001Um, may I have a motion to call the meeting to order? Lisa second, Bill. All in favor? Thank you. Um, let's rise and do the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay. Okay. So, and um now I'm going to ask for a motion to go into executive for the purpose of personnel and legal negotiations. Y and what? Negotiations. Negotiations. Yes. Okay. Bill second. Lisa. All in favor? Thank you. Thank you. Oh, heavy charge. I'm I am six weeks away off the payroll. My youngest. Oh, your congratulations, Mrs. Dela Cararpini. Hi. Is there any way to make it warmer? Yes. Why? You want it colder? Okay. It's comfortable.
002It's fine. Whatever you want. What did you say before? Hurting cats. Now he's cold. No, I told Okay, while he's doing that, the board has returned from executive session. Uh, no action was taken. May I have a motion to return to the public session? Bill. Thank you. Second, Kate. Thank you. All in favor? Thank you. Um we did the pledge of allegiance at the beginning and um we are now back in public session. So this is a work session tonight um regarding the proposal of the budget. Okay. Um looking at you ready? Okay. Yes, we are ready. Okay. All right. Welcome everyone to our budget workshop today. We are going to jump right into it and start off where we left off at our last meeting. At our last meeting in March, we left off
003at um at a budget these are the five categories of budget and we left off at a budget at 82,319,000. That is an increase of 1,619,000. And we're going to take a moment to look at that increase uh in two different ways on the next two slides. So the first way we're going to look at that 1 point $1,619,000 increase in how we've been speaking about some of the additions and programmatic additions to our that are in this budget. On the left hand side you see here these are the additions that we have been speaking about in the last couple of meetings. The the first category was the expansion of our ICT program. The next addition to our budget was our continued class size reduction efforts at Lloyd Harbor and Westside School. And then we
004had our occupational education program. We've seen more interest from our students. So that increase is a change to our budget. a proposal of a cse chair, a math coach, a contingency position for ICT as those numbers are evolving and we're going through the CSSE process, high school class size reduction, um, an FTE for that, smaller 78 math classes, some additional purchasing resources for the district, and all of those additions that we spoke about the last two meetings come to 1,79,000. Okay. So, Christine, thanks for breaking this out because in the past, anything that was a proposed addition was always broken out separately so the board could discuss whether or not we wanted to include it in the budget. So, some of these have not been actually discussed at the board level as to whether or
005not we were hoping to have them included in the budget at all. Right. So the way we presented them the last two meetings is the first two. No, the last two years the last two years it was always presented as here's what we'd like to add to the budget and the board had a conversation about what that would mean, why it's needed. They were just included in the budget in the past. So this is more helpful. Great. Yeah. Right. Does anyone have questions about some of these items that are being proposed for inclusion in the budget? They're not. I I think when we started it was that these are in the budget, but it's this is a a proposal, right? Yes. Until you adopt the budget, it's proposed. Yes. I probably should have asked this
006uh before. What is occupational education? Those are some of the students who go to career and tech programs and those are off-campus programs traditionally through Boseies. They run an aviation program. They run auto um an automotive um repair program or auto body programs. Those are some interest that some of our kids have. Even some of the um um performing arts programs also are are in there. Is that during the school day? Yes. Okay. So, do it. So, does this include transportation? We built that into the transportation budget. Yes. Okay. Can you just talk about the math coach? Is this a new position that we're Yes. I'm actually going to turn it over to um Miss Logatuda who will speak about the math coach. How have we not heard about this at all? Right. There's some
007a few things in here that we never heard of. We I I'm confused because also I don't know who's going to talk about it, but the cse chair. Okay. The I don't know. Last time they were saying they were getting rid of it. I thought we had one already. No, we don't have one. you don't have a CC chair. Oh, I'll speak to the math of it. Okay, let's talk about the math coach. Okay, go ahead. Uh, so the math coach is is something that I had mentioned in in one of the prior presentations. I was doing a data review. We talked about how some of our scores were going up and and again there several factors associated with that, but we believe strongly we've been working with consultants. We've been really focusing on small
008groupoup instruction for example, strategy instruction in small groups and we felt that there was a benefit of having a literacy coach and it would be helpful if we had a math coach as well. We are trying to move towards small groupoup instruction in the math classes as well and having a math coach in place to support our teachers in getting there. In addition to we're looking to align our math program K1 to grades 2 through six. And so we are right now we have two different math programs. So we have Eureka math for K and one and envision mathematics for 2 through six. So, we're in the process of a math pilot and looking to convert over to one math program for all of K through six so that the students have one less less
009transition. It's the same language that's being carried over from grade to grade. But I'm confused. So, is it someone that works with the kids? Because I thought we had that already. No, this would be someone working with the teachers. Okay. supporting the teachers to again foster the small group instruction to help them in carrying that out and adjusting to a new program. Jen, how long have we had the literacy coach? This is year three. We had a part-time at first it was a 0.5 and then it was a full-time and this is the second year of it being full-time. Do you think it's helping? Do you see a difference? I I do think it's helping. I I think it's helpful when the teachers meet with a consultant and it during that time as you all
010know they're they're learning the content they then have to apply that between the time they meet with the consultant until the next time they meet with the consultant. So the coach in between those cycles helps them whether it be through modeling, it could be through team teaching. Uh she might so she comes in the room or he comes in the room and could you do like a demo lesson kind of thing? Okay. They're in the room. They're not there as support for the students per se, but you could argue that they're supporting the teachers, supporting the the students. Um, the literacy coach also works with the teachers on data. How are we better utilizing the data to indiv individualize instruction for the students? And that's a staff. That's Miss Sul. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I'm just
011curious because I know some districts have like a consult teacher they'll bring in. It's not full-time staff member. Many school districts have instructional coaches in general. We're being very specific about having a literacy coach and a math coach. Uh but there are districts who just have in general instructional coaches to, you know, to keep the programs going and and supporting our teachers and we have new teachers who are coming in. So it's just ensuring that we're we're meeting our expectations to fidelity and then they would provide the PD as well or No. Yes. So we have um that's a great question. So Miss Su for example on our superintendent conference days she will provide some of that PD in small group. We may have the consultant come in to give an overview and then they'll
012work in small groups and the literacy coach is a part of that. Okay. I have a question. This is my first time through this process. So changes to the budget, change it changes from what? And where do these things come from? Are they bubble up from like the people in the room or I mean this first time I'm seeing it? Yeah, it's not typical. We usually have months of conversation about adding a new administrative or teaching position, especially these significant costs, and they were just put in the budget. And then we were told if we didn't raise our taxes, the positions we didn't know about would disappear. And that was the first time we heard about them. I I I will take some responsibility of not sharing as as early on as I probably should
013have. And I apologize for that. That's okay. It's a transition. It's I I'm not supporting anything. I don't know what's the what's the rationale. What's it for? Um we're starting to hear it in increments. This isn't a good forum to learn about all these different things. What are our other options? We're foregoing. Last meeting teachers spoke and I mean building had spoke about interesting initiatives. Are they going to be explored? Like how what is the way this community builds a budget? It looks like it's being built like this and you have to have a multi-year vision when you build a budget and you have to spread sometimes things out in phases. Is there any planning that goes into building a budget or do we do it like this? No, we definitely build it with a
014long range and a short range. Where is that? We do that when we meet with our budget like our budget builders which are principles and our directors and we talk about what things we might be rolling out, what needs they have. They make their way here some of them that we're seeing right here talking about and then we talk about things that they may need to roll out as we get into the future. you know, they talk about new textbook initiatives, new this like and those are talked about at the ground level when we start meeting with them in in in in approximately December. But this is something we usually talk about at least by January at the board level having these items be introduced and explained to us and it's now the end of
015March. This is why I asked for this meeting tonight because I felt that we didn't have all the information we needed going into the last meeting and we couldn't really do our due diligence and even asking questions because we didn't even know that these positions existed again until I asked about the tax cap question and then we were told the positions would be removed from the budget. It almost seemed as if they were positions that already existed and people would lose their jobs. That's what I thought. So, we need more information as soon as possible. We need to be able to have these conversations, but we've been put in a tricky position now with the clock running on the budget and not enough information on some of these positions. The cse um chair has been
016something that's been discussed. Heather, how many years have we discussed this, would you say? I mean, every year that I've been on the board, it's my third year. It's It's been batted around and we've said we don't want to add any more administrators. We added math department chair. We added a humanities chair. I I don't understand how we have to keep adding more people. Yeah. And our and we were just saying our enrollment is going down. Yeah. I don't know if just make sure you're not talking in the microphone. Sorry. I'm not really sure what like are we functioning from what I know, but correct me if I'm wrong. We seem to be functioning fine without a cse chair. I mean is that an administrative that's a big wonderful talk please hi everyone hi good
017evening so the reason why I put and I'm this is a long-term vision just in regard to where special ed is going so as you can see with the budget we are expanding special education offerings um That's going to bring in at least about six more special education teachers. And currently, um, my concern with a long-term vision is building the infrastructure to support this expansion of special education programs. So, there is no cse chairperson currently. There is myself and Kristen. Right now, we are the sole individuals mostly that are chairing cse meetings and CPSC meetings. So when I did a needs assessment last year, just so you can kind of get a sense, I chaired about 156 meetings. Kristen chaired about 76 meetings and that does not include preschool and we do have our UPK
018programs right now. So what we were thinking of is not so much in regard to administrative and and meeting wise is I would this the teachers are asking for more support in regard to instructional strategies and really not having accessibility to the direct executive director or the assistant director because from January to about the end of June 90% of our time is working with families in cse meetings from 8:00 all the way to the end of the day in a school So we're just trying to balance between meeting those needs of a chairperson. So Kristen and I, even though we're not solely a chairperson, we are serving that as a primary responsibility while also trying to take into consideration the new things that are going to be happening in regard to if if the ICT
