4-13-26 BOE Meeting

001To the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God Indivisible with liberty and justice for all We don't have to read this yet Okay Okay, if I can get a meeting to approve or a motion to approve the meeting agenda, please All right any discussion all those in favor Seems we have some blue cards. So we'll move on to the community open forum. The Board of Education has set aside this time as an opportunity for the community to address the board to allow for public participation. A period not to exceed 30 minutes total shall be set aside during the first part of each board meeting. Presentations should be as brief as possible. The board will not permit in public session discussion involving individual district

002personnel or students and comments should be related to school matters and be limited to two minutes. We do have a list, so I think we are going to limit to the two minutes tonight because there's several people who want to speak. So I will start with number one, Randy Wilkinson. Here we go. How about that? Is that a little bit better? All right. So I'm here to speak on behalf of the budget tonight. Maureen, I want to thank you once again for doing an excellent job presenting this. Last month, as always, you do the best job at explaining to everybody, getting all the details and putting it in a way that we can actually understand. And congratulations on that grandbaby. So I wanted to mostly spend this time to address the parents that are listening.

003Hey, little lady. to address the parents that are listening at home and that are listening here. It's very important for a town like ours to approve our school budget. I know that last year when it came out at 6.8% that originally we didn't get that vote passed. Right now we're going to be coming out at 2.99%, which is going to equate to about $38 per 100,000 of assessed home value. I moved to this district because I started in a school district that would not fund its schools. And I'll tell you from personal experience watching this happen, there's no way. There's no faster way for a town to go downhill than for its school district to go unfunded. I appreciate all the hard work that the teachers are doing, that the school board, business office, and

004administrators here are doing to make this the best school district possible. And I believe that we as parents, hang on little lady, hang on you. And I believe that we as parents owe it to these folks to make sure that they don't have to make hard decisions about what to cut. and what they're going to have to remove for services next year. So, ma'am. We speak a lot about when Micron comes, what it's going to mean to the area for growth, for bringing in new young families. We were somebody that had to choose from different school districts and area in different towns that we could move to. And if I were somebody moving to this area and I saw that the budget had failed in multiple years in a row, it would be a deterrent

005for me coming to that district without knowing already what an incredible place this is. And let me tell you, this is the best place to live. So everybody get out there, tell your folks, get out and vote yes on that budget. A couple of my friends and I are going to be going door to door to whip up votes for this. We've got materials based on all the awesome information that Maureen's given us. Let's get out there and get that vote to pass. Thank you. Thank you, Randy. All right, Nathan Downey. I wanted to address my concerns regarding the future for our music programs within our district. In terms of the student participation, it was put out that there was low participation and I wanted to state that there's over 50 students in all of

006our color guard groups and over 30 students in just our high school indoor percussion. Beyond these numbers, I speak personally to academic benefits of these programs. Before I joined the marching programs in sixth grade, I was not in the top 33. After I joined field band, my grades went up and I became part of the top 33. In eighth grade, I was also part of the top 33. When I came into high school, I was top 25. I'm still top 25 as of current. The performing arts have expanded my social circle. I've made many friends because of music that we have played together and most of my friends in these programs are also top 25 students. The skills I've developed in field band and parade band have let me march outside of district during the

007summer, an opportunity for me to make money so I can pay for more out of school and in school music. Thank you, and I believe that these programs are essential for students. Thank you Nathan David Downey I want to thank my son for actually getting ahead and actually talking about his experience as a student within the district in the music program I also want to talk about the the cuts that were proposed for the music program like he says the music program brings a lot for these kids and You know as our school motto is you know as one we rise together we soar We cannot just single out one group of the students to make it so that each each season each year That's the group that gets the budget cuts. I mean, I

008don't want to see budget cuts across the board but if there has to be budget cuts because there is a deficit within the budget it needs to be equal for all the programs if it's a 10 percent budget that we're shortfall then it's 10 percent out of sports it's 10 out of music it's 10 out of arts it's 10 out of every group it's not just focusing on one group thank you thank you david pokow sorry if i It's just a little bit sloppy, so I couldn't. My handwriting's good. Right. It's not sloppy. It's just very small. Yeah, it's small, yeah. Yeah, I'm here. Good evening, everyone. So I'm here to talk about the UPK program, the new UPK program that just was changed as part of the upcoming school year. So right now I'm

009a current resident of Central Square, taxpayer. I voted on the school budget. I think the school district's great. I have right now my son, stepson, he currently went from CNS and moved here to Central Square just for the rifle program. My daughter is at Millard Hawk. She went through the UPK program last year at Brewerton Elementary. It was a great program, half-day program. The new program, so earlier this year we signed up. uh for the application to enroll into the new program my son bennett It is currently four, goes to sunny days. And within the application, we signed them up for full day preferably and half day if that wasn't available. Last week, received a letter stating Bennett has been randomly selected into the afternoon half day, which is 105 to 345 p.m. here at

010Millard Hawk. The half day has no transportation to and from. Bennett currently is in daycare. Both me and my wife work full time. So last year, UPK was structured one teacher per school district, as I understand it. You had an afternoon class and a morning class. In that afternoon and morning class, each one of those classes had 18 kids per class. Do the math, 18 times four times two is 144 students. That's four teachers that were, employed by the district. This year, the new UPK program, we have a full day classes at each one of the schools. You have four elementary schools, 18 kids per full day program. Then you also have one teacher that teaches a half day program for morning and a half day and afternoon at Millard Hawk. That right there is

011108 kids and five teachers. So my questions are to the board is how does a working family take their kids to school from 105 to 345? My other question is when the district cut the transportation, what was the savings? Is that savings large enough to restrict the working family from entering UPK for half days? And then also I called last week when I got the letter to figure out what the process is for the waiting list. I said, hey, I got signed up for half day. What's the process if someone cancels and doesn't want to do the full day, got in the full day? What's the process? They didn't have the process down. I called back today. What's the process? I got, well, if you don't want to do the half day, you're back on

012the waiting list. The waiting list is 23 kids. Off the numbers I just went off, we have 108 kids available to be enrolled next year. This year currently 144 those 23 kids would have got in So my my questions and actions, you know for the board is What's the waiting list structure for the UPK program? Also, what is the savings that we had because obviously we have additional teacher No transportation. I can't believe transportation would cost a teacher salary And then, why can't UPK kids that live within the Millard-Hawk District ride the bus at least one way? So the way this process is is we don't it's not a back and forth But there's so much more information that we want to be able to share with you because it's a grant that comes from

013the state and so the state number allocation of money changes is a formula based on Full day, which is what the state was really pushing for and when we put out a lot of surveys many more parents wanted full day, which then obviously you bring up a good point you only have a certain amount of space right so if you're doing a full day you can't do the two half days and we knew that and so what what we'll do is my assistant superintendent oversees upk we will have all of your answers question your questions answered we'll give that to you tomorrow i'll make sure that's the first thing But you'll see the whole layout because you named a bunch of numbers that we don't pay for. That's fully in the grant from the state.

014So we want to be able to give you apples to apples. So we can say this is how much the state funds it. There was always a waiting list. The state is very strict with their waiting list that if we deviate from the lottery system. we potentially lose the grant for all of UPK. And so there's so many intricacies, but I want to be able to give you all that information. Then if you have any other information after that, after having all of that, more than happy to sit down with you. Okay, okay, yeah. Like I said, the waiting list structure, I mean, to call the next day I got it and not have a clear answer, that was, you know, is it... It should be cut and dry in my opinion. That's what we're

015working with and I was gone for spring break. I rarely take a vacation. I did take a family one. So then the question was when the families put in for full day, we didn't have this before because we didn't have full day. So now this is a new kind of wrinkle that we have to check with the state because we have to go by their lottery system. So if somebody wanted half day but didn't get half day. But then a full day one opens up. We needed to make sure that we're following their rules to that But we will answer all those questions for you But well, then we'll also put on the website because I'm sure other people have similar questions. Okay. All right. I appreciate your time. Thank you. Thanks Mr. Polk on

016Mr. Polk on when I Call you it'll be from Hastings Mallory. It won't be from the district office. So I think I left a message So when you get that it'll just be a different number. So I'm just covering that building now. Okay. Thanks Jessica Wilkinson? Well, she's probably... Hello, good evening. My name is Jessica and I'm here tonight as a parent and a community member. We'll have both of our kids at Millard Hawk next year with the incredible Beth Smith, so we're really excited about that and we're just really fortunate to be here. And to the part that isn't as fun, I understand that the budget this year, the process required a lot of very difficult choices to be made. And I also recognize that every cut represents a trade-off. no one really takes

017these decisions lightly. That's you, that's us, I think we can all agree on that. And with that said, I want to express my concern about the removal of a security officer from our district. For me, it's not so much about the politics or the blame, it's about the day-to-day reality that our students and staff live in at the school. visible trained security guard officer presence in our schools isn't to me just a response to a potential worst-case scenario and as a ER nurse of about a decade I've seen that I've looked that in the face plenty of times and I just want to say that it's about a preventative measure. It supports this safe, calm learning environment where our security officers build relationships with the kids. They de-escalate children that are having a hard time.

