001I'd like to call the February 21st 2023 regular school board meeting of the beacon City School District to order please stand for the pledge the United States uh delayed here here here delayed here here thank you Matt would you review the fireworks yeah exits are in the back of the LGI is there anyone that would like to make a public comment seeing none I'm going to move on we have um three workshops tonight our first one is from our technology department Scott Welsh welcome Scott this is his first presentation he just joined us in uh late summer yeah getting here ready it's a pleasure to meet you all I'm Scott Welsh the director of technology for Beacon City School District and this is the 2324 technology department budget before we get into the numbers uh
002brief introduction of the department so uh over the overview of the department as I said I'm Scott Welsh uh my right hand uh it's been indispensable to me since I've started here my audio visual specialist Micah Dam check my networking team consists of Amy dick the senior Network specialist and Ron Finnell my network specialist Kim stavally is the student data specialist and my help desk team my infrastructure support Specialists are Nicholas Middlebrook Bailey Moore Liam Olive with as Lena Tuggle as the department clerical now for the 23-24 budget numbers tech department budget for school year 2324 total comes in at a little under 2.5 million that is before any uh State AIDS or reimbursements to projected reimbursements are a little under 940 thousand dollars bringing the total cost to District after reimbursement a little over
0031.5 million a breakdown of the budget uh 57 of next year's budget will be going through Dutchess County Boces for our software uh support and uh some of our services uh it's uh important to point out for next year we will be moving roughly 300 000 of our budget from contractual Services where we pay the vendor directly and we will be routing it through BOCES which will generate uh 57 return in state aid on those purchases our staff uh salaries come in at 24 percent hardware and software come in at seven and our contractual Services come in at 12 percent foreign ly over five years the 2324 budget is consistent with previous years in the total money spent however the uh the additional um the additional state aid by routing uh expenses through BOCES has
004brought the uh the cost to District back down to 2019-2020 levels so pre-pandemic uh which is uh which is a a you know given how technology driven we've become since the pandemic is uh is pretty notable one of the things that we'll be doing next year is a Chromebook replacement plan for our one-to-one initiative currently the district uh and all grades have the Dell model 3100 which has a projected end of life of 2027. so we have roughly four years to uh to recycle those uh those models through the district so starting with next year we will be purchasing the next model available which is the 3110 uh which has an end-of-life date of 2030 um we'll be purchasing three grade levels at a time so we'll be doing that for next year and for
005its 24 25 school year in 2526 the following model the 3120 should be available where we will be purchasing three years worth of those and following that up on 26 2627 leaving only the graduating seniors with the remaining 3100s so by the end of this cycle we will have roughly roughly three models three different models staggered throughout the district which will give us a more stable and predictable yearly budget as where as we're coming end of life on only a certain percentage of our models in the district needing replenishment the new proposed items are 2324 include a district-wide VoIP phone system Elementary stem field trips an online pde platform district-wide abosi's contracted data privacy privacy specialist and additional cyber security compliance software and I'll go into these a little bit more in detail our current
006phone system is a hybrid of analog and digital moving to a fully VoIP phone system would utilize the existing digital and fiber Network and transition off of our analog copper lines it would eliminate the yearly billing from multiple different phone vendors having a hybrid plan to a single digital plan uh the model the equipment that we're looking at for the VoIP system is is put out through Cisco so it provides a foundation of security and it integrates with our with our existing lockdown uh vendor and our PA system and the enhanced features and sustainability of a fully voiped system brings us well into the future foreign the elementary stem field trips through Contender Esports in Wappingers currently our vendor for our Esports middle school and high school teams Contender now offers field trips for the
007elementary level where teachers will be able to choose from a variety of stem topics from Minecraft Rabbids coding and Roblox education it's game-based learning and it drives social and emotional development and the lesson plans create skill and Imagination individual art form and they satisfy academic standards for science geography and environment the district-wide online PD platform through Otis Otis provides a training platform for educational resources for staff including training for Google Suite Adobe Blended learning in classrooms it's the ability to extend training modules to parents via a parent portal where parents can access online modules to help their children integrate with Google Classroom classlink to get situated and the online trainings offered to staff are also available for ctle credit which they can apply towards their nice and certification requirements data privacy specialists and cyber security
008compliance software um I'm putting these two together because they kind of work hand in hand um through Duchess BOCES we can contract with a a data privacy specialist one day a week who can ensure and maintain our nice Ed law 2D compliance it can acquire and manage vendor data privacy agreements the data privacy specialist is also trained in the symmetrics software which is a cyber security software that aids us in our nist compliance which is a national standard for technology uh nist compliance and cyber security measures are now heavily required for many cyber security insurance policies looking Beyond into the future we're looking at a multi-year phase switch replacement as we have six different buildings and we have aging technology coming up with a with a phase plan so that we can swap out our
009our equipment in a in a staggered manner uh we need to do this because new Wireless in in the next five years is coming out a new band of Wireless that devices are going to be connecting to um our current access points have a have a lifespan uh they they're up in 2028 The Replacements are going to uh be offering this new wireless as an option and the new wireless takes a little bit more bandwidth a little bit more power from the switches to operate so you need newer switches that are able to provide those power Smart Board Replacements right now we have two different models in the district one of them is is approaching end of life within the next couple of years I would like to look at a uniform solution throughout the
010district um with uh you know taking a look at different models different feature sets to provide a little bit more uh uniformity across the buildings and uh educational Pathways for I.T certification Pearson VUE has offerings that uh are basically pre-packaged courses in which students can can engage in different Adobe Google different vendors software and learn the ins and outs of it um in preparation to sit for uh certification exams uh these type of curriculum are are beneficial for many different ways and can be offered as um as AP courses as uh as uh different uh just different different ways to to integrate technology and and enable our students to embrace uh the the digital world outside of high school and that's it for my presentation are there any questions well I'd like to say thank
011you for the details and the forward look as to where we need to go and we all know that technology has its uh lifespans but um I'm looking at the VoIP what do we have uh now and what is it that you're looking to go to I remember when VoIP first came in I kind of rated the voice quality as somewhere between cell phones and landlines uh how how is it now and you're assessment well I mean voice over IP is certainly Leaps and Bounds from when it first came out um the the voice quality the the high school was on a fully fully void so the the the voice quality that you get on a VoIP system is it's comparable if not better in Clarity than a traditional landline phone and you know the
012the issue with our copper wiring is that copper wiring goes bad after a while you know current runs through it it tends to degrade um we have vendors who are consistently coming out to replace surge protectors replace lines for our for the segments of our district that are copper based it's also very limiting in terms of what we can do with it because we're on a hybrid system we can't really embrace the different feature sets that are fully voiped system could offer because we have segments of our district that aren't on that that Network yet um the VoIP system we're looking at integrates with our lockdown system our security cameras and our PA system so the feature sets it allows it allows for um our front desk staff to be able to see who's ringing
