001[Music] so good evening everyone it's march 14 2022 welcome to our regular board of education meeting which is not so regular because we have our scholar athletes and um guests [Applause] thank you dr richard and so please stand and join us in the pledge [Music] the mission of the white plains public schools is to educate and inspire all students while nurturing their dreams so they learn continually think critically pursue their aspirations and contribute to a diverse and dynamic world good evening everyone i'd like to ask you to join us in a moment of silent reflection as we remember joanne brogan elementary teacher at ridgeway school from 1972 to jean-marie shea teaching assistant at the high school in 2003 to 2017. eileen talent clerk typist secretary rochambeau battle hill and post road and education house from
0021973 to 2001. thank you next we'll have our other any announcements if we can keep them through any announcements from the board i'll mention a few things quickly um so i attended the white plains high school pta meeting which was in person um after a long hiatus from being in person and besides brisk sales at the spirit wear table the administrative team presented and fielded questions it was very well attended there were you know probably over 40 uh parents who were there i also attended the high school musical uh little shop of horrors and saturday night crowd was fabulous it was more people than i've seen in like many years actually it was a wonderful production lots of talent and congratulations to the cast the crew the staff all the parents who helped i attended
003a virtual middle school vaping awareness program which was really educational and i have to say quite eye opening presented by our student assistants counselors i also this morning attended one of our uh science elementary curriculum committee meetings and we are getting closer to work you know getting to a resource we looked at data and we looked at feedback and the last thing i'll mention is the westchester putnam school boards association had a series of roundtables and so i participated in the one on communications with respect to diversity equity and inclusion and it was very interesting to interact with other school board members from other communities and find out you know where they are and what they're doing thank you king i think you and i were at the pta council meeting and again you know
004it's amazing you know i think wherever we go um our ptas and our pta council second to none and i would be remiss if you know we did not thank you that every opportunity that we can um for all that that we do for our students thank you you make it look easy thank you anything else okay next we yes um welcome to all of our scholar athletes and and their families and loved ones it's great to have you with us here this evening and it's great to be back here together as well to celebrate you right now i'd like to uh call on mr cameron to start us off good evening mr cash thank you dr ricka thank you to the board of ed for allowing us to uh recognize our student athlete individual
005student athletes and our team award winners um this winter was very successful for all of our teams our varsity girls basketball team won the league championship for the first time since 2007. our varsity boys ice hockey team and varsity boys indoor track team are also league champions [Applause] last week in the gymnasium we recognized 10 student athletes that committed to play sports the collegiate level which brings our total number this year to 14 seniors who are playing college athletics next year which is an outstanding accomplishment as the athletic director i'm very proud of our white plains tigers for all the championships and individual accomplishments just a quick summary of what took place individually for some of our athletes this winter with 10 varsity teams 47 athletes were recognized as all league four athletes recognized for
006all section honorable mention eight athletes recognized for all section and one athlete recognized as all-state our ice hockey team had the new york state division one player of the year dan cardoza and this past weekend we had two of our girls compete in the new balance nationals mia priori in the mile race walk she finished seventh in the new balance nationals and a week ago she finished fourth of the new york state championships which is [Applause] and the other young lady who competed this past weekend in nationals was sophia ginsburg in the two-mile two-mile run and she also competed in the new york state championship last weekend too so congratulations and eric anthony i can't forget you eric and the 55 hurdles he competed two weeks ago in the new york state meet as well
007certainly a season to remember with all the individual and team awards but more importantly tonight we're recognizing 148 white plains tigers varsity athletes as new york state public high school athletic association scholar athlete award winners along with 148 six of our ten so in order to be a team award winner you have to have 75 of your team has to have over 90 average so six of our 10 varsity teams this winter receive the team award and each every time we do these awards every coach sends me a text and asks me if they can go first and i'm going to go right down the list coach is going to have an opportunity to come down talk about the team and call out the students we're not going to have everybody come down just like
008we did in the fall for those of you who are here just going to stand up where you are and then once we're done we're going to go out as a team and take a take a team picture out in the lobby so our first team to call up is a team award winner with 30 33 scholar athletes is our boys track and field team coach dan furry thank you uh welcome everyone um thank you board for doing this award for us we're super proud track and field takes great proud pride in always winning this award we've done it for many many years in a row i'm super proud of this team this year it was a great group to be around 33 scholar athletes 19 league champions to all county and the state qualifier
009we won the highly competitive 1a championship um league title one of the toughest conferences in all of westchester county we were second in the westchester county championships and we were six in the section one championship meet so super great year and we're really proud of all these student athletes so i'm going to read the names now patrick brown captain mason lang jacob lee all county albert mundunden ronan staff eric antonuccia captain league champion county champion state qualifier marcus chung abraham casares eli goldman yuki wannabe matt viola mark rosenthal phillip mann andrew rapper patrick stanton alex londich jake fraudman friedman sean o'donnell aeon kreiger matt welling joey joey emilio matt sellinger aiden bartlett max paulner eric johnson jose guerra felix garcia that's kevin garcia felix fabian brown london champion kiernan keane william cow alejandra mendoza and
010jefferson durango congratulations [Applause] congratulations to the boys track with trap you guys can go outside and take a picture with the coach out in the lobby more than welcome to come back in or you're more than welcome to take off our next team with the equal amount of numbers 33 is our boys swim and dive head coach patty gilmartin is not here tonight assistant coach josh aller is going to call the names out coachella [Applause] good evening everybody [Music] i just want to say i'm very proud of the boys on the very hard effort they put this year i know we've had a lot of tough meets but i couldn't be prouder of these boys than i am right now because it's not all about winning losing it's all about how hard they try and
