001of the city school district will now begin and Miss Boa is going to be presenting. Thank you. >> Tonight we have four separate uh hearings in which will be four separate presentations. We're going to start off with our school security officer and special patrol officer contracts. This encompasses our law enforcement agency contracts on behalf of the district for 2627. In 2019, a new law was passed and regulate regulations I shouldn't say new law, but regulations were amended to require that all school districts who contract for law enforcement off officer services incorporate anou a district-wide safety uh safety plan and uh to solicit stakeholder input, which is what we're here tonight for. Um we have two contracts. We have one with the Udica Police Department. Um they primarily manage our high school and our middle schools
002uh in conjunction with our red shirts. Um we also have uh Onidita County uh sheriff's department with their SPOS's and they they manage primarily our elementary schools. Occasionally when we have um some vacancy we do move it around because we want to make sure that we're we're safe and secure at all times. What does the school safety officer do? Um they provide for security and safety of all students. They provide intervention between students and staffing using appropriate techniques to common control basically deescalation. Uh under the supervision of the police chief or sheriff and in coordination with the school district's administration, they investigate crimes and instances occurring or in the vicinity of school grounds. They report all violations of laws and school rules, regulations, school policies. They enforce New York State law and federal laws and
003rules. They act as a liaison with police and other emergency personnel. And they build relationships by being a liaison between law enforcement agency and the school district. So what are their objectives? What are our objectives and how do they how do they work together? To provide a police presence at the Udica City School District schools and events in order to promote and provide an atmosphere of enhanced school safety for faculty, staff, and students and their visitors. provide a law enforcement resource for students, teachers, school administrators, and parents to increase student aware awareness about safety and crime prevention. Um, and to increase school faculty and staff awareness about preventing and responding to incidences of violence and other other threats to school safety. The objectives continue. It's building lines of communication to promote positive attitudes between students
004and law enforcement. Is to proactively address problems and pressures as they relate to our students in a variety of areas. to provide a positive role model to students and provide education and law enforcement. The most important thing to remember is what's here in red, that both the UPD and the United Sheriff's Department do not play a role in enforcing the Udico School District's code of conduct. This is the role of the building staff and the administration. So, what what does it take to be qualified? They have to be certified police officers in the state of New York with prior law enforcement experience, have excellent communication skills to be able to talk to adults and students uh at any time, be able to relate well to children, and possess good coordinating and planning skills. The Utica
005City School District has successfully partnered with law enforcement agencies in the past and for many years to provide a high level of safety and security for our students and employees. And I just want to mention they do work very well with our red shirts. there's a great deal of training that's that takes place on a regular basis. Um, and we believe that these contracts make a difference on behalf of our district. Okay. So, up next, I believe, is the public hearing for the contract for excellence. Good evening. So the contract for excellence um is basically a set aside of some of our foundation aid that has to be used in a particular way. So established in 2007, it's uh ongoing today. And because the foundation aid has uh uh recently been uh re reconfigured and
006we're now considered fully funded, the uh there's a chart later in this that will show you the what the anticipated set aides were. And those numbers have significantly changed. They did a five-year roll roll out um to try to even out the the spread of the increase. Um, and the numbers you're going to see tonight are based on last year's numbers because I only received this coming year's numbers this morning. So, these are the the reasons why we're part of the contract for excellence. Um, so 10% increase in foundation aid requiring academic progress identified as in need of improvement, incorrective action or restructuring status. This coming year, we actually don't have any schools identified. So, but we have met some of these other things before. So, again, this is last year's numbers. I have that
007documented down here on the the lower corner here. Um, so last year, we had to set aside uh the year that we're currently ending. $26 million of our of our foundation aid had to be set aside um and distributed based on population across the district. So, you'll see what the value for each of the buildings was. Um obviously with Proctor being our largest over eight million dollars of that share was there and then you can tell uh basically by the distribution the size of our buildings. The allowable programs that the set aside can get used for are class size reduction, increased time on task, improving teacher principal quality or prek and kindergarten. The interesting thing is the prek and and kindergarten piece because this year in the latest funding model they are restructuring how they're
008going to be funding uh prek. So uh I'm not sure that we'll if we'll see a change in that notice in the future but it still stands as far as I know right now. Um so it must be selected and targeted to improve the achievement of the students with the greatest needs um especially ENL and students with disabilities. So when we look at this and we come up with the template, we have to distribute the funding, but then we also have to identify which of these four areas in each building. So we're when we're identifying say a staff member, we have to identify what portion of their salary that's being contributed to through Cfere is being used for what area of uh of help and who the who it's impacting and it's used to supplement
009and not supplant. So it's it's considered on top of even though it's a set aside of the foundation aid that we have. This is the chart that I was talking about. So if you look second from bottom is Udica uh approved minimum for last year this this current year 2526 was um $23 million and change and if we go back to what our number was it was 268. The numbers that I received this morning um will actually take us from what the minimum uh amount of $27 million was for 26 to 27 to uh just over $32 million is the new set aside. So there's a $5.8 million difference from last year to this year. So this is just to kind of inform you of what the requirements are of contract for excellence and how