013the bell from the phone um our attendance secretaries to be able to make announcements in the building from their phone rather than having to go to a PA system mic um voice over email uh voicemail over email so if you're not suggesting somebody leaves you a voicemail it can it can route to your email with a WAV file that you can just click and you can listen to your voicemail you can click a button and you can delete the voicemail from your phone you know from your from your desk phone right there on your cell phone it's just um the feature sets that it offers the the ability to take that single system and know that you have something that is going to be sustainable for at least six or seven years before there's a
014firmware update or a need of a change of equipment it's it it pays you know it's a big it's a big expense but it pays for itself in in what you're saving and having uh phone vendors come out to repair your lines constantly and what you're not and and the the ease of what you're not able to do currently and what you would be able to do with a fully voiced system makes it more than worthwhile and the Chromebooks uh we're very fortunate to have launched into the Chromebook for all yes mode just before covet came down and yes thinking how much worse it would have been if we've been a year later I I worked for a district that was scrambling to get it done after covid it was not fun so um you're
015talking about a phased uh replacement plan yes so so Dell generally puts out a new model once every three years um they missed this past year they missed the 3110s they were not ready so we wound up instead of getting those this year we got another round of the 3100s which unfortunately put the entire District on that model now those are good until 2027 but you certainly don't want a huge hit you know where you're where you're replacing half the district or all of the district at one time so looking at it right now and saying well the 3110s are available right now we've got incoming kindergartners so how many grade levels do we need to replace at one time so I can have the whole District transfer transferred over before the 3100s go end
016of life and the number is three three grand the three great grade levels at a time would allow us to phase out the 3100s in time and it would also coincide with with the 3120s come out so you would actually wind up with different models you know at different grade levels so then the X the expiration date would stagger as well which would keep things sustainable at a certain price point where you're not scrambling at the end does it look like our budgeting is is adequate for the plans that you have in mind for at least the current year yes yes the budgeting is adequate for that I believe between the the the budget that I have and what I was able to move over to BOCES and generate some state aid for um that
017that kind of filled the gaps to be able to offer um to be able to sustain what we currently have or for some new things and not uh not increase the budget very good presentation was really excellent and I think the um the kind of moving into the curriculum piece of it was is really critical and um so helpful for especially preparing kids for changing world so thank you so much for all the effort you put in I appreciate that thank you um oh sorry go ahead okay can I just ask out of curiosity uh the smart boards and the Chromebooks and things like that what happens to the old equipment once it's switched out so with Chromebooks um basically Google stops sending you know at a certain point Google will stop sending updates for
018that model so I mean they're still usable but they're not they're not receiving they're not receiving security updates they're not receiving firmware updates they're not receiving any any new um latest and greatest from Google um you know Google has determined that they are end of life they're functional um but it's best practice to to recycle them so they get recycled they get recycled yes okay and does that so the companies like sort of take them and uh we have we have E-Waste companies and and we we also work through BOCES to to reclaim uh expired expired devices okay and equipment thank you any other questions um we are working with um our auditor and one of the things we're doing is a cyber security audit this summer I I assume you are aware of that
019and you're that that doesn't start until July okay okay great well I'll be interested to hear that but this is great and wonderful that you figured out how to run more things through state aid well done thank you that's huge thanks a lot yes I'm sorry one more question yes how does she mention there are some additional Integrations with regard to the parent portal uh does this mean that uh parents can assist their students and they're getting into the Google Classroom that type of thing yes so Otis the online platform um has a parent portal has a parent module where the district can take you know the modules that they have access to and they can make them available on the parent side and there are modules on how to sign up into a Google
020Classroom how to use Google Classroom how to use Google Sheets Google Docs the different Google tools um it has all kinds of training modules that we can make available to parents that can eat them when it when the little one is home you know help them with their homework help them get onto their Chromebook help them utilize the Google apps things of that nature yes okay thanks um for the educational Pathways how are you planning to link them to like our classes at the high school like well that would that would actually be more of a a collaborative effort between uh Mr Dwyer and and uh Dr O'Neill um but basically Pearson VUE has offerings and different different ways in which that can be integrated into classrooms and I'm bringing it to to our attention
021as a possibility of something that we can work on collaboratively I actually have a question does Parent Portal fall under technology the well so I use the words Parent Portal um because we're familiar with it we're familiar with it with with uh with PowerSchool it is a it is a this this app that I was speaking about um I meant PowerSchool sorry I'm so like PowerSchool falls under you so PowerSchool is kind of a a multi-person tool the the the parent portal um my my senior network uh specialist Amy and my data specialist Kim um when a parent sends in a help desk ticket to the parent portal email they're the ones who receive it and they will con you know if they can if they can address the issue directly they will if not
022they'll contact whatever building level person they need to work with them to work through it so it is a collaborative effort but yes we are involved I'm just curious on the features that that are on there that are not being used is there a point when we'll start using them for instance like um graduation requirements is on one of the side panels that you can use they're like all the little features on the side so I was just curious if we would ever go that route and start using them to kind of educate the student from where they are with their graduation requirements and the parent because when they get to College like a lot they have some of them have advisors but some of them don't so they have to get in a habit
023of following like a uh I don't know it's a proper word like a curriculum sheet a degree Works type sheet to tell them what track they need to go on reworks myself yes what to go on so I was just curious if using power school and in the parent portal if those features on the sides would ever like well I beat you I can't answer directly but I mean it is something that that I can I can work with Mr Dwyer and and you know see if it's something that we can we can enable and see if we can make uh we can make work absolutely mm-hmm thank you so much thank you next we are going to hear from Cassandra orser the principal of glenham Elementary thank you good evening everyone I feel like
024I'm I know everyone's everyone sitting here um so it's funny because I was just talking when I got here about putting this presentation together and it was a great reflection of not only the the beginning of the school year until now but then as I was looking at the board members I may have been a teacher in the Middle School when John was there and now I have some students of mine at glenham who I taught their parents when I was at Round bout and so it's coming for Full Circle um in a really big way so this was even more special I feel like than ever before oh and Elijah's in the presentation I think that's what started my my thought process because he was also one of my students way back when um
025so to get started and addressing the board goals the first that I'd like to talk about is excellence and exemplary curriculum so this is updated quite a bit from last year because we were so lucky at the buildings to get New Foundations kits we went through the process of trying to inventory what we had and it was a crazy mishmash of all sorts of things but not like ever did I find one full kit that was usable so now that we have full Brand New Foundations kits we have been able to implement foundations with Fidelity so I included a couple pictures because it is in pre-k those are some Pre-K friends on my left there learning their letters and then also in kindergarten and then um I moved on to science 21 so that's students
026working on a Science question in their classroom as a team um but the to go back to foundations it's really just been amazing and to to watch the data in iready reflect um the use of that program has been wonderful um also with iready this year we've been able to use the teacher toolbox so we've been able to take the data from the diagnostic assessments that the students take and then group students accordingly and use the teacher toolbox to create interventions or like we're using nris program now so oftentimes it's cumbersome to try to create interventions for all different groups of students but I feel like iready has provided another resource for teachers um science 21 implementation I am loving in every way as a former science educator I have um elementary teachers now saying
