations or it could be done by an an academic intervention specialist. We are adding uh just words to be a tier 2 for our upper grade students who are still struggling with lifting words off a page. And this is just an explanation of how each program kind of works. So again, we've been doing foundations for several years. It is part of our tier 1 and tier 2 model. We were going to be adding just words and
022specifically for fourth through eight, possibly some ninth graders. And then the Wilson reading program, we we we will have seven special education teachers who are going to be trained in the most intensive model, which is the level one certification. And that level one certification is a year long because it's very very intensive. Okay. So in math uh like I mentioned the thinking um thinking building classroom model is a type of model that our math department is engaged in right now which actually really emphasizes problem solving critical thinking as well as student engagement. So, if you walked into one of these classrooms, what you will see is you will see one problem on the board and you'll actually see students in groups standing and they actually have these white boards that they they stand at and
023they discuss the problem of the day. Then they have to figure out how to solve that problem. So there you have students engaged in mathematical language and conversations. They have to critically think how to solve the problem. they have to work in partners or in teams in order to solve the problem and they're really thinking about these really complex higher order uh concepts as opposed to just skills. So that's a model of instruction that we are supporting particularly in math because we know that our students are really disengaging from the ma from math because they don't find it as interesting. Personally, I still don't know how to do algebra. Algebra was like a nightmare for me. I wish I would have had this model when I was in school. Um the other thing that we
024are doing is in terms of AIS. So we are reooking at our math intervention model to see how we can better support our students and what kind of resources we're able to give our students when they're being pulled for math. Right now we're looking at um the number of stu students that need that support. So we are going to be redesigning our math intervention uh block and in addition to that we are going to be developing some common assessments in math. So that we did it already in literacy where we actually have common assessments that are informing our report card grades. We want to now do that in math. So math needs a little love when it comes to that. Science we will be fully implemented science 21 K5. Uh we do need funding of
025course for any new teacher that would come in because they would have to fully be trained. Science 21 is not a program that you can just come in and wing it. You must be trained in it. It's a very intensive program and it's completely aligned to the next generation standards. So anyone that's new or comes down either from roundabout a sixth grade teacher down to the elementary level we want to make sure that they get training. We do have investigations that our sixth through eight teachers are doing as well. That is something that it happens also at 3 through 5. So it's four labs that our students in grades three through five must do and it's grades six through eight they also have to complete four labs and then of course we there are going
026to be even though we are decoupling the region's exams from okay from the diploma doesn't mean the new regions aren't coming. So in 2026 there will be a new regions in chemistry and physics. We want to make sure so this is the the pacing calendar for that. So it would be the last regions that is introduced to to our students. All right. And then in social studies continuing to support our inquiry based framework as well as we're having great success with the SEO civic readiness. We want to make sure that our teachers are still supported that we're because this is going to be a great entryway in terms of that compon we were talking about the portrait of a graduate. The seal of civic readiness really hits a lot of those components when you look
027at the work that's being done through there. Um and introducing next year some student innovation and performance-based assessment again just to get ready for that portrait of a graduate. So just very quickly, these is the Beacon City School District's uh tiers of support in RTI MTSS. Um this is has been fully fleshed out at the elementary level. We do want to expand this to the middle school next year. We started laying the foundation of that this year. So we do have a team, a middle school team that right now is being trained at Boseis on how to um h how to create effective RTI MTSS teams within the school building so that if there is a student at Rambow that is struggling it they're actually going through the different tiers of support. So again, these
028are the areas that we're going to continue to support in RTI, MTSS. Again, it's always a work in progress. We want to again expand to round so that we have a solid K8 model. So, you know, the federal law says it needs to be K12, but that takes a lot of time from after we came back from COVID. There was a lot of work that we had to do. Um, I have to say, I've had some great teachers who have been working with me on this, and they've created some really great resources for our teachers. A lot of work has been done at the elementary level. We want to expand it to the secondary level. And then again, social emotional learning. Um we are still committed to responsive classrooms and the methodology around responsive classroom.
