001Good evening everyone, call the meeting. Board President to advise members of the audience that they may address the board regarding agenda items after the superintendent's report. Only those members whose names and addresses are listed on the sign sheet available prior to the start of the meeting will be recognized for their new business. The chairperson will limit discussions of any item by the public to three minutes in order for the board to expositionally conduct its business. I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Manzo. Thank you, Mr. Dorff. Good evening, everyone. Tonight, we are in for a treat. We have Mrs. Bethany Affelt, our music teacher and musical director from the high school, here today with a group of performers to give us a preview of the musical Big Fish. If you have not already done
002so, please get your tickets before they sell out. The performances will be held on March 20th, 21st, and 22nd. And at this time, I'd like to introduce Mrs. Affelt. So there's elements of both fantasy and reality in the show, and it's mostly about one man and his experience as he moves through his life. So that character's name is... He is played by senior Tyler Hills when Edward Bloom meets his wife for the very first time. So that's played by Juliana Daddario, senior. And now we have a bunch of our leading and featured actors here. I'm just going to introduce them really quick. So we have Juliana VanMills, senior. And then we have Fabián Núñez, also senior. Paige Mathers and freshman Kendall Bravano here. Anderson Ross, you'll also see tonight, is here. He plays Will Little.
003He plays Carl and Jen as other actors. It really is fantastic. These students have been working so hard. It's equal parts funny and also heart wrenching at times. It's really, really a beautiful show. So next Thursday, Friday at 7 p.m. and Saturday at 2, go to EIHSboxoffice.com to buy your tickets. They're $15 a piece. And I'd like to invite Anderson, Kendall, Paige, and Jules up here to take the stage as it were and the evening time as well. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, any one of these ask to join the Callaway Circus. Next up, number 73, the Alabama Lambs. For the Alabama Lambs. Number two. Wait, not that type of number too. Miss Templeton, does your daddy know you're here? He knows I'm with my two best friends. Tell me, your father, is he still a
004small town sheriff with unmedicated rage issues? That's dad. Best you get along then and breathe not a word of this folly. Supposed to be here, I know it. And I know that I don't want to end up hanging on your daddy's wall like this. A dream, a hope, a wish? Please, mister, just try. Fine. Let's hear it. Shim-sham, I'm a lamb from Alabama Hoping to be led by your boyfriend and the next person to go. A huge thank you to all our performers. Please make sure to get your tickets and support our rising stars. Thank you. Our next presentation, I will be turning it over to Mr. Stanton and Mr. Dr. Stanton and Mr. O'Connell. I'd like to thank you all. Superintendent Manzo and the Board of Education for inviting us here tonight. We're not
005going to sing and dance for you guys. The level of expertise is in a different world. I brought members of our robotics team here tonight to celebrate some of the things that they went through this year. We designed and created a robot. We'll leave it for you so you can take a closer look. We went and competed at a competition back in the end of January at Belmore. These guys performed very, very well. It really was a testament to their countless hours. efforts that they put into designing and creating a pretty highly competitive robot. We had a lot of fun on that day, but what they learned, you know, throughout the course of the time together that we spent over the past couple years and specifically that day, you know, really was a testament to
006their abilities. and designing and creating a solid robot. I have some other members of my team here that are gonna do a little presentation real quick, but I'd like to thank everybody for coming tonight. Billy Blastruck, Andrew DiMaria, Quentin Kuhn, Jackson Carucci, and Jack Gravano, who is leaving us this year. I told his parents he's not allowed to leave. He's gotta stick around for a couple more years. He's my right-hand man, and I really appreciate everything that we've experienced together, so you will be missed. But without further ado, let me give it up to Jackson here. Similarly, our participation in the STEAM Day events over the past four years have allowed us to share our programming with younger children, helping them to explore their interests in STEM fields and learn about future classes. Through this
007course, I have met with like-minded individuals who have now become some of my best friends, opening doors to new opportunities and experiences in the sphere of robotics and the other STEM careers. I'd like to start off by thanking everyone that has helped me get to where I am today. Mr. Connell. The man is the one guy that has helped me with my robotics journey over the past four years. Three of those years I were in his classes that would be, my freshman year I took robotics one. Very basic to learn about how a robot works, building a robot from a kit so you just follow the instructions like a Lego set, drive it around. It's not that complicated. But then he said, build your own robot. Don't use the kit. Here's a pile of materials,