018And it provides just that extra layer of reassurance for those of us here that drop our children off in the morning and have no idea what they do for eight hours and hope for the best. So removing a position like this may look like just a simple line item potentially on a piece of paper But the impact is a lot greater than that And it kind of sends us down the road where we're justifying cutting things that are ultimately keeping our kids safe And if anything that's an area where we need to be supporting more than ever so again, I just want to reiterate what a couple other folks have said. I thank you guys for your time and your willingness to hear from parents like us that care about our kids. So thank you.

019Kristen Gerolamin. Good evening. Thank you so much for the opportunity to speak tonight. I actually wasn't expecting to be here. My name is Kristen Duraliman. I have three kids in the district. They're all at the Blue and Gold Bank with the Boy Scouts right now. I was expecting to be there with my family, but I was told that being here, making my statement was more important. Otherwise, I was going to have somebody speaking for me. Thank you. So with that, I've written a statement. I'm going to go ahead and read it. I'm here on behalf of the music department. I know with the budget cuts, the music department is potentially being greatly affected. I want to begin by acknowledging the difficult position you're in. The loss of state aid tied to declining enrollment creates real

020challenges, and asking a community already facing financial strain to take on more is no easy task. I truly appreciate the weight of your decisions. I will not revisit the well-documented academic and development benefits of music education. Instead, I'd like to focus on enrollment and fiscal impact. School districts across New York receive a significant portion of their funding on a per-pupil basis. That means enrollment directly drives revenue. When enrollment declines, funding declines with it, creating a cycle that's difficult to reverse. Program offerings play a measurable role in where families choose to live. In my work as a residential architect in Onondaga and Oswego counties, I've personally encountered multiple cases where families selected a different district, specifically due to a stronger music program. Even a single program such as orchestra has been a deciding factor to choose

021CNS over Central Square. While these are individual examples, they reflect a broader and well-established pattern. Districts that reduce programs often see continued enrollment decline, while those that maintain or expand offerings are more competitive in attracting and retaining families. Reducing music programs may provide short-term budget relief, but it risks accelerating the very enrollment decline that's driving the current financial decisions. I respectfully urge you to consider the long-term fiscal impact, not just for this budget, but future budgets to come. Young families, future taxpayers, volunteers, and community members are choosing where to plant their roots. They are choosing music. Preserving strong music programs is not only an educational investment, it's a strategy for maintaining enrollment and stabilizing your funding. Thank you so very much for your service and your consideration and time. Kayla? I'm having a hard time

022understanding how reducing safety became something we're even considering. Because this doesn't feel like a policy to me, it feels like a gamble. You were discussing removing an SRO from rotation, and I need you to understand how that lands on the other side of this table. It doesn't sound like logistics. It doesn't sound like budgeting. It sounds like a risk. Our children are not variables in an equation you're trying to balance. Their safety is not something you adjust, reduce, or experiment with to see what happens. Our children's safety is non-negotiable. Every district that has experienced a tragedy once believed the same thing, that they were fine, until they weren't. And the difference between fine and not fine is often measured in seconds. Seconds of response time. Seconds of presence. Seconds that an SRO provides. So when

023you talk about removing that presence, what I hear is we're willing to accept more vulnerability. I'm not willing to sit quietly and hope you're right. We are expected to send our children into this building every day trusting that everything possible is being done to protect them. Not most things. Not sufficient things. Everything. And this. not everything some decisions draw a line this is one of them you don't reduce safety measures and hope it's enough you reinforce them because the cost of being wrong is catastrophic so I need this board to take a hard look at what message this decision sends and what it risks because if something happens there is no revision no policy rewrite no second chance to get it right just consequences that can't be undone and every single person in this room

024will know this was a moment where you chose to do less when you have the opportunity to do more thank you Tim good evening Tim Coyier. I'm just here on to support the budget and specifically the the music program I Wanted to introduce my oldest daughter Aubrey Coyier. She had a few things she wanted to say tonight So I want to support her support her message and I think there's a lot of people here for the music program specifically and go ahead The music program is very important to me and many other people that I know. The music program connected me to the people I know as friends and very close friends. My younger sister is also part of the guard, the junior varsity guard, and I know that connected her to her friends, and

025she finds that very important to her. I think that was Aubrey. D'Andra? Hi everyone. Thank you so much for everything that you guys do. My name is Deandra Morse. I'm a licensed clinical social worker by day. And then I'm also a parent at Miller Hawk Elementary. I have two children at Miller Hawk Elementary. Last year was my first year with my kindergarten student. This year both my kids are in school, so first grade and kindergarten. I cannot express how obsessed I am with Miller Hawk. I love our principal. I trust our principal. I love our teachers. I trust our teachers. I love our security resource officer, and I trust our security resource officer. Last year, when I was a new parent at our school with a kindergarten student, we had a different security resource officer,

026Officer Nelson, who I also loved and trusted. I have friends in other elementary schools, so there's four of us for elementary school, who also love and trust their security resource officer. I know that Hastings Mallory security resource officer officer and is leaving and her role is not being filled and I know you've heard. we are not happy about this so many parents are sad that she's leaving but we are even more sad that her position isn't being filled and therefore we are now going to rotate security resource officers amongst the elementary which means that at some point one school will be without a security resource officer how do we make sense of that it is 2026. I was in second grade when Columbine happened and I'm from the Dominican Republic my parents are from the

027Dominican Republic and my parents said we're leaving and so we went back to the DR until my senior year of high school as a result of that I don't want to have to leave and I don't want a tragedy to happen and I feel extremely uncomfortable with that decision I have been coming to the Board of Ed meetings every single month since the last spring when our budget didn't pass and I was thinking that after the collective response of grief and sadness that we all had around the budget not passing that we would be doing what we did last year which is propose a budget that would cover all the things our school needs and then at least give the community an opportunity to vote for that budget like what is the percentage what is

028the number that we would need so that the music program could stay so that there so that we could have the buses back so that we could have all the things that were taken away as a result of us basically saying no to the original school budget but instead this year it doesn't even feel like we're trying and i guess i don't know um i don't know the logic behind that and i would love to know more so since there was no one else on the list correct right yes so what we do When we have this many, and we did about nine years ago when I was superintendent here, I had the opportunity to be able to address that, so I'll start first. 9.5 to 10% is what we would need. Okay. We're only

029allowed to go out at 2.99 is the cap. The state has capped only a 1% increase in state aid. They used to give us anywhere between 3.2 and 3.5, so we had to cut $5 million. I'm a parent myself. I have a 14-year-old. I have a 12-year-old. There's nothing on the list that you guys just said that we haven't spent hundreds of hours. The board and this group right here. Because do we want to cut any sports? No. Do we want to cut band? Let's go back to the year I started as superintendent. It was 10 years ago. We were sending only about 75 students to BOCES, right? We send 185 now. Because how do you say to a kid that your dream is to be a welder or to be a nurse, but we're

030not going to send you? Because it was substantial. It was millions of dollars more, and then we get our aid back the following year, right? But you have to come up and build the budget with those millions in there. We were able to do some amazing things. We started out with three special patrol officers, and we were probably the first out of many of the districts. This was a while. It was probably eight years ago. We had three. One at the high school. His name was Jamie LeCastro. He's gone now. We had one at the middle school. He's still there, Officer Malecki. And then we had Rich Hargraves, and he oversaw the five elementary buildings because there were five at the time, and he rotated, right? Then the state continued to give us pretty good

