001Good evening everybody and welcome to the February 10th, 2026 APquin School Board meeting. The board went into executive session at 5:45 on uh motion of Ms. Dwit uh second by Mr. Abrams to discuss certain legal and personnel issues. We have concluded that executive session and so this is our regular meeting which we will start as we always do with the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the stands nationy and justice for all. All right. For those of you who don't have the agenda in front of you, um we're going to have some special recognitions tonight. Um no one has signed up for public comment. We will have two reports, one from our superintendent, one from our uh construction director. There'll be some board comments. We've got some
002old business, we've got some new business, and then a personnel report to approve. Um, Dr. Burroughs, are there any adjustments to the agenda as uh printed? >> There are not any adjustments tonight. >> Okay. So, with that, we will start with um what is always one of my favorite parts of any agenda, our special recognitions. And first on that list is our community donors, Dr. burrows. All right. Good evening. Last month, we had the opportunity to recognize our community members who helped us out over the holidays and help families in need. Um, this is take two of that uh tonight and just to show our appreciation for all they did for our families. First we have Tonia Mediato. Atlas Volleyball Club, Blackbird Community Center, Michelle Mac Williams. Perfect sign and the neighborhood house. All right.
003Next on the agenda, we have the constable safety recognition, Mr. Hail. Good evening everyone. My name is Christy Boyd and I have the privilege of serving as the principal at Silverlake Elementary. I also formerly had the privilege of working alongside Mr. Mercier and every day he worked with us at the hive, which is what we call Silver Lake because we are the bees. He brought a sense of safety and security and assurance to the students, staff, and families. There was a day in November, however, that that proved to be even more true than other days where during his frequent rounds of our campus. He happened to witness a vehicle pursuit and then a subsequent crash. As a result, he did immediately notify us to go on lockdown. We were able to make sure that our
004community was safe and he was also able then to help the police department in handling that situation. The police department came out the next day to give him um their appreciation and gratitude. And then I received an inundated amount of emails from families and staff and students who were just feeling so appreciative of everything that he does for us. And we just wanted to make sure that he was honored and recognized. THANKS, All right. Next on the agenda, we have the Beats Maker Awards, Dr. Small. Thank you, Mr. Forston. Good evening. Our Beats Maker Award celebrates staff who are nominated for exhibiting our Appleo Beats collaboration, communication, critical thinking, creativity, and engagement. Like a person's heartbeat, our beats are at the core of what we do. Tonight we are excited to celebrate seven staff members
005and thank them for being Apple Beats Makers Award recipients. Three of them are not here tonight. They weren't able to make it. I'm going to announce their names first. Nominated by James Williamson for collaboration, communication, creativity, critical thinking, and engagement. A technology lead in our district office, Dylan Griffin. Nominated by Beth Everett for collaboration and engagement. Two teachers from Everett Meredith Middle School, Morgan Webb and Jackie Kamaj. Now for the moment we've been waiting for, the folks that are here. Nominated by Melissa Huffman for critical thinking. a bus driver. Terosina Raphael. Yep. It's like the price is right. Come on down. Congratulations. Also nominated by Beth Everett for collaboration and engagement, a student support facilitator at Everett Meredith Middle School, Benardetta Reer. nominated by Terry Teller for collaboration and communication. A part of our custodial
006team, first we have Rich Leverage. Sure. We're going to double up with this one. um nominated by Terry Taylor for collaboration and communication. A second member of our custodial team, Chuck Grainer. I'm going to just say a couple words. I always get to stand up here and talk about the great accomplishments our student athletes have, but we wouldn't be able to do that if it wasn't for a lot of people behind the scene. But these are two very spectacular guys who um are available and ready. That's why our outdoor facilities look the way they do. They cut the grass, they hang the post, they put the lines up. Um they do everything. They they do much more than that. The screens, everything. So when you walk by our facilities and you see how beautiful they
007are, it is because of them. So we couldn't do it without them. So thank you. And our last set of recognitions are the All State Band and Orchestra, Ms. Sebastiano. >> Good evening everyone. I'm Laura Sebastiano. I'm the visual and performing arts coordinator for the school district. Last month, we celebrated the students in our district that were accepted into the Delaware All State Choir. And tonight, I'll be helping to recognize our students in all state band and in All State orchestra. The band and orchestra auditions took place in January and the selected students are honored with participation in a festival that includes two days of rehearsals as well as a concert on the third day. We'll be recognizing these students one school at a time. If you do need to leave after recognitions, we just
008ask that you stay until all schools have been celebrated and you are certainly welcome to stay for the duration of the board meeting as well. We will start off with Alfred G. Waters Middle School introduced by their band teacher, Mrs. Joanne Tally. Thank you. Um I'm pleased that um from Alfred G. Waters, we accepted um Thomas Klene. And for orchestra, unfortunately not able to be here this evening because he has a violin commitment, but also Jason Chen. Up next, we have students from Kwells Bridge Middle School introduced by their band teacher, Mrs. Estuski. Hi, I'm Amanda Stresski. I'm the band teacher at Kwells and I'd like to recognize our students who are representing Kwells at the junior all state band this year. Emanuel Arin, Arian, Sydney Hibbert, Calvin Mincy, Marcus Yates, and one of our
009students, Liam Bazinski, was able Unable to make it tonight. Next we have students from Lewis L. Reading Middle School introduced by their band teacher, Mr. Jeffrey Leer. >> Hi everyone. So um on trombone we have Miss Charlie Den Anderson. On trumpet we have Mr. Carter Ferrar. And another student who couldn't be with us tonight, Mr. Matthew Eldridge. Moving on to our high school groups, we have Appacornneck High School. Uh starting with their band teacher, Mr. Mosley. >> Hi, how you doing? >> How you doing? So, we have uh this year we have for their senior band their third year in a row making Ethan Rich. And I'm going to introduce uh orchestra teacher Miss Nicole Pulk for the art orchestra member. Okay. And we have one allaid orchestra member from Apponic High School, Violet Sullivan.
010And for Middletown High School, their band teacher, Miss Pole, wasn't able to be here, but we have Mr. Leager coming back for a second turn to introduce their student. >> Hi again. Uh, we have Miss Claudia Hores from Middletown High School on trumpet. Last but not least, we have Odessa High School starting with their band students introduced by Mr. Brian and line. >> Good evening. And yes, I do know my student's name, but I told that the was told that the order is very important. Uh, so first for the junior band, Mr. Benjamin Beard for our senior band, Valyriia Leamoose for our junior band, Emanuel Aang A Jr. All right. And uh for our senior band, Braden Stafford. Now, before anybody says you forgot one, you'll see why we're going to bring him up in
011just a few seconds. Before that happens, I'm going to bring Dr. John A. Gordon up to introduce his All State Orchestra student. >> Hi everybody. Um we have for All State orchestra Kingsley C. And then we have the special young man uh gentleman who uh represented us last weekend with the All State Jazz Band and represent us with the All State band and All State orchestra. So this is Matai Rouse. Let's bring him out. Our triple representative this year. Uh before we move on in the agenda, I was remiss earlier in failing to mention that uh Dr. Toshiba Graham uh isn't feeling well this evening, but she has joined us via Zoom and will be taking part in discussions and votes. So, Dr. Graham, sorry I forgot to mention you earlier. Um, with that we
012move on to the reports and as is traditional before the superintendent gives his report the room clears out uh because everybody leaves after recognitions. Um, but uh, Dr. Burroughs, I will turn it over to you. Maybe we'll wait another 30 seconds or so while people at the door clear out. That All right. Good evening everybody. I want to start off by just a note of thankfulness and gratefulness. As I'm sure many of you guys were aware, um we don't usually get snow and ice like we received uh two weeks ago here in our state. But I will I'm thankful for the work that our buildings and grounds and our custo staff did. Um it was not fun. It was it was not only uh the work they did uh to get us so we could
013come back to school um which was easier said than done, but they put in long hours uh and did a lot of hard work so we could get back. Also just thankful for our staff who um jumped in as learning the learning changed a little bit as we did some um a virtual learning in those two days. Takes us back. I mean some of us may have PTSD from a few years ago when uh that was daily. But we appreciate everyone that jumped in um and just made meaningful lessons for our students and just for the parents and their understanding because I know that that puts more more on our parents uh when we have to go that route. But we appreciate their patience and understanding as we do that. And just uh thank you
014for all of our staff that just chipped in to make it a success and to do very best we could do um in a challenging situation. Last week uh was national career well this month is national career and technical education month. Um you'll see on our social media at different points uh there's pictures and postings of all the uh opportunities our students have and just thankful for the support of our community so we can have those opportunities. And then um last week was National School Counselor Week. Um so it's not too late to thank uh one of our school counselors. We should thank them all the time for all the work that they do. We currently have 20 full-time teaching openings and 12 paraprofessional openings. Since our September 30th count, uh we have grown 191
015students and that is all that I have for right now. Thank you. Any questions? My only so my only question is we will get some additional monies for those additional students, right? Isn't there going to isn't the uh second half unit count come into play at some point? >> Yeah. So, uh that's a thank you as well. Our uh our our front office staff, our secretaries and administrative assistants have been working hard um for our midyear unit count and our administrators and we will get money this year. But a note on that is in the governor's recommended budget, they are taking out the money for mid-year unit account. They haven't taken out the process, but they are taking out the money that funds midyear unit account. So I ask that you please advocate that for
016us. Um because that represents over $100,000 for us as a district that would go away. So, I ask that please advocate that they keep the midyear unit count. >> All right. Any other questions from any other board members? Dr. Graham, any questions? >> Hearing none. Construction update. Mr. Hopkins. All right. So, based on the snow which is there, not much happened in the last month. We've been pretty pretty well down. You know, until this melts away in the next few weeks, we're not going to have a lot. But I will pass through kind of what we had from last month. There wasn't a lot done in between now and then. Good, Steve. As you can see here, the pad's getting all about ready here for the athletic field that's coming. The parking lot's in striped.
017We're getting ready to turn that over for use to the school. Right now, it's still inside the construction zone. When we get this a little more done, we can give it over to the school. I don't really want to pay to remove the fence and do it if we can get this done and completed. In here you can see the basketball courts are all done. They just need to be striped out. We're waiting to do a little bit of repairs in there and then we'll stripe it out and it'll be ready for use. Everything in the school in the front is completed or just snowed in kind of the front of the school with a nice look with the glass coming in. This is the back school. They got the all the signage up here.
