001um I'll do this again good evening I'd like to call the Board of Education special meeting of Tuesday April 16th 2024 to order and I'll be asking Jessica Turner to lead us in the pledge I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation God indivisible with liberty and justice for all welcome all it's so nice to see so many faces here I hope everyone had a chance to relax over spring break and we are back at it tonight um our uh first item is our Equity item um we'll be hearing from Dr Nicole we be we have here you guys are all here uh for the uh Nisbet champions of change recognition of the students of The Genius bar so we're we're
002putting that at the top um we have Dr No here Allison bacon Liz blly and of course all of our uh wonderful genius for our students we'll be there'll be lots of clapping for you um and Mr Patrick uh Longo who's a a member relations manager at NB will say a few words um so I'd like to turn it over to Mary to turn it over to them okay so if I could have uh Dr nober Liz blly and Allison bacon and uh to uh the mic to just talk a little bit about what this is why history and um and highlight any students you choose hello oh good evening everyone thank you so much I have very few words but just um I'm going to turn it over to miss blly and miss bacon
003and these amazing students and their families because the Genius Bar has existed long before my time here at AMD but I think it speaks very broadly to our student-driven leadership initiatives and when we think about lifting our students voices when we think about relevant learning um this is just one of many examples but it is The Shining I think example from AMD so I'm going to turn it over to miss fly and Miss bacon and their amazing student leaders hi thank you all so much we really appreciate you all being here and would love to have our students come on up because it's really about them it's not about Liz and I um we are very grateful that we were able to create something that was really organic the students chose to be a part
004of it uh this is not something that is recruited um that all of our students really want to be a part of this group um and have really done a lot of the leadership of what and how it's been run so Liz do you want to or any of our students like to share a little about what they think if we can ask our students so that we can get them on camera if they come up over here right that way can so we actually have six through 10th graders here um there were over 80 kids that we asked to come unfortunately not all the families could make it tonight but the 10th graders of the group that we started with it was just a very organic thing that Allison and I one day were
005like let's try something new and see what happens and let them roll with it and they rolled with it and they've been amazing we now have an after school club kids come at recess so it's been just a wonderful experience to get to know all different kids that maybe we wouldn't have gotten to know in another way um one of my favorite things about this group is um how diverse the group is in all aspects um we have students that have many different passions and many different interests in all different grade levels um and then from the after school program they took the initiative to then turn it into a high school course um and just seeing when they're given the opportunity to uh choose what they want to do how and what to run
006a program um the amazing things that have happened because it really is what the students have chosen to do and the leadership that they all have and when they are supported to make the choices that they feel are right they do incredible things okay this works it's been a long time since I was here I came the last time that I was here was eighth grade and we were presenting just the very concept of what the Genius Bar was I was Tiny I was a little shorter but and now I'm in 10th Grade I'm a sophomore I'm part of the science research program and I was was part of the first Genius Bar inod detch support class in ausing high school making this class was definitely an experience for all 12 students we were able
007to get freshman sophomores and seniors into the course and we all worked towards not only structuring our own curriculum but also deciding what we wanted to do with the tools that we had in order to serve our community eventually the conclusion that we came to was that we would would there's a library obviously you all know that we have the Barnes library and there is and we have our desk and we have the maker space so what we do is that some of us during some of our off periods will go down there and we'll be there as brief tech support but we're also available through email and through communication with Dr SAR or Miss narker if teachers or administrators need help of Technology I'm currently helping lisias create a form for student for in
008order to report concussions for athletes to make sure that they follow protocol and that they don't end up getting even more injured and I think that's a really great thing that we're actually able to get these skills and not only get that level one Google for Education certification but also actually help our community and get those community service hours and I'm really grateful obviously for all the students who who went into this knowing that they wanted to make some sort of change and learn and had that drive and I'm also just very grateful for the teachers obviously Miss Bacon Miss fly Dr SAR Miss ner they all supported us and also Michael Hannah who helped us get credit for those level one Google certifications and that we were able to have the class at all
009and we were actually able to meet the middle schoolers and it was a really nice experience actually getting to know them and present some of the presentations that we made that we then presented in the Barnes library to students about several topics some of them included just AI integration into classrooms there were presentations on use of dig of digital art tools and iPads in potentially the art department and mine was just on how we created our curriculum and it was really nice and just extremely great thank [Applause] you hi so um I think the biggest part for me about The Genius Bar was um how many doors it opened up um so in eighth grade I was one of the two kids who got level one Google Certified um and we were able to present
010at the um IST conference this uh past past uh summer yeah and that was a really fun experience we were able to talk to um professionals teachers um around the from around the country and um it was something that I've obviously never experienced before and it was really um a really good experience because not only public speaking but talking about something we created and other teachers came up to us after for and asked how do we implement this into our curriculum into our school and I think that's big because we've started now something that could be going on in countless schools across the country and the continuation also to the high school I think I was a part of and I think that um that really helped um the kids in the Middle School transition
011to the high school because now they know what curriculum they're going to be learning they could they could get ghl level two certified they could get level three certifed IFI there's so many different opportunities and obviously you have to thank Miss bacon and Miss fly for that and then Dr star in the high school because they've provided us with so many opportunities and I'm beyond grateful for that hi I am Maya the last time I was here I was in seventh grade I was a lot shorter kind of like what MIA said uh I'm currently a ninth grader at ausing high school and I I was one of the 12 students in the first ever genius BR tech support class and it was super amazing I was one of two freshmen in that class and
012uh all the students in that class were able to get um level one Google Certified and that was thanks to Michael Hannah who was super helpful with getting our vouchers for that and in the high school it's super amazing that we get to continue this program as the other two speakers have said um just that we started it here I was part of the first group of just the couple kids that decided to go to Library one day and create a tech support area and yeah that's really it so just want to thank everyone Miss fly Miss Bacon Mich Go Hannah Dr SAR for teaching the class at the high school Austin High School staff who actually made the class happen and yeah [Applause] hi um I just really love Miss Blye I'm a big
013fan of Blye um I'm a big reader not really as into Tech but being a part of Genius Bar really opened my eyes and seeing how adaptive reading can be done um using technology and it's just a great part of um my academic life now so thank you Miss blly for that app of [Applause] did first times I had to raise the mic in in a while uh I just want to start off by saying uh what they said U it's amazing that you guys are such fantastic speakers you it's intimidating to speak in front of a board it's it's intimidating to speak in public I just want to let you guys know I'm retiring in8 years so if you want to you know apply for my job you shown you can do it I
014I want on behalf of the president Sandy rufo and our executive director Bob Schneider New York State School boards Association like to thank the board for having us here tonight really appreciate it uh we're here to recognize the district for the programming and again what they said I think you guys understand the reason why we're recognizing them uh but I just wanted to talk a little bit about the program uh that we're using to recognize the great things are happening across the state so this program is called champions of change and we have criteria and we have a committee that chooses these uh but we don't publish the criteria uh what we do is we have a news aggregate service that follows all the education news across the state and it publish those to our
015board members through an email each morning and it helps some Network and really understand what's going on and they learn from that and they network with each other and we are responsible for helping board members be the best board members they can be through training advocacy and providing information like eclipse and so I actually I scour eclipse every morning and on a quarterly basis I collect all the great news stories and all the great things that you guys are doing across the state we do see that media contend to be sensationalist and a little bit negative um a lot of papers are going out of business right and there's just you know so sometimes it's hard to find these but there's so much going on that we do find about 25 of these each quarter
016and we do go to board meetings and then we present this beautiful banner which we're hoping you guys could display in the library uh for all to see uh Champions and change is really recognizing those are bringing positive change the students the staff and their Community these guys have exemplified the meaning of change and I want to commend the board and the districts uh you know our mission really we say is to grow Future Leaders and I actually was a director at a software company and I did a review of an employee and there's a leadership uh section and he didn't fill it out and I said why did you fill this out and he said well I'm not a director or a manager like you I said no we all can be leaders and
017we show how we lead every day and these students and this staff really led the way it's a fantastic program one of the criteria I can tell you about is that we hope that by hearing about this we take pictures we post it on social media so you realize you get the exposure from the initial media article and then us coming here post on social media and sometimes it gets back in the press and what we're looking for is others to emulate it what we're so excited about this program I mean all the things you said again was that you started in one school and then you brought it to another school right we really feel like this is something others can emulate and I hope they leave you by your example that they actually
018create these programs um it's amazing what they've done the social aspect of it um the technical aspect of it uh helping teachers helping to train I don't think I started training people till I was about 26 years old right to have that experience is just unbelievable really great job so I just want to display the banner to show everybody I'm going to read it says this was proud to PR that the Champs and change banner to ausing ufsd board of education for the student Genius Bar a round of applause [Applause] again absolutely yeah if we could take a picture that'd be great absolutely exactly take picture [Laughter] more [Applause] before I go just again I want to applaud the board and the district for all you guys do for the students and thank you for
019your membership and thank you again for having us here nice job thanks thank you so much for coming and and thank you everyone for coming I just I I want to express uh our pride and gratitude uh for students who feel empowered to Pilot a new program like that for teachers who feel inspired to take that seedling of an idea and nurture it into something so wonderful that's more than just a course where they learn practical technical skills but also a community and uh to our administrators who say yes when when teachers when great teachers come with great ideas so um thank you for everyone to for putting those pieces the puzzle together um because as we can see it can make magic happen um if any other board members would like to speak free
020to speak on that so I'll let go the same I just you know our students are so excited and you see the energy that happens but I just I want to recognize all the parents and all the supports from our Educators across the board you all deserve a great Round of Applause like this is a program that's really kind of changed in the district really came from students came from Homes at the end of the day and just really grateful for all your efforts in being here tonight so I just think we should give all the students a nice big round of applause and anyone else okay well um we will be moving along with our meeting you're welcome to to say um however if you like get ready to learn right um if you
021would like to make a graceful exit that's fine too but we're going to be going on with our uh our regular board um agenda it's always great to thank nisba for their support absolutely all right um next up is our work session item 3.1 starts with our superintendent's update okay so um so first of all I want to say uh best of luck to our ausing high school engineering students who traveled today to Houston Texas for the first competition they qualified for the world's competition last weekend so which is outstanding um we are super excited for the team we wish them well and um when I spent that hour with them and Miss Langley I was like I wanted to go back and teach computer science at the high school level it was just a
022lot of fun I was I I told them all I'm going to be living vicariously through them while they're down there so we wish them well and we thank a lot of the parents again thank you Frank for that comment because it doesn't happen without parent support So we had a lot of volunteers a lot of help with parents who chipped in to make this possible so thank them all uh on the same level of congratulations we have three Claremont students Tyler Kong ugad mitry and Weston sumba who won the first in mathematics competition and they won $1,000 so which is phenomenal um they are going to travel to Albany in June for an in-person tournament so uh um nothing makes a superintendent happier than getting requests in the district office how do we make
023these trips for kids work so again super excited um for the 17th time let me say it one more time for the 17th time ausing has been named a best community for music education um our school district by the National Association of Music uh Merchants foundation so congratulations and I love the fact that they spike out music education and the School District as part of their National recognition along those same lines 21 ausing High School students earn gold silver and honorable mentions in the Scholastic art and writing Awards last week we welcome the United States Department of Education of English language acquisition and the New York State Office of bilingual education and World languages to our schools we were one of three districts in New York state selected to participate in this initiative which aims