031increases every year and we thought okay They recognize we have high areas of poverty Okay, when I when I came in the district there were no counselors or social workers And I'm glad that you're here as a social worker because you would know more than anyone else But there are people that say we can cut counselors or social workers, right? There are people that say we don't need six special patrol officers. We don't need you name it people will say that if that's not their holy grail of things, right? So our job is a very difficult job because we don't just have a 1% this year. We were told we're safe harbor. We're only going to have a 1% moving forward. So where we were able to rely on 3.5% in a good year, 4%

032increase in state aid, out of $63 million we rely on state aid, now we're totally getting a 1%. But not only are we just getting a 1%, there's a lot of unfunded mandates as well. So we have record numbers of students with special education needs that are enrolling in this district. It's a huge demographic change from years ago. So we have counselors and social workers, as you know, they are able to provide the IEP required minutes for counseling that's on an IEP or else we wouldn't be. following the mandate, right? Right. So the state would be 100%, right? So we know that we can't do that. Nobody wants to get rid of an SBL. Like, we look at that and we say, we feel more comfortable with one there. There were a lot of amazing

033things that we were able to accomplish building up. We built up out of those 10 years amazing music. We added guards. With sports, we added multiple modified teams because we saw the study and the research. We know that kids are in band. They probably have a 90s, I think it was like a 96 overall GPA. So if kids were in the band, why would we want to cut something like that? We wouldn't. But what we're being dealt with right now with a double whammy of a salary cap that they said you can't go beyond your salary cap or you need a supermajority. We went out at 6.86 and the media screwed up last year and said Central Square is going for a supermajority because in their mind they're thinking that can't be their cap. That

034was our cap. That was our cap because we went two straight years at 0%. We said to this community, we're not going to tax you. Sorry. Okay. But that was probably a mistake because people thought if they can go two straight years without raising taxes, why do they ever have to raise taxes? We will do it because of COVID money. We had a ridiculous amount of money that was use it or lose it. We paid after school programs. We did things for our coaches and our music. We wanted kids to be able to get back into school and the feeling of being part of something. We had that money, and then they said, now it's gone. We never thought in a million years they would knock us down to just 1%. This board has been

035amazing, lobbying with politicians. We've done the same thing. Our DS from City Boces is here today. Jeremy Belfield is new to the position, and he's hit the ground running because he's a huge advocate for us in Albany. So we're in a situation. where people don't want the thing that they like the most cut, right? We get that, 100%. I understand. But we're in a situation where there's no revenue now to drive that. We also, when Maureen ran the numbers, we could be at 1.9% cap next year. And we already know we're only going to get a 1% increase. So that would be instead of $5 million, it might have to be 6.5 we'd have to make up. And we are a $103 million budget. 80% of that salary and benefit that's already contractual, we employ

036the largest number of people in all of Oswego County, almost 900. And to be competitive with other schools, I see teachers in the audience and whatnot. We want to remain competitive because we want to be able to hire the best teachers and retain the best teachers in this program. And we have the best teachers we feel that are here. If all of a sudden we said, okay, you're not getting the raises that you normally got, you're going to need a 1% raise, right? You need a 2% raise. They're going to say, okay, we're going to go to Phoenix. We're going to go to Hannibal. They're giving 5% raises, right? So we're constantly in this battle of what are we going to do. At the district level, I'm also the McKinney-Vento officer. You guys may not

037know what that is, but that's about an extra 25 hours of work a week, mostly at night when people call my work cell back. And these are any of the kids that are displaced or homeless, so we can make sure that we give them transportation because we may be now driving them to the city of Syracuse anywhere within 50 miles. And we have to do that. That phone rings, we do that. She's covering an elementary building for a principal that's been out with a broken collarbone. She's filling in the middle school because the person's out on maternity. God bless her, had a baby. She's going to be out for six months. So I don't want anyone to think that we're top-heavy by any means. What it comes down to is this. We have a set

038amount of money that we're able to have. You asked a really good question. What would it take? It would take about 10%. Last year, it would take 6.86. We can't even do that this year because it's capped at 2.99. And we're only getting the 1% increase in state aid. So there's nothing else we could have said to the community because it's capped. So we didn't even have the ability. Unless we tried for a super majority, and I've never seen one pass. Cortland tried it, and it was miserably shot down. They tried to go above their cap. And what happens if you do do that? Like if you go for the super majority? Yes, explain this to us. Because I feel like we all are like, why are we doing something? That would be. catastrophic. So

039at 2.99, that's still giving us enough money to run our programs with minimal cuts. But Maureen can tell you what an austerity budget would be, which would be no increase. So that 2.99 is now gone. So now that would probably be how many more millions would we have to cut if that's the case? Okay. Which is about nine positions, teacher positions. Okay. So that's where we're at right now. All we can do is hope that our lobbying will pay off. And at the same time, we're also fighting this ridiculous electric bus mandate situation where if it were, we're not putting any out there. So if anyone's watching this, because I get calls all the time, even though we'll say when they vote diesel buses only, they still don't trust it. They want to make sure

040that it's not electric. But that would still require a multi-million dollar infrastructure capital project to put a very large diesel generator on our campus with little diesel heaters on our buses for the ion batteries because when we all know it gets cold, they would freeze. Right? And then parents would say, where are my kids? Well, the buses are stopped on Route 49 because they're dead. Right? So we're dealing with all of this right now because they still haven't changed the mandate. We can't purchase new diesel buses after 2027. And the whole fleet, as of right now, still has to be 2035 completely, even our vans, fully electric. And we're driving kids. McKinney-Vento runs to Syracuse daily, Phoenix daily, up to Sandy Creek daily. because they're considered homeless in the eyes of New York State. So

041everybody brings up good points, right? Now I know what will happen. The budget that's being voted on today, it's not the line items. It's to be able to, and it's pretty bare, right? A 2.99, it's not like we're going out at six. And the fact that the state's only putting out, giving us a 1%. So what we're putting out, we're not adding anything new, right? So hopefully the board will look at that and approve that. What I am more than happy to do, and I've already told several board members, is we can have a forum in here. So people that couldn't be here can have their voices heard. Because at the end of the day, it's going to come down to priorities. And people are going to realize. We're talking about, we already decided, because

042one of the students was worried about the numbers. We corrected the numbers with music. We weren't going to combine the drum line. He was able to make significant cuts in other areas that had minimal impact that would mean that Winter Guard would not have to be combined That's this year though. So as I said the plan for health insurance now is usually is gone up six percent's going up ten percent, right? So things that are already the contractual things are in place If that cap is still there, and even less, right? It has to do with debt service. I was very happy to hear one of the parents thank Maureen. Yeah, he thanked Maureen because Maureen will sit down with anybody and break down capital projects, debt service, how they come up with a cap,

043right? And once you do that, you kind of have a better understanding that our hands are tied at that point. And that's our main, there's only two revenue sources. What we get from state aid and what we get in revenue from taxes that's capped. And we know that now our health insurance has gone up 10%. So it's really hard to plan out beyond three years at this point because the state also keeps hitting us with unfunded mandates to say, well, you need to do this too, but we're not giving you money to do it. And so those are the things, that's why my administrative team, Chrissy Smith, she's our director of special ed, but she's also the role of two school psychologists because we're missing two. So she also spends the weekends and at night.

