001good evening and welcome to both City School District Board of Education meeting tonight March 5th I'm going to call a meeting to order at 6:01 p.m. you could please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance I United States of America for it stands Nation okay our emergency exits there's two at the side here and one in the front we would convene out front if we there was an emergency um could we please have a roll call Mr Jackson here Mrs Snider here Mrs jenden here Mrs Paradis here Mr drose here and Mrs Geller I'm here at this time I'll turn it over to superintendent OA for our district pars thank you and welcome everyone um tonight I'd like to welcome assembly member John McDonald John thank you for coming to our board meeting as this is
002a annual event that we all look forward to um we thank you for all you do for the citizens of cahos and the Greater Community from you well thank you Peggy good evening to the board well present and um you know as P I mentioned you know at least for the last 13 years that I've in the assembly I try to make it to all the school districts kind of preach the boards on what is going on or what's not going on in bing right then let's get right to it the part that Stacy cares the most about which is where we at with right the day it's always about PL of simp and you might recall last year there were a lot of challenges the governor had proposed basically dropping a whole harmless provision
003which didn't really impact say but impacted lot of districts it led to a whole rig law that's probably the nicest word I can use and we dealt with reinstating the H haras but the provision was hey education Community formulas outdated we need to do something so uh the Rockefeller Institute which is a public policy Institute which is naal it's we're lucky it's here at all it's nationally rened headed up by a former budget director Bob mag they embarked on working with all the school districts theosis throughout the state a several month process of getting public feedback on what to do with updated and they came back with a policy recommendation back in end end of November early December if I remember correctly of which the governor chose to use most of but not all of
004the recommendations actually I say part of but not all the recommendations the bottom line is in this year's budget which there's a significant increase in overall funding the formula has been now formula for those who don't know for Education it's not a onepage document it's usually a 54 page document with a variety of different elements that really kind of tries to address every single thing you could imagine that would happen in New York state the way it worked out this year as much as we're seeing one point $5 billion increase in overall funding for schools all 800 plus throughout the distri throughout the state districts like Coos districts like Troy districts like Green Island were held at the H they did have the hold Harless so we're seeing a 2% increase what does that mean
005in dollars and cents their cahos it's about a $556,000 increase which is not not as and I'm sure it send more war fin directory um we've been very fortunate the last couple years some significant increases but to be clear the increases were predicated on the fact that there was a lot of need theose is one of 13 districts throughout the state that falls into a highes urban Suburban District let me repeat that we're one of 13 schools Falls had high needs and for whatever reason L SPS is in that category think Newberg is in that category there's some schools out on Long Island kind of didn't get the best deal in this process so we're at a 2% increase that's the FL that's that's that's the FL right now so what are we doing about
006it well you know I pitched I kind of gathered with all the members both sides of the aisle both Senate assembly saying guys as our opportunities to push for Education ch changes in the budget we should take on this one category and push to at least double that to 4% to start it costs the state about $18 million now18 million is a lot to me I'm sure it's a lot to you but in a grand scheme of a 32 billion dollar education budget it's something that's doable we did conference education this afternoon as we're preparing our one house budget resolution which is going to be introduced Monday night it'll be passed next Thursday it's really a same values we are making other tweaks um this proposal I've pushed the deal with 13 is kind of
007Incorporated what the truth of the matter is there's 150 assembly dists throughout the state of New York so we got to try to worry just not about what John McDonald concerns about but others so the assembly is going to be adding another $236 million in funding this is our proposal so don't it's not please do not and the idea is one factor that's in there is What's called the Commonwealth indicator we're trying to the government we're trying to phas in slowly as being phased out of the budget and that way it actually brings more money to the table so as I always say to people every year this is as bad as going to be they can only get better from here other items that are important to mention that may not have a direct
008impact on money here but has an impact on expenses there um there's always been a chronic issue with CTE Educators you know we're trying to recogniz that there are a lot of students that have had active here for CTE but the reality is we don't have enough Educators to do it so we've always capped no more than $30 million a year for $30,000 a year for salary we're trying to add it to 60 that helps those things which indirectly helps you because you we are trying to address that in our one house budget which we never did before so that's a positive St um I know there's been over the past since the pandemic because the teacher pipeline is still a little lean a little shaky and you know we have problems with Subs particularly
009we've been waving the retirement count the teachers that are you know they have the cap of more than 35,000 they retire and actually state union can't was nice said we need you need to help I said everyone's exhausted so we are pushing again to extend it it's not guaranteed yet it's really one of those things that's the last thing in the budget why I don't know because every year the governor says we're not doing any further and then at some point it happens so no guarantee but I think it's going to happen I know that close has been one of the early adopters of upk that has its strengths and its weaknesses right when weaknesses of course is that what we adopted that as a per seat revenue is still what the same numbers meanwhile
010late doors don't have send any seats getting paid more of receed we're trying to reform that that's a challenge but the other issue is regards to making sure that if there's going to be a lottery I don't know if there's Lottery here or not is f um for upk we've had to have it for our three-year-olds but not our foury olds recently well to make sure that access to it so that's an issue that I know when we met with the bosies that's capital as opposed toes wish they really made that think what else is critical in the education world I will say one house budget resolution is done Thursday then we have these Congress committees which looks like we're doing something which it's really just procedur and it be the last two weeks where
011it starts to get back and forth and tradeoffs start happening things like that technically I say this every year and I'll say it again this year there's no reason why the budget shouldn't be done by April 1 to give you planning time planning um there's going to be a few policy items that are unrelated I said there three things this year I've been saying three things one of them was the foundation if we get it right that will not hold up to buet I think we're going something right because you can't just take a formula that's 20 years old and just expect it to work like magic do so we're going to this and quite frankly I think that helps Community like CS the other two items are unrelated but you you AR stories around
012here just watching what goes on at all you'll hear about this discovery reform Discovery is part of the Criminal Justice System there were changes made years ago to help even playing field but unfortunately particularly in the burs in City they can't see the prosecute cases quick enough and people are getting targets so we want to fix we want to make sure that everyone has a fair opportunity to trial for the same token want to make sure that people aren just walk off as District Attorney office which usually gets doesn't get funded partly by the county governments people are getting you want to make sure it has to pay in court and let the results speak for themselves right but sadly counties don't tend to support funding for the district attorneys and that doesn't help regards
