001The board has returned from executive session and there were no actions taken. Can I have a motion to open the meeting? Bruce, a second. Lisa, all in favor? Let us all rise for the pledge of allegiance. United States of America for it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, liberty and justice for all. So, do you want to introduce our uh Yes. Up first, actually, we're going to start off. We're going to have our Gooseville presenter the happenings at Goose Hill Primary School for the past couple of months. You look very excited. You ready? You've done a great job of pledge of allegiance. So, if Bruce Hillis can go up to the podium and herself, that would be great. Thank you so much. Thank you for inviting us here to present. We have been learning and
002having so much fun here at Bale. Let's start by sharing what we are learning in some of our main subjects. Kindergarteners has been learning to generate sentences and writers workshop. First graders are writing non-fiction all about all about topics they're experts in. Some topics they're experts in are lacrosse, hockey, rainforest, killer slip, penguins, and tur. [Applause] Hi, my name is Logan. Math Ken has been learning number pairs and addition and subtraction up to 10 using pair um number bonds. We have been learning about measurement and data learning to use tally marks the experiment groups. We use different tummy to survey other kids learned all about push and pull for same science. First grade now knows all about lights and sound waves. We use different different tuning forks to experiment with sound. We also used gnomes
003and flashlight to experiment with shadows and light. [Applause] Hi, my name is Campbell. In social studies, we are learning about needs versus wants. We are also learning about goods versus services. We all have been earning our scooter license and physical education. It has been so much fun. We even have a scooter city to ride around ride around and with a gas station, a pool, a gym, an a restaurant, and a bowling alley. We also play [Applause] goggles. Hi, my name is Roger. Miss Albanese has been teaching us so much. Kindergarteners are making clay pots. We are experimenting with different art materials to create abstract art based on Jackson Pollock. We also are using fabric to make clothing of organic and geometric shapes. It's from the art of Faith Wing. In music, we learned so many
004songs for the 100th day. In music, we learned so many songs for the 100th day of concert. Students also have a 100th day of school fashion show. We are also learn about different types of notes such as eighth notes, quarter notes, and whole notes. We also get learn we also get to learn to play the xylophone. [Applause] Hi, my name is [Music] Everly Library. We have been learning about different genres such as fairy tales and biographies. We are learning about how to find books using the calm numbers on the spine. We also use Pebble Go a database to learn about topics you're interested in. During our creative lab period, we have been learning about how to code using our BAT and KBO robot. Our KBO has taught us concepts such as sequencing loops and conditions.
005We also are using the engineering design process to make light of circuit cards and musical instruments. [Applause] Hi, my name is Theo. We had an assembly all about holidays around the world. We also have conceded many holiday songs such as Ohan concerts here for Navidida and all things. We love to help others here at Goose Hill. We had a holiday toy drive to collect toys to give to families in need. We donated toys such as dolls, board games, Legos, and arts and crafts. [Applause] Hi, my name is Bianca. We also collected food for donations. We had a harvest collection around Thanksgiving and collected cans for our annual Super Bowl food drive in February. We have been at school for over 100 days. For the 100th day of school, we designed our own t-shirt and walked
006them at as we walked the carpet on the 100th day of school fashion show. [Applause] Hi, my name is M. We also have reason our turtles from the fish hatch tray. They are getting so big. We took a visit to the cold spring harbor fish hatch tray and learned about sticky pad frogs, salmon and tr and sush and that turtles could live for 90 years. A whole of us at food were lucky to have a field trip to visit the Vanderville planter. We had so much fun looking at the night sky. Our favorite thing we learned was was a nept. [Applause] Hi, my name is Do you know Chris has his own garden? We just planted our seedlings in the hydroponic garden and are excited to see them grow. We also will learn about the
007post by observing them up close. We attended our third annual sports night to cheer on the Guso staff. We got to see the goose goose and dance with the gel staff and parents. [Applause] Hi, my name is Folly. We rocked out Miss Mashoft for World Down Syndrome Day. We just finished celebrating autism and acceptance week and learning how to put all friends at recess. [Applause] [Music] [Applause] wonderful experiences you had and you shared so much about your learning and making new friends and being kind to each other. That was truly amazing and so enjoyable and something we all could definitely learn from. I enjoyed that tremendously. So, if you guys could just stay here for one second and go up and take a picture with you, would you guys like that and do a picture?
008Yeah. Excellent. [Applause] How you doing? Mom, Dad, come on. Take a picture, please. Thank you. Thank you. [Music] [Applause] Thank you so much. [Music] As they depart, we're going to ask three of our elementary students to come up here who won an award at the Long Island Science and Engineering Fair for the middle school level. William Warren, Anthony Shreky, and Kaden Weber, who did work on solar cells and and how effective they were at different temperatures. And if you guys like, you could share a little bit of your research with us if you want to. Are you guys here? Come on down, please. [Applause] [Music] [Applause] Um so at the Long Island at the Long Island Science and Engineering we um we were studying the examination of the efficiency of um perovsky in poly silicon
009solar cells at various temperatures. What this research meant was it meant for both future and also um how these two solar cells could be used in different uh climate. Um the perky solar cell is a brand new solar cell that um is currently in testing and we were lucky to get um um uh one in our hands. Uh uh silicon solar cells you see them almost everywhere. They're the source of you know that are dominating the market for sure. Um we tested the two and so um what we found out in the end was that um silicon was much more efficient at all temperatures than um sil than poly polysilicon is more efficient at all temperatures. Um, and this could be very important because we know not to use proskite in colder climates now. So,
010we actually made a box to and we put each solar pit cell inside. And we heated the box up with a hair dryer and cooled it with a um freezer so we could test um how much energy they outputed at different temperatures. We used a digital multimeter to test how much energy they outputed. And um we we used insulation in the box to keep the temperature stabilized. [Applause] What grade were you guys in again? Sixth grade. It was the sixth graders. And how did you guys feel when you guys won the award? That was really close. That's excellent. That's the first time a a school in co that close harbor won award at this event. So [Applause] congratulations Come on. Open. Make sure they're over here. [Music] [Applause] Up next, we have two students from
011our junior senior high school, Dylan Saves and Stevie Sullivan. who this year um ran a pink a student tennis tournament for breast cancer awareness which I believe doubled or came close to doubling the previous years doubled doubled the amount of money raised was about $6,500 if I'm not mistaken. Do you guys want to come up and share anything else? Those guys did a great job. You can it's up to you. Come on down. [Applause] Hi everyone, my name is Sabres and this is my partner Stevie Sullivan and we ran the pinky tennis tournament um last year and the year before. It was passed down from Veronica Walkin and her doubles partner from Huntington High School from outside school and it's really a great event to be a part of. We doubled our raised money so
012that was great and we also doubled the number of participants and it was a tournament style um fundraiser and it was a lot of fun learning experience. Yeah, just to add on um it's really a great event and um as Dylan said in double our money and participants um everyone in the wood harbor district west side everyone's welcome to come in 4th through 6th grade for our morning session and then it's all high schoolers are welcome from 12 to 2. So we hope to see a lot of people this year also. Thank you. Thank you. [Applause] Thank you so much. [Applause] girls, thank you so much for such a worthy cause, putting your time and efforts into this. Very much appreciated. Thank you. Next, we have a girls basketball state [Applause] champion moment, but I
013do want to say I wasn't there. Mr. bunch was keeping me in place with texts and then the phone call started to come. Um his voice got very high. He was screaming and just be coming back from 17 points down at one [Applause] point. So I'm so proud of your efforts never giving up. Uh just can do attitude. So, we have Raven Callahan, Kelly Callahan. Come on down. Come on down. Oh, Keegan, I'm sorry, Pete. I should I should put my glasses on. [Music] I knew that. Keegan Callahan, Kelly Callahan, Michelle B, Audrey Davidson, Angley Derek, Llaya Long, McKenzie McGrath, Amy McKeen, Caitlyn Millet, Olivia Medulla, Ryan Van, Eloise Rice, Madison Shaloo, Hannah Silvac, Maya, I'm sorry, Maya Saskin, Maggie Spear, Kim Woodworth, [Applause] so this is historic. It's the first New York State Championship
014in school history. And I'm actually going to let the orchestrator behind it all say a few words, uh, very own Coach Malone. Good evening, everybody. Um, a parent recently told me that nobody likes long speeches, so I'll keep this quick. Um, what these girls accomplished this year is unprecedented. Only five Nassau County schools have ever won a state championship in basketball. They were the first B school to do it in 22 years. It just doesn't happen until it did. Not only did they win Colomb's first state championship, they did it in dramatic fashion, coming back down from 17 points to win in the closing seconds. It is a memory I will hold cherish for the rest of my life. They are the best team I've ever coached. Not only for the beautiful brand of basketball
015they played, but the type of people they were off of it. You deserve all the awards, recognition, accolades that come your way. You are a joy to coach. Thank you for letting us be a part of it. Special thank you to our wonderful seniors, Maggie, Ryan, Kelly, Mackenzie, Michelle, and Maya. You girls are the best. Thank you for making this a special year. [Applause] Thank you. If the girls won the state championship, he would have his head shaved and he certainly did. The video is still on our website. And if you don't know where it is, email me. I'll gladly share it. I will do another What? You can't be honest. [Music] able. Okay. All Yeah. [Applause] One more edition tonight. Racing [Applause] beat there when he won the state championship. And you may not
016know this, but behind us were um adults who of of the other student ath that you wrestled for that championship game uh with Match and and when it was over, they said, "Oh, it took that long." They knew what was going to happen before it even started. That's your reputation. And I have to tell you, you were so gracious on the mat the way you treated him. And it was very obvious that he knew he was going to lose, but you treated him just like anyone else. It was really nice to see. Thank you, Grayson. Congratulations. A little quick rundown of Grayson's uh six-year career with us. It is going to be the greatest of all time for sure. He finished with a career record of 203 and 27. Out of those 203 wins, 151
017of those were pins. This year, he had 46 wins and three losses. 43 of those were by pen. He got to be a three-time all Eastern State uh wrestler uh place finisher, which is the best on the East Coast. He was a three-time New York State finalist, two-time New York State champion, first time in school history. He was uh four, five-time Wall County, three-time county champion. He just won a national title uh last weekend uh down at Virginia Beach as the best wrestler in the country. [Applause] He was just voted uh to the all Long Island team by Newsuesday for the third straight year. And he's also voted for the first time ever three-time Nassau County wrestle of the year. And he will be wrestling at University of Pennsylvania next year with an impressive 1460
018on his SATs and a 4.09 GPA. [Applause] One more picture. [Music] and seven and a half. [Applause] Yeah. Yes. You know what? No, he didn't. As vice president of the board, here are my updates for the public. Um, thank you everyone for coming out tonight. It was very nice to see so many of our students honored. We are looking forward to our further discussions pertaining to next year's budget. The budget proposal before us is reflective of our board and administrators efforts to move the needle on instruction in our district, including among other things items to reduce class sizes and to enhance our special education services. Last year's budget funded roll out of our ICT program. The ICT program was something that had been requested by parents for a number of years, but it was never
019implemented until now and it has received a lot of positive feedback from our community. So, thank you to our administrators who worked together to put this proposal together in an effort to continue our long-term work toward our often referred forward goal of improving instruction for all students. Thank you, Heather. Good evening members of the board of education, staff and community members. Welcome to the April 8th meeting of the board of education. First, I want to extend my heartfelt thanks to the students, parents, staff members, coaches, and everyone else involved in creating wonderful experiences we've witnessed over the past couple of months. These achievements of our students are truly remarkable as a testament to our dedication to their dedication and hard work of so many in our community. This past weekend, students of Lloyd Harbor presented
020the Adams family musical. It was a fantastic celebration of student talent and Friday and Saturday shows were packed houses were a clear sight of how much work supports the arts. The performances were professional and showcase the creativity and enthusiasm of our young. Earlier this evening, the Closeman Harbor Library hosted the annual student art show reception featuring beautiful artwork from students at Lloyd Harbor Westside and Hill. The reception ran from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. and I understand the artwork will remain on display through the rest of the week. If you haven't stopped by already, I encourage you to stop in and enjoy the show. Last week, our fourth and fifth graders participated in hackathon code conquest where they competed in coding challenges against 19 teams from across Long Island. It was a fun and enriching event
021that gave our students a chance to stretch their problem solving skills and teamwork. Our Harvard Westside math meets also represent the cult department at the Northshore Math Olympiad Invitational. This is more than just a one-time event. These students commit to weekly and monthly challenges throughout the year and we celebrate their progress, participation, and grit. Congratulations to all our athletes who will also be competing both in the Suffach and Nassau County math tournament in the coming weeks. Just last night, right here in the Poring Arts Center, 86 eighth graders were inducted into the junior, excuse me, the National Junior Honor Society. Being selected for the membership is not simply a reward. It's a recognition of leadership, service, character, and academic excellence. Congratulations to all our new inductees. This morning again here in the pack was our
022second graders from Loy Park Westside participated in the annual symbols of America event. They sing patriotic songs such as you're a grand old flag, God bless America, and God bless USA and more. It was a touching and educational performance that provided a history lesson to the parents, grandparents, relatives, and all in attendance. It was truly an inspiring morning led by some of our youngest learners. On the other end of our grade level spectrum, occurring in June after our trip to Normandy, France, we celebrate our flags for freedom event, a meaningful tradition which started last year where our junior high students fold American flags and then are present to each of the graduating seniors by local veterans. The education foundation has approved the grant funding the flags for freedom program this year and is on tonight's
023agenda for acceptance. Thank you. This ceremony includes inspirational keynote speakers from our military and a live demonstration of how to fold the flag properly. Much like the symbols of America event, it is an important opportunity to teach our students the significance and symbolism of the American flag. Not to be outdone, our Cyber Hawks team 2875 ranked third in the Albany regional after 84 qualifying matches. This ranking tied the team's best individual ranking which was set back in 2017. We honoring the cyber box at a future board of education meeting and of course just before we had our younger students in Gill who presented on the happenings of the buildings throughout the past couple of months. Uh I'm so proud of the work they do and I know the future of Colby Harbor and and America
024is in great hands. Tonight, we'll also be uh continuing a discussion on the 202526 school budget. We'll also discuss projects to be possibly completed this year across the district that include security fencing, security cameras, tying the network operation center, AC, and equipment to a new generator that was installed at the junior senior high school. The town of Huntington has provided me with an update with the traffic light at the junior senior high school. currently on the large pole are being galvanized at the manufacturer with a delivery date to be determined. Once these poles are delivered, construction will commence on the traffic light system. When I have a firm date delivering starter construction, I will let everybody know via communication. Again, congratulations once again to all our students. Let's continue to celebrate and support the outstanding
025achievements of our students, teachers, and community members. Thank you. you take care of yourself if you can extend kindness to someone in need. Have a great evening. Thank you, Joe. We are at the first discussion section of the agenda and tonight we're opening our discussion with a self own update. Mr. Danuski Uh good evening everyone. Thank you for the opportunity to provide an update. Uh as we move into the final stretch of the 202425 school year, it's my pleasure to provide an update on the implementation of the bell-to- bell software restriction uh which we utilize the all day take-home model utilizing yonder pouches. Now, several months into full implementation, we continue to see positive outcomes that align with our goal of reducing distractions and fostering greater student engagement in learning. Overall, the program has been
026effective in changing the culture of cell phone use during the school day. Some would even say it has broken free of an addiction of devices. Uh teachers have reported to me fewer interruptions, stronger student attentiveness, and improved classroom management. students, some of whom were our most outspoken critics in the beginning of the year, have said they have appreciated the increased sense of connection during class and the removal of the distraction. Of course, as with any initiative, we have encountered challenges. This, of course, is to be expected. There are still some students who try to subvert the process by either tampering with their pouch, lying about leaving phones in their car, putting older devices in locked yonder pouches, or finding other ways to access their phones during the school day. When these situations are brought to
027our attention or if a student is caught accessing a device without authorization, we follow our established disciplinary procedures. These include having the student surrender their phone to the main office or the junior high main office. Repeat offenders turn their phone in sometimes for up to two consecutive weeks. We notify families and we apply progressive disciplinary consequences as outlined in our code of conduct. We found that consistent follow through on these procedures has helped reinforce expectations um which is evident in lack of recidivism. Um we we keep a running log of students as uh the year has gone on and we track to see if if it becomes a pattern of behavior or if it's an event of behavior. Uh there are daily reminders for the staff to conduct Yonder Concures during the morning announcements as
028well as portions of staff meetings that reinforce our why behind the efforts with yonder. We continue to remind students and staff of the importance of remaining vigilant and consistent. Uh our staff has done a really really strong job um encouraging them and and they have supported us in supporting concerns promptly while maintaining open lines of communication with families particularly when expections are exceptions are needed uh as we do have some students that have accommodation pouches for either health related or other emergencies. Uh as we look to wrap up this school year and ahead to the future, we'll be working on the best way to collect feedback from the students and the staff uh to inform any refinements to the program. Uh I consider this to be probably one of the most pivotal steps for us
029considering that the state is formalizing a law that places tighter restrictions statewide. Additionally, we constantly evaluate how we best support our seniors who have earned privileges in the commons, ensuring that trust is maintained and however consequences can be implemented when that is not the case. Um, it's essential for us to ensure the integrity of the initiative is upheld. Um, and I want to thank the the community and the board for your continued support as we work to create an environment that prioritizes student learning, their well-being, and meaningful in-person connections. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Danuski. If you have any questions from the board, please. Hi. Please go ahead. No, no, Lisa. Oh. Uh, I know you know you said that some have been tampered with and they're were in excess. How have you had to
030replace a lot of them? So, we have we we've we've had to have families replace them. Um, when when they are tampered with uh maliciously by the students to try and subvert, parents are asked to reimburse the district for the cost of that pouch. Um, we have had to we have had to replace a few in the very beginning of the school year, particularly our junior high students. the end of the day after they unlocked their pouch as they were putting their pouch in their backpack with it open and the minute they shut the textbook or something and bent the pins on the pouch um which is feedback that we had given directly to Yonder about possibly revisions to their design uh that if they maybe come up with a little bit of a thicker
031pin that it wouldn't happen so easily. Um you know as with any new initiative you you roll something like this out you try to adapt and you you uh you know I I saw Mrs. harm in running around at the end of the school day the first couple weeks telling kids, "No, no, no. You take your phone out now. Lock it. Lock it before you put it in your bed." Uh to try and avoid any more of those those bent pins. But yes, we we have had students um some in rather creative ways um try to get into the pouches, including some filing down the actual uh needle so that they can close it without it actually locking. Um you know, as with a lot of rules, anytime we put something in place, the students
032are going to try and get one step ahead of us. And then so the idea can they'll give them all back in the at the end of the year and then they'll be like washed or something and then so every one of the bags was um so every one of the bags was was uh asset tag essentially was was assigned a barcode and and right so at the end of the school year we will get the ones from the seniors back and the underassmen will maintain theirs until they graduate. Oh the yes thank you. How many how many entries in the tracking log are there? I assume each entry is a unique each entry is every line of the sheet is a unique entry. Um you know so what I did was I took that
033and I I converted that into a pivot table in Excel to be able to you know extrapolate how many times it's been repeat offenses based on on the time of the year. Um, and by by and large, um, the ones that have become repeat offenses, you can regularly find their phones in the main office, uh, either sitting in Miss Marshulo's desk, in the phone home, or in Miss Malone's desk in the junior high office. Um, but if I, if memory serves me correct, I want to say we had somewhere in the range of,300 lines of data that had been entered. So, in a building of 700 students at this time of the year, that's on average less than two per student. Did you have something? No. Oh, thank you. Um, so the report sounds like
034the program is going well. Um, and in fairness to you and your staff, you're not seeing it. maybe like but that um but we spend $30,000 on yonder packs and as you know from being at meetings I follow up how we spend our money and I want accountability for how we spend our money so I've talked to students I've talked to parents um the program is not going well from what unless they're all lying to me one I mean I don't want to sit here and list examples um cuz one we go on and two I don't want to give kids other ideas but one parent recently told me their son forgot their phone at home and their phone was blowing up all day because all their other friends were uh sending out social media
035posts and whatnot. The Chromebook loop has not been closed. Um, this program, unless I'm being lied to, is a waste of money. We I'm embarrassed that I voted for that. I feel like a fool that I voted for yonder packs because um, you're doing your best and your staff's doing your best, but I wish I could have that vote back. And I I'd rather give the money to the teachers and their contract, frankly, than than waste it on because there there are too many examples of kids using their phones that I've been told. And it's it's it's widespread and and the attitude is why am I going to lock my phone up if my friends not locking their phone up? Um I'm not saying you're not trying, but it's not working. and we wasted in
036my opinion. I'm not speaking for the board. We wasted $30,000. Now, what's the solution? I maybe you don't even share that opinion. Maybe you think it is going very well. Compliance is very high and there's just a small subset cuz I've been told when I ask and I'm not going to name names. I don't see any use going on. I walk around I don't see any I walk around stores too. I've never seen anybody steal but stealing takes place. I mean, so you don't see it all the time. And I'm very concerned because I bought into I want our kids to have that environment where their communication skills expand, their attention skills go up. They don't have the distractions. There are true benefits to a cell phone free environment. Perhaps we should have just had
037them lock it up in a locker all day so they have no access and really put in a block on Chromebooks because we're not lowering anxiety. Grades aren't going to go up. All the things we were promised and served board members in fairness. We're we're we're doubtful whether we should go that route. They said, "You know what? Do we really need to purchase yonder?" And I was like, "You know what? This is this is going to this is going to push us over that um that transom we need to get to to have good compliance cuz I wanted this for our students and I even talked to students in the beginning cuz in the beginning compliance was high and they did say you know what it is a nice environment I I am enjoying it
038but like you said the workarounds began they started to defeat the yonder they started to run scams and they're winning from what I'm hearing, unless I'm being lied to, but too many parents, too many kids have told me stories and I have to believe there's some truth to it. So, I'm I'm I'm I'm not I'm not saying you're not trying, just what's the solution to get get us there? So, I I I I'll start by saying I respectfully agree to disagree as to whether or not it's working because I'm in the hallways every day. I'm in classrooms. We had a demo lesson the other day and the teacher who did the demo lesson made a comment about the fact that not a single kid in the class had a phone out during the class. So
039for that I would say it's workable. Nobody is denying that teenagers are not going to try to find a way to subvert the process and when we know about it the issue is addressed despite push back that we get from parents who are addressing it. You know about it right? Despite push back when we know about it the issue is addressed. Nobody is saying kids are not accessing. But I, you know, nothing short of I mean, are we supposed to pat the students down as they enter the building? I mean, that that like if we are we we're not opening kids backpacks. When a student tells me my I left my cell phone in the car, I'm going to treat that person as a young adult and say, "Okay, if you're telling me you left
040it in your car, but then if you're caught with the phone during the day, now that's insubordination. Now you lied to me to subvert the process." I'm not asking for you to pat students down. I am asking you to at least consider the fact I think the administration is overly confident that it's largely working. You keep saying I respectfully disagree with you unless I'm being lied to. there is um widespread skirting of the yonder policy and I am um asking you to at least give that consideration because because as I said unless I'm being lied to which I don't think there's too many different conversations I had um and I'm not saying there's not a lack of effort. I hear stories of administrators running around when they find problems and and banging on windows and
