Haldane Board of Education - March 17, 2026

001All right. >> So, welcome everybody to the March 17, 2026 Heling Board of Education workshop meeting. Um, I'm calling the meeting to order. Please stand for the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> President Clemens >> here. >> Vice President Valentine >> here. Trusty McNall >> here. >> Trusty Copper >> here. Trusty Clemers >> here. >> All right. So, I don't think we have any changes to the agenda. So, can we may we have the recommended action to approve the agenda? Be it resolved that upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools, the board of education hereby approves the agenda as written. Uh, may we have a motion, please? >> Second. >> All those in favor?

002>> I. Any opposed? >> All right. So, welcome everybody. The board gotten spoiled this year having people come to our meetings. Um, so the next meeting of the board of education is going to be on Tuesday, April 7th here in the middle school high school library at 700 p.m. We'll have a presentation on the elementary school visit that a couple of board members did back in January, but that got rescheduled because of the snow. um as well as continued budget budget presentations um as the board moves forward with that. Um I'd like to remind the community that petitions are available in the district office or by contacting our district clerk Megan Shield for people who want to run for the board of education. There is one open seat this year. That's my seat and I'm

003not running for reelection. So definitely we're inviting uh people to learn more about being about board service um and to certainly consider running for the school board. Um that vote will take place on the same day as the community votes on our budget which will be Tuesday, May 19th, 2026. So that will be for the budget propositions as well as the trustee election. Just want to back up a second to the um availability of board of education trustee candidate petitions. Um people who run need to run need to get one of those petitions, fill them out, have folks sign them, and turn them into the district office no later than 400 pm on Monday, April 20th. Um just a couple other comments um for me. Thanks very much to Dr. for hosting, Sha Mcnal and

004myself for the middle school visit which we're going to get the middle school report tonight and thanks very much to all the faculty who welcomed us into their classrooms. I actually realized today that I owe a thank you note um but we really appreciated that and I think as thanks very much to Maggie for sharing with the board. Um, we just want to recognize, and I wish he was here, one of our ex officio student members, um, Max Sanders, um, who is the Heldane, uh, graduating class validictorian, which is super exciting. It's going to be so fun to go to graduation. Uh, always is, but fun to see one of our members graduate. Um, and that's what I have. Dr. >> Thank you. So, I'll keep my comments short because we do have a nice

005jam-packed agenda tonight. Um, we are going to be adopting a revised calendar for 2627 and hopefully the white stuff, the snow is gone for the school year. It's been quite a year as we all know. So, I just want to again thank the community for patience with the weather. We have no control over it, but really our students and staff rising to that challenge when we went to remote this year. So, when we get to the calendar part of the agenda, I'll talk a bit more about that. um very much looking forward to middle school report tonight. So just a thank you to Maryanne and her staff. It's always a pleasure to go into classrooms and something that we're always trying to highlight for the board is when you visit you often during board meetings

006and hear different reports, you know, what the budget supports, but to actually go into classrooms to see the programs come to life is always very welcome. So thank you to Mary and her staff. It was a pleasure to visit and I'm, you know, very much looking forward to your report tonight. You can highlight some of those things. Um, spring sports have begun. It might not feel like spring weather yet, but we are hitting the ground running with all of our great spring sports. So, I'm looking forward to visiting each of the teams and getting the sense of meeting some of the coaches who have not met. Um, my goal is to meet each of our coaches before the end of the school year to get to know them a little bit and understand their coaching

007philosophy and things that they might consider and also of course to support our students. And then last but not least, we have our high school uh show this coming weekend. I think I'm on deck for Saturday night. looking forward to celebrating our high schoolers as they do all things Lance. So that's my report for now. >> Okay. Thank you very much. Um all right. So we're going to move into tonight's workshop presentation which is um the middle school the cliffs. >> Thank you. You St. Patrick's Day everyone. >> So, good evening and you know, thank you so much to Dr. Duffy and to the board for the opportunity to highlight Pal Middle School. So I really appreciate that opportunity and you know as Peggy said we had the pleasure of having Peggy and Sean doing

008a walkaboutat with us to see the interdisciplinary student centered authentic learning that is our culture really at the middle level. Um, so it's good to hear that it was enjoyed. And just to talk a little bit more about that, you know, some of the this slide highlights the teaching and um teaching methods and some of the examples of what that looks like. But some of the things that Peggy and Sean saw um techniques included project-based learning, choice, some research in the eighth grade classrooms, lots of opportunity for communication through collaboration and group work. And one of the benefits of learning this way and teaching this way is that students are coached to self assess and to peer assess. And there's a lot of research that shows that that's a great way to learn. Just giving

009a minute because I know I didn't read the slide. So this year the middle school every year the schools set goals and this year the middle school goals were really collaborative goals. None of these four goals that you see are things that I worked on on my own or that middle school faculty and staff worked on on our own. These are all collaborative goals. So um the first goal was the school reconfiguration which um is the last step in in a lot of changes meant to be proactive in response to declining enrollment and increasing opportunities for different different educational um uh experiences for our students. So there's going to be another slide on this one, but there have been monthly meetings with teachers. There's been scheduling work with our school counselor. There's been um the

010identification of resources uh that are going to be used. There's been logistical issues like will there be cubbies or will there be lockers there? What rooms? Um and there's more of this on another slide. The campus master plan which the board has been being uh kept up to date on nicely. You my role in that is really to be a cheerleader and a liaison and a steward of the work. And I think that that's really important because there's we're we're receiving information at the administrative level and the board is receiving information at the board level, but even like and of course that information is going to the community, but even our faculty and staff like keeping them excited over being nervous about the work. It's like when you're going to do like a kitchen renovation,

011right? like how am I going to cook where you know so all those questions and keeping everybody excited over um the end product and what the goal is going to be for that. So just really looking forward to that and really excited that um we're moving to that next step of the bidding process. And then the third goal is again a collaborative goal developing steam really in our district right so my role in that well how can we strengthen steam right now in the middle school and how can we plan for the future so the fifth grade next year is going to continue to have science enriched steam programming. So, that's something that um the teachers identified as being important and working well. And since it aligns nicely with this goal, it's something that we're

012going to support and continue. The addition of a sixth grade steam elective, a standalone steam elective, the continuation of our discover, create, and innovate uh electives and rotation at the seventh and eighth grade level. And then curriculum development with ongoing curriculum development K12 you know so to develop that scope and sequence. And then lastly um creating and align uh science assessments with partnering with our consultant Dr. Joe O'Keefe who's been working with the science department um assisting with sequencing and alignment of the units in grades six and seven to prep for bio and then all grades to meet the next generation science standards and prepare for the new regions exam and address any gaps and challenges. So we're work toward all these goals is going along nicely and like I said is a collaborative really

013a collaborative effort. So just a little bit more on the configuration which I know I did update on this in January but or October but so you may have heard some of this but just a little more on the 58 configuration. Um the fifth grade will operate on the same schedule as the secondary schools with modifications to accommodate the unique needs of younger learners namely less transitions minimize transitions. So, and our the rotation, especially since the middle school and the high school are now aligned, there's a lot of rotations. It's a double pin wheelel drop schedule. That's what it's called in school world. Um so, it's a lot for younger students to get used to. So, the fifth um and the fifth grade will have less transitions and um they'll also fifth and sixth grade

014will have a dedicated lunch and recess. So, I know that that was I think a big concern like will fifth and sixth grade be with the eighth, you know, seventh and eighth grade for recess and lunch? They're going to have their own dedicated time. It'll allow for them to have a little bit more time for play, which I think that we would all agree that kids need. So, um excited that we were able to make that happen. And again, this is all in collaboration with Miss Jam because all of our lunches have to work together in order for there to be enough time to serve all students. and we're all sharing space as well. So, um, speaking of work of Miss Jam, you know, the culminating elementary year that the fourth and the fifth grade

015will have their own separate moving ups and all of their, um, usual highlighting events for, you know, marking the fact that they're moving up from elementary school to middle school. And there will be a parent night on May 7th at 6:30 for the rising classes. is the teach teams of teachers will be there to talk with the parents about what um they can expect as their children move up into the middle school and there's also a beautiful frequently asked questions document that um Miss Shields pro uh prepared and put into the website so um that is all available and teachers continue to meet as a matter of fact our ELA teachers met today to go over um the both the read literacy and writing components for next year. So speaking of academics, just a little

016bit about, you know, to like hone in on literacy and mathematics in the middle school classrooms because those were the classrooms we focused on for Peggy and Shaw's visit. Um, so you know, in ELA, housing students are definitely readers. um indep independent reading and choice are embedded into all the ELA classes. There's creative writing elective. Um the and in the mathematics curriculum there's grade level mathematics, there's acceleration in algebra and then also this year we added financial literacy. So um that's a little baby scaffold to what like you may have heard that the that um the state is now requiring financial literacy. So, we thought, why not add a financial literacy elective that would give a scaffold for the financial literacy that the children are going to do when they're in high school? And seventh

017and eighth grade students could elect to take that. And Mr. Virgino was teaching it. And they're learning about the stock market and they're learning about compound interest and they're learning about all kinds of amazing things um in that new elective that will continue next year. So, you know, part of the way to do this is to order offer professional development and professional learning for our teachers. And aside from teachers participating in the science of reading PD that we've had over the years, over the last few years, um Mr. Mr. Verjidamo and Miss McCullum went to the innovative schools summit in New York City this year and they learned a lot about traumainformed instruction which I think is important even even in a district where you know overall our kids have stability and you know we

018have a solid socioeconomic status um trauma sometimes doesn't know any bounds for those things. So, it's important to be able to know how to um reach all children and uh not mistake disengagement for disrespect and to know how to approach and reach children who maybe aren't um you know, sitting up as straight, you know, with ready to learn. How do you, you know, how do you reach all children? and also AI um was represented in that summit in um technology for schools and um those two teachers turnkey that information at a faculty meeting. So we really appreciate um the support for professional learning in the district. um is just so important and you know through through all of through all of our academic work we also are constantly looking to see and taking the pulse.

019This is through team teaching. Right? This is one of the reasons why at the middle level having a team of teachers working together is so important because the team of teachers comes together and if a student isn't writing in their science notebook, the science teacher can ask the other teachers and say, you know, is this student producing writing in ELA class? Well, they are producing writing in ELA class. Okay, so maybe it's the content of science and kind of be able to diagnose what um is needed for that student to be able to in this example produce writing in all classes. Um if there is a gap in learning that's identified through discussions with teachers, classroom based work, state testing, um our universal screener for uh academic progress in in math and ELA, we might

020offer academic intervention services. And the resources that we use for those services we found very effective in closing gaps for kids. And it's really important to close those gaps as early as possible. I mean, ideally, you want to close gaps really as early early as possible. But if the kids still have gaps by middle school, we definitely want to be prescriptive about that. So we use um preventing academic failure for reading uh which is uses a lot of different phonics strategies and close reading strategies and also self-monitoring techniques for readers um to close any gaps that they have in their literacy. And we also use for both reading and math and is a computer-based program that's adaptive. So, it's very personalized because as the child is working on a particular skill, the computer will either

021offer them something slightly harder or something slightly easier based on how they answered the last question so that they can really um work in a targeted way on closing gaps. So, I just wanted to share that because I don't know like that's something that we you wouldn't see from walking through the classrooms that this is what's happening for those of our students that are struggling and have to close gaps. So, how do we determine who's struggling and having to close gaps? I alluded to it a bit in talking about in the team approach and discussing. Um these are state scores that the board saw um in Josh Elders's presentation in January. And this is one of this is just one of the piece data points that we use to you know triangulate and make decisions

022about what students need academic intervention services. So, um, if you remember, if you're looking at this and you're like, why does math drop off in the eighth grade? Just remember that the math statistic is skewed because, uh, it's only showing the number of kids that sit for math 8, which in our district is usually less than half. Um, most of our more than half of our kids take algebra in the eighth grade. And this is showing proficiency in the state tests. And if you took the kids that took algebra and took how many of them passed the algebra test, it would look more along lines with the other numbers. So, you know, just pointing that out. But we use these numbers. We use them to provide additional make decisions about data informed decisions about instruction.

