001How was your day today? It was fine. Busy. It was good. How about you? Same. Flew by. Hello. Hi. Hello. Okay, mic check. This is mic number one. Mic number one. Next is a super mic. Super mic, check check. President mic, president mic. One two three four, president mic. This one's mic number five. Mic number five. Mic number five. Mic number six. is six. Check, check, one, two. Three, four, five, six. This is mic six. All right. This is the student mic. One, two, three, four. Student mic. And the podium mic. One, two, three, four, five, six. [clears throat] Podium mic. Check, check, one, two. Hello. Podium, podium, podium. Just for your information. Hopefully it sounds pretty good. Let me go back to the six real quick. Thank you. >> [clears throat] >> Back to
002mic six. Mic six. >> [clears throat] >> One, two, three, four, five, six. Are you seeing the budget? Yes. You are? Yes. And finance Any plan to just do a receipt? Yeah. I'm going to give you the score now. I don't know. Okay. They don't take you out there. Okay. So hopefully you stand Okay. Uh-huh. >> I'm just a witness for this session and then Okay. You have to motion saying anything. Not watching you. No, I Actually it's a regular just a couple of things. Yeah. I got a chance first. Okay. Yeah, this one. That's good. Yes. Oh, yeah. Same thing. And what it is it allows us to Sure. in New York State. >> Mhm. >> Oh, there is. Okay. How you doing? All right. You fit fit. How you doing, buddy? I'm doing
003fine. How are you doing? Well, that's nice. Pretty good. Is it okay? Yeah, I'm fine. Okay. You can actually sit there. All right. >> [clears throat] >> You're doing I'm good. Yeah. I need to get there something else in the nursery. Okay. Thank you. Have a great great one. Okay. Did I get it? Awesome. Thank you. I'll keep messing. Camera. I bet last dude changed for little theater, right? Hi. How are you? Uh yes, sweet. Right. I just got to get my next one. There's two in there now for little. Oh, little theater. Yeah. What do you think you're It's easy, right? That would be great actually if the if the TV's there. This is now It is gorgeous in black and white. So, we don't need to do anything in there. Sweet. >> There
004was a Cayman today and uh there custodians that are So, Douglas and David uh Chris and Mhm. Yeah. >> Good evening everybody. Thank you so much for coming to public presentation of the budget. We really appreciate your interest in our school district. Before we begin, I'd ask all of us to stand. We will say the pledge now and then we'll do it again I'll run the board each time, so we'll do it for this public hearing. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right, thank you again. So, if you have been, you know, watching board meetings and the lengthy process of putting together a budget, you're probably familiar with some
005of the data. If you're new to this, we're glad that you're here. Uh the board, along with the administrators and supervisors in this district, have been working really hard uh to reduce our original budget proposal many months ago from an initial 5 and 1/2% increase to a final proposed increase of 2.9%. Um that means that this proposed budget totals $31.7 million with a projected tax rate tax levy of 2.68%. Uh this might equate to approximately $127 per year uh for an average assessed home. Uh and throughout the bud- uh the process, the board really has directed us as administrators to identify cost savings, uh to implement those measures, to scale back spending, and focus only on the necessary programs and services that benefit our students here in Great Island. We had multiple rounds of conversations,
006and overall, we believe we have really moved the needle and almost having a rollover budget from one previous year to this upcoming school year. Uh we will show some of the slides. Doug Wayland is our assistant superintendent for business and finance and he is an interim. And we always start when we talk about the budget our mission statement. And we really spent a lot of time thinking about this and what it means to inspire students to achieve their highest potential while honoring their unique pathways, which will then equate to fostering academic excellence, supporting personal growth, and promoting social responsibility. If you've known me for the last 10 years, we talked deeply about these budget goals. Developing a long-term sustainable budget is super important for the district. And of course we're very interested in making sure
007the budget provides a diversified education program for the students that we serve from 4 years old all the way through senior years. Another budget goal has always been to do our very best to retain the community mandated student programs and activities that our students love so much all through our schools. And to be fiscally responsible to the extent possible protecting the fund balance that we have. I'm not going to read all of these goals, but it is important for the community to know that we spend a lot of time focused on our strategic plan. We call it a blueprint for excellence. What you see on this slide are four domains where we have specific goals to improve our school district to that extent possible. We believe that every adult in our organization should be on