041doing various things. We're just not providing the kids a cell phone free environment. Um and I just ask you to keep an open mind that maybe it's not working. Mark, if I can who who said I I see a significant change in cell phone usage in the buildings. I purposely uh when I'm up here at the junior senior high school and in the halls between periods uh looking into classrooms uh and I say for the vast majority of the time I am not seeing cell phone use. I I would I never would say that kids at times are are trying to subvert the program. Uh just last week I participated uh at Smithtown who also adopted the yonder pouch and we shared some of the similar stories where students who last year received a new
042phone. So when they walk into the class when they go to teacher yes here it is click and it's their older phone they put in there and that's a challenge for teachers to know is that the older phone or the newest phone cuz it's either the iPhone 20 or the iPhone 17. They all look exactly the same. So are students averting it? I would imagine there are some there. So, I would imagine every single one of us broke the law today as we sped to our destination and went over 30 mph in one location. That doesn't mean that we're not doing the right thing. Uh, I see difference in in in the hallways. I see during lunchrooms, the students are talking to each other. I think there more students outside playing uh during recess, especially
043the younger students. I I walked through the cafeteria today. There was one student on their cell phone. I spoke to the uh it was a substitute teacher who was watching over to uh in the cafeteria. The student was very covert about it. They had it underneath themselves. Went over and he addressed it appropriately. The rest of the high school cafeteria did not have a cell phone out. Uh so am I saying that someone doesn't use it in in the uh they go to the bathroom or hiding in here or there? I'm not seeing widespread use. So if we're at a 70 or 80 or 90% I can't tell you definitively but right when it's heard about I I feel the administration is addressing if you could only act on what you know and what you
044see and and I think they're doing a good job. Can we always do better? We strive to continue to do better. Uh I have not seen a study that says cell phone use in schools is good for kids. Every study shows that we're doing the right thing and working towards it. We're going to try and continue to do more because I believe that it's the right thing for a student to do to concentrate. When this was being rolled out, I had people in the community who are college professors and at least two of them talked about how we need to do something because kids are coming to college. They're in class not paying attention at all. Uh and they're paying good money for a college education and they're on the phones the entire time. So
045again, can we do better? We're always striving to do better. Is it perfect? It is not. But I commend the administration for the work we're doing and I and I believe we're going in the right direction. We're doing the right thing. I truly believe that. And I led I led with that. I I believe you're trying. And I am also saying we're failing. Um do you know how many parent complaints we've gotten since it started? There were parents that were very opposed to this policy and actually have gotten into arguments with other parents that supported the policy. Do you know how many complaints we've gotten since the programs really unfolded? I'm not aware of any on the board. Okay? You know why? Cuz none of their kids are having trouble reaching their parents whenever they
046want because they have access to their phones. And again, you I know you don't know this because they're not going to tell you. I talk to people as as just as I try to find out how much we spent on bathrooms. I want to know if we're getting our money's worth on yonder. And my checks say absolutely not. And I am embarrassed by my vote. I feel like um like we look ineffectual because this was a big signature uh program we were going to institute. And um I I'm hearing you're very confident it's going well. It's disappointing to hear. I understand why you you may think that. I just ask you to keep an open mind that it's not going well and um we have to work. If anybody on the board has any other
047comments, if you if you've talked to your kids or other parents, feel free to speak. I'm not obviously putting you. Um yeah, I I have a question. is saying it's effective is different than saying it's effective because the yonder pouches. So, I'm very curious to what degree the yonder pouches are being used. And to me, I I think that's an observational thing. I think you could see how many kids actually exit the building and stop to open the pouches uh by observing it or you could see after 9th period who's opening it in the classroom. I don't if every kid's running out without opening it. I think it's pretty evident they're not using the couch. So I think at some point, not today, we need that answer because if at some point we're going to
048be asked to renew Yonder pouches down the road. I think we want to know whether they are part of the solution or not cuz you don't need the under pouches. You just have a zero tolerance policy. We approved the under pouches because um the administration asked us because they thought that was the most effective way. So it it there's two things. The complaints at the beginning of the year I would have to say I I can't say definitively were vast majority were seniors parents of seniors and seniors have the permission to use the phone during free times when they're in the senior commons once and that was something that was always going to be part of the plan. If you look back to our initial roll out of this and we just needed the program
049to get going once that came to fruition, uh they stopped because they realized completely adhere to what we said we were going to do. Um I just want to clear that part up there. Um yes, my son was very annoyed at me for a few weeks. Okay. On that point, Bill, thank you for reminding me. I asked at a previous board meeting uh if I was allowed to stand at the exit because I was just curious to see how many kids were actually going to walk out of the building never needing to you never needing to use the unlocking station. I thought that would be quite telling. I was called a creep uh by a fellow board member in Jess. You didn't ask to stand there. You asked to see the video. Oh, Fred, you're
050correct. I need I said, "Can I look at video?" Right. And they said, "No, you can't because of privacy." I said, "Okay, can I stand there?" "Thank you, Pete. You're you're" and then it's creepy. It's not creepy. I'm trying to make sure we're doing the right thing by our students. And my question is, because I was denied, did anybody from the administration say, "hm, that might be a good idea." Did anybody go back and look at video cuz you're permitted? or did anybody stand near the exits and take um a survey of of kids that just walk out of the building? Did that happen? That happens relatively regularly. Mrs. Harmon can let you know how many times she catches junior high students walking out of nth period on their phones. And I'm fairly certain every
051single parent that she catches in that circumstance finds out rather quickly. And all the punishments are uniform. Not if it's a repeat offense. No. What What if you get caught with an open yonder? What's the pun or or your phone out? What's the punishment for the first offense? The phone is taken away for how long? Given back at the end of the day. And if it's a repeat offense, they turn it in in her office every day for two weeks. All right. These Okay. It's It's not worth getting into specifics, but look, I'm on your side. Um, I could see the frustration, but I I I I'm sorry you have the opinion it's not working. Being in the building every day and seeing the difference in our students during class period time, during changing, you
052actually hear kids speaking to each other in the hallway, which is not something I've seen in four years. That's right. They don't end of the day, it's dead quiet because they're all glued to their devices. So, I I'm sorry your opinion is it's not working. I have a different opinion. I know they're not walking in the hallways. I've been told that they they they they just don't use them. But I They use them. Don't I I I don't If they're not using them in the hallway, they're not using them in the classroom behind Chromebooks. They're using them in in in other areas where where people aren't looking. They're using them. It's being used. So So I I I mean I I I How draconian do we want to go? Are we going to talk about
053removing doors in the bathrooms to make sure nobody enters the bathroom with the phone? No. I think we should have have have done a different way to secure the phones than having them on their person. They shouldn't have the ability to get a phone. And the Chromebook, the Chromebook, um I thought we were going to address that as as as uh um in terms of that that's being used also in place of a phone. You can the not the Chromebook, the Apple um MacBooks. MacBooks. Thank you. The MacBooks are kind of a loophole, too, that it seems that haven't been closed. So, look, if I'm wrong, I apologize for wasting everyone's time. I'm just reporting back the due diligence I've done. So, that's all I'm doing. I I will share offline because I don't want
054to share with students who may be watching some of the the loophole with the Apple. I'm not going to share with you because I don't need to spread that anymore. uh next year it's it's not just a cell phone the lit the um law hasn't been passed down but the way it looks like it will be all non schoolowned devices very well as is restrict uh they wouldn't be allowed to bring any computers other than the ones we provide no watches uh none of those would be permitted and that will be paid [Applause] Um so we would and we've already said we need to discuss this particular at the elementaryaries we see students with watches um fourth grade and up and sometimes it's not even internet uh devices last year made a presentation with Miss
055Cosme we saw after the holidays students again innocently by parents were buying watches that were able to record video for kindergarters and this is something they simply bought off of Amazon for $40. I don't think the parents realize that and there were some parents shocked at that and they came back said I didn't even realize that and they looked at these things are going on. So it is invasive for many of our students in addiction. We're working hard to do that and it's hard as Mr. Danuski said and I saw numerous presentations. It says something at the end of the day where they run to is to look at their phones for notifications and so on and so forth. That's an addiction there and we're trying to break that. We're trying to do the right
056thing my students. Is it perfect? No. It's hard. They're working on it. They're teenagers. This is what we do. We're going to continue to fight to fight and do the right thing for our students because I truly believe we are doing the right thing for our students and for the f and their for their [Applause] [Music] future. We have three presentations this evening. uh updates on the NA network operations center, security cameras and security fencing as well as a final presentation for adoption scheduled for April and December. Um do we have an open discussion period later? Oh, I'm sorry. I should have said that. We need um the cell phone update. But yes, in the discussion portion, if there are any other matters uh for discussion, this would be the time to bring them up.
057Anybody in the group? I haven't I just spoke a lot. So, well, let's start with you. All right. Thank you. Wanted to get an update on Italian, please. What the status is on enrollment. We uh had five students enrolled to take the class. Are we proceeding with that? No. No. Okay. And the question I've gotten was um why did we set it up such that it wasn't a true third option and we started it in 9th grade. We were looking to run it as an elective to see what the initial interest would be um as a as a course. We saw it wasn't a high amount there. Uh and we as we discussed as a small district having multiple language can be challenging to find teachers who teach the language and we wanted to take
058the test get the temperature test of how many students were interested in taking um the class as a um for Italian to go through. So the way it would operate when you start a language in seventh grade, you continue it through to 8th grade to take the first checkpoint and then in 10th grade in your second checkpoint. Uh so it's a continuation. You continue in that language. Once in a while the child may switch between a language or two. If we don't have that interest in there, uh we would need to find first find teachers to teach it. They continue on. We didn't have anyone in the department right now who is certified to teach the the course. At best, we would have one maybe two sections of seventh graders who were interested in it.
059Uh we just wanted to see where our numbers were in interest in general. Uh that's not to say that in the future we couldn't try again. We could look to see. Um we had a difficult time this year trying to find a French teacher. it. I could be off, but I would say within a week before school started is when we found that person. I know reaching out to the local universities trying to find students who graduated with languages. I believe Stony Brook said in the last 10 years he's like three or four is as many students that graduated with certification languages that just aren't a lot out there. Um it's a challenge. I know there's currently a district on the island who's been a couple of months. They had someone leave on I don't
060remember exactly why and they haven't found an Italian teacher yet to find that replacement. It's a challenge. Uh so we wanted to find out what we would have and the numbers were very low. Five. Right. The teacher we identified she wasn't able to do it if we did have enough. She she wasn't certified to be teaching out of certification which we're allowed to do but the numbers didn't work. Didn't have five for an elective. It's more of a numbers issue than a teacher issue it seems. But if we were running it as a as a seventh grade class, we would think we would have more and then there's a continuum. Then once that child starts in seventh grade, we would have to finish that for the next 5 years for that child. 8th grade, 9th
061grade, 10th grade, and many of our students going to 11th grade. We would need to continue that program because they need that to graduate. Yeah, we took the time to survey the parents and students the answers. I mean, the number of people that responded was fairly robust for a a cold spring harvest survey. There was real interest in having a third language. A qu a a district of this quality should have a third language. We put it starting in ninth grade where kids have already started a language. I mean it was set up to fail and then it was practically you know a culture class with six I mean the way it was mar I'm really disappointed. I don't know if the board has my colleagues have anything to say on that, but I I
062I don't know why we're not trying to either do a third language and not waste time because this was a complete waste of time. We did try we tried in ninth grade that wasn't a if kids are going to there's something we could do only five kids signed up in ninth grade. But what if we offered it as a true third option? It was anyone at the high school. So it was open to 9th through 12th grade, right? and the kids already start in seventh grade in language, right? They're on a track already. So, if you're on Spanish or French and then are you going to jump off and then take Italian um after you put in two years of a language, it wasn't a joke. It was an elective. We've we've done that before
063actually. We had tried Italian in the past and it didn't go. We've we've tried um we've had Latin that ended. We've had courses and it just we want to test to see how many students are interested. That doesn't mean we can't go back in the future to do that. Just obviously I'm one of seven. My opinion is we set that up to fail. I hope someone other people have thoughts that they would like to share because I do think this district should offer three languages and then really give it a try. Really offer it when when kids are in the initial stages of picking. But I also think we're in a in different environment now, too. You just told us there's no teachers available to be a teacher, which is unfortunate, but that's what we're
064dealing with. I I don't give up that. I mean, first of all, we had someone identified who's not certified, but then we said where they could teach if we needed to get that certification, but I'm not sure if you post for Let's find out. I mean and I think the other concern was the draw away from the other languages. That's correct. French already, you know, struggling a little bit with DX students. So that could have an impact on that. So we may end up with two languages in the end anyway. All right. Well, I won't believe that point concerns at least. I think we set it up to fail. Well, I guess the question is does it to succeed does it need to be introduced earlier than ninth? You're making a valid point, but I
065also understand the limitations. If kids are already invested in language, they may not want to switch in 11th grade to Italian. And I I wouldn't want to switch more an additional language be basically a third language for them interested in it they would typically continued to go on and if every sentiment correct they were predominantly 11 and 12 but the number of five so it's really an additional language as opposed to anything French or Spanish they would be taking that on I mean I don't I don't really know I I understand what you're saying about wanting to start it as a as a course you know as a track um but I think you know the first if if we offered it in seventh grade, we'd be making a commitment, you know, that we might
066not be able to, you know, I I I think really an elective at least this first year was, you know, maybe the way to go to see how much interest there was. Um, you know, I mean, if you have only, you know, three or four kids and, you know, they start in seventh grade and they've started this track, now you have to follow those kids, you know, for six years. Um, I don't know. I just I don't I I don't think there is any great way to do it. Unfortunately, I don't think that there's any solid way in a district this small to introduce an entire new language as a track. I I think that is part of the challenge as a small district. If we were a district with four or 500 kids per
067grade, it would be much easier. You're right. This isn't not wanting to have a third language. That's not at all. we discussed we were going to do this as a survey to see people fill out a survey but then when it came time to pick as an elective five students selected it. Uh so when when you know rubber hit the road that's where it was at. Uh again not opposed to adding a third language if we could sustain that and move forward but just as many of us said here there's a commitment. We need to commit to those children till they graduate for at least the end of 10th grade. again most of our students to 11th. Quite a few may even go to 12. So it's a commitment. The numbers weren't there. Again, I'm
068saying not looking for it to fail. Uh the description followed what the other courses have in content and criteria. Um that's what it was. If we wanted to do it in the future, we would have to offer it like to our sixth graders. basically would start it like that year and then they would put in for it and then we'd have to locate a teacher. Correct. So there's a few steps, you know, that would have to be and then if we couldn't locate a teacher that would be problematic and start from scratch, right? I would want to make sure we have someone in the bank uh if we're going to offer that to be able Can I just remind me how many kids did you want in order? You know, electives, you know, to try
069something out. We may have been as low as 10 or 11 on that. Um it's it's hard to tell. And seven so this this wasn't an option for seventh and eighth graders. No. No. Right. Their schedules are packed. They don't have room in their schedule for effective to pretty much redescribe what they take. I just looked at the big response we got from parents and students. So I think there was interest. I just don't think there was interest as an elective. And if we are going to be bold and be an excellent district, we have to, you know, be bold and that would mean adding a true third language. Um, whatever that language is. Italian ended up being selected. Um, that was not important to me what the third language was. It was important after
070speaking with parents. um they would like to see a third language and I think we we did it in um in a way that I was afraid it would we'd be here right where we are tonight and and here we are. All right. Um is the wet lab still um in the Anthony or Mr. Clement? Do you have any update on the wet lab? Um, I don't have an update. I just received some quotes and that's all that we have currently. What's the next step? Next step is to meet and to look at the quotes and and funding source and identify how much of the work they were going to do. Okay. So, this has been an ongoing problem. These poor students chose this class and it's been makes um makeshift make um and now
071we change the design. Is that correct to make it a simpler design to install? No. I don't think Would you like to come up and speak into the microphone? It can pick you up on the recording. So, we didn't change the design. We actually worked with the information we received from the teacher. Okay. And the design is simpler, right? To implement. I don't know if I if it's simple or not. I just know that the design is uh can be phased. It can be done in parts. It doesn't have to necessarily be done as a package deal. So if you mean simpler by the fact that it could be broken down and not be an all or nothing. Um that that would make it maybe more simple. Okay. So when will we have that presented
072to us or is that something that you have to your team first or I think the whole team needs to meet about this and all the all the you know stakeholders need to be involved in this and we should sit down and look at all the proposals uh fully and the you know in entirety and then make a decision on the direction. Let's get that on the calendar. Well, we do have 14 tanks running in the class. And are they able to accomplish all their academic endeavors or were the class was stunted? I I I can't say if there were more tanks going. So, can you just tell us the timeline? When did those tanks go in? They were from the beginning of this. I can't say if they're on day one. part of the
073setup is them operating and and running the tanks. Um, in in working with the person from Southampton, who's the only other one on the island who has something that it took him 10 years to get where he is now. It is something that you just don't build overnight. It is a program. Um, it's a building process. Do we want to move forward on this? Absolutely. Um, thank you, Anthony. We we'll definitely have something put on the calendar to see where we are on the timeline. But to say the students don't have anything, they definitely do. They have 14 operational tanks in the room. In fact, when we had our guest speaker um Van Pel come in and talk about in the book with the what was the um right. No, but the the fish that
074she was axelott axel thank you was astonishing. We have two of them which is an endangered species in our wet lab. But I'm saying from September to now Oh, I I I had 14 or is this from Oh, they were in the very beginning. I want to say part of the class is setting up the tanks. I don't want to say on day one they had 14 cuz part of the class learning is actually done this full week. Oh, absolutely. Yes. Yes. I'm sorry. Yes. So, you know, maybe by mid-c from I remember we got a bunch of emails in the beginning that there was nothing. So, I'm happy to hear that there's 14 I I I could find out date that's not really I just kind of wanted to one tank I had to
075hire a company to move. We had livestock delivery. Okay. What? So there's progress. Doesn't Huntington have a it's they have one big Oh. So they can't it's different. They can't look to something similar to Southampton. Thank you. Um, the other topic is one that I've mentioned before and I'm bringing it up again because um, I'm concerned. Um, and it's regarding the board email. It just says BOE email and it also goes to Mr. Monasterero. And you just need to look back at email we receive as a board the last few months and there are multiple examples of people emailing the board and then separately putting Mr. Monister's email address. So clearly they don't understand he's included in that email and I asked the board to please just have two emails board of education email just
076for us and board and super. I think it's it the the transparency is important and it's it's really a simple fix. I don't know why we sticking. Mark, I I thought we discussed this at a few meetings ago and I thought you can you guys can correct my memory if I'm wrong was to say that um it would be difficult for the president to get back to the emails as quickly. it would cause an impediment in that regard because at least this way the superintendent most of the emails can be just taken care of by the superintendent. So it may help in that way but it also may serve to delay responses to the people writing in and the board kind of discussed it and weighed on in on it and I thought we decided
077to stay the course but if everyone can jump in and say that's you know when you write to the board right we disclaimer we knew was a concern and I thought that the board was comfortable with that is the board I know no mark's not totally comfortable with it, but is the rest of the board comfortable with that? Well, the reason why I'm not comfortable with it, Heather, is we put the disclaimer in. It is there, but it is not being comprehended by the people that are contacting us. No, I saying I'm just it's we're kind of looking at from two perspectives. It may not be the most efficient though. So it's not the most efficient, but there are people that do not want Mr. Monistera to be included in communication sometimes and they if
078they contact No, I understand what you're saying and and I was don't want to have that happen. I think it's it's well maybe we need to put on the website something about if they don't want him on they have to put our names in individually. There is a way to send us emails without anyway on the email. It's I've raised it and if it is what it is um one thing I asked and I I don't know um we sort of dropped it but I I find it hard to believe there's not a technology solution to this that when you type BOE at CSH etc etc I don't know why you can't like through technology get an option that says which one do you want to use this one with the super or this one
079without the super like it comes up and I We didn't or was that there wasn't I don't think there was an objection about being clear. The objection was it's hard to manage the emails. It would be burdensome from the board president to keep track of the ones that we want to forward to superintendent. So I just think there's probably a technology solution. Did we look at I just want to make sure when you say no. So when someone is on their Yahoo account, they type in VOE at da da da da that they get the option. I do not know of that in existence because it's it's image AOL and your personal wherever you work. I'm not a tech guy so I I'm not saying that's the real solution. I never thought of that's why
080you have a separate email address. How how is that really different though when a disclaimer pops up and says, "Please note your email is going to the the board of ed and the superintendent." That happens after you send it. No, that happens before you send it. I think that happens when you're in when you're when you type in BOE when you're seeing that. I think you're only seeing it when you're in your school account because you're with an insurance messages before. I think if you on your account that's like feeding back into another apology. No, that's okay. Our system is trusting because it's an internal account. So, somebody from a Yahoo account wouldn't get that disclaimer until they're ready to send. They get an auto response when they hit send. And we also have it
081on the on the page where the address is listed. It says something to effect. Please note that this go to all board members and also to the superintendent of schools. Oh, so it's kind of Okay. Right. And that's I don't know when that started, but it's in existence. I believe it happens though after you send it. Yeah. Yes. Cuz it's an order response. Yes. Correct. So the the horse has left the barn. But anyway, look, if we have a problem down the road, I did my part. Um the last thing I want to ask about, unless people still want to talk about email, is these allowances. Should we do that now or later? Cuz I had a question about the allowances. We're getting uh more more allowances back. And my calculations since March, we've gotten
082$154,000 in allowances back. And since 2014 so far, we've got a total of 87,000 in allowances back. So just since March, 154,000. And then since uh 2014, we've got a total of 87,000 allowances back. Um, we have a what we learned talking with the architect and construction manager when allowances are approved, it's between them. So, I is is there a way we can switch it so we can actually get um involved in that process or are we contractually bound to let two outside parties determine if they're taking an allowance or not? You can absolutely change that. We can change that. Absolutely. Would the board like to change that tonight as a policy? Because there are still um Miss Costa said there are still outstanding balances to the tune of what you said how many million.