029Continuing the positivity project for next year at all four of the elementary schools. Positivity project can now be run through Boseis because there are other districts in Duchess that are also doing the positivity project. So now will be aidable. So we're able to run it through there. um supporting our ENL students. Uh part of New York State New York State does require that 15% of professional development is to supporting our ENL students and ensuring that teachers have the strategies and support for when they have students that come into their classroom and of course AI. So we've had many teachers if you see from the list who are engaging in a lot of professional development on how to use uh artificial intelligence chat GBT there's a lot of softwares and tools um that are available to
030our teachers but we want to make sure they actually know how to use them before we roll anything out to our students. Okay. So this is um what I would be proposing uh in terms of Duchess County BOSIES that would be our contract with Boseies. These are some of just a some of the services that we would be getting through our culer with uh Duchess County BOSIES. It is not exhaust is not an exhaustive list because there are a lot of trainings that happen throughout the year. Um there's going to be a lot of work still on on uplifting students. So, if you have if you saw the news on Friday, New York State has basically committed itself to continuing to uplift students and ensuring that we have that we're supporting our diverse student population.
031So, we want to make sure that we continue to do that. We also have a call with PNW Boseies. They are the ones that support our science 21 curriculum in K2. Again, allowing for there to be funding for stu teachers who are new to the program. And we do have a cross contract with uh for the foundation's coaching to PNW Boseies. Again, continue to send teachers conferences. Uh the Wilson level one certification. It is it is also a contracted service as well. And summer reading pro uh PD. So our K2 teachers do have to be trained in the new HMH program and that would have to be done over the summer like our three to five teachers. um materials for the reading program in K2, another three-year quote, the materials for Wilson, some of our
032educational technology, our dibbles because the students do do it on the computer and it's scored on the computer, and the foundations fun hub, which is a subscription for the teachers that give them the supplemental materials when students need more intervention in foundations. I went past my time but not by too much. That's all right. Does anybody have any questions or comments the presentation? No. Okay. Thank you so much for such a thorough presentation. All right. Next up, budget. Okay. So, uh, good evening everyone. Um, our our guest just walked out, but I was going to comment that you're going to get to listen to two UVA grads tonight. Okay. not very exciting. But um so uh we wanted to approach the uh um budget slightly differently and get into uh expenditures um by code. So
033So tonight uh I'm going to walk through the first few slides. Uh those are ways for us just to kind of uh um those will be sort of part of our public presentation in terms of explaining what's in the budget. uh Enri will take over and get into the expenditure side um and uh and talk about that in depth. So just ask questions as we go. Uh there is a slide towards the end that um Amry put these numbers together in terms of uh what sort of the um median household in Beacon pays in school taxes, but then comparing that to what that median household in the other some of our uh surrounding districts uh what those um with that same cost house what they would be paying and I think that's a really telling
034uh slide so we're going to I'll jump back up and talk about that one a little bit um and and then we'll just talk about some next steps in the budget process. Um just a few thoughts before we begin. I started just an early round of PTO meetings. I started one I had one tonight. Uh I was at Sergeant at their PTO meeting and I you know I didn't do slides uh because you know we haven't fully officially adopted the budget yet but got into the things we're focusing on talked about the upcoming capital project. Uh it's a really exciting time of year. Uh and I love talking about um you know what we've been able to accomplish over the years with the budget, what we're trying to accomplish this year. Um secondly, you know,
035it you know, Saggy mentioned it uh at the end of her presentation, but um there is uh there is uncertainty with this budget, right? And and so I I I don't want to be a gloom and doom type person, and that's not how I'm approaching my presentations, but uh I was reading something in terms of uh the business world the other day that you would be a fool not to prepare for changes, right? like you would be fooled to to not sort of brace yourself or your organization for potential changes in funding. So, um I don't know all of the ins and outs about it, but Sagi referred to it like you know the US Department of Education asked states to certify uh that they are following um you know title six and uh certain
036aspects of um teaching diversity initiatives. New York's response to that. Commissioner Rosa was that we've already done that several times and we don't need to do it again. The reason I'm bringing it up is could that potentially mean um a reduction uh in in federal funding for states like New York? You know, we have no idea. So, some of the you know, some of the things that we're excited to be um implementing if this budget passes uh you know, we may need to hold back on um because we may need to be making up for a loss in federal funds. So it is something that I said it at the PTO meeting tonight in all my public talks with this budget. I will be bringing it up not to uh try to make that the
