001All right, good evening. Sorry we're late. We'll get right into it. Motion to go into work session? Motion. Second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? So carried. Welcome to our work session. Welcome back from vacation. Hope everybody had good vacations. We'll get started here. Let me just take a look. All right, we have starting grades three through five literacy update. Dr. Outlaw? Good evening. And I just want to share before I get started that the literacy team, there are a lot of them behind me. And I am so grateful that they decided to spend this time here, which only shows their commitment and dedication to the work moving forward. So I just want to personally thank them for taking the time to be with us. And we are also grateful for the opportunity to update you.
002Mrs. Dell University and I have been engaging in the work and we've... presented to the board in the past, you may remember in December, we shared one of our action steps being. the incorporation of the science of reading skills in our curriculum with the formation of this three through five literacy team of rock stars. And so during this time together, we're going to provide details about the team, the process that was taken, and outlining our current practices, the skills that are seen and sought with our current programs, the vendor presentations that were held, and our proposed next steps. So this might sound a little familiar to each of you, but bear with me. You'll recall that previously we mentioned and talked about Governor Hochul with her $10 million commitment to training teachers around the foundational
003reading skills related to the science of reading. We also mentioned the New York State Education Department developing guides that were going to be used either within the school and by classroom teachers and administrators in order to educate themselves about the science of reading and literacy practices. And so part of that for us included the administrators and teachers both from Garden Manor and from South Country. coming together in order to discuss our literacy program and practices. And so in speaking with the team, I could not have asked for a better group of educators to work with. The teachers from both buildings committed in every facet to support the work in order to I want to share, find the absolute best that we could provide to our children, both on a curricular level and that would help
004the classroom teachers in the building give their absolute best. And so we had educators, both general education teachers, special education staff, dual language and E&L teachers. So we had every representation for every support as well as instruction that would be provided. So the total of about 22 people collectively in the group. They have met and sacrificed their time in order for us to discuss our current practices. They outlined what they would want. for every student to leave their grade level with possessing mastery or proficiency around. And in addition to that, they talked a lot about what the programs that they currently engage in offer, what they would want to see continue, and what they would want to see enhanced and developed. And part of that included the identification of the skills and features that were
005labeled in the guidelines that the New York State Department of Education indicated were essential to the attestation that would be done in September. You may recall that we mentioned that in September we have to let the state know that our programs meet the criteria that's established in that curriculum review guide. So they did that and After having that discussion, they identified five different companies that they would want to have come in and share additional information about their programs. I'm going to go back for a second just so that I can point out the companies. that the teachers heard from. One was Amplify CKLA, which focused on core curriculum, Read Side by Side, which also had a lot of authentic text, ARC, the American Reading Company, along with Into Reading by HMH, and then Savas with
006My View. And so the... Group utilized this curriculum review criterion that focused on the learning standards being culturally responsive and incorporating social-emotional learning along with skills that would support all learners measuring the learning as well as usability and these were all key features that were in the curriculum review guide that the state put together. So for each of the companies where necessary there was this guide that was completed for each and then a discussion followed with each of the teachers about what they felt would work, what they appreciated about each of the programs and then what they felt was lacking or needed some additional information around. And so what we are really here to ask is for permission to move forward with piloting one or two, which is what they would like to do, see
007two of those programs, one being into reading and the other being MyView. They'd like to pilot and work with those in order to be able to see what those programs are like. and then to be able to offer a recommendation to the board for three through five curriculum in the 25-26 school year. Question? Sure. So with all the people that were here, and like the teachers that I see are fantastic, of course, what was your biggest common ground between the two schools, and what was your least common ground? During the meetings and and we actually had that discussion and what the classroom teacher Shared many of them was that there are more similarities than differences in the building and that being the Work that is done with the students that the skills that they focus
008on in the classroom And what they want to see the students achieve they both had similar experiences. And so I would say that that was where the commonality was. And the differences, I think, were... Very minimal. I would say that one of the things that they wanted to discuss further take a look at more is the supports that are offered to the students around resource room and The enl supports in order to ensure that every kid is getting what he or she needs and because time of course is a resource that we don't have enough of and Trying to figure out how best to give the kids everything You answered some of it, but the question really was I was trying to get at was, was it more teaching skills or was it more computer-based?
009You know what I mean? We're trying to see. We're going through this one-to-one thing. Is it working or should we stick with when you get this many people together, is the teaching working better or is the computer working better? So that that isn't an aspect that came up in the conversation when we were talking about the instructional approaches and curricular work So it's something that I definitely would have to go back and to talk with them specifically around Yeah, because we didn't address that The utilization of that resource specifically because they do a balance of both Yes. One enhancing the other. Yes. And so it's something I would have to specifically ask them in order to get a direct question around, I mean a direct response around. That was a good question, okay. So in
010the program review, and maybe I should know this, but how many specific programs, reading programs, are we using in the three to five right now currently? So there was a compilation of utilizing the Heidi Hayes Jacobs and also our literacy collaborative work guided reading continues to be utilized in both of the buildings as well as the Fontas and Pinnell reading resource guide. I forget the name of it directly. So pilot the two programs is the goal to phase one of them in or possibly both of them. I'm not sure how you would do it because we use multiple programs now and I understand why. Would those other programs be faded out or are we just going to add on top of? Because I feel like that might then get messy. The teachers are interested in
011utilizing the same resources and materials across the grade levels and in both buildings. And so what that would do is there would be more alignment. And so what would be kept and what would be sort of moved away from is something that the literacy team would discuss and have a conversation around. So do you think as like, I'm just going to say intro to reading. Everybody who... Touches that thinks it's fantastic. Everybody seems to think and I would not have any idea of which what's better Everybody's like this has more components of what we like. So we're gonna go with that Do we then? Phase out the other stuff. Do we keep pieces of it because sometimes there's pieces that are really good And then the rest kind of falls to the wayside. I understand
012like, you know, in elementary school especially, as you're changing a program, usually people are like, okay, I'm done with this anyway. We've kind of moved on to something new. But there's always like, I don't like this, but I really like this part, and I want to hang on to that part. So is that kind of what you envision? Like taking on one of these new pilots, which will kind of become an all-encompassing literacy leader for our district with little kind of piecemealing? Does that make sense? Yes. I know what you're asking. And so the goal would be to have a primary resource. And then if there are pieces that, and again, they're the experts, they're the ones who are sort of delivering all aspects of it. Our conversation I would absolutely defer to them on
013what they find to be most successful and not and then Looking at what would supplement whatever I whatever program they say is going to meet the most of our needs because we did in fact I Identify that not every program is going to meet 100% of the needs and we're kind of releasing, I guess, some of the other programs, what are our financial responsibilities to other companies that we've paid contractually with or pay resources to? Are we able to cut some of them off? Like maybe you say one of the three you mentioned. Really nobody thinks we can cover it with something else. Do we then just let that go? If we keep and piecemeal a couple things, which I think makes sense, you know, being in education, that does make sense. Do we then