083The architect has and the construction manager have began closing out the new addition and steam wing renovation. So those projects are being closed out right now. We haven't seen any final paperwork, but conversationally they're closing them out right now with the vendors. So those But the the money we're getting back is from the bathrooms, right? No, the money tonight is from 2122 projects, heating and ventilation upgrades. Um, did we get money back from the bathrooms? You did. So why did that come so quickly? And these are from a year ago. Because they just finished this work last summer. This 2122 heating ventilation work was bid out and that work was done last summer. Some of that flowed into this bathroom done. When were they finished? The last summer. Same time. Same time. We have one
084allowance back but not the other. Even though they were done, they're working them through. They're working through the 212. I don't I don't know if I have to foil it, but I'd like to know in the last 10 years how much allowance we've received back. Yes, I agree. Because it seems like we're only receiving this because we asked. about it. Well, we were we we just provided some of that information to you guys tonight. Well, Kanye, that's Yeah. So, the thing about these allowances, too, correct my math if I'm wrong, the allowances are a cushion for overage and each trade gets the same amount of an allowance on a certain project. Like in the bathrooms, it was 5,000 for each trade. I'm not sure exactly how they determine how much allowance goes into in it's
085written into the bid spec. But are they even I cannot answer. I don't know that answer. And when there's when there's a job where the allowances are fully taken, this is the math question I have. And we're not asked to pay more, but we get no allowance back. That means you have four trades where the overage ran exactly to the penny, 5,000 each. And that's happened a lot of times. I would think that's statistically quite uh improbable, right? I mean, we're talking mega millions time, you know, times the third to the third. Well, the process generally as you're referring to is is generally correct. Each contract awarded has some form of allowance in it. And the way you receive unused allowance back is through a negative change order. So if you close out a project
086in your past and there was no negative change order, the architect and construction manager approved use of that allowance. Right? And again, we're not involved in that. They're get but that allowance has to be exactly $5,000. And if if all four trades take it and they don't ask us for more money cuz they won't go over, but that means all the overages came to exactly that dollar amount in all four cuz we're not getting like allowances back. It seems on a lot of projects, right? If we go through this sheet, you mean the old projects, the old projects, they took the full allowance and then that's it. Thank you. You know, thank you. Are we still entitled? Like is there like a a look back statute of limitations or something on that allowing I wouldn't
087say that the project's already closed with the state and the contractor they're like you've closed them out but you you see what I'm saying that that that each overage where they use up the allowance had to be exactly and and and have been four different trades. That's okay. Well, going forward, we're certainly going to have um the allowances have to be approved by the board. Do we need to make that a policy or what do we need to do? You don't have to. We can just change procedure. Okay. That we don't have we don't have in our contracts that they don't have to do that. The reason that allowances don't go through the board process traditionally in general is because normally to keep construction moving along, they need to make quick decisions. and waiting a
088month, we wouldn't be able to open schools. Person, most work happens in the summer. So, they're making decisions very quickly. Um, they open a wall, there's a wire they didn't anticipate, they need to take it out to be able to, I don't know, reconstruct the wall and and move all that. That is why allowances exist and and it keeps projects moving quickly other than the once a month that the board. Could we please get a a readout where all the allowances were taken on a project? um whether they were not over or under budget cuz the likelihood of that happening seems pretty far, right? Just once, but it's happened. I just want to see how many times that's happened. I did ask Mr. Grill to provide me with a list of where we are with
089current projects that are still open in their allowances. So, I will see that and share that. Thank you. And in Christine in this um information the status report on capital projects that we received all of these negative amounts that was when money was given back to us. Yes. So negative change order is an unused allowance. Okay. Anything else for discussion moving forward with our presentations? We have updates on knock network operations center, security cameras, and security fencing, as well as our final budget presentation for adoption scheduled for April 22nd. Hi everybody. I'm Brianna Folds and if you don't know me, I'm the executive director of technology and I'm going to share a little bit about the network operations center and how vital it is that we keep it cool and operating throughout our school days
090and after. So here's just a picture just to give you an idea of this is some of the brains behind what we use in our network operation center. This is where our network servers are located. We have some of our switches, our wide area network which connects all of our schools together. Uh VR fiber optics. We have our camera system server in here. Lock down system, the phone system. It operates all the controllers for the Wi-Fi. And we also have our backup storage in here and our regular file file storage. So it's very important that this equipment stays online. And the good news is that there is a generator outside the front of the school that does keep this equipment online in the case of losing power. The bad news is that the air conditioners
091that are in that space do not stay online. So, we run the risk of having these these machines, which would cost over a million dollars to replace, would overheat, and we would essentially uh could lose everything. Unfortunately, when this equipment does go down, some of the things that happen, you won't be able to get anything. No phone calls, nothing on the network. You'll have no camera systems. You can't process any food service uh for studentu for students to be able to get any food from cafeteria services, no financial, and you won't be able to make any um contacts home because you don't have any of your student information and any of your parent contact information. So, it's important that we keep this stuff up. If we were to get the ability to connect our network
092operations center into a generator, we would keep all of our ACS online which would keep our equipment online which would keep the district online. So that is why this is important to keep the district operational. And just one important thing the generated as that the equipment is located can't handle the uh the air conditioner. That's why it's not connected to it right now. Right. And unfortunately the the location of where the network operations center is does not have any windows for ventilation. So there's no way to even cross ventilate if there is an ad network outage. I mean sorry if there is a power outage. So maybe this is a dumb question but where does the air conditioning what powers the air conditioning that cools the knock? Now it's when it's on regular electric it
093works normally but when the power does go down there's nothing that operates that that's not connected to any generator. Oh, and that's a unit that runs 24/7. So, in the dead of winter, it still runs because this produces a tremendous amount of heat. And a little uh a little heads up tonight, the board, you'll see in the budget presentation that we have um added this for your consideration to be able to hook up the knock to the current generator. So, that we're adding that for your consideration tonight. The generator has capacity to add this arm. Yes. You want to add the knock to the generator or the air conditioning in the knock to the generator? The air conditioning. They're two separate generators, right? So, one of them already has the knock. The other one, which
094is where this would go, that would operate just the air conditioners. We would run the capacity to eventually cut everything over to at this point. You don't need a new generator. You just are doing a connection. The generator that was installed with the science swing is it's comparable in size to the one that is at at the at Google. It's a big one. Okay. Uh and it could handle everything. The when I say everything, could handle the AC and the equipment. Believe it or not, the equipment isn't a lot of power. Things become fairly efficient over the years. The AC I think would be majority of the power. AC takes a lot of power. Like I said, in the dead of winter that runs. So that's much cheaper. We thought maybe we had to put
095a new generator. Right. We just have to make a connection. Correct. Right. Yeah. The board is going to board is going to consider um a $50,000 estimated cost to run all the lines to that new generator. And an automatic power transfer. So what happens? Any other questions? Right, let's move on to the uh Thank you. the camera upgrades, please. I guess this is me again. So, um some of the requests that have come in in terms of security, um have led us to getting quotes for different cameras upgrades. And I've been working with Rich Smith, who's also been working with our contra, one of our contractors to look at some areas of the district that desperately need certain types of cameras. One of the ones that came up were license plate readers so that when
096people are entering and exiting the properties, we'd be able to uh capture their licenses. There's also software um where you can go through and scan those if you have certain alerts. You can put alerts on certain types of vehicles so you know when they're coming and going. So, this is just to give you an idea. uh the two cameras at Westside, two at Lloyd Harbor, three here at the junior senior high school, and two over at Goose Hill. So, that's just an example of what the actual camera does look like. So, that's one example of of locations that we're looking to add cameras. Um, additionally, there are some other cameras that they're looking to add to the junior senior high school. So, there's three cameras that would go on buildings. This is to also cover
097the fields. Um, four of them would go on the press box, two would go on the field, and just to give you an example of um, pretty high-tech cameras, these have some of them four or five lenses, so they can do a lot. Um, the one on the top right would actually be an example of one that would go on the press box. It's very long range, so you can get a pretty far view from there using the internet um, connection that we have on the press box. And here's just an overview of where these cameras would actually go. if you can see um if you look over at the the uh baseball field. I think that's a baseball field on the bottom. You also have one there on the the turf and then you
098have the ones that kind of go along the road that would get the back fields. So this covers the entire high school property. So, uh, two years ago when we replaced our W exterior Wi-Fi, we added locations, but also with the capacity knowing that we would want to do this down in the future that we can install cameras and video sends a lot of data over uh the network. These are wireless there. There's no physical wire between this and the building, but we set it up to be scalable to accommodate this. So, we were looking forward to um eventually do this one day. Yeah, this is actually a really smart move that you did all this work ahead of time because all that power exists. So, it takes the cost and cuts it down significantly.
099Even though it's a little expensive sometimes when you put cameras in, this makes it a lot more manageable. Do do you want uh do we have no coverage to the right of the soccer fields? Um it looks like it's all coming from the left hand side of that picture. That's because that's where the power's located. All the cameras that were um speced out, they're they have the ability, that's where they're going to be capturing. They're just doing it from a further distance. They're very high resolution. Yes. Okay. Very good. Yeah. With multiple lenses, so it gets a complete view. So the ball field on the bottom um that's captured and then the upper turf is captured. Um yeah, you can see on the bottom right you have that camera there would go point to the
100turf. That there would get your baseball field and then the ones on top of the um press box would get the fields on the right. And then you have up further um where I think that's um storage. You have another camera there. So you can kind of see how it gets all that whole entire area just with those cameras. Are we doing plate capture just on the two entrance roads or are we doing plate capture too for the parking lot on the upper turf? Uh there's three. There's there's going to be one in the upper turf, I believe. So okay, thank you. All the locations are 365 cameras. So they 360° so they they are able to see all around. And here's the best camera of the night because it's the cheapest. This is the
101Lloyd Harbor camera. And thank you to our facilities crew because they actually ran the wire which brought the cost of this way down. So this is the the one camera that we're missing desperately at Lloyd Harbor um outside the front door. Don't they have a camera outside the front door? They do, but it doesn't get the front door angle. Oh, least expensive exterior camera. Yes. The website went a little less, but it's right. So, when I go there and I look at the camera, no one's looking back at me. And that's just the one the interior one that Well, there you not at this interior one that's over at West Side that they're looking to add. And do Sorry, I'm sorry. Go back. Do all the cafeterias have cameras in them except Westside? I believe
102so. This one I think is just uh was more or less a blind spot. So there is a camera in Lloyd Harbor cafeteria, middle school for all the Y. Yeah, which is pretty standard. Are there plate readers in all the campuses or just the junior, senior, high school? It would be all. If you go back to the This is the uh the estimate when we did each area of the property coming. We have cameras in the hallways and stuff. Hm. Yes. I'm not actually lying when I tell my kids I'm going to check the cameras. Definitely cameras in the hallways. I have them convinced smoke detectors are cameras, too. So, don't don't give them up so they think there's a camera everywhere. It's pretty good. I mean, is there a 100% compliance? I can't say.
103There's I'm sure there's a little here or there, but we have pretty good coverage in the building. Yeah, definitely good good camera. And I think as we move along and if we see something comes up, we'll address as needed. We we built when we put this in a couple years ago, it was definitely built to be scalable in the sense that we could add additional cameras. Our servers and the like could handle all this plus addition and our current uh security system can handle these new cameras. Yeah, this is just licensing that, but they do have the different servers. This is not a problem to expand. If you're looking at the soccer fields from across the way, if you're going long distance to get any definition, you're covering a very narrow space. So, what exactly
104is the functionality of the cameras? Well, if you look at some of the So, there's actually a key. It's really hard to read up here, but you can see that some of these cameras do have multiple lenses that will stay zoomed in. So you don't have to worry about then having to what's the purpose of kids are playing on the field. You want to see what if someone walks on a field or a lot of times? Yeah. You want to see if maybe there was an injury and something, you know, you're letting an outside organization use the field, there's a insurance claim, you want to be able to see what happened on the field. Um if somebody's coming on the property, you want to make sure that you're able to capture who's coming on the
105property out of the woods. Okay. Just it it will just not show a person moving. It It will give us enough information to be useful. Yes. Okay. We don't We're all for cameras, but if not for wasting money, obviously, but so camera over there is going to show if someone gets hurt on the field. Okay. I I I I want to make sure that we're clear. I'm not going to say that we're going to be able to necessarily see behind the tennis court with fidelity with here. We would need to install power. There's a lot more necessary to have definitely closer to the camera the better it is. The further away it's it's you know it's as high as the resolution is. Um we may see we need better of what's going on but that's
106where the most of the action is going on. um we may in the future say we need to expand, but this is giving a tremendous amount of coverage where the vast majority of athletics is going on. So if they're focused on the far fields and something's going on on the near fields, they'll pick that up as well. Well, so if you look at on top of the press box is actually multiple cameras there. Multiple. Got it. Perfect. Anyone else? All right, let's move on to pencing. [Music] So, what we have tonight are some fencing options for the district that I'm going to go through. And just to take a look at some of the key features, things that we've talked about, we have fencing that's going to be in combination of four to six feet
107throughout the district. We have gates for pedestrians that are 3 to four feet and we also have a service vehicle entrance of 8 to 10 feet to let our trucks in or any other kind of activity that needs to happen on the the fields to provide access. Um obviously key components of this is that it prevents the entry of unauthorized vehicles and people onto our fields and buildings. It also protects the students from leaving designated areas. It also um aligns with law enforcement recommendations and a lot of the assessments that we've had done and a lot of our security professionals that have weighed in on this. It also increases our security overall and maintaining the aesthetics. We are able to blend the two together to provide uh good security for the buildings. Um I apologize
108if this is tough to see because getting Google Earth images that fit into this slide are a little tough. But as you can see, this is a layout of Goose Hill and covered trail field, which you can see the blue is existing fence that runs along the side of the property and in where we're filling in the gaps where there is no fence and taking it all all the way around the perimeter of the field along the tree line and it takes us to what is the near the back part of the school around the gym area. There are two drive gates as part of this and also a pedestrian gate that you see in the lower left corner which is for um our evacuation route that provides us the ability to leave the campus
109and go through that area onto through a neighbor's property. Next up we have west side just which were the 4ft and which were the Oh, I'm sorry. Six foot. I'm sorry. So if you look at that end number, I believe that's 1,238 ft. If you go back and follow that up towards the,000 and you turn and you go up where that yellow gate marker is. Right there would be our 4ft fencing. It turns into sixoot fencing when it is on what we going to call our perimeter. So we're not putting any fencing here. The blue is existing and the rationale for the fencing is to give us what and I'm going to turn it over to Rich. Very good. Good evening, Mr. Smith. Hi, good evening. Thank you. Yes. So, some strategies for defensing in
110law enforcement and crime prevention. It's called SEPTA. SEPATE. It's crime prevention through environmental design. And that's really what this is. how to prevent crime through uh you know fencing and bushing and things like that. Some of the strategies accept that are the first line of defense against violence and intrusion the need for a fence. It it designates the school grounds as a well- definfined carefully maintained space that deserves respect. It enables surveillance by school staff and law enforcement officials and it's a natural surveillance. I know there's a question the past should be a solid bank but not solid. They suggested not solid. So law enforcement can see in and you can see out. It's called natural surveillance. So that is the suggestion. Um it limits access in areas that are not highly visible. In the
111far corners of some of these areas, in some of the schools, there's some pools and surrounding neighborhoods, areas far away. So, you know, areas really can't see well. Uh it does limit some access there. And uh it restricts entry points into your property. It obviously should be a school by school basis and that's what we looked at. The most important thing is step and I agree with as a school is has to be a balance between aesthetics, security and budget and that's why we kind of looked at 4T and 6 ft. If you just focused on security you it would look like a prison. So in the school theory and you you want to kind of balance the three of them which is a little tricky but that's the goal. the industry standard. I've called,
112you know, 17 other schools. I know a few uh district guys in other schools. It's pretty much the four six. Four in the front, the six in the side and the back is what they're doing. So that's why we come up with suggestion of doing this. Um in this maybe I'm skipping ahead in this um presentation, you have different types of fencing. Yes. Uh which one is the the chain link? Is that the sixoot fence? So the the chain link is going to be 6T and 4T in some areas. And there's also this this option of um decorative fencing in there that could be included. But um we priced out mostly what is going to be the chain link which you don't see on here is with the bottom rail. Also an important feature of
113that is it not only maintains its integrity but it also doesn't allow people to go under. Okay. As Rich was saying, a lot of schools, he's spoken to people on the law enforcement side and in the security side, and I've spoken to different vendors who do this, and this seems to really be what a lot of schools do to provide security is is chain link gates, fencing, and up top you see a barrier gate. That is more for like a driveway. We not fencing, the high school circle would be an example of that. So, we put this one in the front of the schools first. Yeah, you can back up. I mean, this is when we when we think security, this is really just more of corrupt keeping the kids in. I mean, like in
114the beginning, you mentioned cars, like this isn't even cars off of our property. Let's just It's not keeping a medical event possibly. Uh it's keeping the kids from running into the parking lots in the street. It's more that it does have a security element to it, especially the sixoot fencing. 4 foot is basic security obviously. Uh there isn't you know it is another barrier. Obviously nothing is trying to stop everything but there is a sec security element to it but it also keeps the kids from running into parking lots the trees. I I think on the question if somebody wanted to take the truck and ran through, of course they could. Uh but the casual users, somebody wants to go on and use the dirt bike or or or their trike or drive their truck
115on that would prevent that. But otherwise, they're crashing through doing damage. We do have a fence right now at Goose. Like when you're looking at Gooseville to the left, all the way to the left, there's a fence right the front that was put in during CO. Uh students were using that outside learning area. Look at this. It looks just like that. And we were afraid that they could dart. I mean, you know, the four, five, and sixy old. So, we put a fence there to protect them. All right. If someone wanted to drive the truck, absolutely could, but they would do a tremendous amount of damage to the car. There's a pipe at the top, a pipe at the bottom. 6t length. There's a pipe there. They're doing damage to their vehicle to ramp through.
