001Good evening all. Welcome to the Tuesday, April 21st, 2026 business meeting of the Board of Education. I need a motion to call the meeting to order, please. Motion. I need a second. Second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Motion passed. We'll start with the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to 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. Okay, as most of you are aware, our emergency exits are to the rear view and then off to the side of the stage. I need a motion for the approval of order of agenda, please. Motion. I need a second. Second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Motion passes. Okay, clerk's report. Marion? Be it resolved that the Board of Education
002accepts the minutes of the business meeting held March 10, 2026. I need a motion, please. Motion. I need a second. Second. All in favor? Aye. Okay, motion passes. Public comments, speakers, we recognize you wish to address the board on agenda items only. I think we're a little early on that, so we're going to start with our presentations and reports. Who's up first, Mr. Meyer? Thank you, Mr. Springer. Okay. Even after a sleepless night in New York after the Knicks game, Mr. Warren is here. Mr. Warren. Mr. Warren and I are proud to have nominated Hannah Mingione for March Student of the Month. Hannah, come on up. Hannah has consistently demonstrated exceptional leadership qualities in the classroom. She sets a positive example for her peers each day, whether she's participating in a whole class activity, partnered
003with classmates for group work, or working independently. We can always count on her to do her best work. Hannah is a great problem solver and is willing to help her classmates whenever they need it. She listens carefully to others' ideas and responds thoughtfully. She always takes charge of her learning. Hanna is incredibly considerate and respectful to her teachers and peers. Hanna's favorite subject in school is math. She loves learning new concepts and is quickly mastered on multiplication and division facts. Hanna enjoys trying to solve difficult problems and is always up for a new challenge. Her favorite special is physical education because she loves to run and play with her friends. So far, Hannah's favorite memory of third grade has been the harvest parade. That's my worst memory of school. I'm glad you liked it, Hannah.
004Outside of school, Hannah loves to spend time with her family. She enjoys both basketball with her parents and on her sports teams, participating in the page-to-stage program after school and playing softball. When Hannah isn't on the move, you might find her playing the board game Life. If there is a work super hard card in the game, we're sure she will earn it. Hannah is a pleasure to have in our school and her enthusiasm is contagious. Her love of learning and inquisitive nature make her a wonderful role model for her peers both inside and outside the classroom. We are truly honored and proud to have Hannah in third grade this year. Thank you Hannah for being such a wonderful person. In the future, she plans to be either a baker or a singer. We cannot wait
005to see all the great things you accomplish. We're proud to have named Hannah Mingione for March's Student of the Month. There's no one who deserves it more. Congratulations, Hannah. Thank you, Mr. Meyer. Mr. Morgan. Good to see everybody. Before I start, I'd like to welcome some members of our E&L department, Ms. Toyas and Ms. Gonzalez, to come join me. Good evening, everyone. Today we recognize a student who understands the meaning of perseverance better than most. It is my honor to introduce our March Student of the Month, William Marquez Zavala. To truly appreciate William's success today, you have to understand his journey. In the last four years, William has attended three different high schools. Anyone who has ever been the new kid knows how difficult that is. New hallways, new teachers, new rules. But instead of
006letting that slow him down, William has used it as a lens to appreciate what he found here in Hampton Bays. William has shared that he feels a level of personal connection here that was missing elsewhere. He noticed that in our hallways, people truly pay attention to you. He has embraced our environment, even some of the strict parts. In fact, he even specifically asked to thank his teachers and Mr. Copps for holding him accountable. He recognizes that their high expectations are what helped him stay on top of his work and prepare him for the future. William is a young man on a mission. To ensure he meets every graduation requirement on time, he has made a choice many wouldn't. He doesn't have a lunch period in his schedule. While others are taking a break, William is
007pushing through his schedule each day, fueled by the goal of that diploma and the college career that follows. This dedication shows up in his favorite subjects and it also shone through during his My Story project. William chose the symbol of a heart to represent his journey this year, a symbol that perfectly captures the care and effort he puts into his life. When he isn't in school, William is usually at work at the American Hotel in Sag Harbor. Whether he's prepping salads, plating desserts, or jumping into the heat of the kitchen wherever he's needed, he brings a team-first mentality. He knows that no job is too small if it helps his team succeed. William's goal is to attend college after graduation, and if he maintains this momentum, there's no doubt he will succeed. His advice to
008our younger students here today is a reflection of his own life. Work hard and keep learning. Hard work pays off. William, coming to a new school is really difficult. Doing it multiple times is even harder. But you didn't just survive the transition, you're thriving. You found your voice, your work ethic, and your community. William would like to thank his teachers for nominating him for this award. And today we want to thank you, William, for showing us what it looks like to lead with heart and stay the course. Congratulations to our March Student of the Month, William Marquez Zavala. All right, we're going to move on to the Southampton Animal Shelter Scholarship with Mr. Chris Teagle. And Mr. Clementson. Thank you, sir. Ms. Teagle, come on up. Establishing, I'd like to ask one of my teachers,