013to build case it's one of those little Al secrets that talks about and the other thing which is I think a serious issue but one that needs to be addressed is um involuntary commitment particularly people behavior health issues whether it's mental health substance shes interesting enough we have a f of people in most of the problems you follow the post you'll see these pictures of these people going crazy in subways in New York and some of my colleagues think perfectly fine I think we think I think it's a problem because regardless of whatever spectrum of the world we live in somebody acting out like that it's not normal they need help they need to be stabilized they need to go somewh so that is going to be an issue particularity Community they do not like
014it they think it's another way of going backward I try to sh my colleagues that I don't look at this as justce at someone's got a problem and I don't care who you are no one likes it it needs to be fixed one so that will be a fight yet the discovery form hopefully not the attorney general and all the district attorneys in New York City are fully on board which never happens when it comes to these type of things so it's just a matter of getting a few members Antics but invol it's a serious issue when you're taking somebody and putting them on Ice that's a serious issue it's not like nice kids and time out but it's the same concept need to calm down right we all know parents you all know what
015talk can calm down think about the people who been living a child life out of control they do some things that if they have their senses about them they probably so there you go there's my summary more than half questions I have some question um I hope I have some answer well you mentioned a a couple of different things um you know talking about the budget in general you you know we as school districts are reliant on Public Funding um you know through our local government and state federal um have we thought or have there been any conversations about any unintended or unexpected consequence of any kind of tariff increases that we might see trickle down our budgets are set in May for an entire school year and we don't have any way to raise
016funds we we don't have goods or services we don't have anything that we sell to increase we're already seeing 9% increase in in some of our Municipal Services we're seeing increases across the board in utilities uh you know I could go on and on with inflation increases and for us you know you know our community well enough to know that the increases in poverty here um are very challenging for for we as a board to sit and and think about 2% 2% seems like oh it's 2% but for us we know how that's going to impact our neighbors um so I just was wondering if there's been any conversation on what what does that look like and I know we can't we don't have a crystal ball um but at the same time you know
017it brings up some some concern if you know a couple months down the road we have unintended expenses that now are we talking midyear lay off so like that that makes us all I think very nervous yes let me actually two things came to mind that forgot to mention first which will lead us to the answer to your question okay as you know the cell phone policy has been a priority Governor um and I participated in a couple forums with different school districts throughout the summer last year with the governor um I think we've gotten to a spot where we want to make sure the districts still have more control on how they want to deal with this we want to make sure that you have resources there's about $15 million set aside that won't
018cover all of it so work on that but truth of the matter is you know I've been married to a teacher 37 well she been teaching 37 years Mar 32 and I hear about it literally every day these kids are so distracted and therefore with the amount of money we're spending education whether it's taxpayers state the teachers are putting up with there needs to be an opportunity for these kids really pay attention and engag so that is that is going to happen one way or the other budget and you know Governor SM about this she really made sure that I was all work in the beginning and then they've been very much engaged but at same token we want to make sure that districts have a way to L it on it and it's still
019going to be work with you guys so I'll apologize number two but when you mentioned all I forgot about the back um kids meals in school everyone's going I think here in C I think pretty much everyone has been years that has not been the case in other parts of the state so that's that's not inexpensive that's probably another couple hundred million dollars but that's what triggered me to remind remind me about the fact that you mentioned the tariffs there's two things with Washington we really just do not know what they're going to do as much it's only been 40 days since the President Office let talk about disbanding the education department which I a little bit interest what that means because there have been over over time some decent programs that came out that
020really kind of actually the anti and and provided for stronger education um most of the education funding we have is true the state so um whether the education department is there or not at the national level I think it should be there but besides if that goes away we're still on the public to the education St per ts are going look more interesting see happens um where in TR the memory is mostly you know I've been meeting with the farmers the farmers amans um you know this time of year we're getting all apples from Mexico and it's better problem um and it's going to run its course what we're really concerned about that's not directly related here but they you know you deal with Medicaid right we've had more than our fair share of R
021going in so many the years and they're not fair to anybody they just Dr money depending on how they interest Medicaid is going to make a determination whether we're coming back the last thing you want is the legisl wants you in J June coming back any time before Janu if we're not coming back for any good reason we're coming back because there's a crisis and through this in 200 one that was through 2008 it's not good and that's when Gap elimination adjustment came in and that's when me significantly millions of dollars were taken away from school districts and you've never gotten that and if it happens again it's so hopefully they're fful about what they're trying to do with the federal government can't make a judgment on that right now I will say this no
022it's not it should not be a political issue Louisiana is just as poor as new they're as r as we are a look more purple these days but anyone things we're really low we're actually becoming more and more purple but the truth of the matter is Congress with the narrow margins is really going to have to be very careful on there are six or seven members in the majority that represent first state I know them all actually very decent people they understand the Imp Act of what's being talked about but you also have some individuals in the in Congress particularly in the house that are extraordinar conserned I mean if they had to withraw government be go on just go on some days I understand that's not a bad idea but the truth of the
023matter is we have a casic responsibility to make sure that everyone has an opportunity for education has an opportunity to make sure that they can do something to s sustainable in future and and that's where I think our rules are so I'm hoping we're not back but if we are coming back fat down so as I say every year but I say even more this year and I I was with ail Park was in the same yesterday I said don't get excited and do not start adding new progams because we just do not know what's going to happen and the way they're going they were all going home to address everything by March 14th they have to death again which has been punched for the last8 years it just keeps getting put into they're going
024to again barely but they're going to move to September 30th so we probably will not know what's happening till October or no unless something magically happens and who knows it could I just hope that there's the Imp for every United States yeah thank you um do other things I wanted to say are not really questions it's more just advocacy pieces that you know things that you brought up you you talked about the the waiver for some of our our retirees we're we're heavily reliant on our retirees um you know in filling positions in interm capacities part-time capacities and even you know some who are here on an almost full-time basis to to just help support us and you know we're better to to get that support than somebody who knows our district and has retired
025from here so you know I I do hope that when they look at that they do take into consideration that you know there's definitely a need out there still and we're using it at this point always have questions about it um particularly CSC I it's been very helpful in this conversation we have CC members make sure that they're comfortable there is always a concern legitimately so that this would be used to replace people that's not the case here not the case all it used to be 27,000 I actually cled the bill and got asked to raise this about years ago they'd like to raise it more but in the meantime we just need to Ure that we're not displacing new opportunities for jobs to your point you're just filling in for the yes I mean