011all the effort they put into their races so now i'm going to read off the names first up vin negan jerry chen mason cashello jack cannon [Music] jackson batts aidan morgan daniel chung ricardo valencia lionel race joseph ferrara kevin in yoke aaron levy [Music] noah potafio stefan kamich matthew diaz keegan murray edward [Music] molina diego chavez william cara pedro vila antonio ruiz sebastian maldonado rohan kumar joseph carter falca nicholas bullet joshua maisel [Music] andres velasquez andre orel velazquez matthew fady rory kieran gerardo sebelia oh and also john john uh hold on john murray also known as connor murray all right thank you [Applause] congratulations varsity swim and dive boys next up is our girls track and field team coach fred singleton with 20 individual awards and also the team recognition i want to thank the
012board for this and recognizing our student athletes not only on the girls and boys track team but all the teams the girls had a very good season this year we were third in the toughest league in westchester county as mentioned before we had two young ladies sophie and mia go to the state meet and sophie and mia also went to the nationals where mia priori was seventh in the nation in new walk [Applause] one of the things i'm very proud of with these 20 names i'm about to name is that a great percentage of them are ninth graders so we're in good shape not only on the track but also in the classroom with this group i can see my ninth graders over there going in that all right we're gonna start with sarah alzati
013who brought our own fan club april anthony karen becerra sydney bloomberg two talented sisters sophia d pietro and sydney pietro su de ural isabella espanola [Applause] riley farvey vogue friend [Applause] celia encorado valerie juarez priya kumar gabriela perez gianna fiore carlo restress kayla abby roman and one of our most outstanding people that we've ever had on the track team reena stankagee [Applause] thank you coach singleton one more big round of applause for that group [Applause] next up is a team that made a significant amount of progress over the last few years under coach dietzwick's leadership who has 19 individual scholar athletes our varsity wrestling team coach diethwick good evening everyone my name is chris dietwick and i am the varsity wrestling coach here at white plains high school on behalf of the entire white plains
014wrestling program i want to thank everyone for all of your continued support and help this past season and always i am now proud to announce the names of this year's scholar athlete wrestlers 10th grader michael bellantoni 11th grader vincenzo bonaito 9th grader jason sespadis 9th grader ryan chung [Music] 9th grader yaniv dardashi weiss 12th grader david espinosa 9th grader christopher george 12th grader alan hernandez 12th grader anthony wonka 9th grader justin lopez 12th grader calvin mclaren 12th grader anthony plunkett 10th grader lucas rhode 10th grader sebastian sanchez 9th grader luke shank 9th grader tyler tan 12th grader zantello [Music] 9th grader leo torres and finally 10th grader angel valencia [Applause] i just want to say it's been an honor and a privilege to coach these well-deserving students congratulations to all the scholar athletes here tonight
015thank you [Applause] all right wrestling team you guys can head out and take a picture next up is coach rubenstein voice to the ice hockey [Applause] ice hockey was also a team award winner with 16 individual scholar athletes all right the boys varsity ice hockey team hard-working dedicated league champions and not only champions on the ice the champions in the classroom our first person ari bernstein daniel cardozo [Applause] vincent d'allesandro mario di maria justin esposito [Applause] alex farben griggs lev glassman ethan gilbert joe kittlestack [Applause] josh levin leon murano jason monty phillip sugarotsky [Applause] ryan conrad [Applause] george snyder [Applause] and ryan ortiz congratulations gentlemen [Applause] thanks coach all right next up a huge improvement in the classroom we went from four scholar athletes in the fall our girls winter cheer team had 15 individual
016scholar athletes and coach jess calesco come on up [Applause] hello everybody um i just wanted to give a big congratulations to all the teens and athletes here tonight this group has overcome a lot this season and i'm very proud of them they excelled extremely on the mat and in the classroom um we're going to start with sophomore jessica bellantoni tatiana brown senior dog cavillo sophomore natalie fenelon senior misa glen senior alyssa hamrady freshman taylor hemingway wilkins freshman ella concello senior corey lee junior janice rayo junior anderson restrepo two sisters freshman anna and katarina strohmanger senior tyanna thompson and senior juliet velazquez congratulations chair next up is one coach two teams varsity boys and girls bowling coach armageddon one stipend [Applause] which is normal coach good evening congratulations also to uh all the scholar athletes that
017were previously called i had the privilege of coaching the boys and girls bowling team um we definitely increased our participation and our level of play last year i believe there was uh you need to have a full team you have to have five bowlers per per uh group last year there was i think three boys and one girl this year we had uh seven boys and five girls we had full bowling teams on either side and um on the boys side we have two scholar athletes we were close for a team didn't quite make it but our two scholar athletes for the boys side we have jack mcmahon please stand up and alex matthews on the girls side we had five uh participate and all five made it so we have we are a team
018award on the girls side um we have lucy barrist elena ionize somia sawat jolie o'rourke and lily barbing graves congratulations [Applause] now we have two more teams both individual award winners uh varsity boys basketball coach mayfield coach benji here good evening everyone i would like to congratulate all the scholar athletes on a job well done i wish you continued success thank you to the administration the board for always backing student athletes greatly appreciated white plains boys basketball was a season of growth and development the future is set up to be very successful both academically and athletically with six sophomores and three juniors looking forward to returning with that group we also were three uh finished third in the league had three all-league players and one all-conference player they worked hard although our record wasn't what
019we always want they were always in the gym and enthusiastic and willing to work hard their future is very bright this year we had three qualify and several very close our sophomore luke brooks senior david d bernardo and our lead logan mccormick thank you i appreciate everyone thanks [Applause] alright the last team up is our varsity girls basketball team that had a outstanding season like i said earlier it was the first league championship since 2007 and we had four girls on the team that received individual scholar athlete awards is karen sergey here isabelle mcguire a navy platter and annalise reggio good job girls congratulations all right so we cleaned out the room pretty much um dr ricka thank you board of ed thanks this is always a nice night to uh that you give us