008go build something, and some tools. So I made a robot group a few times, switched it up throughout the year, you know, built a few more robots, beat them up, crashed them into each other, let them fall apart, built them back again, played against all my classmates. And that was great. I loved it. Went into his second year, I joined the club, took robotics too. That's all advanced, building your own robot from the ground up. No instructions. Here's a task, build a robot, make it happen. So we did. I went to my first competition, did very well. That competition, I helped us earn the Build Award. That was an award given to the team that could best present what they had made. So not only did I help build a robot, I sold the idea
009of what we made. It's not just a pile of parts. I came up with this idea, it does this. We made our robot do that. It can do this much of that in this amount of time. Whatever question they asked, I answered it perfectly. And we had this amazing trophy at the end of it too, brought it home. Now it was only my sophomore year. Now I'm a senior. I've learned a lot more too. I'm in computer aided design this year. I made a chassis on a computer and then was able to 3D print it. And I carried that into testing just to see how it compares to the metal components that we are given through the VEX robotic system. This is also my third STEAM day. STEAM Day is an event that you guys
010I'm sure all know. You present robotics and other fields of STEAM to elementary and middle school age students and try to get them on board with these programs so that when they come to high school they can take classes around these fields and gain an interest in them. So I helped put together some exhibits and taught these middle schoolers about and elementary schoolers about robotics for a whole day. It was extremely successful and that's about it. It's my last year now. I'm done. I'm graduating. I'm going on to bigger, better things. I'm leaving my robotics team behind, unfortunately. I wish I could stay here for like a hundred years, but I'm... Unfortunately, I am timed out. I can no longer stay here unless I fail of course and then I'll be here next year But
011I don't think it's gonna happen. I haven't failed the quarter yet. So we'll see Thank you Thank you, Dr. Stanton and Mr. Connell for presenting today and congratulations to our robotics team on the great work done. Your performance this year was tremendous. So thank you. So now for the moment we've all been waiting for I am turning the floor over to Mr. Steve Harrison for our superintendent, I said superintendent for business and business department. Excuse me, for business. Who will conduct our first budget presentation. Mr. Harrison. Thank you very much. I know people will be disappointed, but I also will not be singing or dancing tonight. But thank you to the Board of Ed for allowing me to present tonight the budget presentation number one, as well as thank you to the superintendent, my colleagues,
012administrators throughout the district, and my staff as well, and the clerical staff in helping us get to the point of being able to present the budget tonight. So certainly creating a budget is a balancing act. We have to determine what revenue is available, what our expenses are going to be, and make up the difference with reserves that might be available to the district. So we'll start the discussion tonight talking about revenue, the two main components of revenue, which are state aid and property taxes. There are several screens within the presentation that discuss both accomplishments and initiatives that have been in the budget as well as this year and perhaps going into the future years. We'll talk about the expense side of the budget. There will be a second proposition on the ballot to consider a
013capital reserve expenditure. Then what the remaining budget timeline is for this year So this graph talks about the state aid in the governor's proposal And as you can see going to the bottom line our state aid is going off roughly by 2% mainly driven by foundation aid This time last year we were talking about the Save Harmless provision that may have been taken out of the budget. Thankfully it wasn't. But that Save Harmless provision, which is in the budget for next year, talks about not receiving any less foundation aid in any given year as what was received in the prior year. And East Iceland, based upon that formula, and our decreasing enrollment and poverty levels, would only get the minimum increase to foundation aid, which is 2%. I'd also like to point out building aid,
014which here the governor's budget is only going up by $61,000. However, when I took a look at the more recent information that was available to the governor when she put together her budget, that number is actually going to be a bit higher, probably about $4.5 to $4.6 million. The other thing I'd like to point out is Universal Pre-K is staying at the levels we received in the current year of $963,900. That will fund 178 full-time spots in the Universal Pre-K program. The allocation that the district receives is $5,400 per student, and we're at the mercy of the state budget about how much is given to us in any given year. So again, just to summarize, state aid is going up 2% or $820,000. The other main component of our revenue side of the budget is
015the tax levy. Each district has to go through a similar calculation to determine what their maximum allowable tax levy cap is. In the case of the district, our level at maximum tax levy is 2.93% increase over the current year's tax levy, or $2.2 million. There are several components that go into this calculation. We start with the current year tax levy of $75.8 million. New York State provides us with what's called a tax-based growth factor. And that's a number that's supposed to represent the amount of building that's going on within the East Isle community. So due to that number, we're permitted to increase our tax levy by over a million dollars. Next, we have to look at what's called pilot payments, payments in lieu of taxes. And these are concessions given by the town of Islip