018This is the original sign from the school. This is the outdoor classroom. The outdoor plaque is here. This is the sign from Lewis Reading that's embedded into the concrete from the original school. That's all the original brick as well on the summit. A lot of the same snow everywhere. We got snow everywhere. This is kind of looking back from this is Crystal Run is here and this is looking back towards the campus of where everything will be coming back. Wedding and Turner trailers here. Everything's just kind of working back. This is our entrance road in right now as you'll see in a minute. kind of looking back towards Beaston Road here. This goes off to where some of the baseball fields and and the auxiliary fields are over here. Wing attorney's trailers here is when
019you look out now, which snowed in. But this is what was done. The access road coming in here. This is going to be the existing road that stays. It'll get paved over and right now we're using it as a construction entrance, but it will be our actual entrance at the end of the day. This is some of the same coming in the front. just comes around, comes to the back and heads towards Wing and Turner's trailers. Some of the earth work that happened prior to the snow. This is them moving forward back out into the campus, bringing in the utilities. All this water line is in now. It's up to about the trailer here. So, they piped that all in. We got that in before before the snow got to us. Same thing. They're out
020here working, digging around for some of that water line that we installed. This is one one of the uh the the storm under management ponds that's back behind the school. When this gets done, there'll be a baseball field in this area. But for now, we're going to collect some water while we're building the site. More the same. Just another pond there. This is Crystal Run out here in the in the forefront. And at the end of the day, this gets filled in. It'll be a baseball field. This is kind of one of the look from the back. We've been showing you the front. This is the look from the back where the bus lot is. This is the uh middle school gym. This is the pack center over here. The high school gym's on this
021side. This is Crystal Run, you know. So students would come in this way. This is more the loading dock area here. So this is just kind of what the back entrance would look like. That's it. Any questions? And Richard, we are in time and we are on budget at this point for what we've got. >> Yeah. Um to that, you had mentioned in your report um that the uh equipment shed or the equipment building at Reading was over budget. You had to rework it. You guys did rework it to get it get it under budget as you would say. >> Not yet. I mean, what I I'll give you that once I know for sure where we are. You know, that's that's been held out there towards the end of the project, you know, to
022see where funds were, but right now we're just running numbers, so I can't give you a solid answer, but I will as soon as I have it. >> Cool. So, just a little history on that. In the original reading, there was a shop and uh storage and things in there. Um and so when we took down reading, we lost that space. So that's why we're looking at having a building out there to house that stuff. >> It was it was heavily utilized by our district. It's kind of the central location. Like if you think about the maintenance shed at the campus at Summit, it services about four schools. Same thing out services about four four schools. That one there serviced four schools in town for us. You got Meredith, you got the uh the uh
023uh early childhood at Meredith and it picks up Silver Lake and Ready. So that's kind of our maintenance area that services those spots. We couldn't put it in in the beginning because we weren't sure we had the money for it and we tried to save money and through good bidding and you know just watching our pennies, it looks like we may be able to get our building back. >> Right. I mean I appreciate all you're doing there to keep it under budget. I was uh just trying to follow what you were uh >> Yep. And as soon as we know for sure exact numbers, then we'll we'll we'll put that out. Right. And my other other question is you had mentioned the floor at Red the gym floor at Reading. Um >> it was partially
024partially fading, but you've talked to the manufacturer and the the contractor and they're they're on >> Yeah. The floor protection we had on it caused some fading and you know kind of caused it to fade unevenly. But as you know it's been exposed to full light and full exposure. You know the finish is even and out and just do naturally it's starting to solve its own problem you know. So it's it's looking pretty good now. >> Cool. Thanks. That's all. >> Any other questions for Mr. Hopkins? Hearing none, we will move on to board. Thank you. Uh we will move on to board comments. We will start at my far left, Mr. Abrams. Good evening everybody. I just want to take a couple moments to thank all the employees for all the hard work they've
025had to do around the salt and the ice and snow. Just like thank everybody for the work, the parents for their due diligence trying to get around any obstacles they may have had. Also want to thank the people working behind the scenes on committees on behalf of the district and in our financial advisory committee meeting we had a very vigorous discussion. Um mainly coming out of that Miss Stewart had presented uh new reports new streamline the way she wants to do things. So in the next couple months we'll be going through that looking at it and there were no unresolved questions moving forward. >> Mit. >> Good evening. Um, I would like to second what Milan stated. Um, also, uh, wanted to congratulate the Campwell, um, girl and boy team for their championship in basketball.
026Um and also just uh wanted to thank um the community um our maintenance people um you know on Facebook you know they got really people people were very uh opinionated about why we weren't in school but what some don't rec um recognize is that some developments including myself is still frozen like a ice skating ring. Um, to get people to come out, it's even more impossible. So, I really think all the work that they did to get our kids back in school. Thank you. >> All right. Thank you, Mr. Higgins. >> Thank you. Um, first I want to acknowledge, as Dr. Rose did and others the uh the tremendous job on the on the snow removal not by just by the district but by the uh unfortunate neighbors who have a bus stop in front
027of their home uh clearing out the path for the kids to get on the bus and uh just digging a little deeper for those who did not do that for some of our uh school kids. Um so last month I I had the privilege to go to the uh the engineering fair at uh at Middletown High School. It's where um the kids for the capstone project um they they they find a problem. Um they look for a solution to the problem. Uh community members help out. They engineer and design um different devices or or or um or mechanisms to to solve a problem. It's great to see the kids problem solve, work with community leaders. Um some of these um ideas I think actually went to Patton in past years as far as the kids
028project. So uh that was really cool and I appreciate uh Middletown for doing that. Um last week I did attend the uh the Delaware School Board Association uh legislative meeting. That's where all the school districts get together um and they talk about legislations that's in the pipeline um and whether it's going how it's going to affect the school districts and whether um the the committee as a whole will support or not support a bill. Um anybody have any questions on legislation that is in the pipeline? I do get it. I was late sharing it with the board this month, but I promise I won't be as late next time. Um, I can take your uh your feedback back to the uh to the uh committee anytime they meet. Um, I also was able to vis
029visit some schools this this week. I went to AGW. Thank you to uh to John Tanner for hosting me and walking me around. I went to Cedar Lane um elementary where uh Shelby Gordon um helped us and walked us around. Um we visited um the student inventionist center. Is that what it is, Matt? Um, what a great job. Talk to the interventionist. Um, that's something we didn't have when we were younger. And I think that was a piece that has come in the last so many years that is great for schools to have to have a kid to go that's just having trouble for the day to talk to somebody um, you know, not a teacher, but somebody there that that can help them get through the day or get through the issues. So, that
030was great. Uh, went to Kwell Bridge uh, middle school. Okay. K Caitlyn um, walked us around. um was a was was a great experience. Got to see some of the classrooms and then we went to uh Odessa High School. Uh we went there and actually controversial there was a student walk out um which was all over the country and I would say um as I watched it the uh the faculty did not only got involved for the safety of the kids. They were not condoning the kids going out. They just want to make sure when they went out there they were safe. I appreciate all the teachers that have that, you know, that job as the caretaker of these kids to be able to make sure that these kids can do, you know, what they're
031doing may not be right and not be part of school policy, but since they wanted to do it, I appreciate the school district and the schools facilitating these kids to be able to do what they're doing safely, even though the the school district and policy doesn't really allow kids to walk out of school. So, I do appreciate that. I I saw it firsthand as soon as it happened. I saw Dr. Barrow's phone ring. he was right on top of it. It was just great to watch everybody work together. So these kids, you know, not that I'm agreeing or disagreeing with what I really do, but it happened and it was great to see the community kind of just make sure it was done in a safe manner. So I do appreciate that. Um other than
032that, uh tomorrow is bagels with a board member at 8:30, not bagels by a board member. So come on in. Um grab your own coffee and your own bagel. I'll be there from 8:30 until uh around 9:30ish. Uh love to see you and uh Thank you. >> Where is that? Which bagel place? >> Oh, I'm sorry. >> Where? Manhattan bag. >> Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, I'm sorry. Maybe that's why we'll get less people. Manhattan Bagels, right on Main Street. >> Thank you. >> Not Surf. Thank you, M. >> Manhattan. Maybe I'll stop by. >> All right. Dr. Graham, are you there? >> I am here, but um I don't have any comments tonight. Thank you. >> Okay. Okay. Well, we hope you're feeling better. >> Thank you. >> I'll be brief. We had some great
033recognitions tonight that remind us what a special school district we have. You know, we have tremendous support from the community. Uh we gave an award to a constable. We gave out the Beats awards to a lot of great staff members. And then, of course, we got to honor some students. Um you know, the recognitions is always my favorite part of every board meeting. Um, our our grounds crews have been um I think thanked uh profusely, but I don't know that they can be thanked enough for all the hard work they've had to do. Um, this last two weeks. Um, I will tell you all that I am told that someday soon, maybe not tonight, maybe not tomorrow, maybe not Thursday, but soon, the snow is going to melt. Um, and and so that day is
034coming. Uh, and until it does, we will just have to put up with it. Um, but it's great to uh to see everybody here tonight. So, with that, we'll move on. And next on our agenda, we have old business revised policy 5102. Miss Stewart. Okay, good evening. Um, I come before you with board policy 5102 that is the budgeting and expenditures. Next slide, Steve. Um, so essentially we did take the feedback that was offered um at the first reading. Um, so I want to draw your attention to that update. Um, essentially this was a part of with the superintendent's um ability to have that flexibility in any emergency case of the million-doll wiggle room. Um that is noted on the next slide should be note the third paragraph here where it says for the overall
035district no net increase in the budget shall be made except with the prior approval of the board subject to the superintendent's emergency authority. If you go to the next slide, you'll note on this slide in that second paragraph, it states that the superintendent shall have the authority to expend available funds for items approved by the board of education in the annual budget and to make emergency expenditures of up to $1 million in addition to the board approved budget when such are when such are necessary to the continued operation of the schools. So essentially those updates were made um based on the recommendations we received back from board president Forston. And so uh I am requesting approval of the board policy 5102. >> All right. Does does any board member have questions for Miss Stewart? Hearing
036none. The board will entertain a motion. >> I do one quick one. So with the emergency uh I do agree with that by the way. Uh with the emer with the emergency allocation is that something that where I would say that Dr. Burrows would reach out to to the president at the time, Richard, Mr. Forston, and say, "Hey, this is a situation. I need to spend this and then spend it." >> Yeah. So, like it would be something major like the roof blew off the building or, you know, we had a pipe bust and destroyed like So, I would notify the board that we need what we need to do. Y >> we just it might it would have to happen before a board meeting. So, it would be in writing. I would notify you.