009Mr. Rules, to please come up. Establishing meaningful connections can happen at any stage of life, and we feel incredibly fortunate to have developed a lasting friendship with the Southampton Animal Shelter Foundation. This partnership began when their executive director, Chris Teagle, reached out to schools across Southampton town. to launch an inspiring fundraising contest. Thanks to this initiative, one of our hardworking students, Giovanna Razisnan, Giovanna, come on down. Giovanna has won a $5,000 college scholarship. We are especially grateful to Mrs. Carey, our student council coordinator. and Ms. Neroulas, our Love on a Leash coordinator, whose dedication and coordination made this wonderful event possible for our school community. The Southampton Animal Shelter Foundation is deeply committed to the students, opening its doors for immersive field trips and sending specialized educators directly into our classrooms. These initiatives have provided
010our elementary school students with essential lessons on the humane treatment and protection of animals, fulfilling critical curriculum goals while fostering empathy. By bringing these values to life, the foundation helps our students develop a lasting moral compass that promotes compassion and benefits to our entire Hampton Bays community. I want to thank Mr. Teichel, Mrs. Carey, Mr. Roulis, and the entire South Hampton Animal Shelter Foundation for this great event. And congratulations to our winner, Giovanna. Congratulations. Mr. Teagle has a few words he'd like to say. Thanks, Mark. Just wanted to say congratulations to our amazing winner. $2,500 she raised over the course of three weeks. Big round of applause for that, guys. That's incredible. one of my first initiatives as the executive director was to build the community partnerships and that starts with the Hampton Bay School
011our local school so it was a pleasure to work with the team and Mark I've had nothing but support so in addition to the $5,000 towards the education we're also donating $5,000 to the school to say thank you. So this is the pilot program. We appreciate the support that we had. We're going to roll this out across all the schools in Southampton. So the bar might be a little bit higher next year, but I'm pretty sure with this amazing young lady's fundraising expertise that she's going to be in the mix for it. So I just wanted to say thank you again. She's a deserved winner. She worked incredibly hard. As all the... kids did and the teachers and just wanted to make mention of that as well so it's a privilege to be here tonight
012and yeah thanks again and hopefully I'm here again next year hopefully you'll be the winning school again but we'll see so thanks Mark and the team for having me we're just going to show a little presentation of some of the kids fundraising during this time that's a tough act to follow Mr. Ferraro for that line I would like to bring down Agron Batucci. You can see Agron sporting his silver medal already. Tonight we celebrate Agron Batucci's performance at the recent Quiz Bowl at the SkillsUSA Regional Competition. Agron is currently a senior and a student in the HVAC program at the Eastern Suffolk BOCES HB Ward Campus. At the recent SkillsUSA Regional Competition, Agron and his teammates faced rigorous questions in a high-pressure environment. Their expertise earned them a second place finish in the region. Their
013victory has also earned them a spot at the highest level of competition in the state. In fact, Agron departs for Syracuse tomorrow morning to represent the Eastern Suffolk BOCES at the New York State Championships. Agron is extremely well-rounded and participates in many different aspects at Hampton Bays High School. He is an athlete, he is a musician, he's a hard-working student. Most importantly, he's a role model for our younger students. Agron's success is the perfect example of the career pipeline we strive to create here and build at Hampton Bays High School. Following his time here, he plans to continue his advanced technical training at Suffolk Community College's Brentwood campus. However, his vision extends even further than that as he aspires to one day open his own HVAC business right here on Long Island. He's not just
014a classroom-ready student, but a state-bound competitor and a future local entrepreneur. Please join me in wishing Agron and his team the best of luck in Syracuse tomorrow. Yes. Okay, we're going to head into the business section. If anybody doesn't want to stay, obviously you don't have to, but we're going to move on with Mr. Cleminson and his report. Agron told me this weekend that any of the teachers and administrators will be on a friends and family discount when he opens his HVAC business, which is going to be important. Good luck, Agron. Good evening, everybody. I start each board meeting with just a look at where our enrollment is for this month. And today's we pulled from today's student management system that we are at one thousand nine hundred eleven students. You can see that since
015September, we've ping ponged from nineteen thirty five up and down and we're at one thousand nine hundred eleven. I just want to make a mention and this is going to tie into some of the conversations around the budget. kindergarten registration, the bulk of kindergarten registration is over now. That's an activity that takes place between February and March and then stragglers come in, new families who move or it's just not yet on their radar. Currently we have 70 students registered for kindergarten in the class of 2039 that's going to be. This time last year we had 86 and so what does that tell us 86 turned into 107 today If you apply that same percentage increase from what we have today We might not be looking at a triple digit class for the first time in