008a trajectory of continuous improvement. That includes myself, it includes the people at this table, it includes all of our teachers, our support team, our administrators, and if we as adults can role model continuous learning and continuous improvement, we believe that is what our students should see us all engaged in. And that work takes a lot of time. This strategic plan was developed 2 years ago, and just last week we had a refresh where uh the the entire uh organization came together to look at these goals and make amendments to them coming up in September. So, we really value uh the work that we put that in our budget presentation because when we build the budget, we are focused on the mission and we're focused on these goals. So, Doug, I'm wondering if you would be
009so kind as just to give everybody a snapshot of the work that has been done since uh we began having these meetings. Sure. Thank you. And thanks for attending tonight. Um this is the probably the fifth time in this room that we'll be talking about the budget. This budget uh was also presented to the All Island PTAs uh about 2 weeks ago. It's um you have meetings coming up with the Lions Club. You also have meetings coming up with the Senior Citizen Center. So, we're trying to be as transparent as possible. We're trying to give the community the best budget we can without reducing programs. So, the goal was when I came here in December, the goal was to keep all the programs and activities for the students, but really streamline uh expenses. And that's
010what we think we've done. So, we've come to a 2.9% budget. We've gone through different uh meetings with the board. Uh the superintendent said our first draft after taking all the input from the principals was 5.5%. And the board looked at that and said that's too high. So, our second draft, uh uh we reduced the budget by 1.8 million. A lot of this money is coming from the retirements that occurred in this district. We have 12 uh teachers retire and some other people retire. We are taking most of that savings and reducing the budget. Um the next time it was cut more. So, we're right down to what we feel is an appropriate budget. Now, could the budget be lower? Certainly, but it it's going to take cutting programs and cutting activities or it's going
011to take using more of your fund balance. If I'll show you on this one page, the district has been using over $6 million of its money to support its revenue. And I'm recommending that that be cut back into the 5 million range. So, that's another thing. You've got to be very careful with the amount of money you're using toward revenue. And it'd be very easy to tell the community, well, it can be lowered by just adjusting that number. But, what happens with many schools, and you're seeing the city of Buffalo right now, if you don't increase moderate tax rates, you're going to find in time, as many school districts did, you run out of money. So, then you have to have an enormous tax increase. So, as you look at budgets in the future, there
012are ways to keep them right around 2%. And if you want to get them lower than that, you have to cut program, cut staffing, uh cut something or use more of your own money. But, we we are at a 2.9% budget. The tax levy is going to go up 32 cents per thousand. So, from $11.94 to $12.26, and that's estimated because the state hasn't passed a budget yet. And hopefully we'll get more state aid. But, the only additions to this budget, and I know I'm not following the same format, the only additions to this budget is a request for a reading series for K1 and 2. That's $150,000. That's expensive. Um there are two monitor positions in the cafeterias because of the increased number of students that are are taking lunch, and um there are
013two positions, one in PR and one in uh the two uh 0.4 positions, art high school art, and one in PR. And there are 20 portable air conditioners. Uh we had a request for more, but we've cut it back to 20. So, there's 283,000 in this 81 million that's extra, so to speak. Remember that your budget mostly is personnel, benefits, those types of things, health insurance. Um you do have a proposition two, which is 672,000. This district has uh purchased buses and other vehicles um by bonding over 5 years. So, what is happening here, it really is neutral to the tax impact because as one 5-year purchase ends, another one is starting. So, this is the way you've been replacing buses. And um not sure the future with this electric mandate. I mean, the state
014is not backing off on purchasing electric buses. They um You know, our buses are $174,000 each for diesel. Electric buses over $400,000. And this school needs about $7 million of infrastructure just to have electric buses. So There is some good news that coming out of Albany, although [clears throat] the budget is not enacted. Mhm. Our governor as of May 11th Mhm. Right? That's a problem, right? Right? But I am hearing we we spend a lot of time as superintendents and uh directors of transportation, uh boards of education pushing back on this mandate. And I mean a significant amount of time. They're uh Please don't quote me, Alice, on this. But there is some language that is draft language that may delay the mandate by up to 5 years. So, uh not sure, haven't seen it.