024to develop a toolkit to provide National guidance on Dual language programs we were very I want to thank Maria first of all for her leadership and organization for this and Nancy also did an outstanding job I um I was in communication with my friend and colleague Ray Sanchez said come on Ray you got to come you got to come you got to come you got to come and he we were thrilled that he joined the panel for two hours and we're able to give the history of the program and how it spoke to it so I just couldn't have been prouder of Ry and ausing and our entire team so that's great we certainly uh mentioned to them one two three four five times nothing happens without money so we did make the plug to
025continue getting support right I want to give a huge congratulations to ausing high school senior George uh K who won this year's New York City Department of Environmental Protections Water Resources our contest which is phenomenal um this week aing high school is hosting the protect your game um event for this week the focus on this and as someone who did this work for quite a while uh in a previous life it's encouraging strong decisionmaking and healthy choices with and among our student athletes picking healthy options when it comes to um you know drugs or alcohol but also in many different ways about Wellness of spirit Wellness of Mind Wellness of body because when you have that you are making good choices and you're doing what you need to do you will perform as an athlete
026at your best level you'll perform as a student too at your best level but I love that Focus so this week the students have set up um boots and awareness campaigns where there sharing information and resources just to show the impact of all of that our student Equity Fair took place this past weekend and there we had student reps from our schools and they participated in panel discussions poster board presentations on the equity work that they have engaged in this year I want to thank our students the staff who attended and of course our Dr and de for her organization for this great event um coming up just the next event is super super really important our next board meeting is next week but it's on a Tuesday it's on next week it's on Tuesday
027um important for that next week's board meeting is the board meeting where the board of education is required under the law to meet the guide guidelines and the requirements for the annual budget vote to adopt the 2425 School District budget so please keep that in mind everybody um we are thrilled to have our annual prom Drive which takes place from April 15 to the April 30th I love the level of dresses shoes suits ties that can be collected uh to help support kids and we'll have a prom popup shop anyone who wants to go through um their closets has something that they can donate um it will please drop off the all goodies at 400 Executive Boulevard uh with our amazing Megan and we're going to do this through our o Prime initiative um we
028have concert for the high school coming up starting at 7M uh the orchestra is on April 24th April 30th is the band May 22nd is vocal night so please mark your calendars and how about the fact that the Roosevelt students um are shining tomorrow night April 17th at 7 p.m. at the high school on stage in a tribute to Charlie Brown that's good be absolutely adorable I can say that adorable um we have our first ever rathon for Park and our Brookside students um for the uh oec PTA which is taking place April 15 to the 28th thanks for all who are participating we have our 14th annual Earth Day Festival April 20th at 9:30 at Waterfront Park and again the ausing matters flower power spring fundraiser has a beautiful selection of plants and flowers
029to brighten up our homes after a very dreary winter and lots of rain um so please uh visit um the atiny matters they're open with their um event until May 15 so that's my brief update before we launch into our budget conversation yeah the next thing on the item is uh continued budget discussions okay all right so um as as many of you are aware this meeting um today is um an extra meeting that we added to look at the board um our Bose's um budget and to have a discussion about that so we do have a brief o overview and update for our public and for board members on where we are in our budget uh um process so first as as I mentioned in my update next week's board meeting next Tuesday night
030um April 23rd is the date the Board needs to to adopt the budget uh of course we will have a large formal presentation as part of that meeting so we would like everyone to come join us either virtually or here in person in attendance as many of you are all aware the budget development season has been very very challenging and it's aing is not alone not alone in this situation any re of the nisba clips which I know many board members get on a daily basis you will see that uh many school districts are are in similar uh situations and facing similar challenges there are two common themes two common themes Aid has either decreased or it has not kept up with mandated expenses and cost drivers and there has been a disproportionate and significant
031cost hikes and spikes uh that every district is facing the big one um for us this year and for many many um has been health insurance just to give you a perspective on that we have approximately an $8 million increase between last year and this year in health insurance costs to give you a frame for that and to amplify that data point let me give it to you in a context when it comes to Foundation Aid so we received 11 million additional in Foundation Aid last year 8 million of that is consumed by the single increase in health insurance that's just helped to frame that conversation um we also have two other big significant cost drivers TRS and ERS these are our mandated expenses and contributions to our retirement system TRS has a 10.20 increase
032and ERS the Employee Retirement System has a 15.2% increase this year year so those are our big cost drivers lastly we discussed in detail that if we operated this year the 23 24 school year next year and what is called the rollover budget simply including the aforementioned mandated increases as well as our contractual obligations that would require and not and not including anything extra or additional nothing extra or additional just running this year and next year that would require a 6.2 budget increase that amount would require a super majority or what we would call a an override many field that that's an exorbitant price 6.2 it would be and so therefore it's not a viable option for aing so what are our options right so in order to answer that we needed to figure out
033out what our maximum allowable tax levy is it's super important because that's our biggest source of Revenue the local Levy the taxes people pay we examine what other sources of revenue or income some of this requires a certain amount of forecasting into the future Alita has that crystal ball in her office no but but it does require a level of forecasting we're trying to take a look whether or not you know throughout been at this a long time there are spikes there are dips there are things that EB and flow but trying to take a look at that and forecast out we needed to examine a certain amount of a comfort level we have with using our reserves and with that forecasting first time um we are being quite aggressive in our recommendations to the
034Board of Education with that forecasting we are using two reserves the ERS reserve and the TRS Reserve in several millions of dollars we are using our C fund we are looking at our fund balance we are looking at all of this are we being too conservative this year certainly not are we being too aggressive are we forecasting and an aggressive way we are but we think we need it people have Reserve funds for rainy days and it is pouring rain right now and we need to do that and we're hoping the costs for ERS and TRS are variable and they will level themselves out because as we all know if you when when you're running your house if you have a huge in in spiking cost and you have to take that Revenue out of
035a savings account if you don't somehow fix the reason why you have a cost for that you're going to have another problem the next time that bill comes around but we we we are Alina and I as you've heard recommend that we take that level out of that next we needed to figure out the difference what was the gap or the negative variant and then discuss how we are going to address this Gap the difference between our revenue and our expenses and again it's important for me to repeat what you've been hearing from nisba which you've been hearing from us throughout the budget process and what's in the media our revenues have not kept pace with our expenses lastly another point or layer that's been part of our conversations this this year has been the
036impact of the funding Cliff for our covid federal stimulus money we received over 2.79 million that we used for positions while we were able to move most of those positions because the federal stimulus money had um different dates where the the funds expired and drop off we were able to move for the most part A lot of them into the general fund for this year however the expenses that I just went through uh have outpaced our Revenue so we are hitting that funding Cliff conversation right now this year so um at our last board meeting Alita and I presented our recommended maximum allowable tax levy it is based on those complications and um thank you for allowing us to share that clear as mud line by line formula which um I hope everyone found informative
037and helpful uh shows that that's where we have landed at the 3.28% it carries a real property tax levy of 106 million our proposed budget is 180 uh 141,142 budget of increase of about 7.86% still 7.86% so based on this we have been aggressive with our recommendations again on the use of reserves we are um taking 7.5 million from a capital reserve again from the C fund and we bued our Revenue projections from interest and sales tax with all of that we still have a budget gap of 2.4 million so what's our philosophy behind addressing that Gap reduction it's based on a few things first of all we believe that we want to keep our class sizes and to prioritize positions that are front-facing with students we want to ensure that all mandated program services
038are included and adjusted or increased as needed we need the flexibility to do that we need to find this is a good thing to do in in good years too u i mean financially because every year is a good year here but just financially we need to find efficiencies in the things that we do are the schedules of students and staff fully maximizing their contractual responsibilities are we maximizing time have we increased our Partnerships that give us expense driven Aid with the Rick with our Consortium are there certain things that we do in house that we could Outsource to those and uh get Aid um expense driven Aid bag and are there any additional grants or programs that we can enroll in which will help us as um we go through the EB and flow
039of this budget uh couple of Seasons we're also going to recognize the theory behind the federal stimulus funds meaning that the use or the intention was never meant to be ongoing it was meant to address infrastructure which congratulations and thank you to Alita and Jared and aing has done and I will underline the outstanding job spending significant money addressing infrastructure but it was also meant to address learning loss and creating during a period of time research-based approaches to do that um ausing during this period has adopted Arc and a variety of other uh research based approaches so we uh have been using our money well and we want to maximize this season the retirement savings and positions of Staff we're looking for ways to not fill all positions and to see if through scheduling and
040efficiencies we could absorb these positions So to that end um um Alita Don and I have spent incredibly amount of time recently a lot of time even in conversations with legal today for over an hour but we have been able to reduce our budget by $630,000 and non-personnel recurring expenses and 1.6 million in Staffing costs across multiple areas and types of positions we have also made sure and I want to thank again Alita and um Don um for working very closely with our systems our HR systems to make sure that position controls uh budgetary impacts are updated clear and exact I want to thank you both personally for the exorbitant amount of time and even emails on weekends and Outreach throughout this time uh later on tonight uh when the Board of Education and I
041we go into executive session I have a few uh employee specific related data as well as a few other Personnel employment history items that I want to share with the board please note that the 3.28 maximum allow Levy is our Alita and I recommended Levy and it's important to understand that that is the state recommended Levy there isn't I well if um our friend Patrick um blongo from nisba would here he would recommend that you go up to your allowable Levy don't leave any money on the table nisba nisus the New York York State educational conference board we'll all recommend that you use your legally allowable tax levy and that's an important point because if you believe you need more Revenue because I've been there and I've been yelled at um if you go to
042an elected official and you say I need more money and the first question they ask is that have you used all your local reasons have you used your ma maximum allowable tax levy uh if you haven't the question I often get was well then Mary you want the rest of the tax in New York state to come up with the difference um they are elected for reasons they are politicians they need to go to tables to have strong arguments so I've been at the other end of that conversation um and I can give you the reasons why sometimes I would say you need to like buy me additional money I think FR we've been up in Al doing that too but in theory that is the reason there is a they will tell you that
043you have to use the money that you have at your resources right so um um and they would be hard pressed our elected officials to give look for other ways if you haven't um taken care of what you can do locally and that's also part of the reason we're recommending to the board um tonight and which you will vote on next week the the level of reserves we're recommending that you use here this year so um that's our brief budget update um to date based upon feedback and conversations um any turn it back to and you don't need any final answer from us tonight because we have to do it next week or if we land someplace we land some those today um the official vote is next week right the official vote on this
044but if there's anything else that we would need from you now would be the time to talk speak now for hold your P okay I just jump in for absolutely um I just want to clarify some things that um the superintendent said um the TRS um increase um is 5% um what she's referring to is the employer contribution which is 10.25 um that's gone up to that amount um so the percentage increase is 5% but the employer contribution rate like you said is 10.25 and that's the one that comes out of the school district right money and then the ERS is the one that went up significantly and caused a um exemption in the tax cap um which is a exemption of $10,000 for the district um the ER RS went up by 16% um
045and it went from 9.76 toit hold on it went from it went up by 16% um it was 13 and it's going up to 15.2 like the superintendent said um and with regard to the um health insurance the health insurance increas for 23 24 to next year is a $2.8 million increase and when you look at how much the foundation a actually all of the aid went up um it's about 1.8 million so it's very clear that a majority of the increase related to state aid is already being um used up with the increase from health insurance so that just highlights the significant cost drivers and imp for it is true Al is right that the employee does pay into it but they're they are capped at a certain contribution I'll open open it up
046to board members okay I'll start off so first I want to acknowledge the hard work the Administration has done around this these are not easy decisions and it looks like you found the 2.2 or so in the non-personnel and Staffing cost so again not easy decisions I think um with one week to go for anyone who's listening online in the audience I think it's important that the public we hear from the public as well in this last week because here's why and you know I I mentioned this other meetings and admittedly I'm still new here so levies and TR like I'm still learning but the average person in the community wants to know that's all nice what is this going to is this going to be more out of my pocket for next year and