016more than 20 years. And so Certainly not the only district that is facing that circumstance the East End is largely facing that circumstance. This is really the first time we are facing it, though, when you look at statistics from 2004, 2005 to 2014, 15 school year. This was all, of course, pre-COVID. School age population on Long Island was decreasing. Hampton Bay, as you will remember, was going up. and we were increasing sections each year. We need another second grade, another third grade, another fourth grade. So we eventually got to seven sections. Through COVID, we were able to bring on additional teachers using COVID dollars and strategically with the work of Larry and the business office, we were able to navigate maintaining them as our foundation aid increase went up and we were fully funded for
017foundation aid. The next couple of years is going to be a different dynamic. And this is the first year that we're really experiencing that. I'll say is that when we go into the budget conversation in just a few minutes, in my 16 years as superintendent and Larry's 20 as assistant superintendent is probably the most difficult budget to get into the tax cap. We did. It looks a little different. It's going to require a little bit different from us. But we proceed with the same goals. That's maintaining our staff, maintaining programs. So maintaining staff means not laying people off, maintaining programs that are healthy and running. mitigating against an over-reliance on the use of reserves. You hear me say often you don't go grocery shopping with your savings account because then it runs out. You go
018grocery shopping the next week and you use your savings account again, it never replenishes. thankfully we have a budget to prepare to present tonight that will go to the voters on May 19th that is a tax cap compliant budget that requires 50% plus one in the and as we know on Long Island districts that have attempted to pierce the cap are really met it is not a guaranteed success and in most cases it's not success at all so thank you to Larry as we go into proposing that budget now. And thank you to our administrators, our faculty, and our staff who really put sharp pencil to paper to get, I mean, we're talking like we just found $50 in the budget that we, you know, it didn't used to be like that. But that's, you
019know, that's where we were this year. We spent a couple of weeks, the last couple of weeks we've been out talking to community members about the budget and where we are. And one of the best conversations around budget is what it means, what does your budget mean? Your budget is a statement of your values, right? You put your money where... for what you value to achieve your mission, vision, values, and goals in the district. And so we've had some great conversations in the community around, okay, what are my property taxes and what does state aid pay for? And it's programs like partnerships with South Hampton Town Animal Shelter and Love on a Leash and our students of the month and our CTE programs like Agron participating in SkillsUSA and winning and representing us at their.
020representing Hampton Bays across the state. We have a robust college dual enrollment program. On May 12th, we'll meet with Mr. Carlson, Mr. Rashard, I will meet with administrators at Stony Brook University. That's our newest university partnership through the ACE program. Mrs. Kelsch teaches college government and students who take that class specifically, there's government and there's college government. can earn three credits at Stony Brook University. So ACE is, Stony Brook's getting into this game of offering dual enrollment, SUNY credits, whether it's through Beacon or Farmingdale or... Suffolk, Beacon, Suffolk, Stony Brook, Albany, they're very transferable, right? So a SUNY transcript has credits that are transferable and they're very valuable. So you can see the college student enrollment programs that we have here and the advanced placement programs that we have. In 2006, we had six advanced
021placement programs. We have 18 today and next year we will bring on business and personal finance and also cybersecurity. College and career, certainly you know and have tasted and enjoyed our culinary arts program, hospitality management, early childhood education in coordination with our pre-K. But you can see across the top, these are our highest registered CTE classes each year at BOCES. We brought back the programs that we could serve a critical mass of students. I can't ask you to build an airplane hanger for the one student every three or four years who does aviation. but culinary has become arts with Chef Curtis has become one of the most difficult classes to get into. In fact, our third student trustee is not here tonight, Caden Nappi, because he is with Chef Connor up in Ossining, New York,
022participating in the Copper Skillet Challenge with, is it with CIA? International Association of Conference Centers. That's a partnership that grew from the Hospitality Academy at Hampton Bays. Ron Naples is a professor at NYU in the School of Hospitality and for five years now has come to work with us and work with our adult ed hospitality program. This year he, number one, invited our students, so they left at noon today, they'll be back at midnight tonight, to participate in this skillet challenge. Think chopped. That kind of experience kids were pumped to go so a chef but also a partnership that NYU has created with the Marriott corporation so Marriott hotels and NYU have come together to create an associate's degree in hospitality and hospitality management for free remote And so Ron has come to Hampton Bays