016to promote businesses in the community. And we have a new pilot payment that's coming on the books. Anytime the district receives a pilot payment, that reduces our ability to raise taxes. So the new pilot payment, the expected payment is $27,989. So that's the amount that has to be reduced from the levy because we have another revenue source. Excuse me. The next item that's used for comparison purposes is the capital levy. And what this is, it's the amount of debt service that we're having on our capital projects less the state aid. So in years where that's going down, as it is next year, that reduces our ability to increase the levy. There may be years where that's reversed and we'll be able to increase the tax levy for our capital levy expenditure. But just to summarize,
017that's the amount of debt service on our capital construction projects, less the state aid received for those projects. The next step would be to increase the levy by the lesser of 2% or CPI. CPI for this recently completed year was 2.95%, but the formula indicates that it's going to be the lesser of 2% or CPI. So we're increasing the tax levy by 2%. So when you put that all together, that's what determines the allowable tax levy. This is the amount that we can go to without having to pierce the cap, and it requires just a 50% plus one majority vote by the community. After careful consideration and discussions with the board, the number that's in support of next year's budget is not at the 2.93%, it's actually lower at 1.75%. The next chart compares the
018tax levy maximum allowable calculation versus what the actual tax levy increase was for any given year. So actually there's a, looks like that's a typo there. Yeah, I'll have to correct that, I apologize. But the 2.93% Is the cap levy for next year, we're able to support the budget currently at 1.75%. Those two numbers are flipped between 24 and 25 and 25 and 26. Last year was 1.5, next year it's anticipated at 1.75%. So that will be corrected and put on the website tomorrow. My apologies. So this is the same information just in dollars instead of percentages. So as you can see, we could tax up to $78 million. However, right now, in support of the budget, it's $77.1 million, roughly $900,000 less than we can go up to for the maximum allowable cap. So
019any time you see a gap between the top line and the bottom line, those are times where we tax levy growth less than what the actual cap was allowed to be. So there's a consequence for being below the tax levy cap and it's cumulative. So each time you're below the cap, that reduces your ability to increase your next year's tax levy. So just as an example if we were able to go to the tax levy cap in each year Our tax levy would have been as high as 89.1 million dollars. But as you can see we're at 77.1 So the cumulative effect of not going to the cap in all the prior years is roughly 12 million dollars So this is just historical information on where we were with the school tax rate for the
020individual homeowner with an average assessed valuation of $40,000. So if the tax rate was increased by 1.75%, the anticipated impact to the homeowner with an average assessment would be about $140 for the year. Now just keep in mind there are other things that go on to determine what the actual tax rate increase is. like the average assessment and the assessed values in the district. So we don't have total control over the tax rate. We have control over the tax levy, but then things happen at the town level, which may change that number up or down. But assuming the same information for 25, 26 that we had in 24, 25, the average homeowner can anticipate a $140 increase for the year. So this is a graph of all our revenue sources. As we talked about, the
021levy's at $77.1 million, or 60% of the total revenue and reserves are being put forth to support the budget. The next largest item would be our state aid at 32%. And then as you can see towards the top of the graph, the district is right now supporting the budget with $6.4 million in reserves for next year. The next several slides, if you already don't have a printout of the presentation, I urge you to take one. There's very many initiatives that are being put forth, both currently as well as into next year's budget. I would just invite everybody to take a look at that and certainly contact us with any questions. I'm going to just click through them for the time being. So now we'll move to the expense side of the budget. Our salary benefits
022are remaining relatively flat going into next year with an increase of $720,000. There are several reasons for that happening. As you can see, employee benefits are going down by $625,000. There are a number of things going on there. Our TRS rates are decreasing as compared to this year. saving us $450,000. ERS rates for the rest of our staff are going up slightly, somewhat offsetting that decrease from the TRS. Medical insurance for the first time in recent history is remaining relatively flat for next year. We had single-digit increases to our premiums, which helped keep that number relatively flat. It's going down slightly by $200,000. On the salary side, we have the opportunity to have some savings due to retirements. We are replacing those positions in the budget at lesser salaries, but we do have 13 retirees