023So, who to provide academic support to um to promote future academic success and also who to accelerate, right? So we and we try to um I'll talk a little bit this more in the acceleration slide. We try to create pathways to acceleration rather than barriers like uh hoops to jump through. So we want to make sure that we're really opening that up. But we also want to set a child up for success. So we offer we do offer acceleration in math, science, and language at the middle school level. And this year we are experimenting with all students being enrolled in the um accelerated science. So we'll see how that you know that's we'll see how that goes. This is interesting to see. Um, and also too, the alignment of the middle school schedule with the

024high school schedule does allow for more opportunities. If, let's say, a student transfers into the district with already having completed a higher level of science or a higher level of math, there might be the opportunity for them to stay in sequence because there might be a high school section that can accommodate them. That doesn't happen very frequently, but it's just another benefit of what we've done with aligning schedules. >> So, Miam, so this is the year that all the students are taking, eighth grade students are taking living environment, >> right? So, we'll see. >> Yeah. >> Next year. That's great. That was it. >> It's going to be Yeah, it's >> was a good year. It's a very small class, eighth grade class. Um, so it was a good year to make that move. >>

025Great. >> Can you talk a little about the world language that's at the bottom there? >> You can mention that. >> I was actually going to ask about that myself. >> So, we don't not open comments from the from that. Um, but um I you've asked the question, we can have Marian do that. Yeah. >> So, so exciting. And honestly, like I think you you when you think about your careers, right, and you think about the work that you do every day, there's everyday work and then there's work that like stands out to you as something that made a systemic change. And for me being a uh an advocate for increasing the sequence for world language is one of those things that like you know when I'm old and I've been retired for 20 years

026I'll be like >> you know that I'm proud of that. So and what I mean by that is when uh when I started here nine years ago um our students had their first exposure for world language in seventh grade. And it was a high stakes exposure because it wasn't an exploratory class. It was the students chose a language either Spanish or French. And it was the first part of a credit bearing sequence, the second part being in eighth grade. And then the students take a checkpoint exam that gives them a high school credit in that whatever language they choose. And it is still that way. But what for now um but we're having discussions and again you know this is another collaborative ef effort with a lot of good minds on it of because there's

027a schools different do it in all different ways their oral language sequence but for now what I'm really excited about is that um that I was part of advocating for there being a scope and sequence that starts earlier than that. So with the hire of the board's support in hiring Madame Tanner, what was three years ago now? Um we were able to have exposure for world language start from fourth grade. Um and in sixth grade there's a full exploratory course for world language. And so now kids when they get to the seventh grade, yes, they're still choosing um and yes, it's still a high stakes choice, but they've had three years of exposure to world language before before making that choice. And also like in addition to like that piece, there's also the piece of

028just the cultural education that comes along with education in world languages and the fact that our children now have that exposure and that education as early as fourth grade. And Madame Tanner doesn't just expose the kids to u French and Spanish. She also at the younger grades is exposing them to um Japanese, American Sign Language. She does culture units, you know, in different for about different places around the world. So, it's really um it's really a much expanded scoping sequence and something that I'm really very proud of. >> Yeah. I mean, and just to highlight, you know, that it the at there had been years, especially in the 20110s where when the tax cap was first implemented that Helane had to cut back on its world language, right? So, in terms of eliminating at least

029one position, right? And so this was really an effort three years ago under the leadership of the administrative council and superintendent Benante that to bring this back in like that was one of the pro you know when when Dr. Duffy is talking about programmatic enhancements that have happened over the years. Bringing in not just hiring a person but creating a new position is is is something that um you know the district did a few years ago. Yeah. >> Yeah. It was such a beautiful thing to be part of advocating for that. Yeah. And and when we did that hiring process, we were very we were very uh purposeful to try to find somebody who really had a wide range and the you know had the elementary certification for world languages and was willing to develop

030a program um and build out that scope and sequence because because it had been so long it had been so long since anything like that. >> Yeah, it had been a long time. Yeah. Um, that's great. >> I got a couple questions. I I was gonna wait to the end, but yeah, now we're kind of now question. >> We are in question. >> Wow. All right. Question mode. Uh, so off off this slide, you have uh culminating in the New York State Reg exam. If students do poorly on that exam, but took the class, what will they need to do? >> So, >> say they pass the class but don't pass the regions. So if they pass the class but don't pass the regions and they need that regions for graduation, they can retake it.

031They can take the regions in high school. >> They'll just retake the regions. Will they be taking a lab class for that or just >> Well, they have already banked the lab hours. >> So it like an AIS class, will they be taking some type of remedial class to try to remember the the material? >> So they'll they'll be in the high school at that point. And the high school has different methods for remediation or methods. So I mean I don't I don't know if Miss Nipple wants to come up and speak about that now or answer it later but just basically um if a student is to just the same way that the all schools >> right the elementary school, middle school and high school have these methods for identifying students that have gaps

032or challenges. So they're similar but not the same which is why I'm hesitant to just say oh well what they do in the nth grade is x y and z right because I they're similar but not the same but there's a process to >> but they may not need the exam anyway for >> right depending on what got yeah >> and even and even not to cut you off but also even less so as we move into these new pathways. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Yeah. Uh if if you could back it up to the slide that has um the math scores and you you said we're we're pulling out our students on the grade eight, but then you have the comparable schools. They don't pull their students out for grade eight. >> Schools do one

033of three things. >> Well, how about the schools that we're comparing ourselves? >> Yes. So schools do one of three things because they all those all comparable schools don't all do the same thing. Oh. So some schools they make all of their kids take the math aid exam. >> Okay. >> Whether they're accelerated or not, >> right? >> So >> like what we're doing with with the living environment. >> No, because our kids that are accelerated right now, they're not going to take the science aid. >> So housing for this school here will have >> no children no children taking the science aid exam. All children taking the region. Some schools uh because because of this because they can't because they can't justify these numbers, they make all of their kids take the cash. >>

034So their kids that are taking algebra will take math aid even though they're not in the math 8 class >> and they'll take the algebra exam. >> Gotcha. >> We New York State flag report. >> Correct. I got you. >> We at Hazane value not over testing our students. >> Gotcha. We we we believe in assessments. We believe in the eval of assessments, but to have a child sit for a test that they're not in the course for when there are enough assessments at the end of eighth grade year already. Um it just doesn't seem student centered. >> So we don't do that. But some but that helps numbers, right? That helps numbers look >> good because all of the children are taking the mandate exam. Some schools, some of our comparable schools don't accelerate

035>> in in eighth grade. >> Oh, at all. >> Yeah. And some and and some schools do what we do. They have the kids that are taking math eight class take the math 8 exam and they have the kids that are taking algebra take the region. >> I got you. Now the um on that grade six, grade seven, grade eight on the English language arts. I have it like the title suggests to me that that is one cohort of children >> in grade six, in grade seven, in grade eight. >> Thank you for saying that cuz cuz it is not this is not year-over-year. >> This is last year's results. So last year's grade six, last year's grade seven, last year's grade eight. And I'm glad that you said that because at a little school

036like housing, it makes a difference. It make like in big in big schools there's you know it does the numbers are not impacted as much by the character of a grade or the number of students in a grade. Um at Haldane it really does make a difference. So um you know when you look at both of these charts for both ELA and mathematics you're not looking at the same cohort of students over three grades. You're looking at three different co cohorts of students last year. So, and you could >> got it. >> You know, for me, you know, it's like it's like the matrix, right? Like I could read it like there I know when I look at this when I look at these numbers, I see the students. I don't see the numbers. So,

037I know, you know, I know that this like when you look at last year's grade seven math results at 87%. Right? This was one of this is a really tiny cohort. It was 48 students took that test and it was one of the reasons why it was a good grade to accelerate completely in science to see what that would look like without you know without causing any harm. >> Thank you. All right. So I'm almost done. I promise. like this is so that that was that was academics and then just the last piece that I just really want to I really want to highlight um because it's just a special part of the middle school is you know and so last but not least our social emotional learning program so positive behavior interventions and supports

038PBIS is a researchbased framework used to improve school behavior and create a positive school climate through teaching positive behaviors for us our highlight behavior are teamwork, responsibility, understanding, and excellence. Although we teach other behaviors and that, but those are are true. We call middle school's true glue. Um reinforcing these desired behaviors, preventing negative behaviors, and using data to make decisions about student support. So, and what I mean by that is all the all the students receive um explicit instruction at the beginning of the year and at the middle of the year in tier one on teamwork, responsibility, understanding and excellence. And all the students are um positively reinforced for exhibiting those behaviors. And then we use data to determine, you know, are there kids that need some tier 2 support. So, for example, if um

039I have a student that's sent to the office, my data is showing that this student is sent to the office with a greater frequency than than other students in their cohort. That student might be identified for a tier 2 support, which would be a lesson with our behaviorist Samantha Fornen about like a consequence tree like to making choices or something along those lines. So the wonderful thing about this particular social emotional learning program is that not only is it researchbased and it it also allows us to make data informed decisions about um prevention for uh for negative behaviors. So and this year it's Samantha Phone who's our behaviorist and Kyle Sullivan who's our family and consumer science teacher. They are our PBIS team this year and there's other teachers that participate in that. Um, Miss

040Peroon, Mr. McCome, many teachers. Um, and all of the teachers and staff are able to reinforce positive behaviors with a ticketing system. So, we have a competition going this year. So, this year students are divided into three houses based on last name. so that it's not by grade. Because when it's by grade, like the sixth grade is you like they're young, so they're really into it. But in the eighth grade, they're like too cool for school already, so they're not so into it. But when the houses are mixed grades, it um it really spiced things up and promoted participation. So um and they compete through displays of teamwork, responsibility, understanding, and excellence. And um these symbols are symbols that students made to represent and promote their different houses. So um I just wanted to show

041you that. Just thought it was um a nice representation of the type of work from that social emotional learning program. >> And I know we've taken some questions already. I think I ask this question every year, so I apologize because I always forget sort of what the rationale, but you know, a lot of schools um in our area uh offer accelerated math starting in seventh grade. I'm just always curious, you know, is that ever something that that we're thinking about or is there a reason why we don't really >> It's something that we've talked about and I've explored going as far back to I don't know if you remember our consultant Judy Barbara that came to kind of set the table for the development of um uh director of curriculum instruction and um you know

042like at the middle Judy and I really talked about that a lot because she had spent a lot of years in Suffren and Suffren does have that acceler algebra acceleration in seventh grade. So we talked about like what would have to be what would the scope what would have to happen to the scope in sequence in order for because math is very linear logical in order for all of those skills to be represented in the grades leading up to seventh grade. so that seventh graders who chose acceleration would be prepared. And we we were we were having talks about that. We had gotten to the teacher level where we were talking Mr. Keading and we were talking with Mr. Gano um about the possibilities of that. and we talked to some other districts in the