027come and watch my science lesson where before they were like please don't come and watch science like because they were so nervous about it I do have to say teacher prep programs when it comes to science it's hard to really um provide what elementary teachers need but now I do feel like their confidence is growing and their excitement is growing and even today in a grade level meeting we started talking about what it's going to look like with the four state required investigations and what grade levels and how it's how they're circling from third grade up through fifth so it's really exciting and the kids the kids really love it which has been great it's been great to see more Hands-On which I know they've been asking for um and then again just to speak
028to the assessment data I spoke to this last year we utilized a really great spreadsheet which has now expanded and has so much information on it so we're able to sit down as grade level teams or instructional support teams and really review where students are where their deficits are interventions to put into place and how to progress monitor so I feel like we are moving in a great Direction with our curriculums um I love to add photos so I sort of cover the slides in them um experiences is another big part of the Excellence happening in the elementary schools some of this is probably going to be redundant between the elementary schools because we do a lot of the same things like working with common ground Farm light bulb lab is just the glenham version
029of um like a stem time in the library uh first grade it's going to be Maple sugaring again this year um you can see we look for lots of ways to celebrate at school so we did a hundred days of school and our kindergarteners dresses 100 year olds and then the next day we did 101 days of learning and we dressed as 101 Dalmatians and I got to be Cruella thanks to my PTO um but we come up with all different ways to celebrate um also a lot of community involvement the bottom left picture is Officer Kelly aluzio from the town of Fishkill Police Department she is a familiar face at glenham she visits all the classrooms when she comes the kids love her um and she is our DARE officer um I added in
030you know Norwalk aquarium fourth grade's going to be doing Museum Village so just a lot of different experiences um I also put some notes in my phone so I wouldn't forget um because we also have been collaborating as elementary schools and we're all sending our fifth graders to the stem day at the Renegades which is great because it's right here and it's surprising the number of students who actually haven't been to a Renegades game so they get to see a game and they get to do lots of stem activities um we had the anti-bullying assembly with the BMX riders which was very loud but a lot of fun um we had the 2x2 Zoo come we have a Pout-Pout Fish play being put on in the spring um so we have lots and lots of
031different experiences going on to talk through the rest of the pictures I have to give a shout out to Captain pisinelli who's one of the parents in the building he works for the MTA police and he had some of his friends come with their canine dogs to do demonstrations so um their philosophy is it's not like they weren't attacking people or anything like that they were showing us how they like sniff out suitcases and how they do their agility work so we got to see them run and do jumps and it was a lot of fun uh the top right we had Beacon volunteer ambulance Corps come and show uh third through fifth grade stop the bleeds which is about putting on a tourniquet and we had lots of teachers volunteer for that you can
032see Mr Lopez in the chair um and then the bottom right is Fire Prevention Day um where we had I think six different fire departments come for our parade and then you can see my friend there ready to go for Fire Prevention Day um moving on we also have been focusing on clubs and increasing the club offerings at the elementary level so the little video on the top there is one of our running clubs um where the kids think they are extra special because they can run through the hallways of the school um but they also do you can see the bottom picture with the kids on the floor they do a lot of teamwork activities and there is a social emotional curriculum built into that about like being a good friend and making good
033choices um then on the bottom left there we have chess club we have first grade math club on the bottom right we have our environmental Club they were collecting Recycling and then they turned the bottles in to buy plants to plant in the front of the school the top right is one of my friends in newspaper who he does the little segment where he takes pictures but they're like really close up and you have to guess what they are um so everybody's sort of found the club that they want to be a part of um and then I just listed off all the other different clubs there the board game club student council we have intramurals now which is very highly attended um and then Girls on the Run and then I do have more
034proposed clubs teachers are very excited and they're coming up with all different things so some of the proposed clubs coming up hopefully I have meditation Club somebody just proposed doing a dance club and a beginner's Spanish language Club so they're writing the proposals and hopefully we can add some more offerings um so the video there we always like to have a fun bulletin board in the beginning of the year where all the students in the school are represented in some way so classes could choose to do either a link or a handprint and that just went along with the character trait for September we do a character trait every month as part of building leadership um the top right is I went around to all the classrooms in January the character trait was kindness um
035so I read how to be a bucket filler so everybody in the school is using the same language around being Bucket Fillers or bucket Dippers um which has been really great to have just mediations between kids so that they understand um when some people have empty buckets and it's very easy to fill someone's bucket the bottom right there are two of my friends who have um a little worksheet that they did about how to be a bucket filler at school at home on your own um and then uh on the bottom there is our new security guard Mr Luke he came over to glenham from the middle school and he is holding a thank you card um oh and now I can't the character trait was uh I it slipped my mind uh gratitude so
036we we talked about showing gratitude and students at the lower level wrote thank you cards that looked like the one Mr Luke is holding and then in the upper grades students actually wrote out thank you cards and they could pick anybody that they wanted to give them to so there was lots and lots of gratitude being shown all over the school um moving on from there I just mentioned that we continue to use flexible seating that was a really big push from the district a couple years ago um and you can see the my friend on the bottom there pretty much every classroom students are are utilizing either those little scoop chairs or bean bag chairs or we have a lot of cozy Corners in classrooms where they have um like a little hidden area
037in the corner where they can get work done on their own so flexible seating has been really instrumental in allowing students to be comfortable in the classroom while they learn uh responsive classroom we still have the schedule where we can accommodate morning meetings um and then also quiet times after lunch and a closing circle at the end of the day um and that again is helpful really to support the social emotional needs of the students um so that they're ready for learning and then I did just mention I know I talked a lot a bit about it last year the zones of Regulation um and the sensory Pathways at glenham are still a most classrooms have had a presentation of the zones of Regulation but it's still a common language used in the school and
038I feel like we're adding more and more sensory paths like every month I'm like oh here's another one but um some of the conversations that come up came up recently is creating like a sensory hallway where there's different things on the wall like different textures because in the past we would yell at the kids from dragging their hands down the hall and now it's definitely um a supportive strategy and and things like just Lego tiles or different things different uh textures can be used um in the hallways so we do have stations around the school still also for movement breaks like wall push-ups and different things so all of those um supports are in place I think I spoke oh I didn't speak to the one most important thing there my friend Elijah it's an
039awful picture because it's so far away um but he came in Elijah Hughes came in and spoke with all of the grade levels at glenham and he read a nice book to them about um really you know um sort of acclimating to the life that he lives now and and having to be out of his comfort zone and make new friends everywhere he goes so it was a really great introduction to the year and it was fun for the kids to say wait you taught him he's two feet taller than you um so Equity inclusion and inclusion um some of some of the same sort of traditions we have again at glenham so we have um every class does family portraits which are really really cute I don't have a lower elementary picture but they're