116You're going to come home and you do your car. I just thought you said something interesting though. So you're saying it's better to keep it so you can see keep the fence you can see through because I see a lot of districts have that chain link with the netting so you can't see in. That is not suggested. It is not not through accept that uh industry standard. It's called natural surveillance law enforcement to see in. Yeah. You want to be able to see out. That's suggestion. Make it a solid. And with um with those the fences that have the the green slats in it, maybe this is a dumb question. Do they come with those green slats or is that something that you could, you know, if if we wanted to make it, you know,
117that you could not see through this fence at some point? Could we go back and install those slats or do fences come with them? No, that that can be added. That can be added. They're just they're they're woven through the fabric of the fence. They just Right. Someone has to do that. You don't buy it like that. Not that's that's installed. Yeah, they that's what they did. What's that? Yeah. Community service. Community service. So, you had the slab and the the estate fencing. Which would be which? Where where would it be used? That is in there. Actually, there you go. There you go. um the estate fencing on the bottom right that was in there for probably very small sections as an option. But um just to show the different styles, but it it really
118is the the chain link in both sizes that's going to be the predominant fence. You said you're putting this in the front of the walls, right? I can't. The estate one goes in the front of the school. No, the chain link was going. There was um only a question of a gate um with the escape fencing at Westside. Um I but I'm I'm pretty confident that the chain link fence is going to be the option there. And I believe you said the estate fencing was two and a half times the cost of the chain link. Am I correct? That's what you told me today. As far as pricing, yeah, it's two it's two and a half times the cost of chain link regardless of what option we go with chain link. So, it was something
119maybe in the front if we wanted to do that. Can Can you show west side because Westside is a little bit different? We're also looking to cordon off that um I guess the drop off circle, not where the bus is going cuz kids play in there, particularly when it's rainier out or rain when they're not on the field. So, that would be completely blocked off. So, right now we use cones preventing cars from driving there. Uh there would be a gate system there preventing uh any cars from driving on there uh when kids are using that as a as a play area. Yeah, I think that would be very useful to have strong fence there. Yeah, the um that that length fence um what were we talking for height there? Was that four feet or
120for west side? Um I'm confused where where different fencing is going. I just saw that chain link. They're asking if they could put the slats in. Like where would that be used and how tall would it be? Are we talking about wood slats? No, you're not going to use the slats anyway. You want to see through it. So 4 foot fencing is going to go in front areas of the building. the the sides and the perimeters that are I guess you would say bordering our neighbors. The recommendation there is 6 ft of the slat of the not slat chain length chain cuz kids love to climb those so you know they're perfect for their feet and up they go and it's another toy. So I mean I just want to make sure we're um I
121want to make sure I understand the logic behind fencing. I mean it's a big number. What are we looking at? The $226,000 was it? That's correct. That's Yes. Right around. Yeah. And we don't have fencing in this proposal for the high school because that would be cost prohibitive. Is that why that we would need to look at such tremendous amount? We didn't go that have time to do that. It's and there's a lot more to to discuss when looking at the junior senior high school with athletics and in the space. We could definitely take a look at it with a walk through tomorrow night. We'll look at some of the fencing there, but it's definitely a different animal as to how it operates as opposed to buildings where Gooseill four, five, sixy olds, boy Harbor,
122Westside, 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 year old. So, it's a very different setup necessary. Um, if you could pull up the high school. I have that here. H. Okay, that's okay. Okay. Um, do you think the gates at the circle are really necessary? Wouldn't they be open a lot of the time? And I can't imagine the two gates just sitting in the middle of nowhere would be aesthetically pleasing. Yeah, they they would usually be open. I I mean, I don't know if you want to weigh in a little bit more on the security part of it, but for us, the conversations coming up is that we should have the capability of closing that off if we wanted to. Mhm. So most of the times they would be open and they would be open
123to the the grass side. They would just be pinned up against the post or just held open. But it would give us the option if there was an event, if there was something going on that we felt the need that we truly needed to restrict that access. Okay. I think that might be particular during lunch periods when kids are playing during that time period. The gate gets closed and if somebody comes in, it's it's really preventing them uh from driving around when kids are there. uh and also parking there during that time too. That could be an issue. So it's it's to close up and prevent passage of cars and trucks in that. Do we have any other questions or do you want to move on to the budget? When do we have to vote
124on fencing? Is that tonight or all in the budget component? about the um the fencing. You might recall that you're going to consider a resolution at your last meeting that would declare an ordinary contingent expense and that would be with this year's money for the fencing at the next meeting. April 22nd meeting. Okay. I think you said last meeting that's Oh, sorry. That's okay. And that comes out of the capital surplus. You'll be you will be doing that work with the 2425 uh budgetary appropriation. You'll approve, but not capital. It's extra money in the budget from this year. Not capital. The the asset and the work will be capitalized because it is required to be capitalized if it's a capital improvement to the district. And you will then also approve a transfer of the money
125to the appropriate codes so that we can effectuate and do the work. But you saying that would be money from this year's budget? Correct. Gotcha. And that's also true for the camera. And the knock as well. And the knock you will consider tonight when we talk about the budget. That's next year's money. Okay. All right. Don't go anywhere. Oh, okay. Mr. Clement, the uh plantings near the signs look very nice, the boxwood and the impatience and everything. Thank you. Are the signs in high school? Yeah, I think that's what they teach me. Oh, they pay for that. They they take care of that ETG. Well, thank you. Yes, they do a wonderful job. Amazing. Thank you. I think Linda Gerber had a lot of I think so. Oh, all right. Well, that's very nice. Thank
126you. Anyway, we ready? We do it every year. I'm still learning. All right, we're ready. Okay, great. Okay, here we are everyone. Budget development. We're on our April 8th meeting. We give a little We're going to start out with an update on the state budget. We may know that the state budget is due April 1st. That did not occur in Albany. Here's just some a status of where we are. They did not pass the budget. Indicators are that um the budget may not even pass before the board has to adopt the budget, which is by April 22nd. Um but additional indicators are that school aid is really not one of the items that's holding up the state budget. There are a couple items holding it up. uh MTA evidence being brought into the court system
127and um while they are discussing the cell phone ban, it does not seem to be controversial as opposed to the other items that are holding up the budget and school aid does not appear to be changing. So, we are proceeding forward with our budget with the governor's proposal um for school aid. We left our last meeting um showing that um our current proposed budget is [Music] 82,319,62. It's a $1.6 million increase over the prior budget. And we talked about the components of that change. Um you might remember this from last from last um meeting, but on the left hand side is where we talked about additions to the budget, programmatic and other additions. So the next slide actually summarizes the lefth hand part of this slide. It's the top half of that. The same 1,79,000
128is what was on the prior slide. Those are the programmatic additions. And on the bottom here, you'll see highlighted in green. It's $382,361. Those are conversations that we had at the last meeting. the board asked us to go back look at these items and and to come forward and we would consider you know we consider them tonight and we would have a discussion. So um when we speak about these items and we make decisions this will determine our final expenditure numbers you know for the budget that we ultimately will will adopt on April 22nd. And then after we decide on our final expenditures, we will discuss our revenue uh which includes both our tax levy and our appropriated fund balance. But here uh we will we'll stay on this slide and go over each of
129the programs that we began to speak about last meeting and have conversations about them and um and and we'll start at the top. We'll start at the ICT program expansion. We currently have a part-time model. The recommended model is to transition to a full-time model in grades one to six. I'm going to move to the next slide just to talk a little bit about that one line item. Um this is a summary of that. I'm going to ask Dr. Shim just to come up in case her expertise is needed. But you'll see on the left is our current model. That's the part-time model in the center. We we did offer the board there was a conversation at our last meeting about something other than the full-time model and we presented the hybrid model here and
130on the right hand side is the full-time model uh that is being recommended and you see the related um full-time equivalent staff implications and then the cost increased cost estimates to the 2526 budget summarized below. I guess we'll wait on here to see if we have um you know any questions. And I'm actually going to go to the next slide after we talk about the money piece. And this is the slide that Dr. Shrimp had prepared in her presentation that um that she didn't get to make formally, but here is that slide from this which really talks about the current model model on the left, the proposed model on the right, some of the benefits of a full-time model and some of our estimated student counts in in a in our ICT program. So, I'm
131going to open it up to questions and Dr. Sh here. We go line by line. We can discuss each thing. Yeah. I was just wondering if you wanted to just run through the whole presentation and then we'll start off on special ed and Good idea. Go one by one. Yeah. So, we'll go through each line items here. So, the the first line item is the expansion of the ICT program to a full-time model. The um next is the additional ICT program needs at the high school. That's a 0.9 FTE. And there are the costs. The next line item is our continued class size reduction efforts on our elementary level. It would be an additional Westside second grade anticipated to be an additional Westside second grade class and an additional Lloyd Walker fifth grade class. Those
132are two FTEEs. Um there has been increased interest from our students at the high school level for occupational education programs that rep represents the additional cost for students interested in those programs. Th those are going to Boseies, right? Boseies and yes Bosey's programs tech programs at Boseies. Uh the next line item is a cse chair. Uh that is an additional FTE for a committee on special education chair. Dr. Ship spoke about it last last meeting and can speak about it in more detail. Um also includes a next line item a math coach. Oh, that's an additional 1.0 FTE. We spoke about that in detail also last meeting um related to our literacy coach and the improvements we were seeing with our literacy coach. Next line item is a contingency for our Lloyd Harbor ICT uh
133program. We have one grade level. I believe it to be sixth grade. Yes, it is sixth grade. It's noted there. The numbers are very clo close and uh we might have to break that class for an additional ICT class at Lloyd Harbor. Um following that, we have a high school reduction in class sizes 1.0 FTE. We have a reduction in our math 78 class sizes. a one a 1.0 FTE there request we have a request for a purchasing agent currently the district does not have a dedicated staff member to purchasing for the district and that's the request there and then we continue down below here so those items we've seen those on prior presentations and then after our last meeting we um had additional items the board asked us to to look at those include
134we'll start at the bottom it's um since our last meeting we have u become aware of potential leave of absences in the district those at an additional cost to the district and this is an anticipated cost for uh leave of absences. The board asked us to look at field trips those where parents and families um paid and we identified the six trips that are in front of you on this on this page as trips where families are paying. This actually encompasses all of if this takes this is all of the field trips in the district. These are the these are the six where they pay. there's an instructional component and um if the board decided to support field trips like this uh all field trips in the district would be um would be would be
135supported and there's six there. Additionally, at our last meeting, Mr. Bonino spoke and we spoke about storage needs in the athletic department. So, we have recognized that we're going to need a storage unit. This is an estimate of a cost for a storage unit. The exact type, you know, what what we are actually going to get is to be determined, but this should be um enough to cover a storage unit for athletics. Um you heard a presentation tonight about the knock and hooking the hooking the knock up to the generator that exists for our science wing edition. These are the costs for that. This $50,000 we're asking you to consider that so we can hook up the knock to the generator. And last is um these this is an ask for um addition additional administration
136monies so that um the board and the district can consider um future you know future staffing needs that may occur. We have to um you know that we can address some of those needs and this allows us to be able to address those in the future. You want maybe go through the whole thing and then pull the whole presentation. You want to ask questions about these things and do you guys want to go line by line um through the additions proposed additions and we could kind of poll everybody to see where they are and give you the opportunity to ask questions and would you find it more helpful for Christine to run through the whole presentation and then go back and do that? You know how it only takes you a minute to round out
137the whole conference. I think yeah I think looking at it as a whole is Yep. That's what I was thinking Bill but it just I didn't finish what you said just what you was saying I was asking if we should do it now individually or go through the whole thing. I think looking at it holistically. Yes. Okay. So let me so so I'm going to go quickly through the next two slides. Is there input there to speak about the ICT full-time model and we'll come back to those. So when we decide let me go back when we decide our final expenditure number for the district which will be um hang so we will decide on this 82,319,000 tonight and through our next meeting where we adopt what our final expenditure budget will be and when
138we do we'll make ultimately we're making decisions on um on some of these additional programmatic changes and Then when we do that, we now are going to compare that to I'm actually going to move past this slide and go back to that slide. We're going to actually if the board was to approve all of the items on that slide that you're going to talk about tonight. Your expenditures would be $82 [Music] million1,423. You see that line item there. If the board makes that decision, we currently have identified revenues of $80,739,000. We see a difference down below. And at this point, after we decide expenditures, we're going to decide how we're going to fund um and balance our budget. We're going to decide on the levy. You see up on top, this is an example of
139a 0% levy. And then you see up on the on the left hand side, the designated bond balance line would change if the board decided to go with a zero levy and an $82,71,000 of expenditures. we would need to make the decision to designate additional fund balance. The addition would be that $1,962,000 down below and it would change our designated fund balance from 1 million2 to $3,162,000. And each of the slides after this are different variations of the levy so the board can see that more easily. So again, if we decided on all the expenditures um all the expenditures that we're we're considering tonight and we decided on a 1% levy, you see how the difference changes. It changes from 1.9 to 1.2 and the board would be making a decision potentially to go forward
140with a 1% levy and to appropriate additional fund balance for next year's budget. And each of these are a function of um those different scenarios. This is a 1.5% levy increase. This is a 1.65% levy increase. 1.75. And we end 1.99. And we end at our maximum allowable levy. Um that's the maximum allowable levy that we need a simple majority vote of our public of 2.23. And you notice there that if the board was to consider the additional things we spoke about at our last meeting, you notice that there's a difference here of 382,000. The board would potentially have to consider um designating additional fund balance there. So once we decide the expenditure number, it could change on this page if it's not all the items that you're considering and but once it changes, it's
141basically the next step for the board that we decide the levy and how much fund balance you'd like to designate. So can I ask you a question? So so all the wish lists you're saying even at the max tax increase we would have to designate extra fund balance in addition to 1.2 based on our last meeting. Correct. And designating a fund balance equates to spending savings that we have in special accounts, right? Money that's been set aside or maybe you explain it. Yeah. Designating additional fund balance is committing monies that you are we we've termed them in the past operational surpluses to the following year's budget to supported as a revenue source going forward. So you're basically identifying that and saying I'm going to support the budget. I'm going to give it back to the
142taxpayers and I'm going to use it by designating additional fund balance. Right? So when we have $3 million left at the end of a year, we vote to say how much of that three million goes into each of the different funds. Is that correct? The first thing you'll decide is how much you're going to designate for the following year's budget, right? And then there will be presumably additional exit and then you will make a decision. I want to put it in the following places. Got it. Okay. So go ahead, please. My question was going to be based on these total expenditures. Is there you gave us several options. Is there one of these that you would recommend to us to support this increased programming? And why why would you recommend? Why would you? The first
143question I would ask is are we supporting all the growth in expenditures that we have in front of us here on this slide. So that would be our first you know decision. Um many of the items on this page are expenses into the future. You know there are people there staffing and they're things we have to support. So I would I would say once we say how much our expenditure number is going to be then we can talk about recommendations on what a levy you know would be. I think that we would be you know fair to say that at 2.23 we don't have to be 2.23 23 and we don't have to be at a zero, but it would a lot of it would depend on what the board decides their final expenditure number
144wants to is going to be. If we want to do everything like as it's calculated now, what would your recommendation be? My recommendation should be that it should at least be as close to what you levied last year. So is 2.23 the highest. That's the most we can le without a super majority. And last year we did 162 That was our maximum allowable levy last year. It was right. That was Remember Remember we We stayed under the max. You You came in at the maximum last year. I don't think so. Yeah, you did. You did. You did. There was What you're remembering is there were two different tax cap scenarios. One was higher and we chose to use chang what happened there was this decision was made to not do the security And when that
145happened, it changed your maximum allowable le from two something down to 162. And that's really what happened. So, Miss Costa, how much money do we have in the rainy day fund? What's that number? So, you have in your reserves and fund balance, this is where you this is where you stand as of our last audited financial statements. One 1.2. No, no. So these are the top items. Anything with a description that says restricted are known as reserves for specific purposes. And then we get down into the item that's highlighted is your designated fund balance. And then you have assigned fund balance is basically commitments you made. So for instance, if we purchase items at the end of this year and we have not yet expended that money because we're purchasing it towards the end of
146May and June, we have to actually appropriate. That's what the $56,000 represents. We literally have to hold up on some of our money because we already have committed that for future. So you pulled forward 56,000 so far to that's last year's. We don't know that number for this coming year. But um what was the list you want to come back to? What's the list of things you pulled forward? Um that was about $155,000 in equipment costs that were in the 2526 budget that we could buy with 2425 funds since we had available funding to do that. So a small amount. So capital is not to be used for the page we were just on. Correct. Um what what can be used for the page we were just on? I'm trying to get a sense for
147the whole reserve. Sure. So you can use your you can use your EPA reserve, your ERS reserve, your TRS reserve, workers comp and unemployment. Anything o that you're seeing in front of you other than your capital are general fund type reserves. Um the top line can be used. Yeah, that is used when um staff exit the district. It can be used to pay for vacation and sick day payouts for staff. So to pay for those expenses that were additional, the ICT programs, etc., the possibly funding the the additional uh outside school um educational opportunities that can come. Um the money that can be used to pay for that is ERS, TRS. you you can use these reserves for the specific purpose with which they're reserved for. So for I'll give you an example, the ERS
148reserve. We have an expense in our budget approximately a million dollars a year to pay the employees retirement system. You can use a million dollars of your ERS reserve to marry that expense with a revenue source. Let's call this a revenue source. You can marry those two together and that's the only thing you can use an ERS reserve for is to support So help me out. What's the number we can use from our reserves to pay for the proposals on new additions? The number that's highlighted in red, you would decide how much you want to designate a fund balance and that's really what you're deciding. So, at the end of the year, if we closed our books and there was a $3 million surplus, okay, you would say you would we would sit and we
149would say, "Where do you want to put that $3 million surplus?" But at first the board made this the decision, I want to use a million of it for next year's budget, that $1.2 million that you're seeing on the page would go to $2.2 million. And then you would have $2 million in reserves where you or in circles where you would decide what you want to do with it. Let's say you decided to put it in the capital reserve. You would decide to put it in the capital reserve. And that's really what happens when the book closing process happens at the end of the year. So, what's the answer to how much money can be used to pay on that sheet that has the ICT, math coach, etc., plus the school trips and whatnot. How
150much of on this page can be used to pay for those expenses? $1.2 million plus whatever you decide to appropriate in addition to that. So, we can pull $1.2 2 million and then the rest has to come from an increase in taxes you're saying or another revenue source. Where's the other revenue? The other revenue sources are indeed are what? Although those see the top the top five sources over there. It's your levy. It's your state aid other funding sources your reserves and your designated fund balance. Those are your choices. And so basically since state aid is is is kind of set by the state right now and we haven't heard of any changes to it. um or going with the governor's proposal. So other than deciding how much additional fund balance you want to designate,
151your other decision would be what what's your levy amount? They move in tandem with each other. So if you so if you designate an additional fund balance to be at at a 0% levy, you'd have to decide, okay, I'm going to put $1.9 million additional into designated fund balance. But if you wanted to do a 1% letting of your taxpayers, you would only have to designate an additional $1.2 million of fund balance. And it continues down through that process. They were they have an inverse relation, you know, an inverse relationship. As the levy goes up, the amount of money you would would would consider designating goes down. So we don't have enough in reserves to fund those without raising taxes. You can only use them for the designated purpose. What if they were set up?