043region uh in the regional curriculum council and there really have been mixed results about ex offering acceler acceleration in algebra and seventh grade. So um at the at the around the same time that we were getting information about mixed results from other schools, we also started to have uh increase in interest in accelerating in science and accelerating, you know, more students in science. So we pivoted to look at that. I don't think the conversation's off the table. Um you know, it's I think it's a conversation that will continue to be explored. >> Thank you. And are there not? So students are going to take students are going to miss math eight. Is there anything you don't do anything? So when my son so a long time ago when my son was in middle school, they

044sort of identified actually at the end of sixth grade who they thought would take algebra in the eighth grade and then those students took kind of an accelerated seventh grade math class where they covered seventh and eighth grade content in the same year. But that sounds like that's not what Haldane does at this point. And so the expectation really is though that by the end of seventh grade students should have could have ideally students would have all the foundational math skills that they need to be successful. >> Correct. And then and then math 8, I guess, is just sort of like for for students who aren't ready for algebra 1 is is more an opportunity to continue to to um revisit and enhance and deepen their understanding in those. >> Yes. And I think so,

045so this is my ninth year and I I came when I when I came in that it was a straight seventh grade math. It wasn't a there it wasn't a combined seventh and eighth grade. But I think that there's been other discussions both before my time at housing and in continuing ongoing discussions about like what philosophically what's the benefit of acceleration and I think in some cases there's a very clear u benefit to acceleration like for example if a student already knows that they want to go into if mathematics field or they already know that they want the like if they have a a sequence students in mind that being accelerated early will afford them the opportunity to take the additional coursework in high school to have the portfolio that they need to >> go

046into college and you know proceed with this career path then that's a very clear reason why yes in this case acceleration um students willing ready and able and also has this future forward thought about career that makes sense but I think that there's been conversations both like I said ongoing and before my time about acceleration for acceleration's sake and how we've we've seen here and I think that your colleagues regionally have seen is not as beneficial for children um that the scope and sequence ends at you know like at our level and then like okay what happens then does the child have to bridge Um, you know, is there is there um if the child doesn't know what they want to do for their career and they have all these accelerated classes, would they have

047benefited more from having a more like kind of renaissance person experience of taking electives in different areas rather than, you know, just focusing so heavily on the academics. I mean, there's a lot of philosophy behind that. >> Thank you. Uh, also just one thing just to point out like it also sounds like like almost like it sounds like you're being a little afraid of like tracking at kind of a young age by implementing something like that. It almost sounds a little bit about what you're saying, but also we're I've noticed in the younger grades because of our size, children have a tendency to um you know, when they finish something early, they they also get other work, right? Like so the kids in a math class uh they banged out the assignment five minutes working

048on it. There's there seems to be a good amount of enrichment taking place >> for those students as well. And you know to the point maybe that seems to be the model that's being used in the elementary school. >> Yeah. >> Um I'm assuming that's somewhat of the model in the middle school. Is that correct? >> In the sixth and seventh grade. >> Yeah. Kids get what they need. Yeah. So yeah. >> Gota. >> Yeah. And and you know it's interesting just I know and I know we have a jam-packed agenda that I know I'm taking a lot of time but just like a word about tracking. There is a fair amount of research that says tracking is not beneficial for kids. So like yeah it's it's almost impossible to avoid tracking altogether. That's almost

049impossible. Um but one of the nice things that I think happens at how is that all freshmen are encouraged to take an earth science. go like skip the sequence, you know, come. So, and I think that that is a nice opportunity to kind of reset some of that tracking. I I appreciate that we don't have like um tracking buckets like honors or gifted and talented and you know because on the surface like when you just hear that on surface, well, what's wrong with that? My child's gifted and talented. That's a wonderful thing. But the thing is that all children have gifts and talents, right? So to track it one way or the other is not >> is has not been shown by research to be the best. >> Right. Yeah. >> Especially when we have

050such a small school. >> You know the kids. >> Yeah. >> Um congrats to the middle school on being a um exemplar school in uh co-eing, right? Collaborative teaching. Is there is that at every grade level, every subject area? Is there a class being co-taught? Does that help? >> It's all all of our co-teers worked um with Goldman Sur and Rutherford this year. We're coaching and the coach was like the coach talked about how usually they have to go into schools and really coax teachers to you. There's a lot of different co-eing models, but the the ones that are that the ones that are ideal are parallel teaching and station teaching. and they really saw some expertise in our co-eing pairs, all of them across the board, um, in parallel teaching and station teaching and

051asked if how would host other schools that that co-eing pairs are struggling to get that off the ground. And we were like, yeah, yes, that would be wonderful. That was that's great. I um I know that the transition to moving fifth grade to middle school has been ongoing, but and you've done everything you possibly can to make sure that it goes well, but I'm curious to know, you said you find yourself a cheerleader for other staff. Are there what are the common things that you might hear? I know this is a >> abstract kind of conversation. I'm asking to reduce reduce a lot of different um information, but what are the sort of chief concerns that still remain uh as far as you're concerned in terms of the degree to which you now have a

052whole new cohort that you're giving support to, but also um from the staff's point of view? uh what what still keeps them up at night in terms of their own ability to teach and their own quality of life that's going to change as well as their chief concerns about the delivery of instruction and not the kids may or may not also be receiving instruction the way they're accustomed. >> Yeah. So, I've had to do more cheerleading in terms of campus master plan like fear like am I gonna have to move my classroom? Are they are the wires going to be cut? You know, things like that. But with the fifth grade, I think that the fifth and sixth grade team of teachers is now at the point where they're confident and their their one concern

053is that there be time at the beginning of the year, especially for the fifth grade, but also for the sixth grade, for those kids to work into the middle school schedule in a way that is not overwhelming for them. And so one of the things that we've discussed and we we always did this even before the middle school aligned with high school schedule. We had like a week or two of our straight nine days so there's not a rotation so that kids could get used to like what their regular schedule is before the pin wheel drop starts. Um and uh you know we've we've been aligning with the high school um the last two years on how long that period of time is at the beginning of the year. But one of the things that

054I've discussed with um the fifth and sixth grade team of teachers is that we can unhook the fifth and sixth grade from the pinwheel drop schedule because all of the core classes are in the morning. So it would be like running a special schedule for the fifth and sixth grade for the first two weeks of school so that those kids don't have to jump into the pin wheelel drop schedule. >> Yeah. >> And I and I think so we're working out, you know, exactly the logistics of that which are not difficult. It's just a decision to make and and then >> unhook the schedule and what schedule they'll be on. Um, and that'll afford the time because I think that that's just concerned because the fifth graders, the sixth graders, like on any regular year,

055the sixth graders need time to understand the schedule, to work the lockers, you know, the things that are really different about middle school, right? Um, so the fifth graders are going to need that and they're a year younger, >> right? And I I have a special question from a cohort of middle schoolers. I I know. Well, I I know that I know that um part of the the one of the challenges of integrating this was how to manage lunch and how to make sure everybody has access to lunch and everyone gets there in time to eat. You know, I I have a gaggle of boys who are who are really obsessed with why they don't get their snack after lunch. And I'm curious to see like in the fifth and sixth grade, do you think

056that combining I my my sense is that in combining fifth and sixth grade next year, the the the team in the cafeteria is going to have an easier time facilitating that so that >> they don't feel pressured and they're not getting all this sort of >> tension with kids who have expectations for the way things have been and are difficult difficult uh with change in one way or another. But I'm just curious like do you feel like that's a bit less pressure on the staff? I do and I'm really glad that you brought this up because I know that there's been a lot of talk about lunch this year. Um there was a article in the outlook about lunch this year and I think it's just thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk

057about that what that what that experience has been like at the middle school. So last middle school before middle school aligned with the high school had its own dedicated middle school recess and lunch. But to align nicely with high school um middle school and high school and now splitting the time the dedicated lunch period for for um middle school and high school. Now last year it worked because there wasn't free lunch for all, right? So last year there were the line wasn't as long because there were many more bringers for that bring their lunch than there were you know buyers this year because there's free lunch for all sometimes even if it's like a tasty lunch the kids like they'll even if they're bringers they want to get on the line to get some chicken

058dunkers or whatever it is right so now you have the line which you know maybe had like half of the middle school on it, having like three quarters or more of the middle school on that line. So, so the the cafeteria staff um likes to and and I understand why because it's flow, you know, they got to get keep it flow. They don't want kids to jump up on the line to get snack until all the kids have had lunch. Yeah. Because they don't want to cut into the lunchtime of a kid that needs lunch to get to sell the snack. So, it's just not enough time. Yeah. Um, but next year I don't foresee that being any kind of problem at all because it'll just be seventh and eighth grade going through and then

059fifth and sixth grade, not only will they be alone, but they will have a longer period of time for lunch. >> Yeah. So, thank you for that. >> Been a hot topic. Hot topic. Hot topic. >> Obviously, >> great question. >> Thank you so much for much. >> All right. So, now we're moving into our next presentation. Not our workshop presentation, but our 2627 planning presentation, right? Got my notes. Got my water. Good. Catherine. >> All right. Good evening everyone. We're looking forward to continuing our conversation about the budget this evening. And these first couple slides, if you've been following along for the past couple of weeks, you would have seen them. But just a quick review of our annual budget goals. So our goal is always to stay within the allowable tax levy to

060continue to provide transparent and comprehensive communication to remain aligned with Haldane's core missions beliefs and the housing essentials to maintain a safe and efficient fleet of vehicles and to prioritize operational efficiencies and long-term planning. And our priorities continue to be transportation department staffing and routing models to align with our transportation study again to focus on long-term planning for the arts, athletics, transportation, and safety. our steam preparation for our new instructional space and expanding curriculum. Continuing our 2526 budget enhancements in performing arts, field trips, our multi-ter system of support MTSS platform, and our UP cut as well as adding 2627 budget enhancements to increase athletic and special education budgets. And so we wanted to talk a little bit about the current lang uh landscape and I think Katherine and I will tag team this slide. You

061know, we have so many realities from a financial perspective that we don't have any control over and we have all of these things we want to make sure we continue to have into our budget. So we have our uh realities and bright spots. So I get the realities. >> We'll work together on as we've been talking about. We do know that right now we are projected to get a decrease in our foundation aid um or the you know the increase that we normally expect. It is it is coming in lower as of today. Uh we also have a decrease in our Boseies and our transportation aid and it's hard to make up those numbers. Um, we also continue to have increases in health insurance, property insurance, special education costs, retirement expenses, and you know, we

062definitely are at the point where our increases in certain expenses are far exceeding what we're able to increase our um revenue by. So, it's just, you know, it's kind of playing that that game a little bit. Uh we also have a a big capital project impact on our tax levy this year that we um knew was coming but it still is is feeling different now that it's actually here and real. Uh we are planning to deal with the zero emission bus mandate. Um sometimes we still hope it goes away, but we have to plan for the fact that this will be uh quite a uh financial um process for the district to go through if we do have to have all our our buses be zero emission. And again, you know, the long-term planning that