044I have to have some way to compensate that because she's way above being just a director of special ed, probably working 16 hours a day, doing the work of three people. So I don't want anyone to think that this district is top heavy. You all bring up really good questions. We know how passionate you are. This is rare. Normally, there's nobody or maybe one or two people. So I'm glad that you're here. Always. I'm glad, yes. I'm glad that you're, you know, you're voicing the concerns that I myself as a parent. would voice. It comes down now to priorities to say, okay, special patrol officer or not making any cuts in band and sports and things like that. We look at things like school counselors and social workers. People say, well, you didn't have them

045before. Can't we go back to that? We are different since COVID. The world has changed. I'll correct you on one thing. Even before that, yes. Even before that. Yes. There was a time that we weren't even close to being a free and reduced lunch district. We qualify beyond the limit that everybody can eat for free because our free and reduced numbers. massive and I don't want to knock any hard-working person that makes below a certain threshold that qualifies for free I'm not saying that but I'm saying when you have poverty there are things that come with it I would probably go on record to say that 40% of our kids are being raised by grandparents overall and in some elementary buildings even higher significantly higher so our job is to say how do we help

046some of these grandparents that are screaming for help, right, that are overwhelmed, and we don't have the resources from the state. So not only are we feeding kids, we're providing them mental health supports, we're providing all of these things that go way beyond the traditional academics with far less money than we've ever gotten and a community that wants and should want the very best. So we'll leave it with this. The budget that's being voted on right now is not by the line item. So I don't want you to think, oh, my God, they approved that. That means those certain things will get cut. No, other things may get cut, and some things might get put back in. It just means tonight that they've approved that number because there's a strict timeline that we have. My

047clerk has to post what it is, or we're not going to be in compliance with the state of letting people know what that budget is. I will talk to cabinet. We will look at the calendar. And some parents are going to be upset because it's pretty much impossible to get anything on a calendar where there's not a game or there's not music. God bless them. They practice nine hours a day. Sometimes the kids email me saying, hey, can you do early dismissal? So we know, right? But we'll try to figure something out. But I promise and I assure all of you, we need to do a better job with the... the UPK and that grant. We do it every so often and then we forget. Three years go by, we get a new set of

048parents, but we really need to let them know that that's grant funded and all of the intricacies that play into that. And there's always people that are upset that are on a waiting list. We have a situation where you have twins and one gets in the lottery and the other one doesn't, right? Like these are things we're dealing with right now. But I promise you this, it's no short of effort from this board. They'll call me at 7 o'clock at night saying, we've got to talk about this, right? I need to know more. So you've elected good people because they're asking those questions and they're working very hard. And then we circle together when we're not doing superintendent hearings or manifestation hearings or doing what they're doing, so it's usually after school, and we talk

049about priorities. But I think having a large forum with, and I say this, we've had them and we've had 10 people show up, right? Hopefully we'll have people show up so they can say, hey, here are my priorities like you guys did today. This is what I want. And right now we don't have a lot of sports people, but I know that they're going to watch this. And then next time we'll have a list of 14 people for sports on why certain modified programs shouldn't get cut and whatnot. And I get it because that's what they're passionate about. At the end of the day, we're all here for the kids. And I really appreciate you guys taking the time. Thank you all. Thank you. And I think I speak for the whole board when I

050ditto Tom's comments about the attendance tonight. It's really nice to see a lot of faces out there and an informed community. a tool that um you know before the last budget vote we didn't we didn't really have we didn't have a lot of people at the budget meetings and we didn't have a lot of people that were informed so unfortunately there was a lot of misinformation spread and unfortunately the result is what it is and so and just because there seems to be a uh appetite for understanding things as tom said the 6.86 that we went out with the first time when we went out with the con the contingency budget for or the other the revolt the three percent the three percent that 3.86 percent um of the budget is gone but so is

051every percentage increase in perpetuity so that three percent which i think maureen you said is about how much a million dollars so the the one percent that we're getting from the state plus the 2.99 that's four percent overall you know so that on that million What is that? $40,000? That's gone. Yeah, and I also want to say I'm partly to blame. So when we went out at 0%, right, we left millions of dollars on the table, and it compounds every year. But where I'm also to blame is some of you remember because you voted on it. It was a capital reserve that if you're going to go capital reserve and we say we have a surplus amount of money. that we need you to vote that we can put it in reserve, we need you

052to vote for that. So there was no way that this board or I was going to say, hey, we got a surplus of money. We want you to approve to put it in the capital reserve, but we're also going to hit you at the limit or at all. And we didn't. We went out at zero. And I like to remind people that because there are a lot of districts out there that voted to have the capital reserve passed. and then hit the community. So yes, they had an abundance of money, but yes, they were going to keep doing it. Maybe they were smart, because there are other districts a quarter of our size that have $25 million in reserve get slapped by the comptroller because you're only supposed to go out with 4% more. We

053didn't do that. Maureen didn't do that. She lives her whole life in this community, and she wasn't going to say, hey, we're just going to fill our coffers, right, when we didn't need to, when the state's given us good aid. We didn't. But the problem now is other districts can say, hey, no worries. We're only going to go out at 1%. Because they can take $6 million in reserve and throw it at it because they've got $25 million in there. We have eight, and we don't have a $40 million budget like some of the smaller districts in this county. We have a $103 million budget with an over 850-person staff. So these are things that, again, I would love to have the opportunity in that open forum to talk about it, present on it, and

054answer questions on it, but really have... Tables where people are talking about what they want their priorities to be I know that you employ you vote for these elected These are your mouthpiece right here, right? So you call them you contact them you say these are what our priorities are and I think we need to get back to that but also directly hear from the community to say It's the SBO, right? We're going to go safety, or we can't cut counselors or social workers. We realize to be proactive, that's where it starts to be able to have, we used to have an inverted pyramid of services. All of the counseling and supports were at the middle school, but that was far too late. I'll tell you one of the most horrific things about my job

055is I see every single CPS report. And since I started as superintendent 10 years ago, it has more than quadrupled. And I'm talking, The worst sexual offenses, physical offenses, the worst abuse as early as four years old and up. And so when parents are like, what is going on in that classroom that we've got to evacuate those kids, that six-year-old tearing stuff off the walls, we know why. And it's hard to sleep when you see these little faces and what they're going through. I just want you to know we don't make excuses. We don't take our jobs lightly. We don't just randomly say we'll cut this or we'll cut that. I assure you we will be as transparent as we are. We'll have that open forum. Anybody can email me. More than enough people have

056my work cell phone number because I do get hundreds of calls. So if you want that, email me. I'll give that to you. I just don't want to do it online and have people asking if I extend my car warranty because that's happened when I've given it online. So if you want my work. cell phone just email my emails on my school uh email i'll give it to you and if you're home on the weekend and you hear that something happened on a bus a kid was talking about a gun they call me and then i call our staff and we get we get to the houses so i want you know we're all working as hard as we can what you said today does not fall on deaf ears thank you yes yes all

057right on to item d special presentations to the board um you want to introduce jeremy yes Yes, so Jeremy Belfield became the DS at City Boces. We were thrilled when he got that position. He had been a superintendent at Lafayette. Jeremy, how many years were you there? Eight years. Eight years at Lafayette and Onondaga County. It's really helped for us because he was in the ground level for Micron because Onondaga County is just so much further ahead than us. And so Jeremy is working very diligently to make sure that our kids have those same opportunities. And the last thing I'll say about Micron is if you look at Boise. and you look at manassas their school districts almost doubled so the things that we're worried about right we just got to get to that point

058because when comes more kids comes more state aid comes more even if it's 2.9 that's still millions of more uh taxable income that's going to be able to come in for all these amazing programs i will now turn it over to you mr belfield great thank you uh so For those eight years, I've been an Oswego County resident for 25 years. I was a Fulton City School District educator. I was an administrator in the Mexico Central School District. Yes, I made that 45.5-mile drive all the way from my house in the village of Mexico to Lafayette for eight years straight. The best advertisement to come home to Oswego County again was right about the Brewerton exit. Anywhere between November and May, I would hit this white curtain. and uh... you know that was probably the

059most treacherous part of my right home was from brewer tend to my house in mexico sometimes as the last seven miles when i got off the the highway and and paris so uh... i appreciate your advertisement for the great opportunity at city both season grateful to be your district superintendent we serve all nine components uh... schools in oswego county i'm also a part-time state education department of employee i work directly for the commissioner of education her staff i'm your locally is onto the new york state edge Department work with the Commissioner and her team once a month I'll be there next week and certainly the Commissioner is very sympathetic to the concerns from local school districts local superintendents local boards of education definitely from parents and that's why I love working for her and her

060team at State Ed so I'll certainly carry these messages back you also have a local representative on the Board of Regents Regent Patrick Mannion I'll meet with him on Friday he's very sensitive to these needs we always make sure that they hear these So that way state ed when they put in their budget requests they know what the heartbeat of Central Square and our local districts are so that way they can include those Projections and their budget requests when they send that across the street to the division of budget and to the governor's office So I do want to let you know that you're heard, you know Unfortunately, we're still dealing with antiquated funding formulas in New York State that rely on 20 year old data with the foundation aid formula the base amount in