015Haven't seen the written language. We will know when the budget is enacted. But I guess I just want to say to the community, we recognize that the uh zero-emission bus mandate is not appropriate for any And we've been fighting it as uh with boards of education, uh the New York State Council of School Superintendents and Directors of Transportation. So, we're hopeful that this rumor that I just said publicly uh comes to fruition. And I appreciate just being able to share that with I'd like to go back to page six on this presentation. And this is the revenue uh summary of revenues for the district. If you look down at the bottom line, it says appropriated fund balance. This is the number that I was talking about where in the past you used $7.4 million dollars
016to support your revenues. Then last year you used 6.6. I'm recommending that this go down to 5.3. So that's a reduction, but as you What happens is as you tighten your budgets more and more, you're going to have less and less money left over. So you can't have a very tight budget and still be thinking that out of that budget is going to come 7 million or 6 million. It's just not going to happen for you. So I think that's that's a strategic thing that we're doing here and I think it will protect you in the future. The next thing I wanted to just highlight on page seven is the major expenditures. If you look at the budget to budget difference, you're seeing where we are cutting this budget. Um the contribution rate for TRS,
017the percentage is going down for teachers, so we're allowed, you know, to cut that 400,000 dollars. The FICA, because we're cutting salaries, is going down 50,000 dollars. Workers' comp, 185,000 dollars. We thought we had too much money in that line in the past. And so on and so forth. Your debt is being paid off, so that's coming down. What I want to point out is there's a lot of negatives on the major expenditures in this district and this is what the board asked us to do. To go through and streamline and to the extent that I've become familiar with your budget, we were able to do that. So with that, I you know, it's very hard when you when you try to look at these documents and ask intelligent questions, but if there's anything that
018you want to know or if there's any more information that I can give you, I'd be glad want that. So at this time, please come up to the microphone and ask any question you have that you might My only question is just on the appropriations. I see that it says 6 or 7 6 5 for the 7 and 6. Did that actually get used and did we actually reduce the fund balance by that amount or is it that there's actually some some play in the budget and you didn't actually have to end up having to use that whole 7 6? That's correct. So, that what happens with your budget money is it's designed to have a certain amount of money left over and um there's a lot of things in the budget you can't predict
019exactly. You don't know our special education expenses. You see, you don't know utilities. Our diesel cost right now is much more than we budgeted right at this point. So, you have to have flexibility in the budget. Now, how much flexibility is appropriate? So, what comes out of that budget is a certain amount of money and you're taking that money and putting it forward into the next year to help your revenues. So, 7.6 million, then 6 million. And as you tighten that budget down, you should not have that much money left over. And as you look at budgets in the future and you streamline them and really look at each one of your expenditures, um you do have to have some more flexibility in there. You can't Everything can't be predicted exactly. You um you understand
020that. So, um I guess my biggest question really is do we know for the the prior 2 years the actual amount that that is of that appropriation was any of it used? Was some of it used? Yeah. Well, most of most of it is used. Now, last last year I also I just want to layer in one thing. One of our board meetings, it may have been in October when we looked at the audit, we had about 600,000 more than we expected. And so we asked the board to allow us to put that in a capital [clears throat] reserve, which we are intending to use for a capital project. So to your question, the state controller only allows us to have They want us to only have 4% extra, right? And we have other reserves,
021right, that we have to maintain, but the unappropriated [clears throat] balance should be should be about 4% over So we hit that 4% mark and we had 600,000 extra. And we took that and put that in a in a capital reserve. So that's basically how went down after the audit. Okay. And and the reason why I was asking you is I if you could actually see what those two numbers were in the actuals, you could then see how 5 million for this year measures, but I don't know if you have those numbers with you. I don't have them with me right Okay. You're welcome. Thank you, Todd. Was Todd, right? Good Todd. Thanks for being here. I'm coming to the Lions Club on Wednesday. You are? I am. We're having dinner right next door to
022John and Mary's, I think. So we're there. So we're looking forward to that. Uh first of all, we'd like to congratulate all of you for the difficult job that you have. I was the treasurer of our club and it's been I don't know, I think I'm going to be the lifetime treasurer of my club because I watch a lot of budgets go through. So reading reading your your release, I just have two questions for you. 41 different school districts that separate from the island. I don't I can't comprehend that. Well, there's a state law that says you have to bus to private schools that are within 15 miles of a person's residence. So, because we're located equally distant between Erie County and Niagara County, we it's important for us to realize that our transportation costs