063we really need to do to keep our facilities um in shape and different aspects, you know, the building, the security, athletics, the arts, things like that. >> You want to highlight some of the bright spots? have bright spots. Go for it. >> So again, it's a collaborative effort, but we want to make sure in spite of all of the financial pieces that we don't have any control over. There are a lot of bright spots in this budget and our continued work. So capital project, it's approved. We're going to be a groundbreaking hopefully very soon. Our steam program is alive and well. We're continuing to plan for that. The fifth grade transition to middle school, this has been years in the making and we're finally at that step. So, all these wonderful things to talk through,

064continuing athletics and arts supports and enhancements. So, we can't do it all at once, but we are committed to the long-term planning of athletics and arts to make sure our students get everything that they need. Um, lowcost safety and transportation improvements. You'll see throughout the budget as well. Uh, increased funding for our UPK program, cost savings through retirement. So, you'll see in our enrollment slide that we're we're not replacing every single teacher who's retiring. We're trying to be very creative with that. And we have no layoffs for our teachers and staff, which is also just something to celebrate. Many districts around are laying off teachers because of the financial landscape that they're up against. Heldane is not, and that is something that we continue to be very proud of. You want to add any other

065bright spots? >> Those are those. >> And another great spot is we have Katherine as our business. She's amazing. Keep us on point each and every day. >> Okay. So um as we talk about the very uh beginning that I do for budget preparation is I come up with our rollover budget and that takes last year's budget and I make all the increases that are um non-negotiable. So it's uh health insurance premium increases. It's uh contractual obligations from the union contracts, things like that. Then I come up with okay where where do we have to be to start the year? And then we know, you know, we do some revenue projections and I come up with what do we have to be able to spend? Um what enhancements could we put into the budget? Uh

066so for this year, we are looking to put in $175,000 increase to special education funding. Um it's primarily based to based on making sure we are ready for any out of district placements that may come into the school year. Uh we do need to uh do give our athletic budget some love. It's been a couple years since we've really gone through the process of really making sure that all of the different uh categories in our athletic budget were um sufficient to cover the expenses with increased enrollment in teams, um new teams, merged teams, and all the different things that come along with that. So, we do have 40,000 put into the budget for uh uniforms, extra supplies, team fees, supplies for our athletic trainer, as well as the contractual obligation to have an ambulance on

067standby for our home football games. We also put in $16,000 to rent lights for fall and varsity sports to each have one game under the lights next year. So every varsity fall or spring sport will be able to have that um experience as an athlete here at housing. There is some increase in the budget for steam expenses. Uh although we will not have a fully uh functioning steam lab until the construction project is done. We do need to start building curriculum, getting some supplies, and giving some professional development to our to our um faculty for what steam will look like in housing as we move forward and to continue to increase what we're already doing for steam here. Uh we did budget for some middle school transition costs. doesn't you know it is both mostly

068costneutral to move the fifth grade into the middle school but there are some things that we need to look at from homework help that you know is done in the high school or heart I'm sorry help that is done in the elementary school and um part that is done in the high school and have it um specific for our middle school students as well as some advisor positions and you know just making sure we have any uh costs covered in the middle school transition and then as we've talked about and we'll talk about on another slide. It as part of the transportation study, there is a request to bring in a school transportation assistant. Um Dr. Duffy will speak more about that in a minute, but that is, you know, a $25,000 increase to the

069budget. But we do have retirement breakage this year because as Dr. Duffy mentioned, we do have some retirements and we are not replacing everyone who retired. Uh so between that salary and some adjustments for you know a senior teacher leaving and who we're going to bring in or what positions we're doing um we are able to make up some of this uh increase in cost with some retirement breakage. >> Can I make two comments on this slide? So, I just want to remind people for who some of this is new that the athletic light rentals are really a very explicit attempt on the part of the superintendent and the leadership council and the athletic director to provide equity to sports that play outside. um that historically the digit the district very grateful to the athletic

070boosters who have always raised money for there to be lights at the football team. But this is a very explicit move for the district to take on the responsibility of of doing this in part to to um uh well very much motivated by creating equitable experiences for students. So I just want to make that really explicit. The other thing I want to make explicit is that yes, there are this this $10,000 in middle school transition costs, but the district is this is actually a a a big way in which the district is working to be efficient, right? And just talking about the fifth grade moving to the middle school, it's not for fun, right? It's because really recognized with changing cohort sizes, there's a way that we believe that we can use our staff much

071more efficiently by combining the fifth and sixth grade, right? And then Katherine makes that made that explicit by saying, so for example, we have a a retirement in the fifth grade and that teacher is not being replaced, right? and how that allows us to do these these these other things which you know um and to stay within the levy >> limit. You did that much better than me. >> I got to listen to you do it and I don't think I did. But anyway, yeah. >> Can I can I also say something about the previous two to make two observations before? >> Yeah, this had before too. you had mentioned, you know, bright spots to zero layoffs and I I just want to, you know, that can seem rather it's great that we are not

072eliminating staff because we have a commitment to our staff, but that really translates into not only retaining our staff, but you know, maintaining our programming, having the ability to do so in a way that is humane and also, you know, >> actually allows us to expand that program. So, it really does go both ways because I know that other districts are making those hard decisions at the same time, but some of those other districts may be so large that they lay off a couple of of staff members and then they just make other people carry the load. There's no possibility for growth and you know the overall experience is diminished. And also just a clarification on what a zero emission bus mandate may be. I think I I have a response when we talk generally

073about mandates because mandates the intention of a mandate usually is someone up on the high saying that this should be a priority that you're committed to. And I want to I just want to be explicit in saying that I believe that the zero emission mandate is a path that makes lots of sense. One can make sense for it. And I think clearly what we're saying when we say we hope it goes away is what we're saying is that uh given the the economic impact that it will have correct >> it's difficult for us to be in line with reaching the goals that the state is putting >> with the timeline. >> I just feel like it's important to keep reiterating that that's the case. >> I don't want anyone to accuse us of being climate

074change deniers. Yeah, we kind of go through these things and we think it's settled. We know what we mean when we say this, but I just want to be clear. >> Well, bullet point doesn't tell the whole story. >> Absolutely. >> No, that's exactly right. But I, you know, and I think it's I I'm glad Sean said that because every time I hear someone say like we hope it goes away, I'm like, well, not everybody, you know, like, you know, and for really good reasons, right? There are many people in the community that remain very committed to the district making this transition. And I think where the district as a district can so often find itself and like between a rock and a hard place. It's like it's something that I don't think any of

075us doubt is a a better thing to do. It is a very challenging thing to do having given economics given you know how expensive the buses are, the infrastructure we need to support the buses plus our concerns that these buses may not really be able to carry the load that our current buses do. And so it's just a lot to juggle in, you know, a really in a relative >> timeless. It ties beautifully into it's an area of opportunity and growth for how to continue to talk about long range planning. We have to plan for this mandate. If it's in a year, if it's in a couple years, I know there's a couple of bills at the Senate level right now talking about maybe extan expanding the deadline a couple of years. So, not that

076it's going away per se, but giving districts a little more freedom, but how we need to plan for this. And you'll see that's one of our proposals as far as creating a capital reserve >> and we need to continue to communicate to the public about how we are planning for this, right? And how this is something that we are taking very seriously. Yes. >> So, just also on that point, uh just on the fiscal side, um New York State does a phenomenal job at creating unfunded mandates. This is >> pretty consistent that they do they are they are geniuses at creating legislation >> without money, >> right? >> U and then they pull it from local communities. Uh it is a testament to our our school district who has been able to successfully fund unfunded

077mandates with local money. Um, this is a specific >> so >> mandate unfunded by the state that definitely requires a good amount of creative thinking and timing on the part of the district. >> We're going to take you all on the road when we are explaining this to the Thank you for every thoughts there. >> Okay, >> where are we up to now? >> Okay, we're back to you. Okay. So, we do always include this every year in the budget presentation to give you a sense of staffing. Um, and so what you'll see here is we have one reduction of faculty. Again, that's due to retirement. And so, we're able to um shift from within to make sure all of our positions are covered. Well, that just gives you a nice overview of just the

078number of staff that we have. Okay. >> Can you go back one second? I'm always wondering. Okay. I need to imprint that on my brain. Okay, thank you. Appreciate it. >> Good. >> Yes. Okay. >> So, these next couple slides talk specific to staffing. The first one is the steam teacher. So, we've had a couple of different discussions now the past couple of meetings about the goal of our steam teacher. um looking to hire someone who is going to really help develop a comprehensive program of courses and electives to expand as our capital project labs are completed. And to me again, I've inherited these great discussions. This is very forward thinking on behalf of this district because the steam lab is not developed yet at the high school or redesigned at the at the middle

079school level. But we are still planning for the future taking a look at a retirement that we have in the science department and where can we hire someone that can help promote and move this work forward. So this person will help to focus on authentic learning experiences integrating the different areas of science, technology, engineering, arts and math. Help us promote or continue to promote creativity, problem solving and that real world application. And again this is budget impact. It's neutral because of retirement. So that's our steam teacher. Just some information on that. Um, elementary special education teacher. So we mentioned at the last budget presentation that we did reduce one second grade section due to enrollment. And we are preserving one of our teacher positions by reassigning a teacher to special education who happens to have

080the appropriate certification due to shifting needs at the elementary level. And again, this is budget neutral because we are reducing one elementary section and essentially uh having a teacher who currently teaches elementary education teach special education next year. So, this is our elementary special education teacher. And then this next one, we've spoken a little bit, you know, really since our transportation study um in January. And so while it was recommended from the transportation study, I'll just speak directly as the superintendent, this position is needed in transportation. Um I am really in awe of our transportation for all they do on a daily basis. As you know, we have an interim director. Um this year Dave is doing an amazing job. He's in charge of all things buildings and grounds as well as transportation. we have

081had um a rotating um person in that role in part because this person's in charge of transportation and facilities. And so while this was recommended for myification study, I'm also recommending it as your superintendent that it's needed. Um what we're trying to do is reimagine the needs of the transportation department so that this assistant can really provide that dayto-day much needed supervision on all things transportation. This person would supervise the bus drivers and aids. Ensure compliance with laws, regulations and policies. This is an area of growth for Helding. We have some areas that we have not given enough attention to and we need to. We have to be compliant with everything that the state is asking us to do. Um, also continue to help us look at our route so that when we're looking at

082a walking policy at some point, this person can help do that. The school transportation assistant is going to basically the duties of our current dispatcher be included in this position. So it's not a brand new admin position next year. It's basically taking the duties of our dispatcher now and adding and changing the title. So it will be school transportation assistant. And the budget impact is approximately $25,000 additional to what we're currently paying our dispatchers. So this is a civil service process. We will post according to all civil civil servers procedures. There will be a typical interview process. We'll see where the position lands. Um but this is how we are describing the school transportation assistant position. Any questions from the board on this? I know it's a little different than the other ones we've been

083talking about. Okay. Um, at this time I'm going to invite Dave and Tom up to help us talk a little bit about tennis courts. Um, but to start I just want to really acknowledge and I know we have some of our tennis parents and our athletes in the in the audience. This has been um really challenging to be quite honest like figuring out how the budget can support what the goals of tennis might be but also looking at our funds and looking at our space. And so I really just want to take a minute to thank all of you in the audience for your your ongoing encouragement, support, your great thinking, sharing ideas, um, and it's really helping us kind of shape where we're trying to go in the 26 27 budget, but then also