037conversation but just that there is sort of an asterisk next to this uh budget presentation um this spring for sure. Uh so just I I'm trying to shift over to uh kind of having these four main areas. academic excellence, community, uh communication and community outreach, culture of care, uh facilities and fiscal sustainability. So, you know, these are just things over the years and things we're proposing for this upcoming year that we're really proud of in terms of uh what our budget has done in in terms of uh funding values in the district from small class sizes to a variety of uh course work, some of our community partnerships, um expanded mental health mental health staffing, the 2024 capital project. we're excited to be talking about, too. Um, so, you know, it's it's something I say
038every year in terms of funding our values, but um, uh, you know, we we really, uh, have aimed over the years to, um, to present a budget that really gets at the core beliefs of our district and obviously our our, uh, central belief is that diversity is our strength. So, um, this is not it a perfect timeline, but every year I kind of talk about things we've gained over the years in the budget and so we tried to make it a little bit more visual this time around. Uh, this was based on some feedback from like the PLA committee of the board and we played around with this a little bit. So, we've been able to reduce class sizes. We added uh the instrumental music in fourth grade, which if you've been to like a
039high school or middle school band performance the last couple of years, you've seen an exponential increase in in what the kids are doing. And I think the fourth grade music has had a lot to do with that with mental health staffing. We've added over the years two social workers at the high school, a guidance counselor at the middle school. terms of curriculum, Sagi did a great job of talking about all the things we did and you know obviously some of the curriculum stuff started before 2021 but a lot of that was pushed that year uh prek and that year we piloted uh full day and that's expanded to now 110 um spaces in classrooms or seats um for prek partnerships. Some of those partnerships we've had uh for quite a long time, but this past
040year uh we piloted a partnership with Compass Arts. And when we say uh a partnership, we're not talking about a huge ticket item uh in terms of the budget. Common Ground Farm, our our partnership with them over the years has been somewhere between 20 and $30,000 a year for field trips and inclass uh education. uh for land to learn. It it is increasing a little bit this year, but it it was uh around $50,000 a year. I think now it's in the 60 62 I want to say. And then Compass Arts this year. It was it started very small. Um they're doing some clubs at Roundabout. They're doing a play tomorrow uh at South Avenue. They've done some other things at um the other two elementary schools. Um next year we want to expand that
041just a little bit. So, we're working with them to have um to a partnership that's around $20,000. And this is all run through coaster uh the fine arts coaster um with goies. But with the compass, the idea is to keep doing some of the things they're doing like after school activities, but also see if there's ways they can do some inclass presentations as well. So I think it's a way that they have um funding that they can sort of um expect every year and we can also expect some programming for our students too. Um so our road map for next year in terms of new things we want to be offering um is uh we have these summer student workshops at Deacon High School. Corey talked about them uh some months ago, but they're uh
042you know, not a huge initiative, but bringing in um upcoming or prospective ninth graders to for a couple of days in a really focused environment to get them ready for the upcoming school year. Also, uh bringing in students who are trying advanced coursework, especially kids trying advanced coursework for the first time, uh to give them kind of like a foundation uh to base their experience on. We want to do that over the summer, too. site based sightbased mental health at RoundBout and the break program at BHS. We talked about those in Heather's presentation a few weeks ago. The point five speech teacher uh we talked about that uh or Heather talked about that in her presentation too. Math and reading intervention teachers. So, uh right now we have three math intervention teachers at the elementary
043level. We have four schools. Um so we want to increase that by one and have one in each building. that is not that math position is not so much a budget initiative. We're taking a position um that we do not we no longer need after this school year and we're converting it into the math uh position, but it is a big step for us. The two reading intervention teachers would be at the elementary level and that's the one where I do have like the asterisk uh next to in case there's an interruption in federal funding. We'd need to use that to probably you know keep funding the things we currently have. uh meaning federal funding funds our four elementary reading teachers right now. Um so uh so you know but we're we're really excited to
044be able to expand that this year. I think we have a really big need um and they'll provide a lot of support. Actually there's a side effect of that. if we're able to bring in these two extra reading intervention teachers, the TOSA uh Leslie Tomkins position, TOSSA position that's been working um with the elementary schools, we'd be able to move over to RoundMout to help with the MTSS process at Roundout, which would be another big gain. Uh professional development, uh Sagi spoke really well about what we've been offering and then what we plan on offering next year. I think it's a real intensive uh um especially in the area of reading an intensive plan uh to to really upgrade uh the training uh for a lot of our teachers. The thing that's not on this
045road map is the nth period day of roundabout. So when we continue this slide for April 22nd and beyond our plan for that is to have like we're we're sort of thinking that that would take somewhere between three to four teachers to do. Our goal for that is for the 26 27 school year. I think the only way we do these things is to phase in. Um the math and reading um intervention teachers at the elementary level uh were a more pressing need. Uh we feel the need at for the nervos is also pretty significant but we want to do the elementary intervention first and then 2627 and start planning now uh to make the resources available to accomplish that. um to accomplish that the 26 27 budget year. So um we're trying to be