061the foundation aid formula has not shifted in over 20 years. The cost of educating kids has grown exponentially over that time period. There's been small adjustments to that formula, but not enough that would really reach to a sufficient level based on the growing mission that we've heard tonight for public schools. School safety was a big message that you heard. Mental health. special education needs. So what we try to do is echo those concerns, not just to our partners at State Ed, to the Board of Regents, but also to legislators. So I really want to compliment Mr. Calabufo and his colleagues around the superintendent's table. We spent time during the month of January and February strategizing, talking to elected officials, going to their offices, educating them about the concerns that our schools are facing, and knowing

062that your utility costs are going up exponentially. feeling that and your national grid bills, we're feeling it in schools as well. It's incredible how quickly that climbed. Special education costs because we're seeing kids with a lot more needs coming into our schools and that's a service that we partner with you and we're grateful that you're willing to host programs in our district, in your district at Central Square Middle School. But those are very high needs populations with very small student to teacher ratios set under federal law and by a child's individualized education program. They also have a number of related services which are costly and then our goal obviously isn't just to meet the mandate but also to make sure that we're providing a quality program that helps our students to gain success. So you'll

063notice and probably the biggest part of your budget increase in the BOCES line that 490 object code was your special education costs. Sorry not sorry right we base that budget amount based on the amount that districts request but you're seeing an increased need. So what you do get back is high cost aid over a certain threshold. Those thresholds have grown substantially over time which means that the amount of coming back through high cost data is reduced. But one of the things that we love to do is partner with you financially to share services, provide programs that you can't necessarily provide on your own. So the highlights that I've provided to you tonight focus on participation trends for Central Square students in career and tech ed. So as of our December snapshot, I didn't want to

064stress you with different numbers than what you saw for budget Maureen, so I used December numbers because that bases a lot of our budgetary decisions. 172 students enrolled in half-day CTE programs, three in our CTE Advantage program, which is a full-day program for students in grades nine through 12. five alternative education students in full-day CTE programs, seven in half-day alternative education programs, and 32 students in our P-TECH program. So Central Square is really trying to provide innovative programs to kids, and there is aid available, BOCES aid available, up to a certain limit based on your BOCES aid sharing ratio, which is upwards of 72% for allowable expenses. So while there is expense associated with those programs, you have revenue coming back. for to help incentivize districts like central square to share services We also are

065trying to make sure that there's quality outcomes for those CTE programs. So we've taken some time to update our CTE assessments to better align with industry credentials. Citi was just recognized on a national basis. We'll actually have one of our administrators presenting at a national conference. I think they're in Tennessee this year for the ACT WorkKeys assessment. We were recognized as a work-ready county here because of our partnerships with industry and the use of that assessment to help uh... show employers how career ready our students are uh... also we tried to incentivize opportunities through sharing resources through our early college access and dual enrollment course uh... co-serves which are cooperative service agreements and this provides uh... free uh... tuition at no charge uh... and aid coming back to districts for participation in those courses. It

066also, a new wrinkle this year, was aid based on your teacher's salary that are teaching those courses up to allowable limits. The state did come back and cap the aid at the same number that they do for CTE staff, which we were disappointed with, but certainly understandable given some of the budgetary constraints that the department is facing as well. Also, what we want to do is provide early exposure to kids. So one of the things that we've talked with Central Square about is either working just with your district or talking about other opportunities that we could have to provide more programming for students in ninth and tenth grade courses, elective courses. Some of that may be just a Central Square initiative because in order for BOCES to be involved, we're a cooperative sharing agency. So

067it has to be two or more districts that would be willing to partner with Central Square. So total of two. And then also what we're looking to do is refine how students select BOCES programs, specifically CTE. We've got waiting lists for all of our programs. Kids have turned. gotten turned on to the idea that, hey, I can go right into the workforce as a welder. I can go right in in construction technologies and other career fields that we offer, and I can make a good living wage. So we have a very selective, we want to work on the selection process for that to make sure that kids are getting the right opportunities that they're applying for. We also want to work on career planning. I loved walking in and seeing all of the ads on

068your TV screens and the emphasis that your career center is putting on helping. kids to identify what those goals are. So kudos to your staff for that. We want to make sure that there's a well-articulated plan, not just for Central Square, but for all of our districts. So that way when kids are signing up for programs at City BOCES, they have a well-established plan. Also trades articulation as we're working on better articulation agreements with the construction trades. Recently we signed on an agreement with the bricklayers and allied craft workers. So for our students in construction tech that want to specialize in masonry. They'll be granted up to 750 hours of on-the-job training credit as part of their apprenticeship program. So we're really happy about that partnership and kudos to Mike Thurlow and Chrissy Rode and

069Craig Mahan, our construction tech teacher, for developing that relationships. Also, what we want to do is make sure we're providing equity and access. Thank you for your partnership with special education, as I mentioned. Also, we're looking at transportation and how can we efficiently share resources for those McKinney-Vento students. Is there a way that we can partner with other districts to help share that? Also, legislative advocacy. We worked with our superintendents to advocate for a permanent reprieve from the mandate for zero-emission buses for Oswego County schools. Central Square is not within the evacuation zone if there's ever an emergency at the nuclear power plants, but we would need your buses to help evacuate the 41,000 residents within that emergency evacuation zone. So we've been working with Senator Chris Ryan. I want to say thank you for,

070as a Democrat, sticking his neck on the line for Central Square and for other districts to try and provide that legislation for a reprieve. And then fiscal stewardship, we're always seeking grants, community partnerships to help reduce ancillary costs. We are always out looking for grant money to make sure that what we're providing is offset by any grants that we can go for. Program support, so we did conduct a comprehensive learning needs assessment back in the winter months, worked with industry partners, component districts, and we wanted to make sure that we're focusing our career and tech ed programs on high demand areas. So we have a construction technology program, we have an industrial electrical program currently. We do not currently have a plumbing program, that's a career field in very high demand. And also we've been

071trying to bring back our HVAC program, which has been gone for several years. We actually have a Central Square resident who's really interested in bringing back the adult ed program, really happy about that. He's a proud BOCES graduate, proud BOCES alum, and wants to start the school-age program for HVAC as well, if we can get that off the ground. The big thing that we need... skilled instructors and we're out of space. So, you know, we have limited shop space, we have modular buildings that are falling apart, we have a couple of new modulars which are really nice, but those modulars were built for the state of Georgia, not for upstate New York. I think I sent the kids home at least. twice this year because we didn't have heat in the water pipe froze out

072to the modular building so we'd love to uh... talk to you about our facilities planning and long-term facility study i will try to make sure that we do any capital work in the most affordable way possible but if you'd like to be on our facilities committee we'd welcome parents we'd welcome uh... school district partners as well We also want to look at Micron as they continue to break ground. There's only going to be 9,000 people actually working in those three fabs, but it's going to take 20 years of the construction trades to build those fabs. And the nice thing is that when Micron's finally built, they're going to need places to live. They're going to need their boiler worked on in their house or their furnace. They're going to need a new hot water tank.

073So those construction trades are really where we're focused on trying to make sure that we're meeting the demand for kids. Also, there's rumors of additional nuclear power plants. here in Oswego County. While we gotta have the diesel buses to get the residents out of there, we also love the plants because they provide great power to our communities, power to local industries, but also great paying jobs as well. So we're looking at a renewable energy pathway. We've been focusing our conversations with Constellation Energy to meet job opening demands at the current plants and then hopefully for any future plants that are built here in Oswego County. We're also working on healthcare rebranding. I don't think Emma's in our CNA program. I think your other student representative is, right? So we currently have a certified nursing assistant

074program, and we've watched enrollment numbers start to diminish. It's really focused very heavily on the nursing career. We're looking at a healthcare occupation. So year one students next year are going to get exposure to a variety of different health fields. So nursing would be one of them, phlebotomy, imaging. other careers in the health industry and then year two students are going to specialize within that CTE program so that will help not just nursing but it's going to help all the different health care programs as well. Also, early childhood education, we've changed how our students exit from that program. They actually exit now as certified teaching assistants. So if you have any TA openings, I know we do, you can actually hire your former students. And we've got at least two, I think, if not three,

075former city CTE students. I know I've gone way over, but Micron and your collaboration with them. I've tried to make sure that I'm at every meeting that I'm invited to for Micron. I'll skip a lacrosse game for my daughter next week so I can go to the SU Micron Day. that evening for the parent event that is on Tuesday the 21st that is going to be open to students in grades 7 through 12. I know Kristen Enright's working on trying to organize a group of Central Square students to go to SU and partner with Micron for some great STEM activities for parents at night from 6... o'clock on there will be a parent presentation on campus at Marley Hall and that information is on SU's website and I'm happy to share any additional information relative

