001Lowry, retired school counselor at Meyers and Wingers Junior High. Janet Cole, retired teacher at Chief Road. Greg Grrew, retired assistant principal at Van White Junior High School, as well as the principal of an evening alternative school program at Roy Ketchum. Stephen Hollowup, retired teacher. Donald Dixon, retired English teacher. Thank you. 4.01 regional spelling B. Miss Chanella Good evening. Good evening everyone. My name is Jenny Chanella. I'm the director of English and social studies here in the district. I have the honor this evening of recognizing our building level spelling be uh champions. So, welcome to all of them and their families. Since 1925, students across America have participated in classroom, school, and regional spelling bees, all with the hope of advancing to the scripts national spelling bee. These competitions not only expand vocabulary and sharpen academic
002skills, but also foster confidence, focus, and the excitement of friendly competition. In our district, every elementary and junior high school has embraced this rich tradition. Tonight we celebrate the dedication and achievement of the students who have triumphed in their spelling bees. These young champions have shown the love of words, commitment of learning, and remark and remarkable perseverance. At this time, I'll invite our board members down to the front of the stage to greet our champions to the down. >> We're going to go down to the bottom. Richard, do you want to do me a favor? You want to hand them their actual certificate? >> Again, >> you want to hand them their actual certificate. >> Yeah. Their names there. >> Couple of them are Okay. As I call your name, please come across. You'll be
003greeted by our board members and district leaders. You'll receive your certificate right here. And then please wait by the stands and we'll take your picture towards the end as a group. Our first champion from grade five in Brinkerhoff is Mahed Hassan. from James S. Evans, our youngest champion, fourth grader, Logan Aree Aree from Fishkill Elementary. Sixth grader, Violet Uzo from Fishkill Plains Elementary, uh our sixth grader. But Miss uh would not let me get away with not saying that she has won fourth grade and fifth grade and sixth grade. Miss Isabella Oso from Gayhead Elementary. Amelia Simmons from Kinry Road Elementary. Alex Sperling from Meyer's Corners Elementary. Liam Sanchez Ramos from Oak Grove Elementary. Lilana Genezi from Sheafro Elementary. Nathaniel Falahhe from Van Wag Junior High School. Michael Sana and from Wingers Junior High School,
004Zachariah Shesta. Congratulations to all Olympians and their families. We'll now take your picture on the side. Again, congratulations to all of our spell and be winners. 5.01. It is our update on superintendent recommended budget. Dr. Bon, >> thank you very much. President Johnson, esteemed members of the board of education and the Winger Central School District learning community and I believe momentarily the uh screen will come down. Modern technology is a beautiful thing. Watch your head, Mr. Odums. right now. We're searching for source. This is a digital projection, by the way. put this on hold for a minute. We're experiencing technical difficulties, but I'm sure Mr. Lima will get the situation rectified. Mr. Lima, if I need to, I can read from the uh from the paper copy. Will that be helpful? Okay. Well, the good
005thing is is that I gave this almost actual presentation at the last board meeting. So, it is on the website. It's a 20inut presentation which talks about the superintendent's recommended 2627 budget. And as I've said before, it's really not the superintendent's recommended budget. It's our recommended budget. And when I say that, I'm talking about the entire community, our families, our students, our staff, community members. You have sent in information to budget at WCSDNY and we appreciate that knowing what your priorities are for our school district as we continue to prepare today's students for those opportunities. And again, we're focused on today, but we're planning for tomorrow. So to go over a few key points, the 2627 budget will continue with consistent programs and services. And in order to do that, we're going to be adding
006a human resources supervisor with all of the mandates and the statewide reports that we are required. In addition to that, based upon the tri-states report and suggestions that we have received from our community as well as members of the board of education, I am also going to recommend a director of special education position be added to the budget as well. In addition to that human resource supervisor position, remember we said before, zero no staff layoffs in this budget. And for the fifth consecutive year, we will be coming in with a budget that will be below the tax cap. 5 years ago, I made a pledge to this community that when we had an opportunity to try to be as fiscally responsible as possible, we would do so. Unfortunately, for the last 5 years, we've been
007able to come in under the tax cap. You may be aware that for the 10 years prior, the district went right up to the tax cap. This year, we're not coming in much under, but our budget uh tax levy increase will be somewhere in the neighborhood of 2.5%. Which I believe is one of the lowest in Duchess County. And again, that's going to be done without any reduction in school services or programs during the school day. One area that is a concern is we received a grant and I want to thank Governor Hokll three years ago provided us with a grant for $2.5 million to add some social workers and school psychologists and other programs uh after we returned from COVID. Those monies have run out. So, we were hoping to potentially absorb those positions
008within the budget. Unfortunately, we're not going to be able to do that. But I can tell you that those individuals that were brought in were hired knowing that it was a grant. And I'm hopeful that at some point we will be able to restore those positions, but not this year. I can also tell you that with spending about $14 million in fund balance, we still expect to have at least 11 to 12 million in fund balance to spend next year in addition to what we get from the state. Why? Because over the last few years, we have deliberately planned and made sure that we put our monies into resources for items that were sustainable. Many of them are one-time items. Obviously, if you add staffing with fund balance, you need to add it then the
009next year, which inflates your budget. We haven't done that. will continue to be fiscally responsible and I want to thank the board of education and our community for their ongoing support of our students to provide the programs and services that are necessary. Again, I would refer you to the district website. You can click on the LA uh last I think it's Deb the last budget presentation on the front page and you will see a 20inut presentation that I gave two weeks ago. The only difference between that and this is that we've added one additional position and that's director of special education. That is based on suggestions from our community. The tri-states report that we did two years ago that looked at the way that we provide special education programs and student services as well as
010recommendations from the board of education. And with that, I thank you for your time. We're still searching for uh for a source, by the way. And this is a digital projection. Now, you can laugh. Can you laugh? If you can't laugh at yourself, who can you laugh at? Right. I hope you guys are laughing with me, not at me. With that, President Johnson, I'll I'll turn it over to you. Actually, if the board members want to stay down there because we're getting ready to go into the next one. You're going right back down. So the next >> Okay. Um before we go on to the uh Bosey's budget, um Miss Kellen, you had a question. Unless anybody down there had a question, raise your hand. We'll bring you the mic down there. We can do