037Um just in terms of wording um when we state the board or the board of education I think we should just use one or the other um but not the board. So just you might as well just say the board of education or if you want to start in the beginning the board of education and then in parentheses the board um that's the only comment I will make about that the last um update. Thank you. Any other questions or comments for Miss Stewart? So just looking uh Mr. Dit at I see at the last line of ASD policy 5012 where it says prior approval of the board. This is on slide two. So that should be board of education and I and then it >> and then it says board in the middle towards the
038end of the third line on this third slide where it says board hyphen approved. We can say board of education approved budget. Mhm. >> I think those are the only two places on a real quick read. >> Yeah. Um just for consistency, it should just or you could just do like I said the board of education parentheses board just say board throughout but not go back and forth. >> I will make those. >> Okay. Thank you. >> No problem. >> Okay. Okay. So, with Miss Dit's suggested edit, any further questions, comments? Hearing none, the chair will entertain a motion. Mr. President, I motion to uh approve revised policy 5102, budget and expenditures um as presented and as amended, I would guess. >> Motion by Mr. Higgins, second by Mr. Abrams to approve revised policy 5012
039as presented with the additional change that was just discussed about consistency of the use of the term board of education. Any any questions, comments, or discussion on the motion? Hearing none, all in favor signify by saying I. I >> I. >> Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. But don't sit down because you're up again. Uh, next on the agenda we have revised policy 5108, financial advisory committee. Second reading for approval, Miss Stewart. >> All right. So, with this policy, um, just want to bring your attention to the changes that were made based on the suggestions from the first reading. Next slide. Um, you can go to the following slide, Steve, and the next slide after that. So, this slide right here really addresses about um, the board member being a vice chair. So if you
040can look at the wording in red, it states the FAC chair will be nominated and voted upon by the FAC every July and shall be voting members. The board member serving on FAC for or designate if needed will be named the vice chair quorum for the FAC will be defined as a majority of the currently serving members. So that was the only adjustment that was made based on the feedback that we that I received from the first reading and I am requesting board approval of this policy. >> I do have a question for you. In last month we had changed the wording or the discussion in the wording in the last part and was about acceptance to approval. And if we want to go to the words approval, can we go to the words of
041a preliminary approval? Because there are times when we leave that meeting, there are still some unresolved issues that you then answer after our meeting, you address those issues that were asked and then by the time we get to this meeting, they are resolved and then we can make the final approval at that time because then I'm not sure how we would handle if they're approving what's in front of them and there's an unresolved issue, how we move there's that weak carryover. So, is it possible to just make that preliminary approval of what they have and then when he comes here, we'll make the final approval which could allow any carryover issues that would be on your plate before it gets to us. >> I would defer to the superintendent for a response on that. Essentially,
042>> just a question that just goes either way. I'm just saying if we have that. So I guess just just so I'm understanding correctly, what you're asking is if the financial advisory committee gives preliminary approval to something because we still have questions with it, but then it would come here for final approval. >> Well, we're approving the reports anyway. I'm I'm asking if if if they approve it as it sits and there's three outstanding questions, how does that get resolved? Because they will not see those answers. I didn't think I didn't hit me until I reread this again last night and I'm going back and forth on it. I'm just asking that. Do we just let it go with the flow that they're going to get those answers resolved or are we going to just
043let it be a preliminary approval with unresolved questions? >> Why did we change it from acceptance approval? >> Because essentially the FAC committee when I came on board according to the agenda that we had, they were to approve the internal accounts and the revenue and expenditure report. So, our policy wasn't updated to reflect what was already changing in place. So, that's the only reason why it was crossed out for acceptance and now bringing forth approval. >> Thank you. >> And I'm sorry for misunderstanding your question. um board member norms, but with that we >> just it's just something that by rereading it again last night, it's just sat with me like okay because there's always been the question of unresolved issues from the meeting to here and it's always been they accepted it, we've approved
044it. So now if we're approve if they're approving what they see and you have three unresolved questions that then do get resolved what do we do with those three questions? So could they approve it like we do here with >> with so we could approve at that meeting >> right and then we you would note when >> yeah I would >> when we comes forward that they had these they approved it but there was these three >> and then >> by that point we should have answers and you can answer >> I would always check with Eric before we got there did those were those issues resolved and then he would send a follow-up email saying here's what here were the questions here were the answers and it would be okay. >> Yeah. Just know
045we haven't got that for you yet. I just That's fine. We can do it that way. >> We wouldn't need to change the policy just at that meeting. >> Yeah. >> Attach the exception. >> Yeah. >> Um does it make sense in going from the word acceptance to approval of the monthly financial accounts report and then number two approval of these things? I mean the financial advisory committee is approving them for presentation to the board. I mean it it's not approving them period full stop and and binding the district. So I just wonder if um after you know um formulate a recommendation to the board on the following approval. So it's a recommendation of on the following approval. So they're recommending to us that we should approve, right? >> Yes. >> Okay. So just wanted
046to make sure I was reading that correctly. Um, and then the only other comment I want to make, I it's not really covered by these policies. Maybe it's covered by another policy or maybe you want to think about um putting it in writing somewhere. But you know, we've gone through a series of workshops on financing and finances. And you know, when we look at what happened last April, May, June, um two things stand out to me as kind of the root causes there. Um, one, there was, I think, you know, significant errors in where certain expenses were applied. They were applied to the wrong buckets. They were applied to buckets that they shouldn't have been applied to, but as a result of that, it it made it look like we had more money in discretionary
047funds than we actually had. And then the other uh error was, you know, the assumptions on expenses remaining for the rest of the year, right? I mean missed a pay the person making the assumptions missed a pay period in terms of his calculations and so I don't know if it's in these policies but maybe somewhere we should say something about you know when coding or or application of expenses to categories are made above a certain threshold right $10,000 whatever the number should be 5,000 25,000 um that that has to be signed off by somebody other than just the person doing the application just so there is a second set of eyes every time there's an expenditure of a certain size being coded somewhere because I think if we had been doing that before I don't
048think that those errors at least there's a higher likelihood they would have been caught and then the other thing is on terms of the f financial position report where we're estimating how much money we're going to have at the end of the year again if somebody can review any assumptions Well, be nice to see a list of the actual assumptions that for the year- end expenses, but I would say any assumption again above a certain threshold needs to be reviewed and signed off or signed off might be the wrong word, but double checked by somebody so that when those two things get to the financial advisory committee, it's already been checked twice. and then the financial advisory committee would presumably check it a third time before it then comes to the board. So, I'm not
049recommending any changes to these policies based on these two comments, but there's something I'd like to see somewhere that we have in the back of our head or maybe we at some point create a new policy so that in particular those two things are always vetted subject to a threshold. I mean, obviously, we're not going to care about where $100 gets applied or where $1,000 gets applied, but at some threshold, I think we need to make sure there's at least two sets of eyes even before it gets to the financial advisory committee. >> I think that's a part of the accounting process. >> That's >> overall. So, I don't think I think that's already being done. Correct. The threshold. >> We did talk about that. >> Oversight because that's a county. One person does one
050part, another person, you know, approves that and it goes multiple levels. >> That is correct. So that's part of the internal process that I changed when I first got here where everything runs through me. So with my team right now when you're talking about recoding, I will have to say that is a lot. Um, so I would, you know, I can discuss with the superintendent on that process, but essentially when it comes to the recodes because of our cash flow issue, that was the issue now. And so now everyone's doing all these recodes. And what I've instructed my team is because I do not have the well I just got my FSF access to be able to do it in the system. But before I had that I instructed my team all recodes need to
051be reviewed and signed off by me. So we do have those internal controls in place so that there are checks and balances so that when something comes an item comes through or an expenditure comes through there are multiple eyes looking on that. you will see tonight when we talk about the financial um position report. Uh Chuck was my eyes for that. So there are things in place. My finance analyst once we move into July 1, start with the fiscal year, she's going to essentially be the backup for that. I will just caution it does take a you know a lot of time with that transition and just that nuance and that change. So, we do have internal controls that are in place and I do make sure that I communicate that with the superintendent and
052my weekly check-ins for those types of updates. >> And that was discussed in our last meeting too, Richard, about the multiple levels of signatures going forward. >> You say our last meeting you mean financial ad financial advisory committee. Miss Stewart laid out a plan that she had but didn't expect it to be done as she just stated. >> Um, right. I mean, my my point is obviously, you know, we're trying to put in place the systems and checks so that something like this never happens again. And um I just, you know, those are in terms of going through everything that um Chuck and Scott, our are two outside consultants, kind of went through, those are the two things that really jumped out to me as problematic. So, you know, I mean, 10 years from now,
053none of us might be in this room. where all of us might be in this room. Who knows? But um you know, we've learned something through all this and I just want to make sure it's captured so that nobody else has to relearn it. >> I can discuss Superintendent on the next best step for that to address your concerns. >> Okay. >> President Forest, >> I'm sorry, Dr. Graham. >> Um yeah, before we uh proceed, if I can just go back to um Mr. Abram's comment. I just want to be clear on the caveats of unresolved um issues kind of coming out of FAC as it relates to the recommendation of approval as denoted in 1 through 4. So, Mr. Abrams, can you just clarify? Are you saying that we we would provide approval with
054the understanding that we have these kind of two or three outstanding questions still to be answered? I I'm not clear on kind of what you were recommending or defining. >> So, for an example, um when you look at the internal accounts report, you might see an expense of let's just say $13,000. >> And you and you inquire to what that expense is. It's going against the school's line item budget. >> And you might not have the answer that night, but you might come back in a few days to find out they had a trip. They had it was something legitimate they raised the money for. they spent the money for, but you just didn't have the explanation in front of you. So, normally you would just say, well, you know, that's an abnormal expense. What
055was it for? So, then they would dig into it and come back and say, okay, this is what the expense was for. So, it's not it's just unresolved that we don't know what the expense was for. And then it passes the test and it moves on to the next week. That's that's all that's what we that's normally the issues that come up when there's something it's not fully explainable. And so, um, thank you for that. And so, just to clarify that by the time it comes to us as the board, we have resolution. >> So, every time I left the financial advisory committee meeting with Dr. um, with Eric was, I would follow up to make sure they were all resolved. So, when we got here to the meeting tonight, it would be resolved. Nothing
056was ever unresolved. And so far, as long as Mrs. Stewart's been here, there has been nothing that's been carried forward unresolved from a meeting yet. everything. It seems to be there's more explanation of the line items inside the internal reporting as to what the expenses are for. >> I feel like after the FAC meeting, there's a question about a $13,000 expense and she comes back and state to the FAC, hey, this is what this was for. Da da da da da. If any if if anyone has any questions, let me know. If not, it's resolved. At that point, I'm thinking it's a done deal and we can just keep it at we need to approve the FAC report. There's no need to mention the $13,000 because everyone has been made aware of that of the
057details and that's it. No, she just asked what an example was. She just asked what has carried forward from before. But under the new controls that from what I've seen that she intends to put forward when we leave our meetings, there should be no questions up to what the expense was what any unresolved. We should not have an unresolved expense moving forward from the plan that she has presented and the the leadership that she wants to implement the policies she wants to change the approval process that she's going to put or Miss Stewart's going to put in would probably alleviate every one of the questions that we've had in the past. >> Okay, that's a pr that's I think that's what I was trying to get at. I just wanted to ensure that by time
058it reaches us as the board that we have a comprehensive all questions answered report and that we're not giving approval with exceptions. >> Okay. before and and before when you know under the previous term I would always say that there were unresolved issues >> have been resolved but I believe with what she has laid out in our last m I'm sorry Miss Stewart has laid out in our last three meetings moving forward there shouldn't be a single issue if there is one I'd be surprised at least looking at what she would like to implement the changes that she would like to make I believe will satisfy everybody up here on this board and the public that somebody's looked at it, then looked at it again, and it's been looked at for the third time before
059a dollar leaves any budget. So, I do believe that the whole problem is resolved. I was just trying to account for that one situation >> if something did fall through and it wasn't checked off because I do believe the implementation she's trying to do will resolve all those issues. >> Okay. Thank you. Thank you for the clarity. I just wanted to ensure that I was aligned in thought. Wouldn't you agree, Mr. I? I mean, that we shouldn't have any issues in theory. In theory, if what you presented to us, we shouldn't have any. I >> mean, >> I think most the questions previously though were on the internal accounts, which are at the building level, >> right? >> Not usually the questions weren't on the revenue and expenditure side of it. It was more on
060the internal accounts which is the process in that is that we have to go back and check with the building on some of that stuff to see kind of follow the trail of that. So and we try to avoid that as much as possible. Well, I was going to say I mean I don't ever recall a time where the financial advisor the um the reports the monthly financial report was presented to us subject to an unresolved issue because I would have expected that if there was a question still pending it either wouldn't be presented to us for approval or we we would be told that hey there was still a question pending about this and then it would be up to us do we want to approve it subject to that question or not approve
061it until that question is resolved. >> I think that was my point. Uh, President Forest, I just wanted to know what we could expect going forward, >> right? >> Which is why I was saying comprehensive, like I don't want to kind of be waiting, still waiting for ongoing answers. I just wanted it to be a comprehensive report and that when it's brought forward, we're able to vote on it with a full understanding of what has been presented and reviewed in FAC. So, okay. I thought I heard something about approving it with exceptions. That's why I was like questioning it. So, I'm clear now. Thank you. >> Okay. Any other comments or questions for Miss Stewart? Hearing none, the board will entertain a motion. Mr. >> President, I motion uh to approve uh the revision of
062policy 5108 financial advisory uh for the financial advisory committee as presented. >> Second. >> Motion by Mr. Mr. Higgins, second by Mr. Abrams to approve revised policy 5108 regarding the financial advisory committee as presented. Any questions, comments, or discussion on the motion? Hearing none, all in favor signify by saying I. I >> I. >> Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. And next on the agenda, we have the January 13, 2026 board of education meeting minutes for approval. The chair will entertain a motion. >> Mr. President, I motion to approve the January 13, 2006 board of education meeting as read or as presented. >> As presented. >> Second. >> Motion by Mr. Higgins, second by Ms. Dit to approve the January 13, 2026 board of education meeting minutes as presented. Any questions, comments, or discussion on
063the motion? Hearing none, all in favor signify by saying I. I. >> I. >> Any opposed? Motion carries. Next on the agenda, we have the January 27, 2026 board workshop meeting minutes for approval. Um, we did that through Zoom, right? So, any questions, comments? Well, we need a motion. >> Mr. President, I motion uh to accept the January 25th, 2026 board workshop meeting um minutes as presented. >> Motion by Mr. Higgins, second by Miss Dit to approve the January 27, 2026 board of work board workshop meeting minutes as presented. Any questions, comments, or discussion on the motion? Hearing none, all in favor signify by saying I. I >> I. >> Any opposed? Motion carries. Next, we have the monthly financial report for December 2025. For approval, Miss Stewart, nice to see you again. Okay, tonight
064we're going to go over December 2025 revenue expenditure report. Uh we're going to start off uh essentially going over the revenues and the expenditures. Next slide. So as you see here, we have the discretionary cash flow and what you would notice here as of December 2025, we ended with a monthly balance um for discretionary at about $7.1 million. When we look at in comparison to December of 2024, we were essentially um from prior year monthly expenditures down by 2.7 million. Um and then a difference in end of month balance about 24.6 million. So that notes to the cash flow issue that we were having this year due to the tax receipts. Next slide. Here we have the local salary tracker. Again, just uh for note, the discretionary cash flow and the local salary tracker, those
065are items that are uh essentially reviewed by the FAC. These are also internal documents that we use just to keep a track and a pulse on our expenses and our salary and revenue. Um here we have the local salary tracker. For the month of December, we expended um about $5.6 million in payroll. Um, with that you would note that in the December 12th payroll, that was the teacher para custodian longevity, um, the first A.E.A. 20.21 IEP hours from August 24th to October 31st. When you look at the comparison that we're making, essentially there's been 13 pays. Um, so far we compare what the 26 pays has been overall, we are up about 52%, so close to half. And then just overall in comparison from last year to this year about um upwards of 3.6%. Next
066slide. >> December revenues. So as you >> just real quick I just want to make sure that the 52% is how much of the payroll we've spent to date. Correct. >> Correct. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Okay. the discretionary here with the revenues we have discretionary non-discretionary I mean you will note here you'll see discretionary at 41.4 4 million non-discretionary 148 million and other revenues you note here with federal uh tuition tax that's about 7.9 million revenue um total with other revenues is about 42.9 million. Next slide. So this slide I do want to draw your attention to just to provide you with an update. So last month when I presented the November 2025 uh revenues for property tax, I ended up actually presenting the number that was for December 2025 and not November 2025.