020an opportunity to recognize all the hard work that the student athletes put in to the seasons and what they do and we couldn't do it obviously without all the support and we do uh thank you for all that thanks thank you and and congratulations to everyone coaches students and most importantly our parents who make these these things happen you bring them we love them and we thank you thank you i also want to thank mr cameron thank you so much and all of our coaching staff um and the parents and guardians and i was just talking to trustee bray here when we we have our next scholar athlete event it will be together even a little bit more where we won't be going out to take pictures in the hallway and we'll be able to
021have more kids be able to stay here and celebrate each other but it is great to be back in person and a huge congratulations to all of our scholar athletes it's just a tremendous job in terms of increasing numbers and showing their prowess not only in their their sport but also in the classroom so uh really really tip of the hat um also want to thank our colleagues from rochambeau for being here this evening it's rochambeau night [Applause] thank you thank you so much for for joining us this evening and and uh up first i'm feeling a little tinny all right all right um up first is of course our student representatives uh and alex good evening [Applause] uh hello everyone we just have some notes from each school uh some positive stuff that's happened
022over since the last meeting we had so first we have from george washington uh george washington their pta hosted their first future careers day on february 18th student dressed up as their anticipated career choice they had all fields represented and are eager to see their dreams come true on march 2nd ridgeway celebrated read across america day where families were able to zoom into classrooms and read their favorite stories with students substance ab came in pajamas and brought their favorite stuffed animals to complete the cozy reading day one of their pta presidents lucy and cimello put together a slide show that we shared with families so post road had black history month students at post elementary school and grade sport and fifth research black americans who made sense of contributions to history they created powerpoint presentations
023which were recorded and presented and aired during jail morning announcements they'll set kindness week slash super bowl week they celebrated kindness week which coincided with our annual super bowl one way they showed their kindness for each other is caring for the community this was a friendly competition between grade levels to bring in as many food items as possible and to feed those who are food insecure in our community they collected 2 200 food items as a result their post food pantry also known as the market has now reopened to sarah brown school community they also had the 100th day of school their kindergarten friends celebrated the 100th day of school last month by dressing up as 100 year olds engaging in lots of fun 100 day activities especially in the area of matt their 4th
024and 5th grade boys and girls basketball team had a great season played against other four elementary schools we are proud of their performance in every game especially demonstrating good sportsmanship so church street enjoyed spirit week on silly sock day they had fun while collecting socks for those in need and as part of spirit week they also had career day the church street champions dressed up for their future careers parents and junior achievement organizations also inspire students with presentations about their careers their third fourth and fifth graders had a virtual visit with author stacey mcnulty they look forward to the office visit for our k2 students in april their first grades are kicking off at the planting season by planting some less seeds later this week they also are sprucing up our garden with a generous
025grant from the friends of white plains hello everyone i'm zyda polanco i'm the other co-president of white plains high school along with alex um so we have some updates from mamanic avenue elementary school during the month of february we focus on character traits that helps create positive peer friendships for the month of march we are currently focused on ways we show empathy we had amazing participation as we celebrated parp with month with month-long activities as we encouraged everyone to read together during the month students participated in fun activities in school as they log their reading times as we work to meet our school-wide reading goals classes with the most reading minutes will be celebrated this month we are so incredibly proud of both our mas girls and boys and basketball teams they have been working
026hard practicing weekly and becoming a strong team on and off the count a special thank you to backyard sports our families and our mas staff coaches for making this opportunity so meaningful for our students we had a one book one school activity as we invited a guest author to meet with all classes together we learned about the writing process as we read the book if i could create my own school as a school mas will be celebrating its 100th birthday in the spring stay tuned for our celebration plans as we use this book to inspire our own ideas as we think about what mas will be like in the next hundred years [Music] in eastern middle school easy had the following activity for the month of march march 1st 2nd and 3rd they had a
027school trip to see the movie the tiger rising in addition to the movie students are also working on a video presentation of east view on broadway the video is scheduled to air at the end of the month an in-person spring performance at easter on broadway is forthcoming we will select a date this week the movie was selected because all students read the book in the fourth grade in roshambo they want to congratulate roshambo students richard ramirez randy chashuka kevin mendoza ashley okendo jacob terado and naomi garcia they were our february directors challenge winners for their achievement in the area of social studies they received a special luncheon compliments of social studies teacher alicia lugo we would like to give a big shout out to our music teacher gary cassidy he did an incredible job as
028the pitt musical director this weekend in the production of little shop of horrors we also would like to take this opportunity to congratulate social studies teacher bill krebs on his official retirement today he has been an integral part of our school community for 25 years touching the lives of so many along the way the students and staff at rochambeau wish him all the best we are currently in the process of planning a career day that will take place next month on friday april 8th so what white plains uh of course last uh we presented a little shop of which had approximately 300 people there per night so it was incredible of course as you know i know today marks the first day of our spring sports which includes baseball softball track and lacrosse or after