011that. Miss Kelland, turn your mic on. I want them to hear it. Oh, sure. Uh >> Dr. Dr. Bunk, uh could you explain what the new uh position of director of special education will be doing as opposed to what the assistant superintendent for special ed is doing next? >> That's a great question. So, this will be an addition. This will be a whoppingers administrators association position. This will be an individual that will work between the assistant directors and the assistant superintendent for special education. As you know, we have 15 buildings. We have currently 12 uh Dr. Wilson assistant directors. >> 10. Okay. So, we have 10. We're now going to add a director based upon the uh components within the tri-states consortium. The primary reason for that is to ensure consistency among grade levels among
012our buildings. We believe that that's going to be extremely helpful especially as we continue to add and we will continue to add special ed education programs because they're necessary. We want to make sure that we have a consistent approach. We believe that that will help us in that endeavor. >> Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> Um Dr. Bona, I'm just g I just would like to clarify on this position. Um with the um great loss that we're going to have with Mr. Zip's retirement, which I can still resend it, I think. Um some of the duties that he is currently responsible for is under the special education area. So those responsibilities I believe if I'm not mistaken we are transferring to Dr. Wilson. So some of his other responsibility the higher up responsibilities will be
013greater. Therefore this is kind of the middle person in between. Um and it was definitely something that was recommended by Tri-State across the entire report. >> That is absolutely correct. >> Yes, that is accurate. >> Yes. You need a mic or do you want to? >> Yeah, >> I have a pretty loud voice. Oh, we got it. Okay, >> hello. Thank you for that very enthusiastic presentation. I do just have one quick question. You mentioned a loss of social workers and school psychologists that were originally on a grant uh given by Governor Hokll after CO. Can you please describe just in a little bit more detail what the loss of these people might mean for the workload of our current counselors and the psychologists that we are keeping? >> Sure. I will turn it over
014to Mr. Zip, who's our assistant superintendent for student services. He can explain a little bit more about that. When this grant came through, it was announced with tremendous fanfare because it provided us with resources and services that we needed. And my hope is that in the future, albeit not this year, once we go through the restructuring of the special education department, which we're currently going through, we're going to be adding a director of special education, Dr. Wilson is going to assume more duties. We eventually can look to place some of these positions back in the budget, but we need to evaluate where we are with these positions not being in. We need to see if the current staff that's currently in those positions because we've changed systemically are able to meet those needs. We believe
015that they are. And I'll turn it over to Mr. Zip. Mr. Zip, >> thank you so much. Um, think back to COVID about four about four or five years ago. Um, the district did a great job adding student support services uh staff to to the budget and these are all tenure track positions. And what we did over that time period, excuse me, was to ensure that um they could serve the greatest need. So we had a lot of people put into buildings and kind of sh uh shared responsibilities. So we had a couple school psychologists. they would support say Van Wick Junior High School for two days a week and then John J High School for three. So some once again trying to make sure we had those 16 positions support as many people as
016possible. With the addition of the recoveries grant what we did was once again follow that same philosophy. So for example, using the secondary schools as an as as an example, the two school psychologists supporting the four secondary schools, each one of those moved up to the high school to be just focused solely in the high school. And then the grant money was used to backfill that position at the middle school. Once again, giving each school u you know just some some additional support. So right now with the grant, we have three school psychologists in it, two social workers, and a uh Cape counselor as well as two behaviorists from a partnering organization. >> Thank you, Mr. Zip. And I think it's important to point out that within the last four years, >> Dr. Bon, can
017I just uh motion to add five minutes? Mr. Lumi is second. All in favor? Unanimous. >> Thank you. Within the last 5 years, Mr. Zip, within the last within the last 5 years, how many staff have we added to our pupil personnel services? Meaning collectively, totally as a group. So you mentioned four through the grant. How many in addition to that did we add? >> So nurses, psychologists, social workers, school counselors, speech, and OTP. that's a student services department probably 25 30 I mean we've added in the last five years I think eight or 10 nurses alone so if you take if you take collectively the district has done a great job of supporting postcoid the student support student support services department upwards of about 30 individuals >> and winter the reason that I mention
018that is I think it's important to give that historical perspective that the funded positions did not just come through the grant. Although the grant funded positions were extremely helpful, we've totally transformed our system as much as we can and we'll continue to look at that as we move forward. Great question. Thank you. >> Okay, no other questions. Okay, so moving on, we're going to go to 5.02 to the Duchess County Bosey's budget pro uh presentation. Dr. Bon, if you'd like to introduce it and >> I I would absolutely love to. Hold on one second. You want to present with the screen? Okay. All right. So, yes, it is my pleasure to uh to introduce um my colleagues and our partners from Duchess County Boseies who are here to talk about their budget proposal for the
019upcoming year. And I think it's important to say that we work collaboratively with them and they are an absolutely tremendous resource. We appreciate the opportunities that we that they provide. We appreciate the opportunities to work with them to make sure that we cover all of our students needs uh not only within our school district but within our region. So Dr. Merritt is here and Mr. Scared is here and uh Mr. Scarat I guess I'll give you this microphone and Dr. Merit feel free. >> Well, thank you very much Dr. Bon. Uh we have worked together collaboratively for many many moons. So I do appreciate that partnership and good evening and I do want to say that my name is Nora Merritt. I am the assistant superintendent for human resources with Duchess County Boseies. It is
020my pleas p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p privilege to be with you tonight to present our administrative budget um along with some other um facts about how you'll use those services that we provide and our partnership together. Um today we're going to talk about three specific things, the administrative budget with my colleague and cabinet um colleague Michael Scarret. We will talk about innovation, partnership, and growth. And with that, I'd also like to say thank you to our board of trustees who really allows us to go on the road and share all of the enormous things that we love to do about teaching