067So to the right, the December the 1.8 million that was brought forth last month was truly the December property tax receipt. The November 2025 tax receipt was 2 million. Next slide. The next slide pretty much explains uh what happened. This was solely a documentation error. Essentially, the tax receipt report that I received from the county for a property tax receipt, I utilized the December report um essentially for November. So, uh what happened that just resulted in uh about $162,000 being under reportported for November 2025 tax receipts. Again, this was a documentation error. This was not an error that affected any of our um financials or our revenues. our revenues are current and up to-date and reported correctly. Uh Chuck was the one that definitely looked behind uh my work and we were able to catch
068it. And so when I caught that, I immediately reached out to the superintendent. I followed up with a call with our chair um our FAC chair, Mike Jackson. And so we proceeded with a plan. And so I went forth to present this to FAC to let them know. And now letting you all know as a board just so that you are aware. But again that was just a documentation error. No other revenue reporting was affected by that. And also something to note for uh December 2025 revenue uh Appointment School District provided to the state a unit give back amount of 25.33 units. >> Next up >> before we go on though just real quick. So on this slide for December 2020 2025 revenues continued. So roughly 2 million November 25, 1.85 million, December 25. Where
069are we overall in terms of what our total expected property tax revenue is versus what we've collected? How much more is there to collect? If you don't have that, we can talk about it next meeting. I'm just curious because obviously with the delay in tax bills and other things, I know there's been a lag. I'm just curious how much of a lag. So, >> hi uh Mr. Forston and Chuck Longfellow here. Um when I do the uh final budget presentation, that is one of the tabs of the final bud budget. Um so I'll bring that up and I'll make sure I point that out to you. >> Okay. Thank you. >> I'm sorry I interrupted you. >> No problem. >> Yes. >> Um did you create the I thought I heard this in a previous
070board meeting. Did you create the local salary tracker? >> No, that was something that Dr. Chuck created um when he was the CFO here. And so, um when I started, I picked up the discretionary cash flow and the local salary tracker. That was all him. I just picked it up and I felt that it was a continued use and I do have plan to continue to use that going forward. >> Okay. Thank you, Chuck. I just knew I heard it. And we were not using that before. Were did Eric use that? Does anyone know? >> Yeah, >> he did. >> He had access to it. >> I'm not sure. >> Used it. >> Okay. >> One other I'm sorry. >> Um secondly, um are you able to tell us the amount of the state unit
071give back? Like what does 20.33 units um equate to? >> If you don't have that number now, I was just wondering. >> Yeah. So, so each year this becomes part several years ago, uh, when the governor made cuts, he cut $26 million in education. So, it's based on per student numbers. So, each year our amount goes up because we grow each year. Um, it started at like 1.79 million. And Chuck, did I hear you getting ready to say, is Chuck on? >> Yeah. >> Yes. Yes. >> It's like 2.2 something. >> 2.2. It's around 2.2 million right now. Yep. Our our share of the $26 million. >> Thank you. >> Which is not equalized. So, we're getting hit on a per student basis even though we have the lowest uh property tax base of the
072five school districts in Newcastle County. >> Absolutely correct. >> I just mentioned that because a lot of people who are listening maybe don't know what the units mean. So, I just wanted to put a dollar amount to it. >> And one other question if I could real quick on the local salary tracker slide. Um, you we've had we had 13 pays so far in fiscal year 2026, but then you've got 52% overall, but 13 is, if I'm reading this correctly, half of the 26 total pay. So halfway through the year we're 2% over >> essentially. Yes. >> Is that compared% >> is that compared to 2025 or is that for this compared to this year's budget? >> That's compared to 2025. So that 52% number takes the 13 pays that we have for this year
073and the 13 pays of 2025. The 103.62% takes the overall 26 pays from 2025 and compares it to the 13 that we have. Well, and we've got more staff because we've got more students. I just want to make sure. I thought that's what I heard you say that that 52% was compared to last year. >> Yes. >> Yeah. Chuck, here again, you you'll find that reflected in the budget as well. When you look at the salary lines, we did have to increase the salary lines because as we were cleaning things up and putting things in the right bucket, it made our picture clearer. And um you know the picture picture's not as pretty as we want it to be, but um you'll see in the budget that we do still um we still project that
074we're not going to have to be in financial review. We are going to carry over our our one month of local payroll. Um but the picture's not as pretty as it was during the um preliminary budget. And so uh thank you. >> Okay. Sorry we interrupted you. >> You're completely fine. I appreciate it. All good stuff. Next slide. All right. So, this in particular, I know in the past with the expenditures, I've provided like screenshots of the operating and program um summary expenditure report that is uh extracted out of DSC. Here I just give you a snapshot of expenditures and this includes everything. So, this includes non-discretionary, discretionary, but it gives you a snapshot of that report. It's about $138 million that has been expended. In the next slide, what you will see is I
075did a snapshot um of a portion of this report. Now, the reason why this report is longer now because when the board approved the budget and my team was uploading the budgets for the applicable operating co operating units, what we have done differently and thank I'm thankful for Dr. Chuck. What we've done differently is to be more itemized when it comes to our expenses so that the proper coding and trend data can be executed from the report instead of everything kind of being in a lump sum. That's essentially the goal to start breaking things out. So we started doing that with our 26 budget. So here if you look at curriculum and instruction you can see why there are essentially multiple lines. Now, I will caution to say that some of those multiple lines are
076areas where we do have to do recodes because because of the delay with the preliminary budget and we did do um provided new program codes and new accounts that caused some expenditures to be coded to an old account line and just needs to be recoded to the new account line. So, that cleanup we are underway with doing. That's going to take us some time but we are still underway with doing but I wanted to bring that specifically to your attention. So if we go to the next slide, um this will give you notes of of that. And just to note because I want this also to be clear, there is no way in DSSE, as far as I know, to my knowledge that when we upload the budget, it's just going to upload at that
077date. Unfortunately, in DSC, once we upload the budget, it's almost like it backtracks from the prior months. So it's going to look like essentially a budget was uploaded possibly in November or prior, but that was not the case. So, I do want to bring to the board's attention. The budget was upload uploaded when the board approved the budget. I think I have a typo here. The preliminary budget in December. Um, I have January here, but just wanted to bring that to your attention so that you are fully aware. We're not moving um and we don't make those adjustments. Just like tonight, we'll bring forth the final budget. Those amendments to from the preliminary to the final will not be conducted until after the board approval. So, just want to make you all aware of that.
078And just um other highlights just to know for expenditures we are still communicating I'm communicating leadership is communicating that uh we are still in austerity mode. So to only to purchase what you absolutely need given our financial situation and if there are issues we are working collaboratively to find out the best efficient um costly way as possible to get us through fiscal year 2026. So I just want to bring that to you all's attention just so that you are aware. I believe I that is it for my monthly revenue and expenditure report for December 2025 requesting board approval. If there's no other questions >> so the chair will entertain a motion and then if we have more questions we can ask questions. I motion to approve the monthly financial report as presented. December 20 25
079monthly report as >> second motion by Mr. Higgins, second by Mr. Abrams to approve the December 2025 revenue and expenditure report as presented. Was this also recommended for approval by the financial advisory committee? >> Yes. >> Okay. And recommended by the financial advisory committee. Any questions, comments, or discussion on the motion? Hearing none, all in favor signify by saying I. I >> I. >> Motion carries. >> Next on the agenda, we have the internal accounts report. >> All right. So, for for the internal accounts report, as I've stated previously, our process with the internal accounts report is essentially that um my finance specialist does a reconciliation, a monthly reconciliation. um she collects the information from the schools and they make sure that whatever is in their bank school bank account that is uh reconciled to
080the school funds online. So she brings it all together. She is constantly looking at the expenditures that are flowing into our school funds and what the schools are using the money for and what the revenue that's being brought in. Uh we brought this to the FAC. They did not have any concerns with the report that we brought forth and so requesting board approval of the December 2025 internal accounts report. >> All right. With that, the chair will entertain a motion. >> Mr. President, I motion to approve the internal accounts report as reviewed by the financial advisory committee for December 2025 as also presented by Miss Do. >> Second. >> Motion by Mr. Higgins, second by Miss Dit to approve the internal accounts report for December 2025 as presented and as recommended by the financial advisory
081committee. Any questions, comments, or discussion on the motion? Hearing none, all in favor signify by saying I. I. >> I. >> Any opposed? Motion carries. Next on the agenda, we have the fiscal year 2026 final budget for approval, Miss Stewart. >> All right. So, I have with me Dr. Chuck Longfellow who will be presenting the fiscal year 2026 final budget. >> All right. >> Thank you. Uh do you see um the screen the budget up on your screen? The cover sheet. >> Yeah. >> Yes. >> Excel spreadsheet. >> It is. Yep. Yep. I try to make it a little larger. I keep hearing that um it's a little tiny on that screen there. But um so just a little background on this one. This is our final budget for the um for the year. That
082doesn't mean that it's the last time you're going to hear about the budget. Um one of the things that we need to make sure we do is that throughout the rest of the year, even as as um even through July, there will be changes. More grants will come in. There may be a need to reduce a line or increase a line somewhere. Um a lot of those will be in net. Um and u those will be presented by Miss Stewart each month as a um amendment to the final budget. That's just a a a solid practice so that you have um approval authority and visibility on all of those changes. It's something that we hadn't seen in the last few years. Um this was um this this budget was reviewed. We brought Scott Kessle in
083to review it for us and he had some questions, asked us the questions and gave us a thumbs up on it. It's been reviewed and approved by the financial advisory committee. They got the long version of the presentation in lots of detail. Um and we did uh we did answer some board member questions via Dr. Burroughs over the last uh few days. So um I'll go to the carryovers tab which is the really just the bottom line here. So the bottom line is that we still project that we are going to carry over enough to cover our one month of local payroll. That is the state standard for whether they will put you under review or not. This is a this is the budget. So in austerity mode, we hope that people don't I know
084hope's not a strategy, but it's not a strategy. It's a hope that people are um are conservative in what they spend and that they do leave us more money in the pots so that this number is higher than what you see here. When you see the um financial position report that Miss Stewart is going to present, that's based on trends. This is the budget you're the numbers are slightly different but it's going to tell the exact same story that we are going to uh we are projecting that we're going to make our um our target it's just not by a whole lot of money and the same thing with tuition here. Um so far we're seeing some we've seen some good news on some of the smaller external tuition bills that we pay to other
085districts but nothing that's going to make this 22 million expenditures turn to 20 or 21 yet. uh we're talking like tens of thousands so far. So when the big bills come in, that's when we'll really know um how we are. So um this is the bottom line. Um we're still u we still need to operate in austerity mode for this year as Miss Stewart said. Um revenue side, I'm not going to go into the details um of everything. Mr. Forston did bring up the tax the taxes. So here, I don't know if you can see the the blue. These are blue, the ones that I just highlighted, the blue and italicized. This one's blue here. Um, I would make it red, but then that denotes a negative, and I'm slightly red color blind, so that's
086not probably not a good thing for me to put those numbers in there. Um, so what you what you see here is what Miss Stewart presented, the 2 million and the 1.85. In January, we received 66 point or 63.7 million. At first, we received 55. And then when Miss Stewart and I took a look at that and looked at our trends from prior years, um you know, I I almost uh I almost had a u a medical situation. So, uh I said, "Well, wait a minute. We're supposed to get another 10 12 million between now and the end of the year." And um it's it's um normally between January between February and the end of the year we'll get like two or three or four million. So we did contact the county and what they