023to work with us in our hospitality academy and spent time with our students this year in culinary with Chef Curtis and with Miss Meyer in hospitality and tourism management. So we're super hopeful. I know Brianna, who's a recent graduate of ours, is interested in that program. She went through all the programs with Chef and Miss Meyer. the focus as Mr. Morgan said in his presentation on Agron about creating career pathways through these partnerships. We don't know what they will yield. We plant seeds, we plant seeds, we plant seeds and this one has grown so we're excited about that. The asterisks around HVAC, plumbing and heating, electrical, carpentry and welding. Welding is not on here because it is not super subscribed but there would be. an asterisk there we partner with the south hampton business alliance
024to provide scholarships for those students in 11th grade they're for three or four hundred dollar scholarships to pay for their tool kits they need the coveralls and the electrical grounding boots if they're in the electrical trades or a toolbox if they're in carpentry and so instead of instead of a scholarship to a trade school after 12th grade south hampton business alliance has invested in hampton bays and We we offer them the idea and then from there they do it in all Southampton high schools now Southampton town high schools But it provides that cost because it to eliminate issues of access Our adult ed program still is available for our community members, and then we just wrapped up our fifth hospitality academy in March with a job fair on Saturday, March 28th. Our clubs and extracurricular
025activities are what keep our kids vibrant and in school until the sun goes down. And you can see these clubs that... that really grow out of an interest. They grow out of saying, hey, we want to do something. And we have an adult who is interested in advising that. And one of our teachers jumps in and we're off to the races. Athletics, we've mentioned this a few times in the past couple of months. We are glad to offer field hockey back as an option for our students. We did maintain that program at the middle school level with Coach Vecini, who's here. And just this year, through Mr. Foster's partnership with Southampton, they have made the invitation that if there are any students in the fall who want to play field hockey at the high school
026level, that they'll be able to do that. We've agreed that they'll wear maroon. But this year they have agreed that they'll send their boys to play football and they'll wear purple. So that allows us to have a vibrant football program. We don't want to backtrack to where we were a couple of years ago where we were only offering JV. So you can see that in these three programs, football, boys lacrosse with South Fork United, and then field hockey still gives our students great opportunities to participate in athletics throughout the year as well. So as we get into the budget, this year's tax levy increase is going to be 2.57. That hasn't changed since we started talking to you about this in February. And you can look back to 2011-12 and see that our average tax
027levy increase has been just shy of 2% spending, 2% taxing each year. We have always offered a budget that has been within the tax cap. So thank you to Mr. Luce for that. When you look back over our three-year average, our average tax increase has been 2%. Over five years, it's averaged 1%. Ten years, 1.6%. And then a 15-year average of just about 2% again. So you can see we're sensitive. A school budget has to do a lot of things. First and foremost, it has to provide great opportunities for kids to be competitive, to graduate with a high-quality education. Then it has to fund the high-quality educators that we have. Being a public school the third thing it has to do is be feasible and attainable and tenable But for the community to afford it
028and so the budget has to do a lot of things and those things are sometimes in Competition with one another I want to pay less taxes. I want more opportunities for kids It's a give-and-take each year and so When I when I go out and speak to our friends in the community, we do talk about the idea that we tax at a conservative at a conservative level. The tax cap has helped us stay there, but it is important to note that because of how public schools are financed in New York State and how the town of Southampton specifically is different from one another between its 14 school districts, that we end up as a per pupil spending the least. of our counterparts, but in how much we tax, it's the most. And so that's a
029conundrum that we have to wrestle with every year. It's a reality that we have to wrestle with. And if I had a magic wand and could change certain variables that changed that for us, I certainly would. But our reality is our reality. And so I'm still proud, as you can see from those previous slides, of what our faculty and what our staff can deliver for our kids in our community. Because I'd put our graduates up against any one of our neighbors and beyond and feel really great about that. So I mentioned the 2026-27 budget goals. The New York State budget remains unfinalized. It was a hallmark of success to have an on-time budget on April 1st when Governor Cuomo was leading New York State. That has not been the case since Governor Hochul has been
030governor. We have not had an on-time budget, which creates challenges for us. about 20% of our funding comes from state aid. And so while that's not a massive number, it's 20%, it's a big enough number where we want it to be in ink and not pencil. And so there's a little bit of where... You know, we're making an assumption here, and we're going to bet that we're going to have a 2% increase in state aid. Gone are the days of having the bigger increases because we have been caught up on foundation aid at this point. We knew that was going to happen, and so those years where we saw big jumps and we said, this is great, we knew those big jumps were going to stop, and we went from 23%, 25%, 33% increases in