019offerings are accepted, we are going to have to be providing more professional development, more supervision, more oversight. There is a lot of pieces into that. So, we were just considering if it's not next year, but long-term vision, this is something in regard to the infrastructure. I have a question about something you brought up, UPK. How is that going to because we really had said we were only going to do UPK if it didn't affect the rest of the programming at the school, right? We didn't want it to affect the classrooms we were using. And now if it seems like it's going to be taking away resources for special ed for kids in K through 12, I think that's important for us to know. Also, it's not taking away services, but it's more services that we
020have to coordinate as a special ed department. So, we are coordinating with families throughout all the neighboring preschools and we have more and more families now that are winning the lottery that also have students with special needs. That is a that is a growing population. just to share with you especially after COVID we are getting more and more preschool families going through the CPSC process. So we have a number of students that are getting itinerant services through UPK as well as in all of our neighboring preschools. So preschool alone uh is a very different uh structure uh than school age. So in regard to the coordination I am there is no CPSC chairperson. I am doing all the preschool chair chairing. I know in previously when I did my research there were some staff that
021was like on special assignments that would ha help chair meetings that has that is not does not exist anymore. So it's really just Kristen and myself that are chairing meetings which I love chairing meetings. I think it's a good part of getting to know families. But I just want to make sure that there's time to do the instructional piece of it that really is important. So you're feeling like too much of your time is taken up. not that you don't want to do the meetings and they're very important but that you're not able to work with the teachers as much and and I'm getting the feedback from the teachers in the sense of Nicole we we need you more so every you know we're trying to do as much as we can I've been doing
022check-in meetings with them you know we've been doing many different things but it's I feel it's not enough so I mean we are doing the best that we can but in regard to providing the high quality programs that we're looking for they're just looking for that support from us does the literacy coach assist you with that professional development at all? Um, working with the teachers? Of course. Yeah. I mean, the math, the literacy, we all work together collectively. It's not like in silos, but they are looking for there's so many questions through special ed that they need answers. And of course, sometimes they go to their principles, but really they're coming to either Kristen and myself to kind of unpack, okay, how do we do this? we are bringing and and the way we're handling
023it this year is I brought in an ICT coach, you know, so we are utilizing outside resources, but it is growing and I just want to make sure that we do the best job that we can. You know, Alex, I want to address what you said up sorry UPK having any uh use of resources in the building. Obviously, right now it's taking two classes, but there's definitely time in overseeing the program to make sure they're doing the right job and Jen spends a lot of time working with them. That's the question like how much of your time is that taking also I we it was supposed to be really run by an outside organization right this is supposed to be sort of a turnkey process right it is run by the organization however we still
024oversee the program we need to ensure that they're for example teaching up to our standards they're using the same programs there was an RFP that went out with the non-negotiables that we expected. So, I'm visiting the classrooms, talking to parents, you know, we had the lottery, all of those things take time to prepare. So, yes, it it was something that I didn't have on my plate several years ago, and it's it's an added responsibility. I found it to be fruitful, but it does take up time, and especially since it's housed in our buildings, sometimes they don't see that division at UPK as the the Y running it. They see it almost as ours. Right. Well, but that's my question is when we look at budgeting it then like are we not really understanding the actual
025cost of this program then? But the other thing I just want everyone to understand just in case um Dr. Shimp didn't explain whether we had UPK or not the district is still responsible for the CPSC meetings were still responsible for the services for pre preK kids whether we had UPK or not. Even right even if just if they live in the district if they go to nursery school anywhere else or early child right that is that's correct yes okay Joe could you give us some history here about what the um special ed program looked like in the past and how it's grown over the years so if we look at the junior senior high school we've had co or ICT almost since I've been here. It wasn't always there and it it started to filter
026in probably 20 25 years ago. We did not have integrated co- teach at the elementary which we started last year with no bringing the part-time you know providing students you know our most needy students at the early ages uh is new to us here and you know looking at the investment early on I think it's definitely going to pay off in the long run for our students providing those resources younger and and hopefully having less moving on as we said Nicole there you are now uh we're seeing more and more students requiring special education is it partly an outcrop of COVID. There could be some of that or just what we're realizing with students and doing our testing, but there has definitely been an increase. I could tell you when I first started or my
027I taught a class who was called modified. That just meant I had special ed kids in my class. There was no difference. I had no assistance. Nobody was with me. I just taught was called modified. There was no difference. There was nobody assistance. And it was a challenge. You know, I had five or six special ed kids in my class. No one assisting me. And I did what was necessary. We're definitely looking to help our kids with more small small group instruction, providing with the resources they need to better succeed in class, and that's how we've been progressing here. Maybe we could go through the ICT program expansion and talk about the um costs and what they're related to. Absolutely. If you look at the elementary, it's really going from a part-time to a full-time
028at Westside. And correct me if I'm wrong anywhere here. We don't have in sixth grade at Westside, but we have fifth graders. So, this would be continuing. So, most of the cost is the move from part-time to full-time, not the addition of teachers. It's both classes. It's both, but the biggest aortionment of the cost is really going from the part-time because that impacts every teacher. I would probably would you would you say would it be more the hiring of new to be for the class because we would need to add second grade at Westside and sixth grade at Westside. Correct. And then everyone else is going part-time to full-time at the dual elementary buildings. So for Goose Hill, for example, the big the big course is really doing the first grade ICT. So we would
029be hiring a full-time uh special education teacher for that. That that's an expansion. Goose Hill does not have any co-eing classrooms right now. That has been the number one calls I've been getting from parents. Um, and just looking foresightwise of children in preschool. We're we are getting more and more students that have those needs and are in those type of programs. So, that's why I'm just trying to see how we can equip our building so that by the time they come, uh, we'll be ready for them for kindergarten for next year. Right now, um, we're closely looking at those numbers. We just finished doing some visitations. Um, but first grade right now is where we're aiming to open up that ICT classroom based upon staff feedback. Um, which we do not have this year. And
030will it be full-time also? It will be full-time. So, if there are other proposals you would like me to share in regard to, you know, keeping it part-time and increasing the sections, I could look at that. But this proposal is the most optimal proposal of full-time. And the difference with Goose Hill is I took into account developmentally um the differences that the children need at Goose Hill. So the full-time model at Goose Hill would be a full-time program aid in that classroom in addition to a full-time special education teacher working with the GenEd teacher. Could you go over what the children are getting with the part-time versus the full-time? Because I think when we approved this, the part-time meant that you would fully the student would fully have that teacher with them during math and
031and English. So what are what are the students gaining from having a full-time? Okay, great question. So this year, you are correct. What the part-time includes is the double literacy block and one period of math. When the special education teacher is not in the room, part of that model is the teacher assistant. Okay? And I shared last time some of the challenges that we had with recruiting and hiring teacher assistants. And one of the benefits of having the teacher in the room based upon our needs assessment this year was having more of that continuity, that consistency um for the student to have just two teachers instead of being split with three. Um the other benefit is that it would be support in all the content areas including the social studies and the science science. I
032think that's critical with the upper grade levels especially when we're looking at multiple teachers and the rigor that we're looking at. Um, fifth and sixth grade are essential. Uh, I believe to have that continuity. The other piece is I really feel it builds that strong relationship with the teachers and basically is going to enhance the progress monitoring for the students. And the biggest piece of it is it's it's going to increase the small groupoup ICT models, which is what we are aiming to have all of our classes have is small groupoup learning. I know you're you know you're big proponent of small groupoup size, but this is also going to take that whole class and break it up even further to provide that personalization. Um the last piece of it is the teachers really do
033want to collaborate. I think it was very successful in the sense that we had the co-eing had the co-planning incorporated it so they were able to work together. Um but that is a model that we do see some areas of challenge this year and that is the reason why I did propose if we are able to u to have the teacher in the room and not utilize the teacher assistance in that capacity. Nicole, would there be more time of the students being in the classroom as opposed to being pulled out in the full ICT model? Um, the students that are in the ICT model, they're not getting pulled out for like resource room or other things. So, that wouldn't impact it. The parents, I've been speaking to parents throughout the cse process right now. I
034have been getting very positive feedback from them in regard to the growth that they're seeing. So, the the part-time model is working. Um, but in regard to us looking at it from the back end of things that we know that need to be kind of enhanced, that is the reason why we're looking at this. But parents love the fact that they have very less pushins than they had before. Can can you just tell me is there a maximum number of kids with IEPs that go into those classes? It can't be more than 50%. More than 50%. Right. So we would have to look at our total enrollment for that class and look at how many students. So what I was projecting right now based upon my conversations with the staff is Lloyd Harbor for example
035um for second grade we're looking at this is the lowest grade right now this year we we're expecting three students. Westside is about up to six students. Uh third grade we're looking at three to four students in both schools. Fourth grade we're looking at six students at Lloyd Harbor and four students at Westside. Fifth grade, five students at Lloyd Harbor, four students in Westside. Again, CSSE recommendations are still going on. And sixth grade is the area that we did put the contingency because we do have nine students right now. We came into the school year with eight. We had a new entrant that had an IEP with ICT. So, we are at nine students right now. We're still within the percentage, but we do have families who were hesitant last year with the recommendation of
036ICT because it was the first year even though it was the recommendation from the committee and since the success they are now more open and are asking for the ICT. So, we are looking at sixth grade right now to have at least 10 students at Lloyd Harbor and about five students at Westside. Um, I have a question. I don't know if it's more for Jen or you probably know the answer. So I how much time is spent doing science and social studies in a school day because I I looked at my daughter's calendar like weekly calendar and my conversations with her and other parents have been it's pretty limited. It's not even necessarily daily and I know there's interest in that being we've been spending countless hours trying to fit more in the 360 minute