084the long-term planning. So we there's no quick uh answer to any of our space problems, any of our money problems, and our ultimate goal is to provide our wonderful students with everything that you deserve and everything that you need. And that's really the commitment that you have from the district and from the board and from all the administrators. So, I just want to thank everyone in the room, but then also invite Tom Cunningham and Dave Dave Robertton up to talk a little bit about tennis courts. At our last um board meeting, we had some questions about drainage, replacement, repair, bless you, additional courts, and we also wanted to give a little bit of update on the time. So Dave and Tom, if you'd like to come up. >> That way if we put you in

085front of here, the video will catch you as well. I'll come out of your way. >> Good evening everybody. Happy St. Patty's Day. Uh Dave Roberto director of facilities here at Halane. Um one of the questions that did come up was about the drainage. So, in talking to the vendor that we are planning on using, um he said basically what we really needed to consider was the drainage off of the wall that's on the one side that supports the turf field. Uh he had suggested that we get a company come in uh with a camera system that they can put the camera in through the drainage pipes and whatnot to see if everything's clear, see if everything's working properly. Well, because we had issues with some of our drainage pipes in one of our buildings,

086we ended up purchasing our own canvas system. So, instead of having a company come in and spend a lot of money to use their system for $300 from Amazon, we have our own system. We checked out the drainage system currently down off the turf field going onto the tennis courts yesterday and everything looks clear. Everything looks like it is working properly. Um, if you look at the retaining wall, because this was put in 2013, okay, 2013. Um, if you look at the retaining wall currently now, you'll see that there's no like it's not falling over. You don't see any type of erosion happening on our side of the wall. Um, so everything seems to be working properly. Uh, tennis courts, if you look at them, you kind of have to look at them in a

087certain angle, but if you do notice, they are slanted. reason why they're slanted is so that the water's going to roll off to one side. Um, we do have the retention pond on the other side of us there. So, as far as drainage, I mean, we will revisit it when we commit with the vendor, but currently we believe that um there is no added drainage that we will need. If you look at all of the uh surface area, one of the points that the contractor brought up was that we don't have any of what they call bird ponds. If you're looking at the surface, anything that uh might be eroding underneath the asphalt is going to contour to that. So, if you look at the surface, it it might be cracked and what have you,

088but it it all seems to be level. We don't seem to have any dicks or bird ponds on the surface itself. So, um, we should be in really good shape for that. >> Replacement versus repair. Um, you're familiar with the tennis courts. I think they they according to our, um, expert from D. The Roza, correct? Valent Valentine, right? >> Correct. >> Mr. Valentine, he stated that we've reached the maximum time of replacement for those courts. >> Um, we're we're in desperate need of repair. So, in order to do that, obviously there were two >> opposite, right? We've we've maxed out repairing and we have >> No, I'm sorry. My mistake. >> We maxed out repair. It's time for replacement. My mistake. Sorry about that. >> So, um it's important like he stated that um as

089Dave was saying um it it wouldn't make any sense for us to do any type of repair. The replace it's it's in need of replacement at this current state. uh looking at uh it it says additional courts, but one of the questions were was there any way that we can get a third court on our current location by rotating the courts or moving them a certain way. Um unfortunately, we only have the space that we currently have because you've got 90 on one side, the turf field on the other, the sidewalk and the neighbor on this side, and our retention pond. Um, our retention pond is part of our storm drain uh uh plan. Okay. Um, when our site director for the capital project was here, we were discussing if there was possibilities that we

090could have other retention ponds. Um, because currently we have the one that you see on 9D, but there's also another one on the opposite side of the turf field. And unfortunately his answer to us was these are the only two locations that we currently have seeing as that we're on a mountain. >> And he says through more advancement and more building more changing you know uh the the grounds so to speak um he really doesn't suggest us to do anything with what we currently have because that's all we have for anything that we're going to be using in the future. So unfortunately changing anything on down there. We we have the two spots and that's all we really have. >> So um timeline basically we're to move forward with uh everything goes according to plan.

091It'd be about eight weeks for completion. Um it's two weeks for access demo and and reclaiming. Uh one week for base prep, which is grading and compacting. One week for net postings because it's going to well for the net inside the courts. one week for fence boats, footings and installation that so it includes all new fencing. Um two days to install the asphalt and then uh allow the asphalt to cure for two weeks. It's actually two to four weeks depends on the weather during the first two weeks. Um during this curing per period they complete the fence work um so they don't disappear completely when we say talk about the new asphalt and all that stuff but basically it's eight weeks. Again um weather is going to play a big piece of that. Uh what

092we have in place is an alternative site. If it's not completed by the start of the season, which is August 24th, we would go off to an alternative site, which we're going to be talking with Highlands >> Golf Course about using or you that setting down there because we do use it for golf. So, we're going to check in with them so we can at least get started with the season if things don't complete on time, meaning >> on time when we start the fall season, >> right? because of funding and whatnot, we actually can't break ground on this till July one. >> So, here we are, July 1. We're eight weeks out, but depending on the weather and the type of winter that we've had, >> not sure if we're going to have a

093dry spring or not. Yes, we will see. Uh, but, you know, uh, >> we're looking to get this taken care of and done. And hopefully by beginning of September, we should be in really good shape. And so we've also been talking about the use of district uh property on Route 90. So we know um if you were involved in conversations from a couple years back when the campus master plan was first being discussed, uh lots of different things were incorporated into those conversations. And so Tom, can you just remind us just thinking through district property on Route 9, how do we currently use some of those fields depending upon activities and sports? fall. Um, we use the all of 90 property for practice locations, especially if we have a home game on the turf. So,

094um, we're relocating teams to the we have it upper 90 and lower 90. So, we have, you know, for example, we have a soccer game on a Tuesday. I'd have to re relocate varsity boy soccer, JB boy soccer, modified boy soccer, girls soccer, you know, so there's a lot of teams you got to relocate. This year we will have the use of mayor's park but still we only try and only have one or two teams down there. So we use every space possible for uh the fall season. Also for the spring season once games start we're using all different locations for all three locations for practices because you got softball. >> Um lacrosse will be using areas when there's a game up on the field. So we're we're we're using everything. Everything's being used at

095full capacity. >> Yeah. And so I know when we so we're about to break ground on our capital project and we're very excited about that. There were multiple again conversations about what are other needs of the district and this ties into our long-term planning. And so at some point I envision that we would be bringing back together a committee of community members and staff and faculty and parents and students to talk through what are our continued needs like looking back what else was discussed about during our cap campus master planning a couple years back whatever year we're in when we have that conversation and then what makes sense to plan moving forward. So, I just wanted to bring that forward as we're talking through our budget tonight because there have been multiple conversations about specific

096to tennis. What are some other options that we might be able to consider? So, I'll pause for a moment here to see if the board has any questions specific to tennis. I don't know since we haven't approved. I just wanted to just to kind of piggyback on what you just said because um Sean and I were the ones that were sort of involved in all that planning and and it was it was excess extensive planning and it was in in I can't even speak um intensive conversations with the community and we actually have that slide from I think it was 2022 or 2023 where we listed sort of um uh the the desires of the community um and sort of how they filter to the top right in the first four or five the safety

097and the health and the rebuilding of of um what's encompassing in the first project which we're working on now. Um and then there was like two or three things that sort of filtered above athletics um which you know uh a new theater I think that was higher. So we have that and again that might be outdated now right which is what you're saying maybe in the future if we're you know going to do some of these renovations in the campus master plan we go back out and we serve survey the community again but I think you know going off of the data we have now this was sort of um >> it was always tennis new tennis courts and adding them to that site was always at the top of the discussion and we had

098um CSR the architects there you need six courts you know and so I think that's always >> an idea and it's always a consideration we have that built into the plan but it wasn't something that we felt we could do um at least in the first phase. So, >> all right, we'll go not rapid fire, but we'll go a bunch of questions. Here we go. Uh how many courts are at Highlands? >> I believe you told me. Yeah. Five. That's right. I remember you told >> five. So, we would be able to host >> if >> Well, we'd have to get Well, they have a they have a different um service that we have to get approval to play competition on. Oh, it's like >> Yeah, I forget the name of There you go. >>

099Our true. >> Yeah, >> there we go. Thank you. >> Um, uh, the retention pond on 9D has to be that big. For what reason? >> Uh, to retain all the water uh, storm water runoff. >> So, that's basically like a ratio like you got this much water coming off of the turf field that needs to be when that turf field was developed, in order for it to be developed, they had to design that water retention for that turf field that spot. >> So now when the turf field was done originally, the retention pond wasn't done correctly. And that's why they had to redo the near the one across the field. >> Okay. So the one on this side, >> yeah, >> had to be redone after the turf field was already in. >> Gotcha.

100>> So there's, you know what I mean? So there's a lot of things that went into that water retention design, >> right? So it's >> so there's no chance that could be even >> it's not for the turf field. >> Yeah. But it's for for everything that comes off. >> Oh yeah, I got that. In order for us to put the turf in, it had to be developed. >> Got correct. >> Okay. Okay. Yeah. This is the issue of living on like goats on the side of a mountain. >> Correct. It's a beautiful campus. Putting a school on the side of a mountain creates >> awesome views and real problems. Gotcha. Okay. So five courts of highlands would require approval by push push >> for matches right >> for Gotcha for matches but could be

101done or but could be done >> could be yeah I mean can't guarantee it but possibly >> possibility >> um replacing courts repairing courts but not expanding courts prevents us access to potential grant money. Correct. >> Replacing court. Oh, you mean from the >> not expanding courts >> by the from the USA? >> Correct. >> Yeah. From what I was informed about the USA is that they require specific um there's requirements that need to be in place in order to get the money for reimbursement. So, I don't know what those requirements are, but I know there are requirements. >> Okay. But you're not sure if it's for merely expansion, but it could be >> that could be used for the >> maximum amounts that they'll give based on whether >> based on >> replacing a

102court at >> as is a new court. >> So the the the preliminary number was reimbursement of $35,000 per court >> for a replacement existing court >> for replacement, but we put the money out first and we're not sure about the grant money actually coming back. So that process would begin >> if the proposition was passed on May 19th. >> Gotcha. >> We would start May 20th with the USA working on the grants and doing or done some preliminary work but not complete. >> Yeah. Right. You can't submit. >> Right. Right. I got you. Um Okay. And then um and there's just effectively speaking, you know, the amount of use that happens on the west side of 9D effectively prevents expansion of more courts because you'd be pulling from all the other programs that would

103use more of a multi-use space. >> Correct. Okay. And I would say to that point too, Ezra, if we get to the point that we want to look at expansion on that land, part of our conversations with the community and whatever committee that we'd be working with is where do we put students if we are using >> deciding to, you know, put courts there or something else because originally there was other thoughts for that lands back in the campus master plan. So we always want to keep our eye on the current kids and how they're using the space and if we displace them for a good reason. Okay. But then where are we making sure those students can practice and play and >> it comes back into space. >> Yeah. Seems like long term it'll

104be kind of more of a conversation with the village and use of mayor's park whether it makes sense to put tennis courts there or >> that's all filmed >> move that's I know I know well but to move some of the other kids programs down. I mean the good what you're doing now is what you know our CSR has done >> and so there is there is a a strong >> point of view on where those tennis courts could be based on all of the feedback we got from the community like that lower field you were talking about was talked about being purpose like being properly purposeful what it's now being used as a secondary field >> and actually duplicating or doubling the uh two tennis courts where they are now. But that would require