046a little bit more visual with um our offerings uh or with the budget approach this year. Uh the next phase of the presentation is Amarie um digging into just like the different budget codes and just talking about what actually is in the budget, you know, and and just so we have a sense when we get to April 22nd of what, you know, when we're actually proposing that final budget for the board to adopt that you have a better sense of what's in. I think that's Yeah. Thank you. Um so this is just a visual of the uh the major components of the budget. Obviously salary and benefits we had talked about that at the last meeting make up most of it. Um and debt service I'll talk a little bit about uh the increase in
047debt service and why. And then the other the remaining 15% is all the other supplies and equipment that's um in the budget. The total estimated budget uh that we are proposing for the 22nd is 87,720,000. It is a little bit more than what we had um presented in the previous meeting. Um we did I did do a deep dive into the revenue side. There um is some pilot revenue that we are going to be getting in. Um there is a second pilot on Tomkins Terrace and there's the Maribou um pilot. Um we had do an estimate on that. So that money was able to put into it. So you're not affecting the tax cap and uh the state aid number is the same. So, we were able to raise it a little bit more um
048without affecting those two items. Um so, first we're going to start with district office and central administration. Um this is a current to a proposed budget and the dollar changes. Um I I think I I'd like to comment on just some of the the major areas um in the BoseI services. Um that includes our envision program that we use. Um it um the special education department has transitioned their stack into Boseies. Um we were using a private corporation before. Um we utilize Quest Star Boseies forecast 5. That's all through Boseies. These were all programs that the district used as a as a contract. Now they're into BoseI. So we are able to generate Bosey's aid going forward. Um so these these budget codes are um the salaries and benefits and areas of the superintendent's office,
049the business office, the school attorneys, um the um public information services for the budget FL and the development um that is also in the Boseis area. uh district central services is um facilities and um security and major areas of change again um is the Boseies area. We are using ML schedules through capital region Boseies which is a facilities program. It's going to utilize some um of the warranty information on some of the bigger equipment also to do fixed assets um which is kind of a built-in project there. Um and then also an increase we're trying to put through any kind of printing that we're doing through the Boseis print shop rather than use a contracted services so that we can get Bosey's aid um in the following year. District special items um is our insurance.
050Um we did have an increase overall um in uh liability insurance um all the districts between you know 11 to 12%. Um and the BoseI services here um the administrative and capital costs come directly from the Duchess Boseies that they vote on the budget. So that was a little bit of a decrease um in certain areas there. District instructional administration would be uh curriculum and instruction and would also be the principal level um administration. So the building level principles, assistant principles, their clerical, their offices, um in contractual services [Music] um some of the contractual services um that we we incurred um a new curriculum program and some professional development in in there. Also in this area are our partnerships um with we had mentioned that um we're going to have an increase uh program with
051land to learn. We have compass arts in there. We have common ground farms and we also have uh clear water. So all of those programs are in the contractual um expenses area. district regular education obviously the biggest piece of the budget that's uh the teacher salaries um across the board in the buildings and their equipment contractual um just basically uh the running of the um instructional side of the teachers and uh teacher aids teaching assistance monitors textbooks and then a portion of the prek is included in these costs. So remember, prek is not fully funded um through the federal and state funding that we get. So a portion of the prek teachers are in the top line as well on salaries. This is district special education um that Heather presented on um last meeting. Um
052so there are some increases and you know we have to anticipate tuition and Boseies for um it's not necessarily a cost increase although we have seen the tuition costs increase based on the rate um but we do have to build in a couple of different positions in case uh students move into the district. So, it's an estimate. Um, you know, He Heather's done a great job in trying to estimate and we actually have a little bit of money this year that we didn't incur, which is great, but um in special education, we do have to make sure that we have enough um in case we get additional students. Um district instructional costs would be um the school psychologist the guidance all the um services that relate to uh the school buildings. I'm trying and um
053again Boseies has decreased in this area. There's a couple of decreases based on uh people retiring in the sour area um and the replacements um and the equipment's just raised a little bit um in that area as well. Um but nothing really significant. district pupil transportation. Um the biggest area here is the Boseies. So we are desperately still trying to hire bus drivers. We had two in training which we were very excited about at the last meeting. Um but if we do not have enough drivers to do the routes um and in this case it was the special education out of district routes we have to do it through total transportation that is through BOSI. So we do had um we have had an increase in the amount that we had to we were hoping