026many of our teachers are teaching above their teaching capacity at this point it's not even we can't find folks to fill spots so yeah um upk you said that you um you know brought that up as far as like the per pupil amounts and who gets reimbursed and us being one of the earlier adopters of it you know some of the flexibility pieces are also very hard for us you know Peggy had mentioned we have a lottery for our three-year-olds but we can't fill all of our four-year-old spots so you know that's kind of a thing for us where we're losing out by not getting seats uh you know children in seats but at the same time it's the same allocation we have the same money but we can't be flexible with that money and
027that really hurts us because you know some years it is the threes and some years it is the fours but because that money can't be interchanged we have kids that miss out and we have empty seats um so that's just something to bring up um you had talked about uh Criminal Justice Reform uh I know that we as a community are really struggling um with having students who are younger and younger um committing crimes and having no accountability um there's nothing really that we can do we're seeing that it's increasing um in both frequency and in severity and it's really difficult because you know I feel that our law enforcement does a phenomenal job they do the best that they can do um but we're very limited because we don't have any accountability and it's
028very hard very difficult to get anybody on pins anymore or to get any any help from CPS because they are so overwhelmed and we know this we and we try and we have so many programs that we're putting in place and you know trying to look at short-term long-term goals you know for what we can do to support our community best um but that it is something that we have seen an increase in and and certainly a struggle with it getting younger and younger so couple things you're not wrong in what you're saying by imination um I represent Al r s issue has and it blows down to his and I talk to the cops critically always and in the past they let things so they let things go go let things go they dealt
029with things tell that's new district attorney can tell you it's attorney a lot of s in the process it involves more work it's back to my earlier comment about the counties making sure that they're supporting budgets the district attorneys and the public the other thing that's important too is that from the state perspective we were slow for service so more programs do need to be in place they are coming on board the city of coo is participating in lead now which is a program that helps with diversion of individuals maybe not throwing them in jail getting them into a program that's going to help them a program that we won is now part that because this is where we have our challenges some our but the same Tok you also have brought on more facilities
030the Juvenile Detention Facility F expansion which is taking way too long taking three years is finally expanding which is going to give the judges and the district attorneys more options once again get these kids in the same spot get them because the parents are throwing their hands in the air if they're just thr hands ER they've got to point these kids of God so chall and get them in a place where they can get Services they can get support and by the way run through the justice system they were guilty of what they did now from my perspective now we hold an 18-year-old 18-year-old accountable if they' got illegal gun they go right the jail but 17 and a half year old you know I've had South B R for a long period of time
031don't have it now but I still deal with it those kids weren't being it wasn't being pushed to put them in a facility it was allowed to be back and quite honestly that's fair of the system but you need a district attorney who's going work hard that and new district attorney is making a commitment to deal with that which is important I don't think it's going to happen overnight but it's stepp reg yeah um the last piece was the mental health piece you you know I'm certainly not talking about you know involuntary committ for students you know but we do struggle um and we we have more and more increasing mental health needs again we're putting programs in place in the at the district level but sometimes it does get to the point where it
032it this is not the most appropriate environment and we also struggle with finding those placements you know they're becoming fewer and fewer because the need is higher and so again not a question just just a point of of concern um you know I know that you know there's talk about building more supports towards adults but I feel like we need to do that for kids too because it had to start somewhere um and we know early intervention is the best uh and and so with that said I I just really want to thank you for for being here I you know appreciate you taking your time out and and you know dealing with me um but but honestly it you're what you're telling us is good thing that this is not necessarily things that we've
033heard before and so it does make me feel hopeful that there is some help out there we're validating things that they're not imagination they are real isues there's and admittedly we're not going to be able to correct everything yeah I remember probably the first month I was mayor remember like what the heck is going on in the assistant chief at the time Jim Warr I just remember one thing every day we do sometimes times things happen you don't know anything about thank God nobody gets hurt other days just somebody just takes the wrong step in the wrong direction and people act out and bad things happen we live at the ages every day but put proper supports in maybe we can minimize some CL but you never remember what doesn't you only remember us that's
034right and I mean you know we've live in a wonderful community and our support and our teachers and you know the relationship that we have with the city themselves um you know uh it's not something to for me to complain about for sure uh we definitely I think take the steps that we need to to try and support some of these challenges uh at some point though you you just need to ask for help so no listen you're all here for one reason you want the best where we good this it's aable I appreciate it you know I know it's not easy I know the pay is great okay same token you know what you know this is my community I I want to see it's what I've continue to grow to anybody else have
035any other questions or comments I think you've covered everything go now so at this point going to oh Stacey has the Cure is that what you said okay so at this point we are going to begin our budget presentations I wanted to just in a bit on the budget development process uh as you know we um meet with our building leadership teams our principes our teacher leaders and other content area representatives and our directors as part of A needs assessment process um getting feedback that departments the BLTs from their you know entire buildings um and and that's taken place um I'm going to have Stacy's going to talk a little bit about our approach and then talk about our budget committee process today yeah so our budget approach we build the the budget from scratch
036so we have a zerob based approach uh we do start with the revenues because the revenue drives what the growth will be uh for the budget overall so uh we're heavily dependent on state aid uh so that's the the majority of where our funding is and then uh this the second piece would be the levy so we talk about that early on uh so we know exactly what the bottom line is going to be but we start from the from zero and we work our way up um the line item budget is shared early it's tentative um it was just shared with the board before the weekend um as well as the summary of the return on investments so the return on investments for any new Staffing or any new programs that are introduced uh
037to the budget committee um are summarized and this particular year um as assembly member McDonald mentioned the growth in state aid is minimal um this is the tightest budget we've had in a long time um so uh a big piece of that is the growth in expenses so we've seen that in the in the current year Transportation costs are um increasing at a rate that were it's difficult for us to keep up with um based off of our mckenny vento students as well as our a of District placements um utility costs so we've had uh the trash um phone gas electricity um all the utilities are spiking health insurance uh so we're going to see a 10% increase in health insurance um so all of these costs they're they're most of them are millions of