037day. So much is time is spent now doing math and literacy. It's it's like 80%. We had a three-hour meeting just this week on it. Yeah. Most school districts at minimum have an 80 minute literacy block or one period for reading and one for writing. Uh so that's something we feel very strongly about and and again we're seeing improvement in our student scores. Um math, if you recall several years ago, it was at 40 minutes. It was something that the community brought up at a CPC meeting when I first arrived. We upped math from 40 minutes to an average of 60 minutes a day or to do, you know, a double period one day and then a single the next for science and social studies at the the younger grades. It varies slightly, but it's
038on average it's about three periods a week for science and three periods a week for social studies. It could be two and three. Um, they could do it, they have the flexibility to do, for example, social studies for two weeks if there's a unit they're covering and then switch over to science, for example. So, at this point, the going full-time is really only they're really only covering one period of science or social studies a day based on that, right? One period section. So, that would make you go from part-time to full-time or they also do ICT ICT. Okay. Yeah. But I did before you we go there. I just wanted to add we are working with a consultant as uh Mr. Monosera pointed out. We are trying to figure out where we c if there's
039overlap that we have the interdisciplinary instruction taking place where can we embed social studies for example in the literacy block we could be doing both of those at the same time steam for example so we have all of these requirements from New York state that we have to adhere to um one of them is is the computer science digital fluency standards we also have career and technical education so where are we fitting all of this in so we're trying to see can we fit steam for example example into our math and science periods. If we were to expand the number of periods we're giving, we have to do steam because that's a state mandate or is that something we have to incl So, not steam per se, but we have computer science digital fluency standards
040that we have to meet K through 12. So, we do need a certain amount of time for steam and health. That's what I'm saying. But I think we need more recess time. Well, I agree. You know, at the end of the meeting, I mean, the truth is we need more Schools are doing that. That's We need We need more time. I mean, we have 360 minutes. We're trying to We need more social studies time. We need more science time. We need We need to have social studies and science outside. Yes. And And we do They do need resource time. There isn't enough time in the day. There just isn't. I'm Scandinavian. Send them outside. Send them into the woods. And there's also, you know, there's five minute passing time built in that's contractual. So it's
041five minutes between each of those 40 minute periods which plays a role as well. So we're very very tight on time but we're trying to figure out a way to at give more time to science and social studies whether it's through an inter disciplinary way or having more periods designated. I feel like you lose a little bit just from what I've seen with my kids as a personal note through that. Like I think there's something to be said for like knowing stuff when it comes to social studies instead of analyzing it because they're so young. We're talking about elementary here. They don't even know stuff yet. So how can they analyze stuff if they don't know? We're also looking to see how we ch change your wheel instead of say doing steam once a week
042maybe chunking where you do two or three times a week so there's less lag time. So if you're doing it once a week, you're in second or third grade. By the time you get back to remember what you were doing, you lose some of the time. So we're looking to chunk this more. So be more like you maybe do three three steam lessons in a week, three art lessons in a week. So you you get more done in less time because there's less remembering, catching back. Now my fifth grader is doing like just maker space for a few weeks and then she's going to or in the before that she did social studies, right? So she had now she'll have no science or no social studies for a few weeks because she's focusing on making
043uh we something in steam, right? That's what's happening. It shouldn't be so much in science and social studies. It's more art steam. Those are the things. There may be a little they it's like she has a unit where she's focusing on this and the other kids are focusing on that and then they switch off. She was telling me this is from a fifth grader so I don't maybe this is not appropriate for Well, it depends. the teachers have flexibility. So they they can we have the minutes all mapped out. It's just a matter of how they're shuffling them. So yes, there there are some teachers she could be reporting it wrong. I don't no or it's a little of both. Right. You give a little more to something because you want to stay on task
044and then you come back to it. So you over the course of the year it's going to even out. But you you're using your time more efficiently as opposed to like doing a socialist concept one time every week. You have to retach to get them get going again. try and chunk it more because they're trying to make the most of that limited time they're getting for those studies. And I can reshare I I had the do the documents that I had shared with you about the minutes for each grade level. I could reshare that in the Friday notes just so you could see where we're at right now and and we're having a conversation about where we can get to. I have a question Christine. So, and you know I'm a big fan of the
045special ed program here in Colt Spring Harbor. saved us more than once um and continues to do so. But this is like if I look at it about a million dollar dollars, right? That's pretty much special here. Just the ICT program alone. What did we spend to add that in last year? I'd have to look back. Okay. Memory serves me. It was about half a million dollars last year. you it was approximately half a million, but also if you remember um I did cut the our general fund budget u about 200,000. Yeah. So I was able to balance it out. Yeah. And I listen I think it's a really important program but I also think it's important to note that of this 1.7 about a million of it is special ed. Is that right? It's
046the ICT program and the Lloyd Harbor ICT contingency. Would you say that's one of those areas where when we have the overages like this is where that padding is built in a little bit? This is a um more of an educated contingency based on conversations with Dr. Shim. She thinks they're very close to breaking that class. And if they don't break it, yes, you're right. It would add be unspent monies. It would add to our surplus and that would happen. But if she does get the 10th student in the sixth grade class, we'd have to bring another teacher. Okay. And then my the same question for the 608677. How much of that is you definitely know you need every dollar there and how much of that is contingency padding? So that represents off the top
047of my head it's 5.47 positions. Which one? The top the the $600,000 one. Yeah. It's it's it's about 5.47 47 positions in the four, you know, four buildings. That represents the salary we believe we're going to hire teachers that we have not yet to hire. It also anticipates where they might be for health insurance when they come in. So, somebody might come in and we don't know what their family statuses and we are building a budget. You understand my question though. You know with the enrollment and the students who have IEPs and what each class looks like that you actually need all of these teachers or is this section breaks? No, this is this is if if the projections are after the CSSE recommendations, this is what we would need. This is for based on
048the CSSE recommendations and projected enrollment or actual enrollment. It's it's based upon the projections of the actual what we would need, but I don't have the actual CSC recommendations, but it was in consultation with the teachers and I have a close sense of what those recommendations would be unless the parents are against them. Okay. Those were the number I'm I'm sorry, Bill. Sorry, did I I may have misheard it. I thought Goose Hill had a need first grade. Yeah. Why is it only 50,000 up there? I would think it would have been a bigger number. Currently, we have a part-time teacher there. So, we're basically correct. Thank you. Thank you. I've had many parents complement the program. It's a great program. I'm thought it, you know, you really pulled it together quickly, this whole program.
049So, thank you for that. Joe, you want to say something? Oh, I was just and Christine earlier you mentioned what Sorry, Nicole. I'm looking I'm looking you you had mentioned what what we think the numbers are going to be for ICT at the elementary level. Yeah. Right. And right now at the junior senior high school are we on the cusp or we or we do need that with the recommendations? I don't think we mentioned that one. The 0.9 for the secondary is in response to the projection of the sixth graders that are going into seventh grade. We definitely will need two sections uh for seventh grade and the core subject areas. We are looking at eighth grade very closely based upon cse recommendations. We did have some new entrance come in. Uh so that's kind
050of tipping our percentage. So we're closely looking at that. But it's a it's it's a range. I would tell you honestly from what I'm looking at right now between a 6 to a 0.9. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Sorry this may be another not great question but how much would you have needed without the ICT? I assume you still would have needed some of these resources if it was like the the pull out model. If we were unable to pro if we were unable to do this full model which basically if we were able to approve this then we are in a very good place in regard to having it across all of our schools. Um, it would be more of if the board wants me to look at just doing full-time, just say upper grade
051level and keep certain grades part-time as as a special education teacher. But oh, so are you are you going to say the same thing, right? Are there people who are doing pull out, right, who wouldn't be doing pull out then because of this? Will these be saving money in another area where that's what I like maybe let we may not need as many aids and assistance in locations or so there will be some savings in regard to teacher assistance. Okay. So we're looking at the support staff um and there are some support staff that may not be needed for example in Lloyd Harbor or Westside but we may be moving them to Gruso. Okay. because that would be important for us to know also I think that's where the money was saved the entire budget
052right so that's important for us to know too just looking at this um certainly what that saves money well spent but are we saving money somewhere else you said moving though right not eliminating right we're not eliminating all but I did put in my detailed budget the the savings in regard to the the TAS that we anticipate not having next Yeah. Um, last year you gave us a few options. Is there any way you could give us some options here for the uh, ICT program expansion? Like if we did add the other classes but didn't do the full-time, what would that look like? I thought the options were just if the kid what school we were going to put them at. I don't think there was options on this. The options last time was in
053regard to uh what grades and what school we were proposing because we were looking at seeing if for example Lloyd Harbor was going to be housing the ICT was the original uh discussion that we had and then based upon the feedback that we received from the community and the board approval we decided to do programs in both schools but we did base it upon the grades that we felt was needed. So we are continuing to make the commitment to our families that in Westside for example we have third, fourth and fifth. So they're all going to be moved up if they're recommended for ICT. So that's four, five, and six. So we have to make that commitment for the sixth grade. Second grade would be the one new um grade for Westside. And I can
054share with you unlike last year uh where Lloyd Harbor did have more of the incoming uh second graders this year most of those families are westside families. So we are closely looking at Lloyd Harbor second grade because that number is small. Uh it's about 3 to four. Uh but Lloyd Harbor does have a significant number of students going into second grade. But it's still included for second grade in this Lloyd Harbor. Yes. Okay. I included everything. So unless the board wants me to go back and you know change the full model into something else, I'm more than happy to do that. But this will be my recommendation. So I've got another question about the math coach. Sorry. Um with the reduced class size in seventh and eighth grade, which I think would be amazing. We're