023going to next year's budget. We have seen some increase in salary expense for our custodial maintenance grounds and security staffs due to contractually bargained arrangements, as well as having additional security staff on hand. The remaining parts of the budget represent a smaller percentage of the increase. We have smaller items here. I'll try to highlight some of them. First, I'll go to the bottom line. Our budget to budget increase is 2.35% over the 24-25 budget. On the equipment line, we see we have quite a bit of an increase. That's for a number of reasons. We are beefing up our security equipment about $400,000. We have some computer hardware in the budget for next year. Campus Workflow Suite is one of the items that's causing that increase, as well as some items on the buildings and grounds
024side. Specifically, we're looking at a pit filler for the high school. We have LED sign for the high school. We have some technical improvements for HVAC, as well as at this building. There's some smaller items included, security vehicles, snow plows, a scissor lift, bleachers. So that's all in the equipment number, increase of $1 million as compared to this year. On the transportation side, we're going up $204,000, which is essentially the CPI increase. The transportation contract is being extended into next year, and we're permitted, as well as the contractor, is to increase their fees by CPI. The utilities continue to get adjusted year to year on the downward trend for our energy performance contract we did several years ago. On the insurance side, we do see an increase there of $200,000 and that's due to premium
025increases as well as the additional flood insurance that we took out this year, contemplation of cyber insurance for next year. So we built in some increase there. We have a number of things happening within the professional and technical services. We have some increase to our special ed related service providers. We have an E-rate project. We have some additional security expense offset by some movement amongst the codes from buildings and grounds into different categories. If we go down to equipment repair, we were able to tighten the budget on the buildings and grounds side, which was partially offset by anticipated repair of a piano for the music department. Moving down to BOCES, we see an increase of $487,000. That's mainly due to additional placements within the special ed component of BOCES and also our enrichment program that
026has some increased expenditures. That's the before and after school program. And then finally moving down to the Interfund Transfer's increase of $79,000. That increase is attributable to the demolition of the Timber Point Portable that's going to take place next year. So overall, the budget's going up by 2.35% in the first draft, or $2.9 million. The next two slides just look at the budget as a percentage of our total budget. So we can see that our budget fluctuates between 75% and 74% for salary and benefits. And that's not uncommon for both us as well as other school districts. The remaining items make up a smaller portion, 25 to 26%. And you can see the individual categories there, all relatively small with the exception of BOCES and transportation. So there'll be a second proposition on ballot on
027May 20th. Last year, the voters approved a capital reserve. And that reserve was approved with a term of ten years with us allowing contributions of the $3 million a year to a total amount of $30 million. And this reserve is to fund capital projects so that the district doesn't have to borrow and it helps us avoid borrowing costs. So there'll be no additional impact to the taxpayer here. In year one, which was last year, we were able to fund $3 million. The voters have ultimate. approval of spending these funds. So that's why it's on the ballot. We're looking to spend up to three million dollars next year and the scope of the reserve was to make major system upgrades mainly mechanical electrical plumbing as well as building renovations and site park. So there is a
028project that we're contemplating for next year to replace the switch gear at the both ECC building and timber point. And essentially, in layman terms, this is the mechanism that takes the electric from the outside into the building and then disperses it throughout the building. And both the switchgear at ECC and Timber Point are in need of replacement. So this has some historical information going back to 2015-16 for the tax levy, percentage increase on the tax levy from year to year. And as you can see, the tax levy has been kept relatively stable. The average increase on average for the past five years has been 1.42%. Currently, the budget is at $129,013,000. $13,060 and we're appropriating less money this year than we did previously last year because we weren't sure where the budget was going to
029end up with that safe homeless. So this year, right now, supporting the budget of 1.75%, we acquired $6.4 million from reserves to help even the revenue and the expense budgets. So our next discussion on the budget will be March 27th at 7 o'clock to have the second budget presentation. There'll be a third budget presentation April 22nd at which meeting we'll be hopefully adopting the budget. And then there's a New York State required meeting on May 6th where there'll be a budget hearing. And then finally May 20th will culminate with the vote from 6 AM to 9 PM in this building here. So at this point I'd like to ask the board if there are any questions, comments. Questions. Mr. Harris, first of all, thank you very much for bringing this together and for doing this