014have to continue to pay to be a part of that program? So I think those are the pieces that I would look at. Yes. Each year we're able to or we look at renewing with companies. So there isn't one that we currently have related to literacy as a core curriculum. Financial responsibility to so this would not then be on top of something that we are already financially If it's gonna be a core curriculum we're gonna have to go in full kit and kibbutz So with regard to the programs, the one or two programs that you're asking for, have you already decided? You don't have to announce it necessarily. Have you already decided which one or two is the leader? We do have two, the into reading and SAVS that we're interested in, but none have
015been identified as a leader. The teachers are interested in seeing what the experience is with both because they've heard from colleagues in other districts and there are teachers who have children in some of the districts where this is used. But when you're saying you want to pilot one or two. Is there one that's favored over the other? If we said you can only pilot one, is there one that's favored over the other? You don't have to say so because I'll allow you to keep that. You know, I would say that I would honestly say that there is curiosity around both one more than another. But they do want to be able to provide the board with an informed decision. And they want to be able to represent to their colleagues that they did a deep
016dive, that it was not something where there was one that was favored over the other. We talked about that and we know that it is a tight timeline, but we also discussed if we were not able to identify something before the end of the school year and provide time for people to process it, we then would not be looking at implementing something until 26-27. And the reason for that is because we would not look at mid-year starting a new program. We would want to, but... We did share collectively and agree that if none of us are comfortable at all, then that is what we would need to do so that we are all comfortable. And we would be fine with that. Like, if you're not ready to move forward, that's not a problem. That's not
017seen as a negative. That's seen as... You know, take your time with it. Feel confident in it. So, Laquita, I'm just trying to get my arms around the pilot. So what does that cost? What's the professional development that's going with that? And what's the rollout? Because it is a tight window. Yes. And so there would be no cost. Both companies are willing to provide us with the professional development as well as with the resources at no cost Many of the items the teachers would be able to hold on to there are individual books that come with the program that would need to be returned if If it was a program that we decided not to move forward so there's really no detriment to doing two at the same time because there's no cause No financial
018detriment sir. Correct. There is no no financial. So which is so therefore it satisfies the idea that it's more So HMH is into reading and service is my view My view is one of them. Correct. I missed the first one. Into Reading by A. With HMH. I think we've grilled her enough, huh? Yep. No, bring more. Bring more. I got my support behind me. Those were great answers, too, by the way. You've earned our support. Yep, excellent. Thank you. Thank you, guys. Thank you and thank you. Thank you. Have fun with it. Okay, next up, Mr. Agostino, Mr. Nagangast. Thank you for having us here appreciate it So for the last two months, this has been a complete nightmare for the athletic department trying to put in place a per diem type athletic trainer which
019has worked in the past for many districts and in many years, times have drastically changed and you know what's happening is for me personally you bring somebody in we've had three or four people in that were wonderful candidates but they all walked away because it wasn't what they were looking for. And our last trainer left because she wanted something different. And I understood that. And I didn't have a problem with that. You know, and as I was going through this whole process, and I can share with you, I emailed four, five college programs looking for athletic trainers to kind of young kids coming out of college, anybody interested, where are we at. And right now, there aren't any. The pool is very, very shallow. We have kind of, you know, the challenges is, you know,
020the difficult with the part-time position. You want to bring in quality people. They want to get a full-time position. And, again, what they're really more intrigued with is being involved in the retirement system, right, because they want to see what the future, you know, for their future. And I've done a lot of work on this in the last... year basically and I and I ran a you know I sent the survey out to most every district in Suffolk County and the survey who answered it came back 62% of those districts are full-time athletic trainers that are paid through the district you know again We limit ourselves if we're not looking for the best candidate, and we cannot. And we had good people in our chairs talking to us about wanting to be trainers here, but
021they wanted more. So that's kind of where this all started from, and it's been a big project for me for the last two months. You know, Earl and Cone, we thought they would be able to help us supplement once Stephanie had left. They cannot. They don't have trainers to help us with this. So, you know, that's kind of where we're at with this. You know, that's where the change needs to come in place. You know, the growing intensity of interscholastic athletics, I mean, you can all see, you know, thank God nobody got hurt in the Comac-Bayshore game, but that could have been a horrific injury. And, you know, again, that's what's happening here. We have to learn how to manage this. And if you don't have somebody who what I call is a stakeholder, somebody
022who really cares and believes about what Bayshore Athletics is all about, if we don't have that person here, we can't be successful the way we want to be successful. Our student athletes aren't getting what they deserve. That's, you know, kind of where my angle is with this. You know, again, we talk about the benefits. consistent high quality care, right? Immediate emergency response, comprehensive injury prevention education, enhanced and rehabilitation services. We have a full-time athletic trainer. We can, kid has a bad ankle, doesn't have to go to PT. They come right to the athletic trainer's office on a free period. Okay, that trainer's doing the PT for that kid right there and then. We are gonna get better quality people again. helping our student athletes. And again, it reduces liability risk. And right now, we're at
023a huge liability. We don't have somebody who's with our kids. In practice right now, my two basketball teams just practice. There's no athletic trainer in there. Golf, if something happens, knock on wood. The coaches are certified. They are certified, yes. And they are instructed if this is a bad thing, we call 911. So we're way ahead of it. Chris, can I just ask about the flex hours? Because I went through the... chart that you gave us and I see that from time to time every two weeks somebody's working over 80 hours which means on any given week it's more than 40. So can you describe for us the challenges that would exist with a full-time person in terms of the hours that they'd be working and what overtime looks like and things like that? So
024basically that's a great question and so basically what happens is There are more intense weeks than others, right? So what we really try to do is, you know... Usually I would say 1230, 1 o'clock would be a start time for them to come in. They would start their day. Then we would expect if there's practices going on, you don't have to use practices start like, you know, some practices basketball team practice at 7 o'clock at night stays from 7 to 9. We wouldn't expect that person to stay there. So we could flex that. We could say, okay, the practice has started. Now you're on your way out, right? We can control that. much easier than what I'm doing right now, honestly. Then you talk about like, you know, you're going to have a one week
025where you're doing, you know, let's say 50 hours, okay, but you're going to have one week where you're doing 20 hours and now I can kind of implement things for that person to help in. other parts of the district. For example, you know, AD management, making sure all our ADs are up to date, making sure the batteries are where they should be, where the pads are being right. Like that will be a huge responsibility for this full time athletic trainer. The other part of that too is, you know, the months of June when things are quiet and we're starting to do an, uh, you know, uh, scheduled physical sports physical, that athletic trainer is front and foremost right there helping the nurse guiding them, you know, getting all the paperwork that the nurse. Doesn't have
026time to do, but that athletic trainer will make sure of that. So, again, the numbers do change, but we've been very good at watching Stephanie's numbers over the last two years, for sure. Like, I've watched it, and I can share. Like, okay, Steph, you're at, like, 38 right now. Like, you've got to kind of manage that a little bit. And she did that. So, again, it's a... a mindset that I have to be put in place for these people. Like, this is not carte blanche. This is, you're doing your job, and you're doing your job the best you can do. And again, we're never going to leave anybody out, you know, not being supervised with an athletic track. So would they, on a given week, work only 30 hours, and then next week, 50 hours?