055adding another teacher then right there also for math. So, at some point, do we need another math coach at this point? I mean, I guess there's another teacher, so maybe we need even more professional development, but and um you know, maybe our math chair wants to weigh in on this also. Um, so the at the secondary level, we're trying to lower class sizes in our math 7, math 7 pre-alggebra to make sure that we're providing, you know, targeted instruction to to our students. Um, as far as a math coach at the secondary level, at at this point, I think with a math coach and myself that we could cover, you know, K to2. I mean, I can cover K to 12, but I think it would be helpful to have a math coach. Uh, especially
056at the elementary level to to work with our teachers on small groupoup instruction and math centers. Um, more personalized learning, inquiry based learning. Um, a lot of the programs that we are piloting and looking at are more of uh what's called building thinking classrooms mindset which is more inquiry based teaching students how to think uh so that when they get to state exams and they may ask that question in a little bit different manner um they can respond and um you know answer the questions appropriately. is sorry this is a really bizarre question and you don't have to answer it but okay is there any data that where schools that have a math coach or a literacy coach where the scores wind up being better down the road like or does it help with the
057performance long term? I I I don't know the answer off the top of my head. I would have to look at the districts um to see who has math coaches and who doesn't um to be able to answer that question. And then there's so many different variables, it would be hard to say that a math coach specifically is the reason why scores have gone up. Okay. And I would say that Oh, I'm sorry. No, I would because I'll forget. I'm correct me if I'm wrong. I think some districts that are bigger, they don't necessarily have a coach, but they'll have like a math director, a math a literacy director, like somebody almost like subject almost like what you do, Nicole, right? But for I mean, when I came from West Iceland, which is probably it's
058about twice the size of this, there was math director, there was a science director, there was an ELA director, there was a social studies director. So yes, in some larger districts they do have um directors for each specific subject. Specific I mean I if there's not enough focus on science, would it make more sense then to not keep hiring more math people and have you do math and then look at bringing in a science, you know, at some point we just keep adding people because people don't have time to do their jobs because they're doing seven jobs. But it seems crazy to me that like maybe you shouldn't be doing seven jobs. Maybe you should be doing one job well and somebody else should be doing one job well instead of having 12 people do
059seven jobs together. I don't know. Does that make sense? It does. Yeah, it does. Um, you know, you know, in those larger districts, you have much larger staff. You know, when I was in in West ICE as a science director, I had almost 40 science teachers because I had two middle schools. So I But here where we have declining enrollment, we're breaking our classes. I mean, it's like literally people say it's like a p it's almost like a private school. It's like a private school now. Now it's like rolling out these class sizes next year. Welcome to private school. like are we coach? But it's really do we need another person to basically be the math chair and another person to be the literacy chair when we have people in the position to be chairing
060those departments or are we doing it wrong? Doesn't Mr. Oor have a math position? Mr. Oor is doing five of AIS, Academic Intervention Service, um as a a math provider. I think that's a good question is how are you dividing up and what are the roles? If you look at the two coaches, they're directly for instruction solely. That's their job is helping have continuity across the district. Nicole is saying she can't do cse meetings because she wants to help coach it. Yeah. Right. It's not just that I'm tired. It's that it doesn't make sense. No, it's it's a lot of I mean doesn't make sense. Okay. No. to want to continue and and and have as best we can and having the right instruction and the best instruction. It takes time and and people and
061we want we want to put money behind instruction and behind the wonderful people who work here and we like really think the teachers do a great job. It's are we not looking at the bigger like to Mark's point, are we not looking at the bigger picture and continue like we've already and I just feel like a broken record a little bit that we keep saying why do we keep adding positions when we could be spending more time breaking the classes and now we're breaking the classes but we're still adding positions. So it's I feel like a broken record. The way I look at I love that we record these meetings because you can go back and look at last year's and see that you are like a broken record. Yeah, go ahead. The way I
062look at the board is we're not educators, experts, planners. We that that's the we have backgrounds more than others, but we have an administration supposed to be experts. They're supposed to bring to us the blueprint with data to support the rationale behind that blueprint, not throw stuff up on a screen debating a math coach. Honestly, this is I know we're doing it this way. This is not the way to do it in my humble opin. Well, forget humble, my opinion. And um this is really uh seat of the pants um it's a mess advisory and and frankly uh I don't think it's I don't think it's the right way to do it. I don't I'm I'm not going to use certain adjectives. We'll leave it at that. So um look, sounds like we're adding support,
063which is great. It's a proposal to add support. proposal which the clock is ticking right very Yeah. So, but does this um is this the entirety of what we're changing um Miss Costa like or are we going to get to are there other things we're doing as a district or this is the change from last year's budget? These are the changes. The other changes you'll see to the budget are um whether they be contractual collective bargaining arrangements um you know we do our busing contract is now secured for the next 5 years we did RP those are normal like but I'm talking initiatives this is these are the initiatives these are these initiives unbelievable okay so I'll leave it at that when it comes to the special ed I know that this is a new
064program right so and we are building it oh the ICT program that's the one thing that we've discussed I'm talking about the CS. So in terms of the CSSE chair, yeah, you know, that is something I see to be beneficial because we are building a huge program now like this is, you know, a full-time every possibly every grade. I I personally think that that But it's kids who already have Oh, because to to make sure the ICT classes are going along well. Yeah, that's a good point. But when I look at like a math coach, I I don't I don't know. I think I'd need to know more. Well, to Mark's point, it's not tied into the goals. We have goals over five years that we're trying to get to. And I would be fully
065supportive of these things if I thought it would up the performance level and the education of the kids in the long term. I'm not I didn't hear that yet for Mr. Taylor for which from the math position. Yeah, specifically as an example, right? Yes. C can we talk to how the literacy coach has helped Jen specifically? Yes. I mean, we I'm just going to go back to the data presentation and and I can certainly come more if you have deeper levels of questions. I'm happy to go back and and bring Well, we didn't know to even have questions because this was only presented to us when we asked what and this isn't I'm not saying because of you, but this was only presented to us when we asked I asked what would happen if we
066didn't raise taxes at all at all. And we were told, "Well, then you'd have to cut the following positions." And we were like, "Those positions don't exist yet. What do you mean we'd be cutting them? Who are they?" So, that's how we got here to this meeting tonight. I just want to go back to the idea of and I appreciate that. Thank you. Uh the in terms of coaching I don't look at coaching as a permanent position. I think it it ba not that I think it's based on need and we are seeing that our teachers need support in small groupoup instruction particularly and in mathematics we are hoping we're trying to get to center-based instruction centered instruction and we're getting there for literacy and we're seeing the benefits we're seeing that teachers are they're
067trying and they're they're trying because they have support with a coach who can model and teach with them. So, we are seeing the benefits and we're also seeing our students scores go up. And I believe if we can strengthen those instructional processes, we can get to, you know, one of our goals. We're trying to increase our rankings so that the stronger the instructional practices of our teachers, the better it will be for our students. So, I believe that a math coach would be and I said beneficial. Is it a need? No, it's not a need. Can we make do without it? We can. However, would it be helpful to our teachers to advance their instructional practices, to strengthen their instructional practices? We believe so. We believe in the power of small groupoup instruction where they
068can get to know their kids better. Use the data to formulate those groups. We're not just picking numbers out of a hat. Not that they're doing that, but groups are not formulated randomly. There's intentionality. So, we are seeing I don't have, you know, data prepared tonight, but I but I'm happy to put more information together, but I'm telling you it's not a need. You know, can we can we get by next year without having a math coach? Absolutely. We we're proposing it because I feel at this point in time, especially with with switching to a new math program, that it would be helpful. And have we seen the new math program? Say that again. Have we seen the new map program? No, because we're still undergoing the pilot. So once the pilot is concluded, we
069will be presenting to the board. Okay. Have since like I guess over the last couple of years as the scores have improved in math and English, have we also devoted more instructional time to math and English than we had in the past? And now all like and that kind of ties into our earlier conversation, less social studies and science, but for the No. So we we didn't take away from social studies and science to increase the math but we had we we decreased health and we inc we decreased um there was going blank but we decreased other other areas okay we did so math was increased from 40 minutes to to 60 so they've been having more sitting time in those subject in math and English so that also could be yes that also could
070contribute to an increase in scores like if you're doing the same thing more English was notre English was always two periods plus they have word work time foundations in the morning for grades K through three. Okay. But so the ELA block has been the same. It's only the math that has increased. And teachers have been thankful. And the reason we switched to the 60 minutes at minimum is to encourage our teachers to run a math workshop or to run math centers that they'd have a full block of 60 minutes to do that. that was to support the drive to get there. Um the literacy coach that we have, that's a full-time position, correct? What does that person do during the day? She has a schedule every day. She gets one prep and a lunch like
071all of the other teachers. So, she's um she's working with the teacher, she's either pushing in modeling, she's co-eing with them, she's meeting with them in a small group to show how to use the data to support the instruction. So, it is a it is like a true full-time position. She's high fully scheduled every day. And so, a math coach would be similar. Yeah. Well, it depends if if you're seeing that, okay, to some extent we did. It doesn't have to be a full-time position. You know, I could also find a way as a backup plan. We have um our AIS coordinator who has 08 of the coordinator responsibility and point two right now where she is seeing a small group. So we could even if we think outside the box as another option, we
072could utilize that AIS coordinator who has a math background serve as a point. 2 coach, math coach to help support the new roll out of the the program and still keep her point8 for the AIS. That could be something that is considered. And so you see these um positions as temporary. So, how much longer do you see us needing a literacy coach given the progress and how long do you see us having the math coach? So, the literacy we are entering phase three next year and phase three is so we we're starting with K one and two for the first time this year. We're continuing with them next year. So this this here is the initial training for them and then they're going to put everything into practice next year. So I would say at
073minimum um we would need a literacy coach for that year and I would say one year beyond that to support our K12 who would be finishing their training next year. Um, but again, I it's hard to say because I still I would still need to look at the data and see where we are. And to me, it's based on need, but I do feel like it's I believe it's making a difference. Um, again, with the math coach, you know, we didn't have a discussion. I'm very glad we're having this discussion tonight. I'm happy to do it. This is really helpful. We just have questions because we were told if we don't increase your taxes, the math coach is getting fired. And who's the math coach? Who? And it turns out we don't have one. So