030presentation. So our tax levy allowable number, you said it was 2.93%? That's correct. But you are proposing 1.75. How did you reduce that number from 2.93 to 1.75? Are we cutting anything? Any staff, any programs? Well, we came to that number after a discussion with the board. And the difference was made up in appropriating more reserves to fund the difference, which was roughly $900,000. So it came from surplus. And how much of reserves are in this budget to support it? The total number is $6.4 million. And if the board approves the 175, well, let's go back. The state may still appropriate more funds, correct? That's not a solid number. This is based upon the governor's budget and the state aid that's going to be received through the governor's budget. My understanding is that both houses
031have issued their bills which are now going to be looked at and negotiated and finally the governor will have a veto panel before it's finally decided. But there could be additional funds, yes. And if the board were to approve the 175 and the community approves it, there's a chance that that might even be lower, correct? I'm sorry? It might even be lower than that depending on the assessments and things like you mentioned before. Right. The taxes may not go up on 75 if they approve it. Correct. Thank you. Mr. Harris, I want to thank you again for putting it together. The question I had was just regarding on slide 21, you were showing the last 10 years worth of tax letters and percentages at the bottom of the slide. You mentioned about the five-year average.
032Is it possible we can calculate the 10-year average overall? Because you were showing 10 years worth of data in that slide as well. Sure, looking at the percentages that number would definitely go lower because each one of the prior years would be lower. So I would expect that number to drop. Okay. So I'll include the ten year average next time. Appreciate it, thank you. Ms. Harrison. You're welcome. Public comments on agenda items only. Senior. Certified personnel be resolved upon the recommendation of Superdentist Schools, the Board of Education, hereby approves of resignations, terminations, need of accesses, position abolitions, employment appointments, tenure appointments, and salary changes in accordance with applicable provisions of education law and civil service law as cited in the certified personal attachment. Is there any motion? Motion. Second. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye.
033On the agenda tonight we have Rachel Kinch who will be retiring so we just would like to congratulate her and thank her for years of service to the East ISUP School District. Congratulations Mrs. Kinch. Thank you Dr. Wood. Non-certified personnel. Be resolved that upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools, the Board of Education hereby approves the resignation, termination, need of absences, position abolition, employment appointments, tenure appointments, and salary changes in accordance with applicable provisions of education law and civil service law as cited in the non-certified person type. There is any motion? Motion. Second. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Subject area fails to meet the criteria for designation as a child safety zone in accordance with section 3635B of New York State education law. Whereas the East Side Sub-Union Free School District has an
034interest in student safety and whereas the Board of Education is pursuant to education law section 3635-B, paragraph 5. made an investigation to determine if a hazard zone exists within the district in an area hereby referred to as the subject area, more specifically described in attachment A. And whereas such an investigation was made pursuant to the regulations of the New York State Commission of Transportation, and whereas such an investigation revealed to the Board of Education that a hazardous zone does not exist in the subject area, it resolved that the Board of Education has determined in such As the subject fails to qualify as a hazard zone, that the subject area should not be designated a child safety zone. And be it further resolved that the Board of Education shall designate Steve Harris, an assistant superintendent of
035business, the board's representative responsible for providing written notice of this determination and the reasons that the subject area does not qualify as a hazard zone. To any students who resolve them, reside in the subject area in accordance with with education law section 35-B, paragraph 9. We have a motion. Any discussion? Mr. Harrison, can you explain that in English for people as to what the investigation was and how they reached this determination? Sure. The district received a petition from the community. to look at the neighborhood that includes the Sunrise Highway walkover bridge, specifically Craig v. Garvey Avenue and Jefferson Street. So once a petition is received and deemed to be acceptable, we have to commission a study, which we hired Easton Suffolk BOCES to come and look at that area. It's not, what I should say
036is there's a matrix developed by New York State that the scoring has to go by. It's not arbitrary. And based upon that review and using the Conway Drive West and Jefferson Street areas, there were hazardous zones looked at. And while there were points that accrued towards a safety zone, it didn't meet the criteria in total. So as an example, there are no sidewalks or shoulders on the south side of that walkover bridge. So there were points that were accrued to that safety study and then secondarily on the other side, on Gary Bay, there were points based upon the volume of traffic during given times. When you combine both these items together, it did not make enough points to suggest to the board that this is a child safety zone. Thank you. Any other questions? All