040really funny um to see how the children view their families but this has been an opportunity for us to see um all different families that children live with sometimes it's grandparents aunts and uncles cousins friends sometimes they include pets that have passed away or other family members that have passed away and it really gives them an opportunity to share who they are with their class which is great at the beginning of the year when we're establishing classroom families so there is just a little snapshot on the top of some of the family portrait pictures um we also then transition into being a classroom family so we do our classroom family hand prints um and and really just to focus on everyone in the classroom is different but that's what makes your classroom family um moving
041over to the left there our own Miss Wendy Figueroa did a Hispanic Hispanic heritage assembly on Puerto Rico which is where she is from and we do have a large number of students who have Puerto Rican Heritage so they were so excited to have that commonality and be able to talk with Miss Wendy and each other about the different musical instruments the different food she spoke about different holidays um so it was really great learning opportunity for all of us um we also had a Lunar New Year celebration um we had a Native American read aloud that was shared on our morning news show we also had um a Black History Month read aloud that the students in grades three through five volunteered to read that was on our morning news show um there was
042the video in the beginning of our Black History Month laser light assembly which the PTO sponsored and then there's two pictures on the bottom there um we had some rombout middle school students who are Girl Scouts working on their silver award come in and teach students about the game awari which is sort of like Mancala and um it originated in Africa so that was also during Black History Month um if you follow Twitter or Instagram typically my Elementary School updates and reminders are on there that's just a snapshot of the one that went home in January um for focusing on communication social media which is spelled incorrectly and then um a big focus on our evening events it was hard because I have a ton of pictures from our Trunk or Treats but they're hard
043to see because it was so dark during the Trunk or Treat so I didn't add those in but with PTO we've had the Trunk or Treat event we have Bingo this Friday night that picture there is actually of our pasta dinner which was um put on by our fifth grade committee um and then um I I do also want to mention the evening events coming up um we have our open house and I'm very excited that we will have an optional science fair along with our open house again which we had done a couple years ago and then um sort of through covet it went away but that will be back so I'm excited for that and then last but not least sustainability um so we do have our Garden Club at glenham they are
044instrumental in keeping the front of the building um looking beautiful they like to buy flowers and then the kids go out and plant them in front of the bell and also when our pots in the front um they also since it's winter time they have been going outside and collecting different items to create like um structure different structures to put on display which are interesting um we also you know are still working with land to learn we are planning our pollinator pathway which is going to be in the back of the school near The Outdoor Classroom um we just got the list today of the different plants so that's exciting and then um all of the elementary schools I believe are working to do a schoolyard cleanup for Earth Day coming up and that's it
045any questions for Cassandra I had a quick question um thank you so much that was it's great to see all the happy smiling faces um for your student clubs would you say that usually it's something that you guys come up with it on an administrative level and you see if there's interest or do you find a lot of teachers come to you with interest in creating it or how does they usually get feel more often than not students Express interests sometimes they'll put feelers out we'll send out like a flyer that says like if we have for instance like kindergarten and first grade math club we had no idea if we were going to have students participate or we were not so we sent home a flyer and it was like if you were interested
046please let us know well we ended up having to run two separate clubs because we have like I think it's like 12 kindergartners and 17 first graders oh wow okay um so it was going to be impossible to run them at the same time and allow everybody to participate um so that's how we have been doing them um Miss botero had a student approach her about dance club so she came to me and was like students are interested they want a dance club they loved it and they loved all of our kids love dancing um in our Black History Month assembly with the laser light show there was it went through history and music and all and it was I thought it was going to turn into a dance party I was a little bit
047nervous because they were all moving and it was it was great um so there's definitely student interest and then we try to take that student interest find somebody who's interested or sometimes the kids go right to somebody who they know will do it and say I'm interested you you know and we have this and then they're like well let's look into it so a lot of it is student driven and and just based on intramurals is another example fourth and fifth grade we have um typically would be third through fifth but we have 38 students who are in the fourth and fifth grade intramurals so it's almost unsafe to add another grade level to that so that's why we we ended up bumping it to second and third together and then kindergarten and first together
048so we can allow for the participation and not have these massive number of students in in the clubs all right that's great uh good evening sorry I'm late um love the science fair why uh what's option why what why is it called optional um you they don't children don't have to participate okay yeah that's fine yeah because I want the Glen and parents to still like me I I thought I thought all science fairs were optional but okay no it didn't used to be oh really now when I started at glenham it was like a requirement for certain grades oh yeah and I was like I was not much of a fair for science don't yeah okay um when I saw your sustainability slide you know I saw land to learn I saw and I
049remember that the glenham school school the schoolyard the grass you've got the largest stink school yard in all the schools yes it um any any amount any ideas or imaginations what maybe you can do with that I don't know a lot of a lot of different um like teachers are like why don't we have a track and I'm like oh but all that grass would just be a track well no no I was taking more of the sustainability oh yeah so I mean land to learn I'm not sure how big that Garden is but you know it's it's a decent size but it there's I mean we have so much property um we do which I didn't add into this but each year um I think it's the dec you can apply to get a
050certain number of shrubs or trees so we do that every year and then we have like a day where each grade level will go and plant trees but mostly we do it around the tree line so that yeah and we're we're developing a pollinator pathway Gardens at each of the four elementary schools and so that's been a real collaborative effort and Cassandra's really led the way on that and so they've identified their spot where they're doing it and um the difficulty with that is you have to think about getting water to getting water to it we don't necessarily want it near like lunches because we're attracting pollinators which sometimes can sting um so there was like a lot of different conversations of where it would go and then also part of that is going to
051be relying on my parents um volunteering to come and plan and take take care of yeah the different parts of the garden I mean I love I love gardening so but it's nice to have another Garden at the school yeah no those those are I mean it definitely I think it's wonderful work I mean when when I looked at sustainability slide I was thinking of like wow you know you've got enough space to do like capture the rain water coming off the roof and then just kind of siphon it down down down down here to maybe to the Pioneer Garden or so we did actually talk about that and we looked at different parts of the roof on where we can collect water we do that already in our the garden that we have for
052vegetables is in our um Courtyard okay so we do already do that there but there's actually there's two different spots that we identified with um planning for the pollinator pathway where we can collect water um and not only water the gardens in the back but also we have because of the Garden Club we have lots of plants all in the front that need watering yes and then every time a teacher retires we also plant a tree in their honor so there's watering with that as well so we do a lot of watering and collecting the rain water is a great idea yes um composting Maybe so I tried composting in my science classroom yeah it didn't work out okay all right well great work thank you very much thank you I had a question so