152That's what I was trying to figure out. All right. Thank you. You're welcome. Does anyone else have any overall questions on this? Is the designated fund balance repeating? It's a budgeted item. You you once you once you designate the fund balance um let's go back to that slide. Once you designate the fund balance in a future year, you are um presumably having increasing expenditures at the rate of whatever rate they are increasing. Collective bargaining agreements, just increases in costs. So you are presumably without another source increasing like your levy or your state aid, you're presumably repeating that bill each year. So if you designate, let me ask a different way. If you don't wind up at the end of the year with an excess, can you designate a fund balance or does it require an
153excess at the end of the year? Okay, so I'm I'm going to rest on this slide. Okay, just just to show you. So if you do not in your exact question, if you do not have a surplus, one year, and you begin using, we'll call it using your reserves, spending them down. So, let's say we use a million dollars of our ERS reserve in building our budget, which we do currently. You would now be declining that $3.3 million reserve by a million because you are not generating a surplus anymore. and that goes down to $2.3 million. And you could use that source for a couple of years given the fact that the ERS expenditure is about a million dollars a year. And then when you get, let's argue, to your fourth year where you have
154no more $3 million left, you basically have a million dollar line item in your budget with no revenue source to support it. Right. But I was interested in the 1.2 million. The 1.2 2 is similarly if you if you if you so you would just start declining your reserve balances that we're using and you would al to maintain your designated fund balance at one point the at one point you're going to reach a point where you don't have enough for either you know long range like long range down the road years from now. So you if you are operating at a deficit operating at a deficit you're declining your reserve balances and getting into a position where you may not be able to designate a fund balance into the future. All of those could be
155happening in tandem as we make those decisions on where the deficit would really be reducing those balances. And I'm not understanding because the reserves, the restricted reserves are a savings, they're they're money we've set aside from prior year excesses and I understand they're restricted. I I just don't understand where the designated fund balance comes from. Is it like a savings account that we have set aside from prior years? Yes, it's where it's where the money goes. It's it's when you end your surplus. Yeah. The first thing that you do with any surplus is make sure you can make your designated fund balance. That's what you're giving to your taxpayers in next year. Take it right off the top. Right. But if we don't So just answer this question. If we don't have an excess this
156year, we cannot give anything next year into the budget in the designated fund balance. I'm not going to No, that I don't agree with that. What I would say is your reserved balances would begin to decline permanently. I I I but I don't I'm missing the connection between the designated fund balance and and the reserves reserves. Okay. If you look at you see if you look at this line. Yeah. Do you notice above the designated fund balance line is a reserve line. We also have in here a revenue source as our reserves under that's where you're reducing the retiree one or the Yeah. But if we're operating at a surplus and technically we're not reducing that right now until we when when we start operating at a deficit in your exact question we're going to
157make the decision. You know you see here that revenue the reserves are a revenue source for the district. So if we operated at a deficit we would start declining these permanent balances that are out here. They would no longer just be a savings account. they'd be declining in their balance. And we can continue and go back and forth. We can continue that line item through the $2.4 million line item for as long as you have money in these in these reserves. But as you operate at a deficit, they begin these balances here begin to decline and you will could eventually get to a year where you do not have enough money to have this be a revenue source in your budget development process. So it's both reserves and designated fund balance are revenue sources in
158our budget building process. So, you've said many times we build a cushion in each line item um as is the best practice. Where does that cushion show up on on this page? You won't see it on this page. Okay. So, we're building cushion in which is money we're not spending. It has to be approved somewhere. It happens through Well, if you also notice here, there's a relationship financially and accounting wise. Do you notice that the reserves in the fund balance add up to about $3.6 million? Mhm. Okay. You know that that you notice that because they're a revenue source, but we're operating a surplus. So there's a relationship between some excesses in the budget and that we're not declining in our designated fund balance and reserves. They're related. So basically at the end of the
159year, we don't hire someone on time. We don't use as many subs. Something doesn't happen. this, right? We end the year and we say, "We're great. We're in a surplus." Correct. We didn't decline any of these savings accounts that we have. We didn't permanently deplete them. Where does that money get logged? Right here. That is the logging of your money at the end of every year. In those you make decisions as a board when we end the year at a surplus, you make decisions on the board. How that changes? you you you are you know we we there's resolutions that you guys are passing and that we speak to that says this we believe we might be here in a surplus if we get here do you want to put money in your capital reserve
160do you want to put money here and that is a decision you make when you have a potential surplus in your operations if you have a deficit in your operations you're not making those decisions as to where to put the money because there is no there would be no money at the end of the year to make a decision on so when the where's the payout of the large amount Quick lines did that come out of? I'm not understand. The CVA. Okay. The CVA. Well, it was only paid out of one line item. It was settlements and judgments and claims line item. But that money, if you actually see the decrease in our fund balance was $8 million from year-over-year. on the third column that says increase and decrease. That $8 million represents the payout
161of the CBA claims. Okay, we ran $14 million through our books and records last year to pay those claims. And so what happened was, if you notice, we liquidated our capital reserve. We, if you notice in the very last line, we had decided as a board to literally increase our unassigned fund balance anticipation of these of these uh settlements that we knew were coming. So, the $14 million was run through our books and records with the funding sources being the capital reserve, unassigned fund balance, and the liability reserve. Those three components were what paid for the CPA settlement. So you could just mark money as unassigned and then spend it as you wish? No, you can't. But we made a decision back when we were funding the CVA claims to go over that line item
162at the bottom on assigned fund balance is restricted by what to be no more than 4% of your ensuing year's budget. We made a decision to go over that, disclose that in a footnote in our financial statements, which our financial statements are as of June 30th because as of September, um we will have we would have paid out that 14 million and we disclosed to the public that we we made a decision that our three funding sources were that and we went over the legally allowed 4% limit as as a construct of a of a payment plan. And how are you permitted to use a capital fund to pay that? It was the only reserve legally by law because they're all governed by general municipal law or education law. Every reserve that's allowable for schools
163is governed by either general municipal law or education law. And that was the only reserve that the the voters could decide that there were no projects that were pending. And there were no projects on um capital reserve. I believe it was three that we liquidated and that was $7 million. and they went to the, you know, they came to the polls in November and voted to liquidate that reserve as part of the spending plan because there were no identified projects. Okay. So, bottom line, if we want to do the proposals with the ads from that page and changes to the budget, the tax levy would have to go up. Uh, well, you said if we keep the tax levy the same, it's about 1.65% and we're still at a deficit, right? No, you would make
164a this if you were I came to this slide on purpose. If you decided to do a 165 levy and all of the additional program requests that we're considering tonight, you would uh you would say, "Okay, we're also going to appropriate and designate additional fund balance for next year's budget." And instead of it being 1.2 million, it would be 1,9.95. So where does that additional 795,000 come from? What's fund? It's going to come from your operating surplus at the end of this year. You're going to decide. So, we're going to end our year. We've spoke about that hour. We're estimated to end our year anywhere from when we last presented, we thought three.5 million between 2 and a half and $4 million going to end the year. You're going to decide to take some of
165that, let's argue on this slide, 800,000 and give it to the taxpayers through additional appropriation of fund balance. Okay. Got it. Right. But it's that's what I was trying to get to. It's important that that is not a repeating item. Next year, we do not guarantee that we'll have access to throw another 800,000 or 2 million into we would do the same. So, if we're going to approve like long-term positions that are dependent on upping the designated fund balance, we need to know that we're always going to have that surplus. Otherwise, we're going to eventually fall short. That is true. Okay. But by next April, we would know what our surplus was going to be. We would we could have some sort of idea of what we could assign to the designated fund balance. We
166would know, right? But the difference is if you if you take on a bunch of positions, we don't want to hire people and say, "Oh, we ran out of money." Oh. If we pay for class trips next year, that's fine because we know we have the money to designate. But if we say we're going to pay for them for the next 10 years, we don't know that we'll have the money. That's all, right? Class trips are one time forward, one year forward. People are people are hired. Um we made a commitment like we're not doing the go. Just kidding. We're not going to do the Italian program on them. So the um uh you know it it the levy not saying anything. Uh the levy's not high enough then if and the question is do
167does the board want to take the levy up or does they want to cut um the the the ads. Is that that's really Yeah. Many districts who are not in our position that we are in, if you, you know, follow the news in your in your reading, they're only in this line that says total expenditures. They don't have they don't know they have nowhere else to go. They um maybe in a community that they cannot propose anything that's over their maximum allowable levy. Their budget won't, you know, wouldn't pass. They know their state aid. They don't have access to reserves or any other sources of fun balance. So, they're resting all their conversations on the total expenditure line. That's how they would balance their budget. They would say, "Let's look at all these expenditures, whatever
168they are, what programs we offer." If that's your only place to go when you get into a certain place financially, that's their that's where they are. That's why they're closing buildings. Did I hear you right? You said we're going to end with about a $3 million surplus this year. The last estimate was two three and a half million. We are in a range of two and a half to four. I say that because we're considering fences, we're considering cameras, we're considering lots of things since all those conversations. That page had uh what 2 million increase on it which is below. So what 71? Yes. So what? Oh, why why isn't this surplus being able to use? Why can't you do that with no tax levy? You can't apply. You're saying the entire surplus forward. You
169can you can make that you could make the the sur you can make that decision. You can make a decision if you wanted to be at a 0% levy to appropriate an additional 1,962. But to Bill's point, it's something you have to be able to replicate. You have to replicate it all the time or you know in the or they just have to be one year expenses, right? One year expenses, but faculty you can't really operate like that, right? Um but just so you know that even like replicating anything in in some of these are projections into the future like we could see a ch we saw it last year a threatened change to state aid. So if state aid last year was a threatened change of 600,000 that didn't happen. If that let's project
170forward past 2526 that we're working on. If there was a if there was a change of a million dollars in state aid, we would that's a real change a real reduction in revenue and we would have to discuss, you know, could we even designate for fund balance? How long could we do that? What do our reserves looks like? When you lose a permanent source of revenue funding, you have to have a conversation of how to support your ongoing expenditure. So this budget um 82 million 7 with all the asks. Yes, that's with all the asks. That's with all the ask. And do you have another 3 million projected surplus embedded in that? No, you don't. Do not. First year we're not doing the rainy day fund or the budget. you know, obviously to to add
171a lot of ads, we had to and and we and we talked about in prior meetings, we reduce contingencies in different accounts um that are out there for buses and health insurance and other areas where we have contingencies. We have reduced those. So, this will be the first budget without how much contingency must have sum in there. There there every line item in the budget is an estimate of what may happen from from when it start now and by the time we finish it's 18 months from now. So each line item is an estimate of what may happen like from our last meeting to today we had some notifications of known leaves of absences that we had to address. There'll be some we don't know about the 87.2 to how much of that is a
172safety cushion there is you know I would have to go line by line to let you know exactly what those I didn't bring exactly it used to be what like everything was increased on the line by 5% or 3% oh no no no that's not we we roll over staff exactly exactly to collective bargaining commitments if we don't have a collective bargaining commitment we make a decision we made a decision as as you know board and administration what we were going to do for contracts that weren't settled And then for other line items, we literally build them from the ground up. What do we need? What were actuals? What do we anticipate next year? There might be additional needs. So, we don't necessarily roll things over just blanketly like that. Okay. Um, regarding the state
173aid, and it says it excludes prek. Yes. And changing gears. Okay. Um, so we our budget though, so the state aid we get from for PK is $5,400 a student. We have 36 students doing prek, universal prek. So that's about $194,000, right? Does so the state aid doesn't include that, but does our operating costs include what we what it costs us for UPK? So the way the reason it says it excludes UPK prek is because it's required to be recorded and tracked in your special aid fund. It's not a general fund item. So if someone you as a board or any community member was taking our state aid run that's published in the newspaper and said wait a minute I don't see 4 million503 that's because the state includes the prek numbers in that line
174item you know arguably they shouldn't the state aid fund should be general fund type operations. So it doesn't include prek that's only because the money is recorded in a different fund. Oh, so it's not like missing $200,000 of revenue. And but what happens is we do have the um situation where the $5,400 per student, our partnership with the Y is more than $5,400 per student. I think it's $300 more per student and that is a cost to the district of about $14,000 a year. that money is in the general fund and gets moved to the special aid fund and to support all all the money that we're already getting from the state for the 5,400 for students. We contribute $300 to 200. Okay. As a district, but the money we're given from the state to
175cover the 5,400 that's that's incorporated. You have it it's not in the general fund budget, but we have that accounted for as a district to handle the UPK the UP. All right. So, moving us forward on page six, you listed the ICT programs, math coach, etc. Those are all headcount. Correct. Correct. So, 1.7 million is headcount. And then the additional 382 or so is either purchases like the cameras and the fences, not the fences, but um uh the knock air conditioning or funding some of the trips, right? So, all right. The only thing on the top half um bill that is not um a staff person is the additional interest in the occupational education programs for our students. Oh, okay. But presumably when they sign up for a program one year, it's let's say it's
176a 10th grader, it is safe to assume that they would probably continue that program. All right. So, I'm I was just pointing that out cuz as we think about this 1.7 is repeating roughly the rest we can think about and the trips don't necessarily have to be funded at 100%. That's something open for discussion, but um I guess the 1.7 we're definitely making a commitment to um for years to come. That is correct. So, let's start by taking a look at the big one, the uh ICT program expansion. So, it's being proposed and I think what's being included in the budget right now is the full-time model which is 489, but we're also being presented with two other options, the current and the hybrid. So, does anyone have any questions for Christine or maybe about
177this or comments? I think we had talked about that, you know, the full-time having the co-teer in the room isn't just for instruction time. You know, Kate had mentioned, you know, it's it's all th those other things, you know, the the packing up. I mean you still have uh 49% of the class is has IEPs you know whether there's two teachers in there or one um so you know having a constant co- teacher right it's not just about academics about functioning and routines and um you know kids who need physical um you know modifications but I I just wanted to to kind kind of piggyback on what you were saying, Heather, in your opening remarks that um we did not have this ICT program before this board. And I was told it was almost impossible
178by a few years ago before I was on the board, I was told there was this would never happen. It doesn't we don't have enough kids. It's such a huge undertaking. It could never happen that quickly. I mean, I was given a lot of um push back So, I'm Last year when it was rolled out part-time, I was my number one question is why are we doing this part-time? I wanted it full-time, but I took what I could get. And I'm so happy we did it because um it was it in the end, I think it worked out. It was it was a nice way to pilot it and see how the parents felt about it, how the teachers felt about it. And it was so we've received so many emails even from parents who
179weren't sure about it in the beginning. Um how much they have, you know, enjoyed it this year and how their kids have been so you know successful in the program. So I am a big proponent of putting it full-time. I know we've been getting a lot of emails. We hear you. Um I'm I can just speak for myself. I can't speak for the board, but I am proud of this board for for putting this through and for Thank you, Nicole, for it happening like overnight. I feel like you did this and thank you for that. I know it is a big undertaking, but I personally got to experience it this year and it's been wonderful. So, thank you. Um, I just like to take a deeper look at the hybrid ICT model because we haven't
180really, you know, discussed the what it entails yet. We haven't really gotten a chance. Um, that is part-time for second to third, but there's also a TA, which is what we have now, but then we'd be expanding to full-time for grades four through six. So if you want to tell us a little more about that. I know at our previous board meeting um discussion took place about options. So when you look at the hybrid model because I'm not a proponent of our purge model right now just based upon my program analysis and getting feedback from the community as well as the parents. Um just looking at the hybrid model is giving us an opportunity to do the full-time model for the upper elementary school levels grade four, five and six. Um where you know the
181work rigor is increased and levels fifth and six does have multiple teachers. Um second and third even though we do feel strongly a full-time model would be the best it is an option to consider if we're not able to uh pay the if you see the difference of course between a hybrid model and the full-time model. So second and third grade will be split between a special education teacher and a teacher assistant. We've had significant struggles maintaining teacher assistants this year and recruiting them. Um, and we have had concerns in regard to just the consistency of having three different adults working with the children, but it is a model for consideration for second and third grade. the Westside, the hybrid model, and the full-time model, and the part-time model all includes the expansion of the
182grades for second and six, which would include a full cohort for Westside similar to Lloyd Harbor. And the amounts on the bottom of all the models does include Bruce Hill expansion to first grade. And that model I feel strongly needs to be a full-time model at Loose Hill with a full-time aid connected to that model. Okay. So my follow-up question would be do you need less TAs even with expanding it to more grades with the hybrid model? Do you less teachers assistance with that function currently? Right. So from the current model to the hybrid model, you'll see a a slight reduction in each one of the schools in regard to the teacher assistance. If we maintain the current model that we have right now, it I did inc include an increase of a teacher assistant
183because the part-time teacher assistant between Westside and Lloyd Harbor did not work. It was not effective. Um, so that's the reason you see that increase of a 1.5 at Westside for a teacher assistant. If we were just keeping the same model as this year, there would be a 0.5 reduction for the hybrid model at Westside and a 1.5 reduction of a teacher assistant at the full-time model. Roy, so it's actually cheaper, but just at Westside to the hybrid model from the part-time, it's actually less money. less of a cost. I I think also we don't have uh ICT currently at two grades at Westside. So that's part So Westside doesn't have ICT at second grade. It's sixth grade this current year. So it's it's a little hard to compare that exact way. Yeah. I think
184that's what you're seeing here. We're adding something whether it's a full or or a part time. Gota. Yeah. And Heather, we struggled with assignments for benefit costs because we while you see the halves all around when we hire they may be fulls and deciding where we placed additional health cost was really um a decision we were making that it was clunky a little bit of the time but overall the costs are represented in each of the buildings. But there was if you notice a half here, a half there. In the end it ended up being a full person. Which building got the cost for the benefits was a decision we had to make, you know, but overall the costs are represented. Okay. Question I guess more to Mr. Monasterero. So um Oh, and and and
185also um Mr. Excuse me. Got that wrong. Dr. Sh. Um, so we're we're looking at K uh we're looking at Goose Hill through sixth. Is that right? Yes. Yes. We're looking at grade one to sixth grade. And we're spending um if we looked at the wish list of what we just went through the numbers. We're spending almost all of our increase right there 1.7 um gel through sixth. Uh what is secondary getting in and or do they have everything they need? That's the question. Again, my my comment last budget meeting was you know um are we looking at this in in holistic manner for the entire school to achieve board goals? Um, and does this get us where we want? Does this take our ranking up? Um, I'm not saying this is not great, cuz
186this is great. But, you know, Mr. Dan Busky and all of them. And when I asked um, what's on your wish list? He had great great um, items uh, to list. Uh, the cafeteria is probably more of a capital project, but that could certainly is updating. I think it's 25 years old um in terms of the facilities there. And I just want to understand cuz we just walked through the numbers. It seems like um we are making a commitment that's potentially going to stretch our budget, reduce our surpluses, and we're focused on Goose Hill through 6th. is that so we already have an ICT at the junior senior high school. We've had it for years. I can't 15. It's been in many years and we see here we're looking to we see some additional ICT
187necessary. Again, that is determined by the child's IEPs adding some additional care. Yeah, I'm not asking just about ICT. I'm asking about the entire student body. Are we then where we want to be in all other areas of the the for school in terms of um you know like the electric I forget the exact word in car lab or a shark tank or um other maybe a program for our most gifted students to really challenge them to push the envelope um to to so they feel when they walk through the doors they're leaving here just to support it as any other students. So, I'm just asking are we are we looking at this um in in a broad sense or or are we are we putting a fire out? Is this a problem? I don't
188really know the answers to these questions. So, let let me just address some of your questions because you had multiple questions. One was in regard to what are we doing at the secondary level. One part of this 1.7 is an additional FTE at least a 0.9 uh because we are seeing long-term that we are going to have more sections of students who are going to need classrooms that are regions bound but require two teachers in order for them to be successful in order for them to achieve those state exams. We do have a number of students with IEPs that may also be gifted and also are taking AP exams. So these students are part of the equation when we come to GPA, when we come to looking at our rankings. We have more and more
189students that have special needs within our district. I could share the numbers that have been growing. Uh I am also seeing students at the preschool level that are coming in. So I know that the board has made a commitment in regard to advanced courses and really supporting all children. I just ask the board to have that same consideration when it comes to students who are struggling who we have made a great commitment of inclusion. We don't want to have special classes. We don't want to spend an enormous amount of money uh to send children out of district because we don't have appropriate programs. The community is very big on keeping our children in general education classrooms, but we need to provide those wraparound supports that if all students can have that equal success. So that's
190the reason why ICT and I know that was one of the reasons why I think it was a hard sell initially. It is a high expense and it's a long-term commitment. I thank the board for starting it last year. I do agree with Kate in the sense of full-time is the optimal model. when I look at neighboring districts such as Jericho or Siosen, they are they do all have full-time uh models, but we did feel the need to bring it in and pilot it this year. Um, which if we did not have the success that we had this year, I may be proposing something different. So, we really wanted to see was it successful? Is it meeting our children's needs? And and a component here and I was waiting to get to the class on
191reduction at second and fifth grade. Again, I don't have an exact crystal ball here as to what enrollment will be, but we we're definitely seeing decreases at the elementary level with 92, 93, 94. We're projected next year in kindergarten and first grade. And as those roll through to the elementaryaries uh and we know we have retirements coming from staff at that level, then we very likelihood that will be through attrition that someone retires. We do not need to replace them. So there will be savings on that and it's just going to make sense. It's going to happen. Uh exactly. Could could 20 kids register for for kindergarten? Of course. But it doesn't seem to be the trend. Um I I've seen the district from um almost 190 in a grade to my first year where
192we graduated 76 and everything in between. And we have an exceptionally small 11th grade with again if it's 101 102 today. Um so but we're seeing that at the elementary level and those tend to be the trends that we're seeing across the island other than in the very few school districts uh seeing uh smaller numbers. So I I do think we'll realize some savings with staff that we may not need to replace them. It also maybe we need to excess depending upon you know how many people retire or not. You hope not but we'll see down the future that those things are probably coming. So to that point, Joe, or um is is there a drawback to if we said is is there a drawback to doing like hybrid as a next step as opposed
193to full-time? Like could you do that or does it do we have to make a choice today between full-time and hybrid? Where where the choice comes in is we're just getting close to the deadline for submitting for the budget. No, no, no. I mean, I'm sorry. long term. Let's say we ultimately wanted to end with a full-time ICT program uh model. Is there any drawback for the next school year to starting with the hybrid and then reconsidering incremental resources to go full-time in the subsequent budget year? I think the drawback would just be those students in two and three wouldn't have that full-time teacher in their classes. Boy, Department West missing out on the benefits having a full-time teacher. So it's an instructional drawback. It would be first grades too, right? And first grade too,
194excuse me. Right. First grade also. So that would be the drawback. This is the the best model for the students that need those resources. So can I just in all model choices hybrid and full the first grade model is a full-time model. So it's just two and three. Two and three. Um the difference and the difference in cost is already mentioned the nature would be a good bill. So I I meant drawback like is does it prevent us going full-time the following year? No. Oh no, it does not. We can always go fulltime and I I know we'd love to do all of this. Trying to figure out if we can afford it. If not, what are the choices we have to make? Right. So that might be there may be times where we need
195need to make decisions like that. We can't have full-time at all grade levels and maybe we draw back. Um we could we could always do that. Uh we can make reversals on many different we can say the class sizes are going to change at elementary level. Well, it's just hard to take it away once we It is hard. You're right. In education, it's hard to take things away just in general. But can can I ask a question? I know you're saying take away, but let's just say there's a year where third grade has maybe one kid, you know, who has an IEP and he just needs speech. Let's just say something like that. Could that be a year that we say, you know what, second grade, we're not going to have an ICT group. That
196could I think in speech is it is a different they don't need somebody in the class. Okay. So yeah true but you know maybe um we could say okay that I'm just curious like can we take it back like one grade? Yes. Or does it every every year we're looking at the needs of our children. So second and third grade right now harbor has the lowest counts but again we are only about 60% having cse meetings. So this is all pending on cse recommendations. Um so this is it the course may actually be less depending on what those final recommendations are. But that is the reason why I put that extra proposal out there to the board uh in regard to consideration if you're not able to do the full-time model. So the difference between
197the hybrid and the full-time model it would be an increase of 16,000 about for the hybrid and about 200,000 a little more for the uh fulltime 177 17 I'm 177 I did the math ahead. I didn't do that in my head at 11:00. I was really impressed. All right. Okay. And then I didn't see it. I'm not trying to skip ahead, but we just because you brought it up. The Mark was talking about ICT needs at the high school, which we already have it, but there is another 118,000 associated with that. I see that on page six, but I didn't see it on page. Where is it on page four? Page before. What is it associated with? We referenced high school. I think that's at the top where it says additional is the first one.