027No, they would be consistently 40 hours a week. Yep, consistently 40 hours a week. But then there'll be some weeks that you might be a little bit more that it's got to be more because there's so much going on. Exactly. Sure. Have you ever been to a wrestling match? They could take they could take nine hours wrestling matches. So I'm just putting that out there. You could ask in other districts because it is flexible. That makes sense. The weekend when it is over 40. You know, do you have somebody that's saying, well, I should get overtime or I need this? It's a part and parcel of the job if they understand that kind of give and take. So basically there are, you know, definitely there are going to be, because we're going to probably model
028this, like our plan is to model this after what the nurse's contract looks like. So that's kind of how we would go after that model. And that's what I've been going through a lot with. who does what and how they model it. So, yes, there will be, you know, again, there will be payment for overtime, but it wouldn't exceed. Again, I still think we'll come out on top of this. Listen, I've been around a long time, so you know what's going on. I know that Nassau is really ahead of this. They are hiring way ahead of Suffolk. You need somebody invested. And Suffolk is now on its way doing this. One thing that's important, and Chris kind of mentioned, but I want to elaborate a little bit further. We've had a... Trainer says the 80s
029when Steve and I play football together with Joe Kuhn and God rest his soul You know, we've had somebody there and we've always had somebody for a length of time Joe and Stephanie combined, we didn't know they got married, our two trainers, were here 15 years between the two of them. So the key is consistency with the kids when you have a stakeholder. The kids are comfortable with who they're working with. They're comfortable to say, hey, I got an injury here, can you help me out? When we have people coming in and out, it's a complete stranger. And that's the model that we have to get away from right now because Orlin and Cohn, as Chris said, they can't find people to come in on a daily basis for us. And when you're having inconsistencies,
030all right, how do I take that knee? How do I take the ankle? That consistency is not there. When Stephanie's there, boom, legs up, done. That's the importance of the care with the change of what we've had for per diem to where everybody who's going full-time right now. That consistency is the most important thing for us, for the kids in the care. The other part of that, too, is when you have that person who's invested into Bayshore and into our student-athletes, they are seeing the best doctors. They are seeing the best therapists. They are seeing the best of the best because that person has established a relationship with the best doctors in the business. And to me, that speaks volumes on what we're doing for our kids. And again, it's not just our student athletes
031because now this full-time... person is you know making sure our ADs are working because the last thing you want to do is go to an AD that's not working you're in trouble and then making sure kids who are getting physicals not just sports physicals that person is there helping those kids with the paperwork so again it's it's been a minor miracle that we've kind of managed this for the last two months you know Teddy and I are putting water out we're making sure the kids got their their their you know, med kits are stocked the way they should be stocked. And, you know, it's been we've been very fortunate. Our coaches have been excellent handling this. But we're getting one of the things that's in here. So you have two suggestions. One is through. Civil
032service and then once you contracted employee. Do you have one preference over the other? Yeah, we do with civil service is probably the way to go Okay, good and then so that that might answer my other question because the other question I was looking at The job posting was this one says in 11 months. Will we be looking at a 10 month? Well, we were kind of we were kind of working on that We would probably be 11 months because we would want them to start in August and then get themselves organized ready to go and then Boom, we're ready to go. And there's a lot of ordering and stuff. And they would stay two weeks after? Well, who would cover? Does anybody cover sports camps? No. Nobody covers that. Okay. But that's something we
033can look at. What about sick days and holidays? So we would look in. We would follow the model of the nurse's contract, very similar to the nurse's contract. But like when they had taken it, God forbid they take it during the season. It's to my discretion. It's your discretion. But if they do. We have subs. We have subs. We have subs in a great position right now. Again, that's because we've been proactive trying to get these. We've got Ray Matho. We've got Cheryl. We've got subs in place that are willing if I need to make a phone call. And I still have Orlin Cohen if I need to use them as a sub too. I'm just curious. It's a one-person job. It seems an obvious need to me, just speaking for myself. But it's one
034person. They can't be at all the sporting events. So they must be prioritized in some way at certain things. High-impact sports. Okay. But beyond that, do they bring to the table the ability to train? Our coaches? Is there recurrent training for our coaches to keep them up to speed on their ability to jump in and take care of the kids? Yep. Every two years, and the first aid is done every three years. And they can't be cleared to coach unless that's done. And one of the goals that we have for a new... trainer is to be somebody who can provide the training like we have a couple of guys who does it, Mark Spruitt, but to add another person because those guys are busy and this could be a stipulation we can put on the
035trainer to provide that as a trainer. The other part of that too, Lou, is these universities are always looking, just like student teachers, always looking to place potential ATCs, but they won't do it with a per diem type situation. They will do it with a full. Stony Brook will give me three. potential kids who want to be trainers and they'd work side by side with our full-time. If they bring that aspect to it, that's a, that's a huge plus in my book. It's cool. In the fall when we're outside, Stephanie would be in the golf cart kind of at the point between the two fields. So she could go footballs on turf, soccer's over here or in the spring, one lacrosse team, one lacrosse team, she's able to make her way. You know, they have
036a phone, there's a radio. So there's a good level of communication where she can be at all times. Any other questions? Thank you. Thank you. Cool. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for reaching out to me. Okay. Maureen, you're going to do four first? No, three. No, let's switch it. Let's do budget first. Budget first, yeah. Let's finish up budget. Give me your choice. This budget is going to be very, very quick tonight. This is our – I swapped our sessions. So the next time we come in we're going to be looking at what you should have been looking at tonight This was supposed to be the next session, but there's very little in here This is the session where we look at probably more than half of budget codes that are in our 600 Say
037half of our 600 budget codes, but there's essentially no change again this year so we can move through this very quickly You guys all have hard copies, right? All right, so k2 budgets the pages are switched so primary they're not virginia didn't sort them the way that i had them yeah you're so your k2 is actually the third page in uh you know again here you can see that there are ample funds i am not recommending any increases to the budget for next year um i am now giving you Four years of historical data, which is more than I've given you the past couple of years There are some fluctuations from time to time when we open up a classroom maybe in a building add something on but for the most part The expenditures are
038pretty consistent and you know 2021 obviously it was a little less we were on hybrid right so The material and supply needs which is primarily what comes out of here is a lot less. So if you look at materials and supplies for all of the K2s, $200,000. And then flip back the page to 3.5s, which is the elementary page. Again, it's the same thing. I'm not recommending... Nope, I did. I threw a little bit more money at South Country. South Country's been running shy. Gardner Matters on top, right? Gardner Matters on top. South Country's on bottom. Gardner Matters, $14,000. So I did increase South Country a little bit. materials and supplies in materials and supplies that's all this is is materials and supplies books um pens and pencils and papers that's really all that's in
039these codes even though there are so many codes i mean it's just when you look at it it looks so overwhelming but when you consider it as a percentage of the budget it's next to nothing It just looks really crazy. Your next page is the middle school. I left. I took. Okay. So the 10 that I sent to South Country, I took from the middle school. Yep. Because you can see the middle school's actual expenditures are well below what the budget is. High school. I left exactly the same. This is useless up here on the screen because there's just so much data on these pages. I don't even know why we bother with this, but it all goes onto the website if anybody wants to take a closer view of it. So that's all good.