038dollars um and uh they're growing at a rate that our Revenue isn't matching that growth so that's that's a challenge for us obviously um so again we're we're mindful of of the needs uh but you will see we won't be able to meet the the needs everything that was asked for we won't won't be able to accommodate um but you'll see that so the process is transparent everybody will report and basically what the needs are and then at the end of the process we'll see what the recommendations are and we have had uh some budget committee meetings um and where we have gone through the rois and have had some know initial discussions about the uh priorities and recommendations so tonight we have the pleasure of our first presentation at the elementary level and our
039elementary principles um you're doing you're not coming up together correct are you one at a time are you coming up together okay you're coming on up do what jacqulyn says come says and uh to to lead us off jacine to cherro principal of an SK grade school good um before I start I just want to mention that when we get to the second um slides that have our enrollment numbers on all for all three of our buildings you will see a column in there that says projected um numbers with for Eno students so we did put those in there um we know that no decision has been made at this point and I do want to make sure you know that tomorrow or tomorrow afternoon at 12 o' we have are having our parent Focus
040meeting with our enl parents um at 12:00 um three of us will be there at Hill um we secure translators as well that was requested um and we're going to talk to the parents let them know that this is an idea that we are considering and ask them how they feel about it what what they see our challenges and how we could help them if we were to move forward with the challenges that they say so that is going to happen tomorrow afternoon okay great okay so advanc gr school um what we proud us this year um kindergarten first to second grade we are all implementing uh foundations so nice consistency for phonics um the teachers my kindergarten first second grade teacher um also use this as their PLC which is really nice so they
041meet every month they are talking about foundations where each of them are they're talking about how there um with how what their instruction looks like and helping one another because this is the first year so it's going very well with that um we've also implemented bewi as our progress monitoring tool um and I will tell you that our AIS teachers our reading teacher is very happy with this it is something we have used in the past so it wasn't all that new to them um but they just like that we now have something where we kind of didn't have anything for a few years we kind of everyone kind of doing their own thing so it's nice to have that consistency um our building and again this come from my bu my staff they really
042wanted me to put on here the collegiality and professionalism of our staff and atany being a small building one section of each grade level that's really important because they're working together all the time and it's and the support staff the um you know permanent Subs the um resource teachers they're those class teachers there's not like you know I don't want to work with that teacher next year so can you put me someplace else like we're it with each other so being able to get along with one another and work really well for our students is so important and our staff really feels very proud of how we getting along with building and then um the professional development inun the inter reading wrbl and I ready I think this is the most um professional development all
043kind of at the same time we've had in a long time for our teachers and I think they they really were happy that we were able to provide that with them to get them more comfortable for their instruction and then here are my numbers my current enrollment is here um you can see that most of again with like one section I got do is fall to go down but there are a couple of classrooms um that we know already I have three k Runners I know already I'm going to be Advanced at next year because they've already moved um so you know I adjusted those numbers um here from my first grade but included the projected if the in all GE this would be my total number um so you can see again my numbers
044kind just go straight across no big um huge change or fluctuation in any of the classrooms um my students with disability numbers again you can see they're really not too high my fifth grade is the highest with four in it um all the other classroom are two this um and this two is not going to be Advanced Sky first grade next year because two both of them are moving to at my building so first grade will have zero second grade will have zero and then um but I do want to preface saying that my kindergarten with we're looking at what's coming into to kindergarten so there could be a little higher number here and we trying to think of some creative ways of how I go so stay tuned for what might happen there in
045kindergarten um and that's about it I'm have the three selfcontained classrooms and they can go up to 12 right now we have 12 one is full one is at 11 and one is 10 um but that's what we and then our needs assessment of what my building would like my sta said one of the number one things is the5 M you know that one we had a 1.0 that was Grand funded that went away this year um so we are struggling with that because I do have a reading person who is strictly reading like she is she can't do as or she can't do well she's a reading teacher um so I do have another person who is AIS and she does reading and math but um the teachers are feeling it with that loss
046of the 1.0 we don't feel need a total 1.0 m is but a half time you know5 we really feel would be um just enough for us to to meet our needs in a building substitute teachers as Mr McDonald mentioned and and Margaret mentioned um is I we are blessed at Van Skye this year the first time in a long time we've had we've got two fantastic um permanent Subs but when other people we have multiple people who are calling out and to putting into bosi system we're not getting anyone from bosi so even though we have those two great people we have them doing lots of things they're usually you know putting out those fires on a daily basis um so subtitute teachers U professional development have provided so much as we stated but
047they are still looking for um some professional development in the standards based breing um with our report cards m o is pulling together the report card committee back again the report cards there lots of Standards on our Elementary report cards um so the teachers are looking for um some more in that area uh if you were to get the enl um students back in our buildings we would need some professional development for our teachers I think M oen Mr Perry has a teacher as I mentioned a month ago has a teacher who was who's doing some great job up there at hermany Hill providing some exure help for them and working with arburn I think we would absolutely be able to provide um teachers need along with some materials and supplies that they need for
048their classrooms books iPads and that kind of thing um and then um generation genius software this is something my fifth grade teacher has right now um it we really we I had her um kind of show to the staff at our January um faculty meeting we did a at our faculty meeting for two months we looked at the science standards and then I asked them to um for grade level look at the standards and then look at your science kit and then the next meeting we came back and discussed okay what standards are not being addressed by our by our science kits so and there was some at every grade level so we said okay how can we fill those gaps and we really felt like this could be one of those ways we can
049fill that Gap is by having this this resource for us um and it's great to teach the fif gr teach used it now um she was out for two days and she was like this is fantastic even for when I'm at substitute she's able to you know what is the topic we're doing in science right now and came out with articles give me 10 questions I go want that article and it comes he had it already for her so um it's a really great resource the teachers when they that they're like you can do this right now and she's like yeah so um so that have something else we would like to discuss any questions currently all our fifth and sixth grade teachers have generation genius you know across the district so that is something
050we're looking okay it's not just the fifth grade teacher being difficult it's not she listen and she would be a great person for the rest of that building she's very she is thank you thank you very much any questions for Vance Mr Perry from Harmony H and thank you again these are BS are from um from our teachers from our needs assessments one of thing a couple things that we're really really proud of our faculty said we collaborate on on most every decisions that that's made if we have something bigest coming up we'll have what's called Fus meeting like for example next week early we're going to have a focus meeting on grandparents day we had Grandparents Day last year we got we got crushed we had breakfast with grandparents and we had I would