074that was we felt like we don't have any information to move forward with decisions properly, right? So it would be a new position. It doesn't have to be full-time. It could be part-time. We could utilize our AIS coordinator as I suggested. But I do feel that having a layer of support for our teachers, especially in rolling out a new math program, you know, for grades K through six, would be very helpful to the teachers. Did any of the teachers who were around when Common Core came out, did they say, you know, this, you know, that possibly that could have helped them then? What having a coach? Yeah, they they always love they h first of all with our I'm not going to mention names, but our liter they're very happy to be working with our
075literacy coach. It has helped them to feel more confident. It has helped them to talk about their mistakes openly because it's a it's a confidential relationship. So I do have bi-weekly meetings with our literacy coach because I'm checking in with her to see well okay and certain information she shares with me is confidential but we work together to support who's who's not um who's perhaps not getting there and we try to differentiate where someone may need more coaching than others. And so it's not just everyone's getting the same amount. We're also breaking down where is the need. Uh so right now for example we're spending we're doing another cycle with grade three because we thought there was a need. So it's not just a blanket everybody's getting x number of sessions. Every time we meet
076we're looking at our data to see you know which students are still struggling and and which grade levels do we need to give more support in. But the coach is constantly in motion constantly in motion. And some time is also carved out for her to further be trained. So, with the consultants we're working with, we have hours dedicated to our literacy coach to meet with the consultant so that she improves her coaching um abilities when she's working with teachers, learning how to talk to you, how do you navigate, she's still on the teacher line, you know, but she's reporting to me. So, you know, where we work together, but we have a trusting relationship and that's really important. And so the teachers have commented, they feel very close with our literacy coach and feel that
077they can experiment and make the mistakes and try something again and that's that's what we want. That's a true PLC that we want happening professional learning community. Thank you. Could could we also see it, Jen, as maybe not just ending in a year that maybe one year we go down to a halftime and then a quarter because we see some people may need or new staff are coming in for that professional development. Absolutely. And as I said, it should it should be based on on the need that we have and that that's why it was proposed because we see this as a good time and we've been, you know, Mr. Taylor and I have we've been working on sending teachers to conferences for for math centers. So, it's not that they're not getting any of
078it. Um, but we we just feel that we could strengthen those instructional practices if we had someone in place for for the period of time that would be needed. Do the coaches help with curriculum writing or crafting exams? They can. Uh, that's not currently that's not currently the role of our of our literacy coach. But not to say they couldn't. I would say our literacy coach is involved in committees. um she has joined our elementary report card committee for example because she has the teaching experience and she wants to bring her I think Heather's question though probably was we pay teachers to write curriculum was that part of it and so then if we are paying somebody for this position are they going to help to defay some of that cost that goes into or
079could we have more extensive um curriculum writing that's integrating the you know the two two elementary schools together because I know that's one of our board goals to have more consistency across the buildings and also a better integration going in from Goose Hill to the elementary school, from the elementary school to the high school, those transitions. So, are they aiding in that consistency? Are they creating benchmark exams that are standard across the building? Well, not we're not there yet. And and we we worked on we're working on math right now. So the alignment between both buildings, we have the benchmarks in place and and Mr. Taylor can speak further to that. Uh but yes, we're trying to create common assessments to strengthen the alignment between particularly the two buildings, west side and Lloyd Harbor. But
080the the literacy coach hasn't taken part in that. That's been our humanities chair who's been doing like who's in charge of that effort. Yes. And where are we with that? Would be our director of humanities, but our literacy coach is a teacher. And should there be curriculum writing, it's not. We could have her work on something curriculum writing related during the day. Absolutely. That skill set she could. But if it's outside of the school day, she's going to be compensated like all of the other teachers who write outside of their within her skill set, but that's not really how we're utilizing her. Correct. Time because her schedule's fully booked in supporting teachers on their instructional practices. So to remove her from that setting to write curriculum, we just feel that we're getting more bang for
081her buck by having her work with the teachers during the day. But she's more than happy to support the teachers on a curriculum writing initiative outside of the school day, but she would be compensated for that. So can I ask Miss Costa, so the $1.7 million figure, how does that work? Do you say we have a bill a million7 and then you go and backfill programs or do they suggest programs and then it comes to a million7? What's the process? Well, we meet starting approximately December after the after the budget we it's cabinet meets with each budget builder which are the principles and the directors and we sit down oneonone and we go over their requests and when we leave that table like me particularly I go back and hear the words that they said
082like Dr. Shimp is a perfect example. I hear the words about the program and the needs and I go back and I How do you know those needs are aligned with the goals of the board? Because we have goals. One of them is to increase the ranking of the school district. So you have $1.7 million to deploy. Is is this the best way to deploy it to increase the ranking? I'm not saying these are not worthy um additions. We have a finite number of dollars to deploy. I I just don't see there's a a lot of in I'm sorry and I I'm just trying to understand this process to see if it makes sense. I'm not saying these are um not worthy. I'm learning as we go. That said, um are these our top priorities
083in in in the school? And if so, does this bring excellence in education? Does this increase rigor? Um, you know, is this is this how we're going to take Cold Spring Harbor to the next level? Well, these are the additions that we have put forward for your consideration for you, you know, after meeting with our educators to say I is do you agree board? this is what we're putting forward as with price tags on them as the as our do you stop at say it's okay this is going to be 1.7 or like how do you do it from your end in terms of crafting a budget well I listen my job is to listen to everybody's desires so they stopped at this and then it came to 1.7 this these are the programs that
084that's that's the whole wish list right there to bring excellence in education sorry okay yeah that is the wish If we don't increase our taxes at all, that is $1.6 million. Is that right? That were a little less, but yes. Okay. So, what was the was this what was it the cushion built in? Looks like this year's budget will turn out to be. Do you have a projection on that? The additional surplus? I don't have an estimate for the surplus for the 2526 budget yet until we begin to determine what final 24 year. Oh, current year. Uh, last time we did an estimate and we spoke, I think it was a meeting or two ago, the estimate was $3.5 million. We're currently at a range of about $2.5 to $4 million right now. So, you're
085factoring an increase off of a budget with a surplus. You're factoring in off an inflated number, not the actual cost, right? Yes. We build the budget based on inflated number. Okay. And but how we can't we don't know how inflated it is. We do we do know how inflated it is and it's actually on another slide here. Um which is why we have been asking to see things without a tax increase because we could probably do all of this if we approved it without even increasing our taxes without going over our budget. Is that accurate? You could appropriate additional fund balance. We can look at that slide if you'd like. Right. Yeah. Yes. You want to go there? Yes. Could you please? Yeah. Wait, before we do, I just had I had one more question
086that we didn't get to and it's just there was one more purchasing resources $95,000. What's that? Sure. Um um Mr. Monister and I met and all we do not have a dedicated purchasing person in the district or resources. So, as we move forward with different So, it's another position. It's we haven't determined the exact way that we're going to meet the additional needs of some of the purchasing um changes in the district, but we are identifying that we need dedicated resources to do some of that to to get what better pricing. Yeah, better pricing, write some bids, um be able to we sorely need that. So, it what's the projected return on that extra expense? So, we're going to spend money to save money. What's the projected savings on hiring somebody? question. Yeah, we you
087don't know. We And why would you hire someone if you have no idea what the projected savings is going to be? Because you're hiring someone to save money, but you have no idea what the savings is going to be. Doesn't work like that. Well, we would have to keep track of that after the person, but the but the board has asked for comparison purchasing data, which we would need to do that. We need to do that work. It's a position. It's a position. We just found out. We just found out. It's another position. I'm still scratching my head that this is the entire wish list of this school. And we we heard last meeting some wonderful ideas and and and um that I think would be of great benefit to the students. Do those is
088that just me writing stuff down, people talking, or do we actually ever contemplate introducing some of the Mr. Dan Busky had great Actually, everybody that got to the mic had great ideas. We need more storage. Is that that's not addressed, right? I mean, none of this none of those ideas which many had merit or all had merit, we could argue in addition to this. So, like I'm just and I'll stop saying it. I'm I'm really disappointed that this is how we build a budget where you meet and then you come and then we're but it's not if you look go back and watch last year's January meeting. It's not this is not this is not how it's typically done. Okay? And we've been given the wish list of the big items in advance. Last year
089the board had a wish list of items as well. And then we saw what it would look like to have them in the budget to not have them in the budget. And we did not get that with these this year. We were just told that they were in the budget. So, and with no explanation. I want to say we should not get to the end of March and find out that this budgets on inflated numbers. Yeah, we talk about that every year too. Um, so can we see Christine then the following slides where it shows us what we can afford? Sure. Thank you. So if you agreed that this is the expenditure v budget that you were going forward with agreed with that, this would be um this is a 0% tax levy and that
090would be your expenditure total $82 million. and the board can make the decision to designate additional fund balance to so that we're bal we have a balanced budget of expenditures to revenues and that that is a decision that the board board can make that would support all the expenditures um in the budget. So just regarding what Mark said um like Mr. uh Dr. Barnes had asked for like $25,000 uh for Westside. Was that included in the changes to budget? Everything that Dr. Barnes asked for in his budget development is in his budget. In his budget, but the changes to budget. Yeah, they're in they're in the budget. Not not the extra not the extra items when they talk about what but what Mark is talking about is other stuff that was like if you had
091in your wildest dreams. I said be aspirational because we should be aspirational in our thinking. That's a good question. And then we should build out a three-year plan. Like Mr. Danuski said, "How about upgrading food uh in the high school and junior high school?" Well, that's good. Maybe kids won't leave campus. It's safer. Um they're here more. They're there. You have better food. The I hear the food's not that great. I'm going to go for myself and try it out. Well, and if we have somebody looking at what we're spending, maybe we don't need to spend $8,000 on a panini machine, right? That breaks all the time. and and and if we gonna if we're going to upgrade it, maybe you have to do that over four years and phases. So, it has to be