040So no changes. So across the buildings, no changes to any of the departmental budgets. A little bit of shift between middle school and South Country, but that's it. So then we go to Health, Phys Ed, and Athletics and Cultural Arts. Here I did... increase both of these departments. The total increase between the two departments was $50,000. I think I gave them each an additional $25,000. We've been investing with Chris coming in, we've been investing in athletics. So that will help cover all of those costs and cultural arts the same. We're always improving those programs. But again, it's a percentage of budget. It's not much but I need to at least keep up with their with what their actual expenditures have been over the last How we're trending these last four years the last page special
041education and technology No increases here where your special education Increase is going to come in as in your BOCES numbers The BOCES is not included on this page BOCES will come as a separate page all in and of itself That's we're going to get hit hard there. But as far as the rest of the special education services, we're fine. We're hanging in there. We're doing okay. And the same for I.T. We are hanging in there just fine. We're not having any issues. I mean, we had increased those codes a bit when Mike and Chris came in as they went through their honeymoon period. Of upgrading and they're now working well within budget So I did I have tied I balanced your summary page we have done presentation to I Skipped presentation. We have done presentation
042to we have done what I labeled as What what's labeled as for will be the next one? And that is your BOCES, a couple other things, and your employee benefits. I've been throwing employee benefits in there instead of with salaries, which is number six. We are on BOCES Board of Ed presentation number three, which is your fourth box. So if you look, it's 44% of the codes that are in the budget, but it only represents 2.9% of the total budget. So again, when I say that it looks like it's so much, but as a percentage of the budget, it's really de minimis. It's just a lot of... It always scares me when it comes over. Yeah. Like, oh, it's so much. Yeah. It's just a lot of codes. It's a lot of codes. So as
043of right now, I mean, all of our increases were really in presentation two, and I'm still okay. We're still running okay, but the big numbers are coming up. This was something we have to go through, but it just really isn't. There's just not a lot here for you to spend your time on because as a percentage of the budget, it's not much. But I want to spend more time talking about the town of islip income limitations for the senior citizen exemption this is going to get a little confusing and our deadline is march 1st so if you want to make if you choose to make a change tonight we're going to have to amend the agenda and add in one more Page but you literally have so many options here I didn't want to decide
044for you and recommend and give you a page and then have you say you know what? We'd rather go in a different direction and it's complicated enough The last time a change was made to this this was the board page from February 24th of 1999 Wow We have not changed the income limitation since 1999. This particular resolution was for the senior citizen exemption only. This did not include individuals with disabilities. So I'm just going to say that in case I forget to say that later. This is what the new page will look like, but it will be for senior citizens and individuals with disabilities. The sliding scale... the differences between the categories on the sliding scale will remain the same. The number that will change is your very first number under income limits, the $19,500.
045That's the number that we're going to be talking about. Right now, currently, for individuals with disabilities, that number is $18,500. But for your seniors, it is $19,500. So I just want to talk a little bit about the exemption. So the New York State Real Properties Tax Law, this is Sections 467 and 459C, gives local governments and public school districts the option of granting a reduction in the amount of property taxes paid by both senior citizens and qualifying persons with disabilities. Senior citizen is a person 65 years of age or older. The disability must be either a physical or mental impairment. It cannot include your ADA type disabilities like drug and alcohol use, things like that. It must be a physical or mental impairment. Filing must be done timely and updated with the town each year.
046And there are also requirements as far as ownership status, residency and occupancy, and of course, income, which is what we're talking about tonight. So it has to be your primary residence. You have to have, for the seniors, you have to have lived there for at least 12 months unless you can show them on your prior house that you qualified for the exemption, in which case they'll give you a waiver and they'll basically grandfather you into this exemption. But basically all the things that we were talking about when we talked a couple weeks ago about your volunteer firefighters and EMT workers. all of the conditions apply equally to your senior citizens and persons with disabilities. So if you recall, and this is where this gets a little bit crazy, so if you recall, last year we
047made a change in the way that income was calculated. We had to do a resolution and choose... how we were going to define income and what was going to be included and what was not going to be included. They couldn't, at the time, give us any kind of estimates as to how that was going to affect everybody's taxes, how taxes would shift from certain individuals to other individuals. So we chose last year not to touch the income limits so that when this year's taxes came in, we could see what that shift looked like. So now I'm coming back again because I didn't want to not give you the opportunity to do this, but we really need to have a conversation about this. We are the lowest of the Town of Islip school districts at the
04818-5 and the 19-5. There are, we're the lowest, but eight of the other districts are, nine of the other districts are. less than 30. They're down at under 30,000, under 29,000 as their maximum income eligibility, or had been. Two districts last year did opt to move to the new $50,000 maximum. But remember, we talked about this. Town of Islip could not estimate how that would affect your taxes. They said they would have a better idea after this year because Town of Islip adopted the $50,000 max. and Suffolk County did as well. Within the last couple of nights, because everybody is doing it this week, West Islip and Sayville both went to the 50,000 max. That's at the very bottom of the chart. Do you have a layout of what they each did, like the entirety
049of it? So the spread doesn't change. If you look at it, the first three categories, there's a $1,000 increase, and then all the rest of the categories, there's a $900. There's an $800, there's a, oh no. Then it's $999. So those would stay. The spread would stay. The only number that changes is the very first number that is your maximum. And is the bottom, does the final number, the maximum change too, or you're not sure about that? What do you mean? So are we, like this one's 27,9, the top is going to change and the bottom's going to change? Yeah, once you give me that top number, so if we go from 19,500 to 25,000, then it'll be 25, 26, 27. 27 9 so 20 my bottom number will be determined by the top number
050we don't bottom number that's right from the top and work back you start from the top and work back so the 50,000 is at the top now the 50,000 is you could go as high as 50,000 for the first number And that would be so that, and what that would mean is that any senior citizen who made $50,000 or less would get the full 50% exemption off their property taxes. Anybody making higher than the 50, the 50% exemption begins to drop, right? So it'll go to a 45%, it'll go to a 40%, a 35%. So some people are actually starting it at 50. What's the average? So 19.5 becomes 50. Yeah, that's a lot. 19.5 could go to 50. No, no, no. I think you should be able to look at it. Then you're working
051at the bottom and starting up then, going up. No, no, no. Well, this has a big star. The number is the bottom number, and you're working up from 1990. Yes. But if you say it that way, it's confusing. Okay. The income is going up. It's clearly not confusing. It's not. There's no way to present this. I hope I've made it clear for everybody out there. The two districts that you mentioned that went to 15. Essentially they replace where our 19.5 is with a 50,000. Yes. 100%. That's 100% right. So let me ask. These are good questions. So if a person's on Social Security, they're going to get their $3,000 a month, whatever they're getting. We tax them more than that. So for a person that's been here for all their life, I think that you