010how we have to distribute it and what it's used for. And if anybody has any questions or if you want to send a question, you can do it there. Uh I didn't bring my list up. Who's next? >> There we go. Okay. Districtwide safety plan for 2627 school year pursuant to section 15517 New York State Commissioner's Regulations. All school districts are required to develop the district-wide school safety plan. The purpose of the district-wide plan is to prevent or minimize the effects of serious violent incidents and emergencies. facilitate the coordination of the school district with local county resources in the event of such incidents or emergencies. Be responsive to the needs of all schools within the district and consistent with the more detailed emergency response plans required at the school building level. The district-wide safety plan
011is directly linked to each individual building level emergency response plan. Guides the development and implementation of individual building level emergency response plans. requires activation of the school emergency response plan team in the event of any emergency or violent incident. It provides for notification to the superintendent of schools and or his or her designate. Provides for notification of local emergency officials whenever appropriate. It establishes procedures for the identification of potential sites and hazards that may be present in them. identify as general response to those actions to be taken in the event of an emergency such as a two-hour delay, a school cancellation, early dismissal, shelter in place, lockout, lockdown, etc. Identify school district resources and personnel that are available during an emergency and defines a school district's use of the incident command system model for emergency
012actions. It outlines communication with outside emergency management entities, response procedures and prevention and intervention strategies. Um, it outlines the requirements for professional development and training for staff and multi-hazard school safety and violence prevention. Required training for all staff during the 2627 school year included the right to know and chemical safety, dignity for all students in anti-bullying, mental health awareness, emergency management, sexual harassment, COVID 19 etiquette and pandemic uh preparedness plan, bloodborne pathogen exposure. Um, other, this is a not updated, but other safety trainings during the 2627 school year will include incident investigation and reporting, district and school building emergency planning webinar, deescalation training, identification and reporting of child abuse and malreatment, child abuse in an educational setting, and workplace violence. Mandated drills. every school year. Um, each school must conduct four lockdown drills and eight
013evacuation drills. Trauma-informed drills. All drills and exercises must be trauma-informed. Avoid tactics that could trigger past trauma such as using props, actors, simulations, or mimicking school shootings or other violent events. The focus is on understanding trauma and its impact on the students and adults. Uh once approved by the board of education, the district-wide safety plan will be uploaded to the school district website. Each school is required to submit a building level emergency response plan within the New York State Education Department. It's confidential and is filed with the New York State Police and Utica Police Department. That's it. Up next is our 2627 code of conduct. >> Good evening. I had to make an update this afternoon. I just want to make sure they got the right PowerPoint up here before I start going. Thank you.
014We're all set. I get the joy of presenting the code of conduct update for 2627. Uh this is some brief background on the code of conduct. pretty straightforward. Uh, pursuing to section 2801 of the New York State reg education law uh and part 100.2 the New York State Education Commissioners regists are required to have a code of conduct in place for maintaining order on school grounds um including school functions that govern the conduct of students, teachers and other personnel as well as visitors. When and if a material change is made to the code of conduct, uh such policy may be adopted by the school board or trustees only after at least one public hearing that provides for the participation of school personnel, parents, students, and any other interested parties. Um and that would generally be
015what this is your public hearing if there were significant changes made to the code of conduct for next year. The Udica City School District code of conduct is reviewed annually by a committee of administrators, teachers, parents, students, and others involved in the schools. It is readopted each summer by the board of education as policy 12000 in the community relations section of the policy manual. For the 2627 school year, there are no material changes uh to the current code of conduct due to a lack of known code of conduct meetings. Uh I've only been here a short time. Uh and so when Dr. Davis asked me to present this. I have not been able to find any record of any material changes that were proposed for the coming school year. Uh so we decided we are
016going to do the public hearing even though there's no uh material changes to the code of conduct. Uh legally this is not necessary right now, but we thought this is the best practice to continue to at least provide some information on the code of conduct. So here moving forward, it's pretty much going to be if you were a graduate student in a law class getting an education law and what uh the code of conduct is because I'm going to talk more about what it is versus what's in our code of conduct since nothing is changing. Uh as defined by section 2801 of the New York Education Law, the code of conduct shall include at a minimum, and this is a whole host of provisions that come following this. Um this is the opening paragraph. Basically,
017I'm not going to read this all to everybody because there's a lot to a lot of these slides, but in general, this basically talks about your provisions for student conduct, dress and appearance, uh what that should be on a school property, school function, um regarding civil uh respect for teachers, adults, students, each other in the classroom. So, this is your opening paragraph. You're this is basically what most people think they hear code of conduct. They're thinking of this right here. other provisions, standards and procedures to asssure security and safety of students. Uh the pro provisions for removal from the classroom and or school property including school functions. Uh disciplinary measures to be taken incidents involving the possession or use of illegal substances or weapons, use of physical force, vandalism, violation of another student's civil rights