092in a budget. Um X amount this year, X amount next year. That's planning. That's forwardlooking. You know, I don't I I don't know if we're doing that. Maybe we are. Maybe. I'm not understand. You're correct, Mark. You're absolutely correct. and the overage every year. It's irresponsible, I think, to the taxpayers in this community to say that we're going to run out of money if we don't increase our taxes when we are over 3 to4 million every year. I I it's not honest. It's irresponsible and it's our responsibility to the taxpayers to have oversight over this. So, I just want a a real straight answer with the budget. Or we can take that 3 million and actually Yeah. Or and we could we could actually increase our taxes and do great things with it and have
093something to show for it too. That said, but increasing our taxes to continue to have an overage is an embarrassment. But you do want a a rainy day fund somewhat in case something we have three.5 million. I didn't say and if we don't increase our taxes, you'd probably have I mean, Christine, I'm We'd still have $1.5 million, $2 million. And you could do all of these things. Is that correct? You you you can appropriate additional fund. Back of the envelope. Say it again. That's my back of the my head's my envelope right now. But yeah. Yeah. from a from a from a perspective here, you can appropriate additional fund balance and you will still you will you you will still have a surplus. Yeah. So the designated fund balance um that would be the aggregate
094of where we might draw down on some of the funds that were already established in prior years with the excess money. So for example, well why don't you what's the 1.2 million? Where does that come from? Sure. That comes from that comes from every you know if you notice in 2425 and 2526 that is the budget that was adopted and we used of our fund balance which surplus falls to fund balance at the end of the year that is us deciding to use $1.2 million of surplus. If you decided to use another $1.6 million it would go from 1.2 million to 2.8 8 million and you would be designating um some of your your surplus next year. You'd be using it for the the building of next year's budget. How much can you squirrel away
095every year? They allow you to reserve like in keep like I'm sure there's a limit, right? There there's there is not a limit other than one reserve has a statutory limit. The teachers retirement system reserve. The other legal reserves per general municipal law do not have do not have a legal limit per se. But the controllers's office, our independent auditors come in and look at us. Uh the controller just left last year and um our independent auditors come each year and they appine on our financial statements and we have not we have not gotten from them that our reserves are as you're using the term over a limit because there isn't really I don't know if there's a limit or not, but didn't we have like years ago like what 14 million in reserve or
096no? Was that something else? The $14 million number I think you're you're referencing is what we used for the CDA case. Was that a res was that a reserve? It was from multiple reserves and fund balance how we find. Can you go to that page which shows the reserves? So you can keep going and going and just keep reserving and have a $14 million reserve and that's all taxes that were collected, right? But never spent. Is that So if if you look at this this slide, Mark, one of the reserves that you're talking about is um You were yes or no though to his question. That's a yes or no question. Ask the question again. Ask the question again. Mark, so the the reserves that are accumulated are just taxes that are collected but never
097spent, right? That that are put away for specific identified purposes. Well, what are they're not act okay? They are specifically earmarked, but there's a cushion in them so you're not spending to that full level. That is correct. That is correct. Well, those fund balances only show up when we have an excess. Correct. So, they're they're earmarked in theory, but they're not earmarked in reality. But fair enough. All right. As long as then they do this all the time in other this is customary, right? They other districts are building 10 plus million dollar reserves. Yes. For our size budget on an customary. Excellent. Okay. So, one of your questions, Mark, was about the cafeteria at the high school. Yes. And that is an item, but we would be considering a a renovation to a cafeteria. It's
098not a general fund expense. It's a capital fund expense. And that's really um a use of our capital reserve. And we would determine, let's say the cost to renovate was $2 million the cafeteria. We and and the board decided to move forward. We would ask them to vote on using the capital reserve to fund the renovation of the cafeteria. Is that where's the capital reserve on there? It's about fourth down restricted for 8.6 correct uh million. So capital improvements like Miss Cosme stood up and spoke about needing additional space at Goose Hill or that would be on her grand wish list. You'd be using the capital reserve to do that. And then that capital reserve is a different reserve from the other the $14 million reserve we had years ago. That's different from the capital
099reserve. The $14 million reserve was a number of reserve the public voted to liquidate the capital. No, forget we liquidated. I'm asking are there two reserves? There's the capital reserve and then there's that other reserve. There's other everything on this page that says the word reserve at the beginning of it title reserved for reserve for are all the different reserves. So when we drew down the $14 million reserve, we still had a capital reserve. We still had a capital reserve. Oh, interesting. So we're we're really packing it away every year. It was a plan, the capital reserve, the liability reserve. And you see that you see that bottom line called unassigned that bottom line unassigned. We agreed to we agreed to use that reserve. I I have no problem with if we're collecting money and
100then getting a return on it for the taxpayer. If they don't have kids in the district, they're getting the return in the sense that the school district's amazing and their house is worth more and that's their their contribution and for the kids. But if we're going to collect money, um let's have a blueprint and a plan that's thought out that is based in in good um grounding. And we're not trying to figure out if we need a math coach or not. Uh you know, at you know, 10 of nine or whatever. And let's let's have a real process. And the board goal should be part of the sitdown process, don't you think? because absolutely the otherwise our goals are are kind of meaningless. We're we're communicating goals and we're supposed to uh at least I'm
101striving to deliver on them which is why I'm asking questions like this. So I will stop I would say adding the the ICT and lowering the class sizes is it does it's putting two teachers in a classroom right is definitely striving to improve a ranking because it's going to better educate our kids. I definitely support that being a part of the school. What what about what are we doing for gifted kids? What are we doing for you know there's so many different aspects part of the look lowering the class sizes for seventh and eighth grade. That's what we did. We added those honor classes at seventh and eighth grade have an IEP and be gifted by the way. I'm not saying I look I'm not saying that. So we we added those classes to help
102kids who won have an acceleration in seventh and eighth grade and that was shown with the seventh and eighth grade classes. I I hear you. I I I'm guess I'm not fully versed in this so it's a little frustrating uh to me but I will take responsibility. I I should have rolled this out sooner and had discussions with you. I I really take that as my responsibility. My fault. I think there has to be Thank you, Joe. I don't think we need to decide whose fault it is, but it's but but I am superintendent and I should have been more ahead of the I think the frustration is just that here we are in March with little information on these proposed added positions when we we pretty much came down hard last year saying we
103didn't want to keep adding administrators if we could add teachers and break classes and have the small classroom instruction. But it was helpful to hear Jen explain why a coach is needed then to help you know facilitate um further highlevel instruction even in the smaller classrooms. I thought that was really helpful which is why we should have these discussions. My concern in addition to having very little information about the proposed um items and I can't believe I'm saying this again in the same meeting is just that I still to this day feel like we don't get a real answer about how much money we actually have, what financial position we're in, and whether or not we need to go to the taxpayers for more money. And I feel very frustrated as a board member that
104every year I begging just for a transparent answer about how much extra money is projected in the budget and do we really need to keep increasing taxes because that is something that people are upset about every year and it's in perpetuity, right? So every year the state is going to up the taxes to a tax cap that they have their formula for and then the following year's tax cap is on top of that. It it it would be nice some years to go flat, go to zero, go to 0.5, go to one, especially when we're running at this much of a surplus. And if we need more space, I have one more question which is that temple across the streets on the market. Has anyone talked about it? Yeah, we don't we we had a
105little discussion if if we want we want to use that as maybe so why hasn't that come to us? I I think we just discussed it briefly. Okay. Nothing as a reality. How much is it? Yeah. How much is it on the market? I think 1.4 million. All right. Because that I mean that's the kind of thing we should be talking about here. We shouldn't be sure if we need more space. If we need more space and we're square feet is it bigger and it's going to cost I don't god knows what with our architect to put an addition on a building like let's look across the street. They don't tell me they need new bathrooms. But to what Mark's was saying in Alex as well, it's really not a question of are these not
106good ideas or interesting ideas that we need more information about, but are there other ideas that touch on other areas, facilities, updating things, um different programming, more extensive programs? Should we be discussing a bigger universe like when we're having these discussions? We talk about bigger picture. Can you move the district offices across the street and make this all goose school? Right. I mean, and that could help long-term plan. Yeah. Some I mean, I mean, why aren't we thinking bigger? We have the resources. That's what I think. But you need planning, you need vision, you need vision. And um I'm It's like we're always behind the eightball. He said, "We're doing the budget looking 3 ft 3 in in front of our nose and good budgets are built over a multi-year period with vision in phases
107and I don't I maybe it's going on if if it's going on being well hidden. So why don't we ask for that starting next year multi-year budget and tied to goals if it can? That's the way to do it. I think so. So that's myut. It should be aspirational. We may not be able to do everything, but at least we see it and say, "Okay, not this year. Maybe next." And the building heads when they their asks shouldn't be at the podium when asked by a board member get they should be allowed to put whatever they want in their asks. Um, and maybe they're allowed to, but if they don't feel they they, you know, I better not ask for this ask, right? Put a pie in the sky area, right? And we'll figure out
108if we can pay for it or not. That's how you take a place to the next level. So much money. And you know, I got to tell you, I driving through our high school. We have so much money, Christine. And it's filthy. Like the grounds are filthy. That wall that as you're leaving the high school, I mean, I don't know when the last time that was cleaned. It just looks like no one takes care of this place. And I don't understand how we're spending this much money. and bleachers are dirty, the walls filthy, carpets outside the building are threadbear. 80 something million dollars we spend every year. So I can't imagine that with all the money we're putting into all the facilities people that our campus should ever look like that, right? There shouldn't be
109moss growing and filth. Can I ask a question? Um the Okay, I have two questions. One is the security if I see it went up 50%. Is that because we hired Yeah, we saved on the consultant. Yeah, we saved on the consultant, but we went up. Yeah, it wasn't one for one, but Well, what you would know, but it there was an offset. Yeah, it was because of we didn't use covert anymore. Okay. Up to the salary. Can you talk to me about this oil situation here? I know we had problem with the tank. We took a tank out, right? They dumped the big tanks because I'm just looking at the numbers and now we pay for oil like every week or something. Is that what you said? Every few days about the capital Yeah.