053um could you explain a little bit about the zones of Regulation and the sensory paths yes um so the sensory Pathways I didn't put pictures this year I'm sorry the sensory pathways are simple it's just different colored objects on the floor or lines that go different ways sometimes there's like a swirl and the students walk through them it's really it's like a movement break it also it can be calming at times it's usually like if a student just needs a break from class they say you know can I go for a walk they get to go for a walk they go around the hallways we have lots of different things so we have like areas where you can do wall push-ups areas where um there's an explanation of like an exercise and it helps just
054for the students to regulate themselves they know they can feel that their body is sort of not in control so they ask for a break so that they can get back in control get their wiggles out and then get back to class so that they're ready to learn but with the sensory pass it's usually like the length of one of the hallways and they sometimes it's like the one that we have you have to hop like a frog and then you spin in circles and then there's like a balance beam area and um it's just different movement breaks like that and the zones of Regulation is very similar so a student it gives the student the opportunity to identify how they're feeling and then there's actual um examples of things that they can do to
055get in like the green zones the green zone is the zone that you want to be and that you're ready for for learning okay um so if you're in the Red Zone you know you might be like angry or frustrated um but oh so here and we all walk around we also have so when you're talking to a student who might be upset they can help identity you know you can help them just say like what zone are you in and in the OT room um there's a lot of different activities that students can do and we have a whole like diagram of like if you're in the red zone or the yellow zone and you want to get to the green zone here's some sample things that you can do that's really cool it's
056helpful for students of all ages yeah any other questions for Cassandra great presentation thank you so much can we make sure to get um Cassandra slides on the agenda I don't know um next we have our district comprehensive Improvement plan presentation from sagrari over to Cinder O'Neill all right you guys are getting marathons today so I will be brief um I actually have a video if you would like to see of I forget your name Ari you wanted to see like the sensory path yes I have a 90 second video because I did one in my school when I was principal and I demoed it so I could send it to the Board of Education if you want to see what it looks like that'd be great I shouldn't say I put it up my
057husband he's probably watching right now saying you didn't do that all right all right good evening everyone I'm sorry I had to wedge myself in I wanted to give a brief overview of our district comprehension Improvement plan our district comprehension Improvement plan is creative because we did have two schools that were identified by the state of New York at schools that were targeted monitored so we did have a presentation by one of those schools last week and then we had our Middle School which apparently is no longer on the list so that's the celebration yay so we referred down to one school and no doubt next year we probably won't have to do this plan anymore we can keep to our internal plan and I just want to talk a little bit very briefly about
058how the plan is developed so the two schools do get together and they have a process in which they have to do their own individualized plan so they have to bring a committee together that's made up of Educators and parents they do a self-reflection equity survey that is given to the students um they have to analyze their data they have to also ensure that their the data that they're analyzing and the goals that they select are in alignment to our district goals then based on those two plans then uh one big District plan is developed and sent to the state of New York So based on the two plans there were three major themes that emerged from those two plants so there were three priorities the first one was to continue our priority of creating
059a culture of care that supports student social emotional learning and how are we going to address that so our teachers will be involved in professional learning that supports diversity equity and inclusion as well as social emotional learning as we know this year we did have one position that was dedicated at the elementary level to social emotional practices as responsive practices and we are also in order for our students obviously to feel supported to feel firm to feel welcome they have to feel that they're being represented within their classrooms so we did use rescue money to ensure that all of our classrooms have culturally responsive texts libraries as well as guided reading books we did use rescue money for that so that's something that is going to continue to be developed our second priority was to
060continue meaningful learning experiences that every student's engage in work there's collaborative relative and personalized and what would that look like right now we do have teachers that are involved in curricular mapping after school we have included teachers as well in the secondary level as well but the map The Curriculum maps are aligned to our the culturally responsive framework that's on the state of New York as well as to our standards we're working hard to make sure the students are engaged in authentic learning experiences we're looking at assessment common assessments looking at rubrics we did add science 21 even though it was wasn't specific to one particular school that was identified it was to all the schools but it's another opportunity to give students authentic learning experiences inquiry-based experiences that are aligned to the Next Generation
061science standards we did work very hard this year where you're under in the process of reframing a response to intervention we are no longer using the term response to intervention even though that is the term that has been identified by the by the federal government and we are using instructional support teams so we're using more of an acid-base language and mindset as opposed to a deficit so we're looking at those teams to ensure that our students who need support are getting the support model that they need and guided reading is one of those mechanisms that we are using to ensure that all students are being are being supported at the level that they need to be supported and our third priority is again to professional development intentional conversation among staff around diversity Equity access and
062inclusion and what does that look like so again one of the things that we want to ensure is when we look at obviously our schools who have been identified what the state looks at the state looks at State data but as we know when I shared in the beginning of the school year not all of our students participate in our our state assessments so we do have I ready that we administer to our students three times a year and when I ready does it gives us an opportunity to see all students one data point how they're doing in Reading how they're doing in math and because all students take the Benchmark assessment it gives us a real opportunity to look at where growth is needed where support is needed and an opportunity to celebrate where
063students are doing well the other thing about iready is that iready has also been disaggregated the way the state disaggregates our data in terms of demographics in terms of gender in terms of race and in 12 in terms of social economic status so we're able to look at disparities in their data so if we see that there are particular groups that need more support as well as students with disabilities that gives us an opportunity to again be able to meet students where we are and have positive conversations on how we want to support our students and again we are continuing this year with our diversity equity and inclusive practices professional learning we are doing it embedded within every professional learning opportunity that we're doing because again we don't want Equity to be a separate thing
064it should be embedded in all the things that we do I said I was going to be brief with the I ready do you know how accurate it is in predicting how a student will do on a state tests like for proficient and non-proficient actually according to them and in the research that I have done it's about an 80 alignment one of the things that I already does is it also has a test prep in the teacher toolbox the teachers now have this year so in in addition to the additional lessons that they can do that they can pull pull out and work with their students there is a test prep book in there that has the same type of questions that would be asked on the state assessment and that's what we're using for
065our students who are in The Rise program eighty percent for the ELA or math or both yeah it's a line to the Next Generation standards and it's also it gives you a Lexile level which you then you can convert if you're using fungus and panel or if you're using dra those other types of benchmarks so it's about 80 accuracy and again we're using it as just one data point because again we also do other benchmark assessments through functional we also do teacher-based assessments ongoing Assessments in the classroom so we want to make sure that we see the full student learning profile as opposed to relying everything on one thing but I ready is one data point that's pretty objective because it's not the teacher administering the exam it's a the computer that's doing it and