023are not just to the Grand Island schools. People think, you know, we only have five schools. Well, no. We We're transporting for special education children to placements, you know, where they're placed. But, we're also bussing 15 miles in each direction. So, so we're we're paying these school districts to our children. Well, the parents pay the tuition for private schools. We pay the tuition for a special child that's placed in a private placement. We pay that tuition. But, if parents choose to send their children to a private school, they pay the tuition. We have to pay for the bussing. Bussing? If it's 15 miles. Do we ship kids Do we ship kids further than we do? I know we >> We We do for special education. Just special ed. But, not for private high schools and
024private elementary schools. The other question I have is and I know we I drive an 8-year-old car. My wife drives a 12-year-old car. And I don't know what the policy is about replacing buses. Is it because they run out of warranty we replace them? That's That's a very good question, isn't it? And And to our board's credit, they asked us the same question at the time. So, I will try to answer it in a nutshell and maybe Cheryl or Jen or Doug can fill in any gaps that I'm leaving out. Uh we try to keep our buses for 10 years, but that doesn't always necessarily mean that a bus might have over 100,000 miles, right? Buses, there's a lot of wear and tear and on the buses that we have. So, we try very hard
025to keep them on a cycle of about 10 years. And so, when you see that this proposal is going to purchase a couple two or three buses, sometimes in the past we've been able to do five buses, but now we're trimming that back. We're trying to have them last longer, but when you have all the wear and tear and the winters and all the mileage that our buses have, they do end up on the warranty and we auction those buses uh off to have some revenue as a result. And then, you know, do our very best to get the the best safest buses back to our fleet. And you'll never see a school bus with rust on it because there's Department of Transportation Inspection and they show up unannounced. And if your buses are mechanically
026not fit or they have any rust at all, they take them off the road. So, generally, if you can keep them in pretty good shape, you can replace the engine and have it last a little longer, but the 10 years seems to be the mark where they mechanically are taking more money from you. That is the worst. So, that's generally what happens. And a lot of the larger school districts have their own paint bays and body shops. But a district of this size would not invest in that. We would If if it was an inclusion or if it starts rusting, we patch it to the extent we can, but they'll take them right off the road. And Tom, if you're interested in becoming a bus driver, I want to introduce you to Jen who's Patrick,
027our Assistant Superintendent of Human Resources. Floor is yours. Or any of your friends, neighbors We're going to be exploring becoming a 501c3 adjusted for the new year. Okay, I got you. I got you. That That is a burden. >> I got you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you, John. And John, hold on a second. Cheryl, if you don't mind, games and attributions of the money is about I don't think you grabbed the microphone. Sure. They have partnered with us with so many projects, but one in particular. Yeah. So, John, I know we work together every year. Every year I get my January email, so thank you for that. Um but, you know, you you were the Lions Club has identified many of our students to go get um more comprehensive vision
028exams. So, and we love your partnership. The nurses and the principals all look forward to it, too. We expanded what a couple years ago to Saint Stephen's, so I know Len Ortiz is very appreciative. So, again, thank you for your organization. Thank you for always reaching out in January making that happen for our kids. School district appreciates it, so do all the parents. So, thank you. It's a pleasure. I've been doing it for 27 years. Yeah, I know. Uh one of your teachers that that's in the way you approached me the other day or this was back in January, and she says, "I had you in class. I don't know if you remember me, but I remember when you were when this meeting was when I was in the first grade." Aw. I told her,
029"Don't tell me how many years ago." >> [laughter] >> Thank you very much. >> Thank you. Thank you. We love doing it. Thank you. It's an opportunity to hear from It's always great to see everyone with your hats and May >> [laughter] >> I just came from playing football at at Riverside. It was cold out there, so if we can get spring sometime, it'd be great or summer. Um just questions in reviewing, cuz I think uh public information is often shared publicly and incorrectly, so I like to try to level set what I'm understanding or find out why I'm not that smart, which is usually what happens. But, the on the on the three-headed budget really, right? So, the three components as you are program, administrative, and capital, right? Um administrative went down 2%. Uh