037in favor of this motion? Aye. Aye. MLA regarding creation of the varsity girls wrestling coach be resolved upon the recommendation of superintendent schools of Board of Education hereby approves the murmuring of agreement between by and between the East Isle Free School District and the East Isle Teachers Association for the creation of a varsity girls wrestling coach position effective July 1st, 2025. Coming in motion. Motion. Second. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Aye. 6.5 agreement between East Isle of Union Free School District and the East Isle of Teachers Association regarding payment of stipends for additional activities. Unified bowl will be resolved upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools, the board of education, and by approves the agreement by and between the East Isle of Union Free School District and the East Isle of Teachers Association
038for the payment of stipends for additional activities, in particular, unified bowling. Can I get a motion? Motion. Second. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Aye. 6.6 a memorandum of agreement regarding the creation of a junior varsity girls flag football coach be resolved upon the recommendation of the Supreme Schools. The Board of Education hereby approves the memorandum of agreement by and between the East Isis University School District and the East Isis Teachers Association for the creation of a junior varsity girls flag football coach position in effect on July 1st, 2025. Any motion? Motion. Second. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. 6.7, a grant between East Sessemine Free School District and the East Sessemine Teacher Association regarding payment of stipends for additional activities to future business leaders of America. The result of that recommendation is to print
039out schools. The Board of Education hereby approves the agreement by and between East Sessemine Free School District and East Sessemine Teacher Association for the payment of stipends for additional activities, in particular, future business leaders of America. Can I get a motion? Motion. Second. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Does anyone need items removed from the consent agenda? Consent agenda items number 8.2 or 8.23 be resolved that upon recommendation of supernative schools, the Board of Education hereby approves consent agenda items number 8.2 through 8.23 in accordance with the action presented for each item. Can I get a motion? Motion. Second. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Abstain. That's only because I can't approve the minutes from 225, I wasn't here. Okay. There's no story. No problem. Thank you. Appropriation changes for the 24-25 school year. We
040resolve that upon the recommendation of superintendent schools, the Board of Education hereby approves the attached list of appropriation changes for the 2024-25 school year. Can we get a motion? Motion. Second. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Donation from the Canquad Elementary School's Student Activity Account. Be resolved upon the recommendation of Superintendents Schools. The Board of Education hereby accepts the donation totaling $1,119.23 from the Canquad Elementary School's Student Activity Account. The donation will be used to purchase a gym, a gym one, a new indoor playground, basketball hoops and balls. This additional equipment, educational and equipment, will be installed by the buildings and grounds. The revenue code to be increased is A27005.000 and the budget code to be increased is 211020030000 for $1,079.99. 21 10 by 33 0 3 0 0 0 0 for $39 and 24
041cents. Can I get motion motion? Thank you any discussion on favor? Donation from nicer Be resolved upon the recommendation of Super United Schools. The Board of Education hereby accepts a donation of $1,000 from New York State's school, New York School's insurance reciprocal. This donation will be used to help fund transportation costs for the middle school's eighth grade field trip to Washington, DC. Can I get a motion? Motion. Second. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Aye. Thank you very much to the New York School's insurance reciprocal for that. This is greatly appreciated. A donation from the high school student activity account. It resolved upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools, the board of education, and the U.S. Department of Education accepts a donation of $18,773.99 from the high school student activity fund to the East
042Isles High School District. This donation will be used to fund an improved, updated business center room 213 in the high school. It will introduce a new technology into the business department courses open to grades 9 through 12. The revenue code will be increased to A2705.000 and the appropriate budget codes will be increased. Can I get a motion? Motion. Second. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Donation from FTK Foundation. Be it resolved that upon the recommendation of the Superintendent of Schools, the Board of Education hereby accepts a donation of $288 from, for the Kids Foundation. to the middle school. This donation will be used to purchase two items for the middle school's podcast. With the district's approval, the middle school will be running a podcast that invites students and community members to participate in episodes. The