052should look at the longevity of a person here. Like I said a long time ago about if a person lives in this town and owns their house for 50 years, that's the person you're looking at to give a break. But that number has to be – this number is ridiculous because you collect Social Security, you're going to make $27,000 a year, $28,000. And that's all going to taxes. You're going to pay property taxes, half of it, and you're hardly going to live – you're not going to save nothing, be able to do anything as a person. But we could also say that – In all likelihood, at this point in your life, you no longer have a mortgage. And we have very many families that are living below the federal poverty level. So they're making
053the same incomes, and they're still paying a mortgage, and they're still trying to feed their children and put shoes on their feet. So there's two ways of looking at this. And I just want to be careful, because we never want to say that seniors don't deserve the exemption. But you are shifting it on to other people who can't afford it either. Which is why, so we don't want to, I don't want to take that big jump. When you look at West Islip and Stateville, those are different districts with different demographics. Or is this household income? Household income. Owners. So what if they're filing? So it's not the full household, it's whoever owns the home. If they file separately, is that going to impact us? Sure. They cannot qualify for more than one exemption. So even
054if they qualified for both senior and disability, they can't take both. They have to pick the one that's more advantageous to them. It's not the case for me, but if my wife's not working and I am working and she says I apply for the exemption because I earn nothing, how does that impact us? No, for purposes of income valuation, it's both your incomes. But what if we were filing separately? That's why I'm asking. That doesn't matter. Your tax filing doesn't matter. What if only one person owns that house? Then it's based on one income. It's based on who owns the house. Like, if that's the case and you want to build the system, you put the house in your wife's name. Hope she keeps you living there. She doesn't throw you out. She's going to
055get it anyway. That's tricky, but yeah, okay. Okay. But wait. Go ahead. But seriously, it does raise a concern because you could game the system here. Sure. I mean, that's a pretty big decision to make just to save 50% off your taxes. But okay, yeah. Listen, as an attorney, it's okay to do that. I don't disagree. I like to see a chart. Like if we do this, this level. You can't just throw a number out there, but you don't want to throw 50, but I think 40 is the right number. I think that's too high. So let me go. So let me hit that. So if we, so, so we're looking at some estimates. Do you have those? If you have them, can we look at the variations right now? So again, it depends on
056if you were to go from the 19, the 18, 5, 19, 5 to 29. for both. It is going to approximately double the exemptions. You're going to go from about $1.8 million in assessed value. You're going to double that to about $3.6 million. Your disability is very small. We only have about $80,000 in assessed value compared to the seniors at $1.8 million in assessed value. But assuming we go from the 18.5, 19.5 to 29, you're going to about double it. That is going to amount to a 0.4% shift to everybody else. Because that's what that assessed value is worth on your total assessed value for the district. So that's if you go from 18.5, 19.5 to 29. You then go to 39, now you're looking at 0.8. You now go to 50, and you're looking
057at probably 1.25. Can this be done again next year? It can be done every year. You could increase it 1,000. You could increase it 2,000. This is what I'm saying. I don't want to choose this for you. I'm just going to throw it out there for us because we have to decide by March 1st that we'd be much safer being much too low this year, evaluated. and come to a reasoned decision when we have some time to think about it. Because if we give it and we make a mistake, then it would be hard to take back. Yes. Well, and what Maureen says about the other population, you know, and I 100% agree with everything you said. I mean, the people, especially in Bayshire, the people that have their blood, sweat, and tears runs in
058our streets. You own your house more than 50 years, you deserve a break. But we do have a huge population. And now whether or not those people are homeowners, I don't know. That's the concern. It's not wiping out the taxes. It's shifting it, making someone else pay for it. And that's the dilemma. That's the dilemma. So you would recommend the 29? I would recommend the 29. The 29 was the old 50. Before they made the 50, it was 29. So that's the old maximum. And I would say to put both there, both the senior and the disability, make them equal. As we said, the scale will be the same as it is now. and the shift will be about 0.4%. But just so we're going into budget or in budget season. So we're basically saying
059right now that most people's taxes are going up 0.4 automatically if we do this regardless of what else we do. Correct. That's harsh. Significant. Maybe harsh is not the right word. Significant. So if you add two to that, right, if you figure the lesser of, you know, the CPI 2%, and we know inflation's been high, so it's going to be over 2%, and then you add to that the shift in the base proportions, if that continues in the direction that it's been, which has been unfavorable to the homeowners, that could be another percent, so now you could be looking at 3.5. You go to 50, you're going to be at 5.25. So I would caution you to... That's a big shift in one year. I think that we need to commit to look at this
060every year, though. Yeah, I agree. And I'm hesitant to... Earlier. I'm hesitant to have a large shift this year with the conversations that we know are coming. Right? I don't want to... I don't want people to be alarmed now. Can I be blunt? I really think this is bullet. This is coming to us at this time. We're going to make a decision like this in a matter of two weeks. This is what every district is doing. I got it. Why can't we look at this sooner? We have to look at it sooner. Every single year you can change this. This is not a one-time thing. That's why I'm saying you can make a small incremental change now and we can change it again next year. I think the question is can we look at it
061in January instead of... I hate to say but I think 29 is too high. I think 25 should be. I was thinking the same. I'm okay with that. I hit 65, so I'm taking it away from myself. But I just think that it's a lot of a burden to put on people that we expect perhaps our taxes may go up a little bit. And we know we had a little bit of an increase last year because of the change in the calculation for how income is calculated. And the homestead, non-homestead shift. Homestead, non-homestead. Until that. Begins to auto correct and go back in the other direction. I just think we should do it slowly. I don't disagree So the 25 would go on the first line 25 but not less than 27 25 first number
062you go 25 and you both from there 26 26 26 26 26 26 okay 25 999 and then you work up from there Yep. You okay with that? I agree. Don't tell my wife I said this, all right? But I think that if we could put this into the first budget presentation next year and if you could give us numbers of where that shift was. Is there any way to kind of average out what that costs for each homeowner? Yes. So that would be interesting to me, too. You know, Maureen, for all the years I've been here, you've always said you want to avoid that big balloon year. And that's kind of... That's what this is. Right. Let's be careful. It could be a bump, but not a balloon. But it's an important thing to
063look at. Yeah. I just think I don't like the town to control this. And they're controlling it right now, and they're telling you this is what you have to do. Okay? And there's other ways and other configurations that we can do to help our seniors in a different way. But now we're stuck with this income thing. And I just think there's a better way that we can do it. I've always said I like the longevity. And I know you're raising it, but I still think there's a better way. And we should look at it more and more and more to help the people that want to stay here that supported us all through those years. So consistent with what Guy's saying, is there a possibility with this legislation that longevity can be a factor? Right