031state aid to January's proposal, 1%. We believe in the one-house budgets and what will happen in the final budget Hopefully sooner than later is 2% with possibly some changes to waiting for English language learners in the foundation aid That's something that would benefit a district like Hampton Bay is and so in Larry's in in Larry's calculations We've still conservatively budgeted and we're hoping that the final state aid number would be even a little bit more What happens if we get more state aid? Because tonight's the night we have to propose the budget number. Does more state aid mean we're going to have a bigger budget? The answer is no this year because the budget was so tight that we are recommending the use, a modest use, but the use of reserves. Going grocery shopping with
032your savings account, right? So if we get two more dollars than planned, in the revenue budget, we would take $2 less from the reserves. And so there's still that sort of dance that needs to happen over the next six weeks. And a budget number, the budget number of $69,540,846 is a not to exceed number. So we will ask the voters. May 19th to spend to authorize us to spend that amount of money and then underneath that you can see where that money comes from 52.5 million from tax revenue or the pilot other local revenue 1.1 million state aid 15.8 million maybe a couple bucks more or less depending on what what happens in Albany in the next couple weeks and the the use of our ERS reserve about $91,000 It will now be incumbent upon
033us in the next couple of years to get off of that train as fast as possible because next year's budget now means we start minus 91,000. in order to start building the budget because we have to make that nut up and then the expenses for the next year. So that could be attrition, that could be more state aid, that could be a cut in equipment or something we don't buy, but we want to get off that train fast. Again, this budget was built to preserve jobs and not lay people off and preserve programs while staying within the tax cap. Our budget trend over the past, this is budget to budget increase, how much we spend, not how much we tax. over since 2011-12 has been 2.91%, an average of just about 3% in spending. And
034that's what this year is, 3% in spending. You could see the big jump in 23-24. That was the foundation aid catch-up year. So that was, I don't want to say free money, but it was not tax money. It was state aid money that came in that allowed our spending plan to increase. The big part of that... top of that bar on the bar graph were one-time expenses because we knew we were going to have to use that in the out years that got us to today. So I asked Larry over the last week, you know, help me tell a story about the numbers because a tight budget, declining enrollment should mean less expense, right? That we should be able to make it, it's fine. But that hasn't been the case. Typically, we would think about
035a 2.5% budget. We're in that 2.5% to 2.9% in there. That would give us an allowable budget-to-budget increase of about $1.7 million. In this case, this year, our allowable budget-to-budget increase was $1.9 million. That gets us to that $69 million number. $1.3 in the tax levy, $492,000 more in state aid, $142,000 more in local revenue. 68% of that allowable increase, more than two-thirds of that allowable increase, was taken up in three ways. Increases in special education costs, not Hampton Bay specific, New York State specific. Property and liability insurance increases, which is one of the things holding up the budget, auto insurance, liability insurance, tort reform, and health insurance increases. Before we added another pencil, before anyone got a salary increase, before utilities went up, anything else, two-thirds of our allowable increase was off the table.
036So that set the stage for a very difficult budget cycle and planning cycle. That allowed us $633,000 left to play with. Additional increases that include salary, increases in CTE, summer school costs, cybersecurity protections for all of us, utility increases, transportation, an increase in charter school enrollment, and instructional technology that goes right into the classroom, out of the gate, costs $724,000. So we're over. So we took a couple of savings measures to close this budget gap. attrition and realignment from three teacher retirements, the realignment of pupil personnel services from a senior administrator to a director. one-time expenses that were made with anticipated surplus from this school budget specifically coral risers if you're at our concert in the next month our kids in this pit are falling off the risers not literally but because it is a
037growing program despite declining enrollment which is a testament to miss padilla and Chromebooks. We couldn't make those decisions until really just the last couple weeks because in January you're still spending in your budget, right? It hadn't really even started snowing yet. And so then the blizzards came in the overtime and the maintenance costs and the equipment repairs that had to take place. So you really can't bank on surplus until we get to the final fourth quarter of the fiscal year. And that's when Larry is in a more comfortable position. He breathes a little looser to say, okay, we can get that now. We don't have to get that next year. So we've been able to do that as well. The use of about $90,000 in employee retirement system reserves, that's an allowable expense where you
038can pull from those reserves that you save. It's like, think about cargo pants. Every pocket has a different purpose. And so this pocket, the ERS reserve, is used to take some money from the reserve to help smooth out spikes and dips in pension costs. The conversion, this is a final and a new one for us, the conversion of a K-4 section to a pre-K section. That happened for two reasons. One we are no longer meeting the need in the community. We're not meeting the demand for pre-k services in the community We have 54 half-day positions a half-day slots for pre-k and we have 37 registered for the lottery right now So we have a supply that nobody wants or 37 do but we're not filling it years ago We were 50, 60, 70 for 36