076to that as well. Students if they want to come with their parents that night they can actually go watch an eSports competition between Boise State where Micron's research and development hub is located in Boise, Idaho and Syracuse University's eSports team as well. We also have our first ever chip camp in Oswego County which will be July 7th through the 9th on our Mexico campus and that will be open to students in grades 6 through 8. And then we're also waiting for some additional information from Micron on a STEM of Sports Academy with dates in May and June. So we anticipate we'll hear about that hopefully soon. And then equipment grants. Micron recently awarded City Boces $100,000 for a commercial driver's license simulator. So that will help kids in our heavy equipment program. And we'll also

077help our adult education program that work on their CDLA license as well. So trying to get you some more bus drivers too, Maureen. And then future partnerships, we're working with SUNY Oswego that received over a million dollars in the Community Impact Fund grant. That work will focus on professional development initiatives related to Micron's Community Impact Fund. So we're really trying to gear that work around providing PD for math teachers and for folks working in the STEM fields. And then obviously collaboration and governance. My phone is always on because your superintendent starts at about 4 or 2 a.m. with his snow day messages, sometimes ends around 10 p.m. So my phone's on just like Tom's, usually sits right by the side of the bed. Sometimes the work phone sits on the kitchen counter if I need

078a good night's sleep. And then we work with our superintendents on a monthly basis. They get a weekly update from me. We talk about discussions about budgets. Certainly, you know, we have similar costs. issues that you do as well health insurance utility costs on but most of our budgets are based on your request so I we try to meet those demands and make sure that we provide quality services with sufficient staffing levels And then, you know, certainly we have our annual dinner on Wednesday, which is put on by our culinary students. If your schedule's free up and you want to come, we'd love to have you. And we'll do a quick BOCES budget presentation. If you're free during the day and you want to check out some of our programs, we're going to have a

079student showcase where students will be exhibiting their talents as well. So I know I went way over. Apologies to other folks that are after me. I promised I'd keep it under an hour, and hopefully I achieved that goal. But thank you for your partnership and your commitment. Thank you. so much thank you Jeremy our students right yeah next up we have Paul V Moore and the Central Square middle school DECA presentation yes so I will now give the floor over to Tom Sweeney our executive high school principal slash director of counseling and pathways to success All right, thank you, and I promised our student leaders I would keep this really short. Just wanted to set the stage a little bit. I was fortunate enough about a month or so ago to go to the state

080competition in Rochester, and I got to say, first off, I felt like I was on an episode of Shark Tank. Like, it was incredible. but really what stood out to me is just the professionalism, the preparation, the dedication, and a lot of things you're gonna see and that our student leaders are gonna talk to you about. Seeing that firsthand is just truly incredible. So I can't, again, thank obviously all that are involved with allowing this to happen and these opportunities for our students to happen. Obviously our amazing teachers, our amazing staff who've been supporting our student leaders and all of their hard work and dedication that they're about to highlight for you. So thank you. Hi every- oh, okay yeah it's on. Okay, hi everyone. I hope you guys are all having a good night.

081We are from the high school's DECA chapter and we just want to start off by saying thank you for inviting us to come and kind of talk about what goes on in DECA. I'm Sophia Austin. I'm the executive vice president for our chapter and the vice president of hospitality for region 9. My name is Andrew Landis. I'm the vice president of hospitality for our school. My name is Kayden Squareman, the vice president of career development for our school chapter. I'm Cee Gibbs. I'm the upcoming vice president of leadership for our region. We just wanted to touch a little bit on what DECA is. We always get asked what it really is. It is a business club that helps students get college and career ready. We go through, we learn how to be professional, act, and

082come and think on the spot. There are three levels of DECA competition. The first one takes place in December at Le Moyne College and the top qualifiers from there attend the New York State competition that Mr. Sweeney was talking about in Rochester. It's a three-day event. There's business workshops, really great networking opportunities with people throughout the state and the qualifying members from that, which we have two of them in this room, one of them being your board representative, Emma Rubar. And the other one being C. Gibbs, so give C. a hand too. And they advance to the international competition, which changes every year. This year it's in Atlanta, Georgia. And that's a five-day event. You get to network with people from all over the world. I was very fortunate to go last year. It's a

083fantastic opportunity. So we also have DECA available at our middle school. This was introduced when I was in eighth grade. I participated in it. It was very fun to me. It definitely taught me a lot about professionalism. I learned how to act in a professional environment. I definitely say it gave me a head up over my peers when it comes to DECA or just school in general. I learned a lot that year, and I'm just very happy this is available for our middle school as well. Now besides just obviously role-playing like the professionalism of DECA it also allows you to have several leadership opportunities Which obviously, you know gives you an advantage going into college and into the real world So the base level like the lowest level that we offer and that like is

084available is the region officer or the chapter officers so that's what The three of us are Sophia, myself, and Cadence. And then above that, you can then do a regional officer. So they're the ones that create that regional conference in Le Moyne. C is the incoming one for next year, and Sophia is our outgoing one. And then above that, there's then the state officers who obviously help plan the state conference. They are elected at the state conference. We do not have any currently like last year or next year, but we have had some in the past. And then above the state officers, there's then the DECA Inc. executive officers. So those officers are elected. at the international conference, wherever it may be that year, and then they basically just help plan the international conference and

085oversee the entirety of DECA throughout the United States. A little more leadership. We just wanted to make sure to include a picture of our current officer team for our school. I'm not going to read through everyone, but we just want to have you guys be able to see who's on our team. Right now, we just want to show you a video that DECA has made itself to show attributes that students gain through DECA. Can somebody press the link, please? Playing on their screen. Yeah. Dr. Love. While he's doing that, what I can say is we used to be able to pay for chaperones to go beyond New York State. I think it's Atlanta. We're not doing that. But fortunately, some of the parents were able to complete all what they needed to do to be

086chaperones, and so now they're going. We did in the past pay for the hotel and chaperone. That was, again, one of the things that we were not able to do, which was a very difficult decision because we value DECA like we value P-TECH. Right? So there's a father in the audience right there. I had the opportunity to go to Micron. When I was there, I went in one of the rooms, and there's Ian Downey, one of our students. And his dad was in the room. I don't know if he's still in the room. And he was so proud to show me what he was doing there. So he's a senior for us, but technically he's also a sophomore at OCC. So there'll be $40,000 to $50,000 in savings because he's able to do that. Now

087that P-TECH costs money for us, but again, those are the things. And the 26 college courses that we have here where many of our kids actually enter college as sophomores. So those are the things that we do and that we'll talk about when we have that forum about priorities. Got it? At DECA, we are marketers and leaders. We stand out. Go above and beyond. And most of all, we do it in style. By learning, growing, traveling, and networking. By serving our community and developing our business skills. We become the next generation of leaders. In DECA, it all starts in the classroom. This isn't your typical classroom. This is a classroom to gain real world experience in what you want to do in life. Interested in a career in marketing, entrepreneurship, retail, tourism, automotive sales? DECA

088has everything for you. That brings us to competitions. It's kind of like solving a business problem and explaining it as best as you can. But with your best friend and in front of a judge. DECA is the largest student organization in the world for business, marketing, finance, and hospitality. The largest in the world! And you know what the best part is? You meet amazing people, you have amazing experiences, but you also have the chance to give back to your community. And you can even go the extra and earn scholarships. The extra mile. The extra degree. The extra level. The extra step. Now it's your time. Go the extra. All right, so I hope that video gave you all a better idea of what DECA... is like, but I have a little comparison to give you

089here. We have two different types of events in DECA. The most common one among students here at Paul V. Moore is the role play event. So this takes place, there's two components. There's a test, which is a 100 question multiple choice exam in whichever field you're doing. So for example, I'm in a marketing event, I would take a marketing test. And you do a role play, which is where you are given a case study. and you're given a certain amount of time to come up with a solution and present it in front of a judge, essentially. Now, our prepared events, these are more of a written prepared project. So instead of just going into the room presenting it, you have a bit more time to prepare. You present in front of a judge. One example