051say about 20 270 to 20 290 grandparents there too much and and we had a line out the front door Donuts so we were talking about a DLT we we have to have a focus meeting to all everybody's input one of the things we're talking about is maybe not serving the donuts so we'll see a donut to go yeah yeah a donut to go that's right on the way out you never know teach math math centers um we have a couple of professional I've got a couple of kindergarten classrooms that have done been doing centers forever um and they've got everybody else sold on math centor math censors allow you to differentiate throughout your throughout your class they open up with a with a um group lesson and then they and then they break up
052their centers most everybody now is doing math centers in the building contined development um assistance for elll uh students we have um um a third grade teacher that has had a lot of elll experience and now she's spreading it out since we went from one class of elll to two two class rims of elll um she um she did a lot of PVF throughout the this year already um and and really help our teachers quite a bit and they're also going out to to armoring things too science of reading we had a lot of teachers that went through the sub news um their credentials fors science of reading so that's a lot of discussions in in their in their PCS and so forth use the motivators to encourage some of our some we got some
053old some of the St ones that don't want to do motivators they say you know they should be able to do the I already on their own but now we're getting to the point where we're having a lot of contests like fourth grade last week at our at our assembly we we talked about who won the IRA um the motivator for the month um they got to fill in a heart the heart most hundreds on their lessons or or 90s on their lessons they want to I think they had a pajama party this Monday so you know they're they're they're really seeing a lot of a lot of movement in their I ready growth by having that little bit of an incentive little bit of a motivator um and we are very uh thankful that
054we didn't have a lot of new programs so we're getting a lot of refinement and with the current programs like jacn said we've had some really excellent um PB on some of our our current programs and we're very very happy that we're that we're not they're they're very very happy we throw a lot of new things at them this year this is my eye chart we're a little we're a little bit different because obviously we have we have ourl are currentl in here right now this year and then all of our sections we have this great big BLB of very big blob of kids right in the middle there and that's that's working its way through the building I can remember seeing those as kindergarteners and and say boy that's going to follow right through
055the building sure is following as way through the building so we got these two sections um currently it's in second and third grade with sections of four and um that's going to follow through for our before we get over to this gray section this is this is if we if they go to the home schools this is as it would be right now we just ConEd that for next year so we're thinking about moving those four down to third grade and fourth grade third grade we we we may pull one of those back because one of the things in the next slide you see that we really really want is a K12 math as person so if to if we move for with the enl to home schools we'll have room to be able to
056take one of those sections away and and cost effectively be able to have a as person we still might be able to do it I'd like to see a couple of a couple of couple of these my Aroma go down a little bit first so that's what that atric is there for that four that could still go to a three but has1 um you can see my phone numbers right now are 384 next year I'm projecting if we say what Els we got quite a few fifth graders this year our fifth grade numbers are going down numers from from other enls so and and then we do go to the home schools we go down to 336 roughly um again these are projections it all depends on on which bu stops in 77 bus stops
057with third graders and bus stops second graders we get those lumps again so um for next year couple of things that we are looking for again like I said earlier um we have Bob Keith who does a phenomenal job in third fourth and fifth grade he uh he co- tees with some with um teachers with math a math person he also pulls a bunch of sing out and GRS out as well um he's also ventured upstairs to a couple of second grade classs but again time really time to go stairs so we really would like to get K2 um and person because we've got a lot of going to the days where it's operational now since since all the MTH is becoming a read test we got to say okay not only do we do
058we have to figure out what operation use but then also use the operation so it's a lot a lot more equpped we'd like to get a little bit more skill when they go downstairs in third fourth and fifth grade um our math numers will be able to up so we're looking for that substitute teachers you're going to hear that from from all three of us again like Jacqueline said we we've been blessed this year with um with three or four depending on when roof board is here um with building Subs the balls have been blessed with a couple of veterans that have come back and and and trembly they've been in our building forever and and they just need to come back every year so we're very thankful that um fundations for third grade we've
059got in kindergarten first and second um we're looking at the possibility of bring in third a lot of that happens because we got cas come to us in first and second grade mid year or transfer in might not have inations um backing from kindergarten cromebook carts we have first K12 we bought cromebook carts for everybody and it's an organization of Wonders lovely littley C we found that if they have to go anywhere then you go downstairs and it's me mass wires so um we've been talking about it we're looking to purchase parts for downstairs as well the small trans Port parts that allows them they want to bring their whole class to the C bring the whole class to the C bring that whole part with them and just bring them right on over additional
060tcis training um fact that's a deescalation deescalation the first day the first day day and a half now tcis is a lot of the discussion PS and and people have gone through TC training have loved it and and we use it I utilize just about every single day um and a lot of fact it's still worth getting around and it's really a great discussion piece great something that something a lot of lot more people are interested in and and being trained so great out um locking cab for those rooms that are not PR already the best thing ever happened this year is been converted two locker rooms into classroom the worst thing they ever did is accidentally left the furniture out in the hallway and one of two of the pieces of furniture in each
061classroom were these lovely rolling carts that are locked teachers walked by and saw and said I mean that and all of a sudden all of a sudden we we figure okay there's there's quite a few rooms in our in our in our building that don't have lockable storage a union piece is to have lockable storage and you have to have something you some of our tests are broken some of the things so so we're looking into um pressing out supp cabinets for the classrooms that don't have survey first see how many see how many RS storage and a lot of times too you know there's there's people in the building after school um they just want to make sure that and if the cleaners they going through cleaning and sometimes they're locked sometimes they're unlocked
062um we want to make sure they're secure also um switching some of the door locks we've got some general areas like the back of the room like Library work we have a lock down I don't want to have a specific key you all have a generic key like our storage room a anybody's key storage room a I want to be able to have anybody that's in the facult anybody that's in the c or anybody that's in the cafeteria or the library to be able to just go out there use their key lock it up and and and go in then and hide um so those are a few yeah um before questions if I could just mention a two two things and and thank you Mr Perry so we've had 54 uh staff members trained
063to date in tcis it's a three and a half day training uh Rachel's planning another training in the spring and In Summer with the anticip of having close to 100 staff members trained um part of the model is to have a turnkey trainer in each building we currently have one at Harmony in the high school um so we're looking at having one added this year to the middle school and then you know working through that chy trainer model for all of our our five buildings um and I wanted to mention just a little bit of something how so the needs assessment are at the building level and we meet with the building teams but I just want to assure you that if a a good idea that we think will benefit all of our students
