001good evening everyone and welcome to the 24th annual student union's board of education candidates forum my name is alyssa kornacki and i am the 2021-2022 lancaster high school student union president my right is the student union president-elect for the 2022-2023 school year elizabeth kamrowski elizabeth will be serving as timekeeper for tonight's question and answer session the purpose of tonight's program is to allow for each candidate running for trustee of the lancaster school district board of education the opportunity to express his or her personal opinion in response to questions being submitted by members of the lancaster school district voting community i've also prepared some questions in advance if they are needed there are three candidates running for three positions on the lancaster board of education board members are elected at large and will serve a three-year
002term from july 1st 2022 to june 30 2025. i will now read the short introduction of each candidate in alphabetical order using a short biography will each candidate please stand as i introduce you mr kevin davenport kevin davenport is excited to seek re-election for the lancaster central school district board of education after serving for the past three years mr davenport said serving the lancaster district and the children of this community has truly been a highlight of my life i'm so proud to be a part of a collaborative team that is helping foster and create both academic and extracurricular excellence that act as a launch pad for our students to be competitive at the local national international stage during his tenure mr davenport has also served as chair of the audit committee and a member of
003the food service committee mr davenport has lived in lancaster since 2007 with his marta of 27 years three sons ethan who attends the university of massachusetts in boston diego who attends the rochester institute of technology and owen who is a current sophomore he has spent the past eight years working in oncology previously as a director at roswell park comprehensive cancer center and currently at bristol-meyer squibb as a senior territorial business manager prior to his time in healthcare mr davenport spent 18 years in education as a teacher varsity coach director of athletics and principal mr davenport currently holds five post-secondary degrees including an associates two bachelors and two master's degrees from ecc suny portland university at buffalo canisius college and capella university the hub and heartbeat of every community lies within the growth innovation and success
004of the school community mr davenport said as someone that has spent the first half his professional career embedded in education i'm blown away by the capacity of this school district and the lancaster community at large to always rise to the occasion in the face of adversity and be the beacon that other districts look to as an example of excellence never was that truer than through the pandemic he is also very excited for what the future has to offer there are so many amazing initiatives and programs happening across the district that are the product of open and ongoing dialogue with parents and community stakeholders to create new and exciting opportunities to engage kids i look forward to helping foster this growth mindset for the future of our school community mr dan romig dan robin has served
005in the lancaster central school district has lived in the lancaster central school district since 2008. he moved to lancaster to start a job at moog and has been a senior program manager for the past four years he holds a bachelor's of science in electrical engineering from penn state university and a masters of engineering management from south methodist university going from engineering to program management over his 20 plus years of work he's been able to witness experience and overcome many different types of problems if elected he believes his background in both the technical and programmatic side of business will help him hit him insight and experience to help the school board navigate difficult decisions and generate positive outcomes for all he has two daughters emily age 16 and isabella whom he calls popper is 13. both
006are excited to be attending lancaster high school next year emily is looking forward to continuing her arts academy classes and pepper is excited to be at the high school lancaster has provided his girls with an exceptional education and he wants to help ensure that continues going forward when his younger daughter was at william street school he was a pto committee board member and co-facilitated the movie night and family friday he says i dare say i had as much fun as the kids during those events and i missed being active in the community if elected to the school board you'd be able to give back to the community that has given him and his family so much in a much more serious endeavor than the pto activities [Music] mr john talarico john talarico is a graduate
007of maryvale high school and currently resides in the lancaster central school district as the parent of a lancaster student mr talarico has thoroughly enjoyed being a part of the community and serving on the school board over the last three years regarding his candidacy for re-election to the board of education mr talamico said i would like to make sure that we continue the incredible work that has been done over the past couple of years including the consistency of the wonderful education educational programs clubs and athletics in the school district all while navigating a very difficult time for everyone in this community i've been fortunate enough to be involved in upgrading the facilities throughout our different buildings which i'm especially proud of and i look forward to working with the administration to ensure lancaster remains a destination
008district for years to come mr talarico is an insurance agency owner and deputy by having a strong business and analytics background i believe i will continue to add my private sector experience to offer perspectives and situations throughout the district especially during business meetings and negotiations mr talarico said mr talarico has been married for 11 years to his wife jennifer who has been in education for 14 years first as a mathematics teacher in the buffalo public schools and currently as a professional development specialist together they have one daughter who is currently a second grader at helping elementary we are both looking forward to having an active role within the school community and will firmly believe parents play a positive role in a child's life and activities mr talago said should i be re-elected to the school
009board i'm looking forward to meeting and to help foster this growth mindset for the future of our school community the questions and answer period will now begin we will proceed as follows attendees of tonight's program who wish to raise a question or comment were asked to submit their question or comment on the cards provided at the tables outside of our auditorium and then handed to one of our student union representatives only those who did so will be included in our q a this evening but of course anyone can contact a candidate directly on their own if their particular issue was not covered tonight all questions were required to have a name and address included if a question does not contain the required name and address it cannot be read if a submitted question card includes
010more than one question i will read the question the first question i have those cards with me now and we will ask the questions in random order we will propose as many questions and comments as time allows giving the candidates the opportunity to respond to each please be respectful of this process as we try to create the most productive opportunity for everyone here to listen to the candidates positions please refrain from raising questions or making comments from your seats if your question is selected when your name and address is read please stand so the candidates can address you with their answers again if you have not heard your question or comment addressed you may of course contact any of the con candidates directly each candidate will be given a two minute opportunity to respond to
011each question in a rotating order question number one do you support the 2022-23 lancaster central school district budget mr cavendale thank you for that wonderful introduction thank you dan thank you john for being here and thank you to the community members that took time out of this wonderful day here in lancaster to come out and listen to the three candidates here kind of speak about what we view for the benefit of children our school budget is a well thought out school budget it um is the product of a lot of hard work a lot of conversations at all levels of the school district that includes all of your teachers your administration they come to us as board members we as board members are giving input from what we're hearing in the community it allows the
012district to continue to push the educational program forward it allows um for there to be a continuation of all the wonderful programs that are extracurricular and otherwise that help build um a cohesiveness around the students here and by and large it's very very fiscally responsible year in and year out lancaster has been known as one of the most fiscally responsible and efficient school districts in the state of new york where we were number one for about 10 years running and i think right now we're number two or three that's important because those dollars translate into all of the wonderful things that you see in this community kids get the opportunity to venture off and go and explore all of the opportunities that they want while they're here in school and after but it also allows
013them the opportunity to be well ingrained into the lancaster community and as a taxpayer here i see the benefits of that every single day on where i live thank you very much mr davenport once again the question is do you support the 2022-23 lancaster central school district budget this is from april scrova at 14 branchway in lancaster new york mr romig so thank you for the question uh thank you kevin and john for uh being here as well as everybody that's in attendance i do appreciate it uh this is my first time being in a school board election uh regarding the um supporting the 2223 budget i do have some concerns with it there's a number of people that have voiced their concerns to me as i was walking around the neighborhoods one of which
014is that we're [Music] reducing the number of library or library hours in the schools and for me i'm not really understanding why we would do that because uh out of the reading writing arithmetic it's at least one and a half of those items right you know the library is where you get to read uh by reading it allows you to fundamentally understand more of how to write maybe not so much arithmetic once you're doing macbooks and stuff like that but uh and a number of other people they don't see the granularity in the budget i've looked at the budget myself i'm not saying i don't support it i'm just saying that i'll understand enough about the budget i do believe that lancaster does a good job in the number of programs and processes they have
015in place one of the things that i would like to do if i get elected to the school board is ask the whys why did we do this why did we do that an engineer would call it the five wise of finding a root cause and corrective action of the some any issue that's might be involved when you ask five whys you get down to the basic premise of what the cause is happening and again i'm not saying that i don't support the budget what i'm saying is i'm not understanding it enough to whether or not i didn't say i do or don't i do appreciate the people that are that are on the board and i know it's a difficult position i know they spent a lot of time in there that's what i've