047the year after that and if so what is that and so the answer to the community is the answer is yes if you raise the levy you and your assessment of your home has gone up you will pay more in taxes that that's that's clear that's from the assessor's office that's clear so what is that a potential look like and I know we had some discussions around putting calculators out there so I'm curious to hear if we're still going to do that but the calculator shows that if your property went up in value year over-year and the average property in atiny went about 11% give or take the range 6 to 14 but the average was 11 if your property went up and 9 97% of the properties the parcels in aing went up so
04890% 7% of you out there if you own a parcel your taxes will go up with an increase in the levy so how much is that so at 3.28 if you have a $500,000 home that went up that about 11% let's call it 10% from 500 to 550 year-over-year your taxes are going to go up anywhere between $400 to $450 so I just repeat that if you've gone from 500 to 550 and we adopt the 3.28 maximum Levy and your property value went up about that 10% 11% you're going to go up 400 to 450 that might work for the community but I think it's important that we put that out there because the reality is that's what the community is going to want to know what does this mean out of pocket so I've
049been on record saying I don't want to see us go more than a 2% I know we can go up to 3.2 for8 and I know we've cut a lot out and there's going to be more discussions around that and that's not easy but given the fact that you know our community wealth ratio isn't terribly high it's a difference every dollar counts so here's a new piece as we might have seen this week so GE sold what was known as the GE cro enville property this week they sold it they sold it for according to the Wall Street Journal of $22 million the assessed value of that property is about 7475 million so the assess value the amount of taxes being collected on that property right now are based in 74 to 75 million it's
050sold for 22 so the taxes that the district and the and the town and the other municipalities are going to get is going to drop literally by millions of dollars it's going to happen now it may not happen this year and because these things are lagging so maybe two years from now depending where that Nets out we're going to lose millions of dollars off the tax roll so trying to look ahead when you take that now new other piece of information and I know Mary I don't think the state has finalized their budget yet right they still the late on it April 1 right was the date there're still so we might maybe we'll net out a little bit more in state a hopefully we won't go down but the reality is trying to look
051ahead we're going to lose the millions of dollars we're asking the community potentially on an average $500,000 house of 4450 and that's why I still reiterate that I like to see us to try and I hope other board members now with this new piece of in information about the millions we're going to lose off the tax roll you lose Millions off the tax roll what does that mean for the GE cotent property it gets redispersed amongst the other Parcels so out of the 8500 or so Parcels in in Austin we're going to have to they're going to have to absorb that cost that's $3 million right there so to me any any increase right now that we do any increase and I agree we're going to need to increase the levy but any increase with
052that looming Over the Horizon we're going to take a hit on that I just asked the other board members and I I understand that the hard work the Administration has done with this but just let's keep that in mind because that ask right now 400 to 450 for $500,000 home with three million potentially coming off the rooll in a couple years it's gonna it's going to be a big ass it's gonna it's going to be compounded so I hope we can consider that um but I understand there's hard work that's gone into this otherwise so so thank you for the work on that anybody just a clarification on the cuts in the 2.2 million 600,000 of that was roughly non-staff related but 1.6 million of that was staff related I guess you know one of
053the things we've always kept the dashboard on over the years we've been in this position and cut positions and cut significantly if I take a stab at the full-time equivalence of that number that of what we're looking at there you're talking about 16ish am I off on this you know I guess the question I have at the end of the day of all this doesn't need an answer tonight but is is how like we worked really hard to put positions back in back in 2011 we cut over a 100 positions at the end of the deck we put in positions the past few years with the ability of foundation a to be able to do that how much are we going back is really my question at the end of the day and with an
054enrollment that hasn't really dropped relatively stable at the end of the day it was stable and actually um it has increased so slightly and we do have an increase in mandated costs I need to be clear about that so I will say that to get to the 1.99 that we mentioned before it's another cut of a 1.3 million um and at this then if if you had to and and again because when you cut positions we have seniority so it's the last in first out so financially they are the um lower end of the pay scale okay um so if you want if you look just use a $100,000 just that might not be the case yeah right okay $100,000 where it would include benefits or whatever it's probably a little bit more than that
055now because of the health insurance piece but you're looking at um roughly 13 additional positions now now you're looking at uh cutting electives at the high school level you're looking at positions that face students you're looking at changing um uh you're looking at them you're looking at class size you're looking at class size issues you're looking at all of those all together so while um I I hear and I don't think there is a person here Rob I will agree that doesn't take um money very seriously but nothing happens without money right nothing happens without money and there are many things in the school district that those cost drivers that it you can't control so in a vacuum when we're trying to reach a place when you eliminate all the things you can't control you're
056still faced with that reality so I would say for us to come up with I I'm looking over at Dr NOA here at the middle school we're looking at certain schedule changes now we're looking at electives in the high school so if if we were given and clearly as I mentioned before we will be looking at that in the fall because I think that we need to be prepared you know you prepare for the worst hope for the best that maybe yes we'll get more State a that maybe yes something else will happen but I think this is a two-year process of things um but um I we will be going into heavy duty work right now with our staff to really take a look at what those positions would be to go to the
0571.99 and again it is 100% a board of education decision you know we will obviously give it our best and do everything we can to support our students our staff and fulfill the uh wishes of the Board of Education with Fidelity okay um if anyone like else would like a turn to speak their piece about the budget as it stands I think we would need in just in this consideration you know do I you know I have a principal's huddle tomorrow morning at 8:30 do I now give another message to the team that we're looking for the additional 1.3 million I can say I do not have an appetite to go to 1.99 um I feel uncomfortable with the cuts we already have to make um at the level in order to get to 3.28
058I worry about next year's budget when what we Levy this year impacts what we were able to Levy next year um what if we don't Levy what we need now we kick our it's a kind of a Kick the Can problem um down the road I I wish I wish we could have 3.28 and not have to lose a single soul here um and that's already not going to be the case I'm not comfortable going any deeper than that um like I said I'm already uncomfortable at 3.28 I wish we could have our cake and eat it too I suppose um but we're in a tough situation as it is and I think um you know I understand like my you know I don't want to pay more taxes right nobody here want like I
059don't want to pay more taxes and it's going to be a a hard thing to do but I I think the qual to maintain an appropriate quality of Education we need the money um and this is kind of where we're at I feel a little bit back into a corner on this one um so that's kind of where the wind is blowing from my seat if anybody else wants to speak their opinion um Rob I to say that I'm not happy with any of the decisions we have to make and from like a personal point of view and just knowing our community I do agree with you but as Christine said I'm really concerned about the quality of our education education was one of the main reasons we moved here I really love the opportunities
060that kids have and I'm upset that we may have to take away some of that already um I remember when I was doing all the research running for the board some of the things that really stood out to me are the electives at the high school level and how just truly incredible they are and I did not have those opportunities in high school and really happy that our kids get to especially when I feel our district is maybe not celebrated as much in our Westchester Community as it should be and our kids still get that really great quality education and I don't know 450 makes me sad the sale of G to to a I don't know if it was to a non for-profit but um the no it wasn't for profit for profit okay
061well that's better but well below the assessed value is really that hurts um and I'm one of the community members who's going to feel it but I need my kids to have a good education I need all the other kids here to have a good education and they deserve that just because they don't live in wealth doesn't mean that they don't deserve that trusty schnecker so I think context is an important thing like when we talk about Healthcare and we talk about this you know the district over the past five years has the lowest increases across the county at the end of the day we had roughly four years of zeros and if you go back before that we had times where it was negative to that as well and I think we were able
062to do that because of the foundation increases and and those increases at the time but our enrollment stayed the same and you know when you look at our spending for people across the county it's aligned with what others are doing and I would be concerned about a drop off there if you were talking a single year to year and not going to the cap I might be if it was a single year and we had years where we had not left money on the table in that in those situations then I might probably be more amendable to it but in this instance I think to maintain that we we used to have presentations educational solvency fiscal solvency and that that back and forth at the end of the day and so I lean towards supporting
063at this point I support the 3.28 I think it's I think it's a balance we're losing in this budget it's I'm heartbroken over losses after you know sitting at the table and putting having to cut things that you didn't want to cut we're back in that position again and some of that be onetime federal funds but still there'll be real Cuts here so at this point I support where we're at unless there's some strange new development that comes out with the budget which may not happen before the next meeting um Rusty bter got any thoughts okay um first of all personal plug just happy birthday to my 11-year-old son for thing today um I um I've been listening and I do think that you know there's a significant piece of this which is the bond
064which um is wrapped up together and we had initially pitched to the community 2.6% um increase over 5 years to support this Bond um and the whole goal now is try to get that down as low as possible so that we can have as close to zero as we can get and I think I'm in favor of having our cabinet and our admin spend the time and the effort and the energy in getting that down as close to zero as possible versus trying to shave off of this budget I think the 1.3 million which could potentially equate into 20 positions that we would have to cut is too much for me to stomach but even one of one of those I mean after we've done some cuts too much for me to stomach um I
065hate cliches but I don't want us to be Pennywise and pound foolish and if I have to decide where am I going to put the effort into balancing this for the community I'm going to put the money now into front facing positions in the classroom in front of our students and then I'm going to try to get the facilities piece as down as much as I can that's going to take a lot of time and a lot of effort um um I have no regrets about the budgets that this board has has passed in the last few years none at all I do think at the time when we were considering those we knew that this day was coming and we had told the community last year this is this is the last year that
066we can keep things flat so I feel like we've prepared the community for this if you consider the fact that we had sort of primed the community for this over 2% increase this year and then we had also primed them for an approximately 2.5% Bond increase over the next five years you're talking about 5% well we're at 3.28 I'm good with 3.28 I'm happy and proud that we were able to get to 3.28 when the starting point to keep things where they are was what 6.2 6.02 so I definitely I've gotten to a place and I will you know I will say I was fully ready going into this budget season um wanting to make good on that priming of the community for somewhere in the twos and I understand why that's not feasible now
067and um these the thing is with the budgeting right these are not one-time costs and we're already using onetime money to get to the 3.28 so we're already setting ourselves up for a major Cliff next year that the board next year is going to have to tackle and I am trying to minimize that Cliff to the extent possible while keeping services that are fund facing for students while bearing in mind the ask of the bond and to me this feels like a very good balance and compromise I just had one follow-up question for you Mary the 6:30 six you mentioned 630,000 in non-personnel cost is that it do you feel that there's just nothing left in that line item that you've mentioned that look if we go below 328 it's positions is there anything beyond
068the 6:30 you feel based on the assessment of your cabinet that that's there we we've had those conversations in terms of layering of time so do we cut all conferences across the board right do you do that in a budget cap scenario see this is the thought when you go into these things you'll never get them back you just don't get them back because your set point is much lower and in this day and age you know we we have a number of really important initiatives we think uh regular learning is important so that that would be an area that people T typically would go I take a look at technology I have increasing costs there we're running a full enterprise-based system we're trying to back up on all kinds of places and areas and
069uh controlling costs in that area for those of you in the field that's a difficult thing to do but we have a ton of service contracts in that area itself do I turn to Kim and basically look at you know contracted services and all the other stuff but special education is an area that in one year it can be flat another year it's Spike so do I keep those items in the budget absolutely because if we get hit with something we gain it back you know the six point um if I went back to everybody and said find another 20,000 can you find it in you know certain things we could probably get that Rob uh maybe even up to a 100,000 but when we are looking at a million plus and cut and we
070need that in ongoing expenses because um you know we're looking at he health insurance like that that's part of what like just think about we'd be at that 2% if we didn't get hit with this huge increase in health insurance so I I will say based upon our preliminary conversations second conversations and reading through our budget books again that um you know I think people have been very frugal and fiscal with their asks and I didn't see anything that won't change the course of how we go about doing things next year about kids the almost 630,000 that we're recommending where I'm hoping that Jared's trucks don't you know like to see too so he's going to have to live with one and I mean there there are layers of things like that there's there are