198Got it. And that so the high school expansion under hybrid and full-time does not change. Yes. The high school's not an expansion. It's just additional needs at the high school level that's always had a program just Okay. So that's consistent regardless of whether we do hybrid or not. That doesn't impact that and that's driven by the numbers we're seeing to be compliance. Got it. So can I just ask a question too? So if we're I know you're looking at the numbers. So if we say um that we don't I'm just curious the 78 reduction in class sizes for math. What like what are the I mean is it a is it a large why are we is it a large number? We we there are a couple things here. We we were looking at we
199had some math sizes uh 27 and 28 especially in the early grades and then as we added the additional classes at the junior high level it's how the splits happen. So we're looking into that's but I I mean Billy you did the math ahead of time. Thanks for that. But so I'm taking that number that you just gave us and I'm looking at like the math coach. I mean, could that be an area where we say, you know what, instead of doing math coach, we're going to do, you know, the full-time ICT. We can kind of play around with That's exactly what we're here to do to see where we want to fall, you know, and talk and ask questions about each of these and where we want to where we want to put the
200money and where maybe we don't want to. And what what's the difference between high school reduction in class sizes and math 78 reduction in class sizes? Can that combined? It's it was just specifically for math and then that's high school really should be across the board. It wasn't saying it was specifically for high school is that it really it's classes that junior senior high school they're really use it as one number. I I think it's just how we were talking about we broke it out that way during discussions. What is the average class size in the high school? I mean, I I I I'm a big proponent of the younger kids, but I do feel that as they get older, is it is it so bad to have a little bit bigger of a class?
201No. And and we have many in the 20s. Some of the things being a small school, is there challenges? Like when we have 31 or 32 look for something, then we get a class size of 15, but what are you going to do when they have 32? Um so we you will see that at times that average you can see wow that's a small class size but the option is we have 32 kids registering there would be 16 or I'm sorry this year how how often do like how often does that happen in I mean we have the numbers is that a full-time position is that some are part some may be covered in overages so throughout the building it depends upon department and where it falls We call those ugly numbers when it's, you
202know, like, wow, if that was 21, that'd be easy, but it's 27. They're just a couple and we we're small and we deal with that quite often where it goes from a a huge to a small because there's one or two sections and we that's the truth behind it. I remember we had someone here who was a guidance director from Sioset and he I remember he said, "I had 27 sections of nth grade English last year. We've never had double digits of anything here. Maybe fizzed, but that might be a little, but that's a little bit different ever where most things are of one, two, three, and possibly four. Junior high being a little bit different. So, we're we're small that impacts how things break. So, I mean, just looking at the high school reduction
203in class sizes and mass 78 reduction in class sizes, are they is that two full-time positions? Right. Two. Is that two one FTE? No, it's it's a combination could be a point4 here or 6 there. Well, that's what I'm saying. Is it is it enough you know like how many more sections would have to be added to mass 78? Would it constitute a full-time one FTE or would it be like a point8 and how many of the high school sections? We we have that in the report we send with the update exactly what the FTEES are. Yeah. Yeah. So, so I I think your question like if we ask you a question again. I don't know. I'm wondering if we could combine the math 78 reduction class sizes and the high school reduction class sizes
204to make that like a 1.5 FTE together and looking at this and if you remember a year ago we reduced we had a science teacher retire we did not replace. We had a math teacher who we did not ask back and we did not replace. So I I might be a little bit off. I think it was like 1.4 1.5 was there and the rest is a half. So you can't they're not really separate. It's not just this is high school. We didn't look at it. We only have this for high school. We only have this for math. We looked at it totality. What do we have in the building? We looked at all the numbers and this is where we're at. Lisa, I think that they finished some of the That was loud. I'm
205sorry. I think they finished some of the scheduling meetings just recently and at the end um we went over there. I had the pleasure of being there and it did overall it seemed like it was about a 1.9 FTE increase in high school in general 7 through 12 7 through 12 which really equates to this 1.0 1.0 Does that make sense? And I think this terminologist was there was discussion, oh, we need to reduce those high school classes. So, we called it that. Oh, we're adding these new junior high classes. We're going to make sure we can fit them in. I think that's just a terminology we carried over that we were discussing. So, let's move down the list. I think the next one, the class size reduction. I just had a quick question. The
206second grade and the fifth grade, is there any other grade watching or We already lowered the fifth grade. Oh, for next year. It's for next year. Next. Sorry, it's 11:00. It's how they flow. Was there any other ones, Christine, we had our eye on? Or these are the main ones and we're coughing them. I don't believe there's any others other than uh Joe's constant reminder that if we get 20 kindergarteners come in, right? That's right. That's like unlikely. Unlikely. So, that's why it's not in here. Correct. the occupational education. I think we touched on how about the CSC chair. We haven't really had too much of a talk about that. Does anybody have any questions? What What would that individual do that's not getting done right now? So right now the um sharing of meetings
207is divided up between myself and the assistant director. Um so between around end of January to about beginning of June I would share with you we're probably in meetings about 80 to 90% of the day. Um which I do enjoy you know speaking to families developing those plans. However, I am a little bit concerned in regard to the expansion and sustaining the infrastructure of the special ed expansion. Um, there is a greater need of professional development of supporting staff in regard to instructional strategies. Um, so that has been something that has come out in discussions at buildings in regard to needing more support as it relates to special education. So, that was put in as a proposal. Um the main person's duties would be to be chairing uh preschool meetings which we do have about
20840 preschool families that's separate and aside from the school age families that we uh have annual reviews every child with an IEP for those of who are not familiar we have to have annual reviews once a year uh and then we do have initials throughout the school year and re-evaluation meetings and I just want to just so that everybody correct me if I'm wrong even if we don't go full-time ICT or even if we didn't have ICT, you're still spending those times, you're spending that time in meetings because it's still children that have annual reviews and CSSE committee meetings. Right. Correct. This has been an ongoing issue. I know it's been raised in the past. Yeah. But it is a little bit more detrimental right now if we are moving forward with continuing to expand
209and many districts have a dedicated cse chair who just runs the meetings or they have a dedicated just preschool chair. So I mean if and I can give you that analysis but you we are one of very few districts that don't have a chairperson. Um so that is a consideration and I'm putting down uh to the board of education. it is um a necessity in my mind. So can I ask like again just bigger picture as a district when we said what area do we need to improve? This is the list um in terms of how we get to the next level, how we increase our ranking as a district, how we increase our mastery scores. it's if we invest the money in in the items. Um on the top of that, I'm not talking
210school trip payments. If we see most of these things here in that top part are either providing assistance to our students or reducing our class size or providing additional instruction or assistance in education. I'm not saying this isn't everything and we're going to continue at uh my administrative meeting. I don't know if it was last week or week before. I don't know. Time is a little off. Uh we we spent time on this. What is your wish list going forward in the next five years with the due date coming back on the the the Friday after vacation? It's I I don't want 10 minutes to think about that. That doesn't mean that's going to be everything. It would be flushing through. We even spent time for people to share to see where other minds were
211at. Um and we're going to bring that back. We're going to discuss it and we will be looking at this in depth as a board to discuss that again current next year 5 years 10 years really looking out to see the things that are out there uh that we want to do to offer and I preface preface it with our with our administrators is experiences. I think it's important that our students have experiences and I think those are the things just like all the presentations we had today. Those are things that uh I think help our students tremendously in life and remember them. Uh it helps them become better citizens, better employed, the whole nine yards. So we're working on exactly just that. Can I can I jump in? I because I wanted to answer
212Mark's question before. So Mark, I'm glad you resurfaced your question. So in terms of of big picture and I really appreciated your question about are we thinking about all students because I I think right now we're hearing about those who need additional support a lot of time on ICT which is certainly warranted. So over the past several years we we have been embedding more courses on the higher end as well. Um you may not see it reflected here in this particular budget. Um but years ago we started we incorporated an advanced math class. You know now we're going more advanced classes for seventh and eighth grade. Uh we embedded our AP capstone program which we had not had before in terms of elevating our rigor. Um that's that is comprised of AP research and AP
213seminar which by the way the AP seminar students are reporting one of their favorite classes here. We embedded college level courses at the world languages level so that students could could earn dual enrollment credits uh for advanced coursework. Uh we have multivariable calculus although we're not running it here ourselves for students who want to get to that pathway where we're working on an indep independent study for them but we're giving them the the means to get there. So we we have been over the the last several years trying to embed. We also have a new advanced marine science class. Um that wasn't something there before. So in terms of we're trying to look at both ends. Um, I think that it's been a a nice increase over the past several years of meeting the low
214the lower end in terms of those students who are struggling and and they need our support, but agreed that we also need to support our students who should be challenged. And so, we still have a ways to go and there's always room for improvement, but those are some examples of how we've been trying to meet our students at the higher end. And I and I have to say as a district when we we tell them I think it's four or five levels of physics we offer where we're there to meet our kids. People are amazed at what we do there. For our calculus a AP calculus we have a BC we have an AB and an AV with lab. Um so we give kids who who may not be able to do the AB on
215their own. We give them an extra half period to have extra resources for them to perform. So we're always looking for more. will always be doing more. Not that this is an excuse, but there there will be things at times that a scionid can offer just they have just body the population they five to 600 kids requesting. That doesn't mean we don't try. We try and look to do more. Um we do a lot and we're always looking to reanalyze maybe take something away, add something in, add more. What's best for our kids? What are we looking for? What do they want? What are the experiences? We are looking at that continuously. Yep. Thank you, Matu. That was very helpful. I don't have the background, the history u being new, so that's good to know
216that um it sounds like you know those flowers are being watered the last few years. Um and I'm happy to hear too, Mr. Monaster, we're looking longer term as well of u of in planning. So really the question is um the the cost and the ongoing nature of that cost and um I think that's what we have to determine. I know there's questions about the utility of a a math coach um still maybe we we can tackle that um to see if that's essential. Should we have some early um advocate? Yeah. Yes. So, that was that was something that I'm advocating alongside Mr. Brian Taylor who apologizes he couldn't be here tonight. Um so, we did discuss this the last time, but just to re reiterate a couple of things. One of the reasons we
217feel that next year it's important to have and I mentioned we could do a partial or a full I had given several options is that we will be rolling out a a new math program which you know we still will be presenting to the board. um we're looking for alignment of a math program K to6 and so we want to do a slow roll out where we're starting with K1 and then the following year moving into 26 so that we're not overburdening the system. So therefore K1 will be experiencing something new and and that's true for all of us as we go through life. However, we we feel that they would best be supported by having a math coach to support them along the way. So, yes, there will be training, formal training by whatever
218program we uh eventually go with, there will be training by the company, but in between to support the teachers in implementing the new program would be in in our opinion a need. We have already seen the gains that we're making. We've had a literacy coach in place. You know, I talked in January about, you know, what was posted in News Day and how we were basically a lot of results in English were going down and ELA were going down and and ours were going up. We were one of the few. In fact, we were third, actually second if we don't include quag. We were second for our ELA results. And and we had the literacy coach in place at that time. We have her in place again this year. And not to say that, you
219know, that there are not other factors, but we feel that it's helping. And so we're seeing gains from that. And so for those reasons, that's why we are advocating for a math coach. So even even though that position is not directly dealing with students, you think it's benefiting the students indirectly by helping staff. Absolutely. So we we keep talking about it. I think we have great themes going on up here. We're talking about strengthening our instructional practices, increasing the rigor, right? All of those things are connected. And so, but the math coach would be, let me just get this straight. You just said it would be for the teachers for a new program. But what happens when the program has been rolled out? Wait, do we still need that math coach? So, that and I
220said before is it could be on a temporary basis. So, for example, when I was in my former district, we had a math coach for a short period of time, and we're paying for the new pilot. We're paying for their consultants to come in and train the teachers. Well, that that would be part of So, we've dedicated money for, you know, whatever the new program. We don't know which one it is yet, but we had to take a guess. Right. But they send in their trainers, right? Correct. That that would be included with our purchase. And I I mean I don't want this to come out I don't want this to sound but isn't that really the Brian Taylor? Shouldn't he be Isn't that why we hired him to be doing this? I I mean
221I just don't see I feel like it's just like another administrator that we're putting on top of administrator. I would say that our directors, even though we're a small district, they are spread very thin. We have our directors overseeing multiple departments K through 12. So Mr. Taylor would not have the time to to coach. He does of course hold meetings with the teachers and I would say on on some level when he's meeting with them is is there some type of coaching happening? Absolutely. He he's coaching them in the meetings but he's not coaching so to speak when not pushing into their classrooms modeling instruction um co-eing with them. Um he just doesn't have that kind of time. Uh same thing with our director of humanities. That individual is overseeing multiple departments. And you know,
222we keep we keep saying we're a small district. The same jobs need to get done even though we're a small district. And so when you have people overseeing multiple departments, they're spread thin. They're doing the best that they can. So we're just looking for an additional layer to help support that. And if it's not full-time, I I understand if we have to hold off. Um, but we're also trying to work on, and I've mentioned this before, strengthening our small group instruction. We've been very focused on literacy. We want to ensure that that's happening in our math classes as well. They know that, you know, how much is the Sarah consultant per year, you know? Yes. It's uh about $154,000. And this we're going on year three of that. Yes. Did we approve that already? Yep.
223Well, you didn't approve it for ne you didn't approve it for next year because you I'd like to see some of that money maybe put into, you know, buying decodable books and programs for I mean, we're we're outdated. I know a lot of districts aren't using TC anymore. I feel like I'm being a dead horse. I know I say this all the time, but I feel like we're lacking in that fundamental, you know, the foundations of literacy in our district. I do. I feel that we should not be using the TC model. We I understand that we're still using it, but what do we have on the horizon? What are we looking at? What do we consider piloting? I don't I don't really see many decodables being purchased for student and science of reading. I
224mean, it's all about decodable books. We can certainly talk more about that, but I did share with you um Megan and I I know you sent an email about what are we using here. We actually purchased quite a number of decodables. Uh, in fact, we use some of our grant money to purchase um many decodables at Goose Hill in particular, daffodil, the geodess we've been using. Um, there was a fly leaf we we're using as well. We purchased many more decodables in the last year. Did you buy the geodess for each classroom or were they like I'm just curious, are they like Yeah, because we're spending $150,000 on a consultant. I mean, that could go towards one of these, but next year budget. Yes. I'm lost. Sorry. Yeah. But but Kate, I would need to
225We can certainly sit down, but you're It sounds like you think that we have a deficit in some other area. And I think that we should sit down together so I can I know what I'm looking at these numbers and I I'm trying to figure out like a CSC chair is $130,000. That's a really important position and we're paying consultant more than that when we already have a literacy coach. The consultants are here temporarily. That's not something that's going to be within our budget ongoing. That that's it's has a start and an end. And I would say that the consultant work is benefiting. I would say I listen I I've been going through it too. I've been trained. We all of the administrators have been trained. Our our teachers are working very hard. But I
226would say that working with these consultants has been making a difference in our instruction. We've been heavily focused on individualizing instruction for our students. That's what they're training us to do. Take a careful look at our data. We're running assessment conferences. We're having individual conversations with children where the teacher is speaking less. We're gaining a lot of information from our students by by having these different types of strategies in place. So I hear you. Yes, it it is. I think we just need to look at that. Maybe we can cut it in half or something and use something. It's a lot. That's a lot of money. But okay, we'll we'll move on. There's something we can talk about before we adopt the budget. So, I guess the next three items, the contingency, the reduced class
227sizes we talked about. What about the purchasing agent? Do you want me to speak about this? Yeah. This is a request this year because the district at Cold Spring Harbor does not have a dedicated purchasing agent. There is no person here that that is their roles and responsibilities exclusively. It's um we have an increased emphasis on what we're purchasing, where we're getting it from, and and and the expertise that comes with that. And we just need the resources in house to be able to do that. We also have on the horizon some clerical staff that are retiring. Every time that we have major retirements that occur, we have to train those people on to what effective purchasing practices look like where we would get the best goods at the best prices compliant with um laws
228and regulations and currently there is not a resource in house to do that. So we have been it has been it's been a struggle in the business office even since I I I came here. There is no person with that skill set. We're a small district so I understand why it exists but we still have to follow the same rules and regulations and our purchases might be smaller than a scias but we pretty much purchase all the same things as Siosets. So finding the best prices and um meeting all those requirements is something is a goal of ours as a district and as we spend more time concentrating on our um purchasing practices. Is this like office supply? Like what kind of things are we talking about? No, these are the the purchasing agents are
229actually people that are trained specifically to do that of all the law. They know where all the properly let contracts are. They ensure that we're in compliance with them, where we're getting them, where we're buying goods for, and they even know where to look to have other options as to where to buy things. Right. So, what kind of like I mean it's not our, you know, I mean, we have Brillo, we have their construction guy, this not this person at all. This is an intern. This is internal. So, like if we were looking at fixing a pipe that might have an issue at a school, this person would be able to actually be a would hope we'd be able they would be able to help us figure out different sources on who might be able
230to bring vendors in to look at that work and to get that that get that done. That's not something that has a staff member here dedicated to any of that. And that's not something that we would like call the architect or call our Right. So for $94,000 times for forever long that they work here plus insurance, are we saving that money per year by hiring that person? That includes all their benefits. So this is really like a 60 benefits alone are $35 plus thousand in this number. So this includes all of the cost, all of So how much should we save by hiring this person? Well, we would hope to save money by the sense that they're helping us price things out and as we go forward, we would keep track of that. um and
231they would check some buildings orders as where things come in. Can we source it out any cheaper? Can we source out from a different place? Right now, that is a that is a difficult thing to do when there's not a dedicated resource. So, in theory, yes, I agree. They should pay for themselves multiple times over um easily if if they're good. And but then you're saying they don't get involved in construction or whatever. So, why wouldn't we hire somebody that can be our eyes and ears and go out and get quotes and make sure we're getting value and not getting, you know, 50 I'm not even going to say it anymore. I'm tired of saying it. So, what why don't we um why don't we hire someone with that expertise? Why are you saying, "Oh,
232they don't do that. Why don't we get Well, bids for capital construction were done to your architect because they're public works contracts and their prevailing wage and their prevailing wage contracts. That's just how you use your architect. This person could work with the architect on certain things. I want someone that says, "Hey, we're paying seven times the value of that light, guys." I want someone to come to us and say, "None of these bids make sense." That's what we really need cuz certainly the seven of us can't do that and it's not getting done and it needs to get done. Um the these bids, you know, we got the excuse prevailing wages, but it's not just prevailing wages, it's also markup that we're experiencing. It's profit. So um well this person would def we definitely
233envision that person to work with our architect and those professional teams to understand what those contracts are. Yeah I would hope this person would be again we need a set of eyes and ears because it's we do won't go into it. We agree. And and what what type of person there's actual, you know, they're they're trained purchasing agents. They they they have vast knowledge in in sourcing out documents, you know, sourcing out product services and where to get those and um they're trained to do that work. So, I think we touched on some of these other ones. Is there any item on the list going through that you'd want to have more of a discussion now or do you think you guys are ready at 11:30? Sure. We still have to get to audience to
234visitors for Mr. Larson back there. Do we need to do the bottom of the list? Maybe we can wait them out. Well, I mean, we kind of we kind of touched on a lot of those. We even talked about field trips. We There's a little I mean, we can still talk more once you get to it. Do do we want to do the top half and then go to Sure. Let's Yes. Okay. How I have a different approach. I don't think this is going to work line by line. So, okay. I'm not telling you not to do that. So, but wait, I thought we weren't voting right now. We're discussing Oh, I thought you meant line by line like vote. Well, I mean like we should poll at one point to see what's going to
235be included, right? So, let me just throw my two cents out and then you can throw it away. So, I think we're all I I know all of you very well. I think we're all trying to balance like how do we keep the tax levy reasonable? How do we give the kids what they need? How do we support the staff? All of those things are embedded in this, right? And the problem I have is this 2 million almost $2.1 million. It just feels heavy compared to like how much we have to rely on on that uh designated fund balance, right? As you see the numbers, if if we, you know, if you stick to the same tax cap tax levy as last year, the 165, we have to basically put uh $2 million into the
236designated fund, which is pretty much most of our excess from this year. It's not guaranteed to repeat next year. Um, and I'm throwing this out for conversation. and I haven't decided where I would land, but if you if you sort of took the approach um that we kill the field trips, that's 230,000 out of that 382. We kill the administrative positions, which are the math coach, the cse chair, and the purchasing person. and you do a hybrid ICT as a stepping stone, that saves you 765,000, which is exactly what you could do for the tax levy of 165 with the million2 designated fund. So, I'm not saying that's what I recommend. I'm just saying that's the math you're doing big picture to say, okay, we can still do hybrid ICT. Maybe we can't give all
237the administrative support we would. Maybe we can't pay for all the field trips or any of the field trips other than maybe excess from this year, but certainly that would keep the tax levy at a reasonable rate. It would give the kids a lot of extra support in terms of reduced class size. That so that's where I was coming. So I don't know that if you asked me line by line, I would be able to answer you because I think they're all worthwhile. I just don't know adding them up at the end, we're going to be back at the same place. So that's fair enough. That's very fair. Like you said, if if money wasn't an object, we'd do this and more. But it is. We have to deal with it. That's that's why we're
238here and spending the time. I I think and I personally don't think saving one position of 50,000 or 100,000 is going to get us anywhere. We're we're we're in the neighborhood of there's a million or 3/4 of a million at a time. Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt. So you really want So the thought is to work backwards. So instead of starting at the sheet or at least big picture and well, we should start at the at the at the end of the presentation. I think it's going to start at the levy. So that's kind of what you're saying, right? So, where do we want to end with the levy? And then what um programs are going to get us there or at least at least um acknowledge that if you want to do all
239those things and not rely on the designated fund balance, you're going to be near the cap, which I know people are not thrilled, you know, we're always proud when we don't do the full cap. Um and we'll put it to the community. It's not us deciding, it's us proposing. So, but yeah, if you feel super strong, then I what I would recommend is that we go all the way to the max. So, I'm going to go there. But in summary, Bill, what I'm hearing you saying is you're actually saying let's decide on our total expenditure number, which may be less than including everything. Well, I'm not saying decide it. Let's debate it for that because there's no point in going line by line and then saying, "Oh, I'm not doing 2.23. Yeah, it is. Uh
240you do have to figure out how much you're willing to spend and then figure out, okay, what can I now buy? Doesn't work the other way around. I know I put you all to sleep with that. Thanks. Um I can't the um and I'm not saying that we can't go between the other options that are neighboring but what about starting at the 1.65 cuz that's close to where we landed last year. It's a little bit more but yeah I'm okay with that neighborhood 1.5 or 1.65. So maybe so maybe the 1.65 65 cuz it's start from there. Well, how do you guys feel about that as a starting point? Not as an excited number, but as a least free discussion. We don't want to go over, right? And we can still adjust it, but let's
241start there. I I was good with that cuz I think that gives you a lot. Is that a good one? Okay. So now, all right. So that we've done that. So now can we go? Would you want to discuss more? Yeah. Well, now now I guess could So the choice is let's just pick 165 for the moment, right? Just to land somewhere. If you pick the 165, the question is are you com in my mind, are you comfortable with a $2 million designated fund balance where a lot of that's going to repeat every year? And and to me, if we're going to do that, then a lot I would ask Miss Costa for a couple of weeks from now to come back with a better estimate of in this budget. I know there's no excess,
242right? But I'm sure you could model based on prior years, what if everything goes the same way, what would the excess in the budget be, right? So because there's a big difference. If this is another 3.5 million, then this is silly. we should just do everything. If it's going to be one and a half and we're putting a $2 million designated fund balance in that's going to repeat, that's a losing strategy. So, I can give you I can give you a little I need I would like to do a more definitive, but I do have an estimate that I did quickly today. Okay. But I would like to update my $3.5 million estimate from a number of weeks, you know, number of months ago. But just just close call number out of one and a
243half levy adding all additional considerations that we are considering the 2 million9 we're looking at a um surplus between 3 and $500,000 next year. So, you know how we're ending new year's $3.5 million this year? The surplus would be about $300,000 to $500,000 next year. And that's assuming no cut in state aid. That's assuming all the other assumptions I've made, which is a growth in state aid. Yeah. Which is same interest revenue, which is over a million six, which I've taken down $500,000 continues and the financial market is very much um tumultuous right now. So there's no guarantee that state aid will even be flat to be down. And two, of course, um the only good news is we're not at the full cap because we will be going there in the next few years
244if Can I just say something about the full cap? Every year the calculation for the cap will change. You could and and I this is something I I um I don't always get an opportunity to explain to boards, so I'm happy to be this. There's no guarantee that your cap will be over two, at two, or any of those numbers into the future as we project forward. You could have a maximum allowable cap next year, 1.4%. Just the way there's eight factors. Many of them are out of our control and we would have to address that. The maximum we could go to without a an override. An override is 60% of your community votes in favor of your budget. Um there is no you know people think the cap is 2% or like ours 2.23
245there's no guarantee that it may be that in the future. So if it goes down to like.5 next year if we take on a lot of additional reoccurring expenses we may be putting ourselves in difficult position if you had that yes and plus a state aid impact we would be having um conversations about expenditures and cuts. You'd have to make conversations. Yes. Um, what's is it if it's a long explanation, forget it. What determines tax cap? No more. No. I said forget it. I said forget it. If it's long, you you can refer back to the presentation we did in February. We rolled it out. It, you know, that, but it's an 80step formula and it's and it's and it's not just 2%. It's not just the 2%. Occupational education. Can we just say no?