016been told they've probably spent a lot of hours and i do appreciate their time thank you much thank you mr romy mr tao rico thank you um again i'd just like to echo everybody's sentiments really appreciate the community coming out tonight it's nice to see a lot of faces coming to this type of situation and um you know coming to our meeting it's nice to see people wanting to take an active role in it and we appreciate the questions so i will start off by saying i'll give a full throat and yes i support the budget 100 in this district the reason being is because i've lived in this district for 12 years now and with my daughter going into elementary school a couple of years ago now in second grade i've seen the wonderful
017programs even at the elementary level that she has access to different reading programs different things for children who might not be on level i can tell you that the school is pushing for 100 literacy and 100 percent being on level in their next cdep plan coming up um the budget maintains all of the extracurricular activities educational programs most importantly it maintains teachers and that's extremely important to me the lancaster school district is obviously one of the cornerstones of this community and with the teachers being so important and our children being so important in this district to me it was extremely important that the budget reflected that and was able to maintain the same programs in education and the different clubs and athletics as well so absolutely i support the budget this year thank you very
018much mr tavrico question number two a question was asked about terms in office and not all candidates have served on the board before so we are unable to ask this question moving on we have a question from patrick youtube from seven east home road in lancaster what does diversity equity and inclusion in our schools mean to you we're going to start off with mr dan roman and again whenever you are ready okay so i think this term means a lot of different things to a lot of different people i have some concerns with the specific terms not because of what the what some people believe the intent is for this term but when you talk about if you break down the three different letters let's start with the first letter diversity i don't i'm not
019i'm not against having diversity having people being able to come in speak their minds having different groups of people regardless of your race religion culture creed like that what i have trouble with is if we put that ahead of mayor i believe that people should be hired or accepted or brought into a group or hired based on their merit not because of an attribute that they personally have equity is the second letter so equity is not the same as equality from my understanding of equity you know if you want to do the example of three board candidates equity we say that no matter what you vote for we all get the same number of votes what i believe in is equality everybody is equal and should have the same ability to prosper and do well
020in society if they want to work hard if they want to you know spend 12 hours or 14 hours on their job if they want to do those kinds of things like that then they should be able to get ahead if you're not willing to do that then unfortunately you're not going to be able to reap the rewards of hard work and i believe equity means that the person that does 14 hours worth of work or six hours worth of work gets the same benefits in society and i personally believe uh with the work ethic that i have and the people that i'm around that's what makes america great you get rewarded for what you do inclusion i actually totally agree with this one inclusion i think everybody should be allowed to come in be
021able to be in any organization group and everybody should be should feel welcome in school their classrooms for any activity thank you thank you very much mr wilming uh mr john talavico thank you um diversity equity and inclusion are extremely important um reason being in my opinion if you've ever worked in a company you do not get better you do not move forward if you do not take the opinions the backgrounds the different walks of life of different people into account when you're making decisions to teach children and to strive for understanding of different backgrounds and diversity is so important especially in the world lancaster is a pretty big community but compared to the rest of the country it's tiny and when the children of lancaster graduate from the high school and go on to
022college and go on to their careers they need to have an understanding that there are people with different backgrounds equity obviously knowing my wife is a teacher she taught in the buffalo public schools for 10 years and trying to get all students on the same footing so a student with a certain background over another background doesn't have a leg up simply because of where they came from is extremely important equity in the classroom means that everybody has the same chance to learn they have the same chance and the same ability to have the same excellent education as somebody else and inclusion of course anybody should be included regardless it doesn't matter where you came from where you grew up what your background is whether you know both parents are in the home you know you
023come from a family where you know your parents are divorced or you have a little bit more money or you don't have a little bit more money everyone should be included and give them the exact same opportunities to learn and to grow and then when they leave lancaster to apply all those things to become a productive member of society thank you thank you very much mr talarico mr kevin davenport so i have a little bit different take on this um because it's very personal um my wife marta is a native of spain and growing up when we moved here to lancaster there were challenges for us and for our family and for our children um and in addition to looking speaking and presenting a little bit differently our son diego was classified as a special
024ed student and so we looked at inclusion we looked at equity we looked at diversity and those words carried a very very big meaning for our family we wanted a district that was going to embrace those three terms we wanted a place where they would look at our children they would look at us as people and give us the same opportunities that everybody else in this community had because we were not native to lancaster um it has been an overwhelming experience for us to live here we have been taken in by this community we have seniors our children grow our son diego who was classified as special ed in first grade ended up getting a scholarship to rit that was due to the special ed program here in inclusion and looking at not just his
025deficiencies but how they kept him included in the educational programs and providing him opportunities to go so when i look at all three of these they're very important it's part of the fabric of this community and it's part of where this school community is moving in the future thank you mr davenport question number three this is from april stroka at 14 branch way in lancaster new york what role have you had on the board of education before or how active have you been as a citizen in our community we're going to start off with mr john talagrico thanks um well like i said i've lived in the district for 12 years now and when i was elected to the school board it was kind of the perfect timing my daughter had just gotten into kindergarten
026at the time through my role in the school board for the last three years you know i've attended every meeting which you know is kind of the table stakes i would say for uh for most board members you should come to the meetings but i've also had the ability to join a bunch of different committees to learn just the way that the school works i'm on the health insurance committee which is a lot of fun it gives you a lot of insight about how we insure the teachers and what our you know insurance program is my first year on the school board i was part of the assembly that voted with the greater new york area for different things that the school boards were trying to get done throughout the entire state with the new
027york state assembly and things like that you know i truly enjoy being a part of the lancaster community i enjoy being on the school board because it gives me a chance to give back it gives me a chance to you know have a small part in the education of you know not only my child but the 6 000 students that go here um you know i'm not i've said this a million times i'm not a politician i'm not on the school board so i can go and be a town councilman or anything like that that's not my it's not my thing [Music] but the nice thing about the school board is it's kind of the last bastion of uh of a democracy you get to truly have a hand in students lives and seeing the
028programs and the students succeed here is one of my favorite things about being in a on the school board so thank you very much mr talarico mr kevin davenport i've been pretty active in the community since uh we moved here it started um at that point i was still uh in the in the field of education and i got ingratiated into uh coaching youth sports so i was helping out with baseball wrestling and uh the lancaster deputy soccer program um i ended up running for the school board because i feel like what greater way to give back to your community and it's never been about my kids it's been about the kids of this community and the fabric of this community and being able to see [Music] all these kids benefit from experiences that i
029have that i may be able to shed light on through my role here on the board i currently chair the audit committee so i have a keen insight into all the auditing um pieces that go on on a year-to-year basis um keeping tabs on those types of things i sit on the food service committee we've been to the net or the state school board convention so always trying to find a way always going to sports programs all the extracurriculars the musicals the concerts watching all the great things that kids are doing here on a week-to-week basis has really been a joy thank you very much mr davenport mr romy absolutely what role have you had on the board or how active have you been as a citizen in the community okay thank you so i've
030not been at the i'm not a board member obviously i'm a new candidate uh this year so for the items that in the community i was a softball coach for the ponytails league for two years uh my daughters at that time were in the ponytail division the second year my daughter went up into the juniors division and i was the head coach for that that was a very interesting time because we had a lot of different kids that were at different phases of their development for being ability they're hitting um they're fielding sometimes that was the first time that they ever got it so my biggest thing that i try to impart on them is just do your best i would always tell my girls to say as long as as long as you do
031your best i don't care just don't pick the grass when you're now filled because that's what they would do is they play in the sand and pick up the grass and stuff like that so just just don't do that try if you don't get the ball that's okay and that's what i think is really important is just making sure that you strive to do your best in anything that you do including education the second main thing that i did was the pto i was one of the board members for the pto in which i uh co-ran the william street school family fun night and the movie night which was an absolute blast it's in my bio it's also a very difficult challenge in a way not relative to a lot of other things not obviously
032you know but it's you know it's different it's different than your um your typical thing because a lot of different problems you have to run into uh generally i deal with a lot more engineering items or higher i don't say higher level because it kind of makes it look bad but uh dealing with a lot of kids it's a lot of fun for me some of the best times that i had my daughters enjoyed it i think they like the fact that dad was actually organizing an event so they could sit up front and get in there and you know early and stuff like that so those are the items that i did thank you very much mr robin question number four uh what experiences do you remember from your k through 12 education how