071some professional growth development opportunities in Arc that we're pushing out another few years we're not going to do I mean we went to those big areas for those savings no that's appreciated and just you know again the community knows when know once you raise the levy the amount the total amount the district rais it's it doesn't roll back the next year unless you potentially do other you know do other things like you go negative so I just want the community to know that I mean I just Katherine I don't know if you were listening just just prior to you know walking in but to me I think it is important to show the community over the next seven days what this means for their pocket so if we're going to do that calculator are we
072going to still do that to put it out there because I think it's just important to hear from the community or at least give the community information and again yeah it's the the board will adopt we'll we'll vote on this and we either you know vote and people class your votes but I do think the community should understand as best they can what it means out of their P so anything we can do to help facilitate that proactively my opinion hopefully there's some consensus on that that that's a good thing we are ready with that it wasn't ask of the board so we had a professional company leaded yeah we can't do anything until they is off the budget because uh we need the exact budget figures right um and we need to know exactly
073what the tax lby increase is going to be um so once and they're still working on it I don't anticipate we did take a look at what they provided but it wasn't uh accurate um so we had them go back and double check the numbers so I feel confident that after the budget um is adopted by the board that we would be in a better place with that but what I've seen um over the past couple of weeks in scrutinizing um the app that's going to go on the website there was a lot of things that were missing um and were not accurate so I don't want to promise something today is Tuesday um so we have four or five days left before um um the adoption on the 23rd and I don't want to
074put something out with number one if it changes and you guys decide not to do a 3.28 um so then that's different and then people have the wrong information and then I don't want to rush it because I don't want to put something out that I know is not accurate so I feel more comfortable waiting till after um the 23rd when we know all the figures are in go back and take one more look at the assessed values for each Town ask them for the updates um but there was certainly a disconnect in what they were providing us and what we needed as part of that calculation we're trying to get a an outside vendor to do this work to make sure it's accurate for us to it's the website developer right the website developer
075was very clear that they I don't think they are situated in New York state based on the language that they were using but again it's something we can work on if it's continue to work on I should say because there's um Nicole has been working on that too if it's something to um um the board decides would be helpful and useful so I will say you know based on this and based on information I have to congratulate the board in this community ausing has been incredible stewards of public money you had um two years you you really felt the spirit and tone of when you got that additional Foundation a compared to other communities and and Rob your point about GE we're delighted that it's a for-profit rather than a nonprofit but every single time
076a home owner files for a taxt request or a condo or they they what they are we used to call them tax shifts they are just tax shifts for everybody else so when you pile a tax s you your your taxes may go down but the obligation get spread amongst everyone so that is true in in many aspects of how we go about it here in in ausing but the board has maximized so many grants so many federal opportunities um we have someone who's writing furiously right now looking for more to do that um but um everyone is very very aware of the fact that public taxes and public money are something we all take very seriously I guess I just didn't fully follow that so if I'm a if I'm a Community member over
077the next seven days how would I go about finding what a 3.28 versus hypothetically a two versus other numbers would be out of pocket what what would be the mech mechanism traditionally that would have been like in another life in another place we would recommend people spoke with the tax assessor office because we don't control that aspect and they don't do their allow until August that's when they said it so we would we would you could give Bowl Parks you could give samples you could give links to the state the the form that a lead is shared which is actually came from the assessor's office here in ausing as well they pointed us to the same website but um because we don't control that level of assessment Rob we want to be very careful about
078our imperator and what we put out there we don't want people to say you were wrong right no I I understand that I I thought the assessments though were a year lagging meaning when I just walk through that example it's based on not 2024 it's based on what you were in 2022 to 2023 I I just I guess I'm a little confused because we put up there a couple of weeks ago right ala was great you had this is kind of the calculator we're working on now we're saying it's not ready for prime time but the community has basically one week so I'm not trying to fly uh flood your office U Michael uh if you're listening as the assessor but to me if I'm the community hopefully if that's if that's what they're going
079to need to do should do that I mean I I I gave you the numbers on the 500,000 I'm confident those numbers are correct that's from the assessor's office the calcul but if you don't want to take my word for it or any other board members I think the community should have an ability and if that we don't we don't want to do that proactively because we're not ready for it that's fine but but if then I guess yeah then I guess they should call the assessor to find out what the exact amount would be but you can certainly give like estimates and just a snapshot or whatever you want to call it around that as a sample like what a lead did in all three scenarios that I think we have still on our
080um uh agendas from the past we have information about what the property tax rate per thousand would be for example if it was at 6% if it was at 3 point I think n something at 1% if it was at two and you anyone can go in there and say all right here's my house here's what I anticipate hypothetically my taxable assessment could be going forward and then here's my tax rate for thousand they'd be able to do a relatively simple calculation on their own so just to clarify we have never put a L on the website um since I've been here we've always directed people to um uh wait until their bill comes out and if they have questions to let the um to talk to the assessor's office what we have done is
081put out the estimated tax rate it's always been an appendix in the budget and it's an estimate it's it's part of the appendix it's been there since I've been here um so we estimate the tax rate the tax rate is not determined until sometime the end of July August after we give them the um the levy um the amount of Levy so once again if you look at every budget book since I've been here the cover letter consistently says that the district does not provide um any impact on your tell you what the tax rate is and the only thing that we're in control of is the levy because the assessed values can change um the um the um the amount of bars or searies can change um so we do not have ever put
082any uh estimates related to people's individual tax bills if we can figure out where where a person can do that on their own based on the data that we have today with that caveat that's exactly coming from the budget book will be on that page then they can go for it but the district has never um provided people with information about their own individual tax bills it is actually provided on anyone who's listening it's tax.ny.gov it's an extraordinarily simple formula taxes owed equals taxable assessment times property tax rate per thousand that's your starting point anyone can go on there and do it um um I want to make sure we have all voices heard on the board is there is any sorry anything anyone has left to add let me know before we move on
083we are here yes we're going to our first section of audience recognition um I will first turn it over to anyone who's in person in um the audience in front of us are there any comments from the public at this time okay there being no show of hands we'll go to our virtual audience I'm going to ask our district clerk um the lovely Illy if anyone has raised their virtual hand okay no raised hands at this time we will continue on hang on a sec guys to our consent agenda business of the board um looking at section five is there anything think anyone would like me to break out from 5.1 through 5.4 I'd like to break out 5.3 okay anything else sorry that was 5.2 not 5.2 okay 5.2 okay I will take a
084motion for 5.1 and 5.3 and 5.4 so moved second 5.1 resolution regarding secret negative declaration multiphase project at an M dner Middle School 5.3 resolution regarding the Bose's proposed 2024 2025 school year budget 5.4 resolution to appoint consultants for the 2023 2024 school year any discussion I have a question 51 just a clarification question um regarding the secret negative declaration so it spells out in there what we're planning to do we're a phase one phase two possibly the building I guess my question is if anything changes specifically about this driveway like we say 125 spaces well we come back and we say well actually we need 150 or 920 linear feet driveway extension actually we determine we need a th000 feet does that impact anything like are you allowed to go back and make those
085changes to the plan or and if if if not Are We Now sort of boxed into this plan you just have to go back and file the secret paperwork again if anything changes in sort of the driveway plan itself so the the community actually votes on the budget amount for that work which is part of the budget the $4.6 million so it's not necessarily related to the Seeker the Seeker has already been done and we couldn't even actually put it on a ballot unless we do that Seeker so if there are any changes that are outside of the budget then we would have to go back and refine um the design um so that we are still within budget so the community is actually approving that we can only spend up to the 4.6 so
086the Seeker is just what the scope is right now but that doesn't mean that it cannot change um something like the number of of parking spots it would not have any impact on a Seeker um because it's a negative declaration if you're going to put a parking space on a roof or something like that then that that would be different um but the number spots based on Seeker um and the current scope Scopes change from the it is going to change probably um but the only thing that we would be concerned about is if we're overexpanded what was budgeted and the vot is approved okay so if you change the scope but you're stay in budget you're good if you change the scope and go over budget then or want to do diff like I'm
087just saying like right now we're still in early phases of this we might decide well it's a driveway no actually we want to make it a road like there's a lot more potentially could change but I'm just saying like from this end we approve this a 51 tonight we the district still has the flexibility whether it's to refile this whether it's to go back to the community ask for money whatever it is we we don't have to do exactly what's here if it's determined at a later date that things need to change for the Seeker the Seeker doesn't have anything to do with the budget amount okay you just have to tell the voters what the scope is and you have to evaluate the impact on the um area um before you can even put
088it in front of the voters so actually the last day is next week um for that to be approved or else it cannot be part of the budget so but they're not tied together that document doesn't mean that we are limited to spend 4.6 but it's approved by the budget by the voters is what limits us thank you I think it's a natural question in many of these things you end up with additional cost or you end up with we call Value engineering once you start the design development in this and the state understands that so this gives a general overview of what you're trying to do what you're touching in the land that you're going about it whether or not we're able to do it is a whole other conversation once we get to
089the next stage but voter approval and then development of the design based on this yeah I mean I think it's an important Point final design comes after voter approval at the end of the day always on all projects is done it always happens and you refine the budget based on what the issues encountered are and there's no real way to do that any less conquer it's the way the system works and that's how it is and as we discussed at our facilities committee meeting um the beauty of this is that it serves as a Communications notice as well we had to notify many in the town governance and Village governance levels about this level of work on the list of people that were notified information was given was significant so again it serves as a
090real notification process to everyone that hey we're planning on doing this and uh let you know okay any further discussion all in favor I opposed exension I'll take a motion for 5.2 sove second 5.2 resolution regarding the election of putam Northern Westchester Bose's board members any discussion yes um I'm not I have concerns about one of the um candidates Dei positions um Neil Haber and I'm not at this time comfortable supporting having him on the FES board okay any further discussions uh is there a motion to amend the resolution yes I would move to amend it to not include him any further discussion or any discussion on the proposed amendment I think that's how that works any discussion I think you have to vote on a slate of candidates I think the question is can
091you break it out individually or you vote be on a Full Slate and I would not be in favor of dropping anyone off of the Slate I people wanted if it's possible in this to break it out and to have individuals that I'd be amenable to that but I think there should be a vote on each one of the candidates either in a total together or or individually but that's a procedural question maybe we would ask the clerk if the if the Slate can be broken uptime can sometimes you can't I mean it I'm just going to pontificate a little bit this is obviously not I'm not the clerk but it seems that if we have War four vacancies and we want to cast only three votes that's no different really than bullet voting in
092an election we should be able to but um Ilie do you have guidance for us on this no PR I'm not expecting you to no pressure okay um in reading the resolution it basically says by by official ballot requesting the AI Board of Education to cast one vote for each of the four vacancies to be filled so I would recommend that we have four motions at the end of the day for each of the candidates Okay so then I think we would need to vote on Annie's Amendment and then take another motion for an amendment to reflect for individual votes unless somebody disagrees I don't know the Parliamentary procedure on that I don't think it can hurt I don't think it can hurt to vote on the amendment but I would like to hear from
093if we're going to do that if Annie can speak further or any other people have the same you know objection account like the more about it before we I I think I'm going I think we should vote on individuals if there's a concern and we should just play out I mean I know all four board members and I don't have to share the same concerns at the end of the day but I respect my colleagues uh opinion on it okay so I'll take a vote on um the amendment proposed by trustee Gomez unless there's any further discussion about that specific Amendment all in favor we took a motion in a second on that amendment I don't know that we yeah I thinkr and I yes okay you did okay thank you okay so we're voting
094all in favor on the proposed amendment opposed oppos oppos oppos you got that ele just making sure she's as unusual it has to go in the minutes um exstension okay is there another uh motion make a motion that we break this resolution into four individual resolutions number one what it what do we at 51 52 so 5.2.1 5.2.1 5.22 23 two4 for each candidate okay so just to clarify these proposed amendments we will have 5.2.1 for Katherine Lilburn l i l b r NE e IL you let me know when you're good and then we would have 5.2.2 for Michael Simkins I might just interject the way we number our resolutions you can't really it comes out as 521 you may want to just make a motion to withdraw 5.2 and then just making 5.5