021and learning. Billy is with um I'm probably off the screen here. >> You're good. >> Okay. Do you have a >> click? >> I don't. >> He'll click it. Okay. >> Okay. >> Click. >> Thanks. So, um, again, our board of trustees, I really do appreciate their support, particularly, um, Ralph Shimento, who is our board president. I and I also want to just recognize your board for the tremendous amount of volunteer work that they do on behalf of students in our community. So, thank you very much for that. Um, with that, I'm going to turn it over to Mike, and Mike's going to present the administrative budget, which is um, happening at our Boseies. The annual meeting will be on April 8th and then the vote takes place on April 28th. Thank you. >> Thank
022you very much, Dr. Merritt. And thank you again to the Wingers board and community for allowing us to be here tonight. We know how busy you are. We know you have a very uh packed agenda. So just a few minutes of your time really a lot. Um if we can move forward one slide there. >> So we're got the tap these. >> Oh, there we go. >> So our budget timeline much like a school district, we really start in the fall. So we really start talking as abose back in the November time frame about what programs and services might our school districts need for the upcoming school year and that can be tremendously challenging as as you can expect that we're talking in November about a lot of services that aren't going to start for
02310 or 11 months. Um, but we ultimately need to work through our professional networks of superintendent, assistant superintendent, business officials, and the like to try to project those needs because we have to build a rate structure and provide those rates to the schools so that they can incorporate those in their overall budget. By the middle of January, we need to produce a services guide that has those rates in it and service request form so that the districts can ultimately tell us what they need so that we can start the the staffing process. I ask for those forms back by April 3rd, so coming up here in the next couple of weeks. Um, so that I can spend the next month or so working with the schools and working with our departments to hire the type
024of staff that we need to support your programs and and the vendor contracts that we need to take out on behalf of the school districts. As Dr. Merritt mentioned, on April 8th, our board will approve our administrative budget. I've given those numbers to all the schools already, but they'll officially approve it on April 8th. And then on April 28th, we'll ask the schools to vote on that budget. We certainly hope that you'll vote yes at that meeting. You'll also vote on uh the nominees for our board. We have two open seats currently. Um so anyone that is running for our board will ultimately be voted on by each of the individual schools. And on June 10th, I'll ask the board to approve our overall budget of all those programs and services that districts have signed
025up for. Um, and I joke with our board that five minutes after they approve it, it's outdated because the nature of ABOSIES is that districts are always uh looking to edit their services, add services we hope, and ultimately it's our job to work with them to meet those needs in as efficient and timely a manner as possible. So, as Dr. Merritt mentioned, we're going to talk primarily about the administrative budget because that's the one piece of our budget that you vote on. We also have a capital allocation for small kind of capital improvements around the Boseies. that's an allocation to the district and everything else ultimately you're going to decide whether or not you want to use our Boseies based on the wants and the desires and the needs of the district. So we're going
026to focus again primarily on the one piece of the budget that you need to vote on. But even before I do that, I do like to just kind of show this pie chart to kind of show where the major program revenues come from at Abosis. We're about 125 million. We might pierce 130 million by the end of this school year. And then down in the lower right hand quadrant there you see the yellow sphere. That's the special alternative education department. As you would expect at Aboseis as you've heard Dr. Bon mention special education is increasing in needs and nature. So um that's becoming a larger and larger share of our business. As I move kind of counterclockwise the CTE stands for career and technical education. That's the trade programs. We're seeing tremendous growth. We've seen
027about a 20% increase in student enrollment in our CTE programs over the last three years and we ultimately hope that you and other districts uh are enjoying those programs. The top of the the grid is our admin and our capital kind of a small piece and I'll elaborate on that in just a second. Cross contracts would be contracts with other Boseies for many of our districts. This is primarily the regional information center over at Olster Boseis and Newalt. And you guys being so close to Putnham and Westchester obviously utilize a lot of Putinham Northern Westchester services as well. Management services would be things like the public information officer services that we offer. Uh safety and security services. Learning technology would be most of the equipment and technologies and software type products that you purchase to
028provide the learning technology uh offerings that meet the needs of your students. U and then down at the very very bottom, educational resources is um professional development and curriculum. So again, you add all that up and it's about 125 million. Our key budget assumptions. So just like schools, obviously we have to set a certain number of assumptions before we can really start thinking about our rates. Uh we have a teachers contract which will expire at the end of June. Obviously, it's imperative that we reach a settlement that's both balanced for our teachers, but also prudent financially so that we can keep our rate structure in line with ultimately numbers that districts can absorb. We are going with a 9.9% health insurance increase year-over-year. It's obviously higher than anyone would like, but that has improved in
029recent months. Uh we're one of 24 members of the Duchess Educational Health Insurance Consortium. Um so we have a vote, but we move with the group, right? we only get one out of 24 votes and and ultimately um threearters of our administrative budget is retirey health insurance. So obviously you can see what a tremendous impact that has on our overall budget and I'll talk about that more in just a second. We're looking to make strategic investments in cutting edge CTE and instructional technologies and equipment. We ultimately want our students to leave our classrooms and join the workforce working on the same sort of equipment using the same sort of software products that they're going to use when they they gain employment and go out and work in industry. We're focusing on meeting the evolving specialed
030referral needs. I think Dr. Merritt, I'm sorry if you're going to bring this up later, but this past year we had about 180 kindergarten referrals and we could only place about 40 of those kids in our classes due to space needs. So, how do we meet those needs moving forward as those needs continue to evolve and grow? And quite honestly, we're out of space. Um, growth. We've seen tremendous growth in our early college and dual enrollment programs. How we're going to continue to try to service districts uh to fulfill those student needs. We're rolling out a new safety and security service, which is really going to take us from um a good place, but really evolve that. No, nobody can stand in front of you and guarantee your safety, but we think that we're rolling