029our track uh today we had two very important and equally moving assemblies for both black history month and women's history month in our media center where we had some amazing speakers steppers bollywood dancers and poets next week we're partnering with the pta highlights in the high school are having mr grimes talk about internet and social media safety and of course our junior prom will be held on the 3 25. last month we had the average college avid college fair um the nhs nhs induction for juniors will be coming up soon our ap art students will be holding their portfolio exhibitions on march 28th we celebrated pi day today on march 14 3.14 yes and senior prom is on june 2nd so we are also preparing for that and that is all for today thank you
030congratulations on your award from the african american men of westchester i sit on that scholarship like to welcome sophia this evening she'd like to give the board an update on our sustainability efforts here at white plains good evening members of the board my name is sophia alexandria i'm a junior at white plains high school and come to you on behalf of our advocates for the earth club and westchester greene county usa a youth led climate organization as an executive council member i'm here to talk to you about some exciting developments regarding the prospect of solar panel installation at whitman's high school new york state has introduced a program that provides incentives to project developers to increase the number of solar projects in the state we are currently looking at a program particularly with with particularly
031attractive incentives called community solar and granite service territory in this project project developers invest capital to build own and operate solar projects conan receives the power receives power and pays premium for every kilowatt hour generated by the project host schools do not invest capital and are not required to purchase electricity solar panels will be installed at any available location in the school like rooftops above parking lots for any unused space this project does not require weapons high school to make monetary investment or commitment to purchase power or maintenance responsibilities there are significant benefits to hosting community solar for example white women's high school will receive significant lease payments from the solar system developer it can obtain covered playgrounds and parking community members will receive a decrease in reduction in their reduction in their electricity bills
032students will be able to learn about solar energy through seeing it happen in real time and of course the most important reason the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions is expected that the installation of solar panels will result in a reduction of about 2.3 million kilowatt hours per year for white plains high school in addition to all that this installation of solar panels would make white points high school a leader in the fight against climate change earlier this year i was able to collaborate with our advocates for the earth president lilly kiss horvath and rasha alvakiel dr freeman mack and mr stefanelli to make white plains high school carbon neutral for the 2021-22 school year making it one of the only schools in the country to reach the status this carbon neutrality was able to be
033achieved through offsetting our emissions which manifested through investing in sustainable projects overseas in developing countries i'm currently working with my peers over at westchester green county usa on a pledge we call the westchester pledge that more heavily focuses on a strong reduction efforts to have westchester schools become 50 net zero by 2030 and 100 net zero by 2045. strong reduction efforts like the installation of these solar panels will allow white plains high school to reach this goal much more efficiently offsetting is great but it's not going to get the job done myself along with my peers and advocates for the earth strongly strongly support this initiative in terms of other reduction initiatives from our school we are currently preparing to install led light bulbs in all classrooms and advocates for the earth is working with
034tree punish to plant trees around the school if you want to support our club we invite you to our upcycled fantasy fashion show at 4pm on march 18th at the white plains high school little theater tickets are completely free if you want to learn more about westchester green county usa and the westchester pledge and its implications for white plains high school contact me about our april 2nd virtual conference where i'll be hosting a breakout session that will discuss it more in depth thank you that's great that's so thank you very much very thank you all of our students really proud of you guys okay got a little bit more intimate um a couple of just a couple of quick updates uh of course we sprang ahead yesterday today for pi day and uh thanks to
035everybody who participated in a lot of really fun activities with the kids um to celebrate pi day and uh st patrick's day parade has also been rescheduled in white plains the 26th of march and uh i know you're looking forward to it at nine two sunday's the first day of spring um [Music] again congratulations little shop of horrors got the lion king coming up uh next week so that'll be exciting too and i also have on my list of notes tonight to thank the pta you know over the last two years i think we have worked closer with with the pta than ever before and it's been a tremendous pleasure working together not just with but with everybody in the pta so i want to offer and extend my thanks today also not not lost
036on me uh two years ago today the monday was the day that school was closed uh and it really feels good to be here tonight even though it's an intimate crowd but it feels good to be in person it feels good uh to to see uh every day our our community continuing to to get stronger and more comfortable as we're moving but still vigilant as we're moving past the pandemic we're never going to lose i don't think i hope that level of vigilance that we need to be ready so we don't get caught flat-footed but at the same time you know we are working very very hard to bring our children back to uh a place of more of a typical experience at school so in person events in person uh activities and field trips
037end of the year activities we're planning all all in person uh visiting our visiting schools for parents and guardians some parents and guardians you know our youngest children have never been able to walk in in our buildings so all of these all of these things these important components of the school experience are coming back and we're really we're really happy about that we have a reopening committee meeting this wednesday and i am going to be letting the committee know against the later first i'm going to be letting the committee know that we're going to pause the remaining meetings and of course if need be we can bring the committee re-activate the committee to come back together again but at this moment right now we are in a position where we are able to move forward
038uh which is fantastic and and of course you know we're going to continue to notify our communities when we have identified cases of covenant 19 but as you know and as you've seen over the last several weeks we're looking at you know thank god in single digits in many instances so this is all very good news i had the opportunity last week to go to albany and to advocate for pre-k funding for all children throughout the state of new york we saw the the draft one house budgets coming out for the senate for the assembly those both those budgets contain additional funding for pre-k it will be interesting to see and we're continuing to advocate for more money for pre-kindergarten all throughout the state of new york and the executive budget which we're anticipating will