095to 5.8 hang on one second okay but then that wouldn't be an amendment no you're making four new resolutions right you just have your numbering scheme isn't going to work in the way the board does its does its its resolution but wait hear me out on this because to like it's one thing to amend it right which is still within the same resolution which is all under the umbrella of 5.2 correct it's another to do fully new resolutions which I don't think we have on the agenda right but you would do a 55 instead of a 521 because you'd be skipping from 54 all the way down to 521 I'm not 521 no I'm doing 5.2.1 is how I'm proposing it okay okay yep we're good we're we're there now yep all right so I
096think I had 5.2.2 as Michael Simpkins you got that okay 5.2.3 Neil Haber 5.2.4 James Ryan and so this is an amendment to break this out into four subgroups any discussion on breaking this out into four subgroups before we then vote on each individual subgroup all in favor I I opposed extensions this is my Olympics guys I can do this okay all right we have now amended 5.2 so that it is in four parts I will take a motion for 5.2.1 involving candidate Katherine Lilburn so moved second okay any discussion all in favor I I opposed exstension I will take a motion for 5.2.2 Michael Simkins so moved second any discussion all in favor I I opposed extension I will take a motion for 5.2.3 Neil Haber so moved second any discussion I do not
097agree with I have concerns about his de and we have a very diverse District so I just want to make sure every student is accurately represented and fought for um I will add that I was disappointed in some of truste haber's um positions that were stated publicly during the um New York State School Board Association uh I'm not itive committee the the legislative goals where the districts come and they present what they propose should be advocated for by the New York State schoolbd Association in Albany sorry I don't remember the name off the top of my head can can those that have the concerns elaborate on that for the other board members because it's hard to then weing break taking the time to break this out i' like I think it's fair to hear what
098the concerns are so we can make an informed decision on that um I'll go first I recognize this is probably very uncomfortable for everyone um so I don't I I'm personally I was UPS upset is not the right word but I wasn't pleased with his cqu on advocating for stricter gun control um in the state on behalf of the schools and the school board Association I felt like it it was at odds with the crisis that we have in our country involving assault weapons um and incidents happening specifically schools being targeted um for myself um the district that he is in had a policy committee meeting on Dei potentially using ausing as a jumping off point and I don't know how specific to get but I was uncomfortable with some of what was said in
099that meeting um it is public he said that he wasn't sure that we should be advocating anti-racism in our schools and I very much disagree with that I don't know how you can have children of color in your schools and not Advocate not hating them which is how I took it personally trusty Sher sure I mean I think like all good boards at times you have various perspectives and debate and some of those conversations that go on in terms of especially the legislative committee there's a balance to all that and so I don't from my perspective I think you make better decisions when you have lots of viewpoints involved there at the end of the day to the to the point of the context I'm not familiar with all the details of what went down
100in croen at the end of the day I will say I I'm concerned of how that necessarily I know things were said in the meeting but from my experience with the individual I'm not sure that accurately you know reflects the experience I have but you know I think Neil's been a long public servant at the end of the day you know he's been supportive of public education and I don't dismiss the need that all school districts basically need to support all students and you know and I every student I mean state law and federal law Pro you know you know provides that we all are supposed to represent all students no matter what color they are at the end of the day so I understand the concerns I don't know that that's quite the experience
101that I have and so my other experience notwithstanding leads me towards support thank you do we have any other um discussion yeah just based on that I mean I I mean b maybe this a question when bosis puts up their slate I assume they've fair to say they they vetted bosis puts up the Slate or these people want to be on it and it's like it's like your school board you step into the ring and put your thing out there's four open seats there's four people that that basically got the petition sign got got it and there's four you said there's four open seats correct so us voted one by one the the member districts of bosis determine who gets on the board or how are these like if we if we vote one way
102or another is it binding like if enough of the district say no to someone or yes to someone they make it or don't make it is that sort of what we're doing or just yeah if they if they don't get if they don't get a majority I don't know if it's one or a majority I think it may just be one District's vote that gets you on at the end of the day it's it'ss by vote count at the end of the day but boards end up you know voting kind of collectively we all get one vote even we're breaking out to four we're all going to vote there'll be one vote for Ming at the end of the day and and the candidates okay so it's one vote my my understanding okay okay all
103right and so there are four vacancies and four candidates correct got it okay um any further discussion all in favor I I um okay so that's two eyes all in favor of of voting for uh trusty Neil ha to fill the vacancy I should say does that make sense that was so have an i any other eyes yeah two eyes two eyes Okay ell you have two eyes opposed opposed opposed um trusty bed did you vote on that one or do we have an abstention thank you abstain okay so we have three two the motion does not carry it's actually not a quum not a quum of the board it's not a quorum right it's not a quorum of the board you need four votes so what happens now I've never had this happen guys
104I don't know I think we have not cast vote so you only cast a vote for three now what that does with the rest of Po I don't know okay um Ilie how do you write that down in the minutes okay we'll come back to that okay all right I'm G to put an aster there because I want to find the answer to that question myself um I well um going to do some guys just give me one second already in most instances a majority vote is a simple majority of the members voting excluding those who choose to abstain so we had a quorum of board members voting in this correct with had one exstension one absence so that's five yeah six total and we had a simple majority who voted no I believe that
105that means the the motion does not carry what what are you referring to Robert's Rules of Order yeah I I I feel like I guess it's going to be a question right but my understanding is any any resolution of the board has to be a quorum of the board if you don't have four votes it doesn't pass but maybe we should ask the attorneys and yes I think we should we have the record of the votes and the attorney can decide whether we voted or not okay so we're going to put a blank in the minutes for that one until we get the answer but I will make a note to follow up with the attorneys and CC everybody I will take a motion for 5.2.4 so moving second um 5.2.4 we have James Ryan
106any discussion I just would like to thank Dr Ryan who was forign principal at austing high school for continuing this lifelong service in public education and Dr Ryan has been the president of the BCE board or superintendent for the Post he was former superintendent former superintendent that's right okay any further discussion all in favor I oppose exstension all right guys we got through that thank you I'll take a motion for 6.1 so moved second and it is 6.1 resolution regarding interf fund transfers any discussion all in favor I I opposed exstension okay um looking at section 7 now anything from 7.1 through 7.13 that I should break out all right I'll take a motion for 7.1 through 7.13 so moved can I get a second second second okay 7.1 resolution regarding administrative staff resignation 7.2
107resolution regarding Civil Service staff resignation 7.3 resolution regarding support staff resignation 7.4 resolution regarding administrative staff appointment 7.5 resolution regarding professional staff appointment 7.6 resolution regarding Civil Service staff appointments 7.7 resolution regarding support staff appointments 7.8 resolution regarding professional staff appointments before and after school programs 7.9 resolution regarding perdm substitute appointments 7.10 resolution regarding a accountability 7.11 resolution regarding approval of school volunteers 7.12 resolution regarding support staff request for leave of absence 7.13 resolution regarding confidential staff appointments um any discussion all in favor I I opposed exstension okay um let's go into board policies um let me start with 8.1 through 8.3 of those three second readings is there anything anyone would like to break out I'll take a motion for 8.1 through 8.3 so moved second 8.1 resolution to adopt policy 1120 School District
108records as a second reading 8.2 resolution to adopt policy regulation 1120 R School District records regulation is the second reading 8.3 resolution to adopt policy 5405 local wellness policy is a second reading any discussion all in favor oh sorry just on on 83 I believe that policy talks about school lunch times and should be no less than 20 minutes but if the board if this goes you know if if this stays as policy but I know we've talked about a board maybe talking about school lunch times and looking at scheduling around that for next year if we decide an Administration recommends like I don't know 45 minute lunch period I don't think the way the policy written would restrict that it's only if you went under 520 right if you said nope you get five
109minutes right so you could do more right okay that's it thank you any further discussion all in favor I opposed extension okay so let's um I'll take a motion for I'm going to I'm going to break these out take a motion for 8.4 resolution to adopt policy 1230 public participa participation at board meetings as a first reading so moov second okay 8.4 resolution to adopt policy 12:30 public participation at board meetings as a first reading any discussion um I'll get us started on this I think if if you have it and you can pull it up on your um computers it should also be looked at in conjunction with 8.7 on here which is policy 2350 so I was able to join the policy committee um this past week and our attorney was there to
110take us through this um and it you know she basically said to us you guys as a board can do whatever you want make it consistent right and so you know I think we had expressed that there was some consternation or concern around the 30 minute time limit so she said you can absolutely take that out and then we confirmed with her that if we're in a situation where we have a public comment section for example at the beginning at the middle at the end wherever we want to put it and it's getting late and we feel as though for example uh the weather is bad or our staff is not going to be able to get home and they have long distance to travel and we want want to be safe any trustee can
111make a motion at any point in time to close public comment and they can do that now right so this isn't new um and best practice is to give the reason why you would be closing public comment and so I can say for example if a board trustee says I want to close public comment because I don't like the comments that are being made publicly we then have a discussion and I say I'm not not voting in favor of closing public comment we have our col we we take our vote right but that right exists now for the board so she said there was no harm in codifying that and putting that extra sentence in here there is a typo in this um and I did ask her specifically about typos and she said you
112can delete any language you want um by orally amending it at the board table so in the red section where it says individual comma shall be limited to no more than 3 minutes in length blah blah blah blah blah each member of the public who wishes to make a public comment shall only have one opportunity per meeting to speak this phrase unless there is a balance of time left in the public comment period should be deleted it was relevant to the 30 minutes that that was removed from this so um I would recommend making an amendment to delete that language starting with unless ending with period um transitioning now right because this doesn't say there is one public comment period there's two public comment periods there's three public comment periods so if you transition now
113to looking at policy 2350 the board is faced with three options with 2350 our attorney doesn't love that we have this policy and actually recommended that we eliminate it all together she feels like it is too prescriptive and doesn't give us the flexibility that we might want as a board I suspected that that's probably not the direction that the board wants to go I think we probably have it there for a reason historically it's been there it does have language in 2350 that says this is just meant to be a guideline this can be changed at any point in time upon consensus of the board so she said we either leave that as is and then based on consensus it does not even have to be a motion if we want to do something different
114than public with how we order our public comment portions of the meeting we can do that at any time best practice is to be consistent alternatively we can do a revised 2350 which switches number six and number seven and that would put the first public comment section typically found on our agendas up to after the Super attendance update and before staff and cabinet presentations so I guess we as a board need to decide number one are we okay with the revised 1230 public participation at board meetings as amended and I'll make a motion for the amended but then number two what do we want to do with 2350 we want to scrap it entirely we would need a motion for that we want to keep it as is and just agree that as of right
115now the consensus of this board is to do something different if that is the consensus or three do we want to revise it to reflect the consensus and that is what we need to discuss please let me know if you have questions so I have a question on the policies and then I guess what was reviewed but so in 2350 the first public comment period as written here is for agenda items only correct correct okay I'm just I had heard something different in earlier conversations of the board it doesn't sound like a very material change to me at the end of the day so if we're keeping it as cou agenda items only I think that's the balance of what the board's been doing but I'm not sure that that's the consensus of the group
116here but so I think there's a question there the other question I had related to the other two sections um policy 2111 refers to the meeting rules the meeting guidelines that are basically published that are on every board agenda meeting and there's guidelines and then 2111 and were those looked at in conjunction with these policies because I wonder if there's not a conflict actually I'm pretty sure there is a conflict in there so I guess the question is when we did the review was that seen and was that looked at and because I think you probably also then need to look at the guidin and make decisions there about it I would say generally speaking I think some of those things in there came from experience of of difficult board meetings and there was uh
117the guidelines in particular were written uh related to with nisba um and recommendations at the time during contentious periods so I think those should at least be looked at and considered in the policy there's overlap between what's here and what's already in there hang on let me get to it thank so on every board meeting if you go to the the top of the agenda there is a section that has basically I think it's in the call to order is it call to order uh the meeting guidelines are listed public comment guidelines 41 tonight's meeting has the public guidelines document and then policy 2111 has an exhibit that talks about referencing those guidelines you say that again I can't find what you're speaking about so if you go to section 41 on the agenda there's