064comes up through one building then it's something that the elementary principles although might not be on this scen assessment it's something that the discussions then happen so for example foundations for third um you know there are some other districts that are doing that in third grade so reaching out I know Mr Perry is going to make a contact reach out find out how it's working and then have that conversation with third grade across the district so I just wanted to let you know that um but again since this is organic and coming from you know coming from the buildings you might see some different things on slides but you know we all um the principles meet regularly and really um share the ideas one last thing this the door locks that's already being de are
065already getting together get change those Sports out so that's already be I don't have a specific question but as you're just speaking on that we half AIS twice wondering if you at some point can just share with the board um how many AIS teachers are at each of the buildings we have the enrollment just just so that we can have an idea of what that more is so I will share that in the update I can tell you that in terms of uh math AIS I know Mr Perry mentioned he has one teacher Mr bir has a half of a 0. five math AIS and jacine you have any math AIS just a little a little bit that's current for the math um you know as the rest of the uh AIS is is reading
066um so but we will definitely I'll share that by building yeah I mean you guys just shared out your teure so that would be that would be kind of a nice thing for us to know yeah including us consultant teachers as well um because I know you might recall Mr bird went to a little bit of different model last so we'll share that thank you Mr Perry I just heard my name but I don't know what you said after this now I'm tot and now I'm going to that's not Mr laning elementary school so first of all I think it's important all three of your elementary schools are talking about the community we've all built in our own buildings Jackie mentioned Mark just mentioned that's the first thing to up as well um work really
067hard and incre for commity ourselves we call the family and when new teachers come in it takes a while to figure that out and it's stop L afterwards if they realize that's what we need we support each other yall helped us last year by letting us start a reset room this was actually our first full year and resch in place and Miss Candy at the far end is our new security monitor she's been wrapped in not only keeping the building secure but also working in the reset room it's there on the Run you can call Miss KY to help us Coral um the next two really have to do with Julie our coach from 's who has been amazing in helping helping us with professional development I had three grade levels last year working with
068Summer with Julie to help us devise making better win decisions for our what I time here and then Julie's been working with us as well all throughout the school year uh we're also really proud of what we doing with our our families as well outside of the building inviting in for breakfast throughout the year our PTO has released they've done uh comment boards is just our our teachers realize how important the comment boards are we asked them at the beginning of every day to put up what goals are going to be Ela Mass science social studies in wi time uh we also ask them to put their schedules on the comic board so if somebody walks in we know where they are if they're not in the room or what they're doing the next time
069if I ask a teacher to step out to work with a child crisis I know what the rest of the day is going to look like then a bring an idea that somebody can open um and then probably the most important one is last one I should put first um I we have struggled for years have a Lancing be fit for students to come in first thing in the morning we've been short staff we've had staff that weren't dedicated to our building we've worked for a long time with that over the past year we have three night queers that aam laning is their school to me is a big difference we started with the good the good Booker to us this year he's great we have Tammy M Tammy when Tammy came Tammy started working
070in cafeteria serving our kids lunches fell in love with our kids and opportunity for about four months work both she would work in the cafeteria come home take a nap and then come building and when she decided to tip over one of the things that I remember she said it let walk right up my face and said this is my building no's going to M up and that's been the typ she ER and Jeff work together very very so we're very happy with that to make sure that used to show up on our complete side so we thought was important here are numbers I do want to mention something interesting about kindergarten we're thinking that there may be zero students with special needs coming into our general population but we're overwhelmed with the number of
071kids coming into kindergart that are s contained you will hear probably later uh kessi is going to talk about the possibility of some place in the district adding another something classroom for the little guys right now my self stealing Earth but um my self classroom for little guys is pretty much divided there are out of the 12 kids there are seven or eight that are are really functioning skills and then whatever the rest are much more challenging and really those four or five kids take up most of the time with the in that building it would be great in our in that classroom it would be great if we could focus more on the kids that are um really functioning and give them more opportunity to look so that's just a quick anomaly we have
072as Jackie mentioned we have talked about who are enl students and where and those are our sections we are dropping our small fifth grade class and so we have increased our numbers slightly starting next year of course it all depends on how many C show up we have't started numbers yet thanks subsid teachers I've mentioned it several times the opportunity to talk to you uh first of all what I don't talk about often is almost every day one of my special area staff one of my special teachers is more than likely covering the classroom and next his her job which is frustrating for our Union friends but it's also a challenge because our kids aren't getting the services that they need but for health and safety issues have a classroom of 18 kids I have
073sobody in there just crazy but the other part that I'll bring up again when we get to professional development is not having substitutes really Lim Us in being able to buy the professional I could say three years ago when we were first on the list I had three permanent Subs in our building we were running professional development almost every month I mean high quality good professional development was improving everybody in the building we were able to do that because we there there are a couple ideas even that actually miss o didn't come up here classroom visits rounds lesson rounds right lesson rounds were probably the best professional Dev we ever had didn't require any money except subsid teachers to let our teachers go to other classrooms and have conversations about what they seen so subsid
074teachers um Mr B mentioned this we move to more and more one to one um Pro books we don't have any places to put them all in do 17 wires long extension cours and it's kind of crazy but the classroom Station Tower is running probably about2 to $3,000 which we have to start thinking about to make it that's also and safety issue I was really proud of my staff when they had a conversation my D when they had a conversation with M sh St because they were starting to think globally about what do we need as whole for professional development where do we need to go it's kind of audacious but where do we need to go as the district to move us all forward uh we'd like to get back to T like the
075champion they are also concerned about Haring trauma and Trauma strategies we had not yet heard from Dr Tim about skill schools which we going selected to start working out so we are meeting those needs we hope um we find out that our new teachers are not coming in with the strengths we'd like them to have we have a really good onboarding program for their first year and then it falls off and so we have found we are going to try to take our second year teachers and kind of BU them up a little bit so our sta was asking me think well and then one of the things we've been talking about you'll see this as well when I get to the very next slide is um we have all of our special LED students