039be a couple of weeks another coin of pride on friday morning i learned that the white plains city school district was part of a white house faction in how the american rescue plan funds were being utilized across the country to support children and to support communities in a sustainable fashion and very proud and congratulations to everybody i i texted the board early in the morning i said i don't know about you this is the first time i'm in a white house faction uh which which was pretty great and uh and and we're looking forward to of course cooler cleaner fresher hair in all of our facilities in years to come on this evening's agenda we also have the calendar for 2022 2023 and it's important to know this csea holidays are part of that one
040single page calendar now so hopefully that will eliminate any confusion that maybe we saw in the past we have the as a reminder the budget vote and board of education election coming up on tuesday march 17th right around the corner [Music] and then this evening we have uh the preliminary proposed question but before i do i just want to draw some attention to some other accolades at the high school freshman lance anthony won the poetry out loud regional competition and advanced the new york state finals congratulations to lance our seniors had their artwork exhibited the katana museum of art throughout february and pictures of their work has been posted on the district's facebook page and congratulations to all of those artists on march 3rd of flight plans high school students rene estanglini nationally dove and
041esther chan along with their orchestra teachers performed at the commemoration ceremony marking two years since the first confirmed probably 19 cases in westchester county and this was held at the county building and by request of the county executive so that was a great opportunity for our kids and then of course as was mentioned earlier on march 7th we hosted college signing day here at white plains high school we had four kia uh that day i think 10 students signed and and we're at 14 now which is really uh something to to to note and uh congratulations to all of those students student athletes but but also to their parents and guardians because as we all know you don't get to that level of performance and achievement without having a very strong support system and faculty
042and staff members and coaches who support staff here at the school as well who have helped get them to where they are today so congratulations to everybody now unless there are any questions um preliminary proposed budget you can you sure can it's the next level the board will entertain comments from the public eye issue with the time limit of three minutes oops sorry with a time limit of three minutes um per person a maximum time of 25 minutes please respect the dignity of individuals and please feel free to contact the administration with any questions that you may have and please state your name hello my name is lee moore i am a proud parent of three elementary students in the white plains city school district including one student in the ict program thank you for
043having me this evening i want to start with immense gratitude for the experience we have had in the school district particularly regarding the teachers and support staff who have guided and continued to guide our journey while the efforts and dedication reaching far beyond the school day may not make it on a bar chart as a data point the experience created by those on the ground floor is real and the impact on our children is profound in nature so from my family we have tremendous gratitude because we have had a phenomenal experience in my claims as a parent teacher and union cabinet member and tap dancer just kidding not that part go back as a parent teacher and union cabinet member i am so proud of all the ways we have advocated as a district and
044as a union to get fully funded i look forward to hearing the superintendent's budget and how it supports all of our learners i hope for continued for a continued dialogue finding ways to collaboratively work together to ensure that all of our kids benefit from our fully funded schools thank you for your partnership thank you [Music] hi my name is karen mccormick lyons for the purpose of this i reside at 500 north streets i just thought it was really fitting to say thank you to everyone i can't believe that it's two years and we've been through so much together and it was so fitting that on friday this district was placed on the white house fact sheet as arp stars so thank you to the people who do the math and the people who do the
045thinking into the board who have supported that work were really grateful i also just wanted to thank the middle school pta for funding our grants for critical literacy because the museum is opening and i hope you all join us soon and last but not least i had arp stars uh yes that was the other thing that is fitting so the books brought us through the pandemic and we're coming out the other side with more books over 40 000 of them stay tuned [Applause] started out with about 115 slides we're down to 35. [Applause] uh i do in all seriousness i want to thank everybody who was part of this process and that is everybody in our school district we really endeavor to have every voice be part of the budget construction process and as you
046know and as i always say there is not a singular budget time of year it's all year long and you the planning that goes into our long-range plan the planning that goes into our long-range fiscal planning our strategic planning all of all of that work comes together in gels when we have our our proposed budget tonight i am very very proud of this budget that we're proposing to the board of education for its consideration and then potentially for the city of white plains for its consideration in may just an agenda for for this evening's review and i'm gonna i'm going to move us through this now it's important to remember that all of this information is available on the district's website and all about the budget section and as much detail as you you would
047like to review the budget it's all there for you it is really important to us that every member of our community has access to all aspects of the district's finances as well as our planning materials as we put our budgets together so we start out with our strategic plan we move forward then with goals and objectives and this is goal these are goals and objectives at every level of the organization they all feed into the strategic plan and lead back to the mission vision and values of the school district i i don't need to go through all the reasons why planning is important uh there are so many aspects that are not within our control that can have an impact on our fiscal planning uh that is why it is important to control what we
048can and making sure that we have sustainable plans for them not just this budget cycle but also the out years is important to all the work that we do so anything from a turbulent economy which as all of you know we are anticipating interest rates are going to be increased and we are anticipating some type of uh economic shift uh in the years to come whether it be a recession what will that look like we don't know so as we plan for the future in the stability of the school district it's important to recognize that we have to try and figure out as much as we can what things will look like in the future efficient budgeting making sure that we are reallocating resources where we need to making sure that uh for the future