090of this is our Dare to Care initiative that we have brought around the district for many years. This counts as a community awareness project for a prepared event. So now you heard cadence talk about one of the events that you can do is a role play so a role play event is Basically as she said it's a scenario that you're given and on that scenario has performance indicators Those performance indicators are pretty much the actual vital part of the role play And when I mean role play I mean like role play it literally tells you like what your job that you're assuming is whether it's like you're a new manager that they're bringing in or whether you are a manager that's been there and you're collaborating with your boss about something new that the company

091wants to do. And you have to meet with them, be very professional, act like this is a business environment. But on top of that, they only give you 10 minutes to read this role play for individual events, 20 minutes for team events. So you'll go into a room, they'll give you the paper, you'll start, you get 10 minutes to read it, 10 minutes to write down your answers, 10 minutes to come up with. questions in your head that you think they might ask pertaining to what you're saying and figuring out how to answer those because you know you kind of have to answer them a bit on the spot you can't like sit there and think of your answer when you're in front of the judge. And then after you come up with your answers,

092you then move into the judges' room where they will have a score sheet for you. And they basically will then just, like, you'll talk with them, give them your ideas. They'll ask you questions. You have to answer those. And after that, they'll grade you, and then you'll get your score sheet back later. Sometimes there's notes on it. Sometimes there's not. And you basically just kind of have to, like, figure out, like, with your advisors and with other people, like, what you think you did well, what you think you didn't do well on to improve if you advanced or to improve for the next year. All right, so what we are going to do now is I'm going to have some of my fellow officers over here pass around some role plays for you. We believe

093that DECA encompasses all of the aspects of a New York State graduate. Some of them you can see are displayed up here. Andrew, do you have the clicker? Thank you. All right, so we are passing around a role play in this is a real event food marketing with an instructional area of pricing so all of the performance indicators you're going to see on the front are related to pricing and We're going to give you all three minutes to just jot down some bullet point ideas Read through this scenario and just some notes on how you would solve this problem. So We're going to set a timer for you. Please don't look at the back page if there is one with the judges sheet. We would like you guys to just look at the scenario to

094really just give you guys an idea of what we are seeing as students when we step into that role play room. You guys have about a minute and a half left to come up with your performance indicators. You guys have 10 seconds. Make sure you're wrapping up your final thoughts. Okay, guys, pens down. Put them down. So, how was that? Was it fun? Can somebody just raise their hand if they have been a judge or something in the past? Who would like to be a volunteer for me? You want to be a volunteer for me? Okay. And then can somebody else who hasn't done it before, can they raise their hand to volunteer for me? I don't think they want to hear my voice anymore, so let's go. Anybody? Any takers? Ms. Henry, I know

095you do. Yeah. Okay. Okay. And mine was all about food. Hold on, I'm sweating. I'm hungry. Mine talked about steak. Okay, go ahead. Can I have my two volunteers come up to the front for me? Bring your microphones. Yes, yes, bring your scrap paper, Ms. Enright. People are watching this from home. Do I need my paper? Ms. Enright, you're welcome. I guess I'll bring it anyway. No. Oh, did we all have the same thing? Yes. Okay. I'm ready. She doesn't like us. She's scared. She's scared of us. All right, you're my judge. I am. Okay, here's one of the sheets that the judges get. Thank you. You ready to do a... A mock-up? Uh-huh. All right. Go ahead. Share your ideas. I just got through reading it. Make sure you hit your performance indicators. Oh,

096sure. I was really hungry. This is all about steak. So I'm going to choose as the chief product manager of the meat department at Fair Market. I'm going to decide, because Father's Day is coming up, that right now, while it's a couple weeks away, we're going to increase the price of steak just a little bit, just enough to make a nice little slash in the price to show them that the sale on Father's Day is going to be big. So they're going to be used to a little increase for the next couple weeks here, and then all of a sudden, bam, we're going to slice the prices. Steak's going to be on sale, especially, I think it's ribeye. Yeah, ribeye, because that's what they love on Father's Day. According to the document. That's it. Okay,

097now the indicators. Do I just go through each one? Yeah. Okay, I'll explain the nature. In competition, they don't get those tips. Shaking. Shaking. Describe the role of business ethics. Yeah, I mean, I think it is ethical. We do have to make a little bit of a profit. We're a business, so while stakes are being sold right now, it's okay that we increase the price a little because we want to get ready for the most important holiday, Father's Day, to celebrate that. We want to make sure that we're getting their stakes at a reasonable price and we stay competitive. These decisions are being made because the pricing market right now is really tough. I know they use business words. We should ask Maureen to come on over. Oh, we're going to have results. Big ones.

098This is very ethical because, you know, we're not increasing the prices too much. We're just going to a little bit, and then we're going to show the price decrease, and it's going to be fair. Yeah, that's it. That's my conclusion. Yeah. No, that was good. Thank you. Go ahead. Go ahead. Did you did you practice score her? So not on the spot. Thank you. No, that one's mine. I was gonna have to steal yours. No, no post. So for the audience to understand what they're getting scored on, the question is did the participant, little to no value, below expectations, meets expectations, exceeds expectations, both in performance indicators and 21st century skills. So a few of them that they're scored on, explaining the nature and scope of the pricing function. We'll say meets with a little

099bit of help. Describes the role of business ethics in pricing. She did say it was ethical last, the last thing she said. Maybe meets. Explains factors affecting pricing decisions. Father's Day. Demonstrates connections between company actions and results. Explain consequences of unprofessional and or unethical behavior in marketing. And then in their 21st century skills, they're scored on reasons effectively and use systems thinking. Make judgments and decisions to solve problems. Communicate clearly. Show evidence of creativity. And overall impression of the responses of the judge's questions. On the spot. Perfect. Thank you. You're welcome. You can give her her score. So we didn't have that many volunteers to come up and actually practice. So was that hard? Oh, yeah. Yeah. We do this. And we didn't even ask the second questions that have to come up on the

100spot. So it's a little bit harder than what we just did. We actually do this when we go to regionals, when we go to states. It's important that we know what we're talking about, and that's by using DECA Plus that our school offers for us. It's by just simply knowing the terms and. And as Sophia mentioned, you know, you guys, most of you probably struggle a little bit with coming up with some ideas, but also probably the language that it was asking you and the language that it wanted you to respond with. It can be a little funky sometimes. I used to struggle a lot really with the language, especially under the performance indicators. And so this just like. Business classes here are immensely helpful for this. I did not take any until my senior

101year. Big regret. But I didn't take any until my senior year. This year I'm taking two. And my scores I saw between last year and this year at both regionals and states improved drastically. And that just goes to show how valuable business classes are, especially to this, but also like... You'll see some of these outside these terms in the real world in your job, depending on what you go on to do. And so it's just important to have a little bit of knowledge and background with them. Just kind of adding on to that, when I was a freshman, I made it to states. In my test for states, I got a 30, just a flat 30. And then this past year when I went to states, I got like a 76. Just by taking all

102those business courses, being around it all the time, it helps tremendously. It really does. But yeah, we just wanted to have that up to show you what the judges kind of score us on. We're not in the room when they're scoring us, so it's not like we can take a little peek and kind of see what we get. Here are some student testimonials on just how DECA has changed them and made them a better student. So yeah, so that's our presentation. I just want to thank you guys again for letting us speak, for listening to what we had to say. It was really a great honor, and we appreciated you guys having us here. And we hope that you liked our presentation and know a little bit more about DECA now and what we go

103through. Let me say this before everyone starts applauding. So Tristan Rice was a student here that got accepted to pretty much every Ivy League school. He went to Princeton, and one of the first things that they noticed was DECA, that he took that. And when you talk to Tristan, who now not only is he an attorney, but he's actually going to be a doctor in medical field, like everything. He attributes DECA and when people say hey, how's your business department compared to the county? No offense to the rest of the county, but I think we have a lot of parents that know that we have the only business department in all of Oswego County. So the courses that they offer are phenomenal. And again, in other districts, it's one teacher. We have, and we're very

104excited on this board packet to be hiring Dean Schluter's daughter. Where are they? Is it here? There's your standoff. She was a student here. And now she's back, is going to be teaching in that business department, and we're very excited about that. DECA is amazing. You guys are amazing. What you do with your confidence standing up there, the problem-solving, but just that you look people in the eyes, you are the embodiment of we want, when we talked about the attributes and competencies of a Central Square learner nine years ago before the state came out with Portrait of a Graduate, Effective Communicator, Problem Solver, Collaborator, every one of you up there. have such a high level of maturity, of confidence. We're very proud of you, and we're proud of the teachers and your parents that instilled