110the capital construction. So when the oil tanks were removed for the um high school science wing edition of the science wing, the tanks were under where the science wing now is, those were removed. And the original plans for the bomb that date back to 2018 and 19 when it was voted on was to move to gas. So a temporary oil tank was put in. Now that's most likely not happening. So what's going on with those oil tanks? Are they do they We still have the temporary Is this Are we wasting money on this? Is this something that we should be Well, we still have the temporary tank. You know, we need to But how how big is the temporary tank? How many gallons is it? 1,000. So, we have to get it filled every 3
111days. It's approximately every What would a 1,00 Is a 1,00gallon tank like what you'd have at your house? No. No. 275. Okay. 27. Okay. So, like four houses. How often do three houses? Four small houses. Four average size houses. Yeah. Because it was only supposed to be temporary tank. And now that we're the temporary is like a year or two. This is how many years now. So, now we move into phase four of of the bond and we make those final decisions on what we're doing. We will, one of the decisions that um will be placed in front of the board is if we're going to stay with oil, we need to go to a permanent um a permanent tank that's larger than a thousand gallons. And is that in this budget now or it's
112in the bond issue? That money would be So, is it in the bond for immediate action? I mean, we're wasting so much money on these deliveries, aren't we? We would still need oil delivered. I mean, we'd still need oil. It was supposed to be Don't you pay at a higher rate? Is the rate different for smaller oil deliveries? Is it buried? Where is? Yeah. I think so. We don't get charged extra for a smaller oil delivery. It would be the same if they came and dropped off thousands of gallons as opposed to a thousand gallons. Okay. And what's the rate of oil that we're paying right now? I'd have to check the Yeah. Can you let us know? That would be great. Thanks. Are we on a flex plan or a fixed price? Do you
113know for oil? I'm sorry. Are we on a flexed or fixed price for oil? Our price has changed. Well, it increased by 8%. Right. Oil. You're saying this year's costs for oil went up 8%. pop. Yeah. Go ahead. The increase in oil, the increase in oil is in part because we can't predict what our temperatures are going to be and what our our oil needs will be. And we do historically plan for usually a few percentage increase in our oil because the prices do change. We we don't have necessarily full control over that, right? and and that's what we have done historically and and this goes back to other districts I'm in and and that's the way we've always operated. And Kate, we also have the additional square footage of the science addition also that
114we're seeing all those utility costs. So let's just say what is the answer to this? Are we addressing those tanks on the roof? They'll be addressed in phase four of the bond where we will make some of the final decisions on how we're moving forward with the bond. the level that most likely it's okay. Okay, got it. It will be started, you know, soon. We all have to get together and we're finishing up phase three of the project. Actually, we're going out to bid now for some of the stuff in phase three and then we will um phase four is supposed to be the wrap up of the bond 2019. Can I ask um on a different topic, I the word fencing has come up a couple times. Is there fencing in the budget um
115in this budget? Because there was discussions about fencing in the security, you know, subcommittee meeting. And I said at that meeting, we don't want to pay for security theater. We want a real rationale for that. And I never got it, but I keep hearing about fencing and a lot. It's in the budget, right? But so when we ask for things and we say we we want to support it like are am am am am am am am am am am am am am am am I wasting my time or are people actually going to follow up?" Um I am not interested in us putting sporadic fencing around. Someone can walk around the side. I mean some of the fencing um like a real gate at westside might be value added. I'm certainly all ears about
116that. I've talked to people about it. I actually talk to people to try to find out what makes sense. Mark's asked a lot of times for information on the fencing. So, as a board directive, we want information on the fencing. Thank you. Um, and service dog might be a stretch, Dr. Barnes. I don't know if we're going to do that, but that would be great. But it's going to be a lot of work to find a place for housing and they they need to eat. Um, but some of these initiatives that I mean I I I guess we're going to have to wait till next year to do this process and and and really incubate ideas and craft a budget. Um, right. That's going to be how we're going to do it. So, I'll just
117stop at this point. Um, I already said that before, but I'll do it again. On this account here, the tan interest on tan, just make sure you're speaking in the microphone. How large is that? Like, how much money is in that that we're collecting this? What are you looking at, Kate? What sheet? So, we can look That's an expense, right? Interest on she's in her binder. Is that interest on tan? earned interest or paid interest. I don't know. I don't know where you are in it. What presentation are you in? I'm on page 19 of which tab of expenditure budgets? Curious about this. So the TAN expenses uh TAN stands for tax anticipation note. Yeah. And we don't begin to get our property tax money in from the towns until December. So from September to
118December, we have to borrow money to make our payroll and other expenses. So we do that every year. It's every year. It's an annual thing. And the amount fluctuates. The amount we borrow fluctuates a little, but really what fluctuates is the rate. And so how much do we like average do we borrow? About 12 to 14 million. About 12 to 14 million. Wait, we're borrowing when we lend it to ourselves. Right. That's what I was going to say. Can't we borrow from ourselves? We should lend the money to ourselves. um bond council has appined on this that that money that which is reserved for a specific purpose. So we pay is conservatively not to be used for other purposes. That's just an opinion of bond council. So we pay we should we should explore that
119more because that's one council and there are the US government does this all the time. Every dollar of social security has been loaned somewhere else and there are districts that do it Bill. There are that that there are districts that do it cuz it costs a significant amount of money to borrow that. Couple hundred. It does. How much? Couple hundred,000. Yeah. Yeah. It's a lot of money. Yep. And we have a surplus and we you Yeah. Right. I guess our surplus wouldn't cover it, but could we use our surplus for that? Yes. He's saying we should be borrowing. Yeah. It's all the money talked about last year at Flushing Savings and the other Yeah, I think investments. We'll get that. Okay. at a short term. I mean, keep finding money. Let's see what else we
120got here. So, and it looks like our um insurance went up 10%. Is that about 14% is the estimate from um is that just because they're raising is there their claims in our history? Yes. together. Most districts went up about that that percentage. It was a similar increase last year. Wow. Yeah. You know what about you know the the Washington trip costs 930 dollars now. I just wrote a check. I it's part of you know it's it's part of their education and the parents in this district um probably generally have means but more may be struggling than than than we appreciate and that's not all right. I mean, I wrote a check for Model UN allin. I don't know that was $600700 when you're done. That that's that's a club you could say or whatever.
121But the DC trip is part of your education. So, I think uh and again, that's just my opinion. I don't know if the board shares it, but we should be supplementing at least some of that trip at $930 is a lot to ask a family. Um yes, Mark. It's something we asked about last year, like can we stop nickel and dimming the community on things like trips and plays and I know we talked about how we have to pay for the costumes for the plays, but if it's like a Lloyd Harbor play and it's everyone's doing it, it's not just a small group, but even if it is a small group, what are we doing with charging $75 to people when we have all this money or or $900 for a trip that they're required
122to go on as part their education, right? I mean, they could maybe claim hardship, right, and get support, but how maybe the family doesn't qualify for hard, but it's a it's getting ridiculous. And I mean, or maybe you read the email wrong and fill out that, right, Caitlyn? What check the Anyway, I could definitely I Did I do that? No, we I I will pull all the trips that we do. We could separate clubs and then like DC that are separated what those costs are. We can see what we can do to include them. I mean we don't have to pay the whole trip but at least let's supplement some of that. Maybe cover a third or whatever. I mean I think enough is enough. Um what the people pay a lot in taxes and
123they should get value for their taxes. And um you know even Westside Westside's a wonderful school. It looks dated. Um it shouldn't Westside gets the least attention of any school in this district. You know I I I like going there cuz I feel like I'm in a time capsule a little bit sometimes. It hasn't changed since I went to school there. Right. Luckily still on the wall. The education is not in the time capsule. It's excellent. Um thank you for that. But let's um you know let's let's spend our money efficiently and and and I'm not putting you're you're not the arbiter of all this. I'm not blaming you. Um you're the keeper of the money. So you're you're in the front line there of uh but I'm talking in general we have to think
124bigger picture and think it you know where can we save money? I I probably should do what Kate's doing and go line by line. I'm sure there's a lot of nonsense that shouldn't be taking place. And uh to to to Kate's point that everything should look pristine. Um sorry, not Kate, Alex's point. Um you know, and and there's no but it's just like the high a high expectations. We have high expectations for everything. And it's like that broken window theory, right? like the place looks like a mess and then it doesn't show kids and parents that we respect the school. We've got all this money here. I I just don't understand why we're not putting more into our capital projects in a really conservative and thoughtful way as well as education, right? and the instructional
125piece and I do think the proposal for instruction when walked through it makes a lot of sense but we need the information so that we can make good decisions and support the decisions right and maybe the list can be longer too I mean I is this everything so I mean that's I don't know and I don't know if this is the best deployment of the capital either so that's what I don't know I'm not going to find out tonight but that's what I would like to know it certainly would make me feel like um you know I'm doing my job properly. Can I ask another question? So pro program students with disabilities obviously that's I think one of the biggest is special education that's special education because this number isn't the same as that number
126like this one it's a little different than the 60. Yeah. Yeah. It wouldn't correlate exactly to this Kate. No, it includes those items plus the regular staffing and other things that are in special education. The reg, you know, students that are in programs, students that may in special placements or out of district placements, it includes the ongoing things that are happening. These are the additional items and that includes the CSSE chair that it's it's still it's in there. So, at this point, do we need more information to make a decision? Something different. We can't make any decisions in a work session, but does anyone have any other questions for this work session? This was really to prepare us for the next board meeting. So, does anyone have any other questions that they'd like answered before
127we get to any requests we have for the next meeting? So, if we decide like to add um um a provision to to supplement like the Washington trip, would that be done at a next meeting or did Christine have to We could say you could we could say to Christine, could you please price out for the next meeting what it would add to the budget to cover all half and a quarter of the Washington DC trip, please? Okay, that would be great. Thank you. the Washington DC DC trip. Are there any other Are there other Philly? Do parents pay for Philadelphia? I'm trying to remember. It's not as much. I think I I think I did write a check. The parents just are paying for themselves $91 uh per parent on the trip, but the