049we're on solid ground and all the decisions that we make are sustainable and we recognize that those decisions are not just about today but they're also about the future we want to always maintain our programming and seek to change where resources are going in the school district before we are cutting programming or reducing programming so we recognize that all the decisions that we're making this year are going to have impacts in the years to come and we do that each year as i mentioned their vision emission vision and core values are all part of the planning process as well as our goals each year in the strategic plan and you'll be able to to sort of identify all of our strategic planning goals in the budget so whether you're looking at the instructional component of
050the budget or the non-instructional component of the budget you'll be able to draw back to those goals and objectives i actually want to ask ann to talk a little bit about this slide because this is a this is an important aspect for all of us thank you um so what this slide depicts is what has transpired over the past 15 years with school districts in 2008 it was the great recession and we had economic downturns and layoffs and then in 2012 they instituted the tax levy cap and the state then enacted the gap elimination and just took monies away from all school districts just right off the top and then they also didn't comply with the campaign for fiscal equity and that court ruling and that's our foundation aid and then you roll it forward
051to 2021-22 10 years and the state now is committed to fully funding foundation aid for 14.1 million dollars that the white plains city school district will receive over these three years and they have also committed the federal government to giving us we're committed to receiving 16.5 million one-time only federal funds and in 2122 the district had reduced its tax levy cap by 5.2 million and its overall budget by three million six to three million six two um and then for the coming year we're looking towards you know permanent state aid funding another reduction that's being recommended for the tax levy cap of 6.4 million we understand that the one time only federal funds will disappear but we weren't counting on them because they're not reoccurring we're hoping for the implementation of the master facilities plan
052and yes we understand that they could potentially be an economic downturn and through all our fiscal planning we're poised so well over the last five years we've looked for ways to continue to return dollars if you will to the taxpayer and that's been something that's been very important to the board of education very very important to the school community we recognize that in years past just about 86 percent of the budget was was through property taxes and only now has it been reduced somewhat with the fully the full funding of foundation aid everything is always in a cycle of improvement and whether it be dr hand working in curricular areas or whether it be devalgarten working in pps areas or whether it be scott pepper overseeing and working to to bring efficiencies to human resources
053whether it be and in business and operations office or whether it be in my office where we're working sort of with everybody we're always looking to improve and that goes from district office all the way down to every one of our classrooms we recognize that every day is a new day to try to do a better job and that's what our budget allows us to do as well and you'll see here we have a number of reviews that are taking place and they're in different stages of review and next steps in 2223 we're looking at a full review of our inclusive practices as well as response to intervention and protocols districtwide these you see every year these are the principles or the guiding principles in terms of developing our plans so first we want to
054protect our instructional core making sure that all of the opportunities that our children have remain and not only do they remain but that they change and evolve and they grow year to year to provide them with the best possible experience as we can we evaluate needs versus wants we make decisions related to what we can do based on what we need to do we look to preserve our investments like our facilities and make sure that we're preventing costs where we can by preventative maintenance and the like we're always looking for efficiencies we're always looking to be able to share services we do find efficiencies regularly as you have seen over the years as well as opportunities to share services to reduce costs we delay program impact wherever possible and then of course reduce and restructure
055don't eliminate we know you've all lived through this you know how very difficult it is to bring something back once it's gone so we always look to be able to preserve make changes where we need to but wherever possible not eliminate programming so we have gone through the instructional budget the non-instructional budget even before that we did our long-range plan update and now we're here to talk about the proposed budget and it it it is a it is a point of pride uh we have for years advocated for the full funding of foundation aid for the district we have said that if we were able to achieve full funding that we would do what we could to reduce the burden to the taxpayer and now you know this board of education and the school district
056has a great track record of fiscal responsibility being conservative wherever we possibly can to save money wherever we possibly can and this year we are putting forward a budget that not only brings with it all of the goals and objectives of our long-range plan our strategic plan but also brings with it no tax increase and you know one of the the first things that we think about when we say no tax increases well does that set us up for future years for a problem and no it doesn't we've we've gone through the numbers we've made sure we we've reviewed everything in terms of what our projections are and we are confident that this year we are able to bring a budget forward that supports all of our programming and also supports every one of our
057taxpayers and we learned that because the tax rate right rate not loving because the tax rate has has gone down here in the city that in fact some of our residents may actually see there is a tax reduction um it depends of course on your property taxes it depends on where you are in terms of your assessments but it is good news uh it is good news for the white plains city school district it's good news for the community in the city of white plains and again it didn't happen by accident happened through advocacy it happened through smart planning through a board of education and leadership that has been stable and recognizes how important it is to plan in all of the avenues but we are very proud to be able to bring this forward