030capital down 1% approaching 2%. Uh program costs went up, right? Almost 5%. But, in that program cost, am I seeing right that, you know, the number one component that went up seems to be health insurance benefits. >> That's correct. And that looks to be 47% of the total increase is one budget item that is you don't have really any control over producing or not, correct? Health insurance benefits. We're estimating about 13% No, we don't really control that. I know my my stuff at home goes up. I'm certainly love a discount on our health insurance. We're not getting that there either. Just curious cuz there's this concepts or this thought process that there's some luxury items happening. This is our health insurance and this is what it means. The new cost is as dictated, correct? It
031has to be carried. It equals almost half of the only item that was increased, which is the program line. Thank you. That's correct. Is that fair? Yeah. Right. So, what other items I I I can see the items, but really what kind of tangible things in the program line are going up health wise? Cuz there doesn't look to be a ton of meat once you pull out that $1.278 million. Salaries. Salaries. Salaries, yes. Controllable salary expense or the contract Right. So, that those salaries that go up for those contract that are already in there, isn't that right? So, those aren't those aren't because I'm a nice guy I'm getting a salary increase this year. Okay. >> [clears throat] >> Um Are there any items that was impressive and I appreciate, you know, I I run
032a $126 million annual budget at work. So, I can understand how hard it is, but at work I we don't have enough money, they tell us to go find more. You can only find what you have in these budgets, correct? So, what other items are in that didn't get cut that that are that are increased lines? I'm just trying to keep it practical. What do they do in the program? Like, what are they for our kids? The slide here is is an example of the only things that are being increased that weren't in the budget last year. So, we we need a literacy curriculum for children in grades K through 2. We're looking to make sure there's continuity from primary school to our other schools. So, there's a request to purchase this program. And then
033these minor increases, we actually have more kids asking to take art classes, which is really great. So, we want to make one of our half-time uh part-time art teachers a full-time art teacher. So, those are just some of the additional requests, but everything else is pretty much rolling over the budget with the contractual increases. What pages do you eliminate that you wish you didn't have to? Um One of the things that's in programs is transportation. So, that fuel costs and those type of things are going up. We're trying to hold back the contractual bus runs. That we've budgeted $900,000 to take kids off island to schools. We're trying to get rid of that and run ourselves. Unfortunately, we we need bus drivers to to take that option. But when we don't, right? We have to
034spend more to get the kids to where they need to go. So, that is uh a wish that we have is to increase our staff so we can run those things. We cut that line to 500 to 75,000 from 900. Um We are thinking these new school buses and we're training a couple of new drivers, we can cut the contract runs from five down to three. Is that realistic? Well, there'll be five contract runs, but three of them will be a contractor and two of them will be In-house. And that's and that's realistic. Aaron, I would also say that we put an incentive, a retirement incentive, in the teachers contract and we had a great interest in that and we're not replacing how many six I think so we're reducing staff through attrition and that
035means that we're going to be leaner throughout our our school district. I'm assuming the board's actually a lot of work that's not going to push our our number per student above a manageable situation for our teachers. That's correct. I know I'm married to a teacher who would call transparency as we know that I think it's a it's a basic math question there's too many in the classroom it's a big problem. So we're not over that number. >> Yeah, we're not over what's in the contract. Does the union agree? Uh yes. Yeah, they're going to. Okay, I just want to say I appreciate you going through the budget. I know you're going through a hard time like all budgets getting them approved approved or not or voted on. I think there's a lot of scrutiny and
036I appreciate all your service in doing this. It's a it's a heavy lift and um I appreciate your transparency in the process so thank you. One of the things I just wanted to point out on the administrative section of the budget it's not just administrators it's everything it takes to administrate the school district. We have clerk, treasurer, budget pool, lawyers, that type of thing. Thank you. Thanks again. Before we put the budget hearing to a close or would anybody else like to make a comment or ask a question? Again we thank you for your interest in our school district. Doug and I are available if you wanted to make an appointment to sit with the two of us and further understand some of the language in the budget. We welcome that and I'm going to
037the Golden Age Center Jude Thursday and Lions Club Wednesday. I guess the pizza's pretty good Tom so I'm excited about that. Well, at this time we're going to close the public hearing and thank everybody for their participation and turn it over to Jay Grover. All right. Thank you very much. So, with that we'll call the public session to order and start with the budget. Excuse me, this gives a chance to get in. There are some seats up front today. All right, just a quick reminder, please silence your cell phones and in the event of an emergency, exits behind you. So, with us tonight is Frank Brocker, trustee, Dr. Esther Dreier, trustee, Dr. Pearlman, trustee, June Lee, district clerk, Jessica Okay, let's start up with my section of the board tonight. Dr. Brian Braverman, superintendent, then