118a there's a there's an entry for public comment guidelines and if you look under the public content it has for further guidelines please refer to public comment guidelines and you click on the link and this is the document that was drafted Ed by a subcommittee of M crossling Mr gal and myself along with looking at nisba and you know this was around the time of covid contentious budget Cycles there was a nisba version there was we we put this together with an austing you know there changes made for that but I look at things like this to say like their guidelines from boards in the past to either consider in weigh and they they keep you in a a decent spot when you have contentious situations so I guess I would be leaning towards keeping
119something similar to this it's also a way we tell the community that hey here's the guidelines for the meeting they used to be published in the back of the room now they're basically online in the agenda and so anybody says question something you do they have that public VAR guidelines there the other path of that in policy manual 21 uh if you look at exhibit 2111 in the policy book exhibit E2 it talks about under the board member standards for conduct there's a section that talks about public participation at board meetings and has four items in it and one of those items talks about that the rules will be distributed at each meeting and that's what they are right because they're distributed online yeah right okay so I have an answer to this which is
12010 11 12 13 are consistent with the two policies we're discussing tonight the what is posted on our agendas is a guideline it's not policy it's not in our policy manual guideline can be changed anytime we want to change a guideline right so if we are changing our policy and it's no longer consistent with our guideline but we're all in agreement that we're going to change our policy it's a simple fix of moving a couple sentences around to make sure our public speaking guidelines match the policy yeah I mean I think what you have right now it doesn't if if you're are you allotting people there's three minute cap is the three minute cap across the board does that stay if it does your guidelines probably are fine if you're changing the three-minute cap and
121you're not doing a certain SE section at the beginning of the meeting then you're probably okay but if I thought one of the policies basically I guess if you strike the balance of time then you get past your limits on that so I think you know these are the four places where you just don't want to have something in conflict with one another that's why I asked you know was it reviewed so at some point yes not the last meeting but it had come up in Prior meetings this this document and how it relates in so our attorney was very clear that we need to decide what is the policy change that we are going to go with right and then we need to work from there to make sure that our guidelines match whatever
122policy it is that we're agreeing on right so we that's step one there is nothing I can see unless I'm missing it that is inconsistent with and 2350 in any proposed form including getting rid of it and the 1230 yeah no I I mean I think that probably depends on the discussion of to come because like if if we're sticking to agenda items only in the first public comment period everything here matches that if there was you know I heard a different I thought I heard something different in previous I agree I thought I I heard that too so if that's going to change you got policy changes you got guideline changes you have but let me let me ask you though how how is how is non-agenda items at the be at any time
123we want it inconsistent with any of this because I'm reading public par ipation at board meetings is the board will continue to follow rules distributed right which if we want to change we change and the board will provide opportunities for the public to raise issues at the beginning or end of the meeting and then members of the public may allow to Common on agenda items following board discussion comments made to the president blah blah blah it doesn't say when that needs to happen I'm just I'm not read it is inconsistent with what what we are proposing to do so 2350 item number six which I take as the first comment period says members of the audience will be invited to comment upon or raise questions regarding agenda items I I agree with you there I
124think I was talking about I want to take it a step at a time okay I I don't see anything consistent with 1230 when you compare it with 2111 I don't know that they compare right there're but they're but basically 2111 has refers to the meeting rules right the meeting guidelines right right and some of what's in the meeting guidelines is also in 201230 so I was just 20 12 121230 that policy has similarities to the guidelines I just I think if there's anything in Conflict there that's why I was just asking was it reviewed because you don't want to have conflict there right right so 2350 I agree with you I don't think it switching six and seven as the revision is proposed necessarily gets to the spirit of what we were trying to
125do right I think but if you um changed for example if you made an amendment regarding agenda items and you changed that to regarding School related items I think you satisfy what what the spirit of this was that being said our attorney was very clear that is a a guideline that is able to be con changed with the consensus of the board at any time and that is a provision into 350 so she didn't see any reason to amend it as it exists at all right now because any of this can be changed with consensus of the board she was literally like the board just needs to decide what they want to do and based on consensus of the board do that then in every meeting then you take a you basically vote to decide
126whether the open comment periods for agenda items or for non-agenda items I mean you could unless there was a consensus of like we're comfortable doing this this budget season unless somebody makes a motion to do something differently or wants to raise an inboard dialogue she really was said like this could be as open-ended and flexible as you want it just be consistent with this is the consensus of the board or and this is why I agree with the attorney get rid of it yeah or she said get rid of it that's that's run into this problem right and and then looking at other districts again I did little homework I didn't see this thing anywhere like they have one 12:30 and that's kind of it like they have a public comment period and that's it
127so to me yeah I encourage the board to think about this 2350 thing and midle and I don't know Frank if you worked on it looks like it was last 2008 yeah know this is something that's been on the books for a long time so I wasn't here with this I mean to me that's what's kind of mucking things up a little bit Yeah to me I would I my vote would be just get rid of it deci side of consensus what the board wants to do in the whole Spirit three minutes move things up down and then now you don't have to think about it every meeting because you have a 2350 the sentiment really was more like that sort of here is the ideal of how a meeting will look is appropriate for
128a board handbook you know it's sort of designed to give a board who's maybe a newer board just sort of an outline of the expectation of the meeting um I I would be in favor of scrapping it and putting it into the board handbook because I think it's it's I think there's Spirit here to make change and it's complicating it's complicating us being comfortable with the consensus um if that was scrapped then I don't see any conflict between 1230 and 2111 we're jumping around a little bit sorry so that's okay yeah I I think what's in 12:30 just has to be vetted against the existing meeting guidelines and if there's changes that need to be made I think we're going to have to probably tweak the meeting guidelines it can be done it can be
129done over a Word document um that is then brought forth to the next meeting it doesn't have to go through a formal process it's a guideline not a policy so you know we can talk it out people can if they want to change a policy tonight they want to propose what they would tweak on that tonight feel free you can do you can send it an email I mean I think it should be pretty easy to tweak it so that it's reflective of one 1230 and not as prescriptive because the Bas the guidelines really are meant to guide the public in what will be acceptable and what will not be acceptable in terms of how they present and conduct themselves before the board and designed to sort of if we have a situation where you
130know tensions are running High a mechanism to try that we all know as the Playbook of how we handle those kinds of situations so the recommendation at this point Sorry a question so there's no time limit on the first com comment period at the end of the day correct okay and so I guess we'll see if that becomes an issue with the board conducting its meetings right at the end of the day and budget cuts and things like that you tend to find those issues out so I think that sounds like I see nods of head people are leaning towards going that route versus something that gives the board cuts the the you know you know uh protects the board's time at the end of the day I'm not so sure I'm on the same
131page with that I think you know but I understand the the change I just want to understand what the headset is so no time cap three minute rule for everybody at the end of the day and they don't get the balance of time because that was what you're proposing to strike out okay correct certainly gives Equitable access in that regard Ju Just Frank to your concern around that I think Katherine you said if you don't put the 30 in there board can still shut it down by a vote right or in theory it may not be pretty but in theory like Hey we're here two hours you know we're enough we're I think a good example of this is how the advocacy night goes at at nisba which is what we were talking about earlier
132um you know you have all of these resolutions coming up and as the night wears on people present a resolution and then the next thing that you hear once it's 11 o'clock at night is I move to end Dialogue on this and then the motion passes and we move on to the next resolution I don't that's not the spirit of the board that I see here in front of us so I doubt that that would happen um but I I could see it you know our attorney also said if you need to have a quick board meeting like there is no requirement that you have public comment at all right it it's totally flexible this policy is making us allowing us is requiring us to have public comment which I don't think anyone's uncomfortable with
133that but if we have a storm on the horizon and we have to urgently pass something and we need to be able to get our staff and ourselves out of the building safely then we can come in we can do that and and any trustee can make a motion to end public the comment I I can't think of an instance where that has happened but it does allow us the ability to do that the board's just gonna you know I I think it puts the board in a little bit of a precarious position at the end of the day and you know I think that that's you know how you implement it and how you stick through in the difficult times will be kind of how that that plays out right because you got to
134make sure people have the same access and just because you don't like an issue you can't shut it down and we've had people come with lengthy issues at the end of the day so just well let me just be clear the guideline would still have the three minutes in it when when you have many people lined up for an issue at the end of the day and as you get into maybe not this year but maybe next year seen cuts for a year you know we sat in the room for a long time and it it'll just it'll require a lot but well the reason why that there's no time limit actually in the policy is because having it in the guideline allows us any truste to say I move to limit public comment we
135have a huge crowd here tonight to one and a half minutes or two minutes per person so that was sort of the idea behind that and if you have three minutes per speaker in here that's policy you're stuck with the 3 minutes this is not school board but I have seen and I'm not saying I agree with this but I have seen a town board say if you are all here to speak for the same thing please speak as like one group with one comment are we allowed to do that yes that's what our attorney said we are also allowed to do that because we don't have anything in our policy that specifically prevents us from doing that so she did say one of the reasons why you might be in a position to say
136I move to limit public comment on this issue of maroon tablecloth at the board table um we've heard 10 comments on maroon tablecloth at the board table we have to get on with our business at the board this evening if you are here to comment about Maron CL tablecloths at the board table please send us an email so she said that this also allows us the flexibility to do that the other thing I'm just not not fully sold is the three minutes like I like what the guidelines say which says you could adjust it with a majority of the board if we put in I understand the consistency but my my recollection with Council was you could have something that says three minutes or this language and the guideline and still be consistent to me
137it's awkward when you have one person online or here we're buzzing them out at 259 to me in the spirit of this I'd love to have the ability to have that flexibility to go longer within reason and I believe Council said that's not going to create a situation where someone that next week come and says well you gave that person four you'd be insulated against that because literally there was no one else in here on airline so that was just my other addition on that and the other quick it is in there it's under the guideline it says that three-minute limit can be adjusted at the discretion of the president or the majority of the board but you the the new 1230 says a hard three though no does it says individual comment should be
138more than minutes no more than minutes so what wins the guidelines or the the policy wins so my my point I would love my in the spirit of doing this if we're going to do it and do it in one Fell Swoop the language around that the can be something that you could adjust that if one person is here and this place is empty we're not buzzing them out of three you can go to 315 you go 3 34 and then illegally you're covered if someone comes next week and said I saw that meeting wait a minute you gave them four you got to give me four and I think Council said yeah you could do that if you write that in so that was the one part of that and the other part is
139if we get rid of 2350 the first Comon period can be on non-agenda items because again for my end my vote would be move that one up that covers everything get your three plus maybe a little bit more and if you want to stay for the meeting great and if you want to peace out that's fine too that would be love my spirit of we can decide based on a consensus what we want to do with that we don't have to codify it don't have to codify it so you could so but would that have to be done at every meeting then if there's no 2350 no oh you could just do it we could just do it until the consensus to not do it is there okay but you don't have to take a
140formal vote on it no as long as we don't have 2350 right we're good honestly even if we have 2350 she said that we're good you could but you change it you could okay but CH when you say change it you could just do you have to say Okay this she said you don't have to do a formal vote don't have to do a formal vot said consensus is fine okay so they all so that's good so that covers from my end that piece but the three minutes it said if you do put in the policy at three I think we're limited I don't think the guidelines will supers that so I would I would I don't think so I mean I I think there's case law on this that basically says like if you're