033will these experiences affect your performance on the board of education we're going to head back to mr kavanaugh um so my formative years um were i grew up in an education household both my parents were teachers my father was a high school phys ed teacher my mother was an elementary school teacher we grew up in faulconer all of my childhood memories are around the school all my parents friends were teachers every gathering that we had there were teachers everywhere um my dad's a hall of fame coach in three different hall of fames and the impact that my both my parents had on on kids in that community made me change my career plan from going to med school to going into education originally because i saw the impact that they were having on the lives
034of kids and not even just kids but the community at large and so i wanted to replicate that i wanted to give back to that i spent 18 years in education and loved every minute of it but i had a calling to go back into medicine and get into oncology um once i did that i knew that i wanted to get involved in the school board and still have a hand in having influence and having the ability to help shape where that educational community is going in the future because it meant so much to me as a kid thank you very much mr davenport mr dan roaming okay so i have two main meetings i was going to touch on so first my schooling was a little bit different my dad was in the military
035he served 26 years in the air force before we retired so i was actually in a lot of different school systems i was born in texas in fort worth we moved to alaska then ohio then maryland he retired then he went to lewistown pennsylvania and then he finally moved over to get up to actually buy a house in belfast technically design pennsylvania so i've actually been into a lot of different school systems i've seen a lot of different areas and stuff like that i've never really been when i was k through 12 i was never really into a lot of the school things like you know i did football and i did the activities in a lot of role systems and stuff like that only recently had i really got more into wanting to do
036more into the school system because i have kids i wanted to do pretty much i want to do this for them and i do remember a really good time i think i'd write out it was graduation in fourth grade third grade i don't know what grade it was and stuff like that but we were told we had to sing the song it's from whitney houston it was a children or our future let them lead the way and to me that's that speaks to me and i was thinking about it a couple weeks ago and that is what this whole thing is about is for our kids and i think the school board should take their interest in mind first and foremost over anything else over teachers or parents over anything else and if we do
037that and we can and foster them in order to encourage them to grow get better because they're the ones that are going to be taking over our spots they're going to have the jobs that we have now and they're they're the ones that they're going to lead they're going to be the people in charge of things and stuff like that so the better that we do our jobs here the better that the teachers do their jobs um the better that everybody's gonna be thank you very much mr rowling mr john talarico when i look back on my k-12 experience um i would say that when i got into high school i kind of found what i wanted to do um you know i played i tried out a bunch of different sports i tried football
038i tried wrestling um i golf i was on the golf team for four years um and you know i also did you know school musicals and things like that the music program at high school was one of the most important things in my formative years the reason i say that is because when i finally found a niche that i was you know i loved that i could be a part of that's when i grew a lot it's when i found myself that's when i grew as a person that's when my personality really started to come out and shine and i speak to that because at lancaster i'm always in awe of the amount of educational programs we have but i'm also in awe of the amount of different clubs and activities you can do at
039the school if you're into numbers there's a finance academy if you think your calling is possibly getting in hospitality we have an academy for that as well if you want to play the steel drums we have a club where you can play the steel drums if you can't find something that you want to get into as a student in the lancaster schools probably not looking hard enough and the thing that i love the most is that i know that when my daughter gets into the middle school in the high school she's going to have all those ability all the ability to find her niche and grow as a person that's what i'm so proud of and that's one of the main reasons that i continue to do the work on the school board that i
040do thank you very much mr talarico question number five in your estimation what is the biggest challenge that faces the lancaster school district if elected how do you plan to solve this challenge we're going to start off with mr david so i think the biggest challenge to the lancaster school district i think from hearing from a lot of the people that i'm talking to is the communication channels and i'm not sure if it's the way that it's presented the way that it's received maybe people want it in different media i'm not sure again i'm kind of getting a lot of anecdotal evidence and stuff like that i'm not saying that anything that the school board now is not being communicated effectively um but one of the things that i would like to do like i
041said is ask the five why's the second main thing that i would like to do is actually you know review the processes and procedures or how you want to look at it to see what we could do one of the challenges that i see in corporate america is they always say well that's what we did last year so that's what we should be doing this year and it's very few times do people actually say well why did we do that because that was 15 years ago and we don't have to do that anymore because of x y or z and so what i'd like to do is actually kind of i mean one of the things i like doing is going into the data that you need to engineer by trade is to guide into
042the either the legalese or the processes and stuff like that in order to see how can we change what we're doing in order to more effectively communicate with the people because i believe that if we would be able to do that if i get elected if we're able to do that we would have a bigger turnout in the school boards we'd be able to present much more information um so i been to a school board meeting in different school boards and there's different ways of presenting information and stuff like that and i would think that we would want to try to take the best of the different areas and combine it so that we can make it lancasterized and try to make sure that we're able to communicate effectively to all the people that are
043here and pay taxes thank you thank you very much mr roman mr john talarico um to be honest with you i think you know one of the biggest struggles that lancaster could face is just maintaining uh the focus on students we have to make sure that what we do as a group isn't driven by you know one type of ideology or anything like that it's to make sure that the students are put first um you know as far as dan's point about communication and you know school board meetings and that sort of thing you can look back at multiple different meetings we don't have a ton of people.com we share a lot of information at our board meetings and the board meetings are public and we don't have a lot of people that come now
044to me i don't necessarily think that as a negative thing because in general when we're not constantly hearing different things and when the place is impact then in in general i would assume that the community has our trust we are doing the right things for the community and we are making sure that again this school board puts the students before anything else um that's why you know when i when i look over the community of lancaster i see a lot of good people who all want the same thing they want the school to be strong they want the students to get the best education and they want them to have the access that when they graduate from here they're productive members of society they go on they get great jobs you know whether that be
045going to college and getting a job or going to the trades and getting a job that's it thanks thank you very much mr tawbico mr cop and davenport i think when we look at challenges we can look at how this district operated in one of the greatest challenges it's faced ever the past couple years we've been in the middle of a pandemic and a pandemic that the world has never quite experienced before and the school was not immune to that they had to pivot they had to get information and use that information to the best of their ability to make decisions very very quickly sometimes with limited information from key stakeholders at the state level to make decisions that kept kids in school and that was a collaboration between the administration the teachers the board
046this community to garner together come together and what you saw was our kids still excel our kids still set the standard for excellence in education in this area i can't tell you how many times people came up to me whether it was at wegmans whether it was at a community event sometimes there were people that had kids in other districts and said i wish my kid was in lancaster why was that because they saw lancaster coming together in a time of great crisis and that's the mark of people that are being able to look at information communicate and pivot effectively and move forward what are the challenges going forward i think what this has taught us is we don't know what the future holds we don't know what's going to happen in the fall we
047don't know what's going to happen next year we may have another outbreak all i know is the historical significance of the last few years has shown us that we will come together we will rise above and we will do what's right for kids thank you so much mr davenport question number six what is your stance on mental health awareness in lancaster and how would you take extra steps to improve the social emotional education for lancaster students we're going to start off with mr john talarico i mean i think personally i'm glad that in general mental health awareness is becoming less and less stigmatized um i think that any student that believes that he or she needs to talk to somebody that they feel like you know they can't they can't just talk to a parent
048maybe they can't talk to a parent brother whatever else their other sister um you know i i think we should keep pushing that forward we have excellent guidance counselors here we have an excellent um an excellent staff of teachers who i know are willing to listen and guide different students to different type of mental health you know counselors in the area our guidance counselors are well equipped to handle that type of situation as well that's what they're there for overall again like i said i'm glad it's becoming less and less you know i'm glad to be coming to stigmatized because mental health is so important over the last two years i think we all kind of realize that in general you know a lot of people spend a lot of time in their home and
049all of a sudden you can't meet with your you can't go visit your grandparents you can't go visit your parents it can be very tough on people i didn't realize how tough it was on me i wasn't able to see you know my mom or my my dad for a couple of months during the pandemic until things started to calm down you'd think that as an adult an adult man i would be fine with it but it was tough on me it was tough on my family so i think in general seeking mental health just different areas or avenues in order to make yourself better mentally is only going to help you as a person so whatever we can do to push that type of thing forward i'm all for it thank you very much
050mr talarico mr kevin davenport mental health conditions have long been um just from from a medical side where i was at long been misunderstood um and over the last few years there has been a growing push to better identify it try to take steps to understand what it is for somebody that is dealing with mental health issues what are those challenges what does that look like and we need to learn how to show compassion how to show empathy how to put ourselves in the shoes of that person so that we can better understand and help them along that journey what i've seen here in the school to reiterate what john said our counselors here do an amazing job from k to 12 they are always there they are always empathetic they are always trying to