054to bring back a couple routes but we needed to increase the budget in that area. Um in the equipment line there are two major pieces of equipment that um our head bus mechanic needs to purchase. It's a welder and a tire balancing machine. Um so that's why that equipment line um has changed. Um there are there are no buses in this. We had talked about putting a wheelchair bus into the general fund budget. Um we went back and checked with the headbust mechanic and with the transportation supervisor and he does not believe that we need to purchase the wheelchair bus this year. Um, so we um are anticipating the delivery of the two electric buses over the summer and we had ordered two gas diesel buses last year with the proposition that we still have
055not received. So those are still coming. So for now um we're going to talk about um not putting up a bus proposition, not having a wheelchair bus in the general fund budget um going forward. Emory, would the charging for the e for the electric buses be in this too? Like the chargers are part um of what we're f funding through the ban. So that's all taken care of in the debt area going forward. So um we did receive the two buses and the two chargers. Um but we did get the grant for a good portion of that and we are financing that. So I could talk about that in a minute. District benefits. um our employees and teachers retirement, our social security, um our workers compensation, all those areas um that you know that just
056basically take care of all the benefits related to all the employees in the district and debt service. Um the bond principal amount has increased. We are anticipating going out to bond for the 2021 capital project. So that's the estimate there. Um, and we're also doing some bond anticipation notes. Um, so you're seeing the bond interest just increase a little bit, but it's going to it will decrease based on the bonds, but then we also have the buses um in there. And we also have a ban scheduled for the 2024 project and just the initial costs going forward there. And Matt's favorite slide. Well, I just uh Enry put this information together. You know, for years we've been doing the bar graph where our uh tax rate is on a thing and so I got to
057trial balloon this with the PTO meeting I was at earlier and this I I didn't even use the slide. I was just talking to them and this slide probably got the widest eyeball of you know extensions and like the biggest looks because I think you know back to the revenue part and we'll have this in our presentation April 22nd the tax levy rate is going down ever so slightly to 5.09. We'll we'll have that explained in the at the April 22nd meeting. Um, I think in in my mind, this is an argument to go to the tax cap. Just looking at um how much uh some of our uh I don't you know when I say competitors I'm not necessarily talking about like athletics or debate club, but like just in our hiring and our
058retaining employees, these are some of our closest competing districts and the amount that a homeowner uh you know of the same price house in those districts, the amount more they're paying. Someone could make the argument, well, doesn't state aid try to level that off? Um, it doesn't. It it may take us a little bit closer in leveling it off, but it does not bring us anywhere close to equalizing that playing field. So, um, so, you know, with getting into this, my recommendation again would be u to go to the tax cap. And we use some of these um slides to explain what we've been able to build over the years, what we want to what we want to build the future and how we're getting a lot of bang for our buck in Beacon. um
059you know just in terms of comparing ourselves to some of these other districts and the other thing I mentioned to the PTO meeting and I know you all know but this these are just Duchess districts like so if you then expand this to the region like that that number uh just grows like if we're talking about Orange County, Putnham County obviously Westchester that that school tax estimate just gets bigger and bigger compared to what we're paying here in Beacon. So, uh, so this is one that, you know, when we, um, when we do, you know, whether they're school events or community events, you know, we're going to make sure to have this slide. Um, just some next steps at the April 22nd meeting. We're going to add a few slides to this presentation. So, we
060are going to reinccorporate that bar graph where we do compare ourselves just tax rate wise, all the Duchess districts. We'll put that in. We'll have a final slide regarding the tax levy rate at 509 now. Um and uh there's and then we'll we'll um have that road map that takes us through next year. We'll extend that to the 26 27 year and add a section of what we want to do there with the n period day at RAM uh you know a year out from now. And um I'm blanking on a couple things, but uh we're going to expand this presentation a little bit more for April 22nd. We wanted to give kind of a like a a wider and slightly deeper view into the expenditure side in a presentation. Um so then uh I
061kind of consider that right, you know, April 22nd, um is right at the end of spring break and we have till May 20th. So, uh, I'll be working in the next couple weeks on scheduling some different community events, both digital and in person, uh, to go through this. Uh, when we do the community event, we won't go through every single one of those expenditure slides, but we'll do some of the highlights of that. Uh, May 6 is the budget hearing. May 20th is the budget vote. Uh, one of the things, and you can kind of see a little example there that we haven't totally finished, uh, but we had a great meeting with our administrative team about the budget this year. and they asked uh that they have budget specific material for their schools so