039spots. So we eked up our half-day slots, and now that's not a demand anymore. It's that full day. Full day for pre-K, four-year-olds, is five and a half hours. And what this allows us to do that we were not previously allowed to do was access $180,000 in revenue specifically for full-day pre-K. So that was another revenue piece that we needed to pull in in order to... mitigate the use of reserves, maintain all jobs of people not retiring, and maintain program. And so lots of questions to be answered about who, what, when, how for September, and we're going to answer those. But tonight's goal, the first priority on that list, was getting to the budget. getting the budget number. So there's that and now we're going to work backwards about how that's going to work, what
040that's going to look like. We're working with the HBTA on the specifics of that. So there are questions and there are dots that are going to be, that's going to be answered. Okay. So one of the things that as humans we're not very good at as humans is living in the, okay, we're gonna figure it out. We wanna know, particularly educators, we wanna know how this goes, we wanna know what happens A, if A then B. this challenge of the budget cycle has created situations where I We have three five seven year financial projections. They get hazier the further they they go out But when you have a stable business office like we do stable faculty stable leadership team Then those are not variables anymore those become Those become constants and people around the table
041can sit and work together to take advantage of opportunities and resources that might come available at a given time, if that makes sense. Okay, so. Tuesday, May 19th from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. in the middle school gym, voters will be asked three questions. One, do you authorize the budget for 26-27? Yes or no. Two, do you authorize the use of up to $300,000 of undesignated, unreserved fund balance from this school year, if it exists, we don't know if it exists until after the books close on June 30th, for basic repair, renovation, or upgrades to the facilities? This is going to become even more important as the budget gets tighter because this is going to be where we're going to go to say, we can put air conditioning in three more classrooms this year, or
042we have to fix this bathroom. So not a major bond project, but a project where we can grab some low-hanging fruit and get something done. The third question that voters will be asked is to choose one candidate for the Board of Education. We have one seat up, Mrs. Capuano, who has submitted her petition to run for re-election. So thank you for your service, Mrs. Capuano. A couple of other items that I'll mention for my report, and then I'm happy to take any questions, members. Friday, don't miss the Masked Singer. Mr. Morgan will be emceeing. We've got a spicy panel of judges and some great masked singers. It's a high school event, but it's going to take place on Friday. I mean, on Friday at the middle school, because we're going to be pulling these down
043in the next couple of days to do some maintenance on them. An exciting opportunity that Mr. Carlson and Ms. Meyer in early childhood education are working on is the opportunity for our school district to become a dossier. provider. A certified, we all have to have the Dignity for All Students Act certified as educators and typically you have to go out somewhere to get that done. It's part of our certification, it's on us to do it and to maintain that certification. With our early childhood program we're training our students to become eligible to be a teacher assistant and so having that DASA workshop in-house will remove an expense and something else that they need to go out and do. We've begun working with our teachers and administrator unions on what was called once called APPR but
044it's now called steps. What it means to just you and me is evaluation of principals and teachers. So just a normal employee evaluation cycle. There are new elements to the law that need to be negotiated. There's a long runway to do it. You have eight years to get it done. But we began those conversations last week to try to get it done expeditiously. I want to thank Mrs. Foster at the elementary school for reimagining a career day. We no longer work with Junior Achievement, which is a national organization. They have a cost structure to it now that was untenable for us. And so, Ms. Foster, who was the Junior Achievement coordinator, prior to that it was Mrs. Joslin, and prior to that it was Mr. Berglund. bringing in community volunteers throughout the year to teach
045about careers to kids. Ms. Foster and Mr. Meyer worked together to engage our community partners and have an entire day in the gymnasium for career day. So we pivoted, we took advantage of partnerships and resources that we had to navigate. And then Mrs. Fox at the high school right before spring break. worked with People's United Credit Union and Jen Gunn, who is a community member of ours, for the Bite of Reality program, which was fantastic and harkens back to 1991 Cosby Show when Theo wanted to move out and they made him realize what things cost. So our senior class walked around and they were given a job and they got a salary and they had a spouse or didn't have a spouse and... had to make decisions on how much you're going to pay on
046your credit card and what kind of car you're going to get. We had 20 community volunteers, business owners, alumni, who spoke to our kids afterwards and played the role of car salesman and things like that. So that was fun. At the end of the week, Mr. Ferraro and the high school admin and I are going to meet with members of the South Hampton Town Board and the Highway Department. to talk about Gravel Hill Road. There was a proposal at the town board to make all of Gravel Hill no parking on both sides. If you've ever driven on Gravel Hill, three years ago, you couldn't even get through, and the stop gap measure was to make the west side of Gravel Hill no parking. So where did everybody go? the east side of Gravel Hill and