066all students get to take it so I had a question about um so rambots off the list uh recently um besides the maybe the administrative energy that it takes to run the comprehensive plan and you know how different is it you know how different would that be you said we could run run our internal plans now right so what I don't understand is like a um so the was the district was this comprehensive plan that we had to do for the state did it get in the way with implementing the internal plan in rombout or was it like a 50 50 was it like no it's comp it's it's a line the district plan has to align what the two schools did okay now obviously which is why what I did was the emerging themes
067that came from the two plans is what I developed to the state yeah but the state also gets the school-based plans as well okay so all the plans have to be sent to the state so then what looks different now that rambots off the list what's different at roundabout anything besides just having the trouble what they use again there are certain indicators that the state uses in order to identify the lowest five percent of performance in the State uh they use chronic absenteeism they use the state assessments they there was a couple of things that they untethered last year so that one thing to keep in mind is that because of covet the appr full requirements were not applied this year they will be so there's nine components and last year what they did they
068only really used three so that was probably one of the reasons why roundabout was able to get off the list hopefully they'll be able to maintain themselves off the list but unfortunately they do the state assessment is one of the big components that they use because of because of Essa so and we only have about 50 of the kids that participate in the state exams but again they look at other things again the big thing is also chronic absenteeism so and we don't use chronic absenteeism I'm sorry and but the district doesn't use chronic absentee no but they look at individual schools okay but the state does okay yep so Sergeant was identified because of chronic absenteeism or how they perform them I said that's one of the elements but they look at Chronic absenteeism
069they look at um to look at State performance scores but Sergeant was identified because of the performance on African-American students well there's the subgroups as well right so if you so there's nine different subgroups that they look at so you can get identified if they're and when you think about it and I'll give you an example of my school when I was principal I got a warning because one of my subgroups my African-American students work for them that got a one on the state assessments which meant that it was less than 50 percent of my students did not pass the ELA I only had nine African-American students and six of them were students with disabilities so because four of them who had IEPs did not do well I got a warning that they were going
070to watch that subgroup so when they Identify some of these subgroups sometimes you have to look at how they're being identified because the smaller your group is the harder it is to kind of maintain it in good in good standing because all you need is one or two kids not to not to get you know to get lower than a three but don't they have like a minimum number for a subgroup yeah yeah because I I know for a fact because I had nine because I remember I was like I'm nine and I remember my counterpart was um was uh yeah two Asian students one had chronic absenteeism so they were identified for that subgroup were warned and again it was only two students it doesn't get you identified but it does but they will
071bring it to your attention that you have a subgroup that needs support so you're you are supposed to kind of plan so again when you get identified is when you have several components that are um that I need to support any other questions okay thank you so much thank you thank you do any of our student School Board advisors have comments they wanted to share tonight Ari harsh Demi Cleo okay okay um they didn't even mention that uh the seniors will not get new laptops right when you said the the class of 2023 will will be the only ones to knock it I looked at you all and no one made a face but anyway our feelings you're letting us live we're the first ones together for a long time looking at the agenda the
072only thing that is going to change is Flora has a edited the letter that Anthony wrote for to send to our elected officials regarding the budget and we're going to go over that under business and just just I'll during my superintendent update I'll go a little bit more in depth but the latest on DCC while you're here is that the county legislator legislature has pretty much indicated to us through a letter that they will not be supporting any additional help they feel the help should either come from DCC itself or individual school districts in terms of providing any more funding for students so I just wanted to sometimes I'll run into y'all and give you a little update on DCC but I want to at least share that before you leave share that email with
073them can we or did I can we uh yeah I yes I think it's really interested to read it yeah I'll share it can the rest of us read it too yeah yeah it did okay that's I think I just set it to the problem yeah um we were talking about the Anthony oh no no yeah I'll send this now yeah and that's only slightly edited so I think that'll be very quick later yeah yeah projected attendance for these classes like will they drop do we know like if these classes will be filled all the way now that it's like firm and we can't do anything about it right uh the high school did a big info session last week that had a large a lot of people came um I know I talked with
074Corey about this pretty much every week they're basically monitoring it really closely right now the guidance counselors and the administration I don't think right now we're projecting like a a major drop but we'll keep watching every week opinion was a good meeting for the DCC as far as the families that came out um I know there was a couple of things that we were still waiting to hear back from as far as like how we would pay or like when we would pay and or if you wanted to just kind of sit in on the class and maybe not pay but sitting on a class and throw a couple of family members who were saying like that's even a good option which was nice to hear that other family members understood that like if that's
075an option to be able to have their students sit in the class and and and and and if they can't pay and not get the credit but still under like still get that curriculum I felt like hearing parents say that was still a good idea it felt good because I felt like okay like this could still be something that a lot of families and students will still sign up for either way so it was nice to see all the families come out and kind of listen to um Corey talk about the different options and and the families that have been through the process already and just hearing the different family members saying well that's still cheap if you think about it into comparison of what tuition can be and the cost you'll save when it's
076all set in done so I'm I'm hoping that it's still a good turnout as far as students registering but we're still kind of waiting to hear more but it went good and I think that the advocacy is not over around it the um golly Stanford who's the one of the board members for um BOCES such as BOCES is still um very interested in gathering a group and and trying to see after this letter if maybe DCC is more interested in advocating together around finding funding for it so we will keep you updated yes I have a possibly hairbrained idea um so every every Awards night we we also give out scholarships from the community uh groups and and and and agencies and stuff like that um and they usually go towards College expenses and tuitions
077and stuff like that um I I mean I don't know how that's good you know I guess the wording is is key but um maybe the groups can um give scholarships to students that can't afford to pay for the college DCC college credit um and and but then help help the student get the college credit because they're going to sit in the class anyway yeah I'm I am hoping that the foundation might um take that on and offer some scholarships I think that that would be great if they did yeah but I mean just I mean spread that spread the word a little not just the foundation but the other the other groups that come to that Awards night to see if they're willing to do something um some I mean I I kind of
078would think that like a lot of scholarships are like 500 and up or 250 and up and you know that's actually much more than what's needed for some of these classes right for the students so maybe maybe it's more for I mean not to say that they'll they're gonna they're not gonna give a scholarship because they gave this but you know but maybe if they you know they can dig a little deeper and just give a little more to to make it happen yeah just a thought at least to get us through this yeah I think I don't feel like it's quite over yet no I agree so stay tuned could we have a copy of that letter I sent it to you you did um can I have a motion to adjourn to Executive