246Like how many kids were that's so the students I just want to know. No, that's a good question. Those kids basically what they requested to take at Boseies. I I can't I just want to know and also the kids that want to mechanics we take that away. No, I didn't know. Well, think about more kids want to do CAD and we're not running it. That's good. Good question. two kids want to do this occupational education. They're going to Boseies and I I don't have it in front of me what they exactly ask for. It could be a varying. It could be one kid, one mechanic, one not every kid wants to go to college. You know, it is about I mean I I would need Janette here, but it is about three or four additional
247kids because money programs cost money. Okay. Okay. But it's based upon student it's based upon student requests. Exactly. That is completely And you are committing to it. you are committing to it because there are there is a 10th grader in that batch if my memory serves me correctly and they're going to obviously want to take that program through its course. They tend to be 11 and 12 but sometimes 10 sometimes you get to 10 for us it's usually 10 and 11 you have any more detail. So I mean just to give you an example we have a student who's very interested in aviation so that is the reason why he's going for that program. That is amazing. Okay. All right. No idea. That's a good question. Okay. And also when they leave Boseies, the whole
248idea of is it the idea of it is for them to have the ability job in that field. So they leave with a certain a certification. That's fantastic. That's great. Mr. M, do you have any recommendations for what that purchase list should look like? So the o ed I'm 100% on the class size reductions. Yes. Uh the call for the Lloyd Harbor ICT contingent. Did we is it really contingent anymore or we're pretty sure we that point that that legally we need at this point for compliance? That is a real item. We've almost finished with that grade level and we're at about 9 to 10 students. So, we would have to break the class. So, if we're at nine, we're okay. If 10, it all depends on the total enrollment of those classes and we
249have to look at the percentage of special education students, right? We can't have more than it has to be 49% or lower. Correct. 40%. So, what if you made the class bigger? I'm kidding. I'm kidding. Wait, what did you say? What if you made the class bigger? But you you're not I where we start the beginning of the year, especially at secondary and kids move around, we have to try and put kids back in to make compliance. That is a reality. All right. Uh and and I have to say the the ICT program, I I do support the full-time model. I think that is is so important. I mean, these are all those are direct educational. When we look at uh CSE chair, math coach, those are definitely resources to help our kids. Um, I'm
250sorry. What' you say before math coach? I apologize. Did you say he said they're all resources to Is there more resources now for CSE chair math coach? They're not direct resources to students. That's time on task. I guess I would say if I was going to pull something here, number one would be the math coach. And again, this is a hard choice. These are all like these are all good things to do. Um, you hope the hope Lloyd Harbor, we have two kids become declassified and makes that an easy decision and and we don't need that. But that's a contingent. Um, and we looked at the field trips. we talked about or we could talk about instead full 230 we do half or set aside a specific amount of $100,000 and we spread that across
251the board. Um the network operations center I think that's really important. Uh that's a one-time cost. Um storage you did was inconsequential across the court but we need storage. Uh math coach um get away from partial Yeah, it's better than having none. We Yeah, the other option I had given last time if if we were going not moving forward with the full-time math coach is we could utilize our AIS coordinator who does right now point two of a an AIS group. um we could give that point2 to her to serve as the math coach to help support Ken one and then see how it goes and if we need to increase time in the following year is when we're rolling out then two through six there would be more of a need for it. So
252doing some sort of part-time is is feasible. Um you know again we're looking to have when you look at what is the best well best wouldn't be having there but right we're looking again we have decisions we need to make here so math coach part-time or part two point 2 FTE or.3 we working to see what we could fit into their schedule no on mass code possibly or or a partial 2.3 which flavor of ICT recommend. Well, ideally whole time these tests, but I'm looking at just in general what going back to what Bill was saying before, if we just cut down to part time for some of these things. Are we concerned about are we concerned about this designated fund balance and the potential for cutting for ramming later on next year down the
253road? I mean I because I I think we're all on the same I think everybody for the most part agrees that all this stuff is great, right? But I mean that's a real concern because we have a lot of other really great stuff, a lot of other really great things going on here too that could be cut if we're making it some of these decisions. Could this affect our other programming or even affect our special education program down the road? So itself so I I mean we have to take it back to that. I I would be very worried about funding the positions with designated funds. So if you're if you want to go with all those then I think we need to move off the 1516 tax levy and get higher. You can't get
254that back in future years once you give it up. So, one thing you can look at because you were talking about the field trips is the difference between the hybrid model and the full-time model is um um if we did not pay for the field trips, we paid less of the field trips that would pay the difference between the hybrid Oh, sorry. And the full-time is zoned down for sorry. Um well just to anchor the conversation behind you is the slide for the 223 like Bill was alluding to um everything in the $1.7 million we'll call that the FTE numbers you know increasing your program um is kind of baked into this and you'll see the difference is the exact number of the items that are we'll call them on green on the other slide
255the field trip and some of those other items down here the 382,000 So, um I don't know where I don't know where, you know, if you feel all of those positions are worthy than, uh $382,000, what we want to do with that is is an easier maybe decision to make than closer to a million dollars that we are at other other places. It's it's it's an easier decision to make. That's everything on that list with a 2.23 tax levy. Yeah. So if we after our last meeting we added after our last meeting I'm just going to go back to this slide. After our last meeting we had this conversation about the items at the bottom the 382,000 and you notice that's the exact 382,000 on the maximum allowable levy. So if let's just say you
256said no to everything at the bottom let's just say you already sitting at a balanced budget situation of 223 right now with everything on the top included. So, if we went all the way to the top and we did 2.3, is there a concern that if next year we don't know what the levy is going to be, if it's 1.8, does that put us in a difficult position where we be cutting programming or having a problem floating all these additions we made or is it fine? We don't know what all of those eventualities could be. Not only what our levy could be. I could try and project our levy out in the future, but there are many factors of it that are not determined by us. I would think as we go to 2.3, that
257one sounds pretty high compared to what we've done in the past and what's been a possibility choice in the past before the 99 sounds better. I'm just saying I'm just saying there's there's a chance you were in the one. I think an important thing here over the last year and this year we've done a major expansion of a program the ICT program we had nothing both years yeah in se into September so we're seeing that type of expert say never it's the reoccurringness of the expense right it's a re but we're not our ads you know it doesn't look like we're going to be like this is keep you know if we do the full is 490,000 we're not looking to be adding another 490 because we're not adding an additional IC ACT program. But
258we but we do have concerns just to be you know fair to be fair and balanced. We have concerns which is we do have concerns about a significant item in our other funding sources almost over a million dollars in that $1.8 million is interest earnings. Just a couple of years ago we were at a 0% interest earnings. It's only in these last couple of years, three years that we've seen significant interest earnings. So if that million dollars goes away because of uncertainty in the market, that is a permanent loss of revenue for us. It's supporting our program. Well, it's not permanent, but it's permanent as low as the rates are down. As low as the rates are down, we have to be concerned. State aid gets cut. Absolutely. Those aren't your concerns. You go to
259the max levy, you'll have a little cushion because you're not using the full designated balance. So you'll have like a year or two before you have to look at cuts. I mean, so yeah, the state aid is really the item that we're we are most concerned with because everything out there from the Rockefeller Rockefeller Institute report and just what's out there from Hokll and her office does not farewell for districts like a cold spring harbor just in the words they're saying. So, um we are projecting in the future that state aid is the same and even growing slightly, but that may not be true. That might not be true after an election year this year. All right. So that's all that you know we can't rely on that. Yeah. And that's when we make decisions
260when they're presented to us. But Heather to quote your question. Yes. If we saw a reduced state aid number and we had a lower tax levy and we had challenges to our interest earnings which are about a million dollars in in the budget. All of those factors would be things that we would have to deal with. We have to have discussions. So given so I I can get us feel like Monty Cole lets me make a deal. I got I think based on Joe's input, we could definitely get to the 1995. And if you give me like 3 seconds, I'll try not to confuse you. It's too long. So the idea, if you look at the 175 tax levy page on page 15, the problem is, right, we don't want to go, we don't want
261that designated fund balance to be much more than 1.2, right? Even that may be at risk, but for now, let's just say it's okay. So the the problem is we have to figure out the 725 difference at the bottom in yellow. The way you fix that, I'm just throwing this out. You you take out the field trips, that's 230. You take out the 08 math coach, that's 105. You take out the purchasing agent, 94. I don't remember what we said about what you said about the cse chair, Joe, but keep it. for now. And then the other items that were in the wish list are non-recurring. Knock ventilation the so that's okay to fund for this year. Um you know like they won't recur in the following years. So it it would be okay. So
262that gets you 581 um in savings because those are those are those non-recurring things are 152. So when you add all those up, you get 581 and that's, you know, it's not the 725 difference. That's why I was saying you could either go to the 1.99, which has a $555,000 difference, but you see where I'm what I'm trying to do is get us where we're not using more than 1.2 in designated fund balance to fund long-term things. Christine, when we first started this um a lot of the contingency I remember a lot of the contingency was transportation, right? Like there was there were contingencies built into the transportation budget like you know an extra van like can we are is that still flexible? I've taken out all the contingencies in transportation except one van and
263one big bus. It cost $5,000 to print the course guide. The 175 um that has the the new low contingency levels baked in um those numbers. Yes. Yeah. Bill, did you say the full-time ICT for the 1.75 the high that that includes the fulltime ICT? Bill, what was your number? Did you come to 561? 581, but I could have added more. Okay. I treated just so you know how I got there. It was 230 for field trips. Math coach at 08 was 105. Purchasing agent 94. And then the uh CS chair 38,000 leave of absence may not recur if if I'm wrong on that. We would still need to budget that cuz it's a known expense for next year. Yeah, but it's not going to recur the following year. The following year. Yeah. Okay. For
264next year, uh storage unit, the not generator and administration. So let let's Oh, that's recurring. Sorry, take that out. Storage recurren. storage is recurring and administration is recurring. All right. But with people that's already in the budget. Okay. So what if we did that and what if we did a hybrid? Does that get us there? What do we say about the cse chair? I didn't hear what Still in. It's in. It's still in. Okay. Or what if we did the fulltime without the maybe one of one of the other that's around the same cost. Could a cse chair is that a one full-time position or could that be like a part time something? Well, you get anyone good part time? The concern is finding a part-timer, but it could start off as a part- timerr
265if that's what we need to save and then I would ask that it was a full-time position, but it's very hard to find a part-time share. The one way where we may find that a good part-timer is if it's retired person and they want to work part-time. That is a possibility as opposed to someone doing it going forward. So typically a retired person is going to be more expensive per day. So what if we did the hybrid kept as chair how does that leave us though? Does it get us where we need to be with the numbers? Hang on. That would be another 177. 429 + 177. Okay. What? How's that look? And I have to read 6069 about 67,000 for the removing field trips removing point A of the math coach, removing the purchasing
266agent and going with the hybrid model. Right. And then there's a couple of non-recurring items. But yeah, that would that would they would be in right. We wouldn't see that we wouldn't see that impact until the 26 27 year for the non-recurring, right? So that's 606. How will how willing are we to give up the full-time model? I'm I'm I mean I'm not saying that that has to be these are choices. These are choices, but I'm somebody's going to be mad at you either. My question is less about that and more about if we take that or some it could be something else another item that's 230 is that 429,000 number or is that getting us where we need to be anyway or is it not enough or is it too much? The 606 if
267you turn around then you're at a 175 levy. The 606 gets you almost to the $725,000 that if you're trying to not designate any additional fund balance, you're close. You're within um whatever you're within $120,000. We're trying to get down to 606. Well, that's that's just the way that math works. But yeah, well, I mean, in that neighborhood and like and obviously or we just say, "Sorry, we're full tax cut. 2% you know right the 10 interest that we pay at at at the 199 levy um right here at 199 the things we just spoke about which is no field trips reduction of a 08 math code removal of the purchasing agent and the hybrid model that brings you to 606 and that's under 10 I thought that was under 1.75 either way we're all
268we're doing is comparing this difference number. So 606 comfortably gets you there, right? If you went to a 199 levy, you're you're there with those with those choices if that's what the board would make and you are not appro designating any additional fund balance. Well, we could really can throw back in another $250,000. 1.99 is not enough. We'd have to look more towards the cap. The field trips. Yeah, that's the one I know. Just kidding. No, listen. There's I'm sorry. There's a simple answer. Sorry that sounds so condescending. There's not a simple answer, but the field trips you could just do year by year if there's excess, right? You don't have to commit it in the budget. You could decide year by year trips. If these are all spring trips, you can make that decision
269at a certain point, right, in the year. So, but we would basic my point was less about what we're put throwing in there. I'm saying going to the 1.99 versus the 1.75 though, or rather I take that back. The 1.99. We're looking at that one. Could we add another $200,000 worth of expenditures or not? That would you in theory you only have you only have 50,000 to add if if Oh, so we it doesn't give us that much more wiggle room basically. That was what I'm trying to say. Yes, I understood your question. So you Yeah, I understand your question. It really doesn't give much wiggle room. Do you meet it with what we just discussed at a 1991? If you want to go further down to a 175, we may have to identify something
270else. So if All right. So, taking away the 230, the 105, the 94, and 177 for hybrid model 177, the hybrid, you would have to go to the 99. You couldn't be You could be at the 175. 175. I feel way better with a 100,000 fudge than a Yeah. 5 or 100 or a million fudge. you at the 175 you could designate 1,ion350 as your designated fund balance like 1.99 1.99 would give you let's just say we would probably address a $50,000 of a contingency that we would place somewhere you know in the budget for something we don't we don't know the other option we could go back and say 1 something yeah we could go something exactly is not another based upon the hybrid Not I could actually tell you that right now actually
271pick something else out like we're working backwards. I know but what would be less is I mean there's other things you can do. Yeah. Like like I might not want to give up the full time. Right. So you should say that I I don't want to give up full time. So you want to go then to the path as well. Then you want to go all the way. I don't Well, I want to go to the tax Well, I know this is hard because I don't want to go really don't want to go past [Music] 1.75. Really wanted to stay at one five. Um I would have as a taxpayer I would have preferred zero. Well, yeah, of course, but we, you know, um I was hoping that we could do zero, but I'm realizing
272we can't. Um, I mean the cse chair part-time is hard to find but not impossible. I don't know. I'd rather have a cse chair than than a math. Yeah. Is there anywhere else you take it from? Cut the math. We don't want to cut the CSSE chair. I I mean this is so hard for me because I think there are things within the budget that we don't see right now that we could get rid of. Okay. That's a good point. I'll give you the um course $5,000. I mean, I'd like to see a list of all the consultants we have and how much it's costing us. I understand that's not a re you know that's not a poss can't speak at midnight that's like Bill said is not uh something that we have reoccurring like
273the is the fencing in this budget no we're taking the fence out of this year this year Oh, we pulled it into this year. When you make a decision on April 22nd, it'll be this year's money. Weren't we looking at maybe ways to save cost on interest? Yeah, we sent that home in Friday notes. Yeah. There's um only we can only use $1.2 $2 million of eligible reserves that we have on our books and record by by law and uh after closing costs with bond council, fiscal advisors and going for actual votes, it would cost the district money. Mhm. Transportation kills me because like nobody's riding the buses in the high school. I tell her rides the bus. What? I tell her about Oh, I see empty buses going down the street. So buses, what
274happens with the buses at I know we have to provide and they and they just continue. We buy them a five, six, seven hour block. That's how the RP and if they're light writership at the high school, they continue on their runs at Lloyd Harbor and Westside and they're full. The Lloyd Harbor and West runs are full. Okay. All right. Um Dr. had um a suggestion and her suggestion was there's a possibility the CSE chair maybe could be funded through a grant but but there's a lot of um uncertainty as to grants. So whether or not we can do that and whether we can do that um long term, it's difficult to commit to somebody when you don't know that you can commit to them forever. So even if we used grant money, if it
275was here next year and gone the year after that that that's a it's just something she offered it. I want to say what she offered. Would that be something we would apply for? No. You would you use your allocations reallocate the money with all the conversations happening on the federal level as to what's going to happen with grants. Yeah. The certainty is just how much we're going to get from the federal government this time coming year. So that's the reason why I'm fighting as much as I'm fighting for special ed because we don't know where we're going to get in the future. But typically if we were to put it in the grant, you have to sustain it after that one year. It can eventually have to go into the general fund, but it could
276be a temporary fix. Let's see. And and that's an interesting point that Dr. Shis makes make the board aware of this. There's about a million dollars in expenditures that we get from our grants, our federal grants. Most of those grants are supporting people. Why are we only? So just for the board to consider that if something happens with grants, we are um we we do have resources and program people in district that are supported with grant money, not general funding. Any way is there any way that we could kind of maybe dig a little deeper into our I mean I I feel like we're so limited here with just these things. It's like math coach or this like why why can't we just spend a little bit more time? I mean, not now. Looking at
277in detail at our overall budget, there are things that are reoccurring that maybe we could cut. I mean, there's we're we're definitely doing a lot here this year. The ICT is that's a big thing. Like I said before, I don't think we're going to be doing something of that nature with staffing going in the future. I mean, like I said, I'd like to see how much money we spend every year on consultants and and um you know, I mean, I can't I'm I'm kind of blanking at the moment, but are there other things we can look at that don't need to be just from this list? I understand that these are, you know, I understand why they're on here and why we're looking at them because they're new and we're hoping that they help our
278um So, just to give just perspective, Katie, if you're looking, but these these two 2,091 that we're looking at here, just as as relationship to our levy, that's a that ask alone is a 2.96% increase of our levy just for these items if nothing else in the whole budget. increase. Not a salary, not a collective bargaining agreement, not a utility cost. These costs alone are 2.6% of our loan. Yeah. I mean, I like Kate's thought there. How do we know this? These are this page is called changes to the budget. How do we know the underlying budget is um efficient being um cost costefficient? Maybe we're trying to cut good good ideas on this page when the the better ideas to cut are not in front of us. But I think we got caught a