047stretched onto the other side of Fanning at some points. Cars park in the street. It's very hard for fire trucks, Amazon trucks, landscaping trucks, cars, two cars coming in the same different opposing directions. It becomes very tight. And so we understand as a good neighbor, it is very frustrating to the residents who live on Gravel Hill. We're out of space on this campus. You also know enrollment's declining, but not immediately. So short of blocking making parking totally prohibited on gravel hill We don't want to create a whack-a-mole situation where okay We've moved the cars off gravel hill and now they're on old Wakeman Road or now they're on Wahope that no parking was was put on the Boulevard on Maryland and that moved cars from being a little all over the place, all to Gravel
048Hill. So we've asked the town board, work with us here. Let's get creative. Let's try to figure this out because if we whack them all on Gravel Hill, they're gonna pop up somewhere else. And so we have that meeting coming up. May 19th at West Hampton Beach High School, we'll partner with South Hampton and West Hampton again for the Enlisted Military and Service Academy ceremony. I want to recognize Marion Hill here and Sam Francis, our high school head custodian. They were recipients of the SCOPE Education Services Educational Excellence Awards for their contributions and dedication to the district. So congratulations, Marion. If you see Sam, he won't want to hear it, but please say congratulations as well. Marion didn't really want to hear it either, but we made her go to the dinner with us. Eastern
049Suffolk BOCES budget, you'll vote tonight. The recommendation is to support that budget. It's the administrative services budget. We don't vote on the program budget because it's purely expense driven. So the community votes for our budget, which has BOCES costs baked in. If we send 10 kids to CTE, then they fund 10 kids at CTE. So that's how that works. And then a super busy May and June calendar. I scrolled through the calendar as an audit today. The Google Calendar is up and updated. It's going to take us from Science Symposium on... Thursday at six o'clock here in the auditorium. We'll have our regent from the New York State Board of Regents, Regent Thomas Williams will be here to participate and get to know us. She's the newest regent on the Board of Regents in Albany.
050That's like the Board of Education for the New York State Education Department. So we're excited to see her. We had my story last week and then we get into concert season. end of season competitions in athletics and boom we're down on Dune Road celebrating our seniors and then we're graduating them. And then we say goodbye to Vassal. Who committed last week to Georgia Tech? Congratulations. Can I answer any questions budget program otherwise Oh, I missed that one I sent you an email so we've sent it out to the entire district Frank Verdone is a final one of six finalists 9 through 12. So there's six elementary, middle, and high school from all over the country. So Frank is our nominee. We're going to test the system to see how many times you can vote. Marion
051is going to check that tomorrow. But we cast our vote earlier today. We want Frank to be recognized. He has done some remarkable stuff with personal finance and has embraced the partnership with Teachers Federal Credit Union. So let's get Frank to win. We've got to vote before May 5th. Any other questions? Liz. Mr. Morgan, are all eligible seniors, do they have a parking spot or are we out of spots? We're out of spots. We've encouraged... Are we thinking about adding more parking spots? So there are... Yeah, that's on the list. It's on the list of no bad ideas. To expand the parking lot, to expand the gravel lot in the back. Would do two things would do two things one it could add a third row of parking So that would be against the building
052against the fence and in the middle Two would bring it really to the fence line of our neighbors It would cost Perhaps up to a hundred thousand dollars because it's not just throw some gravel down and some stakes We have to put drainage appropriate drainage in there. We have to bid the work out. So that is an option We have discussed a similar option behind district office putting some gravel there We have some you know It's it's less unsightly back there because there's fences and a little bit more privacy. That's something to consider Mr. Richard spot. I mean, I mean that's an option It's a chat. That's a challenge. There is also the challenge of kids who shouldn't be driving Driving. I have a ten-year-old so I can't I can't put myself in this position
053But I can imagine that when a child can finally drive a parent is saying drive right and not doing but with that particular license You're allowed to drive to and from work or a school program Which there's debate on whether that's defined as your K to 12 year your high school So we're gonna have all this conversation on Friday We can't go up With another parking level, but it's a hard problem to solve where the town left it In March, the proposal was to just make the east and west side of Gravel Hill no parking. Where it seems like they've left it is to make the east side two-hour parking so that... You can have a friend over for lunch if you live on Gravel Hill. You know, that would prevent that from happening for
054the residents as well. It also could work for some of our seniors who have senior privileges and are here for a couple of hours and then leave. So that could still be an option. And then we have the big GIS map that Southampton Town sent over that we're going to look at all the streets and what the parking restrictions are on all of them. So if we dilute it and we all shoulder a little bit of it, maybe that's... maybe that's the approach as well or carpool but what's 17 year old wants to carpool when they have their own car thank you everybody thank you thank you laura larry yes mr springer a couple things um first of all uh back in january we received a notice from the irs that we had not complied