079session uh to review the employment history of particular individual and to discuss attorney-client advice and the board will return in about an hour so moved second Kristen second by Anthony comments or questions all in favor all right post I'm also in favor of passes nine to zero we are going to start with the superintendent's report um I'll be brief tonight I I spoke earlier about just an update about um DCC uh so I won't re-share that information um but we are the one thing I didn't mention is we are working as a group of districts in Duchess on like a collective mou with DCC where some of these things are being talked about get put in writing some of the questions that came up in Corey's uh meeting last week hopefully we'll get answered as
080we work through this mou with DCC and then the other thing is just uh my community conversations continue I have two in-person ones left and a virtual one of our seventh in next in person one is at first little Thursday at seven South Avenues next week and then I think March 7th is when I'm doing the virtual version that's all I have thank you word comments Christian uh no comments oh are we doing a facilities meeting tomorrow night just ladies we are just confirming yeah do we have an agenda um no we should talk okay we need to talk um we we were uh I think the thought was um this was just with our own staff yeah we would kind of debrief the capital project just as a group right um talk about other
081things that we're working on but but do that part because the last facilities meeting was with Architects and construction management and all that so this would be more like an internal review okay of it um great that's great it's seven they're seven and eight is that it yeah but I'm wondering if maybe um I don't know if we need a whole hour for either one of them but it's all the same people right so we can just smoosh it together yeah we don't have any outside folks coming right we have our volunteers like did you confirm with the volunteers for tomorrow yeah Joe can't come back so maybe we should tell Matthew to come 15 minutes early um just in case um anything else nope that's it thanks so much thank you I loved all
082the presentations tonight yeah they were great uh John um my only comment is that I really enjoyed all the presentations and that it's just really good it was really informative and it's good to see you know all the smiles and see what's going on in the classroom is really good um I Echo um Kristen um as far as like in as far as the presentations they were really good just to see what's going on especially the technology I think that that was a very good presentation um to learn more about the Chromebooks and just is very intentional with the within the classroom and the staff and the teachers and the students so it's more than just the general technology you know so I thought that was good thank you Anthony uh good evening um next
083policy meeting will be our sixth Monday at 7 pm and um uh Miss Jackson will be forwarding the policies that I that on that list to the rest to the policy committee um um tomorrow great and we're talking about the diversity equity yep that's one of them that's on the list yeah great that's the gonna be the longest one but yeah okay and the uh the one with the electronic devices is on there and then the other ones are on there okay super thank you um Anthony no comment Craig so we have uh audit and finance committee meeting tomorrow at seven here uh we'll be doing a bit of a Roundtable discussion about some of the longer term financial implications for where this District goes in the future um and anything else that may come
084up in the audit and finance Arena um I did want to say that I had a good time attending a meeting or say actually a fundraiser for the foundation for Beacon schools which occurred Thursday um at the home of David Eberly it was organized by Alyssa betterbid who formerly served on our board and is a trustee of that outfit I'm an advisor and some funds are raised to help support the various Grant programs being done by the foundation awesome um can I just ask a question about audit um is the intent of this to be kind of an informal conversation about some of those things because we're not fully prepared for that I don't think I know nobody's fully prepared for that all right but I have to start sometime so earlier in the uh
085sequence of meetings we decided to spend the first two with guests from our different auditing right entities external and internal and then the third meeting was to take a look at where we go from here in terms of longer term Finance I realized you're not prepared I'm not prepared nobody's prepared but let's start and make a list of things that we need to look at okay and where we want to go to get information what kind of questions do we want to ask that we would seek answers to right this is not to make any big plans but I understand kind of lay the land get the lay of the land yep okay and so that's first that's the first meeting and Facilities the second is that correct yeah yeah okay thanks Flora um last
086week Meredith and I attended the um Lobby day nisbos Lobby day in Albany um it was really uh an interesting experience uh so we spoke to um a total of four legislators they weren't all our district reps directly they were but we sort of ended up going in a group all of the sort of Duchess County School Board Representatives together um and we sort of took turns uh in a a bit almost like a Roundtable Style just mentioning briefly a legislative point that we wanted to get across and it was very effective I think and we managed to sort of get all of the issues that we felt were really important to to the county on the table and and shared I can't remember the names of the four legislators that we met with because
087I'm terrible with names um rollerson rollison who was ours um DD Barrett um not that it's B pen B pen and then there's and the fourth one was anyway it was great so um a couple of the things that we talked about uh School meals was a big topic of discussion and it sounds like it's sort of really uh on everyone's mind they've gotten something like 35 000 letters um from around the state which is great and uh you know there are still letter writing campaigns going out there so if you haven't sent an email yet please do um and obviously the the negotiations are ongoing and the discussion is ongoing so people are holding out hope and it seemed like all of the legislators were very much understood that this was a pressing issue
088and um and and a basic a basic right so uh for for kids not to just get a public education but uh to get um you know to get uh cared for with with nutrition uh while they're at school another discussion was about the electrification of buses there is a pilot program that's about to get underway in a county I think south of us I can't remember the name of the county but we did request that the that we would get updates about how that's going we just said you know it would be a really great idea if they shared with other districts um what's happening so we're not all Reinventing the wheel on that there's also a workshop on electrification of buses coming up in Wappingers they seem to be really on top of
089it and and having a lot of discussion about it and we've been in touch with them about joining that just so we can get some information as well and it sounded like other board members in other districts were also interested in uh and hearing about that Workshop um there were other issues that were discussed obviously a lot of budget issues like state aid and Foundation Aid formula and things but um they also touched on things like staff shortages and Civil Service issues and there is some discussion going on with the Dutchess County School Board Association about about digging into Civil Service more there was also a mention about changing the pilot regulation and this is this was the last thing I wanted to mention so I can hand it over to you since it was
090you that it was mentioned too yeah they said that um I was asking Carolyn bobek about it from nisbah and she said that um because hokel did address three out of the four um points around Pilots that had been advocated for by nisbah but the three that she addressed were all about just notification and the fourth was the more substantive um thing where the property would actually be included in the text-based growth factor and she said that she she did hear that it was going to be dealt with through regulation so um I'm still hopeful that that will happen that would be great that's okay okay yeah thank you guys so much for going up and doing that it was fun it was really interesting yeah yeah we had it we had a good time
091we had a good burger and um yeah we drove an electric car and it was all the charging worked really well so that was good and it was and I have to say all the Chiefs of Staff were so um a friendly and attentive and really seemed to be listening and and asking questions and um that was that was really refreshing it was really nice and it was 60 degrees in Albany in February yeah which was weird that's a downer yeah anyway yeah um thank you um the only comments I have are um do we is this agario is there a curriculum meeting tomorrow an elementary one okay yeah I don't think I'm getting notifications anymore I must have gotten okay okay so should I not you're saying I should just attend the full ones
092is that your okay what I can do is I can send you the agenda with the notes that would be great yeah okay super thank you um and um Anthony I have not forgotten about the tax credit for firefighters but we don't have that um information ready yet to present for still for a future agenda so in terms of that I think that count Dutchess County did pass it on their end or something right yeah so um it's the the fire the volunteer firefighter EMS uh tax break uh-huh which they did at the county level yeah so each taxing entity has to pass the room right yeah now that it's been passed at the county level no the state allows every when the state passed the law the um each taxing entity has to now