128district covers the cost for all of the students, but parents are required to come, right? DC trip is the only one that parents. may possibly one that parents pay for. Sorry, it depends. There there are some trips I don't have the the spreadsheet in front of me right now, but there are some trips where the parents maybe it was brought up before paying for part of something and the the trip if is it complicated to say if it's a trip that is a required part of their curriculum. Yeah. And we are asking families to pay for it. Can we see what those cost and what we're I I don't think there's a lot of those are there. No, for the most part. Is it just Washington DC and Philadelphia? But Philadelphia is just the parents
129paying because we right we we pay for the other. But so is Washington DC the only trip I would need to if there's anything else we'd like to see that have been students who didn't go on the DC trip. But but you don't have to but the DC trip students who don't if if it's a financial hardship that we cover that for them. So some students don't go just because they elect not to go not to go. So we could look at all field trips. Those are non- club separate out. So the field trip that would be DC where like you mentioned model UN would be a club trip. So we could divide field trip. What about robotics when they compete like in is that covered by the school? That's a club. They have to
130pay. They pay they raise and they they actually do a lot with donations and the school actually did pay a portion of that. did last year. We did when they went all the way to the world. We rented the van for them going up to Albany. Mr. Bunino, when lacrosse or when the girls basketball just went to states, who pays for that? So, um, Mike, do you want to go? Yeah, come on up. Also, we saw your haircut or I saw your haircut on the internet. Yeah, yesterday. I saw I saw your haircut um live on the internet, but I'm glad to see it in person in in about half hour. Oh, that's so exciting. Molly Zerak is uh going to make an announcement winning the state championship. So exciting. Congratulations. Um um so the
131New York State tournaments uh that we are fortunate to go to. It's paid by two sets of people. Uh section 8 covers the transportation. Okay. and the hotel rooms for the athletes and the coaches and myself I guess if I'm going um we food is the Seahawks booster club. Okay, thank you. So is there some trip there's like a lacrosse trip or something that parents have to pay a lot of money for. So that's a Okay, so girls basketball chose to go to Florida state champion. Yes, girls basketball. So exciting. But before they won that, they chose they chose to go to Florida. Okay. The boys lacrosse team is choosing to go play a couple games up in Westchester against some highquality opponents and they do that every year. Every year and it's always been
132um a parent or a team paid for trip. They don't have to go. They could have non-league games here. That's the difference between the state tournaments. Okay. Thank you. I knew there was something. That's It's about $900 though. Is that right? Is that my understanding? The lacrosse trip, does it cost that much or not that much? No. Oh, okay. In my mind, I thought it did. Clo less than five. Oh, okay. Less than five. Okay. Less than $500. Okay. We cover We also I know it's bigger picture, but there's a lot of fundraising that goes on, but we try to reduce the cost in all respects. Okay. Thank you. But so anything that's curricular I think and required would be I think of interest to the board. Does everyone agree? Yes. Okay. Um is there
133anything else anyone wants additional information on before the next meeting where we actually can take action on items? So I know we have a couple of different scenarios. Does anybody see the need for other scenarios or do we want to narrow down the ones we have or just leave them? I I don't know what the next step is on narrowing into a an increase in tax levy, right? I how do we get to that next step? So, this presentation here actually shows you a little bit in more detail the three scenarios, I think, as opposed to maybe there were six before. Yeah. But is there a question that you have about looking deeper into any of them in particular? No, I guess uh procedurally we just decide in May or in April um what we're
134going to which one we want as a board, right? Yes, that's correct. Adopt the budget. Yes. Yes. Okay. So, and one more thing. So, that 1.2 million that was what we voted last year with the excess. At the end of the last school year, we had excess money and we said put 1.2 million towards this year's expenses. Yes. When you adopted the budget. Yes. That's what you agreed. Yes. And so you're suggesting that out of the three whatever million we could do that again. You would be you would be in this scenario on the screen which is the zero. You would be doing the one two and you'd be adding the 1 million579. Okay. Okay. So Christine, we're going to get more information on the fencing. Yeah. We're going to get the information on the
135trips. We're going to get information on whether or not we can borrow against our own money or borrow from ourselves rather than spend that money which then would give us more money back into our budget. Is that correct? The tan. Yes. Um okay. I had one more. The we we forward um we pull forward some things like alert us we did. Mhm. Um, yes. Why don't we pull forward on that 1.7? We still have a surplus. Why aren't we pulling forward some of those expenses and reducing the 1.7 in the coming budget? Some of the things that we pull forward are things we can buy now. But if the contract and the service is going to occur in the 25, we can't from an auditing perspective and an accounting perspective. It has to be expensed
136in that year. Understood. Thank you. And are there any So the capital projects would not be part of this budget. Is that right? Or they would be they're not part of the general fund budget. They're not part but so just forformational purposes I think it would be helpful for us to have a better understanding on the house across the street. And is anyone else curious about any other capital projects that like a westside improvement and Well, I was just interested kind of to Mark's point specifically with capital improvements though. What's our long range plan for these capital improvements? And I think that's especially important if we're looking at reducing that cushion which sometimes we may use for capital projects. So what is our long-term plan? What what do we want to do this year, next
137year, five years? Maybe more detail on that. Well, can we have a working session after we get through budget on capital ideas? Yeah, that gets late into the because the budget is well the this would be outside the budget, right? Outside the budget. So, right, we may need to do it I'm not saying concurrently, but just not in relation to it would be a good meeting. It would be a good meeting to have because we could look at both capital and bond to move forward, right? Because there's bond work and it's probably something we should phase every month or every other month have to see progress on. For the bond, this is so much work. I'm so sorry. Okay. Um, but for the bond, there's work that hasn't been done and money that's still there,
138but it has to be anything that was voted on in there. or it would or it would have to go to the public to vote on it to use it somewhere else, right? Like if we were like, well, we have $2 million here. Let's redo the cafeteria. We can't just do it. We'd have to go to the public. Is that right? Yeah. We we actually have to consult on like even the Kate's question about the oil tank or whoever asked the question about the small oil tank. There is a question that we will have to talk to the state and bond council if we move to a full tank that let's say is much larger because we're going to stay with oil whether our um whether the details of our legal notice would allow us
139to do that or we would have to fund the additional um oil tank another way. But in the end, if we don't, you know, use all the bond money, it it it there's a process for that. That's what I thought. There's a process for that. Yes. Okay. This is totally You're going to think I'm crazy. I hear that it smells really bad in the Baloid Harbor School. Does the SES bowl need to be taken care of? Smells bad. We're in words of that. Oh, that it smells like several people that should look at that. It smells like sewage back there. Yeah, they do. Flush. You talk about how can you pump? Oh god, that's not I mean I know we're talking about moss growing indoors. I might as well very good question the retaining wall.
140It look at it when you drive out of there tomorrow. So we do cesspool maintenance and and uh maintenance on our septic systems. Right now we're looking into this. This is become something that's more recent to me. So I need to work with the architects and engineers and see where our overflows are and get and come up with a plan. This is something that needs to be handled as a project that's of larger scale because it could include unearthing some of the uh Yeah, but if it's does it just need to be pumped out? Oh yeah, we are doing that. We we're in a plan now, but we're pumping at a higher frequency. I mean, I'm I'm not, but apparently people are when they're in the back on the playgrounds when it rains out some
141of the overflows at the areas that are filling up. We are pumping often and we're getting maintenance on throughout the district. But this is something that I want to bring to the attention of our architects and engineers because we want to get uh you know more professional advice on that. When was the last time it was pumped there? Everything else? Uh within the last two weeks. So shouldn't smell. Well, that that's unless there's a leak like a pipe is leaking. Does it? Well, you may have to remove solids, too. It's not just pumping. Does it smell in the school? Right. Not in the school. Okay, that's enough. Thank you, Mr. Wman. Yeah. Well, I just don't I don't know. Okay. So, on that note, charge of that committee. On that note, now that we reached
142solids in this update tank, is there anything else anyone wants to discuss in this work session or are we ready to call it an hour? So, the the lighting on the upper turf, come on. You think I'm going to let you go before midnight? Um, the lighting on the upper turf, is that in the budget? Cuz I thought we needed some lighting, right? No. Yes. Like anybody? I don't remember any lighting on the I think that's facilities, isn't it? Yes. But I want to So, so that wish list vision was a walkway um of lighting the upper turf. There's a lot of background to why there's no lights on the field. That has to do with housing and neighbors. Okay. I would love to see lighting to the for our exit out. We're on board.
143I think I mean maybe I can't pro I'm one person but but that was a vision. I think we all probably um support good lighting storage. We need you need storage. We want we I want you to have storage in my regular budget. uh as well as the in fieldhouse scoreboards which is that's budget extra storage is in this budget in my enough storage uh for yes enough storage for me I mean turf on the oh that's west side turf on the outside oh yes I mean that's not where turf where do you want turf uh Mike do you know that where the um on your way to the creative learning lab in the library a glass hallway and there's some concrete and there's the white wall and there's some tables outside. The vision was
144to have an outdoor learning space in that in that section. That that's the slate there now. Take up the slate and put down turf. Is that what you're saying? Is that the slate there? Were you talking about the slate? Well, beyond the grass going so having something using that space onto and then replacing some of the grass with turf. Okay. on the same level as a glass hallway or down? Yeah, down. So, not that level below. Understood. So, something like that would have to be in the capital budget. Capital improvement. Y Okay. Last year, we were we given a list of things that we could that people wanted that we were able to use what was left from the 23 24 budget. We Yes, we were, right? like we were able to pay for crew
145and we were able to pay for the wind screen. Um we weren't given anything like that. Those were the um equipment that we moved from one year to the next. It um one of the meetings we did speak about those items that equipment that was in the 2526 budget that we're moving to 2425 and using some of those resources. But even the prior year it was really equipment based items, the wind screens, whatever did that prior year. So I think that's a good point too. there's anything that we think we can take out of the future budget and pay for this year that would be helpful to know. Thank you for also making me say it. Thank poor Lisa in her voice. But Mark put his jacket on so let's take this opportunity to end
146the meeting. Yeah, that's right. I'll let you off. Thanks Mark. Um no really I thought this was really very helpful. So thank you all and Christine. Sorry you're in the hot seat for this but thank you territory. Thank you very much. Um, can I have a motion to adjurnn? Uh, bill second, Heather. All in favor? Thank you so much. Thank you everyone. Good night.