051help identify the teachers identify kids oh we might see this kid is might be struggling with this this or this and they try to find those pockets and try to help those kids along and connect them with the services that are available that are going to help them identify what the issue is and then get them the requisite uh interventions that they need to be able to move forward and be productive in society the worst thing in the world with mental health is isolation and when kids feel isolated that's when you start to read about it in newspapers that's when you start to see some of the rising issues with teen suicide is because they feel isolated and lancaster does a really good job but it doesn't mean that we can't continue to push the
052envelope and find other ways creative ways to continue to make a difference for kids thank you very much mr davenport mr dan roman thank you for the question so i guess the first thing that came through my head is you know who would be against helping people with mental health issues i guess that was the first thing that kind of came through my head is why would anybody be against that um i have to echo the you know i don't know specifically in specific cases because i'm not in the school a lot but i'll take john and kevin's word for it and i know from my daughter's experiences and stuff like that they've been able to talk to teachers which is like a first line counselor i know like where i work in electronics or
053program management you always have different levels of severity if you will and i would see the teachers as that first line before you go to the guidance counselor before you go to the next level before you get maybe professional help and stuff like that so i fully would support the mental health awareness helping any student and you know when i was growing up and stuff like that it was a different time and stuff like that but i know that there was a lot of different issues especially in the schools that i was in some of the military schools and stuff like that there's a lot of a lot of things that i don't see happening in lancaster here and i don't think that they have the services that a place like lancaster would have and
054i would believe just like you know we're going to be sending these you know young adults into adulthood that we're going to give them the best chance for their success and having a right stable mind uh whether that's you know they're confused they're they're just needing help they're overwhelmed they have too many tests they don't know what the school or they don't know what to do in college uh like my daughters they kind of struggle like they don't know what to do they don't know if they want to go to college do a trade they just want to go open a business be a youtuber um so having that ability so that you can kind of settle them down calm them down a little bit so that they can enter adulthood in their you know
055the first job successfully is very important thank you thank you very much mr roman we will now conclude the question and answer session thank you to everyone who submitted questions to our candidates at this time we will begin to close our forum with each candidate having a one-minute closing statement we will begin with mr kevin davenport again dan and john thanks for being here tonight i just want to say that um as somebody that always wants to hearken back on how i was raised and i mentioned this earlier by my folks i lost my mom two weeks ago and [Music] yesterday was mother's day our first mother's day without my mom the matriarch of our family and when i gave her eulogy i hit the nail on the head i think when i said her
056life was about service and she ingrained in me and my brother and my two sisters servants and serving others and serving something bigger than yourself and so for me that service translates into what i do every day in my life with my co-workers with my family but that extends out into this lancaster family in this educational family because i believe that the service that i'm able to provide the background and the experiences are helping to lend some kind of color to what kids are going to be able to get in this school district going forward so i'm asking for your vote next week um i'm dedicated to continuing to serve as long as this community will ask me to serve and i appreciate everybody coming out tonight thank you very much mr kevin davenport next
057up we have mr dan romig so first off condolences um i know family issues make things like the school board very very minor stuff like that so my condolences i'm sure that's a very difficult time puts things into perspective for sure i would also like to thank john here as well for being in the school board as well as everybody here and giving questions being present for this very important decision so one of the big things that i was going to do that i'll reiterate on is that's the five wise as a new member of the school board and they might get annoyed at me but it's sort of my way of my process of finding kind of what the what i consider the true answer in and i've seen it work a lot of
058times in the companies that i've worked at in which if you ask the wise enough times it brings out the actual answer instead of the the surface level again i'm not saying that the school board is doing the service level i'm not saying i'm not saying that they're not communicating i'm just saying that that's what i would do because that's how i'm built and how i'm wired another item is to make sure that we always are doing the best going forward rather than relying on what is in the past i think the school board should be making sure that the kids are number one in everything the teachers can you know are obviously a part of that because they're the ones that effectuate what happens with the kids and so as a group between the
059school board the teachers the community we can all get together and have a you know long-lasting wonderful lancaster and keep it wonderful right because everybody here believes one lancaster is wonderful so let's keep it wonderful going forward again i want to thank everybody for being here i do ask for your vote coming out may 17th uh hope being aerobic thanks thank you very much mr roman and finally we have mr john talarico you so i'll start out by saying thank you to everybody for being here thank you to kevin and dan as well it takes a lot to run for the school board it takes a lot to serve on the school board over the last three years what i've learned through my service to the community has been there's a lot of really good
060people a lot of really good people who make this entire organization run they care about kids what i've probably heard 30 40 50 times a week was if we're going to do it it's got to be good for kids i'll tell you that every single person who runs in the district office from the superintendent down to the teachers they care about the students of this district learning that and being able to be a small part of the education of so many students has been an absolute honor for me what i will tell you is if i'm reelected i will work just as hard to make sure that we continue to push forward make sure that kids get what they need in order to be successful and make sure that every student who moves to lancaster
061because again we're a destination district people talk about when they talk about moving buying houses lancaster is absolutely one of the top of the list and there's a reason for that it's because of the school it's because of the community if reelected i will absolutely work to continue to make sure that this remains the destination district that every student that moves here gets top quality education and has access to all the things that they need in order to be successful once they go on to adulthood so next tuesday i do humbly ask for your vote thank you very much thank you mr talarico on behalf of the lancaster high school student union i would like to thank the candidates and the attendees for their interest in our school and their future our hope is that
062this evening's form was informative and helpful good luck to all the candidates and please remember to vote on tuesday may 17th right here in the lancaster high school java gym from 7am to 9pm this concludes our program [Applause] thank you we are here thank you right they're going to they got to go through the presentations foreign all right is thank you so much thank you is yes okay [Music] um hi guys thank you uh so good evening i'd like to welcome everyone to the lancaster central school district's uh but annual budget hearing uh what a year it's back um hopefully the corona coaster ride that we've been on is over uh but as you see for some of us uh it's not either through exposures or getting over the coronal virus we're following the rules
063of wear masks trust me i do not like wearing masks but we're going to follow the rules and see this to fruition it certainly has not been a fun ride and it's took us on some dips and turns and like no other in the history of the school district as other people have mentioned um but each time we try to do the right thing we've stayed focused laser-like on fulfilling our mission which is taking care of our kids um i'm proud of everyone every single individual here and i want to send a heartfelt thanks to everyone in the school district in the community uh for all that they've done so a huge thank you to everyone this budget which the board of education and the district worked so hard on believes in and supports maintains
064all instructional programs student opportunities student services and class sizes things that the lancaster community has come to expect and to appreciate doctor group miss phillips and i will take you through it like we do each year so let's dive into it the actual election itself is on tuesday may 17th it's from 7 a.m to 9 00 pm here at lancaster high school it is a 122.2 million dollar budget that is a 4.3 million increase dollar increase from 2021 to 2023 which represents a 3.69 budget to budget increase uh this budget again means it maintains all educational offerings uh the budget the budget increase is one percent below the inflation rate and accounts for the rise in costs like you've experienced in your own homes with costs of supplies utility rates gasoline rates and benefit costs
065i'm jamie phillips i think this is the first time i've had to do this with a mask on so and i'm not a teacher that you you have to use one every day so please excuse me um the budget is required to be presented in a three-part format and those three parts are administrative instructional and capital components which i will be walking you through the administrative component provides for the overall general support and management activities for the district as a whole including the district office functions district-wide expenditures business functions and building administration it is the smallest portion of the budget at coming in at 10 of our overall budget for 2223 for the proposed budget this portion is increasing overall by 4.9 uh contractually obligated salaries and benefits account for just over three and a
066half percent of that four point nine percent increase a hundred and sixty one thousand dollars of this increase is attributed to both these services services such as the additional personnel and registration management software for efficiency our new mass communication system that was previously paid for out of our contractual budget and not ocs and all of those expenses will actually garner boces aid in the following school year the program portion of the budget is the largest portion of the budget so it is 74 of our overall budget this portion contains all of the expenditures directly related to instruction of our students so that includes classroom instruction special education technology transportation extracurricular activities and student support services such as guidance social workers psychologists library and the health office to name a few this portion of the budget