141approximately 3 minutes and you're saying to the speaker I know you have more to say but you hit your three minute Mark and we have business of the board to get on to like please finish up that is consistent with the spirit of the policy so you'd be able to go a little bit longer we're not buzzing people I don't know are you are you speaking from your for yourself Rob or no no no like you know Kim Jeffrey's coming we we're buzzing her out and like to me the spirit of this should be like okay how much more you got got another 30 okay you're good another 30 I I don't I it just feels awkward especially with an empty room that you're literally we we're buzzing someone out so to me if we're
142going to do it I'd love to see the flexibility like it's in the guidelines that you could say okay and go a little bit more not 10 minutes not seven or 345 and that literally click them off it just feels awkward to me I mean it does feel awkward I think like we've even received um guidance in the past that although it was back in the day as treated as a very strict you're done cut off like the thought process I think from nisba has changed around that and they're trying to get boards to take a little more approachable approach um I don't I like the three minutes being in the policy because I think it sets the tone and the expectation and I think the guidelines allow us enough leeway as long as we're
143in the spirit of three minutes that's my take on it okay as long as there flexibility in theory that okay do we have further discussions on this I am going to take a motion to amend policy 1230 under 8.4 to strike the language in the second paragraph two three four five six seven eight eight lines down beginning with the word unless and ending with the word period and then a period after it and I will change the comma after speak to a period any discussion on that proposed amendment sorry did you just say say that again the change yes the change is line eight of the second paragraph beginning with the word unless the language unless there is a balance of time left in the public comment period period will be stricken got and then
144the comma after the word speak and the line above it will be changed to a period thank you sure any discussion on that proposed amendment um all in favor of the amendment I I opposed abstention okay I will now take a motion for 8.4 as amended second 8.4 resol resolution to adopt policy 1230 public participation at board meetings as a first reading as amended uh any further discussion all in favor I opposed exstension okay um I think it probably makes sense to take a motion now for 8.7 resolution to adopt policy 2350 board meeting procedures as a first reading so we can decide what it is that the consensus is to do with this can I get a motion for that second second okay so then I'm going to call for discussion on this are
145we in favor of scrapping this and putting it in the handbook that's where I'm leaning I am I be will to as well if legal is good with that then yes legal would be very happy literally said why do you have this I don't like this yeah I like it being in the handbook the one question I'll give on this is the policy manual is a board's handbook at the end of the day and when you start to put things into documents and they fall out you have to look at the value and assume that it's not there right somebody edits it out at the end of the day so I guess the question in my mind is is there any is there is there a value you're with the structure I would say probably
146um and if it's worth putting in the handbook then I would leave it in the policy manual I don't know I don't I mean I it seems to me like this was put in there as as a guideline to help somebody figure out how to set an agenda um I don't have a problem with it being in the handbook any other discussion is the concern that someone will like go Rogue and make a bizarre agenda if it's not a policy um I mean I don't know I'm I'm in favor of getting rid of it so I don't have the concern I know you don't I'm just asking in general what the concern or Frank what's the concern if anybody knows when you when you when you look at things especially as a new board you
147want to have you want to leverage experience of previous boards at the end of the day this is clearly here for a reason we can you know I don't know I'm going to get into the reasons why it's here but it's there to provide guidelines for what the what you expect the board to do with the community at the end of the day and so do I see value in it yeah and previous board saw a reason to put it in there and while I understand yes it can be changed at any time I think it's good for a board to have you know there so you know we'll put it up for a vote I'll vote to support it but you know doesn't mean that pry well um but let me ask you this
148is there an appetite to amend it so that line six reads instead of regarding agenda items uh regarding educational and school related items I would use the same language that you have with school what is it school items in the policy pertaining to matters it's matters other uh let me see schools I think the public comment it's related to school items only School items so I would say to comment upon School items okay so let me just write this down thanks for everyone's Patience by the way this is this is stuff that's been looked at for a number of years so okay School agenda to school related and then looking down at number 10 you know questions from members from the audience comment or questions pertaining to are we just are we okay with that
149language being there or is there a desire to have it say something different is that should that be agenda related items do we currently have public guideline not relating to our school district and if so why I don't understand the question number 10 other than agenda items relating to the aing school district oh other than agenda items but still relating to the ausing school district is that how I'm supposed to I was like that makes no sense okay this is this is by the way again I think we should get rid of it it doesn't Exist Elsewhere Council said even if we make that agend adjustment in it which I like moving the thing up and be talk about anything there's still other things in here that made the attorney uncomfortable frankly made me like
150to me I don't think you need a policy to set an agenda I think you have the ability to do that in the current mechanism so again my while I appreciate the idea of collaboration on this thing to me it should go it's going to it's going to create more potential issues to by having to codified just my opinion based on the conversation we had in Council as well how does 2350 what we do with it affect um the resolution if I'm using the right terminology that we have to on each agenda I mean that's that's the thing it's not consistent with our own Equity policy that's not on there and that's part of the problem is that are we every time we have an initiative like that we're in a position where we now
151have to go back and we have to revise this or are we going to as a board decide how we're going to set our agenda items I mean it to me if the stuff that's on here CU we're not doing this stuff now right so you know we don't have our student representative here presenting to us we don't always have a spe special recognition of student staff or Community we don't have a district recognized parent group representative so all of this was uncomfortable when the ATT attorney pointed out you know she's like are you doing that are you doing that are you doing that are you doing that and she said you're okay because there is this caveat at the end that says if there's a consensus of the board you don't have to but
152to me this is it's limiting us it's not reflective of what we're doing now and I think it has the potential to be limiting rather than reflect the growth that the board goes through so I mean there's a lot on if if the board wants to revise this whole thing you know I guess maybe at this point we either re revise the whole thing or we scrap the whole thing and there is a consensus to follow 12:30 and seems like there's a consensus to move up a public comment section so we can still do that and leave this alone but you're right Melissa it's not reflective of what what we do well I'll offer a different interpretation so it's generally should follow this and we do have work session special presentation Equity is a work
153session item right so at the end of the day it's not prescriptive it's a framework and I think that's what the intent of this is um and I do think it's good for boards to have student Representatives we have had student representatives in the past I think we had some changes over the past year it's been one of the first years we haven't and um but I think you know having having time on the agenda for parent groups and coming in to present you know we had proo con come in we had PTA come in we had those things and you know part of the reason that was there was so that they spoke earlier in the meetings at the end of the day versus just public com so I think there's a lot of
154experience in this that's why I say I don't think I would lean on scrapping it I think I would you know make the changes but I'm one of seven yeah to further clarify um my question I just I was just wondering if that was taken into consideration um from the perspective of council when she was kind of interpreting there being no need for the I mean she said you as a board can come to a consensus and run your agenda in whatever way you want and that's what this policy says right and the board has come to a consensus and theyve passed an equity policy and we do our best to have the equity line item on every board meeting so did she specifically say you don't have your Equity item in here no she
155did not but she said I doubt your following this like this at every single meeting and you move things up anyway generally generally you move things up anyway if like a teacher's getting yes we move them up all the time so that's why she was like you don't have to do you don't have to revise this right like this was offered as a proposed Revision in the sense that people wanted the consensus cified in some way so like I'm we're going in circles a little bit I'm trying to get a sense of is there an appetite to just leave this alone at this point and agree that we have a consensus to do something a little bit different than what we're doing it or do people feel as though it should be codified somehow if
156you weren't let's if you were not scrapping this okay let's start with a baseline if we're not scrapping this would you choose to revise it to just keep it as is and just have the understanding that we have a consensus I would choose to revise it as we discuss as amended as we just talked about related to like School matters or um instead of agenda items at the beginning okay you you don't right so rather six would read questions regarding School related items right and 10 would read question questions pertaining to agenda related items I think if you're doing public if the intention is to do public comment if both the beginning and the end of the meeting you're going to give it open to either one right that's we can do that too I'm
157asking that's I'm not sure I sit in this consensus and so I'm asking I don't know where we are I I say we scrap it or rewrite the whole thing because I'm not comfortable leaving things in there to Frank's point that we're not doing in a policy I so I would say let's move to vote to get rid of it which to me gives you the most flexibility in the shortest amount of time to get this or take a holistic look and adjust it completely that that's what I would say to me it's an either or tweaking around the edges at this point for something that's 16 years old doesn't make makes much sense to me either get rid of it or just reexamine it add whatever you want to do it and bring it
158back but my vote still if we take a vote on it right now would be just scrap it okay just to be clear the vote that is pen in is on the revised version which it sounds like we would then propose to amend further there is no vote to scrap it at this point in time right can can can we make a motion to do that um the motion on the floor either has to be decided on right we have to decide the motion on the floor um I would recommend revising six and 10 to basically as as the amendment six just basically say School related items okay okay ausing School related items or School related items the policies are School related items I don't think you I think you're in a tough spot with
159free speech in terms of what you could even stop but we can't limit people from talking about almost anything don't we do that now it says that you have to talk about school it has school related addings we've had National School related items we've had State School related items um we talk about a lot of national state I'm only asking because the policy as it is says aing School District um okay before any further Dialogue on this before I take a motion to amend this and then you vote however you're going to vote Rob on what whatever way it's fine okay I'm going to take a motion to amend policy I'm sorry yes to amend policy 2350 as revised so that item six reads instead of questions regarding agenda items questions regarding School related items
160and to amend section 10 which is instead of questions pertaining to matters other than agenda items related relating to the aing school district it will read questions pertaining to agenda items I'm taking a motion on that so I thought what was discussed just is that you were gonna have public open comment on either one oh I'm sorry I messed that up I'm going to walk that back you're right okay okay take a motion to amend 2350 as follow section six we'll Now read comments from members of the audience members of the audience will be invited to comment upon or raise questions regarding School related items number 10 we'll also read comments from members of the audience members of the audience will be invited to comment upon or raise questions regarding School related items we will
161literally both say the same thing do I have any discussion on that proposed amendment all in favor no wait nobody so moved it no moved okay I'll take a motion who's moving for it move second okay now any discussion all in favor I I opposed exstension okay so this has passed as a first read um I know you want to scrap it okay so I will figure out how to get that onto the next agenda of something for us to discuss okay okay but if it stays it's with these amendments it's with these amendments okay hang on I'm just making a note okay and if there are any proposed additional revisions to this uh you know if we want to we can adopt it as a first read and still send it back we can
162is the first read send it back to the policy committee we want to add equity in there we add equity in there there areed just as if we have a trustee who wants to propose scrapping it and we have trustees who want to propose amplifying it nothing's off the table okay um oh look at this um we're almost at public comments in the meetings but I still need a motion for 8 point um to adopt 8.7 which is 2350 board meeting procedures as amended so moved second resolution to adopt board meeting procedures as a first reading 2350 as amended any further discussion all in favor I opposed exstension Illy we going to be friends after tonight okay all right um G to go back now to need to do 8.5 I'll take a motion for
1638.5 still move second 8.5 resolution to adopt policy 5420 student health services as a first reading can I get a so moved can I get a second we did that yeah are you sure yeah Annie and I just did it oh I didn't hear you you did the moving sorry okay I thought you were saying we just discussed this policy I was like I've lost time like I don't remember discussing this okay all right um student health services as a first reading I just want to maybe give you like a little backdrop on this one um so essentially this is making us it is allowing us to have trained staff who are not RNs in an emergency administer um emergency epinephrine or glucon via an auto injector to a student with a patient specific order
164and written parent consent for such medication there was a law that came out that allowed this to be done but this had to be put into policy first do I have that right Alita okay um so is there any um any discussion about this at the board table all in favor I I opposed exstension um I'll will take a motion for 8.6 so moved 8.6 resolution adopt policy exhibit 5420 authorization for administration of medication as a first reading this is just the authorization form do we have any discussion all in favor I opposed extension okay guys we got there thank you um I now reached the second part of our public comment for the meeting I'll take public comments in person first there being no show of hands I will ask our clerk if there