105us to then re channel and think about the ways in which we drain. So we have to drain down further to the river and we have to you know so all all these moving parts were connected in a way so that you know we could make a decision to sort of you know put aside what we've learned about everything that's possible here on the campus to to build down someplace else like Mary's Park or elsewhere. But you know we should also be referring to the >> you know the investment that we made in determining what might be best moving forward. impact that brook. >> Yeah, >> it would. That's the issue. >> And my my sense is that even if we built out these two, it doesn't in any way, should you know, a future

106community decide that that's where they want to put the next phase that building out those two courts and thinking about drainage and they go right there next to each other. So, it's not it's not sunk cost. We're not going to put these in place in four years from now, right? >> Dig them up and put something else. >> Correct. >> Yeah. So, also real quick, Tom, we pay Highland Explorer Golf. >> We do. >> And >> I don't have I don't have the fee number for >> tax. Um but that's but that's a cost that uh allows that program to hold matches. We >> we have home matches. >> Yes, we do. >> Right. >> Okay. E and and even though that's not technically in our school district. >> What's that? Highlands. >> Yeah, >>

107that we play golf down there. >> But it's not in our school district. >> That's our home. >> It's our course for golf. >> Is in the Garrison school district. That's interesting. Well, we could effectively do that for tennis, right? >> Okay. Thank you. Well, I I just really want to know like I really appreciated last week as we've continued to think about this, Sean pointing out and Maggie too pointing out something that he just said again recently that that that as much as we can leave open the possibilities of changing whatever is in the December I think that's right campus master plan document that there was just months and months of of work that went into it and conversations and you know and experts and um and it it I'll be honest it's it's

108been a great resource to go to to turn to as we thought about >> anything else on tennis courts I know we have a couple more slides before we get to the end okay for now it thank you appreciate What else we got? Tax cap. >> Here we go. >> Um, as we've talked about for many weeks now, um, in 2526, the district passed a budget based on a 2.8% tax levy limit rather than the 3.38 allowable. This year, our allowable is 5.53. This potential tax levy increase of one just about $1.3 million is primarily due to the impact of the borrowings for the capital project. I did run some numbers to be able to show that the tax levy limit would have been around 2.75 if these increased debt service payments uh were not

109part of the equation or that calculation that I showed you last week. Um, foundation aid. As you know, again, we've been speaking about foundation aid. This year's governor's proposal uh is proposal includes a guaranteed minimum 1% increase for all districts. And that is what the governor proposed. So, right now, I am budgeting that we are going to receive $29,540 additional in foundation aid. Uh last week the assembly and the senate released what they call their one house budget proposals and both of those budget proposals did express support for a minimum of 2% increase in foundation aid. So if when the governor comes back with the executive budget hopefully in very early in April that would amount to an additional 29,540 because we would be receiving 2% rather than just the 1%. So that would be

110you know a help to obviously the budget and again our expensebased aid which is our financial assistance based on our actual expenditures and it is projected to increase in some areas and decrease in others. uh it is based on our expenses and our enrollment is the the primary factors that are in that calculation and we are still expecting a modest increase of just over $5,000 in expense-based aid. Um our key figures for next year is what we are proposing is that our budget for 2627 will be $31.8 million which is a budget-to-budget increase of just over $1.7 million. That budget-to-budget increase is 5.77%. Which is um the revenue generated from our tax levy increase is just under 1.3 million or a tax levy increase of 5.53%. And next week we'll have more information hopefully on

111the or next uh work budget meeting um because hopefully we'll get our final revenue and state aid numbers from the state for me to give you our final revenue projections. >> Um we are anticipating five ballot propositions this year. Proposition one will be our school district budget. Proposition two will be our standard school bus vehicle proposition. For this year, we are recommending um one bus and two minivans. This will be tax neutral because the debt from previous uh borrowings will fall off and we'll put on new borrowing for that. We are looking to have the replacement of the tennis courts. Uh that will be a $275,000 from our capital reserve. Use of capital reserve does require voter approval. But again, because we already have that money sitting in our capital reserve, it is a tax

112neutral proposition for our voters. Our fourth proposition, as we've been discussing, is setting up a transportation reserve. It would be another capital reserve that we would have it. We would have our current facilities improvement reserve, and this would be one for transportation expenses. I'm recommending um a 10-year term with $5 million that we will, you know, slowly add to with either excess fund balance, um planned budgetary transactions or the different ways that we are legally allowed to fund a reserve. And this will start helping us prepare for that zero bus emission mandate and all of the different um infrastructure needs, the buses, possible changes to the garage, the charging stations, all the different things that will be needed by the district to start that process. um if by chance something changes and there is a

113delay in the um mandate, we can always use those funds to purchase a bus outright or different um capital transportation needs that the district may have. Um and then the fifth proposition will be a the Butterfield Library. They have come back to us with a modest increase in their request for funding for next year. It's not a component of the how budget but it is something that when a library asks the school district to put it on the ballot we are required to do so. Um the library is uh facing a decline in their funding from their passport process. Um the government has stopped certain types of libraries, association libraries and not for-profit libraries, of which Julia Butterfield is one, from being able to um offer passport services anymore. So they have asked for a

114modest uh 3,000 very modest increase to there. Um so that will be on our on our pro our ballot as well. Sorry, I feel like I'm losing my voice. And then tonight was our our pre pre-budget hearing and we have to adopt our resolutions. Uh it's in new business tonight and then next the April 7th meeting. I'm very hopeful that we have a final um proposal from the governor and the actual budget has been passed in the state and we will give you your estimated revenues and the tax levy and then we will head right into budget adoption on April 21st. And the one thing actually that's not on here and I should have said earlier is that um can you go back to the slide for just a second that this year the board

115I mean primarily Dr. Duffy and me, maybe Maggie if she wants to join or another board member on April 7th and May 5th will be here. A handful of us will be here a little bit early on those nights to have right because meetings offer such limited opportunities for open conversation. Those would be opportunities to to have more of a conversation and questions and answers about the the budget. So those will be um April 7th at 6:30 and May 5th at 6:30. I had a quick question about on the proposition the two slides back. Um the money for the tennis courts coming out of a capital reserve. Is that separate from the turf field capital reserve? >> We have one capital reserve which is for all it is the same capital reserve that we use

116the money to replace the turf field. Um but we set a new limit and a new term on it. We also do have our repair reserve and as you'll remember we are still funding our repair reserve and so we are putting some money in there as well in case the turf needs an actual repair instead of a replacement. Um but we could at the same time if necessary uh move our funds from our repair reserve into our capital >> and the repair reserve doesn't need voter approval if we just repair the >> it needs just a public hearing >> and replace it. That's when we have to get >> correct. If you use the capital reserve, it requires voter approval. >> Thank you. >> Super quick. Uh I might have asked this before, not sure.

117I'm not just not remembering if you answered it. If we do plug-in electric hybrids on the minivans, does that fall under the US moving towards um >> the minivans are um even though we use them for student transport, they are not part of the um Can't be buses. Gotcha. >> Of course they about that. Of course. Still wouldn't be a bad idea. >> No, absolutely. >> And we do have a plugin. It's a plug-in hybrid. It's a way of >> Oh, I think I can imagine there would be questions about that that could come up. So, would be good for us to know like do we have plans for like what kinds of mini van? Right. We we know that the plan is to buy a diesel bus given >> and it's a reality a

118small bus but still but what the plans are for the minivans you know are they >> minivan this year we had um they're hard to find right now >> and so it will really depend on what's available and at the time that we actually need need urgently to replace it >> got to buy right gotcha >> okay >> right now our four are like Pacificas or the Voyager style, the Chrysler event. >> So, we try to keep everything the same, but if we have to get something else because that's the only thing available. >> I got you. >> A useful I mean, this is perhaps as we we start to to display this later is a we typically have a chart at some point that shows the sort of household the impact per household. >>

119Next, about the boardation. Yes. >> I figured that in this coming >> always look forward to seeing that. It's difficult I think for someone to imagine what 5% means. >> So you say >> well it's 5% levy not 5% correct on your Yeah. >> Correct. Um that was a really helpful presentation. I will just I want to point out that I did quick math. So the 1% increase in foundation aid right is $29,540. That is one 100th of 1% of our total budget. Like it's such a tiny amount of money, you know. I mean, overall our state aid is much more than that, but that increase is such a tiny tiny tiny amount of money. So, >> thank you so much. It's good for you. >> It is. Okay. Okay. So, um we're now at

120the um uh first opportunity for communication from the public. Um the housing board of education desires and values input from the entire school community. This first public comment session is reserved for comments on special presentations and active agenda items. For those who wish to address the board, we'd ask you to state your name for the record and then to sign in when you're finished. Um, we'd ask you to keep your remarks to three minutes or less. Um, and to refrain from despair during remarks or discussion of district personnel. Um and although board although the board does not engage in dialogue during uh the communication from the public session se please know that we are listening and um we'd have somebody reach out to you after >> when you make this short >> my name >>

121you're gonna miss you're gonna miss having these run for the board. >> Thank you. Oh yeah, very very name is Katie McInness and um first before I dive in a little bit just for a few minutes again thank you again for your listening ears and being open and obviously this is a very very difficult um process. So to having said that, I do implore the board to take a hard, thoughtful, and thorough relook at the expansive alternative that um I you may or may have not had a look at um that we've proposed um that is an alternative to the master plan. Um in all the research and investigating we've done proposed master plan for t the tennis courts is an astronomical cost to figure out the retention pond issue and to can lever I

122think is the word ports over that is for our small school and what our community needs are just doesn't seem um tangible. Um the reality is that we can't create space where there isn't. And when we're asking our community to fund it, um I find that that's a really really big ask. And it's a beautiful drawing, but I just I don't see it as a a realistic option. Um that's why we have a partnership with Mayor's Park and we don't really have a partnership with Oltown Park for after school. the GU's field is underutilized and I do think that there are still avenues we can explore to allow our teams especially the modified sports which I loved. It was a big big benefit for my kids to have that exposure early on. Um so I

123can't I I do emphasize especially with the mayor's park back on back in order again to have that as an option. Um, I do agree that our campus cannot encompass it all at all. Um, and that so I really do ask that you explore and consider what's benefiting our community. Yes, the Highlands has tennis courts. They are not available to our community. Are our what benefits our community? What benefits our taxpayers because they're paying for all of this, which I'm now realizing you guys have the hardest job in this town. Um, and what benefits our students best, not just the high school tennis team, but the PE program and all the kids that in our community who want to play tennis, who want to learn how to play tennis, and our girls and our students

124who are eager to pass it on and to expand the program. And that is one reason why I go back to the timeliness of this because the USA if they see a larger project project that is expansive meaning adding and not just closing we will get a lot more money. We could put another court across the street and at no money we could get it all funded. So, I just want to express that this expansion we propose and what has been proposed in the past on old I I you know Joe Curo who everybody knows sent me a file of showing courts across the street right where we proposed them years back. Um it's no additional cost to the school or to the community and I believe in equity for all sports. Um, but I

125do think that in looking at our community and our small town and our small school that the most accessible and utilized of any sport is tennis. And I think at any age and I think that by not just fixing but expanding, it's giving back to our community. The community will see it. They will feel it especially when we are heading into an increase. And I think that they appreciate that every year that they are approving thankfully very enthusiastically and over at a high percentage that it's it's showing that we're listening and it's giving them something tangible to also have use of those facilities that are right here in our town. Um, and that is all I have to say. So, thank you very much. >> Thank you. Anybody else? All right. Thank you very much.