067maintains all current programs class sizes and student opportunities it also includes the addition of 1ft speech positions and that's based on our current service level needs for our students the annual major cost driver in this section of the budget is contractual salaries and benefits for instructional faculty and staff this portion of the budget includes salaries and benefits for 838 out of our 979 staff members so 86 of our employees it also includes wages and benefits for our substitute teachers and substitute support staff some major increases beyond our employee costs in this section of the budget are supply and contractual increases related to inflation and supply chain cost increases increased fuel and contract transportation costs for bussing costs attributed to a remote learning program and an increase in our career in tech ed enrollment from 157
068to 170 students and also tuition and both these costs related to special education are increasing due to enrollment and student needs there are several expenditure areas in this section of the budget that are also offset by cd textbooks hardware software library materials special education costs policies costs and transportation all of those are which the aid is paid on one year lag so overall this portion of the budget is increasing by just over four percent uh the component increase is 82 percent of our overall budget to budget increase so now i'm going to have dr kufil come up and show talk to us about some of the instructional programs that we have with our students and our successes thank you miss phillips in lancaster we educate nearly 6 000 students across seven buildings with about 970
069professional and support staff so in comparison to the magnitude of the wonderful organization i will try to keep it brief over the past two years as previously mentioned our district has maintained a focus on maximizing student by maximizing learning and the student experience this year an additional focus has been the return to normal i'm excited to do this presentation this year because the last few years it's been you know a little bit different of an angle that being said our faculty staff and ministry of team work together to maximize learning and the student experience to provide our students with an education that is second to none as you'll see behind me is a fantastic team effort faculty staff administrators working together getting us back to normal a few of the highlights that span buildings and
070levels i'll start with technology that was certainly a major focus prior to the pandemic we continue to make that a focus during the pandemic and certainly as we are hopefully continuing to move forward beyond the pandemic we continue to prove what we use and how we use it to prepare our students for the challenges they'll meet in an ever-changing society we have a one-to-one chromebook initiative in which those nearly 6 000 students have a chromebook assigned to them this provides our teachers and students amazing opportunities both in and out of the classroom our tech technology mentors have been invaluable throughout this last two years especially but certainly each and every day as they support our teachers and students on a daily basis we continue to look for online efficiencies for families our students in the
071district another area in which we span all buildings is our collaboration with the lancaster police department our school resource officers we have three school resource officers are absolutely fantastic they take on leadership roles and are part of the culture of each of our buildings they focus on topics such as social media awareness bullying prevention bike safety and water safety and in addition to the wonderful partnership that we have philly the dog is always a huge hit with the kids and adults of all ages as a large district we have four k-3 buildings cuomo park court street hill view and show one of our strengths is the size of our district our teachers across the buildings work together on committees in english language arts math science and social studies to align curriculum instruction to benefit our
072students we have additional ela and math specialists this year to support more students in the wake of the pandemic but to also allow our teachers to focus on supporting all students with the district's long-term goals district-wide special education programs specifically at the k-3 level such as integrated and self-contained programs support our students at all of their levels comprehensive classroom libraries of leveled readers support students where they are steam and staff opportunities for students to understand the engineering and design process field trips to build background knowledge and support classroom instruction at the k3 level our teachers strive to provide a learning environment that is conducive to student learning for all students we have summer programming as i mentioned earlier to help those students who are not yet meeting grade level expectations our teachers and students at
073the k3 level work hard to set the academic and social emotional foundation to allow all students to achieve success as they move through lancaster the faculty staff and parents also work hard to make the learning experience special fun and enjoyable some of those things that we have welcomed back this year walkathons pumpkin runs and haunted drive-throughs fun runs mary moo shopping winter and winter themed and spirit week dress-up days the 100th day of school celebrations book fairs third grade choral concert concerts field days coming soon third grade moving up ceremonies numerous service projects and fundraisers garden clubs and art nights and those are just a few of the events programs and opportunities provided by the hard work of our faculty staff administration and the wonderful community of parents at williams street our 46 building the
074largest elementary school in new york state is full of educational opportunities that are second to none this is the first year of the reconfiguration meaning how students are scheduled and the physical layout of the building this endeavor is a true testament to the teachers william street administrative team and the district administrative team working together with a long-term vision and plan to create opportunities in a program for all students at william street like the rest of the district we always are looking for ways to improve supplement and support improve what we do and how we support our students the reconfiguration provides our students more opportunities at the sixth grade level in health courses such as health foundations for leadership and success argumentative writing and debate and math support for an entire year whether the students are
075accelerated mean math a little extra support or need ais in terms of remediation to increase some of those skills that may be lacking in fourth and fifth grade students get exposure to the leadership and argumentative class that i just spoke about the reconfiguration has provided a community-based field to support students and teachers the addition of two full-time social workers increases volume shoot to three full-time social workers one per grade level getting to know those students and teachers very well in addition to working in concert with the same administrator to support our students social emotional well-being for the first time our students have school-wide leadership opportunities there is a student council with elections of officers and student representatives at each grade level project lead the way launch is of course the fifth grade level that students
076get exposed to at the fourth grade level creative writing in fourth grade for our fifth and sixth grade students there's an art academy for those who have that as an interest william street has the largest most comprehensive 4-6 music program in western new york with eight bands five choirs and three orchestras after school is once again buzzing again with excitement our students get their first opportunity to join clubs organizations and intramurals that are run by teachers and staff before and after school there are live morning announcements the talent show's been virtual the last couple years but it's going to be back in person field trips to add to the learning experience a coffee shop run by our special education students to build life skills in addition to formal mentoring our teachers and members of our
077lct are supporting our newest teachers by holding monthly meetings in an effort to encourage and support them as they navigate the first few years of their educational journeys of teaching journeys and just like at the k-3s there's a strong pto to support our students teachers and administration easing the transition transition from william street to the middle school as a nut was another major benefit of the reconfiguration at the middle school the opportunities to further develop the academic and social skills necessary to become responsible and productive members of society continue and expand each year many of our students take accelerated classes at the middle school last year 210 students took and passed regent's living environment in eighth grade 157 students took and passed algebra 1 and 8th grade both are high school courses required for graduation
078our teachers work tirelessly to align curriculum horizontally and vertically with the help of experts from boces our students get their first opportunity to play world language spanish french german our teachers and minister has been planning for the inaugural year of pre-ap pre-advanced placement english language arts which is the self-coming year we have co-taught math and ela courses for students who need the additional sport we are always striving to meet the needs of students and to meet them where they are we have a menu of 10-week offerings at the middle school which in many ways serve as the introduction to our career-themed academies at the high school in terms of extracurricular activities just under 20 teams which is quite amazing in the middle in the music world multiple bands choirs and orchestras just as with william
079street some of the non-traditional ones that students have access to are handbell choir jazz ensemble and marching band we have just over 20 clubs we're always looking to add more based on student interest yearbook club ski club stem club drama club school newspaper diversity club minecraft club current events club national junior honesty society just had the induction ceremony and a hidden gem peer-to-peer which is where students are trained to meet to meet with peers to tutor each other student run morning announcements continue and then swiss students working to improve the school setting this is a is an organization in which our students work with the administration and select faculty and staff to improve student life the middle school another leadership opportunity at the middle school is in eighth grade it's our eighth grade executive board
080this was it's the first it's in its first year both swiss and the executive board were modeled after swiss and the senior class executive board at the high school speaking of the high school lancaster high school is where all of the years of hard work pre-k through eight culminate into more opportunities additional programming student leadership and preparation for life after high school our graduation rate at lancaster high school last year is 99.6 our advanced regions diploma 71 percent highest in school history these are things that you may hear over and over um highest in school history next year this year might be even higher we have 20 ap exams last year ap courses excuse me nearly 700 total ap exams taken by just under 400 students nearly 50 percent of last year's graduating class took
081at least one ap exam about three quarters of all exams scored a three or higher so our students don't just take the class they earn the credit we have 31 dual enrollment courses and counting in which students earn high school credit and college credit the high school is once again named the best high school by u.s news and world report we have seven career-themed academies to provide our students with real life experiences prior to graduation roughly 800 students at the high school take advantage of that opportunity just under 200 students participate in career and technical education through the harkness and potter road programs theory one vocals student leadership is second to none as you saw earlier this evening once again the high school earned the national gold council of excellence award from the national student