031out programs and services that are going to put put districts in a much better place and allow you to say that you've done everything possible to keep your student, staff, and community safe. So, we're really proud of that. And then obviously, I talk about Boseies and a growing kind of service needs throughout the year. We do have some static uh areas and it's our job to to maintain the same discretionary spending controls that school districts would have where you have more of a finite budget. you really have to watch every penny in areas like that. We need to make sure that we are we're having the same kind of cost constraints that you guys are. Our administrative budget, as I mentioned, threequarters of this budget is retirey health insurance. So, by law, regardless of where
032the employee sits during active employment, they must move into our administrative budget when they retire if they're eligible for health insurance. So you can see on the the screen here that four we our budgettobudget increase is 4.14%. The two pieces of that and obviously there's many line items within an administrative budget but I've tried to distill it down to the big groups. The non-retiree administrative expense up 1.09%. So again we've tried to really control our controllables and this would be the active staff. This would be the superintendent's office, the board of education, HR, business deputy superintendent. So, kind of the central office folks in the Boseies again 1.09% year-over-year and the retirey health insurance and Medicare reimbursements 5.23%. So, I showed you a slide just a second ago where it's an average increase of 9.9%
033between the retire the Medicare plans and the non-Medicare. Thankfully for us, most of our retirees are Medicare eligible. So, there's a slightly lower rate from DHICK for that. So, we've been able to maintain that at 5.23%. You put the the two together, it's 4.14. On the revenue side from aboseis, we we have two primary sources of revenue. We don't have the ability to tax. We don't get state aid. Our two revenue sources come from charges to component districts and other revenues. Our other revenues are really two sources. One, we receive a payment from DHICK to be the lead financial advisor. So, we provide all the financial book work. So, we receive a payment for that. That's about a third of that other revenue. The other twothirds comes from interest income. And anybody that's been investing
034in in bonds or or in savings bonds or anything like that, you've seen interest rates come down. So, we've seen those rates come down. I expect them to come down a little bit more. So, about a $30,000 decrease year-over-year. That $30,000 gets made up by the school district. So, the school district component charge is a 4.94% increase, slightly more than the overall budget. On the next slide, um how do we allocate that uh administrative charge to the schools? Again, by law, we're required to allocate based on each district's arada, which stands for weighted average daily attendance. You can probably forget that term until I stand up here next year. But in essence, that's your enrollment with a little bit of waiting for secondary age students. It's a very non-arbitrary number that gets reported to the
035state and the state sees that as a good way um to again in a non-arbitrary manner allocate the overall budget to the school districts. Wingers you see that your AATA is down 111 year-over-year. So your increase would be 4.01% or about a percentage point less than the average. The capital and rental uh coer again this is an allocation. You don't vote on this. This is an allocation from the districts to the uh from the Boseies to the districts. Um but because you know we want to be your partner in this, we obviously want to disclose this to you. We ask we have asked the last five or six years for a million dollars. Obviously a million dollars doesn't go as far as it used to, but this allows us to maintain if we had a
036roof leak or an HVAC unit go if we had to repair some doors or windows. This would not be this is not a large capital project per se. This is just money that we're allowed to to keep outside of our normal operating budget to make those kind of fixes to keep the buildings and spaces in the sort of shape that you want to send your students and staff to year-over-year. Again, given your our Oh, I'm sorry. Take a step back. In addition to that, we rent some classrooms in in school buildings and we pay the schools for those classrooms. Uh we're budgeting $61,200 for that. So, you put the two together, it's an increase of $1,200 year-over-year. Given your u drop in arwada, you're actually down $2382 year-over-year, down just about one percentage point. I
037also my my last financial slide I like to show, you know, what was your kind of contract with the Boseies the year before and what money did you get back on that investment in in two forms, right? So, you had just under a $21 million contract with Boseies. um of that you receive back a little over 1.2 million in surplus. And surplus would be any revenues in excess of expenses. So a good example is if we're able to put another kid in a classroom, we typically don't need to hire an extra teacher or or pump in any more light or electricity if we add a kid. But that tuition, that revenue that we have can come back to the schools in the form of a surplus. And by law, we're not allowed to keep any
038surplus at the end of the year. We have to return it all back to the school district. We have no fund balance. So in July, we start fresh every year and that's kind of what makes it exciting and fresh for the Boseies. So you received a surplus back on the what you spent with the Boseies of 1.2 million. In addition, you received just under $3.8 million in Bosey's aid on uh programs and services that you spend at the Boseies. So about $5 million or 24% of your money kind of returned through surplus or Bosey's aid. I have a little caveat there that special education services are aided directly to the school district. So it's actually quite a bit probably higher than 24% but I don't have visibility to exactly what you got back professional education
039services so I I don't want to include that here. With that I've kind of wrapped the financial piece and now I can kind of turn it back over to Dr. Merritt to talk about some of the more fun stuff. >> Indeed. He's very good with the numbers but my preference are are little kids in classrooms. Um, and I can tell you the student count for Dutch, for excuse me, for Wingers includes three numbers. One is 56 and that is how many students you send to our special education and alternative education programs. That's at Soul Point Center primarily. Secondly, it's 116 for CTI. That is a number that's spread across the very various um many different programs we had for advanced studies in the trades, 11th to 12th grade, 12th graders. And finally, you know, truly
040in partnership with Wingers, we've been able to develop this PEK program which is really growing and growing growing. Wobbers alone has 22 students enrolled in that program which is an excellent example of you know the partnerships that we were talking about earlier and we thank you for that as well. >> Yes. So last April, we sought to really assess where we were headed for our future planning purposes and what does the county need for their planning purposes as well. So we explored um a strategic plan that included a number of gateways for folks to contribute their uh thoughts and ideas. Uh we took all of that information and we set course on our blueprint for excellence. Our blueprint for exc excellence is really our guiding tool for what we're going to plan in the future.