165is anyone raising their digital hand to provide a with public comment on any education related item okay no public comment this evening we now reach the section of board discussion and information um I believe you just got the share out front the policy committee so that was done um I did share with everybody a proposed uh description of a self-governance committee and I I can you know we can set up that committee tonight we can discuss that description anyone have any appetite to do that I can read it would that help folks yeah that would be great okay hang on one second um all right so self-governance committee um the self-governance committee is intended to support the board and board leadership collabor ly with the goal of encouraging and assisting the board in maintaining compliance
166with the board handbook monitoring board goals assisting board leadership with tracking board proposed initiatives and inquiries aiding in ensuring timely timely response to outreach from the community and promoting board development and self evaluation this committee will be comprised of either the board president or vice president and two trustees the committee will collaborate with the superintendent Andor other staff designated by the superintendent as needed the following checklist is a non-exhaustive list of the governance committee's best practices ensuring scheduling of an assisting and planning board Retreats ensuring scheduling of an aiding and completion of yearly board self evaluation tracking board proposed initiatives raised during board dialogue and facilitating followup as appropriate for items where board consensus has agreed to explore the initiative assisting board leadership and ensuring timely response from the board to community outreach encouraging board
167member continuing education by monitoring and Advising of opportunities and working with a superintendent and district clerk to facilitate access to learning events proposing a calendar each August for the upcoming school year that tentatively schedules board development yeah board development events and deadlines in a manner consistent with goals established during the board self evaluation thoughts what is the assisting board leadership and ensuring Ely response from the board to I generally know I guess what that's supposed to mean but you do a deeper explanation of the intent behind that yeah I think the intent behind that is that occasionally we have community outreach that falls through the cracks um and it's always good to have an I mean I think we all generally do we have another set of eyes to try to remind board leadership about
168that but it doesn't it doesn't always happen it's very rare that it doesn't but to have this as something that this Committee in particular would be assisting in I think might be helpful I guess I would any place I think where we have board leadership I would leave it at the board I think just in terms of I wonder if there's not areas here where it expands the powers of the committee and so I I think it would be more in the spirit of something that's talked about here at the board table that people want to have done and there's a consensus reached that we do that so I would I would change assisting board leadership to assisting board and things like that okay bye with me um I'm trying to think if I'm seeing
169it more than once it's kind of in your description and yeah okay um other than that which is easy enough to do um are we good with this type of a committee do we need to outline how often it would meet I think that's up to the board I mean does that need to be included in this as is it an as needed is it a quarterly is it a I think normally IL has a chart that she keeps separate or like along with the descriptions right um that's what I'm saying what should we put in that blank I me I don't think for a lot of the committies we Define that okay so I think you want to be careful about defining it okay I mean I think ideally it would at least every
170quarter and then if there was an event coming up that required extra meetings and planning as needed um uh Illy if I am going to establish a committee tonight do I take a motion to establish a committee or we just establish it a resolution so we would prepare for the next meeting okay okay so then I'll revise this language and I'll send it to you and do we have consensus here to put that as a resolution I mean you can vote it down at the next meeting but do we have a consensus to put it on sure okay all right thanks everyone um I'm gonna let others talk um the most recent on board that was sent out they talked about cell phones in schools and look you have it do you also want to
171talk about this um well I don't necessarily want to lock away everyone's cell phones I was wondering if the board would be interested in some kind of policy or however this typically Works about having um cell phones without internet access or cell phones with limited app capability there are different apps like brick and things I I don't know what would be the most feasible for School District but social media seems to not be great for our children and for our schools and while I want to make sure that parents have the reassurance that they can reach their children at any time in event of an emergency I don't think kids need to be able to access everything that's on their phones thoughts but wait there's more policy stuff yeah we I think we have 5695
172as a cell phone use policy so so I was just going to just piggyback on that and basically say um no answer needed tonight but does 5695 to policy committee is that something that and generally I guess maybe the question is more for cabinet and Mary hi we're still here uh if if this District feels like yeah we're there not really a cell phone problem we we have it in 5695 which says you're supposed to put it away during school hours and out of sight if that covers it great if you think you need more and then yes go into more of the show and tell period other things that maybe it is something for policy committee to just dig back into uh if if you think this needs it needs more there based on
173what you're seeing on the ground we' be happy to provide more information DRS resarch very nice oh sounds like we have a new member of the policy committee I guess we'll be happy to reach out to the staff and get feed I guess I'd be curious if there is an appetite for it um some sort of more restrictive cell phone policy my gut says uh that we would meet strong parental resistance um but that there would be an appetite on the staff side um that's what my prediction would be but um I'd be curious you know from our from our experts who already work for us what they have to say about that and if if they feel like it would be a worthwhile endeavor if it's a challenge they'd be willing to tackle because
174I do think it would be a an undertaking um then certainly I would be good with the policy committee taking a closer look at it once there's something to look at a fun fact is that I used those couches in there at a show on Friday night they took our phones and they put them in and couldn't access it until after the show is over cool is there like a you can't photography yeah you just you couldn't Apple watches were included to everything management of all of that correct that's with the research there's more than enough research on this um to look at however it's about implementation right um the Surgeon General has a warning about this um and the distraction that cell phones have and um certainly for for all of us not just
175students um but I would say you know looking at it from a a secondary perspective probably more so than an elementary perspective in terms of enforcement so I I agree with with Mary I would I would speak to the principles first gather some data and then revisit Melissa yeah I think this is also a conversation that probably is also suited probably best suited for a code of conduct because my when I here about you know like what we want to do as far as passing policies as far and I'm not this is not an opposition to the to the facts of you know um the dangers of cell phones but I'm just talking about strategically and procedurally um I think anytime we introduce uh certain policies that implement or affect uh students directly making sure
176that they're applied in a in a consistent manner um is also I think another conversation that would have to happen as well so I think just putting it out there that that's also a discussion that should be considered at the code of conduct level as well um I also wanted to share uh for transparency um Dr NOA and I are going to meet about wait until 8th I approached her as a parent not as a board member but I wanted everyone to know she updated me that like philosophically I'm with you um the devil is always in the details and how we go about enforcing that and um particularly if you have a you know and I just want to pull off what Melissa said too consistency of application you might find uh you know
177some kids wanting to use the um you know remind app because that's really important you might have very heavily scheduled so I think the point wait until 8 is about at what point is apprpriate that we we you learn to use this in a thoughtful manner when I was um on the um president's Council for uh the junior president's Council for Northern Westchester Hospital we studied this for over a year and um the teenagers on that Council talked about how they they needed to self-regulate it you know put on different apps that had turned them down even when they were trying to use their devices their for doing work or just e-learning that they turned off other things so there's a lot of support for limiting access time and but yet you know and you've
178also got probably very overscheduled teenagers who use it consistently to stay on task to stay on time they use the remind app a lot so again it's an area we'll Reach Out absolutely to the principles and get some feedback for you sure I'm curious what to too because wait until eight has traditionally just been parents opt in it's not like forcing anybody who doesn't want to do itly exactly exactly exactly correct and the idea around this all like just only like um cell phones or just any kind of device that you would access these things on well they have school issued devices on on the website so that they shouldn't be using their devices to access their learning because we do take care of that um yeah right there's like to your point there's like
179apple watches all like there's a whole so I don't know there is a whole list of approved things there's like smart watches and phones that aren't actually smartphones and smart watches but they look similar they just don't have the ABS and the capability that's these and I think that wait until Aid approach um helps parents build consistency and support amongst other peers because you don't want to be that one parent go you well everybody else has it and you want to be able to answer that in a way that you get support for that position show them a list of all the people who don't have it too exactly exactly going to be an interesting issue you're going to see a lot of different viewpoints you know the city the city eliminated cell phones and
180there was quite a backlash to that so you know this is not a simple issue no correct just for clarity sake I'm not saying that we should remove cell phones because I understand with today's safety concerns parents want to have access to their kids whenever they want and I can understand that for sure I mean it may well be that we look at this issue and say we're not ready to touch it yet that could be you know we should hear from we should hear from our people in the buildings and the administration and get that and I would tend to think this is a code of conduct item versus a board policy thing but but I love the education piece around it that parents can say no that there are different tools different devices
181and just building awareness about that any other board dialogue and just one other quick one on same paper in the policy AI policy so this feels like one a policy committee or you're working on it what's interesting about this article though most of it was like how to basically make sure the kids aren't cheating but I do think you need something around like what's the district want to use around it to codify as well but this probably feels like another good one at some point policy committee very busy policy committee maybe work out we agree um I think there's there's a professional development coming up related to AI um and like board for board PD um I feel like I signed up for it now I can't remember I sign I've been signing up for
182every AI related professional development as a teacher also so I'm like oh AI um sign me up because I want to learn more about that I'm interested in that as a topic and I feel like I am signed up for one so I'll look through my email and if I see it I'll forward it to the rest of the board so that we can um you know it's feels unwise to create a policy about it if we don't understand it so um just in the name of professional development when you said of it um dinged in my head as something that we have oh it's nisba events are your policies keeping Pace with AI is that the one Thursday April 11th thank you yes oh if we had the governance committee they could alert us
183all to that um okay um I I know that there is a faith-based housing bill that is um percolating um and I know Mary you were going to speak to another organization on that and I'm wondering if you had any recommendations that our legislative committee um take a look at it what yours an upcoming meeting on May 3rd with the superintendent and our elected officials and my um um position on this my opinion given my background in in other ways that um Westchester and ausing in particular have done really great things about building affordable housing for many individuals there have been tragedies when people bypass local zoning or speed through zoning um in terms of um you know uh what that what can happen and how that can happen it takes away local control and
184local governance um issues um it needs a deeper dive and a deeper understanding and I don't understand the need to push it given the level of housing that's occurring here in Westchester and here in Aus so um and again we have zoning rules for a reason we have fire protection we of other things and we should go through all of those protocols to begin with but the spirit of local control and and and then more information around what's involved in these you know earlier this evening we talked about tax exemp property and many communities and areas have once a religious organ um that comes off the tax rols how much of that addresses when a development is built is there a church a house of worship or something part of it there's a lot in
185this that needs to be considered and this showed up very very quickly on everyone's map so I would like everyone to pump the breaks on that spend time to talk about it and look into it because the big question is what are the unintended consequences associated with this my two on that okay um I guess you'll I think I'm wondering at some point is there going to be a time where we would want a recommendation from our legislative committee about putting out like a position statement or a letter or something so I just wanted to kind of be on every radar or we also got this might be a topic that would be good for our legislative advoc to see stuff when we have the business meeting if um in the fall right as something
186to put forth for nisba to Advocate on because it's not just our area is it is it just our area that's considering us no to state right so it sounds like the legislative committee should probably meet with Mary or designate and basically go through the list of stuff and I would say you hit that with West putt at the end in September and then you get ready for try to build up some of a few people to do something for nisba so more districts on a name make more sense so we should have a meeting to plan that amongst other things so all right so um who do who do I do I reach out to Nicole or Illy to schedule a committee meeting Ellie would you be the one doing that okay all right
187awesome thank you lots of questions for you tonight but I'm going to put that on your to-do list do you have any further um dialogue okay I will take a motion to enter into executive uh session to discuss contract negotiations under the collective bargaining requirements of the tailor law employment history of a particular individual or individuals and the Boe session will not be returning to the public uh session or I'm sorry was that yeah returning to public any action for any action right for any action no action will be taken okay um I need a so move so moved second any discussion all in favor I opposed exstension yeah for