087did is they they um calculated what they received right over into um January's receipts are what they received in December, but this this year it's also the first week of January. So they did give us kind of two deposits. um any day now we should hear what our the rest of our January receipts were and those will um be recognized in February because that's where we receive them. So this is a this is another one of those things where um you know I I we we need to receive all this money. We did contact the county and say hey what is our um we've been we've been seeing a lot of um appeals being granted. A lot of people have appealed their their tax um assessed value and so we did request from the county
088what's our current rollup of current total school taxable assessed value. We want to compare it to what we set the tax warrant against so that we know um whether we're okay or whether we need to get into more um austerity and that's just a disclosure for you. We won't really know until we get those numbers and see what the rest of this year looks like. So that's the tax um that's the tax situation. All of these other revenue parts you'll see um as you look through them in column H you'll see if there's a difference and then you'll see in column J the explanation or a reference on what those differences are. >> Chuck I'm sorry I was distracted for a moment. Can you go back to Yeah. On this slide? So you've got the
089actual receipts are in blue and then the projected numbers for the rest of the year are black. Those numbers seem those projections seem I'm going to say awfully specific. I'm just curious how you calculated those projections. >> Uh thanks. So if I go out to the right um for those of you who get the spreadsheet, we we do have kind of a um a way of calculating it. It's a little um when we do the preliminary, we're we're going off of um patterns from prior years. This year is not a normal year. Um so what what we what we did what we normally did was we would take one year um based on the advice of the financial advisory committee we did uh two years back. And so we would calculate what percentage of each
090month we would receive in each in in each month for the last couple years. And then we would kind of smooth that out so we would know what percentage of what's remaining we should receive here. That's why they're so specific. I could round them off but you know might as well leave them might as well leave them here. That's what the math says over here. So the out of what's left our math says that in February we should receive 32.7% of what's left and in um March we should receive 23% of what's left and so forth. And Chuck, one other question. When you look at go back to the right a little bit when you had the actual 24, actual 25. So if you look at like the later months of actual 25, we know
091that Newcastle County wasn't doing supplemental assessments for that fiscal year. So, it doesn't surprise me that when you look at the actual 25 numbers, they're all for the most part lower than the numbers that we had in 24 because there weren't new properties being added to the tax roles that could then pay taxes. >> Right. I >> I have been remiss. I don't know. I guess I believe Newcastle County has started the supplemental tax uh supplemental assessments back up again. Do we know Do you know if they've started that? I I don't know. That's something we could we could ask. >> We should find out. I'll I'll make some calls, but if if you uh and Miss Stewart could also follow up on that because obviously that would be good news if supplemental if we
092were looking at some additional supplemental property taxes for the balance of this year. >> Oh, definitely. And that's part of why I want to know what's our current um what's our current amount of um what's it called? um taxable school taxable assessed value in the district. I don't I don't remember right off hand what the number was for and I don't have it here what the number was for um it's in the tax warrant file but um we're hoping that it's the same or more than what we based the tax warrant on. That's what we want to see. >> Well, and we should be conservative and we shouldn't count our chickens uh before they hatch. So, I mean >> that's right. We should not budget for supplemental assessments, but we should definitely hopefully they've started
093up again and and they'll provide us a little bit of a more of a kicker for our carryover. >> Correct. It's kind of a it's it's kind of a contingency if it happens. And if it doesn't happen, then you're not um you're not budgeting money you don't have or you don't expect. >> Exactly. >> Yep. >> Okay. Sorry about that. >> Oh, not a problem. So for each for each of these we you can see what the changes are. You can see what the notes are. Same thing for the expenditure detail we have um in column F if there are changes you'll see them here. For example, our legal services are are costing us more than we had um uh originally projected. So you'll see here increase based on actual trends in column I. this
094here. Um now now we have um consolidated everything into operating units. So we're able to pull from the other sheet here from the other expenditure sheet. Everything that is discretionary is in these operating units. And here's the total 79228665. And then you see it here in the carryover. These numbers come from the other sheets. And um this is where you end up. So, um you know, uh that's that's all I have. You know, pending any questions, we ask that the um board approve the final budget for 2026. Fis fiscal year 2026. >> All right. Why don't we get a motion on the floor and then if people have questions to approve the financial report as presented? No, this is >> I apologize the 2026 final budget for approval. I apologize. >> I'll second by Mr.
095Higgins, second by Mr. Abrams to approve the fiscal year 2026 final final budget as presented. Any questions, comments, or discussion on the motion? Mr. Higgin, >> I had one question, but this might go back to the next the next round to the next uh presentation. Given it that we're you're so close on your carryover carryover number, um can you review your your top three concerns about what scenarios that may happen um or you're looking to not happen and for that number to go south of the minimum? >> Yes. Um so number one is that our tax receipts come in. We absolutely need those tax receipts to come in um at or above the target for our um especially for our 98,000 and our tuition um numbers. So, that's number one. That's why we're following up
096with the county to make sure that we see that. If if if it looks like we're trending um or not trending, if it looks like the tax base has shrunk due to appeals or and so forth, um then we will have to come back and give you an amended budget that has lower expenditures. We'll have to make some additional cuts here. Number two, it and this is perennial. this this happens this happens every budget that um I think that I've ever experienced not only here but other districts that I've been involved in and that's the special ed costs and um you know we we we we make sure that we um to the extent that we can provide the services that are required and needed to provide a um a a great education but those
097are just becoming more and more expensive and um I just saw um I saw a great presentation by our data person um I think it was I think it might have been yesterday um Brandon Moss who was explaining to us that that our units are shifting so we're shifting more into the special ed and needsbased category so it's just a matter of making sure that those costs don't swamp our budget and that's something that um that's a struggle that I think we've we've had for we've had that struggle even when I was there before. That's one and two. And number three is just no unanticipated costs. No more snow storms. You know, we don't need to be spending, you know, we don't need another round of overtime on plowing yard uh plowing lots and all
098that kind of stuff. No ex no unexpected um unexpected expenses. I mean, if we can if we can get through the rest of the year without something like that, um that's that's the key. Those are my top three. And I don't know if um Miss Stewart or Dr. Burroughs has another one. So, I think uh Mr. Higgins was checking my math because I sent him uh my top three and we were right on point, Chuck. So, and we didn't even talk. So, that's good. >> That was not a test. >> Yeah. >> Any other questions? Mr. Abrams? >> Chuck, what is the plan for our contingency budget? Lack of contingency budget moving forward. Well, we h the the plan is um what can we keep what can we build in the fiscal year 2027 budget?
099Um >> we're going to have another year we have another year of austerity. >> I'm thinking >> are there things that we can um >> trim back further on? And so that's not something I mean that's not something that I have the answer to. That's something that the um district administration has to take a look at. Um there are always risks. There's legislative risks. I mean, you you heard about the one legislative risk to not get the mid-year unit count money. That's 200,000 right there. Um, there are some legislation out there to do away with the extra time and the math and reading specialist match, to do away with the athletic trainer money. Those things are all um threats. And so really our only our only tool is building that 27 budget in a way
100that's going to keep us above water and maybe give us some room if possible. So um one of the things we've done is we've we've built a line in there to capture some of the special ed costs that if we have an opportunity to code them, you know, somewhere else that's not discretionary funds next year next year, you know, that maybe we could do that. But really, it's just it's all in the 27 budget. um it's it's not going to be comfortable, but I know that the um the district is trying to provide the education that they've been providing all these years without without major disruptions, but at the same time making sure that we do um stay out of that that um state financial review zone. So, one of the things that we're doing,
101Norm, uh, right now is we're having our unit projection meetings with our our schools and all. And so, as just was mentioned that we're seeing a shifting shift in our units, more of our units are being earned through our um, students with differing abilities. And so, we're looking at that and the team's working to make sure that we're right size with all of our units and our units are in the right spots. um much like we did at exercise last year uh where we had to look to see not where it was necessarily fat but things that we could trim from the budget and things like that. We're continuing to do that. So I mean we have plans. It's not something we we see it we see the carryover. Yes, we have enough carryover to
102get over through this year, but then you also have to realize as we go into next year, our expenses go up just naturally because we have steps and things like that that um we pay and as everyone else is experiencing at their home, all costs are going up. Like our costs just continually go up. So, we realize that we need to stretch this out and the team is going to do everything we can to stretch this out. Thank you. >> Um Dr. Brows, uh we all heard and I think you've mentioned in previous meetings the increase of special education in our nationally um prior to CO and and now um it's been um a jump. Can you give us um a scenario of what it looks like as we continue to get an increased number
103of special needs students? What that looks like for our school in terms of cost? um like are we projecting what I mean based on the internet um says that we're growing by like 15% um a year. So, as we look at um and I might need assistance on this, as we look at our special education just as it continues to rise, like we have some examples where we have um students who were educated at special programs at state programs that now the state programs are >> Dr. Burroughs. >> Yes. >> Oh, I'm sorry. I it was just taken down. I just wanted to interject really quick because I think uh Dr. um Chuck was still SC sharing his screen and we all were able to see it. So I just wanted to interject but it's
104been taken down from a Zoom perspective. Okay. >> Thank you. Thank you. Sorry I didn't see that. Appreciate that. Um, so like we'll have students coming back from that program um that are our students and we're more than happy to educate them, but we have to plan for those students. And it's not just the cost just is not necessarily like materials and staffing. It's also for us as a district that's growing and doesn't have a lot of space. It's space. like we have to construct classrooms and change classroom um spaces in order to address that and Dr. Longfell is constantly challenged like can we can we project this and can we plan ahead and we do the very best we can to plan ahead but at this point to your point it's growing faster than
105we can plan and so just trying to keep up with that is a challenge and we have Dr. Ger and Dr. repeaters out here. I don't know if there's anything else you want to add to the >> Yeah, it's hard to give an exact percentage, but um everything Dr. Burrow said, but then also so on the staffing side, we generally earn units that cover the area of needs that the students require, but there's also a local side to that salary. So, we earn the units on the state side, but then we have to pay that local side or find a way to pay that local side. And then a lot of the cost is in renovating current spaces. So, you know, we're growing still growing slower than we have been, but we're still a growing
106district. Um, so we don't have a lot of space in our buildings. So, we have to repurpose, renovate. Um, and there's costs to that. Uh, and then there's also some cost in materials, supplies. um required items. Uh and it could be anything from personal protective equipment to um edible reinforcers to um you know certain adaptive needs within the classroom or things that we need to educate that student um assistive technology. So there's a number of things that come along with it. So it's hard to give an exact percentage because it really depends on the student and that specific students need. Um, and then there's also a transportation component. If we're paying for a student that's in an outside placement, not only are we paying for that tuition, but then there's also a costly transportation component
107to that um that goes along with it. So, it just depends greatly on the student >> and and Dr. >> Oh, well, I'm sorry. One other question. If we're getting five students a month um into the district, how many of those students are coming in with special needs? and the special needs that are coming in now than before co is it more on the spectrum of a high I don't know the terms higher or the like are they do they need more services than like mild to less mild I guess >> yeah so needs definitely the needs are growing >> um I would say that's a trend even prior to COVID is that we had a ramped up rate of um students um with special needs and within special education um coming to our district.