064now it's not, right? So that's not something that's on the horizon either. Who decides that? That's legislated. Is that town or state? No, that's state. And to make this even more complicated, I can't even pull up tables because every county is different. Every county and every township is allowed to adopt their own numbers, their own sliding scale. So this is like a... Now, the sliding scale is the difference between each of these steps. Well between the third and the fourth it is the first three are the same and then the last six are the same and that's per county That's us here in Suffolk. I don't know every county is different Everybody and every township is different So the way this is written is comes down from the state and then the county decides So
065we're agreed with 25? Yeah. Guy? Andy, we're agreed with 25? I think the 25 so that we don't do it too quickly. We want to take a closer look at this earlier next year and hopefully look at some impact statement on what we're doing right now so we have a better idea. By then we'll be able to see how the income changes affected it. By that time I won't be able to tell you how this affected it. We won't be ready at that time, but we'll be able to see what last year's agenda is. Everything will be one year behind, but we'll get there. Okay. Thank you. Sorry, there's something more fun coming. Yeah, so when we go through, we'll just do an amended page. Yeah. Welcome. To today's agenda? Yeah. It's got to be
066voted on tonight. All right, that concludes our work session. Motion to go out of work session? Motion. Second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Okay, we're going to go out of work session. You'll bear with us, please. We're going to take a five-minute or less break. Thank you very much for bearing with us. We'll look for a motion to start our public session, please. Motion. Second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Stand all for the pledge, please. And can we have a moment of silence at the end for a couple of facial graduates that have passed? Yes. A moment of silence after the pledge, please. Guy, why don't you take us out? My pledge of allegiance is to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under
067God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Yeah, go ahead. Good evening, everyone. Thank you for coming. Last month we had a great showing at the middle school for the show Shrek. I was going to be a great opportunity for those in the community who did not have the opportunity to go out and see the performance to have a few of our students come out this night. And I just want to now introduce Mr. Dan Norvez, Bayshore graduate, who was the producer of the show and the director, to come down. Thank you guys so much for having us here tonight. Again, my name is Dan Narvez. I am, as Mr. Miller said, a Bayshore graduate, class of 2012. As my lovely cast here gets set up, I just wanted to give you a
068little insight as to who these guys are. So these are a couple of the select lead cast members of Shrek the Musical that we just put on in early February over at Bayshore Middle School. It was my first year directing, but it really was such a joy and pleasure because I got to work with students. Shrek is a musical about resilience, about acceptance. The number that you're about to hear is a number called Who I'd Be. It takes place right at the very end. The song is about imagining what you could do with your life and who you could be in your life if you had the opportunity. I guess I'd be a hero with sword and armor clashing, looking semi-tashing, a shield within my grip. Or else I'd be a Viking and live a
069life of daring while smelling like a herring upon a Viking ship. I'd sail away. I'd see the world. I'd reach the farthest reaches. I'd feel the wind. I'd taste the salt and sea and maybe storm some beaches. That's who I'd be. That's who I'd be. Or I could be a poet and write a different story. One that tells of glory and wipes away the lies. Into the skies I'd throw it. The stars would do the telling. And moon would help with spelling. And night would dot the I's. I'd write a verse, recite a joke. With wits and perfect timing, I'd share my heart, confess the things I earn, and do its whole rhyming. But we all learn. But we all learn. An ogre always hides. An ogre's fate is known. An ogre always stays in
070the dark. And all of us. And if my wish were granted, life would be enchanted. Or so the stories say. Of course I'd be a hero, and I would scale a tower to save a hothouse flower and carry her away. But standing guard would be a beast. I'd somehow overwhelm it. I'd get the girl, I'd take a breath, and I'd remove my helmet. We'd stand and stare, we'd speak of love, we'd feel the stars ascending. We'd share a kiss, I'd find my destiny. I'd have a hero's ending. A perfect ending, that's how it should be. But not fools and ogres' fate is known. An ogre always stays in the dark. You're all alone. Good job. Thank you. He was nervous at his first show. He was nervous at his first board meeting. No, but actually,
071I observed Dan. Where you going, Dan? Hold on. Great job. Comments from the audience on agenda items? Now, actually, does anybody have any comments on agenda items? Agenda items only? All right. We'll take comments on items that are not on the agenda after the meeting is over. And please let me put comments in three minutes. Before they recognize a speaker, not more than twice on the same topic, please feel free to give the board any additional comments in writing. I think they can hear me, but okay. In fact, if you have anything you wrote in writing and you can leave us with a copy, we appreciate that. Neither the Board of Education nor the Superintendent of Schools will entertain public comments relating to a personal matter or individual students. Just to point that out, if
072you've come here to speak about personal... You can't mention people's names, can't mention personal identifiable matters that have to do with people that work in the school. That has to be handled through district office. If you mistakenly do that, I'll try to cut it off and do it in such a way that will redirect you to where you should go with the topic. With all that being said, we'll start with... Page A1, a motion to approve the Board of Education minutes of the Executive Work and Public Sessions of January 22, 2025 and the Executive Work and Public Sessions of February 5, 2025. Can I have a motion? Motion. Second. All in favor? Aye. Any questions? So carried. Mr. Paskin? B1. B1. Staff resignations and retirements as listed we recommend its approval motion Any questions all
073in favor? Opposed so carried b2 on page b2 the board of fine a motion to approve the professional staff Request for leave as listed we recommend its approval Any questions all in favor aye opposed So carried. Page B3. On page B3, the board will find a motion to approve the professional staff appointments as listed. We recommend its approval. Motion. Second. Any questions? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? So carried. Page B4. On page B4, the board will find a motion to approve professional staff special appointments as listed. We recommend its approval. Second. Any questions? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? So carried. Page B5. On page B5, the board will find a motion to approve the professional staff tenure appointments as listed. We recommend its approval. Motion. Second. Oh, please stand up. Wait a second. Any questions?
074All in favor? Aye. Opposed? So carried. Okay. B6. On page B6, the board will find a motion to approve the professional staff salary changes as listed. We recommend its approval. Motion. Second. Any questions? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? So carried. Page B7, B7A. On page B7 and B7A, the board will find a motion to approve the civil service resignations and retirements as listed. We recommend its approval. Second. Any questions? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? So carried. Page B8, B8A. On page B8 through B8A, the Board will find a motion to approve the civil service request for leave as listed. We recommend its approval. Motion. Any questions? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? So carried. Page B9, B9A. On page B9 through B9A, the Board will find a motion to approve the civil service appointments as listed.