041And we have four basic pillars that we will be sort of hanging our hat on over the course of the next few years. Primarily, we want to be your first call. We want to be your call when you need a service. If it's not developed yet, we can develop it together as a partner. Secondly, we're going to pay close attention to talent management. really it's about recruitment and hiring and retaining. Um that is such a priority. In fact, we've partnered with a planning committee across the county, our 13 component school districts. A big shout out to Renee Harris who was a strategic member in planning uh for our educators job fair that's coming up this April 18th. So, I'm very proud of that. Fin and and of course, you know, at the heart of what
042we do, it's about student engagement, right? in their their sort of authentic experiences. This particular year we were able to roll out an EMT course in our CTI programs which was new for us and we'll continue with a part two of that next year. In addition to that, we have um career exploration, hospitalities and um some other health occupations programs that are going to be developed. Finally, it doesn't happen without the infrastructure and the and the and the facilities. Right? So that's another one of our core pillars um for the strategic plan. As we do this, we do this together. It's about innovation, partnership, and growth. That's sort of what we're after. And we're here in support of this component school districts. We are a service provider, and we're providing a service to you. As
043you can see, WAER is a major partner as it's a very large school district. And congratulations to Dr. Bunk and all of the wonderful things I I hear and see the spelling be for example this evening. But uh we are interested in partnering with you and supporting all of you in terms of teaching and learning. So with that I will say thank you. And did I forget anything? >> Spatialization. >> Oh spatialization. Yes. Oh yes. Two things. So on our website we have two QR codes if you're interested to um add your comments and thoughts to our spatialization um survey that's out there. That really is going to be our guing guiding tool to sort of plan out our course. uh in addition to the um educators job fair that's again on April 18th. So
044I thank you for that. Anything else did I forget? Okay. So with that I'll say thank you and if you have any questions Dr. Bon or the board I'll be happy to help answer them. >> Seeing none. >> So moved. Thank you very much. Truly. Thank you. >> Thank you Dr. It's always a pleasure. >> Thank you Mr. Scar. Thank you. >> Thank you very much. Thank you to our friends at Boseis. >> Thank you. Sorry for all that. Hit a play this weekend. Thank you very much for that presentation. If we have questions, we'll just send them over. Thank you. Um, I'd like to go back one quick item. Um, one of our students was able to join us and Miss Chanelli, if you could please um, help us out with this last name.
045We'll have him come up on the stage this time. Okay, Jim. Okay, we have one more student we want to recognize from Brinkerhoff fifth grade, Mahed Hassan. Mahed, we're gonna welcome you up to the stage. Thank you. Congratulations again. We're very proud of you. 6.01 public comments on agenda items only there. Seeing none, 6.02 communications and announcements received by the board of education. Trusty Migs. Yes. A week ago, last Friday, President Johnson and I had the opportunity to travel to Boston to watch John J. athlete um Nathaniel Johnson compete in the New Balance Nationals in the Pentathlon. And I have to tell you, it was an amazing experience. It was a state-of-the-art facility. Nate performed beautifully all day. He came in second in the nation. And just to tell you how competitive he is and
046how competitive this event is, the young man who finished first in the pentathlon also competed in individual events and came in first in uh with his 4x400 relay and came in third in the individual long jump. And if he had jumped the same distance he did in the pentathlon long jump, he would have tied for first in that event. And so, um, our athlete Nate was was very, very competitive coming in right behind him. And we would like to congratulate Nate. >> Anyone else? Mr. Lumia. First of all, I'd like to thank the the Winger Rotary for all they do for our students. In particular, last Thursday, President Johnson asked me to uh attend that meeting and that they recognize four students. One Vivian Vivana Diamond from WA Junior High, Maline Sne from Evans, Luca
047Capared, who happens to be my grandson from Chief and I don't know why, but and Samantha Rodriguez from Chief Road. So, I'd like to congratulate all those students in particular what the Rotary does. In addition, I'd like to congratulate all the all the actors in the Legally Blind at the Writ High. These kids are incredible. Not only could they sing, the Corary was fantastic. I mean, just to remember all those words, I just cannot imagine the memory these kids have. So, I'd like to congratulate them and also like to thank the the uh the advisor for the great job that they did. So that's it. Uh Mr. Morgan wants to ask has a comment to make. Oh, Mr. Mr. Mr. Cavaleri wants to make a comment. Go ahead, Virgil. >> Oh, what? >> Mr. Virgil,
048>> not about not about that particular topic. Uh Mr. Lumia. >> However, uh back to regular programming. uh as we're wrapping up uh uh women's history month, I had a really interesting experience last weekend where uh I got to meet a true uh legend and real gem to this nation. For those for those of you who don't know, her name is May Crier. She is one of the original Rosie the Riveters. She turned 100 and I got to spend uh an afternoon uh graciously welcomed into her home and listening to her fascinating stories. Uh just to tell you how impressed I was, she not only lives alone, she drives a pickup truck and still does her own grass. She is a true spitfire that really embodied the spirit. uh talking about the time frame she
049went in, she was amongst the original, like you said, cadre of uh Rosie the Riveters, and she was actually a Riveter. Uh she uh had the opportunity to work on over 5,000 B24 and B29 aircraft while her husband was fighting in the Pacific. as a uh token and gift when she learned uh that uh my affiliation with the school district here, she wanted me to uh present a gift to the school from her. So, a recent book that she put together where the proceeds are going to be going to a women's World War II museum and foundation, she uh signed it personally to the Winger schools. So, on behalf of this, we want to pass it along to uh Dr. Bong to accept it on behalf of May Crier and everyone. >> Thank you. We