062they can talk to their school communities. So for each of our schools, we're creating like a individualized budget sheet. Uh we're putting all the information together right now. So it's going to have like sta like how much staff does the school have, how many students uh at the secondary level, what courses are offered at all the schools, what are the clubs offered. Uh we're going to get a couple quotes from students on the flyer. um and and have some other pieces because, you know, I think this year is really important uh to give people as much information they can have walking into the um their polling place on the 20th uh in regards to what this budget is supporting. So, the the principles are going to help with that. Uh our goal is to have
063those ready uh possibly by the April 22nd meeting for the board to see, but definitely right after that. uh in terms of dissemining those to the community. I'm talking with PTO's about seeing what they can do in terms of voter education. Um obviously in my role, I'm not telling people how to vote. We're just trying to present as much information as possible. Um but you know, we're excited. Uh obviously there's a little sense of uh trepidation with like the federal role in the budget this year or for upcoming years. Uh, but we're really excited about what we've gained over the years and uh and what we have in in next year's budget. I would have absolutely loved to gotten that nine period day done this year. I think everybody every one of the administrators is
064tired of hearing me talk about it. Uh but I think setting it as a goal already for the 26 27 year helps focus our budget planning for that year to be able to get it done. Uh so so like I said uh we're adding some slides for the April 22nd uh meeting uh in terms of um adding a little bit more information. Um I'm really appreciative and you coming up with these numbers. I think it's super helpful uh in communicating where Beacon stands in terms of uh why we're doing what we're doing. And the last slide I want to add is also an explanation of the capital the 2024 capital project. Uh I'm finding um already doing the one PTO meeting today, it's really useful to join these things together because it is a reason
065uh for the you know the slightly higher levy rate. So we're going to have a slide or two just on all the different things that the 24 capital project is focusing on is it has a obviously very positive impact on our school building. So we'll add that as well. All right. Thank you so much. Does anybody have a question or a comment about the presentation? The visuals look really good. I appreciated the budget code aspect jumping from the 24 to 25 in the budget codes and how it increased and the explanations that you gave. I think it's clear and transparent. I think so too. So um just uh so the the earlier slides really came out of feedback we got from PL and we've been trying to kind of go from feedback from the board
066meetings like do you think the code by code when we do community meetings do you think going code by code like that is stuff that people attending one of those presentations wants to know or should we have it in our back pocket you know to have to put up there if people ask a question or I feel like department by department might be more meaningful I think the benefit of it in in one form or another is that you see that on average the cost of things is increasing way beyond what we're increasing the budget. You know, when you're looking at just even highlighting the ones that were significant, right? Like the 99% one, the 421% increase, right? And you had an explanation as to why that increase is is that's something that stands out,
067right? when you see that it's a 2% or even like a 10% increase, you can kind of that that's in the realm of things. But when you see that it's a large piece, right, that that you have the explanation as to why I thought that was important. I don't know if a community members going to go budget code by budget code, but it's like we're a little bit more in depth with it, right? So, it it did help us. So, now when we see when we talk to community members or they ask us about it, we could say, "Well, check check out this presentation." It kind of has it, right? Um, but I don't know if you have to take the time at the meeting. Yeah, I think talk in terms of like things that
068they understand, right? Like a person would understand goes into a school budget, right? Okay. I think um I think you should have them as appendices for anybody who's interested in digging in or like if there is a discussion about the details. But two things. One is I do think that anywhere there's a delta in like a line in an item, there's a story there and that sort of puts it in a context. I bet if you looked at each one of these things and why they're changing that narrative is probably, you know, and including when things go down, you know, why some because I think that's the that gets a little bit lost when you're looking at the these in a spread um spreadsheet presentation, but I've I'll I had thought of an example, but
069now I've lost the page. But anything where there's a reduction, you know, like the contractual expenses, like that's that that story, you know, everything that we're folding into Boseies, that's a really important narrative to show how mindful we're being and how we're trying to take the money that we're getting and stretch it further. So, I think that explaining that um here are the where the increases are, here's what they're going to, here's where the decreases have been, here's why that's happened. Those on balance I think are good to put together. I just one tiny small critique especially for just presenting um to others is um I think people get like the idea of half a teacher but half a teacher is also funny you know like a.5 teacher and so I think a little bit