043podcast will be called The Middle Ground. Can I get a motion? Motion. Second. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Thank you very much, FTK, for that donation. The students are greatly appreciated. And the podcast sounds interesting, too. A donation from SEPTO be resolved upon the recommendation of the Supreme High School Board of Education hereby approves the donation of $1,920.20 from SEPTO. This donation will fund the attached list of teacher's grants that SEPTO approved. The revenue code to be increased is 2705.000 and the budget code to be increased is 2250.533.00. Can I get motion? Motion. Second. Any discussion? Thank you very much. Old business, anyone have any old business? New business? I'm just going to mention CEPTO's having their night of knowledge next week, March 20th, here in this building. So I just encourage all parents
044and students who attend that event. CEPTO puts on a free event each year. Public comments? Stephanie? Yeah, Joanna H. and Jackie Goldfein, they want to speak together. I have five boys in the schools. I have one in the middle school, two in RCK, one in ConnectBot, and an incoming pre-K student. And like most parents, I assume my biggest fear in the whole wide world is an active shooter entering one of our schools. So first I want to thank our building principals because we're always informed when there's going to be a lockdown drill. So I did know that there was one scheduled for the middle school this week, which made today a little bit easier. But my 12-year-old, who is not very dramatic, nothing really phases him, he called me this morning near tears. He was
045in a hallway bathroom when the lockdown happened. He didn't know it was a drill, he thought it was real, and they couldn't hear anything, the announcements, from inside the bathroom. So him and five other kids were in there, him and two other students were huddled on the toilet in one of the stalls, and luckily he had his phone and called me, and I told him that I believed it was a drill. I texted a friend in the school, I drove by the school to make sure that little strobe light thing wasn't going off. And I told him it was a joke. But after speaking to other parents, nobody seems to know what our protocol is when there is a lockdown and students are in common areas, especially like hallway bathrooms. Some people said they asked
046their kids they didn't know. Some said they were told to run to the nearest classroom. Others were told classrooms were locked. Some were told to get on the toilet. And I just wanted to know what our protocol is for instances like that. Mrs. H.A. I'm gonna give you a response. It's gonna sound very very invasive and I'm not trying to be invasive but when we're talking about safety in the school and the safety plan we can't discuss that here in this forum, in this public forum. What you can do is speak to the building manager who is standing right behind you, sitting right behind you right now, Mr. Margarano. You can phone his office tomorrow and he can elaborate more. It's just unfortunately we can't talk about that here in this public forum. But I
047understand. The answers I'm giving you is very evasive. I understand, but we can't just talk about that here in this forum. Thank you. Thank you. So I'll tell you, Mrs. H, I was there today when the lockdown happened. The kids did a very good job. So thank you to Mr. Montemarano and the teachers and the students. They knew exactly where to go. It appeared that they knew exactly where to go. The halls were clear within seconds. So again, we do understand your concern. So please feel free to reach out to Mr. Montemarano. He'll share whatever information he's able to share with you. Jackie Goldstein and Renee Yarrow, they're going to speak together. Hello. This is Renee. I really appreciate everything you do for our school. You know, everything you do is amazing. I just wanted
048to bring up an issue that I know has been going around for years and years and years and years. Never really gets anywhere, and it's the issue of busing. You know, I have a third grader and a sixth grader. You know, for the past six years, my kids have not qualified for a bus. Finally, my third grader now qualifies for a bus, but in fourth and fifth, he will no longer qualify for a bus. You know, I know a lot of people that are in the same position as us where, you know, you have one child who gets bused, one that doesn't. Many people have kids in the same school, third and fifth maybe, and they don't get a bus. Now when I would understand if this was the norm in other districts, you know
049that it would just be the norm and this is how it is, but I've looked at a lot of other districts specifically in our radius, you know, I mean you could call them all out, West Islip, Sayville, Bayshore, Islip, you know, Hoppog. Every single district includes all elementary students K-5 in a half mile eligibility requirement. We're the only district that jumps to a mile for 4th and 5th grade students. It just doesn't seem fair that we're excluding, especially elementary students. I can understand a sixth grader and above maybe walking home from school a mile, but it certainly can't be expected for a fourth or fifth grader to walk home from a mile. And I know the argument would be, well, we're not asking you to have them walk home for a mile. We're saying you