093now it's not becomes legal if they want to do something like that right but but you know so the state law passed now each tasking district has to make their own rules and how to do it I think the link I sent the board kind of explains a little better than I Cannon yeah thank you for sending that um okay yeah we will get it on an agenda soon um okay so for business um we do have an item that Flora wanted to add you want to make a motion yes so I'd like to make a motion to add the Boe state budget advocacy letter um to the agenda so moved second second by Anthony um are there comments or questions thank you for drafting that I'm so St Anthony yeah thank you for adopting
094all in favor hi opposed I'm also in favor passes fine to zero um okay so do you want since it wasn't on the agenda um do you feel like reading it sure that's fine um and just to give a little context so um initially when Anthony drafted this he was like you know this is something that we can send in the future but um we you know we tweaked it just a little bit and I think we should go ahead and send it I think um you know it that uh that there's there's no time like the presence and we have time so if we can if we can approve it then we can have it sent out um I we made adjustments just to make it as like simple as as possible and then
095I have a couple of questions in here um so as school board members in your legislative district we look forward to working together to secure appropriate funding for our schools there are critical education budget issues that need your attention as you prepare to negotiate the state budget with governor hokel we are very thankful that the governor and legislators have committed to fully funding Foundation Aid this commitment has allowed our district and many others in the state to add valuable programs for students while bringing tax levies at or below the limit moving forward it is imperative that the state addresses the foundation Aid formula to ensure districts receive an annual increase exclusive expense-based AIDs that reflects increased costs due to inflation and other current economic factors at the start of the 2022-23 school year more than
096726 000 students in nearly 2 000 schools across the state including in Dutchess County lost access to free School meals I should say so that was one this is two uh providing free meals for all students regardless of income reduces food insecurity supports learning improves mental and physical health and bolsters education and economic equity New York state must establish and fund a permanent Statewide free School meals program to ensure all students have the healthy food they need to learn and Thrive number three repeal education law 301 2-D dictating how schools should evaluate teachers and principals a more effective evaluation process would exist if it was allowed to be locally determined I as I'm reading this I'm realizing this is not a budget issue so we should talk about like how we want to frame this
097and whether we would take that out Laura can you go back to the the meals yes can you add something in there absolutely about students would be more apt like the free and reduced lunch and I'm gonna I'm brainstorming I'm just no yeah go for it uh word Smith it but the stigma right so kids aren't asked the free reduced kids aren't going to access it because of the stigma if they take away that all kids have it then there's no Stigma for it and I don't know if it's a apply though it's um well they do have to apply no I know but I mean the stigma's in the lunchroom no no I hear what you're saying I agree with you sure to um sorry everybody Watch Me edit the stigma I know watching
098that makes me have really much so much better at typing I love it I just know like I've been seeing so many letters of the 35 yeah mentioning the stigma we yes to with the freedom reduced lunch yes like 50 of the kids that are able to get a free lunch yeah are only taking advantage because of the stigma that goes with it yes and we actually talked about that in them in the meetings we were like we before covet happened we were trying to figure out ways to reduce the stigma and then it went away and now you know yeah now it can come back so okay if we can also just put it too you don't we don't have to figure out the exact word in here but just add a line saying
099like we're gonna stick around make it if the board agrees you can word Smith right after yeah yeah the spirit of the of the language is there now but we can we can fine tune it okay and then three is repeal education law and again as I was saying um I had sort of put in here budget issues so this was really a letter we were sending to talk about the budget so I don't think that this would fit in there um and then maybe this would be advocacy for a future time or um for a resolution um Anthony how do you do you or you could just say at the budget and critical education budget issues and advocacy or educational issues yeah yeah okay I mean I'm fine if you want to put it
100at another time that's fine with me but I was just thinking that you know having a comprehensive as to what we're advocating for and putting it in one letter so if you're stuck in a word budget I could see why you want to put it somewhere else if you want to put educational well the reason I'm asking is because we're also saying as you prepare to negotiate the state budget like so it is sort of framed well because they should be talking right legislation is the only one that could do away with the app are 30 30 12 Day right I think it's okay I mean it's part of it can be kind of part of that negotiation oh okay that's good to know that's not that's not the Board of Regents or the or
101you know okay that's not Rosa that's the legislation okay great okay no that that makes total sense we can just take out budget um okay so then we're at number four um oh well and then for number three getting back to that um do we want is there something more that we should um include there because a more effective evaluation process um being locally determined like that seems very open-ended or what we're saying is listen we don't want it to be State dictated it should be local control between the the teachers union and the in the board okay so just leave it as this okay all right so number four currently the state allow allocates a per pupil amount for districts to run their Universal pre-kindergarten ubk program this allocation is significantly lower than the
102actual per pupil cost to educate a student for example the cost of educating a student in our district not including Transportation costs is 11 867 meanwhile the States per pupil allocation for a ubk program in our district is five thousand four hundred dollars for up to 96 students based on the district's per pupil cost educating 96 students would cost more than one million dollars but the total amount allocated to our district from the state is 508 631 dollars for 96 students the difference between the actual cost and state allocation would have to be levied to taxpayers which isn't feasible with a tax cap in place therefore the state should either fully fund upk and allow Transportation expenses to be eligible for Aid or allow districts the flexibility to locally decide on how to use the
103state's appointment to destroy tricks for a ubk program apportionment to districts sorry okay so number five laws should be amended to give school districts more flexibility with Reserve accounts examples of new reserves should include a tax stabilization reserve and a health insurance Reserve in addition the unappropriated fund balance cap of four percent should be increased at least four percentage points finally the state should continue to fully fund all expense-based Aid formulas and this is really I don't I mean is there something else we want to put there as well to sort of bolster that case um or do you feel like it's it sort of is I was trying to keep it simple so so that's why I kept it like fully right right yeah I know my like my instinct for more is not
104always good so page I think yeah yeah okay who would go beyond right they're like tldr um if you require additional information or have questions or concerns please feel free to contact me at boehuer beaconk12.org to set up a meeting sincerely Meredith Hewer board president on behalf of the beacon City School District Board of Education I was just about to delete sorry no I'm glad you did it um so so yeah so that's the letter I know um you know we're only getting a chance to read it now but if if everybody is okay with it um you know with these uh small edits then we can we can send it out to our legislators so moved with that with edits yes second Kristen of any other comments questions I'm also in favor passes nine
105to zero so we're going to send this to um rollison and Jacobson yes okay um is Vicky on this letter doing this I will yeah yeah as soon as yeah I'm getting better now about like once it's done I'm sending it your way and you make it fancy and then you send it thank you okay great thank you thanks guys uh moving on to the 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 the right of
106all 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 1505. it's all moved second Anthony second by Flora comments or questions thank you for the donation thank you 15.02 um all in favor opposed I am also in favor passes nine to zero can I have a motion to adjourn the meeting so removed second floor second by Eunice all in favor aye um opposed I'm also in favor past his name Sarah have a great night everyone [Music]