050accept we accept this with gratitude. We will have it at our district office uh for all to see and um congratulations to May. This is fantastic. Thank you, Trusty Capellari. >> Anyone else? Miss Kelland >> uh John didn't mention that he uh represented you at the Italian Honor Society, the Math Honor Society and Pi Day and spoke at all those occasions. Congratulations to all the students and also to Mr. Lumia. >> I I was just I was I actually have it on my list. So, I wanted to thank Mr. Lumia um for being able to step in and speak on behalf of the board of education for me at several different things. Pi Day, math, Italian. Uh no, Italian's not up yet. No, Italian was up. There's another one coming up. Don't worry, we've got
051more coming. Um I I I'm not fluent in Italian. I do hear Mr. Lumia knows a little bit about it, so that's why I felt he was much more of a better expert to speak on this behalf of that. That being said, on top of Nate, uh, Nathaniel also broke several state records during the pentathlon for New York State. Even though he did not take the top spot, he broke the New York state records. And he also took the New York state record overall for Pentathlon. Coming in second, he still beat the overall state record for Pentathlon. Um, I have to say that, um, Mr. Herman had a very very busy last couple weeks both with the track nationals and I would like to say that um there was several others that finished quite well
052besides Nate. Hold on, let me get the right one. All right, that's the math one. He had quite a few emails to us with all the different names. So, um Kyle also went to New York City's um competition and from my understanding he did not uh win, but he did place and he did well. Um there was also the bowling championship that was going on for state as well the same time. Um and I want to thank Miss Meyers. Miss Meyers um drove all the way up there on her time um to support both Nathaniel and also our coaches and uh Coach Brent and Coach Abby um went out of their way to help Mr. Johnson with his travels up there. Um also we had the math league competition and John J. May consisting of
053Haley Kim, Anna. I'm gonna make this the print a little bigger because I'm blind. >> MFY Fly Vadero >> Cado Matt Glasser and Nathaniel Easley. I was going to say Eley Easley. Um that also did well in the math competition. And then we had fourth year in a row for John J. Team A won the overall competition. So congratulations. I believe there was also um some winners that I will allow Miss Winter to do for a another competition that was also held. Science Olympiad, Mr. Ian Miller, Dr. Miller also uh informed us today about the science Olympiad winners as well and there was a long list but I could not download the names so I will say them on the next one if that's okay. >> Just to know they came in eight out of
054440 47 schools that participated. Eighth place out of 470 students. Yeah. Two schools. That's quite an accomplishment. >> It is. It is. I just unfortunately I was my Wi-Fi was down all day today so I wasn't able to open it. >> That being said, let's go on to our um student representatives. And since I know Winter's got a long list, let's start with her today. Thank you very much. You are indeed correct. I have quite a long guys may have heard John J took home two awards at the national high school Model UN that is actually the international high school Model UN due to the amount of countries competing. We have Abashek Thomas and Sha Glasser. They both trained so so hard for this opportunity. And even those who did not get an award, they
055learned oh so much. As I mentioned at the last two meetings, I've been very excited. We got to hear the former vice president Kamla Harris speak and it was she was so so inspirational, you know, so so put together and it was really admirable seeing someone speak. I personally was a um Shinto scholar in 1869 Japan and I learned quite a lot about how to almost become emperor. It was so close. But in any case, John J also hosted the college and career fair, which I help head. Um, I was there at, I believe, 6:00 a.m. So, it was a bit of a rough day for me, but we had so so many people there. We had everything from union members, plumbers, we had so many colleges, excellent institutions, we had the FBI. It really
056goes to show the breath of opportunities Welcome to Central School District offers its students. And, you know, you got to give it up for Miss Keading who put it all that together. that is her project and it is so so inspirational to see all these students talking and future careers and even just networking taking place. So you know these students have a path forward no matter what they choose. Um science olipad also took eighth place in New York State which is absolutely amazing considering it was out of 470 schools. That is absolutely insane. Again, it's a lot of the same members from the math team, but they are so so bright and so so motivated to be able to compete at that level. It is so so admirable. Tomorrow, in honor of Women's History Month,
057we have an event taking place during the day, I believe, is periods 4 through 7, I believe. I might be mistaken, but it is all about different women that have taken an inspirational role in history. And we have one speaker for each period, speaking about different aspects of women's empowerment and such. Now, on to the not so fun stuff. Um, as many of the Winger Central School District community might have heard, there was indeed an incident at John J. High School today. The fire alarm system went off and various reports are different, but the con the somewhat conclusive answer, I don't want to say anything too definitive, was that student bumped into it. The word accidentally was used and it went off. Um, false alarms like this should not happen and I want to make
058that very clear. However, I was incredibly impressed with the speed and efficacy of which students were evacuated. Everyone remained very calm and procedures were followed to the tea. And you know, as bad as this event was and that a false alarm should not have happened, I really think that the teachers and the administrators, especially Principal Ketalawa, did an excellent job of managing the situation and keeping everyone up to date. Thank you very much. >> Thank you, Winter. Ash, would you like to go next? Speaking of your little uh what was it? College and career day fair. We got invited too, even us. Um so thank you for bringing us uh that we like any opportunity. Go outside, be enriched, be out of class. Honestly, that's all we need. Um and we will also our junior
059class will be visiting Sunni News for their upcoming college fair which I believe the Sunni News Foundation actually funds for us. So it's very nice. I love that. And that's all we have. We are crawling for spring break. I need it to happen as soon as possible. Thank you. >> A few more days. A few more days. You got this. Emma, how are you? Let's see what you got. >> This past weekend, we had RCK Racing teamed up with John J to clean race park. We have a Coral North concert tomorrow night. Wednesday, April 8th, we have our Spanish National Honor Society induction. Spring sports are underway. Good luck to all of our spring sports team. Also, don't forget to check out our podcast. Thank you very much. Okay, moving on. 7.01 consent agenda resolution.