082council for the 17th consecutive year there is a continuation of the world languages at the high school 19 students will receive the new york state seal of bi-literacy highest in school history at the high school in the district a major theme this year has been overcoming adversities and challenges while maintaining normalcy this is the best illustrated by the fact that we have only canceled a small handful of events for our students that were on the calendar any barriers students and our advisors have encountered they've overcome with innovation and creativity in some cases they have started new traditions just a few homecoming was back this year but under the stars was a new york state education department approved tense something i'd never thought i'd say mental health week was introduced this year to increase awareness about
083mental health and to support each other we started a culture climate and inclusivity committee and this year the senior dance is going to be in lieu of the senior dance they'll be at freshman sophomore dinner dance once again these are just a few small few of the many opportunities our 6 000 students have they result in the dedication of students faculty and staff a few last ones our alternative program we're meeting the needs of all students our alternative program provides opportunities for at-risk students from an academic and social emotional standpoint to ensure preparedness for life after high school there are nearly 60 clubs that students have joined two numbers to mention the class of 2021 has earned over 10 million dollars in scholarship monies music recognized as one of the music programs recognized as one
084of the best communities for music education for the sixth consecutive year our students both at the individual and ensemble levels have earned countless awards a great example is high school musical catch me if you can earn the nine kenny nominations we offer over 75 athletic teams modified to varsity levels recently our program was ranked 14th in new york state by one source there are achievements in athletics too numerous to mention but our student athletes bring excellence to the field of play at the divisional sectional regional state levels individual winners in several sports the state level and sectional champs in some cases for the first time in school history at the team level over 30 students will continue their collegiate careers next year under the tutelage of our our coaches to continue to play at the
085collegiate level all right there's quite a bit there and as you can see our faculty staff and administrative team are fantastic the community works together with her our staff and is guided by the fundamental principle that everything that we do is done in the best interests of our students with that i'll turn it back over to miss phillips thank you dr kufal for shooting from the hip there so to get to bring it back the instructional portion of the budget is 74 of the budget even though ninety percent of the presentation was just given by dr kucal um onto the capital component the capital component provides for the operating and maintenance of the district's facilities debt service payments from capital improvements and transfers to other funds including a hundred thousand dollars for a capital outlet
086project and a hundred thousand dollars for renovation at the maintenance annex it represents 16 of our overall budget this portion of the budget is increasing by 1.21 over the current year budget that includes contractually obligated salaries and benefits for the maintenance department um it includes something that i know is impacting us all at home with our increased gas and utility prices so our budget for our utilities for our facilities throughout the district has increased dramatically but however that is also offset by the reduction of 160 000 in this area of the budget as we had a one-year mandate it's well it's every five years but this year we completed our building conditions survey um and then so we were able to remove it from our budget for next year our debt from construction project nets
087out to be about 67 000 more than this current year however on the revenue side all of our debt expenses are offset by building aid and the use of our debt service reserve the transfers to other funds include a hundred thousand dollars for a capital outlay project which will be led lighting fixtures and controls at williams street school a hundred thousand dollars for work at the maintenance annex to install an ada accessible entrance and then transfers to the specialty fund and food service program for summer special education services and meal balances thanks kim um so overall just a summary of the expenditures of my component administration ten percent program 74 in capital uh just under 16 compared to last year those are right on target with the same percentages so the pieces of the budget
088pie remain virtually fun to look at expenditures in a slightly different way this is grouped by object which is kind of grouping them by their type so as you can see salary and benefits it consists of 8.9 million dollars of the 122.3 million dollar budget 73 of the overall budget is attributed to salaries and benefits and this is typical compared to past budgets two and a half uh 2.2 million dollars of the 4.3 million dollar increase is attributed to salaries and benefits so just over 50 salaries um are for 979 faculty and staff members plus 100 like hundreds of substitutes our contractual increases are driven by large increases in our utility costs our gasoline costs for our buses our contractual transportation intuition in the materials and supplies area area the increases are driven by supply
089chain issues big pricing not being honored and then just right the rise of many costs across the board for example just readings of paper about double what we were paying for them last year on the boces budget outline there's about 800 000 increase and that can be attributed to a remote learning program which we had this year but it was not budgeted for last year because it didn't exist yet and then an increase in our special education programs and services so on tuesday the community will be voting on the overall expenditure budget but we are required to present a balanced budget to you so to show you the revenues that we will be receiving in order to match the total expenditure budget as every year our revenues have really two major revenue sources which is
090new york state aid to education and then the local property tax levy with respect to state aid i used the word unprecedented last year because we did receive an unprecedented state aid package particularly with our overall foundation aid and we received another unprecedented state aid package so for you for those that have followed school budgets over the last 10 years or really 17 years foundation aid was introduced in 2008-2009 and it was a new formula to fund all schools equitably and that formula has never been used or funded in full so in last year's budget the state made a commitment to over the course of the next three years funding that in full lancaster has historically been one of the lowest funded in terms of that formula over all the years um we were last
091year at about 75 percent funded this year we're at 80 percent funded um after next year's aid package we will be 90 funded and then we expect to get the remaining 10 in the following year aside from state aid i will discuss property taxes a little bit later we also have our reserves and appropriated fund balance so we are using our reserves to the maximum um according to their legal usages and we're appropriating an additional 230 000 from this year's budget to take a look at revenues in a little bit of a different way to see the proportions our property tax levy is 48.5 of our overall revenue budget that is down a half of a percent from this current year state aid is at 37 which is up just over one and a half
092percent from the previous year and our use of reserves and fund balances at 6.75 percent okay thanksgiving so the properties next to levy uh side as i said that is just under 50 percent of the overall revenue we are living under the property tax levy limit cap from new york state for 22.23 our maximum allowable levy capital is 4.14 increase and the estimated levy increase that we're proposing with the budget is 2.58 so the estimated levy is 902 thousand dollars below um the maximum allowable levy cap for 22.23 we are in our 11th year with the tax cap so each year we have been within the cap calculation ironically we've had five years that we've been higher than this 2.58 that we are estimating for next year and we've had five years that we've been
093lower than the 2.58 contributing factors to the cap it's well known as the two percent gap but there are many factors in the calculation we are assigned a growth factor each year by new york state which is specific to each district we factor in the consumer price index but that can only max out as at two percent the cpi for 2021 was 4.69 um but the formula will only allow us to factor in a two percent increase there and then we also have carryover from the previous year so with the district being within the cap and lower than our calculation for 22.23 the budget free player is just a simple majority to pass and now i will turn it over to dr valley so to bring it home with the last couple slides um the
094estimated tax rate increase um remember that these are estimations you know the final levy and the rates are set in august and i think that's important for people to know so we do this very very very conservatively every single year and uh just some information here last year's estimated approve estimated rate that was approved by voters last year was fourteen dollars and thirty four cents all right but the rate itself when it was set in august turned out to be thirteen dollars and ninety eight cents that's when assassin's valuations are taken into consideration and the final levy was set in august by the town so that means that this year's estimated tax rate is actually one penny more than what the voters approved last year so i think it's important to continue to bring these
095things up because that's the historical piece a lot of times we'll go out with a 29 per thou 100 000 rate for example and that rate might turn out to be actually seven cents so we're always uh conservative and guessing that but again last year lancaster voters passed 14 and 34 cents this year it's 14.35 14.35 estimated it's important to mention contingency budget if the budget were to fail that would result in a 1.4 well 1.5 million dollars and just to be clear ultimately that would affect and need reductions to program student opportunities and staffing this is not the old in the 90s and early 2000s 80s wherever you're you're from where you uh the budget goes down and you just go to contingency budget and you can't buy equipment it's a whole new set
096of rules that we've been under and it means a legitimate cut of one almost 1.5 million dollars it's important to mention too proposition two is replacement buses there's seven full size 65 passenger school buses this is taken out of a reserve the fund the bus reserve that we uh um have and uh the cost of this proposition is 400 hours um we have uh one year of replacements and uh you probably read the news and the changes to legislation uh the incoming uh mandate uh to that uh change to electric buses so it's very important for uh this reserve and this process to be thought about over the next couple of years coming years preposition three is to authorize a capital reserve fund all our reserves are voter approved and they're either they're done on