055in their opinion with the affordable care act for the tax year 2003 And then our penalty was $806,640. You can imagine I was a little bit upset. After investigation, many discussions with both attorneys and other folks, and honestly some really helpful people at the IRS, we learned a little bit. We were able to correct some things in the paperwork we did for the Affordable Care Act. And we owe a penalty of $7,560. Wow. Now, this is probably something that will be a cost of doing business for us for every year going forward. Because we have some employees who work part-time and only part of the year. To us, they're part-time employees. But to the IRS, they're considered full-time employees. Because they look at it by month, not by year. It's not affordable to offer them
056the family health care plan, and they couldn't afford it even if we did because the way the relationship works. So for those employees, if they go seek health insurance through the health marketplace, we will always get a penalty, which is our contribution to their health insurance. And we just, I will now build that into the budget for next year and every year going forward because it's an unavoidable cost of doing business with the ACA. Approximately how many people is that? Two. That's it? That's it. So how would it go? From 7,000 to 800,000? Because initially the IRS took what we had recorded for them as we didn't offer affordable health care to anybody. And so they multiplied this thing by $8,000 per every employee of the school district. And they sent me this bill for
057$806,000 that I almost lost my mind over. But we worked it out. We got it in a better place. Nice if we could get rid of it entirely, but I don't see it as being a possible thing with the way costs are and the way our business operates. It's not going to work. So in hindsight, next year would probably be about the same then? About the same. We would think. Yeah. Maybe a couple dollars more, but not significantly more. Okay. Secondly, our wellness committee met twice this winter, once in February and once again at the end of March. For the most part, there was not a lot new, but the committee had some good discussions. We did review the entire wellness policy, and we will be making a few recommendations to the board just to
058update some wording in the policy, some things that can be taken out that are not. The policy says we do it that way. We don't actually do it that way. We do it slightly different. So just some wording. We'll make those recommendations, and we'll do that work over the summer with the board if that works for everybody. And then finally, we had a school lunch audit last week. Auditors from Albany from the Child Nutrition Management Services Division came to check out our breakfast and lunch program. Overall, the audit went very well. there was one problem with our practice of taking breakfast to the kindergarten and first grade classrooms. They did not feel that we were properly conducting what's called offer versus serve. So the difference of saying, would you like this versus here's your breakfast.
059And they said we couldn't keep doing it the way we were doing it. It would have required a whole lot of new training and so on and and we just said okay we'll stop at least for now we'll stop bringing breakfast to the classroom and that was an acceptable solution for them and we have stopped that practice for now we will get the audit report in its entirety in the next few weeks i'll have to draft a correction act a corrective action plan both of which will be brought to future board meetings and posted on our website when completed Any questions? I have a question. So do the children have to go to the cafeteria to get the breakfast? They no longer just pick it up? Correct. And are children doing that? If they'd like
060breakfast, yes. And they're told that they can do that? Yes. Okay. That was the process they followed previously, Annie, is that they went to the cafeteria. In COVID, we did all kinds of crazy things. And so we said, oh, this is great. Let's try to keep this going. We think the kids like it, and we think they're eating more, and it's working. But we weren't doing it the way New York State wants it done. And to train everybody and try to implement that now with three, two and a half, three months left in the school year, it wasn't going to work. So we said, okay, let's just go back to go to the cafeteria, get breakfast there if you want breakfast. And that meets everybody's needs and settles that issue for now. Thank you for
061preparing this budget and taking care of our programs and our teachers. I appreciate it. And also for catching that overcharge for the Affordable Care Act. That was a good catch. Thank you. That one had me a bit tweaked for a couple days. Yeah, I would be tweaked too. All right. Thank you, Larry. Emotionally trying time for Larry. Yes. All right. We are going to do a consent agenda, unless there's any questions, from 4A to 7H. I just want to point out 7H is next year's Board of Ed calendar. Okay. So you can start penciling that in. Thank you. All right, I will need a motion on 4A to 7H, please. Motion. I need a second. Second. All in favor? Aye. Motion passes, public comment. Presidents may address the Board of Education on matters of interest
062or concern in accordance with the applicable state and federal law and Board of Education policy 1230, governing the rules of public comment and board meetings. The board president will recognize all speakers. Please identify yourself, your town, and the topic in which you'll be speaking. Time limits may be imposed based upon agenda needs. I'm seeing right here. So with that, I need a motion to adjourn tonight's meeting. I need a second. Second. All in favor? Aye. Motion passes. Meeting is adjourned. Get home safely. See you soon.