108I don't know the exact percentage because again it it varies based on level and building but um we're definitely growing there where you know when I first come to the district we were somewhere around 10% or so and now we're you know ramping our way up close to 20% um in some cases. So yes, the the amount of students registering um are at a higher rate than they have been previously. Um you know, students with special needs. >> Okay. And Brennan school is no longer an option to send our children. >> It is. So Brandon still has Dplacement, meaning separate setting. um where Brennan what Brennan's getting rid of or sending students back is in their C settings um which they're serving their own students in those settings just as we are. So, our special
109programs that we have within our district are primarily C settings, meaning they're still within our mainstream schools, but for much of their day, they're in a self-contained setting, but they have access to same age peers. They have access to, you know, lunch, uh, recess areas, all the other areas of the school. Um, so what they've eliminated or what what they're sending back is those C settings. Um, so many districts already have those or are building those out. >> Thank you. >> And and so this is a qu I'll make this a toss-up question to either Dr. Longfellow or you Dr. Ger, but am I correct that with respect to I'll say um non-tuition tax, regular operating revenue, you know, we get equalization, meaning that since we're a school district with a lower tax base, we
110get extra money from the state. But on the tuition tax side, on on the special needs, special education side, there is no equalization. Is that is that correct? Am I right about that? Not that I'm aware of that there there's not an equalization that I'm aware of on the tuition tax side. So it's just a rate that's set and that's the amount we receive. Right? And so my point is here we are the second largest district in the state. We have the fifth we have the lowest tax base of any of the school districts in Newcastle County. And yet we're expected to raise and pay tuition tax without any adjustment for the fact our tax base is lower even though we get that adjustment for regular operating expenses. So I mean not only is this
111cost growing but because we have the lowest tax base it's hurting us even more. And our taxpayers and our residents are having to pay a higher rate than if there was equalization. And if there was equalization, we would be getting more money from the state to account for our lower tax base. And therefore, our tuition tax could be lower. But because there's no equalization, we have to pay more >> um than other districts, a higher tuition tax rate. >> Yeah. And again, what really crushes us there is the um unexpected costs when it comes to special education. So with the tuition tax, we could be doing fine even at this point in the year or March or April and then we'll have, you know, tuition bill hit that's much higher than expected and there really
112isn't a going rate or a standard rate. Those are set by um the placements that we're sending to. Well, equalization would be a big help not only to APquin but to a lot of other districts with lower uh tax bases as well. And so, you know, maybe if there's politicians running for office in an election year, this is something they might want to think about in terms of helping make education better. Um, but I just wanted to make that point because that was my understanding and I don't think people appreciate the double whammy that not only do we have increasing numbers of students who need these services and are entitled to these services and we want to give these services, but because our tax base is lower, we're having to pay more than other districts
113with bigger tax bases. >> All right, I one more question on that. You may not be a tossup question here. Um, so our RISE program or the district rise program, it's it's growing exponentially. >> Um, I know the the district and the community happily helps these kids that need these this funding. It is a state mandated uh agenda item when it comes to these kids. We are obligated not only morally by by the state. Correct. >> Yes. We Well, yes. So we're a public school and we serve um so under FAPE free and appropriate public students that attend here within our feeder or choice >> right >> we serve those students and their needs. So yeah, so my question being >> given that >> in any of like new construction or or construction recent construction
114um these sea setting environments that are needed does the state help us in the in the funding of of the the building of these spaces or is that all on our community? >> No, they do not help us. It's not it's not part of the square footage formula that the state has for us when it's time to construct the building. Wow. Okay. Thank you. >> All right. You're welcome. >> All right. Um Chuck, I know we kind of interrupted you uh as you were proceeding through your budget, but I I think those questions were helpful certainly for me. So, um if you want to pick it up where you were. >> Well, you had a motion. You guys did a motion. So, just motion. >> Oh, you're right. That's right. We went through Okay. I'm
115sorry. >> Right. I'm just I'm just at the part where you do um you do um you consider the vote and ask any questions. So if you have no more questions then >> um there questions Dr. Longfellow or anybody else hearing none. All in favor signify by saying I I >> I. >> Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. Next up for approval we have the financial position report. Miss Stewart, >> good evening again. Uh my I do want to start off with this with my apologies because I really was not thinking this through. Um I hope that you all know that it's very important for me to communicate and provide the understanding of ASD finances. So I do not have a PowerPoint for tonight to kind of walk you through the report. I have sent
116the report um to you all. Uh but if you have any questions, feel free to ask. What I am going to do tonight with the um month the quarterly, it's the quarter three financial position report that we're bringing before you as of December 31st, 2025. According to the state, we have to do this report quarterly. Uh just so that you all know, I do this report every month due to our financial situation. Um I have to do this uh on a monthly basis. So I submit this to the state or DOE and they review it and they are watching us closely given our financial position. So what you will approve tonight just know that I do a pulse is being kept on it in multiple places. All right. So to go with this report I
117had to report on projections for well actual um unencumbered expenses which is the remaining balance in the appropriations for the discretionary funds. So this is only with our discretionary funds and then I had to report uh essentially what has been encumbered. So that pretty much tells us where we are as of December. But then I have to project out January to June of fiscal year 26. The process that I took with that is with this report I was able to have actual revenue and expenditures for January. So I looked I utilized the um actual income and expenses for that month. Now, how I projected out for February and June was we I took the ex I took the budget the preliminary 2026 budget. I backed out what has been expended so far and then the
118remaining balance that's what I estimated and projected out. I did the same thing with the income portion. I did use uh uh our DGL14 for our revenue. So I utilize from February to June of fiscal year 2025 to project that out as well. Um with doing that uh I also used the mix of even our preliminary revenue budget and what we've received to date and then whatever is the remaining to receive that's what I used. So, I started doing that and then I had Chuck kind of be my eyes and ears. And so, um, we, uh, worked collaboratively to get us to the point. We reported with the monthly financial position report, uh, projected balance as of 6:30, $4,439,27125. I had to go back to make sure that I included um what we had for
119the final budget as well, which was the increase in the salary, the increase in the SRO, the sped contingency, and the legal fees that we increased um to get us to that point. When we're projecting out with the other when you look at the report and you're seeing from April to June, I put a lot of the projections in the appropriation 98,000. The reason why I did that is because I wanted to be very cautious with my first kind of run through with doing this report. Um, and then once we get closer and I have to do the next quarter and project out April to June, then I'll have more concrete information that will give a more uh better picture of where we financially staying at the end. So with the report that has been
120submitted, I have submitted the report was due February 1st. I did let the state know that, okay, I can submit this report to you, but it's not being approved and by the FAC um and the board until later. And so bringing this forth to you all for um approval for tonight. Uh if you have any questions, I am here to answer those questions. >> I'm going to start with a motion. Yeah, Mr. President, um I motion to accept the uh financial position report as presented. Awesome. Motion by Mr. Higgin by Mr. report as presented and >> yes about almost $140,000. >> Correct. Based on those projections, >> any other questions? >> President Farest, can you repeat what you just said on the Zoom side? The audio just went out for about 10 seconds, so I
121didn't >> I'm sorry, I didn't have my microphone on. Um, what I said, uh, Dr. Graham was that on the financial position report it shows a one-month payroll of 4.3 million and it shows a projected ending balance on June 30th of 4.439 million meaning that we will exceed what is required by approximately $140,000. >> Noted. Thank you. >> Okay. Any other questions, comments, or discussion on the motion? Just one one question and again you you've been doing this and we've all been asking this question. So the numbers that you're getting on these spreadsheets >> yes >> they are extracted from another program or are they manually inputed from another source? >> They're extracted from our data service center which is the program that we use uh for uh salary and our expenses um into pretty
122much that's the state of Delaware um system that is currently in place. uh what is manual is what I have to I mean manually enter into the report and the projections are based on uh prior reports um for a prior year plus what we have in our preliminary budget the difference from that. >> Thank you. >> No problem. >> All right. Any other questions, comments or discussion hearing? None. All in favor of approving the financial position report as presented and as recommended by the financial advisory committee indic indicate by saying I. I. >> Any opposed? Motion carries. >> Thank you. Next on the agenda we have choice applications for approval. This is Lauderbot. Lauderball. Good evening. I'm here for approval of the electronic lottery that was done. Um Steve, next slide. So, the application process,
123um, choice began on November 3rd at 8 a.m. and closed on January for 14th at 11:59 p.m. Kindergarten choice is open, um, until the first day of school or until we reach capacity. Next slide. The application process, each parent needs to provide um, report card attendance and discipline um, that we review with each application. Next slide, please. Um the criteria is returning students who continue to meet the school requirements, siblings of students already enrolled in the school um and are returning to the school for the following academic year. Um children of employees, students living within the Apoquin School District and then out of district students. Next slide. Um the criteria Oh, criteria for denial, Steve. Yep. Um is schools at um 85 capacity, um students have been suspended or expelled from the school district of
124residents, and students who have been absent more than 15 days. Next slide. So, this is um the number of applications we received. This is the most that I've ever received here in our district, which is great. Um these are the um totals. Just so you know, the totals will not add up because it's based off of rules and also it's based off of parents applying to more than one application or school. Um the withdrawal numbers are um either they we withdrew them because of attendance, discipline, and grades or we withdrew them because they did not complete their application by the deadline. >> The number of schools. >> So you can apply to three schools or three programs. And then the duration of um enrollment it is once you've accepted you are in your choice school
125for either um kindergarten 1 to 5 6 to 8 or 9 to 12. And then if you're in our immersion program it is in a K to8 application. And then for high school you're guaranteed the high school that you want to go to once you're in the immersion program. Um once a student accepts for enrollment in a district, they shall remain in that school for a minimum of two years. A student who fails to meet our academic requirements in the choice school and does not comply with our attendance or violates our school um code of conduct will not return the following year. Next slide. So, the only thing I want to ask is for your approval of the um electronic lottery and then if you do approve it, um I just want to let the
126parents know that we will be sending those um invitations or weight list out this Thursday. Um so, be looking for those invitations and then just know that we do not give out weight list. Um if you come off a wait list, I will be the one that contacts you. Um and then we do have some spots in our immersion program. So, please um apply to our kindergarten and immersion um program because that application is still open. Any questions? >> Mr. President, I'll make a motion to approve the choice applications for approval as presented. >> I'll second. >> Motion by Mr. Abrams, second by Mr. Higgins to approve the choice applications uh for as presented. Questions, comments, or discussion on the motion? We allow even though do we allow kids in the immersion side to choice
127in after kindergarten or after first grade or do you >> So it's usually in kindergarten. The only time we allow that is if let's say you're coming from another immersion school and you move here. We would allow you in that way. >> Okay. But for I'll say traditional schools you could choice in third grade, fourth grade, any grade. You don't have to start at the lowest grade. >> Correct. Okay. >> Any other questions or comments? >> What percentage of kids you or families uh enter the lottery, get in, and then don't just don't come to the school school system or go to the school. >> I would say not. Most of the people that accept do come. >> Okay. >> Maybe a very waiting list is really kind of like >> just non not necessary.
128Well, the waiting list is for like our emer like let's say an immersion student like they accept it some a different school then we would go to the next person on the list >> but yeah wait list once we're at capacity we're not going to let you in on off the wait list >> and presumably students ino could if they wanted and there was space choice to another school district. Do we know how many approximately how many kids do that ino? I do not know that right off hand, but I can get that to Dr. Burrough. >> Just curious. >> I can get you that information. >> Okay. Any other questions? Uh, okay. We have a motion to approve the choice applications. Um, with there being no further questions, comments, or discussion, all in favor
129signify by saying I. I. >> Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. >> Thank you. Next on the agenda, we have the 2026 27 calendar. This is the first reading. Dr. Feathers. >> Good evening everyone. I'm here to present uh the academic calendar proposal. It's just a reminder that we do have a district calendar committee and our members are listed here. Once again, I would like to thank them for uh their service. And our committee operates under guiding values. I'll share them with you tonight. We do what is best for students. We value instructional time for consistency. We value maintaining an equitable distribution of instructional time. We value parent engagement and conferences for progress monitoring. We value time for families. We value lifelong learning for staff. We value the negotiated agreement. and we value every employee
130category. Also, a reminder about our regulations and procedures when we're building out a district calendar. It is a reminder that our teachers do work 188 days a school year. Our students, grades 1 through 11, they have to do a certain amount of hours, which is 1,60. Our 12th graders have to do 1,032 hours. Our day is 30 or yes our day is 375 minutes long and uh this process goes for three months. Uh last meeting we asked uh there was a question about the timeline so I just posted that here for all of you to see. So our committee met in December, our committee met in January. We presented here at the last school board meeting and following the board meeting, we opened up for public comments. Uh the committee then met again um just
131on February the 3rd where we discussed uh the presentation from the school board. We discussed and reviewed the public comments that we had received so far. Um and we worked on uh any revisions needed for our presentation tonight. Um tonight we're doing our first reading. Uh the public comments will they are open so after tonight if you have any comments um they will close on February the 26th that will be followed by another committee meeting and then we'll be back here in March for the second reading and approval of the academic calendar. So like I said we did open up for public comments. Uh we received and reviewed 366 responses. Um about 230 were parents. Uh 54 preK through five staff, 29 middle school staff, 19 high school staff, five school administrators, eight district staff,
132and then a few folks who reported as staff and parents. So I can share some of those comments as we go through the calendar with any revisions that we made um from our the last board meeting. Uh so I do want to discuss the Labor Day um before or after Labor Day starts. So this is just a reminder that last year um when we presented the the calendar, we also presented the start of 2026 um and that was approved here at the school board uh last March. So, what was approved was a pre-Labor Day start. I think it's important to note because we received many comments um concerned about the beginning of the year versus the end of the year and how this current school year looks similar to the proposal for next school year.