060Does anybody need to pull anything? >> Not seeing anything. Okay. Resolve that the board of education does hereby approve the following consent agenda items as stated. 7.02 2 7.03 7.04 7.05 7.06 7.07 7.08 7 7.09 7.11 7.12 and 7.13. I have a motion. Mr. Lumia second. Miss Kelland. All those in favor? Unanimous. I'd like to take a moment. Um, Miss Goldstein was here earlier. Um, on tonight's agenda, we have approved Miss Goldstein has asked uh to retire and and leave us finally. and I would just like to thank her for her many many years of dedicated service um and her passion for Meyers is um second to none and I just want to thank her for all of her time. Dr. Bon, did you have anything? >> Thank you, President Johnson. I also would like
061to commend Principal Goldstein. Uh as you are aware, she received uh her award for 25 years of service to the Wingers. uh central school district uh this past January. Uh she's been the principal at Meyer's Corners for I believe 16 years. Obviously been with the district nine prior as an assistant principal at Roy C. Ketchum. She works diligently on behalf of the staff and the students and is truly an advocate for her students. Uh we wish her the best and thank her for her service. >> Thank you. 8.01 01 approval to attend Chamber of Commerce 40 under 40 awards ceremony. We have um two on there. So, we need to figure out who would like to be put on I believe before we read the resolution first. Read the resolution or ask who wants to
062be put into it. Okay. Who would like to go to the 40 under 40? Miss Miggots, myself, Mr. Morgan. Anyone else wanting to go to the 40 under 40? Okay. Mr. Lumia. Okay. When is the date? April 30th. >> Miss Miss Kellen, would you like to go as well? And Miss Kellen. Okay. Resolve that the board of education does hereby approve the following board members to attend the Duchess County Regional Chamber of Commerce 40 under 40 mover and shaker awards to honor WC Zack Gray John J. No, he's Van W and Sandy Bada RCK on Thursday, April 30th, 2026 at the Living Water Theater, 260 Mil Street, Pikipsy, New York at a cost of $55 registration per person. Do I have a motion? Miss Kellen second, Mr. Lumia. All those in favor? Unanimous. 8.02 O2
063new course approval college and career planning seminar. >> Do you want to do the presentation first? >> Miss Dr. Cardwell. Well, >> sure. Resolve that the board of education does hereby approve the following new course for the 2026 2027 school year as detailed in the information provided. DCC will cover the cost of the DCC credit for the pilot year 2026 2027. The course college and career planning seminar will be approved annually by the board of education college and career planning seminar department of business. Motion Miss Kellen second Mr. Lumia Dr. C. Does anybody have any questions regarding this or do we need Dr. Cardwell to do the full presentation or does anybody have any questions on this? >> Mr. ODMS. Yes. How will the students be selected into the uh to take the course? Do
064they just sign up or do they have to be sponsored by another teacher? >> Students will just be able to sign up for the course. We have some students that are already put in for the college and career planning course. That's the course we already offer. uh they will be given the option of signing up for the dcc course which is college and planning seminar which is uh similar with just some slight differences. Uh we will also um send notices to students um who may be interested in the course um maybe they're seniors or juniors and they might be interested in the course or interested in going to DCC and they might feel it helpful for them. So we'll get the word out and they can sign up for it if they're interested in taking
065it. No, the course will take place in our high schools as as a um as a high school course that they can earn dcc credit for. Miss Kell, >> uh I notice we have quite a few courses that are um set up by colleges and other uh outside organizations and some give credit, college credit. And uh I wonder if we could have a uh a short report in the future uh about how they all fit how they all fit into our overall curriculum. >> Yes, I'll be able to provide that to the board of education. >> Thank you, Dr. Cardwell. Miss Miggots. >> Yes. Um, I'd like to say that this is a resolution that I am in favor of for a couple of reasons. First, Dr. Cardwell can tell us that the um state
066is transitioning from our current graduation requirements to the portrait of a graduate. And so there is going to be a lot of work that our counselors are going to have to do to instead of just checking off that people have passed certain regents in certain areas that they have demonstrated certain skills in certain areas. And in the presentations that I've been to with NISBA, one of the ways that students are going to be able to meet some of the requirements for portrait of a graduate is by com uh completing college level courses. And this course would give our students who maybe might not be ready for DCC pre um calculus or calculus or some of the other advanced courses to be able to demonstrate their proficiency by completing a college course. Also, the first year
067of this program is grant-f funded and we would only be approving tonight that first year of the program, the pilot program. So there wouldn't be a commitment for us to continue on if once we evaluate at the end we didn't see that this is something that we would like to continue and this is not something that um as the answer to Mr. Odum's question pointed out this is not something that students are obligated to take. This is something that we are allowing students and their families to freely choose and we are offering this to them without the burden of paying tuition credit for it. >> Thank you. Any other questions? Mr. Morgan. >> Uh Dr. Cardwell, if you could just um correct any misstatement that I make in terms of the of the numbers, but
068um at this point in time, the Wapner Central School District allows our high school students to meet graduation requirements by taking classes such as dcc English, uh DCC government, uh DCC economics, and so on and so forth. And across the the two high schools, we have approximately 600 plus students avail themselves of that credit to meet a graduation requirement and simultaneously receive uh receive college credit. We currently have a class that's at least similar to this that's currently taught that I believe approximately 200 students per year take. Um, so this class would be available to students that wanted to take that similar class, earn college credit, and not have to pay, as as Trusty Migs pointed out, have to pay for that college credit. The grant that we've got would cover up to 700 students
069taking the class. If like for like from previous years we have 200 students take the class 200 is uh is less than 700 at least when when I took math. Does that sound right to you John? So so the the grant will cover the college tuition uh cost for for all of our students even if 500 additional students take the class um than compared to the typical 200. Is that is that all approximately correct? >> Yeah, that's correct. >> Just before you go on, can I give five minutes for an extension because we ran out of time. Motion, Mr. Lumia, second, Miss Kellen. All in favor? Unanimous. >> Thank you for bringing this forward, >> Mr. Copalari. Uh first of all very interesting discussion on this but as uh but as we understand it this
070grant only applies for the one year. So therefore any subsequent re-evaluation of this uh could very well possibly include no grant which means that the the district itself would absorb this. Uh so >> no absolutely not. >> Okay. I just want to make sure >> I I was very clear and I will be very clear once again. This is an award from the Duchess Community College Foundation. Duchess Community College has offered this partnership opportunity with the Winger Central School District. As we are a school district that does not pay for DCC courses, right? >> We will not pay for this course. >> It will be up to the individual to pay for the course if they choose to take it in following years. This is not president setting. This is a grant. It's basically a
071donation of $50,000. I don't know why we wouldn't accept it. >> Right. Right. And that point's well taken. Thank you for some of the clarification. Uh at least now starts, you know, maybe we should be starting to ask the questions. How are we going to measure success with this program? Is it just a uh a flat enrollment number? And then kind of looking at that. I mean, and I'm asking it more kind of rhetorically, uh, because I mean, we can't have specific, uh, >> well, I I I think first of all, you're going to be offering a college course to students who normally would not have one, to potentially gain college credit based upon an award that is being given to the school district. So they will have an opportunity and for some of them
072it may be an entree into post-secary education that they may not have thought of or may have had if they didn't have this opportunity early in their career. Number two, obviously we would look at how they did on this course. We would evaluate the acumen that the students derived from the course and then we would have a conversation next year as to how we could or if we would potentially integrate it into the electives in which we have a myriad here. So my feeling is based on what I understand uh of this um this this will be a pioneer type of program throughout New York State in anticipation of the portrait of a graduate. We we don't know exactly what it's like. We think we have a good idea. We want to be ahead of
073the curve. Exposing our students to this type of course will do that and it will give them the opportunities to gain knowledge and experiences in taking collegiate courses at the high school level which is the whole thing with the whole aspect of pathways to early college high school and that's where we're seeing the state move with portrait of a graduate. though I'm confident that this this program is going to be successful. The question will be in subsequent years. How is it funded? We simply don't know. But to the question, is it sustainable? Yes, it's sustainable now because it's through a grant. What's it going to look like next year? I'm not exactly sure, but we'll have to make that decision then. I don't want to potentially not do something and then say, well, how is
074it going to potentially be funded next year? Rightly so. >> Thank you. Did you have anything? >> Okay. That being said, can uh all those in favor of this course, Mr. Lumia? Uh unanimous. Thank you everyone. 8.03 approval of legal notice for May 2026 budget vote and board member election. Resolve that the board of education does hereby approve the legal notice for the May 19th 2026 budget vote and board member election as stated. Motion Mr. Lumia second Miss Kellen. All those in favor unanimous 8.04 second reading and adoption of policies. Resolved that the board of education of the Winger Central School District hereby approves the second reading of and adopts the following policies based upon the first reading by the board and the recommendation of the policy committee as stated. Motion Miss Kellen second Mr.