126Um so now we're going to move into um the rest of the agenda. So next we have our administrator reports um on for everybody to access. Um I'm actually there's so much to say in all of them that I just a few things I wanted to highlight. Um Miss German report uh highlight how they've been following and tracking the academic progress of the prek and that's going to give us you know important information about that program as well as how to support those students going forward. Um the Miss Niffens report um mentions that we have a national merit finalist which is very exciting. Um multiple folks talked about the really important plan for Thursday superintendent conference day which offers such an important opportunity for professional learning. Um and Mr. Cunningham report reports on um the

127progress of the athletic council which is something that Dr. Duffy and Mr. Cunningham implemented this year and it it really that sounded great like they that they met and and really a lot of progress and important conversations. >> The uh Mr. Elder is today I think right at um Courtland doing the uh teacher career day. So, that's a great opportunity for Helane to be meeting with prospective uh teachers um uh teacher candidates and to be spreading the good word about um our school to uh people who might consider coming here for employment. >> Yeah, that's actually been something he's done, >> you know, really with the support of the rest of the district really building out our our network. So, >> that's great. All right. So, moving into I don't want to cut anybody off.

128Moving into consent agenda minutes. Um, so, um, may we have a motion, please? >> So, move second. >> All those in favor? >> I. Any opposed? Consent agenda. Um, financial. Can we have a motion, please? >> Second. All those in favor? I. Any opposed? Uh, next is consent agenda personnel. May we have a motion, please? >> Second. >> Um, and just lots of um couple of volunteer coaches and other volunteers. So, really a big thanks to those folks. >> And Barbara. So, we do have a retirement, Barbara Pow, who's a teaching assistant who's been in the district for eight years, I believe. Correct. Yep. And so, just want to thank her for her years of service and really wishing her all the best in her next chapter, although it won't begin until the end of

129the school year, but we wish her well. >> All those in favor? >> I. Any opposed? Um, and next on the agenda is everybody's favorite conf topic, uh, the Hing Central School District calendar. >> Yes. So, you know, all the things that you think you might learn when you're brand new to a district. To me, it was the number of uh, snow calls that we had to make that the whole region experienced. Um, so what you have on the agenda tonight is um, really a labor of love. It's been 12 versions of our calendar. And so what we did after, we have a calendar committee as per our contract. So we have representation from each of the units that come and meet and we talk through the calendar each year and we have some things

130that we have to follow in terms of mandatory days off by the state. We try to the very best uh possible having our calendars align with Bosei so that we're supporting our students who attend there. We also try to allow align the calendar as best we can with Garrison as we have families that are students coming from Garrison to join us for high school and other programs. Um and so this calendar for with all that being said has been particularly challenging additionally because for many years for our spring break Easter and Passover have fallen on the same week. So we haven't had to consider additional time off for 26 or 27. Passover falls the end of April and our spring break with Easter falls the end of March. And so we already had two days

131that we were being in line with every other local district and Boseies having those two days off. And then we talk through when do we want to start school. We look at the number of teacher days, the number of student days we have to have per state. And then for me looking through um kind of inheriting a calendar that had three snow days with then the option to go to remote. We um you know we came out a little early with that district just because we were the only district that had three days and districts range from 4 to 7 more in southern Westchester than around here. And so all things being equal, after the last um couple snow days, we brought the calendar committee back. And what you see before you tonight is a

132revised calendar. It is not perfect. I am not making everybody happy and I acknowledge that, but it's the very best I think we can do given all of the constraints that we're up against. And so just important to note um our first day of school for students will be on September 1st and our conference day we'll have one conference day the day before August 31st will start school on September 1st. A lot of it's the same that the community already saw. What's a little bit different is getting to February break. We are taking two days off the 15th and 16th no school. We'll have a conference day on the 17th and then we'll have two days of school for the end of February break. This week is not aligned with Boseies or Garrison. Um it

133wasn't quite possible to align that and get everything else in the calendar that we needed to do. Um there's a little bit of flexibility though with we have again x amount of days we have to follow. We have an additional day off in May which maybe is welcome with the warmer weather. So, this is aligned to our contracts that we need to have it aligned to. It meets the state required days off. It's recognizing the need for four snow days. And of course, I add four snow days and then it won't snow next year at all. Um, but it's set up to the best. I'm just trying to have some humor with it. Um, >> it's set up to the best we can do. And you know, the community and the staff and our our

134students, our commitment as we look at this every year, we have a calendar committee for that reason. And again, we we try to make all things equal and this is the very best version that we were able to come up with. So that's what we have tonight for the board. Sorry, we're longwinded. I just wanted you all to hear all of that. Um >> although actually I think I may have cleared up because we should have read the resolution first and had a >> me talking. That was my fault. >> Okay. I'm not going to repeat my fault. >> That's my fault. everything you said. >> May we have a a mot um let's hear the recommended action. >> Be it resolved that upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools, the board of education

135hereby approves the 2026 2027 district calendar as attached. >> May we have a motion, please? >> So moved. >> Second. >> All those in favor? >> I. Any opposed? Um, if I can just quickly, so I'm just mindful of if time, it's almost nine o'clock for our very hardworking administrators in the room. If you're so inclined, perhaps you scoot out now so that you can get ready for tomorrow if you would like to. >> Don't be shy, please. Especially if you have a bit of a Please. Thank you. >> All right. Thank you. Have a great night. Be safe. >> Um, sorry I can't miss all of you. Thank you. >> Anybody can leave. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> Thank you. >> Have a good night. All >> you could have left after you spoke. >>

136I would say it would have been very dramatic, too. >> Yeah. >> Thank you. >> Um All right. So, moving into new business. So first starting with the CSSE uh this committee for special education and committee for preschool special education recommendations. May we have the recommended action please? Be it resolved that upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools. The board of education hereby approves the recommendations of the committees on special education and preschool special education as presented. >> May we have a motion please? >> So moved. >> Second. >> All those in favor? >> I. Any opposed? And next um may we have the recommended action for the inclusion of Proposition 2. It resolved that upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools. The board of education hereby approves the resolution to include Proposition

1372 in the notice of the annual district meeting on May 19th, as written. >> May we have a motion, please? So move. >> Second. >> All those in favor? >> I'm sorry. That has to be a roll call. >> Oh, that's right. I know. It even says it right there. Sorry. Oh, we got we had the second. Okay. Yes. >> Okay. Uh, President Clemens. >> Uh, yes. >> Vice President Valentine. >> Yes. >> Trustee Clemenson? >> Yes. >> Trustee Copper? >> Yes. >> Trustee McNall? >> Yes. And now the recommended action for the resolution calling for the inclusion of proposition two three >> three. Be it resolved that upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools, the board of education hereby approves the resolution to include proposition three in the notice of the annual district

138meeting on May 19, 2026 as written. May we have a motion, please? >> So moved. >> Second. Second, can we talk about that for a hair before I vote? The wording on that maximum estimated cost is 275 >> when the amount of 275 from the district's facilities improvement reserve established 2018 and amended in 2025. >> Money comes in from a grant. Does that affect the wording of the resolution? >> No, because it would be up because it would be up. Yeah. I have to we have to have authorization to remove all of it from the capital reserve upfront. So it does not change it. >> And that ties you in to Okay. >> We Yeah. For us to do it, we have to remove the entire 275 and pay for it all up front. >>

139I get that. >> And then >> but you could only pull out 275 >> if this is what we put on the ballot. Yes, that's right. >> And 275 is the cost that we have from the contractor for the replacement of the two cords. >> Yeah. So, it hems you in >> without giving you an out. >> So that there's no flexibility >> of changing of not doing it or doing more. >> Doing more. >> Yeah. Correct. >> yeah. So >> not through this vehicle, >> you can do it through this vehicle >> more. >> But there's still the opportunity going forward to do additional like I I think I want to be a little bit more clear on what the proposal that was presented. What are they asking for? Like they're basically saying let's

140not do this strategic plan. Let's do something completely different which would mean not replacing the courts as they are now but to wait on this proposal and to do something completely different that would be longer term. I'm a little unc sure. >> Yeah. So, one thought was to do the two that we're talking about, but then to put a third across >> 9D and then another option was to not do the two that we're proposing and do three down in the down field. And so, if we do either two or three from their proposals, 275 won't cover it cut it in the capital reserve. So, we would have to pull more money out. Um, I don't think we're prepared tonight to say to the board, go ahead and do that because if we if the

141board would like us to consider to explore uh reconstructing the two and building a third, we have not done our due diligence in looking at where the third court is going, where we are displacing students, the neighbor who's there in terms of the lights that might cause some concerns with the tennis court. So, I'm not prepared to say to the board tonight if you want to go ahead and have us consider reconstruct two courts and bill the third that we set up a proposal for tonight for that. I would say we pause and then we go back and do some good planning and this won't happen for 2627. We would put a pause on it and put it up for a capital reserve at a later date. Right. So, you just told us that if

142if I don't say 275 to replace the courts now, then you wouldn't seek to fix the courts for the spring for the fall season. Is that what you said? >> We would need to do more research into the impact if we're going to add a third court where we are moving all of the students as Tom was referring to how the fields are being used. We have not done planning on where students would go. And then the I'm calling it light pollution. Maybe that's not the correct way. Catherine, we don't know in terms of that third. >> My suggestion was just to change your maximum number. >> That's all I was suggesting. >> If Katie was if if the argument of which Katie suggested was true, and I'm not necessarily saying it's accurate, but she

143seems to suggest that a third court would be covered by a grant whether we put it in or not. But the vehicle in order to to do that, in order to get that grant money would be that the district would have to put out the money >> first, but the 275 number would prevent you from doing that. >> Right. So my suggestion doesn't cover the >> So my suggestion was merely >> are that your your number the the wording is a maximum >> but are you concerned with the fact that the you would be saying that the estimated cost of 275 you would not be going out to the district which would be a proper number. Right? So you you have a number meaning you have a quote 275 is the estimated cost. So you

144are comfortable going to the voters and saying we can spend you know we're going to spend up to a maximum of 275 because we know that is the expenditure of which is expected >> of those of what those two courts which we're going to have. >> Yeah. >> But you do not have an you really don't have a specific number for a third court. So, you could not, like you said, in your due diligence, go out and just say, you know, let's throw a dart at it and hit it at 450. That would be in inappropriate. >> We have an estimate. I think it's it's a conversation for the board to talk through. So, if we're pulling more money out of the reserve, what does that in? So, we've been planning for the 275 and

145also being mindful of what is remaining in that fund. If we are looking to pull more out, we just need to talk through that impact. >> Or how about that? Or also another way >> to discuss this. Is there a way to do a third court through a different vehicle than this proposition? Well, >> so that's when the So I I think we can all we can have a vote to get voter approval on spending a capital reserve anytime. It doesn't just have to be at the may vote, right? >> Well, we'd have to do a vote. We would have to do a vote, but you can do it anytime. >> So it would be a cost It cost more money. Correct. >> Yeah. >> I mean, yeah, >> it cost some more money. Cost

146more. So I guess so I think there I I hear what Ezra saying is like well why if there's this possibility of building a third core and there seems that you know that we we could do it why not just increase what I hear you saying tell me if I'm wrong because why would we limit this to 275 >> correct you're you're not borrowing 275 so what I would say >> suggesting what you can spend >> and so what I would say is I think that there's Given that there's a possibility, given there's a lot more work that would need to be done to investigate whether or not we should have a third court and where it would go. I would say to be physically resp fiscally responsible and responsible to the community, we need