070of a like more of a layman's term description of what that means just because I I think it's more like internal lingo yeah just and just being in the education field like a lot of the stuff you could show if like if you highlighted that are uhable Like Bosey's contract isable, like textbooks areable, right? So we're getting money back on money that we spend when we do that stuff. I mean, that's just a nitpick, but I'm just Right. Yeah. Well, and if if board members have any idea about like a a community uh space or, you know, like a community group that think that you think might even want like a 15minute budget talk or you know what I mean? Just let us know. Uh because by April 22nd, I'd love to have at least
071a few of those scheduled. Um and you know, I always feel at those um everyone may not agree with you, but like it it has the potential to create the conversation beyond uh the the meeting itself, right? Like the people who attend have things to say uh after they leave and um so if you have any ideas there, just let us know. I also think Matt when you go to each slide um central office uh maybe making it more specific like the one page said curriculum development like to me that page was like teachers and teaching assistants right and then the other one was like principles and directors like I think parents might understand that more than direct you know just so that they know this page is the teacher page and that would explain
072why that's so much money um the one was I think um uh bus drivers and you know maybe just listing you know who that specific page is dedicated to just for a parent maybe to kind of understand it a little bit easier um maybe just in layman's terms that's all I think one thing and this is down the road or it's just I think the um is when you talked about like the reason for going to the chaps I like the I like the last slide a lot um where or the slide before the the second to last one where it talks about the comparison. I think it's kind of good for the eye to go in order from closest to biggest. But um the uh there's I think a follow-up slide to this probably
073not super important, but if somebody gets into the weeds on it, um average teacher salary like or something that shows what we're competing against because we are in like in a competition for talent and that you know the importance of teachers. So, I think that that also like puts a competitive piece. It's not like a must for this, but I do think it's kind of a good thing to have in your back pocket because if you're making the case here about the difference in the cost um per household and then you kind of make a case about average like what are we trying to build towards? I think that sort of gives the um the why does this matter? Um I have a question. The so the state budget is not final yet. Is there
074a scenario where we're voting on the budget without a final state budget? I sent you all a thing from Niscus to your email that you may not have had a chance to read, but it quoted the governor saying whether it's passed or not by May by the budget adoption time. Schools should know enough. Do you see the governor's schools should know enough to be able to do it? I assume that means I'm not saying like it'll be around this. I see that means it's not going any lower than what I said and so plan on that is my lowest interpretation of uh you know governor speak but um voting by class but I you know when I saw that thing that I sent you and it said standstill I don't love hearing that it's on
075a standstill about non-educational issues not about education but um so you know Anthony you asked the question and I don't have a great answer today either about well if aid goes up um you know what would we do? I you know I think we don't have like a direct plan for that because we still don't have a clear sense of whether that's going to happen or not but you know we're well I'd have to go through last slides but the the pathway one uh so uh this one like this is uh this is coming in on a pretty thin margin for error you know the things we're trying to do and so more aid would kind of help cushion this a little Uh I could with more aid I can't promise like a another teacher
076like because this this this would be pretty close. It have to depend on how far the aid would go up but we're we are monitoring that. That was a question that caught me off guard the last one and and I I I think right now our plan is that we cushion what we're already planning on doing. Um so uh so anyway okay really good. Thank you so much. All right. So, there are no changes to the agenda tonight. So, can I get a motion to adjourn to executive session to review the employment history of a particular individual? So, moved. Moved by everyone. Second by anyone. Second by Kristen. Passes. All in favor? I. Okay. Passes. Uh, the board will return in about 30 minutes. Does that sound right, Matt? 30 minutes. Um, Matt, do you
077want to do your report? Sure. Um, I'll be really brief tonight. Um, since, you know, we've shared a lot of information. One update uh that I just wanted the board to be aware of. Uh we are doing a short uh student climate survey. Um we're we're you know we talked about that earlier in the year and we pulled it together. So uh it will just be Rambout and the high school. I know the high school's really kind of locked in on Wednesday or Thursday is when they're giving it. I think Rambout is looking at Thursday. Um it it's really short. It's be 10 to 15 minutes. Uh I know at the high school that I think they're running it through social studies classes, but it's looking at uh sense of belonging in school, engagement with
078learning, and also uh there's some questions about phone cell phone policy and stuff. So that this uh survey we're doing is normed against uh national data. Uh so when we get the data um you know later in the spring we'll you know share it out in one way or another. Okay. Great. And that's all I have. Okay. All right. Let's move on to um board of education uh comments and committee reports starting with SeamR. Um thanks Agie for your report. That was great. I'm I'm liking the investment in AIS in the middle school. I think that's that's going to do a lot. Um, and the clarity on the reporting on the budget was really helpful. So, thank you for that as well. And I'm very excited for the space pirates play tomorrow. Uh, wow. South.