058this year and again thinking about how things have changed you can see the real property taxes the percentage of which as is borne by the taxpayers going down and that that essentially is is your infusion of foundation this slides pull in [Music] so dr had pointed out the appropriations budget um the amount that's supported by the tax levy it has gone down from 86 to 80 and the amount that the state and feds are supporting of our budget is now up to 15 when it had only been 10 so that is significant um the tax levy cap was instituted in 2012 and it was dubbed the 2 percent half which it's not it's actually an 8 step complex calculation as you can see you know the slide is a little overwhelming but the two percent
059cap is on the allowable growth factor that is the lesser of two percent or cpi and for the year ending 2021 that cpi was 4.7 so therefore we were capped at the 2 the maximum allowable tax levy is prescribed by law for that calculation really comes out to 3.24 so that the district could raise the levy by 6.4 million dollars and the board has we talked about is committed to reducing that levy 2.1 through the use of the debt service reserve fund as it had been doing and then to also further reduce it by 4.3 million to a zero tax levy increase due to the full phase in foundation aid so the good news is the state is investing in education i always love that and you've noticed this every year whoever it doesn't matter
060who it is but whoever is in charge let's say and this year we're investing historic dollars in in education because if you increase at one dollar it's historic dollars right every year it goes up but this year is truly special um this year is also an election year to to see foundation aid being fully funded is outstanding we also know and we're anticipating that there could potentially even be additional changes when the one house budget does come out in a few weeks that could include additional funds for pre-k we know it's likely going to include additional opportunities for mental health grants which very very important right of course for all of our children as well as other potential opportunities including things like farm to table and electric school buses so again just just kind of
061going through what what this looks like in terms of fully funding foundation aid with regard to expense driven aids and the proposals to fully fund all those expense driven aids as well transportation building process instructional material aids so where are our expenses uh they're they're exactly where you would expect them to be again this is another point of pride um for really everybody i think is that our the the vast majority of our expenditures are in program and that's where they should be they should be touching children in classrooms making sure that their experiences are robust making sure that they have access to the highest quality professionals who are going to be able to support them whether they be classroom teachers whether they be special area teachers whether it be specialists and support personnel helping
062helping professionals you name it there are a number of people who impact our children on any given day and we are a people business so the vast majority of those funds are going the programmatic funds are exactly where we want to see our dollars distributed with regard to demographic data and this is not new you've seen this before you've seen the slide before we've talked about this the projections right now both in white plains and really everywhere are that enrollment is declining live births have declined um and really the increases that we're seeing in population are due to people either moving in or the decreases or people moving out we lost new york state lost a lot of people throughout the pandemic for a variety of reasons i'm sure the question remains will we as
063a state have the fortitude to attract them back or attract additional folks and we've been advocating as well for things like attracting teachers from across the country ways that we can partner uh with with our colleagues to attract more teachers so that you're bringing more opportunity back or into the state of new york and the same goes true with residents as well so taking a look at all of our staff our full-time equivalency you can see we just break everything out here so you can see the numbers of folks who are supporting our students you can see our adopted budget 2122 modified budget for 2122 and our preliminary budget for 22 23 remember there was a period of time that we held on positions we wanted to again be be conservative we wanted to to
064be smart we didn't know what was going to be coming so we held on increasing those positions until we knew that we were in solid foundation i'm sorry solid fiscal footing to be able to reintroduce those positions positions that we're introducing in this budget are again all populated in our long-range plan they've all been part of that planning process all along and we'll go a long way to supporting our students you will see that a number of helping the vast majority are helping professionals so you can see psychologists you're going to see support personnel which which is really outstanding additional budget factors that always come into play employee benefits and we've done really well um in terms of our health health care costs our increases in our health care costs we've done really well in
065terms of trs and ers in terms of debt service we have two serial bonds they're one or they're going to be falling off in a period of a few years which is part of what we're talking about in terms of our master plan our facility projects we have a variety of projects taking place both um part of our our master plan part of our our one time only spending and then we have capital projects as well we have tax cert refunds this year predicted to be a little bit higher than they have been so far but we do think you know in the future they'll be coming back again we really lost a year or so um during the pandemic so we anticipate we we planned for about five million yeah um and uh we're
066we're below that so far this year we'll see again personnel costs are all in accordance with our collective bargaining agreements and other contract uh contractual things to think about we're all thinking about it utilities gas energy right very expensive and it dovetails nicely we have one of our students sophia here this evening talking about ways in which we can continue to increase our sustainability capacity our capacity for sustainability here in the district as well so breaking it out the apc right that three parts so you have your administrative your program and your capital components of the budget and as i mentioned before everywhere you want to see is that program be big and robust in the other two areas as small as you can make it we break it out this way as well because
067a lot of times you think about administration you might think about administrators there's a lot more that goes in that administrative side of the budget and it's important for folks to understand that as well as program um and of course capital so just breaking that out this way you can get a sense of what's really incorporated for for an organization our size there's a lot that goes into all of those components so what happens when a budget fails this is more of a superstitious set of slides that we keep in here every year just to remind everybody we have been so fortunate in the past blessed with community support i think you know my hope is that um and what i've been hearing so far is that as people see this year's proposed budget that