097two different ways number one the maximum amount of money that could be placed in there and also number two the time commitment so right now we're uh um asking to authorize a 15 million dollar capital reserve fund uh 10-year capital reserve um at a 10-year capital reserve um so everyone knows this was the last time this was authorized was 2018 for 10 million dollars in 10 years um in our current reserve balance um to transfer is 5.2 million dollars it's 5.19 i believe to be exact and when that's transferred over that counts against the uh 15 million dollars so in essence you're looking at about 10 million dollars to increase that reserve fund proposition four is the establishment of a bus reserve fund again the existing reserve last authorized 2018 for 10 million dollars or
09810 years we're nearing the contribution maximum on this one and while we like i mentioned while we wait a lot of information on the electric buses it'll be extremely important for school districts to be proactive and to uh really think about this reserve and the transition to electric buses that is mandated now um right now in that reserve uh which will be transferred over um is 4.49 million and again that counts against the 10 million cap last slide is again remember to come out and vote please we need your need you to come out and vote the actual vote is again may 17th and not only do are we voting um on the budget itself but we're voting uh to elect uh the next two uh candidates for the board of education ballot 1a is
099kevin davenport which you who you met uh this evening as well as uh one b john talarico and one c on the ballot dan rahman so uh you know in conclusion and finally i heard a lot of people speak tonight and i just wanted to say that uh i think mr talarico hit the nail on the head when he said that this is a uh destination school district um it always it wasn't always the case uh but it is now and uh it's very clear from our housing market and everything else that people are choosing to come here in high demand and those house housing values are rising and make no mistake a high quality respected school system is the bedrock and foundation of a community and for all that to happen all the things
100that we see in our community to happen so many so much construction and growth and everything like that a big correlation to that is our school system and the great things that we together do for our kids and again what do we when we talk about that school system student achievement continues to be the highest in school district history you can look at any data that you want but that's fact our graduation rate is number one in western new york at 99.5 graduation once again our 71 percent of our students not only graduate with a revis diploma but a region's diploma with advanced designation that's best in district history and last year's seniors were awarded over 10 million dollars in scholarships also the best in school district history i'd like to be thank the thoughtful
101and proactive board of education and of course the community for its capital improvement projects 2012 2015 and 2018 capital projects passed by more than three to one and that uh sum total is 147 million dollars the highest in western new york over that period we have some ways to go folks we have a lot of 1954 buildings 1964 that needed work and we're working on them every single year for 10 years consecutively we've done anywhere from 12 to 17 million dollars and that investment has resulted in major construction filled fixing those buildings 1946 hill usc molar over there and so many other buildings that needed work and are getting that admittedly we do have ways to go and there are certainly things we'd love to have and those will come down the path lancaster is
102second and not with regard to athletics academics and music and extracurricular opportunities offered and this budget that we've just presented here maintains all these programs and opportunities i believe it's a good budget and i'm hopeful the community will come out and vote for it vote you know come out and vote and at this time i'll open up for any questions this is where there's a long pause so going once twice okay thank you very much uh this part of the presentation is over with and we will probably take a short break and segue to a regular board of education meeting thank you very much for coming out everyone [Applause] so [Music] yes [Music] i just realized thank you yes [Music] right here yes foreign oh hi how are you good you uh so there's i'd
103like to call the lancaster central school district board of education meeting to order in the unlikely event of an emergency if we have to evacuate the room please note the locations of the exits at this time i ask you to silence your cell phones and rise for the pledge of allegiance remain standing for a moment of silent i reflection allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for wrong tonight we remain standing for patricia puto a cleaner at the high school since may 13 2008 passed away on april 28 2022 and for linda ringlebeen an elementary teacher from 1965 to 1992 who passed away on april 29th 2022 and for maya ryan a teacher from 1969
104through 2002 who passed away on april 30 thank you and then mr jackson is excused for tonight all right and then i would like to thank this is karen howard for joining us for this evening's event and we really appreciate you coming out and watching our meetings i think that's really great we are going to move on to 4.0 we don't have any presentations uh for tonight's meeting however we did have our budget presentation in our candidates forum earlier this evening one of my favorite events of the entire year because you know you get to see it all come together and the best thing about it is the the students run that event the candidate forum so it just highlights all the great things that we've got going on at lancaster so i really enjoy
105that i enjoy meeting the the incoming president-elect every year i think that's one of the best things of my calendar year all right moving on to 5.0 we have corresponds a letter from paul friedrich that was received april 21st 2022 on to 6.0 approval of minutes 6.1 can i have a motion on the regular session minutes from april 19 2022. any comments or questions all those in favor anyone against motion carries 7.0 items from staff organizations anyone from the lancaster administrative and supervisory association for your time thank you mrs ball and thank you lassa on to anyone from the lancaster central teachers association good evening just wanted the lct just wanted to echo those statements on the budget and that we will be encouraging our members and fellow nicent members in the community to come
106out and support the budget on this md thank you thank you mr abraham anyone from the lancaster association of service personnel and anyone from the lancaster association of substitute teachers on to 8.0 board reports does anyone on the board have any reports and 9.9.0 superintendent's administrative report dr valden [Music] yeah i have to do i have a couple things here mr sage uh first of all uh julie bachari and her lacrosse team um is back at it uh with the the renewed tradition me and my guy dance and that happened just a couple days ago it became an instant classic when it was started about five or six years ago it was paused in the spring of 2020 but it's a great chance i know that uh john kalarico and andy cooper and maybe others
107here uh attended uh but it's a great chance to make some memories and for fathers and daughters to spend time like that uh together and it's uh it's a beautiful event and i'd like to thank uh julie and all those people that come together and pull that thing off every single year it's always really nice uh unified basketball team began their season uh against clarence it was an exciting game that went into overtime and the legends pulled off a win and started the season strong it's always a fantastic event and experience for everyone who plays who goes and watches and i was so proud of all the players watching and uh i never saw so many smiling faces as i do at those unified games john's shaking his head because that's one of the best
108things that this board ever did in improving that unified program so if you haven't seen one go and check it out it's an absolute blast the academy individual visual and performing arts had their senior show and recital and so they had art galleries black box theater that never looked so spectacular as it did last week the talents of our graduating students were on full display not only from my artistic perspective but you know actual performance with you know musical instruments solos etc so it was a really nice culmination of the year in so many different ways last week we had the newest members of the national junior honor society they were inducted in a beautiful ceremony over at the middle school i'd like to thank stephanie lackey who's here who along with rita gregory lancaster
109middle school math teacher and the junior national honor society advisor for coordinating the event it included special speeches from different current lhs honor society members and it was it was great to have that uh ceremony in person again and then lancaster high school uh gender and sexuality alliance uh gsa took part in a day of silence um and then so everyone knows this is a student-led national event where members of the school community take about silence to protest the harm of harmful effects and harassment of discrimination of lgbtq people in schools faculty and staff together wore ally stickers to demonstrate their support to the lgbt lgbtq community and it was well received and a nice opportunity so thank you very much [Music] thank you dr valley on to 10.0 old business does anyone have any
110old business to discuss on to 11.0 new business 11.1 personnel items 11.1.1 do i have a motion on the personnel changes any comments or questions all those in favor anyone against motion carries 11.1.2 can i have a motion on the teacher of the tenure recommendation any comments or questions all those in favor anyone against motion carries 11.1.3 can i have a motion on the create position under civil service second any comments or questions all those in favor anyone against motion carries on to 11.2 education items 11.2.1 can i have a motion on the committee on special education any comments or questions all those in favor anyone against motion carries on to 12.0 business and financial items 12.1 can i have a motion on the financial items any comments or questions all those in favor anyone
111against motion carries on to 12.2 policy adoption 6140 employee medical examinations can i have a motion any comments or questions all those in favor anyone against motion carries on to 12.3 this is a policy second reading 6411 use of email in the school district this is for information only we will be voting on that on our next regular session 12.4 policy second reading 6470 acceptable use policy this is for information only we'll be voting on that at our next regular session 12.5 policy second reading 7316 student use of personal electronic devices bring your own device or byod that is for information only and we'll vote on that in our next regular session 12.6 policies second reading 7317 district technology device student agreement policy that is also for information only and will be voted on in
112our next regular session 12.7 can i have a motion on the contract with amherst central school district any comments or questions all those in favor anyone against motion carries 12.8 can i have a motion on the contract with ketmore town of tonawanda central school district so any comments or questions all those in favor anyone against motion carries on to 12.9 can i have a motion on the surplus equipment any comments or questions all those in favor anyone against motion carries on to 12.10 can i have a motion on the contract extension with akisar any comments or questions all those in favor anyone against motion carries on to 12.11 can i have a motion for the lancaster high school memorial grove that's not good any comments or questions all those in favor anyone against motion carries