076in one classroom in our three levels right uh kids that need help in reading and we have a special ed educator that moves in there we really want to take the time to help those two teachers work together so there's an hour hour or more on professional special educator in the classroom and sometimes they are the two professionals one is watching the other one teach they're supporting our kids we're working on that but I would really like to upgrade so that everybody's involved in the education of all of our students when I have two profession all right um I lost sleepover do I call these my wants or my needs I'm going to start with I still believe I need one more special education teacher we've worked for several years at having one special education
077at every grade level we've been down one for about a year and a half asked to bring that back to make my building to work the way I'd like it to we've kind of been working on with where we're still not providing services for full services for our fifth graders I have three fifth graders that are now doing their special class we haven't found a way yet to get teachers in as a model if I could mention that has been posted and we are absolutely using sta not saying we're closing our eyes but we're we're stealing staff from other grade levels um we hatching in holes and then the last two our wants I will keep asking for a district by music teacher I'd like to bring band back but we also can I think
078I mentioned last year Jackie is able to have course all year on because of way willing to set up I had course until middle of January now my music teacher over at AR Hill and so we W have course we were able to get aned by elementary teacher saying that we could use that person to cover Jackie's needs for General music trying to think of a way to start sneaking these folks in uh we're you're also paying for the music teacher and for want cleans that would be as well so we can start by having course in all three buildings and then at least at one grade level I would suggest fourth grade start having Dad either fourth start and then I promised Miss so I breaking my promise I promised miss last year or
079advised her that once I got the music teacher I would started asking for a librarian I started asking for libr for iety of reasons one is all three elementary schools are really at a loss I I mentioned this to the folks that are on the budget committee I'm on the capital region Bose Library board crazy right because I haven't had a library in 15 years now but the bad thing for do is I see all the things a librarian could do to move our building when I started here we had one library in atary schools I was promised that that would build up 35 years ago and instead 15 years ago we want to start that for me was a crisis but we also had bigger things had to do I really want to start
080having a conversation with what Librarians can us you all ask me when I showed you all the books that we had called last year what are you doing to get to your library while making it up as I go along we should have somebody but Ming toil the library i' love to have profession was in there how many me look at what our needs are but there's so much more Li can do I'm actually crafting a letter to the folks that I have to work with the state we being on list right when we talked about being on the list we're already planning for next year what are the things that we have to do try to get and so we talk about AIS folks we're we're a school without a librarian a librarian would
081help us improve our scores dramatically that Library Services can offer us any not yet not yet any questions for um Mr bur so I do want to comments I just want to make one comment though to all three of you and all three of you yes all three of you and your building leadership teams and I think Stacy can Echo the sentiments I mean these were very indepth thorough discussions um solution focused uh you know the principles and teachers really um working to together to talk about you know okay we're doing we're doing really good work how can we make it even even better and he went away from you know all of the meetings just so impressed so I just need Stacy you said the same thing absolutely just can I just ask your
082slides for your needs it's not prioritized it's just you know an overall I think it says something that you know all of your staff that had contributed to you know say that the climate in your buildings is is positive and you know the professional professionalism and relationships they have mean something to them I think there's something to be said for that as you know you look at this and you feel like wow we've got some work to do and it's hard after just hearing what Stacy had to to say um so thank you for taking the time to put this together so I do want to mention before turning thank you thank you very much can we give them a round of applause um so I wanted to uh mention just a couple things you
083you heard substitutes come up substitutes substitut substitutes um so we are having conversations that we will you know conversations that we'll um continue with and then have some discussions about possibilities with The Bard I mean um one thing that came up in the needs assessments was potentially um increasing the substitute pay for our retired teachers and you know the teachers that um um um have committed to uh daily work another thought was looking at ways to attract our permanent Subs you know we used to um and Jacqueline and Mark both been very fortunate um this year in terms of having permanent Subs not all of our buildings do and that includes second secondary so ways to look at models that might help you know incentivize that um so we are in the process of putting
084some things together that share but I do want to let you know um you know that that did not come up just at elementary it was at every needs assess middle and and high as well so was was there any conversation or discussion about incentivizing um you know obviously we don't teacher want teachers here when they are not well and it sounds to me um some of it is that PD time of being able to pull out so it sounds like two different problems right if the teachers physically not in the building because they absent or if they need to have flexibility to be able to get the PD and support that they need to do their jobs and do it well so I'm just curious if you have talked about both sides of that
085you know we we have talked about uh different things like our grow your own programs where you know as Educators we're looking at Future Educators and what does that mean is it a classroom coverage piece where maybe we can utilize you know some some of our student population who is interested in teaching you know I I don't I don't know what that looks like or you know if there's some sort of credit bearing you know that that we could provide at the high school um you know just to kind of help support some of these P opportunities especially when we're looking at a very difficult budget year um we've had some discussions about the level of um education required um for substitutes or now we require an associates degree we have in the past have
086had um really strong college students finishing a year you know that could you know and again it's always on a caseby casee basis but uh who could be substitutes we had um strong teacher aids who have then moved into you know attending attending college that have done that before so we're looking at that side with the qualifications as well and uh we're going to have some further conversations with Laura and Jen but to see that's a good point how can we utilize some of our students okay Stacey so on tonight's agenda um is uh the proposition uh for the final uh piece of the existing capital reserve so in 2018 the voter the voters authorized The Establishment um and permission to fund uh $5 million for capital reserve over a 10-year period uh so the
087first the first project that we had for that was the Middle School roof and the Harmony Hill boiler uh so that was 1 million uh the next piece was to fund the current capital project um that is in phase two right now so 2 million of that total project was funded through the capital reserve and so this is the last two million it's it's been funded for the full five at this point um and these are items that came up through the capital projects that are are needed um we have had Turner uh run projections to make sure that it would fit within uh the $2 million budget they're confident that that is the case so um when CSR J Turner met with us last they talked about this during their um during their presentation
088but uh just for a refresher um so improvements to the external lights on the campus of Harmony and uh the high school so that entire campus any of the lights that are damaged or um dim um would be repaired we had a couple that that came down as well so they would be um replaced and then we have the auditorium lighting so you'll remember two years ago um we thought we might do this through a capital outlay and the estimates were five times what we had budgeted so we weren't able to do it uh through that means uh so instead we updated the curtains in the auditorium and we um we had the S uh the the stage refinished um instead uh so this would be an upgrade of the auditorium lighting that is a