068they will be pleased with it but you know when a budget fails there are consequences just like with any election and the board of education has the opportunity to bring the budget back reconfigure it if they so choose or put and then put it out again for a second vote or keep it the same put it out again for a second vote really depends on how things look uh if the budget is unsuccessful that second time then you go to a contingency budget well joe you're not increasing taxes how could you if you could you have a problem well we would still see a loss of about a million dollars in a contingency situation which of course is problematic right that means somewhere in the organization you need to uh make a reduction of about
069a million dollars so our hope is that as we have in the past we will communicate clearly effectively and regularly with our community and i'll make sure that i don't make the mistake of saying the wrong month in the future and make sure everybody comes out on may 17th 2021 from 12 to 9 to participate what what'd i say 24 30 oh geez 2022 sorry from 12 to 9 pm and we we also have a couple of other we also have a couple of other questions on the ballot as well and this year we were very excited to share uh with the community the outcome of what has really been years and years worth of work of course slowed down but not stopped but slowed down by the pandemic of our master plan and our
070master plan has a number of opportunities for our district to to improve our infrastructure and really touches the entire school district in phase one we really have three recommendations um one as we spoke about already is the hvac right we have all of the the ventilation and cooling that will take place all throughout the district and part of that is going to be funded uh through a grant and i always like to thank and mention former assemblyman david buckwald for that support there and then of course through the american rescue plan as well as some additional um one-time only grant funds and and and funds from us as well and that would be zero cost to the taxpayer the renovations and improvements in educational program space of 71.4 million dollars and this is part of
071again phase one of the master plan would be tax neutral which means it won't increase uh your taxes as a community member so how do you do that well you do that by taking advantage of debt from previous projects previous bonds that is falling off to keep the costs the same keep the cost static so we'll be able to complete those and there'll be much more to come of course in terms of what this is going to look like but we'll be able to do this at a tax neutral position which we we're really excited about and then the third aspect uh the third question is the establishment of a new capital reserve which will allow us to to reserve up to 50 million dollars over the next 15 years and this of course has
072no increase to the taxpayer either so next steps and thankfully the dates are all right there we we just finished up tonight on the 14th 2022 i am unsure as to whether or not we will need a workshop we always put this workshop in and then typically we cancel it because we don't need to have a meeting next monday as well but we'll we'll get back on that after we speak with the board of education but we will continue to be talking about and sharing aspects not just of the proposed preliminary budget but also of course the master plan so very exciting as we make our way to may and the school budget and school board of education election questions does anybody have any questions yeah sure that would be really good it would be
073any in creek it could be facilities and things that are within the facility's budget that's not deemed health and safety would be eliminated it could be certain um you know supplies and materials for students um and also it could be raises that are non-part of our union agreements um so along those lines um so and you have to comply also there's two two things removal of non-contingent expenses that that are required as well as complying with an administrative cap um which that ratio requires you to match what the prior year cap was so you're removing things to get to meet those two criterias i recognize that almost everybody here has seen this presentation three times already so thank you um and thanks again very much for your attention now we'll move um into our summary
074action items we have summary action items four through eight may i have a motion good night i didn't see and we are grateful for the following donations books and supplies from the national society of daughters of the american revolution for our elementary schools five thousand from the friends of the white plains public schools for programs at the high school and church street school teacher materials and a viola from susan shaw for the music program three thousand dollars from mr and mrs mark varian for the rita varian art scholarship and 918 dollars from various donors from the philippines memorial scholarship fund thank you very much do we have any questions all in favor aye we have no individual action items we're going to board discussion we have our homeless policy and regulations for first reading so
075we are charged to do that and um yeah bring back any questions next we'll go to our board um committee reports we can start with i guess to finance yeah [Music] and we had our um hr meeting and we discussed things of a personal nature we had a great presentation on the pre-k program we had an overview of the numbers locations the program we were able to purchase a brand new reading program for all these sites which incorporates sel as well as a strong vocabulary piece number sense early literacy skills we're supplementing that program with foundations and programs we're using at the kindergarten first grade level which is great seamless transition i think we have 298 students taking advantage of our pre-k program um and then you know they're coming in with a strong oral
076language development awareness month thank you so much spain for that um education um sarah hall who is one of our assistant principals and oversees our guidance services gave us an update on the guidance program elementary middle school and high school she also spoke about the new freshman seminar which is part of the budget um and also we had an update on the hiring of new pps staff people personnel staff which is also part of the budget i just wanted to add what's interesting that you know we call it guidance but in fact a few years ago the uh those counselors were are now classified as counselors which they're school counselors so that's part of our continuing efforts in sel social emotional learning and to really support our students um you know i had i had
077a neighbor who told me the other day that his sixth grade son was he found him sitting here crying in his bedroom because he was afraid of nuclear war so everything in our society filters down to our kids and we need to make sure that we're supporting them and our staff so that we can uh we can have a healthy environment to the extent possible so i think too with that charlie you know you think we might think as adults that we're not impacted but in many ways we are in fact we don't always see it um as readily and then you realize one day you know what you know i was impacted there was a need that i had there was a void so it's really very important for all students is that so
078before we go john sheppard thank you john mr mishavitz thank you good to see you um and with that may i have a motion to adjourn our meeting all in favor all right thank you [Music] you