018and/or threats of violence. the provisions for detention, suspension, and removal from the classroom of students consistent with applicable laws. Uh including provisions for the school authorities to established policies uh procedures for the ensurement of continuing education for those students that have been removed from the classroom. Letter F is procedures by which violations are reported determined discipline measures imposed. Provisions ensuring such code and the enforcement thereof are in compliance with state and federal laws relating to students with disabilities. Provisions setting forth the procedures by which local law enforcement agencies uh shall be notified of code violations, including a crime. Uh provisions set forth the circumstances under procedures by which persons in parental relation to the student shall be notified of a code of conduct violation. The provision setting forth the circumstances under and procedures by which
019com complaint in criminal court, juvenile delinquency petition or person in need of supervision petition is to be um defined in articles three and seven of the family court act will be filed. Circumstances circumstances under and procedures by which referral to appropriate human service agencies shall be made. A minimum suspension period for students who repeatedly are substantially disruptive of the educational process for substantially interfere with the teachers authority over the classroom provided the suspending authority may reduce such period on case by case basis to be consistent with any other state and federal law. For purposes of this section the definition of repeatedly and substantially disruptive shall be determined in accordance with the regulations of the commissioner. We're getting there. I promise it's a lot that goes into this thing. That's why it's a big document. Uh,
020a minimum suspension period for acts that would qualify the pupil to be defined as a violent pupil pursuant to paragraph of subdivision 2A of section 3214 of this chapter provided that the suspending authority may reduce such period on a case-by case basis to be consistent with any other state and federal law that uh is legal mumbo jumbo for uh violations of the code of conduct that might result in a student going to a superintendent's hearing for disciplinary measures. uh usually suspensions resulting in more than five days. And the last one, provisions to comply with article two of the chapter, the dignity for all students act. So if you go back in the regulations, chapter 2 is all the laws that went in for dignity all students act. Um, following the adoption of the code of
021conduct, uh, these are the regulations of the requirement for the board of education, the school district to provide a summary of that code of conduct to all students at the beginning of the school year and shall mail a plain language summary of such code to all persons in parental relationship students before the beginning of each school year and make it available therefore or thereafter upon request. Uh copies of our full code of conduct are available in hard copy here at the district office and in each building available upon request and obviously on the district website. Uh copies of the full policy again it's policy 1200 in the community relations section are available for those that are um looking to see the full code. The board of education chancellor or other governing body shall take reasonable
022steps to ensure community awareness of the code provisions. Then closing up the last couple slides, just talk about that the plain language summary that gets mailed home uh every year, every summer. This comes directly from what the district sent home last summer. Um and since there's no material changes, the code of conduct, this information would not change as well. Um and I would read through this so people can hear it. The Udica City School District is committed to providing all students, teachers, district personnel, and visitors with a safe and pleasant environment. Our purpose is to offer a quality education in an environment free of discrimination, harassment, and bullying. The Udica City School District recognizes that a positive school climate is an important factor in effective student management. A positive school climate helps to foster high
023levels of personal student growth and academic achievement and is predicated on the principles of safety, trust, and effective communication among all stakeholders, including parents, students, teachers, and the entire school community. Our code of conduct explains the rights and responsibilities of all who utilize our facilities or ride our buses. The guiding principles are those of politeness, respect for each other, tolerance, and honesty. We especially ask students to help us maintain a safe and orderly environment, to ask questions if there's anything they don't understand, and to ask for help with problems. We also expect them to act responsibly for what they do or do not do. Therefore, our code focuses on respect for the rights and property of others and on the safety of everyone. Uh in closing again, a complete copy of the Udica City Schools
024code of conduct is available on the website here at the central office as well as the school uh within the each school. Uh and we thank you all for your anticipated continued support and cooperation. So, so now we'd like to open up the floor for any comments or questions. So, making part of the record. >> Should I go up? >> Yeah. Please, please stand up. Go to the microphone. State your name. >> Good evening. Scott Regowski, UTA president. I wanted to address a code of conduct. I just wanted to go on the record about a couple things. Uh, I'll keep it short. Uh the code of conduct committee has not met during the 2526 school year. On March 12th, 2026, I submitted a tailor request for information regarding code of conduct. I received the district
025response on May 29th, 2026. It stated that the code of conduct committee has not met this school year. Because the code of conduct committee has not met this school year, the membership remains unchanged. And then finally, it said there are no scheduled future meeting dates for the code of conduct committee for the remainder of the school year. Obviously, that's an issue because we are legally required to meet every year to review and update the plan. Thank you, >> Mr. Picowski. Could we have a copy of that memo, please? >> Thank you, Mr. Rogowski. Is there anybody else that would like to make a comment or ask a question about tonight's four presentations? Okay. And I think we'll close the public hearing. >> Thank you to the administration for their efforts tonight. Appreciate it. [snorts]