089health and safety issue um we did have the uh the current electrical contractors changed the bulbs we had some bulbs uh so they they went up and they changed the bulbs that um um that we had uh but again it's a health and safety so that's a priority um the construction of a storage set so uh on tonight's agenda as well we we went out to bid for the the pole vault equipment and there's other equipment that we have purchased through the capital project for the the turf field so we're going to need uh somewhere to store this equipment so that um they can live their full life expectancy right and they're not um subject to the wear and tear of of weather and the winters here um so that's also a need it's also
090taking up um Prime real estate inside the high school so it would open open up those spaces as well and then uh enhancing the cafeteria Courtyard and uh creating a space for external classrooms right out of the C right out of the cafeteria space so that would be great uh for our students that's something that is near and dear to my heart as well as Miss tlo's um and then we have the we have the construction of two outdoor walking coolers one for the uh Abram Lancing school and one for the middle school and so um as we've talked about many times there's uh a lot of freestanding coolers that they're taking up space there's not enough space inside the cafeterias uh for for the students uh we're we're looking at furniture options uh I'm
091waiting on some designs from CSR for those upgrades to happen outside of this but having that storage it would improve actually the the lunch program because uh they'd have access to the product uh as far as prepping lunch and if they run out of something they wouldn't be dependent on it coming from the high school as a hub so it's going to improve uh the the ual program and then it'll also open up space so that we can um have brighter and uh more space for the for the kids in the cafeterias so that's on tonight's uh agenda and that would be uh the third proposition on the actual ballot so we would have the budget we would have the the seats uh for the board members and then we would have this third proposition
092which gives uh us the authority to expend the $2 million on those items thank you any questions um before I go on to upcoming events I just have a few other brief items um I don't know if you've mentioned the the if you notice that the Johnston CL is here um it does need uh a pendulum uh repaired Jo nto has said that that should be done Wednesday or Thursday um so uh this clock was in the Johnston mansion and I've heard it's a rare Howard Hall clock um we are going to uh do some work on the history of the clock and then share that information you with the students here I do really want to thank Joe for coordinating but I also need to thank uh Jason cribs our head day custodian and
093K lont our groundskeeper because they were instrumental in helping to there there were um there were movers um but in order it was the ice snowstorm and so they assisted you know both the the library and the district in terms of making sure everything was was cleared so the clock could be moved so I do want to thank them publicly um and then also uh can I just say I'd like to also you know the fact that the librarian from the co uh Public Library reached out to us I don't I didn't know it was there I'm not sure if anybody else knew it was there or that it belonged to the school district and without him reaching out to us we I I don't think we would have this beautiful work of art here
094in our presence so thank you thank you yeah um and then also on the uh on the agenda in a little bit um Dr Mark Pon who is our inam Middle School um being approved tonight but has been uh working as our in Middle School principal he uh joined us even earlier than he had originally said he would so I want to thank him and I know you've already had uh a staff meeting on uh yesterday and you're doing a full school assembly uh tomorrow before the students leave so we just want to welcome you to uh the cost team and thank you so upcoming events uh early uh just dismissal uh one thing I National Honor Society induction uh March 18th it is on the the calendars but I'll have Laura reach out with
095the particulars and we'll put that on the calendar too so you'll you'll be able to see see that and it didn't make this slide because it's after our next board meeting but March 20th is our uh Middle School exhibition right so we are really looking forward to that as well great thank okay we'll just move on to the agenda portion of our evening um do does anyone on the board have any items on tonight's agenda they would like to discuss the only thing I wanted to bring up was 10B just wanted to give um no a moment to we had talked about the donation from Brookfield just a brief EXP for that donation understanding um yeah I'll just let you okay um so over the summer there were discussions um with um Capal region in
096terms of um Brookfield providing uh Monies to them to then have um our students be able to participate in this you know green energy class with this um specific vendor um and then what happened in the fall is that I get notified about that discussion and then got notified that b could not support that so um at that point in time uh you know um the vendor was already committed to so uh we needed to work out another another method and so berkfield donated directly to the to the district so we're accepting a very generous donation but it is already spent money that was already authorized prior to so I mean $10,000 is nothing to you know right take lightly so really thanking them for for contributing towards our Green Team initiatives and you know
097thank you to you for making it happen because uh it was wouldn't otherwise you know because of the involvement transferring the funds so thank very much um anything else on the agenda for from the board anything from the community on agenda items um okay just one just note of old business we had conversations about the indoor track communication has went out to those folks who have reached out to us um thank you to superintendent OA and our security team for coming up with a plan um so so folks residents can reach out um to the district um they can reach out to Matt Lum to arrange you know a sign and they can register on family ID um it's also if it's not it should be by tomorrow on our our website I didn't I
098didn't check what I what I'll do by the end of the week is get an update from Mr lomard as for how many have taken today so great and and we said on it was $10 for the10 okay and that's just the cost of the ID itself yeah great okay thank you very much um can I get a motion for the consent agenda that the Board of Education adopts the following resolutions of the March 5th 2025 agenda uh 6 a through e and 7 a through G I'll make a motion I'll second it have a roll call Mr Jackson yes Mrs Snider yes Mrs jenden yes Mrs Paris yes Mr Jose yes and Mrs Keller yes congratulations Dr Peterson been appointed the end of the year so thank you welcome uh again thank uh to
099Brookfield for the donation um any comments from Board of Education members on anything that was not related to the agenda just wanted to mention I did send out communication to you we were noticed of a public meeting of the Ida um regarding the uh Delaware Avenue pilot I did attend the meeting I did speak at the meeting however I made sure I did represent that it was Margaret Giller talking and not the school board president talking I'm happy to share with uh you know what I said with um all of you if you're interested but I wanted to be very clear that I was not representing the board I did speak about some of the difficulties that we've had um you know it was very eye openening to hear about you know the amount of
100money a 30-year pilot actually contributes annually especially when you think about the impact of the number of students number of services number of Municipal dollars that are that are being expended um to support those types of things so the conversation revolved around the pilot itself you know what the the corporations stated that they were going to do for the community and what pieces and parts may not have been um kind of held up on their end so just wanted to let you know I did attend that as me and that's uh that's it nothing from nothing else for okay any comments from the community on anything play no oh you look like you were wanting to say something uh we don't have any uh policy review so stes for future meetings are March 19th and
101April 9th right here cahos Middle School library at 6:m um can I get a motion to adjourn the meeting at 7:28 PM make the motion I'll second it uh Mr Jackson yes Mrs Snider yes Mrs jender yes Mrs Paris yes m Mr Jose yes and Mrs I put but it's Mrs Geller thank you very much for coming tonight and we'll see you next time