11312.13 can i have a motion on the bid award for agenda planners any comments or questions all those in favor anyone against motion carries well i did i missed 12.12 going back to 12.12 can i have a motion on the bit extension for waste removal and recycling any comments or questions all those in favor anyone against motion on carries 12.14 can i have a motion on the bid awards for the capital project phase 5 any comments or questions all those in favor anyone against motion carries 12.15 can i have a motion on the aia contract with algeria construction corporation any comments or questions all those in favor all right anyone against motion carries 12.16 can i have a motion on the aia contract with king brothers construction llc any comments or questions all those in
114favor anyone against motion carries uh 12.17 can i have a motion on the aia contract for action roofing inc any comments or questions all those in favor anyone against potion carries 12.18 can i have a motion on the aia contract with scrufari construction company llc any comments or questions all those in favor anyone against motion carries 12.19 can i promotion on the aia contract with mks plumbing corporation any comments or questions all those in favor anyone against motion carries on to 1220 12.20 kind of motion on the aia contract with neri mechanical llc any comments or questions all those in favor anyone against motion carries 12.21 can i have a motion on the aia contract with goodwin electrical corporation any comments or questions all those in favor anyone against motion carries 12.22 can i have
115a motion on the construction change orders sorry any comments or questions all those in favor anyone against motion carries 12.23 can i have a motion on the contract with apparent transportation any comments or questions all those in favor anyone against motion carries 13.0 is our public hearing any person who has notified the district clerk per policy 1514 may speak at this time speakers must first be recognized by the president and identify themselves by stating their name and address the time limit to speak will be limited to five minutes per person let's see here welcome to all who have come to observe this meeting this evening this is a time set aside for public hearing a time when we invite members of the community to share ideas and concerns with us we welcome this opportunity to
116hear from you each person again is given five minutes in order to address the board this is a meeting held in public rather than a public meeting which means we will not be engaging any dialogue with the members of the community this evening but rest assured we are listening carefully and take seriously what you have to say i would like to like to ask you to demonstrate respect for us and for one another by speaking to the issues giving giving us ideas and sharing your opinions but not engaging in any personal attack additionally please note as a public school district we are bound by various laws regulations and policies regarding the privacy of students and staff including the family educational rights and privacy act moreover the board policy prohibits public comment on any topic directly
117or indirectly related to employee personnel information or any topic that may potentially disclose information about a particular student accordingly please do not comment or on the performance or conduct of any individual staff members or and or any specific confidential student related matters this policy will be strictly enforced and anyone violating the policy will be barred from addressing the board in the future thank you as always for your cooperation with that we do have one speaker this evening kelly hartley hello so i know i have five minutes i have it all written down i'm gonna go fast um good evening school board i come to this meeting on behalf of a good number of parents who have a request for the school board to highly consider creating new and updated existing outdoor recreational facilities for our
118school and this request comes from a place of two concerns first our kids at williams street and middle school have no outdoor recreational equipment to socialize or exercise on during and after school with the past two years of kids being quarantined at home or separated by six feet at school due to coded peer socialization and health and fitness should be a top priority to the school district i know i don't need to quote you statistics on the negative effects our kids have had from being home for the past two years as well as the negative effects computers and video games are having on their overall well-being there is one distinct difference between lancaster schools and the many other school districts around us and that is that the many middle schools are sixth to eighth grade
119and they share a space with their high school thus those kids have access to the high school fields and courts many elementary schools which in this case um in some cases go up to fifth grade have playgrounds for their students since william street has grades four through six they are a hybrid of both middle and elementary schools we underscore we understand that the middle school may not have the outdoor space for a large field but we do ask maybe that there perhaps could be an opportunity to build at least a basketball court in 20 years or forever as long as the williamstree school has been here and as dr kufil just stated today it's the state's largest elementary school have we ever considered to be a place at the place where the students from both
120schools could have the ability to play outside and socialize i was told a playground was fundraised for many years ago but the teachers at the time were not in favor today we are asking for another survey to be sent out to the teachers and the parents and together we can determine what outdoor recreational activities should be offered at the schools here are some examples of what other intermediate and middle school age students in this area have i listened a bunch and i sent them to dr cooper i'm probably going to share with you three so as we mentioned a few times today lancaster is listed as number 14 in a recent report for athletics orchard park was listed arranged as number 18. their middle school which is sixth through eighth grade is a project underway
121to build new tennis sports a new outdoor basketball court in a new sod athletic field clearance which was the only district locally that beat us at number 13 so only by one ranking step they have four elementary schools k through two that have basketball courts baseball fields and playgrounds williamsville which is ranked at 174 again we're 14. transit middle school has two baseball softball fields and a soccer slash football field they share a campus with the high school which has a seven million dollar facility that's one of their middle schools mill middle has an outdoor sports area with an all-weather play surface and high middle has an outdoor playground with multiple basketball hoops and lined a play surface based on these examples we think at a minimum william street should have a baseball diamond turf
122would be ideal so that our modified team can come over and have a chance of having at least one home game during this crappy weather season today we've had all of our games cancelled at home william street has room for softball diamond which the girls are having the same issue at the high school as well basketball court and a playground for the four and fourth and fifth graders to be comparable to williamsville district which i believe we should be considering our status in the community as a premium school district and all weather play fields should be would be invaluable given the weather we have here in western new york it would be used by the students as well as the modify programs like football soccer lacrosse and field hockey and we have a parent in
123the district who is a pe teacher and a coach at transit middle who would be a great resource to talk to the second concern we as parents have is that many of the existing facilities let me say some of these and facilities that our sports teams at the high school and middle school level have access to are well below standards and not acceptable compared to our surrounding and life school districts frankly we could argue they are below par compared to other school districts that would be considered lower income communities we pride ourselves on recently being ranked 14 of the state for athletic program so why do our facilities not mirror such status first and foremost are the baseball and softball diamonds to date only two games have been played at home one boys varsity and
124one boys jv the modified freshmen and girls teams have not been able to play outside on our fields for practice or games and the seasons end in early june a question many of us have is why are these fields not considered to be renovated before or at the same time as the new sod field that's being made for soccer lacrosse field hockey and marching band while we do believe that that um those activities do deserve a new field how is this field prioritized when the baseball and softball fields have been unplayable what makes one sport one field or one program a priority what also needs to be discussed is the access to the modified and jv field we know of two examples as to when a child in a wheelchair could not access the field
125and an elderly man with a walker fell due to the lack of solid pathway we urge the school district to evaluate all of this again we asked about the baseball diamond at williams street school why has the school district not cleaned or kept maintenance on this field our modified sports players have had practices pushed to late night at the indoor facility due to the outside outside fields not being playable we have 12 to 14 year old kids who are practicing until 9 30 at night which is hardly ideal for young students who have to get up at six in the morning based on the above feedback from the parents it seems like we definitely have an opportunity to grow and build upon the outdoor facilities available at all three schools so that said here are
126some of the questions why do we have no outdoor recreational equipment or facilities for the students at the middle school and william street campuses in the current budget why is there only one million dollars or only one percent of 122 million allocated towards sports and the line item for equipment is twenty thousand dollars why is there zero dollars in the budget for community recreation how much money in the school district is reserved federal reserves which i think was answered 5.2 million so can we as parents see the breakdown of what that money has been used for and will be used for going forward can a portion of what that money of that money that we have used for additional outdoor recreational spaces and the cleaning up of the sports fields that we have at the
127other schools what's the plan for the baseball and softball diamonds do you have a plan to replace or immediately fix the issues that are occurring with drainage and as my son mentioned on the way to practice today clean up the goose poop that is all over it how are certain projects prioritized what gets a project approved and on to the school district's to-do list can we create a task force as soon as possible to address the above so we can at least get these projects prioritized in the next school year's budget so to end usable accessible playgrounds fields and course for play are what we need not want to get our kids outside and to be social again just like the good old days what better way to combat all the stress mental and physical
128health issues these kids have been dealing with for the past few years which seems to be getting worse my kids play sports but they seem to have the most fun when they're just outside playing with their friends i want to stop having to take my kids to the deputy fields to play deputy was ranked number 271 out of athletic programs in new york state um if we're truly a destination school we should have the facilities that portray that thank you thank you mrs hardwick all right and we have no one else to speak tonight that brings us to 14.0 that's our executive session that effectively uh ends the meeting for the public uh this evening before we get to um executive session we do have again may 17 2022 is our annual budget vote and
129trustee election that is from 7 a.m to 9 00 p.m here at lancaster high school in the java gym do i have a motion to go into executive session any comments or questions all those in favor anyone against motion carries thank you all for coming out this evening