105that in you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you to the students Steve and I actually did judge this year at the Lemoyne The Moyne Lemoyne level of competition and it was very impressive to say the least So thank you for that presentation moving on to item e personnel Can I get a motion for all of item e? All right any discussion all those in favor? moving on to item F the consent agenda and I get a motion for All of item F? Second? All right. Any discussion? All those in favor? All right. Item G, reports. We'll start with the student board representative. Go ahead, Emma. Okay. So what I brought for you is that the class of 2026 just concluded ball ticket sales today for senior ball on May 9th, which is taking place at

106the On Center. And then for the junior class, their prom is May 30th at the Drumlins Country Club in Syracuse. In addition to that, student government is planning a day for the Spring Talent Show and District 10 Conference that will actually be taking place at CSI in late May. We haven't come up with a date for that, but we are planning on coming up with a date for that soon. And AP tests are coming up in less than a month, and our history and science teachers are starting to prepare students for those. They are very, very scary tests, so it's very important that we have students prepared for those. The Spring Art Showcase and Cabaret are taking place next Thursday, April 23rd. And the showcase is K-12. It is a very great thing that we

107have here. It's actually here in the cafeteria. And the art show starts at 5 and Cabaret starts at 7, which is a very great event. It's really great for our art and music students. And then Wednesday, May 20th, is Paul V. Moore's Top 100 Ceremony, celebrating the top 25 students in each grade level. And kind of just to go off of what I actually wrote down, I'm really happy that they came in and talked about DECA because I've personally had people come up to me in the hallway and ask what it is, and it's kind of hard to explain on the spot, but it's a really great club that our school has, and I'm so happy that it's growing because it has truly taught me so much, and I feel like I've... made connections through

108it made friends and i feel like i've learned so much more about school and just the real world just through that club and all the people that brought me to it so thank you emma thank you does any other board members have any reports before i turn it over to tom for the superintendent report middle school has a open house um this gosh i think it's thursday the 16th um i think the high school is next Next week to the 23rd. So two open houses next two weeks. We'd love to see you Griffin's Guardians 2026 Change for Hope shared some incredible news. 70 schools across New York State participated in the 2026 Change for Hope campaign, collectively raising an amazing $65,043.81. Central Square District alone raised $8,150.32. Central Square Middle School boys that attended the

109wrestling tournament in Albany in March and represented Central Square, Legere, Lambert. placed first in his weight class. Anthony Pasquarella placed first in his weight class. Axel Look placed first in his weight class. Andrew Burke placed second in his weight class. And Hunter Burns placed third in his weight class. Liam, this was very special. I brought my family to this. Liam and Mason Hunter, Pallavie Moore High School students, are members of a... Bagpipe band, it says pipe band, maybe we forgot to put bagpipe, or maybe it's just called pipe band. They played at Burrato's restaurant. They had asked me to go. I brought my family. I very seldomly take spring breaks, go anywhere. I brought my family. They wanted to go. Ireland and it was great. We went here two days before, a couple days before

110and they got to hear, even though that was Scottish, when we were in Ireland we did hear a lot of bagpipes. So they were thrilled and mesmerized. My two kids play instruments. It was awesome. I thought I was going to give the parents some, when they were saying you can give tips, I'm like, you know, I would, but you really should have had a Venmo and they showed me there was the Venmo. Genius. I'm sure the kids did very well. It was packed. And again, with the whole St. Patrick's Day vibe, they were amazing. So kudos to them and to their instructors and their parents. Good news for the music department. The Junior Varsity Winter Guard competed at the Mid-York Color Guard State Championships. They finished second out of eight groups in their class and

111earned silver medals. The Varsity Winter Guard competed in the Mid-York Color Guard, also finished second in their class and earned silver medals. Both groups finished their season in Dayton, Ohio, representing Central Square in the WGI World Championships. The Central Square Middle School Percussion Ensemble competed at the NYS. PC state championship show they finished first in their class with a score of 90.3 the Central Square High School indoor percussion completed and finished 34th in state with bronze medals This was the highest finish for the group since they started marching over ten years ago Great job to all when we had the community show again. It was packed. It was just a great demonstration of what our students can do in and out of the classroom. Brewerton Elementary School was nominated for the Amplify Science Reading Star

112Award. This highlighted the amazing New York State test scores, DIBELS achievement, and the training the staff continually received in SOR among other examples. And the one thing I just want everyone to know is Central Square led three through eight testing for math and ELA across the entire county and with Brewerton Elementary actually beating Skinny Atlas, beating Favo Manlius. And all of our elementaries showed tremendous growth. The literacy program, my hat's off to our assistant superintendent Erin Phillips, starting back when she did a demonstration of Scarborough's Rope, and I remembered all of that, and the science of reading. And all the research shows that if kids are not reading on grade level at the end of third grade, they're four times less likely to graduate with the cohort they started school with. And if they come

113from a family with poverty... that it's another 9%. So for some of our little kiddos, they're 13% behind the eight ball. So we have aggressively looked at that. We have walked to skills. We have this wind time. Our teachers are doing amazing things. Aaron has played a key role in that. And we had other districts in our... our county and on an odd county that continue to want to take tours of central square to go into our elementary buildings to see what we're doing with literacy because the scores are speaking for themselves so we're very very thrilled about that and great job kudos to you yes great job aaron that concludes it yep okay So moving on to item H, and we have to do these individually because a lot require a roll call vote.

114Can I get a motion for H1, the adoption of the proposed 2026-2027 school district budget proposition? And again, this is the proposition as it's going to be written on the ballot for the total amount of the budget. This is not line item. This is, you know, it's just for the total amount of the budget. Can I get a motion? Lori? I'll second. Casey second. Any discussion? All those in favor? Okay. Roll call vote. So Steve is not here. I'm a yes. Allison's not here. Ryan? Ryan? Casey? Yeah. Ken is not here. David? Yeah. And Lori. Moving on to H2. We don't need a roll call on this one, but it's for approval of a new course proposal. Can I get a motion for H2? Okay. Any discussion? Yeah, that's the only thing that I want

115to say. I'm incredibly happy to say it. And since we do have a lot of people in the audience, I will tell you it's a financial literacy course that's going to start in the fall at the middle school level in sixth grade. So that'll be awesome for sixth graders to start to understand the basics of literacy, or financial literacy. So all those in favor? It's unanimous. Moving on to H3, the approval of the resolution for the destruction of ballots from the May 20th, 2025 annual budget vote and election. Can I get a motion? Second. All right. Any discussion? And just to clarify, Pearl, this is only the May vote? This is not for the ballots from the re-vote? This is only from last year's vote. Okay. Roll call vote. Steve's not here. I'm a yes.

116Allison's not here. Ryan? Brian. Yes. Casey. Yes. Ken is not here. David. Yes. And Lori. Yes. All right. Are you good, Pearl? Yes. Okay. Moving on to H4, the approval of the Capital Outlay Project, SEQRA, this year is going to be taking place for structural reinforcement at Brewerton Elementary. Can I get a motion? Second. Second. Brian. Any discussion? All those in favor? Yes. All right. Steve's gone. I am a yes. Ryan. Yes. Brian. Yes. Casey. Yes. David. Yes. Lori. Yes. All right. Moving on to H5. Sorry. Oh, yeah. Go ahead. So after the board, we kind of got rolling there, but after the board approves personnel, when we see people in the audience, we'd like them to stand up and welcome them. So I was just kind of slapped down by that table over there

117because I only said one proud father of Dean Schluter, who's a veteran in this district, but also his wife, Kelly Schluter, is one of our veteran elementary teachers. And now congratulations to Emily Schluter. Stand up. You are now part of the Central Square team. Congratulations and welcome. all right getting back we're on h5 right pearl all right h5 approval of the agreement for the sponsorship of continuing education can i get a motion second from brian any discussion all those in favor all right now i need the executive just the highlighted part okay um i will make a motion uh to that the Central Square Central School District Board of Education hereby move into executive session to discuss matters leading to the discipline of a particular person. Can I get a second? All those in favor?

118There's no action. Yeah, so we're going to go into executive session. We will come out to close the meeting, but there won't be any further action or discussions.