133So, some folks shared if we're starting a week later, why are we getting out around the same time? I just want for us to look at this calendar. We're actually starting the same week that we started this year. It's just that the holiday falls a lot later. So, the holiday this year fell on September 1st, meaning we started school on September 2nd. Uh this coming year um in 2026, the holiday falls on the 7th. So, we would be starting school um August 31st uh per per the approved um calendar from last year. So, that will be the first day of school. Another comment that we received was um the concern about a 4-day week the first week. Just a reminder, it's always a 4-day week when we start after Labor Day because Labor Day is
134Monday. So, we have school Tuesday through Friday. So, this year it'll just look a little different Monday through Thursday, off on Friday to allow for that family time around Labor Day, off the following Monday. Um, you can go ahead to September. Um, yep. Off for the holiday on the 7th. Um, and then back on the 8th. Um, one thing that we just added, it's not a change. The 15th is primary election day. There is no school for preK through 12. It is a staff professional learning day, but the state did decide it was the state PL day. that's more relevant to our staff who participate in some of that state PL um but that is noted um as an addition on this calendar. Also would like to bring your attention to that it is an
135election day. So in 2526 we did not have primary um or general elections. So those do affect who can be in our buildings. So when you're looking at why are there why does the calendar look the same but look different? um we didn't have election days this year. So that is a day when we're allowed to have staff in but not students. So once again, 188 days for staff, but the minutes for students need to be um built into this calendar as well. Um in October, uh the only addition we have is our high school students in 10th and 11th grade take the PSATs. And so this year we had it as an asynchronous day for our 12th graders. Um and so we are also proposing to have it as an asynchronous day for our
1369th graders. Uh while the testing is going on, we need many staff members uh to help uh give the assessment for the PSAT. So having the students assign some work that they can do at home um would be more beneficial than having students in the school while our staff and our students um in 10th and 11th grade are taking the assessment that day in November. We're not recommending any changes. I would just once again bring your attention to it's an election day um on November the 3rd. So once again, that's something that wasn't in our calendar. So on a general election day, students and staff cannot be in the building. So that takes away from our 188 and it also takes away from our hours that our students come in December. Um, as you can
137imagine, there were many public comments about um the winter uh break and we did discuss um the comments that we received and our proposal is to stay with um two days in school the 21st and 22nd and winter break beginning on the 23rd and then bringing us back in January on the 4th. We didn't recommend any changes in the month of January and we didn't recommend any changes in the month of February. In March, um spring break came up uh just a little bit. Um when you look at March and April, uh we were proposing to be off on the 26th, the following week, and then the Monday of um April, which would have been April 5th. So some of the comments we received that that disrupted three weeks of time versus two weeks of
138time. So you'll note that we have changed um the end of the marking period to Wednesday the 24th. So we removed that from the 25th. We made the staff grading day on the 25th. So no school for students staff grading day on the 25th. Spring break begins on the 26th goes through the following week and then our students will return on the 5th instead of the 6th. Next slide. We're not proposing any changes in the month of May and no changes proposed for June. The month of July just notes the holiday and like we did last year we also present August and September so the start of 27 28th school year because it is a late Labor Day we are recommending to start the week before. >> Has anybody commented on that for I'll say
13927? >> Yes. So, we did receive comments just in general on Labor Day. Um, so 2026 Labor Day is the 7th. 2027 Labor Day is the 6th and we won't see another late Labor Day until 2032. So, it does happen, but and this time it's happening two years in a row. Once again, it would be the same weeks of starting school. It's simply the holiday, the Monday that is different. >> All right. Well, why don't we get a motion on the floor if somebody wants to make a motion? >> We don't need a motion. >> No, we're not. Oh, this is just first reading. Okay. Any questions, comments, or discussion uh for Dr. Feathers? I'll simply observe. I don't like asynchronous on the calendar. I mean, I thought we learned during co asynchronous wasn't as
140effective as synchronous. And so I, you know, if if we're requiring kids to be on a minute basis to graduate, I you know, I don't know how you monitor the minutes they spend when it's asynchronous. >> So, we do have plans for asynchronous work. The teachers do assign specific assignments to the students and there are requirements for those assignments to count and for those students to be considered present for completing. >> I understand the theory. I just don't like it. And so, um, I mean, again, if the theory is that you've got to have so many minutes of classroom time in order to graduate and then we say to kids, here's your homework assignment. Tomorrow you don't have to come to school. I don't know how many minutes they're spending or not spending on that
141time or even if they're going to do I mean, I know it has to count, I suppose, but I mean, are we giving them, you know, eight hours or however many minutes there are in a day worth of work for asynchronous? >> They do receive assignments for all of their courses that they're scheduled for. >> And I still also I think we ought to go three weeks. I know Dr. Graham and I disagreed on that subject a month ago, but just coming in two days before Christmas, if we came in three, then we can get out a day earlier. In theory, we can move up perhaps the start of the third marking period. It gives you an extra day of instruction before AP tests and things like that towards the end of the year. So,
142you know, it's easy to say in December, oh, I want the day off. And then at the end of the year, you're saying, oh, I wish I had gone to school that extra day in December because I'd be out a day sooner. So, I would still strike a balance at three days the week before Christmas. Three days that week before Christmas. We did discuss um the comments that were brought forth here in January and I will bring them to the committee. Again, >> if I could just add one thing, the the one asynchronous day that was presented uh is on a PSAT day where that's being administered. All three high school principles expressed challenges with ninth graders not taking the test, the other grades taking the test in I think Dr. Feather said having the
143resources to effectively operate that day and I still think with that asynchronous day we don't lose the required minutes that were we're supposed to have. Am I correct? >> Correct. >> I piggyback on uh Mr. Unfortunately, what did the district do before asynchronous was available on PSAT day? >> So, I think our history is that our ninth graders were taking the PSAT. >> Well, yeah, there was a period of time they were taking it and then after some discussions, we determined maybe we were over testing and to have them take PSAT an additional year was just too much. So, we decided to eliminate the ninth grade testing year, but then it became a managing the school day issue with kids not taking the test and creating a testing environment while we're trying to manage kids
144not taking the test. We were dealing with it for a number of years, but when we determined we're meeting the required minutes, that's when we we uh decided to at least present an asynchronous day. And it's not it it's not random. It's after many meetings with high school principles where they have at least asked us to take a look at that type of day for ninth graders. So >> I mean I I would agree with Mr. Forson on that point. I don't I don't work at the school so I can't speak for how chaotic it is so I'm not you know first on that but I agree with Mr. for the sentiment about sentiment about trying not to do acres acres where we can but if you're saying that you did it for what five
145years se I don't know how many years but several years where the ninth graders were not taking the the test and then that >> the past two years yes >> you did it it wasn't ideal and I worked at a high school so >> yeah you get through it but you're getting through it so it's not not not an ideal testing situation if you have an alternative and you meet the minutes, but it's a proposal. >> So, and again, just my ignorance. So, in the in with with this plan, the rest of the staff would do what? Come to the school and then everybody would just help the freshman take the PSAT. >> Yeah. I mean, you're in a in a a proctoring of the test kind of situation and trying to create a a
146testing day versus running a typical school day for 9th grade while you're in a testing environment for other grades. >> Right. >> It's a challenge. Yeah. >> And and I'll just add, look, I I went to I visited the school uh the high school during a PSAT day. the asynchronous although it's not the best plan it is the best plan for the learning environment for the kids taking the test it's not ideal considering it's one day that is your recommendation as the experts I understand I've been there you haven't been there on a PSAT day I challenge you to go to the school that day walk the halls quietly see what they're doing and you'll see that it is important yes it's not ideal but it's valid for what they're trying to do I I've
147been Uh, Dr. Feathers, I have a question. I noticed that you mentioned the um elections of the primary and the general. I was wondering, do you mention the school board election on the May on May 11 or No, because the school is open. >> Correct. >> All right. So, this is the first reading and we will see you again in a month. >> See you then. Thanks. >> Thank you very much. And thank thanks to everybody on that committee. >> You know, much like being on school board, no matter what you decide, somebody's going to be unhappy. >> Yes. Um, just a reminder, the comments are open. If you are listening, uh, you can scan the QR code now on your screen to submit any comments you have. And we will also be sending messaging
148out to all families tomorrow via school messenger. So, you can look for that. That will also have the link there as well for you to submit any comments. We'll be reviewing them at our next committee meeting. Thank you. >> I do have a question. Isn't um Tim on the committee as well? Our new board member, >> Mr. Abrams. >> Oh, I thought you were too. >> I'm not on the calendar. >> Oh, okay. >> That is one I missed. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Okay. Well, thank you, Dr. Feathers, and we look forward to seeing you in a month. Next on the agenda, we have overnight field trips for approval. The chair, excuse me, will entertain a motion. >> Mr. President, I motion to approve the overnight field trips uh as presented. >> Oh, I'm
149sorry. I apologize. >> I was going to second. >> I I'll start that over. I apologize. Mr. President, I motion that we approve field trip ID number 11210. Uh number ID 11218, ID 11244, ID 11277 for approval. >> Motion by Mr. Higgins, second by Mr. Avers to approve trip IDs, overnight trip IDs 11210, 11218, 11244, and 11277. Any questions, comments, or discussion on the motion? Hear none. All in favor signify by saying I. >> I. >> Any opposed? Motion carries. Next we have the Summit Campus Middle and High School construction documents for approval. Mr. Hopkins. >> Good evening. Yeah, we have uh the Summit Campus construction documents for approval. Prior to that, we're going to go through a presentation. I'm going to start off with Scott. Are you starting? Scott Lester from ABHA will be
150starting off as well as being represented by BSNA Marine Danski. >> Okay. This is the um instruction documents presentation for the Summit Campus Middle and High School. This is the final design presentation you'll see for this. We've had previous presentations at schematic and design development level. Um since that time we've been further refining the design and developing detailing to get it to ready to go out to bid. Um if we go to the next slide um um previous packages that have gone out is the site package. So the site package has been um approved, bid and awarded um and is currently under construction as this slides Keith showed earlier. Um but this is a site plan depicting the um the buildings on the site. Um you can see the gray is the Crystal Elementary School.