279little bit that one night where we had we truncated because of the weather where we were going to go through each of the budgets and then we crunched them together. Okay. We got caught there where we would have more detail. And that's also cutting what we already have, which is a different conversation. This we're not cutting anything because we don't have it. Right. I I get it. There could be something we have that we just don't need. Right. You could exactly there. What I know it's so late in the in the process. Forget tonight. I mean it's what I mean for instance one of the things like I I tech my mind we were looking to add a visitor management system where each kids wears advantage and that's how they check into that 40 40
280or 50,000 that's what that that is one time cost I'm sure there's a recurring software but again that's something where we hit one of her slides to discuss but we we didn't discuss because of we went Oh, so there are things where we as a possibly go look to okay maybe we delay that a year, we delay this a year. Of course I think the hard part these are people where programs are different. We could go through okay maybe that program is something we put off and do we want these people where we need to go out and hire and keep them. That's some of the differences here. Mhm. Um, so is this something we can re, you know, work and come back to the table or for the 22nd, right? Or maybe we're we're
281just I thought by the 22nd we needed like a final like number and so by the 22nd we have to adopt. That's the that's the last date. You're raising fair points. So, let Kate, I know you pretty well. I know you're like trying to keep the tax thing reasonable. What what I think is if you sort of budget something that maybe doesn't give every one of these things a green light, we could also separately look for things that we don't want to spend money on that are in the budget cuz there's nothing that says if we don't if we f I don't think if we find money somewhere else that we don't want to spend then maybe we could greenlight a more aggressive program on like full ICT, right? You know what I'm saying? Like
282that gives us more time, but then we're budgeting it, saying, "Look, this is the minimum. We're at least going to do whatever, you know, um, with the possibility of adding, but maybe we'll do more of those things if we find money elsewhere that we don't want to spend anymore, like the consultants. I'm not saying we don't want to use the consultants. I'm just using example. It could be a class that doesn't run that we had expected, but I I just feel we sort of have to move this tonight or I'm not saying right now, but I think two weeks is too late. So, do you want to forward a proposed one and then at least start with that and then see if we can get some traction with it? Maybe make tweak to it. Um,
283all right. I'm between the 1.75 and the 1.9. I think start with the Which one do you want to start with? Christine, did you recalculate? Hang on. Between the two. I didn't cuz I got distracted. Sorry. That's all right. [Music] So, that's 606. [Music] What do we What are you calculating the 1.99? We're waiting. Okay, Christine was just trying to figure out the number between 175 and my brain is on 165. 116. So, well, I'm okay considering that. Yeah. So, do you want to go with 1.75 to start? Yeah. I don't really want to go above that. If we can if we can start and then if we need to move 1.65 and then see if we need to Well, what I would have said was you do the 175. Okay. And to do the
284175, you sort of have to accept the hybrid ICT, but we commit to going back and looking at things in the budget and try to find the money, you know, after the budget's approved to get us to the full-time ICT. Okay? And then that would also be getting and you would also get a 210 math coach. Okay? You would get the full-time cse chair. Okay? And then no purchasing agent, right? No purchasing agent. I'd be okay with that. No field trips other than if we have money this year, maybe. And if and if we have if we're able to find any, you know, we could go through some of the bigger ticket items. Whenever we'll get $50, it will be there for bigger ticket. Exactly. Exactly. And then again just to the difference between the
285hybrid model and the full-time model is second and third grade have second and third would have a would have the the part time that we have this year. They would all at all grade all they would have they would have part-time and everybody else would be full time. Correct. Only second and third would be parttime. Everyone else would be one four five six. Okay. What's a point two math coach? Is there any way we could consider Okay, I'm going to kill you for saying this and parents I know aren't going to like it, but I just feel like I have to throw it out there. Combining the west side and Lloyd Harbor second grade to so we could have a full-time rather than two part-time. Does that work or no? I know this just throwing
286another that's how you I proposed that last year and that was not supported. I mean, right now for next year, we do have a larger number of second grade for Westside uh than Lloyd Harbor. So, if we were to tell parents that they would have to go to one school, it would be at Westside for um second grade. And I really tried to push it last year and that was not successful. As a matter of fact, we had customized programs for children even though they really needed more services, they were not willing to go. I was just thinking maybe second grade just because they haven't entered Lloyd Harbor School or Westside yet. Like I know last year it was like the fourth grade didn't want to do it cuz they had already spent most of
287their years at a specific school then to have to start a new school. I'm just thinking like transitioning from Gool to Westside or I completely agree with you Kate. That's what I tried to sell it didn't go well. Is is there a there I would imagine there would be added in transportation cost that we would have to do transport for the wood barber to west or vice versa. Maybe it or not. We would try to keep it within whatever the hours we bought from that bus. It would be determined after we did all the routing. It would have to wait. I mean could it be something that Yeah. Do they stay there? Then they continue on up to they stay there. The choice if they want to stay or if they're if that if you
288know I guess it's I don't know. And how many how many kids are we looking you said second and third grade have the smallest amount of children with IEPs. So if you look at Harbor, we have three students. When you look at um west side, it is um six students right now. Those are the projections from Goose Hill. We have not had those CSE meetings yet. They're starting in May. And third grade here would be hybrid, right? Third grade would be hybrid as well. If we went with the hybrid model, it would be four, five, and six. That would be full-time. And keep in mind that now that we're beyond year one, I am getting more requests of ICT and we're making those decisions if it's appropriate or not for individual children. Um, so we
289don't really have the final numbers on this yet. No, because not all CSC meetings. It may be a little less, it may be a little bit more, right? I mean, if we don't need it, I wouldn't be proposing it. So, we will be making those reductions after the meeting. But if there's more, there's the potential that we would need to add another ICT. Right now, the worst case scenario is what I gave you for sixth grade and that's why we had the contingency at play harbor. Yes. Everything else we're not close to being at the max. And what's the point two math coach? What how does that work? So that's just 20% of their day is dedicated to coaching. All right. I might have been in the back. all right. So, here we here it
290goes because it's getting late. So, I'm just going to try to put this forward. Stop me at any point if this is not where we want to land for now. We're doing 1.75 the hybrid model with the understanding that if other money becomes available or is available, we would access that to try to keep it to a full. Um, we doing the ICT program needs at the high school. We're doing the class size reduction. We're doing the occupational education. We're doing the CS each year full-time. We're doing the math coach point2. We're doing the void harbor ICT contingency, which looks like we're going to need it. We're doing the high school reduction in class sizes and the math 78 reduction in class sizes. We're not doing the purchasing agent. We're doing use of absences. We're
291not doing the field trips, doing the storage unit, we're doing the generator hookup, and we're doing administration list. I Okay. Under 1.75. All right, guys. Let's try to What do you think about that? Start committee. I have a question, Bill. I mean, I always just I just feel like you were the one doing like No, I That was impressive that Heather retained all that. She did. Yeah. Okay. All right. So, we we work together. We're the team. No, this is hard. This is like This is really hard. I know people like I'm getting texts. My wife is like, "Are you crazy?" Yeah. What with the with the two 1.99? No. Being here. That's great. I'm teasing. She has no idea. I knew what you meant. I was Everybody's Look, this isn't a perfect science. I
292think that's a good I know we have to move on to community reports, but everybody's okay. We're okay. I just have one question. You're at your limit. So, never mind. If we get this um this ICT chair that's going to light CST, CSC, we get that that chair, it's going to lighten up your schedule. I maybe your schedule, too. What are you going to do with that other time that's going to help? They're going to go for coffee. Advance the college. She's going to teach Italian. I wish. I wish. I would say I would get some who isn't asleep and not work late at night. Um, but it's really it's really not meant to lighten my load. It's just I'm looking at how to support the staff in regard to what we're trying to do.
293And it's very difficult for me to do that if I'm behind doors of having meetings constantly. Um, and I feel bad when staff comes to me, you know, and they're like, "Well, can you help me?" And honestly, they do email me. I I go to every building right now at least once to twice a week. Kristen goes to Westside, you know. So, we are going above and beyond just a regular workday. But honestly, if if it had to be with ICT or a chairperson, I want what's best for kids. I just want to do my job the best that I can do it for you. Um, and right now I'm an executive director and I'm basically you're hiring me to be a chairperson and there's so much more of my job that I need to
294do for you. Oh, all right. That's and thank you for doing that. But you're saying you'd rather have the high the the the full instead of a chair. What is that? Cuz the numbers if you get rid of the chair, you can do the full, can't you? I'm comfortable with the recommendation right now because I would love to give you the finalized numbers once these cse meetings are over. And again, you know, they're not going to be over until probably the second week of May. Um, but I will have most of the upper grade levels in that place. What you need to realize as well is that the sooner I know what what you're leaning towards, we could start doing job postings and hiring teachers. It's going to be very hard to hire highly effective
295teachers very quickly. Um, so this is kind of holding back. We're not able to finalize any IEPs right now because I have to put the number of hours. So if we went part-time, for example, that would be 10 hours a week. If we went full-time, that would be 25 hours of instructional contact time with the special ed teacher. So that's why, you know, I I do think we can make either one work. I just do know what the benefits of if we did do the optimal model. And I hear what the board says in regards to, you know, we we want what's best for kids. So that's why I wanted to propose that to you. Satisfied still here. All right. Um okay. So we're going to move on to committee reports page two of the
296agenda. Um and work that has occurred since our last meeting. I was prepared for this four hours ago. I think yeah. All right. So policy committee met. Um we had originally considered policy um um but we've removed it from tonight's agenda uh because that's the policy on student information and basically between that policy and 1120 which deals with district records. We need to clean it up because there's a schedule LGS1 that's referenced in the policies that no longer exists. And to replace it, we have to not only take care of those two, but also fix eight other policies that reference LPS1. Um, policy 4327 is up for first grade tonight. That's on homebound instruction. This is a requirement. Um if a student is is in need of homebound instruction and doesn't want to lose uh
297time credit uh we have to increase the minimum number of hours um for elementary and secondary and so we're reflecting uh the policy for those uh changes and then um finally we've been looking at the insurance requirements imposed by our participation in uh NICER and we're trying to understand additional requirements departments that are needed when third parties use our facilities and also trying to solve the dilemma when we have related organizations like the booster clubs or the PTGs use it where maybe we don't need the same exact insurance and one of the challenges once we open one policy they often reference many others right or we're into five and six policies that we have to address or regulations it's it's deep work okay that's it thank Here I ask if any other committees have met.
298Okay. Um we will now continue with our first audience to visitors. The close board of education and administration welcomes your attendance at board of education meetings. Audience to the public affords residents an opportunity to address the board of education on both agenda and non-aggenda items. Each resident is allowed to speak for three minutes. This is not the form to discuss student or staff specific matters. Please contact the district separately on these matters. Anybody? Come on, guys. All right. Hi. I don't know if this is on Woodbury Road. Nice to see everybody. Um, so a couple things. One, the pouches. I know that you know kids uh always test limits. They try to circumn our rules or our boundaries. That's just the their nature. That's how they grow. So trying to find ways around using it
299in the ways that we're hoping I that's part for the course, I think. But the fact that we're hearing that it has been effective in improved classroom instructions, fewer interruptions, fewer distractions, um having a little bit of fear of being caught. Like those are all positives for me. And I whether or not they're actually putting it in there. um having consequences that you know disciplinary or social whatever it is I think those are all positive and they're impacting uh interactions in the cafeteria in the hallways students are together um so for me the honor pouches are a success even if there is the circumnavigation um and if there are the students who feel the need to go on social media anyway maybe that's more comment on them than the younger patches Second, um there is
300a field trip that was not on that list. It is happens once every three or four years. It's the music trip um orchestra band I think that goes to Disney. It is coming up soon. So if you're not going to fund all these other field trips, which I've already paid for for all of my children, fund the Disney trip. Um and the last thing is uh in all of the audit like in the fall when they the auditors come through and they're like oh we checked all the records everything is fine. Uh one year I was really surprised at this was many years ago I was really surprised at the um surplus the operational surplus. So I oh the guy outside the room and I was like is this normal to have so much money
301you know as a surplus and he said absolutely every school district does this. So, I know it's not predictable for a variety of reasons, the stock market interest rate and state aid and whatever else, a varying um tax levy percentage, all of that. But it traditionally in the last years that I've been coming to all these board meetings, there is some surplus every year in with many zeros at the end of it. So, I don't know how many contingencies have been removed or whatever for this year or coming year, but it's in there. And if I think of anything else, thank you. Hi, Joe Lloyd Harour. So, my first uh comment is I sent you guys a uh email to the BOP email tonight. I did get a red flag regarding the derogatory comments I
302made about Joe. So, it it nothing showed up on my email, just letting you know. Um second is the uh fencing that you guys talked about. I know that's this year's money apparently moving in that to me that's a colossal waste of money. I'd rather do $56,000 bathrooms. Um, and then third is there's no black shirts here again tonight. I would really love to know like what is holding up this contract. What is getting these teachers to show up here every month? Um, and and sit here wearing their black shirts because, you know, they're wearing to school. I think kids are now starting to ask. Um, I was told tonight while I was sitting at a lacrosse game that one of the teachers sits there and tells the kids in their classroom, "This is what's
303going on. This is what my contract. They're screwing me out of $12,000." I mean, they're very specific about what the the parent was telling me, about what their their child's coming home telling them. So, how can we get to some kind of a a middle ground with these teachers or or at least understand what's their complaints, you know, so that as a community, maybe we put pressure on them or maybe we put pressure on you depending on what the problem might be. Um all right. So um with respect to the teachers contract, the last comment we right now we have a very strong proposal on the table for our teachers that includes increases and also benefits for our students. And while there's no agreement at this time, we're committed to continue to work towards a
304resolution um and participate in the mediation which is ongoing in good faith. And then Joe, I think you took notes on what Nina said about the field trip, right, that we had missed just in case because it is something we're going to continue to evaluate, cover those trips. Wasn't this year or it's been a couple years since we've run it. So I think that pick it up. We could take a look at that or just cover mine. Right. Did I say we've had years ago? It may have been precoid. We've gone to France. No. Oh, Quebec. Maybe it was. Yes. Well, we actually used to go to France a long time ago. Um, but Quebec, I think it was pre-COVID since last. That's probably why it didn't come up on our rad so so long
305ago. I'll add that. The only thing I wanted to add um on the the the negotiations, Heather covered it perfectly. Like just so everybody knows, this is part of like a collective bargaining agreement. So we, you know, we can't like we have to treat it with the respect legally that we have to. So we can't go around spreading rumors or anything. And so that's why there's a process to deal with like when we're at an impass and we're going through that and hope everybody's happy at the end. So all right, Dennis, did I do okay? Yes. Thank you. All right, Dennis is still here. All right. Um, we now move on to approval of minutes. Um, March 11th all present. All right. So, I'll take a motion to approve the March 11th uh minutes. Have
306first Lisa second bill. All in favor? All right. The March 26 minutes. Um, Bill U. Bruce was absent. So, can I take a first? Um, Kate second. Mark. All in favor? Okay. Now I'm going to take a walk on or a leave of absence. Where's the sheet? I got it. Um that um Nicole, tenure teacher, will be granted unpaid personal leave for the entire 25 2025 26 year. Could I have a motion to walk on this item? Kate is first. Second. Lisa. All in favor? Okay. Now, do we vote on this item separately or can it be included in the whole taken? All right. I'm going to take that walk on with the whole personnel recommendations of the superintendent slate. All leaves resignations, appointments, and other matters. Pages 2 through 11 as a slate, including
307that walk-on. Can I have a first? Okay. Can I have a second? build. Any questions? All in favor? Okay. We're going to move to business recommendations. We are going to take donations, change orders, budget transfers, health service contracts, claims, order reports, and additional matters on pages 12 to 15 as a slate. This includes approval of two reduction change orders. Can I have a first? We sa a second bill. Any questions? All in favor? We're now going to move to special education reports. We're going to take all contracts cseps approvals on page 15 as a sleep. Can I have a first bill? A second. Lisa, any questions? Okay. All in favor? I'm ready to volunteer. I thought you had a big question. Okay. We now move to other matters on pages 15 to 16 as a
308slate. This includes the approval of the overnight field trip to Normandy, France for the celebration of liberty and freedom for from May 31st to 2025 to June 8th, 2025 for 13 students. All funds were raised at the remembrance bowl. Oh, that sounds wonderful. So great for those students. All right, can I have a first? Katie, a second. Bill, any questions? Question. What are we approved? Um, other matters ages 15 through 16. I got that. But what exactly are we? It's an overnight field trip. We approve. Oh, with bill. We're approving that they're allowed to go, but we're not paying. We're not paying. Okay. Okay. Any other questions? All in favor? Okay. We're now going to move to the first reading of the policy. This is policy 4327 for homebound instruction. We will vote to wave
309a full reading of this policy. Can I have a first? Wave the first reading. Bill, a second eight. Any questions? All in favor? Okay. My only I actually have a question. Was the policy changed to reflect the language that was discussed in the policy meeting? Because there was like a typo online. Liz checked the typo was saw your email. Okay. Can I take Sorry guys, I'm going to take a second to look it up. I know. I know. Dedication policy. We're walking to high school tomorrow of us. Um red. Yeah. Ah, okay. So, this wasn't what we said discuss unless they wait the it's paragraph 1 2 3 paragraph 4. The minimum hours of instruction listed above may be reduced upon parent guardian request supported by documentation by the treating healthcare provider but not be
310lower than one. That's not the language that we should have. It should be not lower than and then there was language referring to 10 hours if it's secondary and five hours 5 hours if it's elementary can we amend that that's that typo to not that didn't include that so I think we could just include that in the second reading in the second we'll be including that in the Second week. Okay. All right. Can I move on? Yeah. Oh, no. The second audience to visitors, guys, get ready. Can I wave the reading of the um instructions? You does and just ask if either of you would like to speak again. No. Okay. Um the agenda the agenda includes financial reports on page 16 and these reports are forformational purposes. No votes necessary. If needed, Miss Costa
311will answer any questions from the board of education and public. Feel free to call her in her office. This is the second discussion section of our agenda. Mark, close your ears. I open the floor to any other discussion items from members of the board of education. All right. Now we move to join the meeting. Are you okay, Mark? You sure? All right. Um, we move to join the meeting. Um, can I have a first? Can I have a second? Lisa, all in favor? Thank you. Good night, everybody.