147to demonstrate that that's something that we would undertake and propose as a possibility once we've done due diligence and can really articulate what our plan is rather than saying, well, we want to leave open the possibility, especially especially in a year >> for sure >> where where we're incurring ing um the first big set of of of phone payments. So, you know, um it's cuz even when I was hearing her talk and I mean it just it just to me doesn't seem responsible even to make a decision to drastically increase a request of the public to to spend this capital reserve without having given it the the level of of consideration that we you know we we typically do. I think yeah, even though even though what I really hear you're saying is like we

148don't necessarily have to spend, you know, the money. It's >> it's it's still it's all money. It's still all money from the public. And so, yeah. So, anyway, >> yeah, but I think it's to say >> it's in the best interest of the community. It is the true value proposition that will provide the most. >> I mean, that that is just a you know, that's >> up for debate, isn't it? And there are there are other I would call characterize other cohorts in the district for whom no matter the way $425,000 magically appears will say gosh the program that I have been in is horribly underfunded in terms of a lot of kids >> and I don't see that kind of investment being pursued in a meaningful way here. So for us to make that

149kind of investment without having an ongoing conversation with the community about why we think this would be appropriate I think is yeah you know I just I I think that >> it doesn't in any way I I think >> uh represent the way we have been going about how we >> for sure >> and then and and the 275 proposition to replace these courts and you know not just repair but really replace these courts addresses uh a need and then can still we can still leave open the opportunities to do like what Peggy said uh due diligence on other on on other opportunities. Meaning that that space is not going to be something different. It will be courts. Those two courts were still going to be courts. Whether or not we have more courts or

150not >> is still something of which we can seek. And I think that um you know we alluded to it and I wasn't very articulate earlier but just in terms of when we decide what to do maybe specifically with the tennis courts or the next phase of what we want to spend money on to go out and you know to have a bond I think we go back out to a degree hopefully or at least discuss here first about how can we engage the community maybe their priorities have changed. >> I think that you know that makes a lot of sense. It's just felt very sudden too right. Um, yeah, it just sudden and it's drastic and it's it's you know, we're being so careful with the whole capital plan just about >> it. Makes

151me feel like the way I felt when I first bought a house and I always regretted it. >> First time we got to get it. You got to >> stick. >> I got a new car to sell you, too. >> Um, I I just value the conversation. So before I I voted, I wanted to throw that out just to see, >> you know, just >> Yeah, you're right. >> where we're at, what the process is >> and listen to kind of understanding where the board sees due diligence on uh on a project. >> That's all. >> Well, and it was we were presented with new information um kind of late in the game, too. But I think that um I mean the courts are basically unplayable, right? Like if we don't do this then the

152PE classes aren't using it. There's like not even a chance for the team to use them next year, >> right? Like we would be >> forced for that team to go to the country club, but no PE kids would be able to use, right? Like there would be like they're they're not playable right now, >> you know? And I I really I I do really appreciate Katie's and others emphasis on a resource for the community. I I I do. But I have to say as a board member that's like a that's like frosting, you know? That's like frosting on the cake. Like that's a nice extra. Like I feel like I I I get how valuable it would be, but I I will say that my my as long as I'm on the board, which

153is that much longer, is really going to focus on like what like what's most important for, you know, for the students, you know, I mean, and and you know, it would be so great to get to the point where we do have these resources that can be more available to the community. And it's great that tennis has been and can continue to be, but it's still, you know, I mean, you know, when it comes to, you know, our limited space, right? Continuing to have that field on the other side of 90D for all the different things Tom mentioned. I mean, I would have never, you know, I wouldn't have known that until I started having these conversations. Like, it seems like on some ways a no-brainer, like there's this space. why would we put this

154thing that's so great and we could pay for it and you know kids can use it and the community can use it like you can't argue with the fact that that sounds really great but then you hear Tom talk about the fact that like >> teams need to use that space on a regular basis you know >> um >> and um but then you know Katie brings up some other ideas like well let's think about like other potential partnerships about you know what um you know what we could pot you know potentially do and I I you know I think it it is exciting in a couple of years you know >> you know people will be ready to make some plans for some some other you know work I think >> and it's really

155part of our continued long-term planning >> and that's Gail's mantras longterm planning safety and security little but I appreciate well I I you know I I I come from an educational environment in which uh the school is a center of the community beyond a school. >> Um and so I really do get the concept. Yeah, we we we are a >> we well first off we're the largest municipality within this municipality basically. Uh and we are a focal point of the community. That's just how it is. >> Yeah. >> Whether you know it goes well beyond teaching, right, and educating kids. Uh and so and and and so, you know, I get I totally get it and I understand where they're coming from. I just wanted to throw those things out. I appreciate guys. Thank

156you very much. >> Yeah. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. >> All right. So now I think we are ready for the roll call vote on this uh resolution calling for the inclusion of Proposition 3 to replace the tense courts. >> President Clemens. >> Yes. >> President Valentine. >> Yes. >> Trustee Clemenson. >> Yes. >> Trustee Copper. >> Yes. >> Trustee McN. >> Yes. >> Right. And now moving on to the resolution calling for the inclusion of proposition four which is the creation of the transportation reserve. Be it resolved that upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools, the board of education hereby approves the resolution to include proposition 4 in the notice of the annual district meeting on May 19, 2026 as written. >> May we have a motion, please? >> So moved. >> Second.

157the vote >> discussion. We're good. President Clemens. >> Um, yes. >> Vice President Valentine. >> Yes. >> Trustee Clemenson? >> Yes. >> Trustee Copper? >> Yes. >> Trusty Mcnol? >> Yes. >> Um. All right. And um now um uh uh the to move to the resolution calling for the inclusion of proposition five for the Butterfield Library budget. Um may we have the recommended action? It resolved that upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools, the board of education hereby approves the resolution to include Proposition 5 in the notice of the annual district meeting on May 19, 2026 as written. >> May I have a motion, please? >> So moved. Second. >> Um I have a quick question about this. Is Butterfield planning to come or just have us do this presentation of that they've lost

158the passport? >> Okay, that's fine. We offered. >> Yeah, >> we offered and that it was a they previously had not intended to ask for a proposition on the ballot until the uh passport. >> Yeah. >> All right. That's um so we can do the vote. >> President Clemens. >> Yes. >> Vice President Valentine. >> Yes. >> Trusted Clemenson? >> Yes. >> Trusty Copper? >> Yes. Trustee MC. >> Right. And now moving on to the resolution calling for the annual district meeting and vote on the press position in the trustee election on May 19th. May we have the recommended action. >> It resolved that upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools. The board of education hereby approves the resolution calling for the annual district meeting vote on propositions and trustee election on May 19,

1592026 as written. What do we have a motion for? >> So moved. Second >> and I don't think we have any discussion. >> President, sorry. >> President Clement, >> yes. >> Vice President Valentine, >> yes. >> Trustee Clemenson, >> yes. >> Trustees Hupper, >> yes. Christine Mcnaut. >> Yes. >> And now may we have the resolution to approve the agreement between the Hane Central School District and Kain and Bane PC? >> Yeah. Be it resolved that upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools, the board of education hereby approves the agreement between the Haldane Central School District and Keen and Bean PC School Board Council effective April 1, 2026 through June 30, 2026 to be paid in three equal installments of $2,83.33 and authorizes the board president to sign the agreement on behalf of the

160district. Okay, we have a motion, please. >> So moved. Second. >> Um, yeah. All those in favor? >> Any opposed? >> Um, board reflections. >> Uh, I understand there was a a lively discussion about rerouting traffic um at a recent PTA meeting or not lively. I just got a someone >> I was on I was on it. >> Yeah. How then? And uh I appreciate everyone communicating to them. It sounds like some great questions were asked and you know some the dubious thoughts were also expressed about it. But um I feel like we're communicating like people know about it which I think is important to that. >> Um yeah >> and we offered congratulations to Max Sanders as valadictorian. I would also like to say congratulations to Louisa Shiming on being saludiatoran. Good job Louisa.

161I know that we're not uh we don't go out of our way to ask individuals to consider running for the board, but it certainly is my hope that we have that perhaps we have received interest from individuals and if so, >> you know, if we are not um what does it mean for us and what is what does due diligence look like as a board trying to increase interest and is there something we should or shouldn't collectively do or can collectively do to >> Well, so I I think as someone who's served the district for a long time and really has the district's best interests in mind, I am I I I am actively talking to people who I think could be interested. Um I think there is some interest, but I think um >>

162uh I I really would encourage uh and have been encouraging. Actually, I think Sean might be the first person I reach out to of of just like, you know, like talking up like to people who you think might be interested. I mean, you know, I think I think serving on the board can feel daunting. I think you can ease into it. I think um and I I really think, you know, to the extent that people have information and they can make a decision. So, yeah. Yeah. Um but uh nothing that no no big campaigns have have been launched have started as far as I've uh as far as I'm aware of. Um but yeah, I mean it but obviously you know someone doesn't need to be approached by someone on the board to consider uh

163running. You know, it's open to everybody who's a voter in school district. So yeah. Um, this is a chalk full meeting. That's my that's my board reflection. Yeah. All right. Okay. >> So, I just want to take a minute to thank continued thanks to the administrative team. We do go over every budget presentation before we come and so it's very helpful to just hear feedback, insight, looking at the slides and just that continued collaboration. So, it really is a a team effort with the um It was nice to have a bunch of people here. I appreciate it. Absolutely. >> On the PTA meeting that Sean was referring to that Ezra did um attend as well. It was nice to just give the PTA a quick overview of what the transportation pilot is going to look

164like. There were some great questions and ongoing discussion. Um so we are going to continue with our communication efforts. We have a video. It's only a little above, you know, three minutes or so. So definitely worth to watch that. I'll be going out to the community just to highlight what the pilot is going to be involving. And then we have a one-page flyer that would be going out to local neighbors who may be more directly impacted by some of the changes. And then additional communication as we go. There will be an opportunity Megan already created on the website a chance for community to be able to give feedback. So as I mentioned the PTA it is a pilot. So, we are testing and trying something out and then we will use the feedback to kind

165of make changes as needed moving forward. And last but not least, it was St. Patrick's Day today. So, true to what I said a year ago, a year ago to all of you, I did dance this morning for the prek, kindergarten, and first grade. They were absolutely adorable. The adults did not want to dance. So, next year, if you happen to be in the gym at the time, you will be learning a little bit. But I danced a little. We talked about the holiday. I asked the students, "What day is it?" So, in addition to St. Patrick's Day, it's Leprechaun's Day for our prek students. It was just lovely. Megan did a nice social media post out. So, if you would like to see me dancing as an older woman very slowly, I did do

166a dance with the student. It was just lovely to be able to share part of who I am with the community. So, I mean, every day is Irish day to me or leprechaun day to me, but I appreciated having the time with the community. >> Yeah. No, thank you for thanking the administrative team. You know, I think I'm always so careful to thank, you know, you and Katherine, but it really is I do I do understand that it is a much bigger group effort to get there. So, yeah. >> Yeah, I appreciate you pointing that out. All right. >> So, um I move to adjourn the meeting. May we have a second, please? >> Thank I everybody. >> Thank you so much. night.