151Um and then the uh gold is the middle school, the light blue is the high school, and then the darker blue is the kind of a shared performing arts center. Um the orientation of the site is you know coming from the left is uh 896 and then you come into this kind of inner loop around the um central green space which has the parent and visitor parking and drop off areas. The outer loop is um more for the uh staff student and bus parking and drop off. You can also see the connection from the high school leading out to the stadium complex in the fieldhouse. If we jump to the next slide. Whoops. Yeah, there you go. Um so we have some overall plans here. We'll we'll look at kind of the big picture first
152and then zoom in on the actual floor plans of each kind of building group. Um but again, this is the the new building. The left side is working left to right on the front is the middle school and the middle school entrance coming in off the that inner loop. Um and then going to the right is the performing arts center entrance coming in. Uh the primary performing arts center will actually be entrance will be in the back where all the event parking will be. But we do have an entrance coming in the front and then on the right side is the high school um main entrance coming in and that's also aligned up with the entry uh coming in from 896. Um working on the rear kind of left to right is the um middle
153school bus parking and the gym entrance. And then going to the right we have um you know loading area and work you know loading zone utility yard and then to the right of that is performing art center entrance. And then further to the right down by the very bottom is the uh entrance to the gym. That's the primary student entrance the bus parking and also the uh direct connection to the uh stadium complex. What's the little kind of greenish area at the very far right next to the gym? That right there was >> the wrestling room. >> Um the little square, the square on the bottom is the wrestling room, >> right? >> And the next slide here, this is the second level of the same. So primary academic spaces are all kind of oriented
154towards the center green space. The larger spaces are in the back. And you can kind of see the connection um between middle school and high school along this level in the media center kind of being the lynch pin of that. And then next slide is on the third level. Um, I think we've kind of went through this some before, but the because of the compactness of the site, we had to make the high school compact and made a third level, not only just to save sight space, but also to give that monumental presence um for the site as you kind of incrementally uh go up in grade level through the site. And I'll turn it over to Moren to kind of go through the high school and middle school plans. >> Thank you. Um so
155again we're going to start with the high school. Uh so the next slide you're going to see a little bit more detail and a little bit more um of the of the spaces and we'll walk through those. So the next slide um this is starting at the high school first floor. Uh so that main entrance there in the in the bottom center. Uh there's um flanking that entrance on the left in red is the um main office administration and the to the right is the nurse and wellness. Um and as you move more towards the right or that wing you can see is primarily all yellow. Um that's all of the academic classrooms. Uh on the left side beyond the administration in the blue is all of the student services the shared suite there. And
156then um in the orange is all of the special education rise and life skills um that that housed uh in that location. As you go through that front entrance and you you kind of continue um towards the top of the uh page, but that's kind of to the back of the building, you'll see um some areas in blue. Those are a lot of the CTE large space um areas like STEM air um aerospace. And then you'll see some of the early child uh care. further up to the left in the pink there. Um you start to see a little bit of the um the shared space for the um performing arts and music spaces, but we'll we'll kind of jump into that on further slides. Um to the right of all of that in the
157green is the gymnasium. So it's the gymnasium and all the supporting locker rooms, fitness, uh wrestling, etc. On the next slide, u moving up to the second floor. So again on the kind of on the right side you'll see again stacking those academic classrooms in yellow. Um and then kind of in the center and towards the left all of those grayer spaces are all of the science labs. Um you will see those two red uh labs in the center are the allied health. Uh and they are located that was really from discussions um from the instructors from the faculty of the fact that they can get the benefit of being adjacent to um biology and anatomy. there was a great benefit um for that program there as well. Uh and then moving up to the
158next slide um is the third floor. So you can see this is primarily uh academic classrooms with all of the yellow. Um it also houses the the arts. So there's um graphic arts um and the art art labs there in the kind of light blue. And moving over now to the middle school um the next slide. Uh this is a kind of again in that center bottom of the page um is that main entrance. We are it's flipped a little bit here. So you see the the red to the right is the administration uh and student services and then on the left is the nurse's um suite in purple there. Uh and then you can see how the wings are oriented in um the pods uh similar to uh the newer buildings that we've been
159doing. So all of the yellow classrooms are general education science um labs that are within each of those wings. with that kind of central commons. Um on the left that's the sixth grade and then on the right um is all the related arts. So um again similar components um just uh different functions in there um as you kind of go back to the center and you go um up towards the page you'll see that whole center area there in the orange is all of the special education. So those are all of those rise classrooms. We were talking about that um earlier tonight that that's been a big increase um in the need and the number of of those spaces. Um so that's uh that's that area that connects then to the upper portion, the back
160part of the building. Uh to the left in in green is the gymnasium. Uh this is similar size to um to Kwells Bridge uh middle school and to Reading uh Middle School as well. Um in that area to the right, that light blue, that's the cafeteria. It's open to that lobby space. Um, and that was intentional so that you could kind of lock off that that portion of the building. And that's your public use space without having to go through um the main the main school building. Uh that area to the right, the very light blue is the shared kitchen. So that's one of the plan efficiencies that we carried over from Fair View. Um and that is shared between the middle school cafeteria and then the high school. You see a little bit of
161it there. Yep. To the right. And then moving up to the second floor. Again, this is um focusing on those those pod areas. So, we have seventh grade to the left, the uh eighth grade to the right, and then the art uh kind of in the center there with um administrative offices as well. Uh and then we're going to kind of shift to the the center, the um what we call the performing arts center. This is really the connective piece um between the middle school and the high school. Uh so we talked about those academic wings, but what you start to see kind of in the center there in orange, uh it's not the special education, but that's the culinary arts program. So that is located near uh the the kitchen area and near um
162the the theater area for the culinary cafe um etc. Um, so here you can see the full uh cafeteria on the the left in blue with that shared kitchen and just above that in gray is the loading dock and all of the building systems um central uh to to both buildings. Uh and then on the right you you see a series of of spaces obviously. Um you see the uh theater is the main piece there in the middle. The blackbox theater um just above that. And then um those other kind of pink and purple spaces are all of the middle school and high school band chorus and orchestra spaces and all the supporting storage etc for those as well. Uh and then the next slide shows the second level of that. Um and you see
163again the upper levels of the um academic wings but in the green center there is the shared media center. So again those kind of con that connects both middle school and high school. It also serves as uh a way to the upper level of the bal of the um theater and egress from the theater as well in kind of that center purple area. On the next slide, um kind of going out from the main building, we have um the fieldhouse and concessions buildings. Um what's a little difficult to see here is that that long linear piece is the fieldhouse and that houses all of the um home toilet rooms, locker rooms, athletic training um spaces, etc. Um you can kind of see those uh portion above that. That's it is are the stands. Actually, this
164fieldhouse is tucked under uh the the bleachers uh of the stadium. Uh the building above that is not it's not where it's located in context to the fieldhouse. That would basically be the middle of the field. Um but that's a separate concessions building and toilet room. So that allows um you to be able to have less functioning if you have functions that don't need a concessions and that many toilet rooms. You can um you don't have to have all of your your building up and running uh at a given time. It also allows for some separation between home and visitors as well. Uh the next slide we just want to share a few uh renderings. This is showing a typical uh middle uh middle school classroom. Uh very similar to all of the uh more
165recent schools, technology um you know working with the technology folks. Uh casework, furniture, very very um typical uh components within each of those classrooms. Uh this is a shot of the middle school cafeteria. Um so as we saw in plan, we got the gym uh to the left there, the serving lines to the right. Um and this space gets a lot of that natural light because it's to the back of that building. Uh and the volume for for multi-purpose. Uh next slide is typical uh high school classroom. So it looks pretty similar to the middle school, but again um similar technology, furniture, casework, etc. um for that that's carried throughout. Uh, and then I'll turn it over to Scott to go to the exterior. >> Uh, so just some exterior views. This is kind of
166an aerial view looking from 896 towards the campus. You can see the green space in the front, existing Christopher Run Elementary School to the left, and then the new buildings working their way around the the center space. Um, that void kind of the gray area that doesn't have anything on it. That's the future site where the early childhood center would go in the future. And you can kind of see the arrangement of the parking in this in the loop roads. I'm jumping over to the next slide. Um this is the actual Crystal Run Elementary School just here shown for context. Um it kind of established the uh colors and patterns and materials we're and fenestration we're using. Um and the scale of it as we're growing from the different grade levels and incorporating it into
167the the additional buildings. So moving on to the next um you can see this is the middle school is kind of up to another level of scale but still using the same vocabulary of materials kind of roof screens the bricks the different brick colors and the window patterns and then this is the high school again it's three stories so it does have a bigger presence on the green you're kind of looking at it from the center green space along the main axis uh heading towards the entrance And then just some additional views in context of that center um parking area uh for visitor parking and for you know drop off area. This is the middle school here. And then the next slide is a view of the um high school as you're driving around that
168loop. Um in the rear of the site uh this is the middle school gymnasium entrance or the bus entrance for the students. Um you can see to the right is the gymnasium. Uh the main in the middle there is kind of the main entrance for the bus parking and then the left there is the cafeteria with that projecting element on the roof. Um kind of a roof monitor to let light in. Next slide is showing the performing arts center. Uh this is the uh kind of the drop off area in the in the staff parking uh the event parking lot for that uh leading into the performing arts center. Um it's you know the the kind of the reddish colored piece at the top is the stage element for the fly space of the um
169of the of the auditorium. And then here this is the looking at the gymnasium entrance uh leaning into the gym the bus you know it's also that main access that leads out to the uh fieldhouse. And then just a finally a view from the rear of the site looking towards um the airport in 896. Uh in the very foreground is the um bus parking for the middle school and that gym entrance and then you kind of work your way around to the other entrance as I just described. So I guess that's uh I guess that's the views. if there's any questions or any feedback. >> Yeah, I'm not really sure where this question gets corrected, so I apologize if it catch you um flatfooted. So through the projected um number of our our our special
170our students with special special needs is is are are those numbers at least as they are projected um accommodating for for those kids as far I see in the whole plan there's you know a lot of area for special education and we just you know heard from Dr. Ger how those numbers is growing. I just did want to know if where we got our projections and if they are, you know, adequate for what we believe is going to be our special education population. >> So, uh, as we mentioned earlier, we're not funded for those classrooms. So, we're trying to maximize um the number of classrooms we have in there while also realizing that we're not funded for those classrooms. like it are we going to have enough space as of today? Yes. But as 10
171years from now, yeah, I can't if we keep growing at the rate we're growing, no, we don't have enough space. >> And you know, part of it I think is, you know, that we've been in talking to staff like four classrooms is is about the maximum you want to go for the special needs. I think is that that right in saying that >> Ed, >> right? So, so that's about where we can hold to and that's about our maximum. So, we're trying to build to the maximum as best we can without affecting, you know, the education aspect. >> I I can't imagine you could plan for more than five years from now. So I'm I wouldn't blame anybody for you know out growing a school in eight years but I was just near future where
172we sounds like you guys at least we or you with uh given the climate and the not not getting funding from the state it seems like you're doing all the best you can. >> Yeah. Like so like I mean I'll just use an example that like when we started to build reading we planned reading two classrooms wasn't going to be enough but then >> we had to add a third classroom to it be before construction was finished um for it. So it's like >> we're moving target at this point. So >> and it's a very expensive thing to do to do it afterwards if you're doing it while while it's in the plane or or planning phase it's a lot cheaper. You try to do that afterwards as a change order cost a lot more
173money. That's all I had. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> I will just note my continuing objection. I know I'm tilting at windmills. We need showers in those locker rooms. I that continues to annoy me and I think we're someday we're going to rere the the fact we didn't put in at least a couple showers. >> I think we got a couple in the locker room, right? We have the locker room >> and and in the officials we put two in the fieldhouse. >> Yeah, I saw that. But I don't know. Just I just you know my objection. >> Does anybody else have any questions uh for our presenters? If not, the chair will entertain a motion. >> Mr. Mr. President, I motion to approve the Summit Campus Middle and High School construction documents as
174presented. >> Motion by Mr. Higgins, second by Mr. Abrams to approve the Summit Campus, Middle and High School construction documents and and really we're approving this and then you're going to take these to create documents. >> We're approving this for the bidding phase only >> and after the bidding phase, we'll come back for approval to go to construction and for contracts. But this is for approval to go to the bidding phase. >> All right. Any questions, comments, or discussion on the motion? Hearing none, all in favor signify by saying I. I. >> I. >> Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. Thank you guys. >> Thank you. >> It's It's a beautiful uh design. Uh next on the agenda, we have I'm sorry, did she said >> No, I said agreed. >> Oh. Uh next on
175the agenda, we have changers for approval. Mr. Hopkins. >> Yeah, we don't have uh that many. I've got a for Lewis reading. There's a few small ones there. You know, they're not large. We're just wrapping things up on the inside of the building there. And I said, these are part of that as change orders come through when we get them finalized and negotiated out for uh Summit Campus. Couple of note there just for some undercutting we had to do at the entrance road. and that one came in at about 23,000 and then we had a couple ASIS for changes to the documents and that tallied about 37,000. We're uh seeking approval for these uh change orders as submitted and as approved by construction office myself. >> Okay. The chair will entertain a motion regarding the
176change orders. >> Mr. Motion by Mr. Higgins, second by Mr. Abrams to approve the change orders as presented and as recommended by Mr. Hopkins. Any questions, comments, or discussion on the motion? Hearing none, all in favor signify by saying I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Next, we have the personnel report for approval. Dr. Small. >> Good evening. The personnel report for the February board meeting has been presented for your approval. Tonight we are asking for your approval as presented. >> Chair will entertain a motion. >> Mr. President, I uh motion to approve the change orders as present. >> We're on personnel report now. >> I'm sorry. >> Yeah. Got to keep up, Tim. >> I motion to approve the change orders as presented by Dr. Smalls. >> The personnel report. >> Sorry. Try it again.
177I motion to approve the personnel report >> as presented by Dr. Small. >> Second. >> Motion by Mr. Higgins, second by Mr. Abrams to approve the personnel report as presented. Any questions, comments, or discussion on the motion? Hearing none, all in favor signify by saying I. I. >> Any opposed? Motion carries. Um the financial advisory committee will be meeting um here in this room on Tuesday, March 3rd, 2026. And the next regular board of education meeting, indeed the next board of education meeting at all is going to be Tuesday, March 10th, 2026 at 7 p.m. here in this room. Thank you all for coming. With that, we are adjourned.