075Lumia. All those in favor unanimous 9.01 1. We don't have anything to add to the agenda. 10.01 comments from the public. All right. Well, let me read my Hold on. Let me get my little speech out. Ladies and gentlemen, we are about to listen to public comments. Although state law does not require us to hold a public comment period, we have chosen to do so because we believe it is crucial for us to hear from our community members about their concerns and issues. The board is here to listen. The public comment period is not designed to be a debate or dialogue. Please do not expect the board to respond to your concerns and questions tonight. We take your concerns and questions seriously and want to have sufficient time to process and research issues if need
076be. Any questions from the public should be submitted through the use of the public comment form which may be obtained online or at the desk with the district clerk. We will we will have the proper staff member get back to you as appropriate. I also want to point out that under the state and federal policy laws, we are unable to address any comments or questions about specific students or school personnel. We would ask you to go through the appropriate administrative channels. Compliments or complaints about student discipline issues involving specific students or personnel named or implied must not be addressed during public comment. A total of 30 minutes at the end of each board meeting is set aside to follow for public comment on items relating to our school district that are not on tonight's agenda.
077A signup sheet for non-aggenda items is located on the desk with the district clerk. Individual comments are limited to three minutes and are welcomed. In the interest of civility and respect for different points of view, clapping, booing, and any disturbance or disruption during either public comment period is not permitted. At this time, comments from the school district. Miss Ki. >> Uh, good evening, Alison Ki. Um, first and foremost, I wanted to um thank um the board of ed, the superintendent administration for opening up um budget input to the community. Um I many districts don't um allow such an open forum. Um and I think it is appreciated by all. Um with that um I'm thrilled to see the director of special education position. Um interested to see how it works out. I do think um
078one of the things that Dr. Bong said is like a huge issue um for me as I get around all the buildings. um that there is inconsistencies and when we classify how many tiers, how long um I think brilliant and I'm glad that's one of the issues. Um I do hope it it does give the opportunity. Um I think it's unfortunate just via the case loads that I see more out of district placements than the admin that placed them in. Um, I do within that also hope it gives the opportunity for ads and special ed staff to be able to visit even our own programs in our district. I find it really, you know, disheartening that they know it but really don't understand them to no fault of anyone. It's just that we're all just
079the case loads again are just busy. Um, with that being said, um, I do want I'm hoping with that that there'll be presentations and more postings and trainings for the GenEd staff on special education because if again if you don't really understand what's offered as a GenEd teacher, it's really hard to be offering the recommendation from solely from you. Um, I think as a community member, a voter, um, and the parent of two special needs children in this district, I think it would be great to have some general understanding, um, and I know it's not reorg time of what those new positions um, look like in a greater detail. And with that, I'm hoping believe um that our credibly enlarged district with the three I think postings we're going to have at district level and
080some at building level um that we will try our best, which I'm sure we will, to have past or present administrations that understand our mission statement are the ones chosen. In a district this large, it's hard to believe that wouldn't be someone, unless they don't apply, appropriate to fit that position. I'd like to acknowledge the hard work of the children in this district and I'm hoping that the district can find an appropriate and I know it's technical and hard and legal way to give these children um the same spotlight that we do for spelling bees and football stars and bowling teams um and honor society and I could go on and on. Additionally, I'd like to congratulate the unified bowling team on a successful season and publicly acknowledge with no names one administrator in the
081district that took just 10 minutes to stop by and the kids responded. I have to be honest as if a movie star walked was asked to take pictures. I was told by one student that normally writes three sentence and in her gratitude journal that she was going home to write three paragraphs because it was the I'll be done in five seconds. Um the best day of her life. Um the the basketball season is starting soon and I say this so so respectfully and and sincerely. There is a like fill the stands day. I I'm sure that some of you will attend, but I would also appreciate if you consider the ones with there isn't a huge audience. I think it's it's lost sometimes how important um like when someone as special as all of you
082come to visit them. Um, I had a parent like give me pictures because he was just blown away that someone came to visit children. I thank you all. I do know you care. I just It's my job to advocate for all the little ones. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Uh 11.01. Motion to adjurnn. Resolve that the board of education does hereby adjourn the March 23rd, 2026 board of education meeting. The time is 852. Motion, Mr. Lumia. Second, Mr. ODMS. All in favor? Thank you.