075We recommend its approval. Motion. Second. Any questions? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? So carried. B10, B10A. On page B10 through B10A, the Board will find a motion to approve the list of substitute appointments. We recommend its approval. Motion. Second. Any questions? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? So carried. Page B11. On page B11, the Board will find a motion to approve the Civil Service change in assignments as listed. We recommend its approval. Motion. Second. Any questions? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? So carried. Page B12. On page B12, the board will find a motion to approve the civil service salary changes as listed. We recommend its approval. Motion. Second. Any questions? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? So carried. Page B13. On page B13, the board will find a motion to approve the volunteers for the 24-25 school
076year as presented. We recommend its approval. Any questions? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? So carried. Page B14, B14A. On page B14 through B14A, the Board will find a motion to approve the revised ex-schedule salaries for the Department of Health, Physical Education, and Athletics for the 24-25 school year as presented. We recommend its approval. Motion. Second. Any questions? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? So carried. Page B15, B15A. On page B15 through B15A, the Board will find a motion to approve the ex-schedule and club advisors for the Mary G. Clarkson School and their salaries for the 24-25 school year as presented. We recommend its approval. Second. Any questions? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? So carried. Ms. Fersinger, page C1A-I. On pages C1 and C1A-I, the board will find a motion to accept and place on file the
077Financial and Claims Auditor's Report for November of 2024. We recommend its approval. Second. Any questions? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? So carried. Page C2C2A. On pages C2 and C2A, the board will find a motion to approve the budget transfer listed on page C2A. We recommend its approval. Motion. Any questions? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? So carried. Page C3. On page C3, the board will find a motion to approve the estimated tuition charges for the 2024-2025 school year in accordance with Part 174 of the regulations of the commissioner. We recommend its approval. Motion. Second. Any questions? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? So carried. Page C4. C4, C4, A through I. On pages C4 and C4A through I, the board will find a motion to approve the Suffolk County Department of Parks, Recreation, and Conservation High School
078Rowing Team's practice venue for the spring 2025 season. And I would add that for this year and this year only at this point, they have waived the fee. That was my question. Same place. Same place. To the point. They felt it was well taken care of last year and it didn't cost the county anything. And so in acknowledgement of that, they waived the fee for the year. Excellent. That's a motion. That's a motion. Yeah. That's a second. Okay. No questions then. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? So carried. Page C5. On page C5, the board will find a motion to re-award, this is a re-award, the contract for supply and delivery of paper and disposables from APPCO, Paper and Plastics, for the period 7-1-24 through 6-30-25 to MetroStar Food Service, and this is because one company
079bought out the other. Motion. Second. Okay, any questions? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? So carried. I need a C6. We're going to do an add-on? I need a C6. Oh. A C6. All right. We're adding C6. Adding C6. To the exemptions. Okay. C6. On page C6, the board will find a resolution to change the minimum income limit for both section 467. And 459C of the real property tax law, which applies to the exemption for senior citizens and for individuals with disabilities to $25,000. So for incomes of up to $24,999, the reduction will be a 50% reduction. After that, the sliding scale that is currently in use will be applied. We recommend it's brutal. Motion. Second. Any questions? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? So carried. Now Dr. Outlaw, page D1. On page D1, the Board will
080find a motion to endorse actions taken by the Bayshore Committee on Special Education pertaining to students being considered for services, as noted in the CSE minutes listed, and referrals for October, November, and December of 2024, as well as referrals for January 2025. We recommend its approval. Motion. Second. Any questions? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? So carried. Page D2. On page D2, the Board will find a motion to endorse actions taken by the Bayshore Committee on Preschool Special Education Services pertaining to students being considered for preschool special ed services. As noted in the minutes listed, we recommend its approval. Motion. Second. Any questions? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? So carried. Dr. Maloney, page E1. On page E1, the Board of Fighters motion to approve the 2025-26 school calendar as presented. We recommend its approval. Can I
081just ask that question that I asked last time? It would be very difficult to move the days any later because of Regents exams, and I know... With what the states were doing with the special the first time administering reason exam is sometimes within the middle of the June if I can and took the question was a lot of people may not have been here well There was a question last was raised by Andrew regarding Because there's new legislation about the temperature in rooms if we had if it if it's exceeded and we had to Say call school for a day that would eat that would result in the 180 day requirement there have how do we make that up? We're used to building in snow days again. We're used to You know from time to
082time you get the call from the district. Everybody's happy about that when they can have They often play in the snow. But now they're also starting September. There is also legislation for excessive heat days. Right now, our snow days are typically at the end of the school year because, again, that's you've exhausted discretionary days. We're at the end of the year. And the question was, if we end up with excessive heat days, what is that going to do to the calendar? And again, if we were to have. excessive heat days we would make arrangements you know within the building to move students to different areas of the building to address that because it would be very very difficult to send kids home during the middle day we've only we've done that a few times in
083my 31 years for snow but maybe i guess that maybe two or three times so it's very very difficult to do so we would try to avoid that at all costs and again usually if it reaches that temperature i think it's 88 degrees You know, it's not going to be at 8 o'clock in the morning. It's going to be at 1230 in the afternoon, in the middle of the day. High school's almost out, so we'd have to make some accommodations. Thank you. What if we go remote when the days are hot? Can we do remote learning? The issue is also now you're excusing students during middle day, which we always try to do. Again, if we go to a remote day, it's because we think... I mean, from the beginning, not start the day, but,
084like, you know it's going to be hot before the day starts, so from the weatherman. Yeah, if this is a question that should have been brought up before the meeting, besides the point, but we've discussed this at length, I can assure you, and right now I think we're going to just proceed with things as they are and see how it works out this year. I'll make the motion then. Any other questions? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? So carried. Page E2. On page E2, the Board of Fire to motion to approve a request to issue high school diplomas to students listed that have completed the requirements for graduation as of January 2025. We recommend its approval. Any questions? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? So carried. E3. On page E3, the Board of Fire to motion to
085rescind the current policies as listed. We recommend its approval. Any questions? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? So carried. And E4. On page E4, the Board will find a motion to approve and adopt the revised policies as listed. We recommend its approval. Motion. Second. Any questions? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? So carried. That's the end of our formal agenda for this evening. We have some speakers who would like to speak. Before we get into that, First of all, thank you all for attending today's meeting. And everybody knows we've been going through a lot of, we've had a lot of challenges ahead of us. And they're going to be going on for quite some time. I'd like to point out, not just for everybody who's here, but for everybody who's out there watching, that we do welcome
086your presence here, and we welcome your comments. And I pointed this out before, and I'm going to point it out again. And I'm going off script here. It makes everybody up here nervous. But there's no adversaries in this room. I don't know how to drive that point home other than just to let you know we have a huge and sacred challenge ahead of us to provide our kids with education and to keep them safe. And nobody thinks that's more important than me and everybody sitting up here. So any comments you have to further that are welcome. Any suggestions you have on how that can be done better are welcome. In the meantime, I'd like to update you. We'd like to update you on where we are right now. Some of this you know, some of
087this you may not. It's a thumbnail sketch, to be sure. But anyway, we'd like to review some information this evening about where we stand with the cases brought against the district under the Child Victims Act. There are six cases that are fully insured, some of which are settled, and some that are still pending. Those are being handled by the insurance company involved, and we have nothing to do with them at this point. They're handling that. We have settled 17 cases that had no insurance coverage due to the insolvency of the liability carriers. That amounted to $55,250,000. That insolvency, to put it in layman's terms, basically means that we had insurance when the incidents occurred. And by the time laws were passed to allow for compensation to be paid to the victims, these insurance companies had