079My daughter has a lead role. What did you remind me what time? I have a venue for that. I know. She's Yeah. What time is the play? 7 o'clock. Okay, nice. All right, one of the leads. It is solvable. Yeah, thank you for the excellent curriculum report and the um the budget presentation was really um just informative and really user friendly. So, I really appreciate all the effort that went into that and um I am texting with the superintendent about an audit and finance committee meeting. I just saw the good okay um the dates pop up so apologies. I will um okay I will confirm that with you. Uh but I most of the dates we talked about worked. So um well that'll be coming soon. Okay. Awesome. Great. Leavonne I would just like to
080say thank you for the presentations. They were very informative and especially the budget breaking down the information. Um I can't I look forward to seeing the presentation at the next meeting as well. Great Eric. Uh yes uh piggybacking presentations were very uh very good tonight. Appreciate them. Um regarding facilities committee uh we had a great meeting this evening. Um a couple things. We're wrapping up the uh capital project from 21 uh which is great. Um will be will be a lot of work going on in Glennum this summer. And then we started looking at the capital project for 24 uh which we're getting focused on with um the committee and we're hoping to be meeting again May uh 6th I think May 6th at six o'clock. So things are progressing very well. That's all for
081me. All right. Thank you Anthony. Thank you for the presentations and that's it. All right Meredith um thanks for the presentations. I um we had the Duchess County School Board Association meeting on Thursday. The district shared everyone kind of shared their student school board U member status and what they were going to do which was interesting actually. Um I was very proud of Beacon that we've had student school board advisors for so long. Many people are just doing it now. Um, and also Maria Dewald from Boseies uh did a presentation about the Boseies coaster and that was another proud moment for me because when I first got on the board of Beacon, we were barely using the coaster and it was so nice to hear it mentioned so many times tonight because it's such a
082great opportunity to make our money last longer. Um, we don't have a policy meeting scheduled. I don't think so. I'll be emailing I thought we were scheduled for the 10. I thought we were scheduled for the 10. Oh, that's what I was just looking for. Yep. And I was going to get the policies out tomorrow week. Oh, okay. Perfect. Perfect. I can make it. Okay. Policy meeting on the 10th. That's all for me. Okay, great. Um I I also wanted to say that the presentations were super helpful. Um anytime that you're taking the numbers and comparing them um or explaining them sort of toward what Kristen was saying, like telling a narrative about why the number is different or you're presenting stuff in a more visual way, it's super super helpful. So, please keep that
083up because it's it um it really helps uh people like me to um conceptualize uh you know where the money is coming from and where it's going. Um I also wanted to um say that I I am really excited about all of the um opportunities that I'm seeing in curriculum. I have a rising ninth grader, so I'm really engaging more with the high school this year. and we went we had the um course catalog orientation and it was just it's so exciting to see like it's almost like a kid is going to college I think in a way it's almost college preparatory like I didn't have this experience when I was in high school it was like the classes you took were the classes you took but they get to look at this and they
084get to sort of choose tracks that they're on and interests that they have and and the kids are thinking in terms of I need these prerequisites to get to this Like there's so many things about the way this is structured that are so beneficial to to high school students and students who are going to go on to to college or other careers. Um so I'm just thrilled I'm just thrilled about a course catalog and I wanted to share that. Um I also wanted to um thank everyone who completed the board eval. It was it was not for nothing and we will be uh talking about it and making use of it at some point in the future. I also wanted to say that um from our last retreat um Matt and uh Meredith and I
085have been going over some of the recommendations and and talking about um ways to implement them. I mean some things are already happening which is great but one of the things we were talking about is um trying to capture the conversations that we have during board meetings where um a board member asks a question or makes a request that needs to be followed up on later. and it's it feels like this ephemeral thing. Um but oftentimes it's where we're having some of our most productive discussions. So I've created a shared spreadsheet and it's basically just a um BOE follow-up spreadsheet and I'm going to share it with you guys and anytime you have a question um or a request that's going to require follow-up, you will add it. you can ask it and talk about
086it during the meeting but also add it to that sheet because then we will you know make a a habit of regularly cycling through it and making sure that those things are getting responded to. Um so that's all from me. Um now we can move on to the consent agenda. H 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 the right of all board members to be heard on any issue. Are there any items that any board member
087would like to have removed from the consent agenda? All right. Hearing none. Can I have a motion to approve 11.01 through 14.02? So moved. Moved by Meredith. Second. Second. Second by Kristen. Comments or questions? All in favor? I. Passes. What is it? 70. Uh, can I have a motion to adjourn the meeting? So moved. Leavonne. Second. Second by Meredith. Comments or questions? All in favor? Passes 70. Good night.