050have to go to that school and pick them up, which, of course, all of us do, and we make it happen. Either it's a friend's parent that's picking them up, or you have to pay somebody to go pick them up, because most of us are all working parents, two-family working parents. So it becomes very difficult to find, you know, the time late in the morning and early in the afternoon to find that time to pick up your kid. Also, you know, it's so congested, especially over by JFK. You know, you're on woodland, you're blocked. You know, people that live on that block, there's cars all the way down. You could count 60 cars, you know, during pickup times. You know, it's very congested, and there's been many fender benders around that area because it's, you
051know, so tight. So we just wanted to know what can we do to get this back up for a vote? Because I don't think it's been back up for a vote in many, many years, so I'm told. So we're just looking for guidance in how we can try and bring this back up to the table. I was going to say the exact thing. I didn't know if they could, we're going to do a new survey and maybe, because it's probably going to come down to budget, what you guys are probably going to say. So we didn't know if there was another survey that could be done and then a vote, but we don't know the next steps. Maybe not here. Maybe we bring it to the Department of Transportation that we use. We just want
052to know where to go from here. I understand what you're saying. Again, like you mentioned, it does require the community at large to vote on that kind of subject. I'm going to defer you to Mr. Harrison. I don't know if you want to give an answer now, Mr. Harrison, about this. Sure, thank you. So New York State has limits in place for walk to school mileage, which are three miles for the older kids and two miles for the younger kids. Districts have the ability by vote to set lower limits. And at one point before my time, these limits were put in place, which for K to 3 is a half a mile, 4 to 6 is a mile, and 7 to 12 is a mile and a half. So essentially to make a change to
053those limits we have to have another vote. So a proposition would have to be put on a ballot for the community to approve along with the dollar amount associated with whatever the proposed changes are. That can be done by a community petition where we would have to have a petition submitted to the board and accepted and placed on a ballot by certain... I believe it's 5% of the voters from the previous year, so that's somewhere around 63 signatures that would be needed. However, there has to be sufficient time for us to be able to put together what that cost is going to be. And I would say that time is kind of drawing tight for this upcoming budget. The budget is what, May 20th? May 20th. The budget has to be adopted April 22nd. So
054we would have to more than like a contract with a company to do a survey to see how many children would be impacted. They would probably have to survey how many kids are on these buses because our, my son, he's in third grade and they're on the same bus. Their bus, we're usually like the last bus stop. It's not a lot of kids, so I'm sure they would have to re- We look into like how many kids are in each bus and right they would do that too with the budget thing Well, the whole analysis would have to include exactly what you're talking about and we do plan what I say aggressively meaning if an elementary bus can carry 66 students we probably In some cases we plan that bus to have 70 plus students
055knowing that not everybody's taking the bus So that's that's allowed by New York State and we do take advantage of that whenever we can. And how often do you do that analysis for since this is the rule with you know like they're walkers, my son's a walker for fourth and fifth. So how often do they do that analysis where they see how many kids are taking the bus and how much room is on it? Do they do that every year or not? Well the routes are planned every year to see how many students in the bus zone We don't necessarily look to see how many more can come on the bus because that would require a vote after a petition. So it's only if there was a petition and a vote that we would be
056doing that? We did look a number of years ago at potentially doing something, but state aid is paid at one and a half miles. So if there are students being transported less than a mile and a half, there's what's called a deduction to state aid. And don't quote me on it, but the loss in revenue was something that precluded us from moving forward with that particular situation. It's not that we don't have the money or want to pay for it. We can't we can't like when when mr Harrison's talking about a vote. Yes, thank you. It's not a We're not allowed to vote on it So it has to be and the last time I think it was probably around right before I got on the board We had a transportation committee. It was members
057of the public. There's about 20 25 members of the public who analyzed it went through the numbers How many buses we have kids and all that stuff? And they came back, I think this was 2012, 2013, and the community committee came back and recommended we not put it on the ballot because it wasn't financially feasible. It just wasn't worth hundreds of thousands of dollars for these kind of situations. That was their recommendation. And I think the last two, three, or four times that it was actually on the ballot, it was turned down. So we could look into putting together a transportation committee again and see if there's members of the community who would be interested in that But again, that's a time-consuming process that certainly won't take place by this May or perhaps we do
058something by next May under that kind of timeline Thank you The next Board of Education regular business meeting and budget presentation number two will be held on Thursday March 27 2025 at 7 o'clock All in favor? Aye. Thank you everybody. Have a good night.