088gone under, disappeared. So now those cases are, for all intents and purposes, without coverage. The case that went to trial is still in the court system. Twenty-two additional cases are still pending. The district is pursuing the insurance companies for full coverage of the claims that the carriers maintain provide some, I'm sorry, I'm not reading this right. The 22 additional cases, we're pursuing the insurance companies for that money and we'll continue to do so. On October 1 and February 5, the board voted to approve the issuance of judgment bonds to cover the cost of the 17 settled cases. That's the $55 million I was just talking about. Bond financing generally permits municipalities and school districts within the state of New York to cover the cost of legal settlements and awards over the course of multiple years
089with less impact to the current annual operating budget. As is customary, the district has taken out bond anticipation notes, also known as bands, to provide greater flexibility in the timing of the bonding. The bans will be renewed annually until all cases have reached conclusion. At that point, they will be converted into a single judgment bond and we'll be paying that off over a period of time. As a district, we are dedicated to moving forward on a shared path that brings our community together. All decisions related to the Child Victims Act will continue to be guided by fairness and compassion for those affected while maintaining fiscal responsibility to our Bayshore Bright Waters community and ensuring the district continues to thrive. And with that, we have one person who's listed, Mrs. Bonanno. And if there are others
090who'd like to speak, if you did not sign in, you're perfectly welcome to come up and say a few words. I had prepared this prior to hearing what you had said, but I'm going to read it as I have written it. That's fine. Good evening. Good evening. I had hoped that I would not be speaking again, but some comments by two board members compelled me to speak tonight. I am one of the voices for those who have been voiceless for so long, too long. When I was here previously, I did not mention that I had been a trustee at the Bayshore Brightwaters Library for over 30 years. Each of those years brought issues to be addressed. I and the board members responded to whatever was needed of us. We never felt victimized when we were
091asked to spend additional hours on specific concerns. We never felt that a particular task was dumped on us. Our watch was our watch. We were called on no matter what the issue. We committed ourselves to the service of the Bayshore Brightwaters community. In over 30 years as a board member, I spent countless hours working on whatever task or decision was to be made. It was my duty. Now it is your watch. You have pledged to address whatever comes up while you still serve as a board member or as a superintendent of the Bayshore School District. The second thing I would like to talk about is my concern for the health and well-being of the victims of brutality. That brutality is resurrected every time a victim is brought to court. Court hearings cause trauma for the
092victims, their families. and their friends. Many of you on the board and Dr. Maloney have some affiliation with the men who were criminally abused, or you know one or more of their family members. One of you even taught one of the victims. I am also concerned about the man whose case is being appealed. When I read the article in Newsday describing how this person has suffered so much as a result of what this criminal did to him, I was heart sick. My heart ached for his family as well. His mother was quoted in the article. Just imagine her suffering. I became very concerned about this person when the decision of the jury was appealed. I really wonder if he can handle another court appearance. Please take note of that. That decision is yours. If there
093are any board members who do not agree with the direction the Bayshore School District lawyers are taking, please speak up. You as a board pay the lawyers on our behalf, but you are the final decision makers. The lawyers do not have the final say. This has nothing to do with liking or not liking lawyers. This is about making choices. You can settle now or you can choose to re-brutalize the victims, their families, and innumerable members of our community who know these men. An incredible number of people from at least four decades are connected to and impacted by your decisions, decisions that are on your watch. And your watch is now. Thank you. Thank you. Like I say, there's nobody who's signed up to speak. May I? Absolutely. Thank you. Do I need a microphone? Well,
094we are sending it out, so if you don't mind speaking into it. Thank you so much. Good afternoon, everyone, or good evening. My name is Lisa Kennedy. I am a resident of Bayshore for 54 years. I graduated from Bayshore High School. My parents graduated from Bayshore High School. My children are attending, and my grandchildren are attending. I hold great pride in this district, and I thank you all for your service. I do. I'm not here today to negate Bayshore in any way. I tell you, I support everything that's positive about Bayshore. We are perfectly imperfect. And I state that. We are perfectly imperfect. No one expects the board or the schools or the teachers or the staff to ever be perfect. But we are an educational institution. And I came here today after a good
09512-hour day. I haven't even been home yet because it is important to me to say this. And I say this to help and not to hurt in any way. It has come to my attention, let me also state that I have family members in every school building in Bayshore. This is part of who we are. It's part of, it's in, it's... I'm bred into this. This is my whole world. And friends in every school in this district. It means the world to me. It has recently come to my attention that we are lacking in some areas, right? We're lacking in many, but one of them, the most important one to me as an educator and a school administrator myself, is educating our staff, okay? We do our very best within our budget to educate our
096teachers, but the largest sum of our population happen to be... paraprofessionals. Let's include security guards in there. Let's even include nurses. Nurses have CU credits that they're required to get. That's continuing education credits. By the time they get their Heimlich maneuver and their EpiPen and they get their CPR training, first aid training, they've met these CE credits. I'd like to support them. I also want to support our principals and our teachers in saying the more untrained staff that we have, the more difficult it is to be successful in running a school environment. As an educational institution, I would like to see us focus a little bit more on providing that education. So just recently I had the opportunity to speak with members of our board here and... I did just recently find out that there
097was, because I want to be very supportive and very positive in this, there was just training that was put into place for March 6th. This is ABA training for some of our paraprofessionals, and for the first time in over a decade, staff was actually offered for payment to partake in it, and it was opened up to a large population. Until then, the only training that we've seen recently is for small ABA, which, by the way, ABA... is applied behavior analysis. It's for those people working with our special needs population. So I would like to see us continue to do that. So thank you for those of you who put that into place. I think that's fantastic. I spoke to you a couple months ago. I'm so glad to hear that that is there. But we
098still need to continue. Most of our problems that occur in the school system occur during lunch and recess. Statistically, these are those high problem areas, those high problem times. The staff that services those children are lunch paraprofessionals who work even less in our building than our paraprofessionals. Our paraprofessionals spend more time per day with our students than our teaching staff does. They need training. I've spoke to my family. I've spoke to my friends. I've spoke to our community. I would love to see us reach out more to that staff and find out what support systems do they need to be more successful. Our security guards, some of them are coming in as police officers, but these police officers were never trained to work with children. They were never trained to respond to de-escalate situations with
099children. Our children are suffering so much. There are so many problems out there, and we are seeing increased behavior problems in children. I would just like to see us start to focus a little bit more as we go into the next school year in providing more training. A basic orientation. Basic orientation means you come in, you're learning policy and procedure. What is the procedure of these paraprofessionals on the playground when there is problems? I know we have a very strict bullying rule. and regulations on it, but that doesn't really help us until it escalates to the point that the principals have to address it and children are suspended. I would love for the security guards to know how to speak to our children better. I would love for the paraprofessionals when a child falls or
100is pushed off a swing by another child, for the children not to hear this response. Okay, go play over there. That's not enough for our kids. Our kids need some support, but most importantly our staff needs support So my only thing here is can we please start to support them a little bit more? Hear them. Let's hear their voices. Let's pull our staff Send out surveys to our staff send out any questionnaires to our staff and allow our staff because most of our staff members are also parents. So let's just say we spend some time training them on how to deal with behaviors and how to deal with positive reinforcers. This is going to dwindle down to their students at home. Hence, our children are now going to have trained parents that are going home
101teaching them, and these children are going to come into our schools with maybe a little bit more resources because now we've trained their parents to go home. It's really going to pay off in the end. I'd just like to see a little bit more training for the staff. They are least educated and the ones that spend the most time with our students. Thank you so much for everything you do and thank you for your time. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, you can clap a little bit. That's okay. If there's nobody else, okay, with that, we'll take a motion to go out of executive. We're going to go back into public and back into work session. Thank you, Andy. Motion? Do we need a second? Second. Okay. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? So carried. Thank you
102all for coming.