038I'm Jay Grover, trustee, Danielle Bruno, trustee, Jonathan Patrick, assistant superintendent of curriculum, staff development, and human resources. Sheila Heron Owen is assistant superintendent for pupil personnel services, Dr. Douglas Wayland, interim assistant superintendent for school business and finance. And then two of these sitting student representatives here tonight are Grace and Charlotte Howard. Okay. Moving on, if I can get a motion for the approval of tonight's agenda. I'll motion. And a second? I'll second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carried five nothing. Actually, I apologize. Excused tonight are Sue Marston and Joy LeMarque. I apologize for this tonight. Okay. And also an approval for the minutes from the April 20th meeting. I'll motion. And a second? I'll second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carried five zero. Okay. And then we think that leaves us with our
039student ambassadors. Do we have someone from the middle school? Oh, there we go. Dr. Plati. Hi, how are you tonight? Very good, thank you. Um, I'm excited to introduce you. I have Grace Chipato and Grace Stapleton here tonight from the middle school. They are both sixth graders. Um, Grace Grace Chipato is our publicity supervisor and Grace Stapleton is our secretary on our student council. They both are members of the band and chorus and they're both dancers and they both play sports here in Red Hook. Hello. Good evening, members of Board of Trustees, Superintendent Dr. Green, and our community. My name is Grace Stapleton. I am the secretary for BCMS. And I'm Grace Chipato. I'm the publicity supervisor for BCMS. We are excited to share some of our recent highlights from a student perspective. The last
040few weeks have been some of the best of the year, starting with our school dance. It was amazing to see everyone out of their shells and just having a great time together. After being so focused on grades and tests, having fun nights where we could just be kids and build those friendships was exactly what we needed. The energy was incredible and it really made us feel like a community. The week after the school dance was teacher appreciation week. We also wanted to make sure the teachers got the same support during teacher appreciation week. One of the things the students loved loved was seeing was seeing our staff dressed up like we voted and picked spirit days for teachers. Some of the days were teacher twin day and want to be Wednesday where teachers had to
041dress like a career they wanted to be when they were kids. It might seem like a small thing, but seeing our teachers in a more relaxed environment made the school feel a lot more connected and positive. It was our way of showing them we see how hard they work for us every day. Our last student council meeting is this Wednesday and we are looking forward to next year. Thank you for listening to us tonight and have a great rest of your evening. >> [applause] >> Excellent job, girls. I think that's where our high school Charlotte Lucian is from. So, a couple weeks ago, Friday, May 1st, was National Decision Day and it's just a day where all 12th grade students across the US wear apparel for their future plans, whether it's college, the military, or
042a trade. With the help of our class advisors, Ms. O'Rourke and Ms. Spinelli, we had everyone gather here on the turf and thank you to Mr. Gorton and Ali O'Kendrick, we got a couple group photos and we made some content for our class video and our social media pages. And it was just nice seeing everyone gathered together because it's only going to happen a couple more times before we graduate. Well, that's yeah. That's right. So, Ellie Lipinski at our public relations specialist at 45,000 views of of this this university signing day. That's crazy. It is crazy. But, that meant that your families, people were sharing and reposting, and I was shocked at the interest of probably outside of Western New York, too, with the family. It was really nice. She did a really good job
043actually. Additionally, last week Interact finished our annual project, which is my favorite. [clears throat] Every year we paint flower pots for moms at the Haven House, which is a local Sorry. Just for the people this is being viewed, we have a lot of people in attendance. What's Interact? And then And then And then go ahead and tell your story. Interact Club is the youth branch of Rotary International, so we work hand-in-hand with the Grand Island Rotary and do projects through them. Um, but our annual project we do every year is through the Haven House. We paint flower flower pots for moms on Mother's Day. And if you don't know what the Haven House is, it's actually the only domestic violence shelter in all of Erie County. So, every year we paint pots for the moms,
044and then we pick the flowers out and plant them, and their communications director, Michael Mike Bloom, comes every year and gives a presentation, and I mean, this is my fourth time hearing the presentation, and I still learn something new every time. And it's just really like eye-opening to see that in all of Erie County we have one shelter for all of these people for all of these people that need the help. And Mike Bloom just really said that, um, how much these flower pots really brighten their days, and just he, um, his office is right near the cafeteria, so he got to see them talking about it and see them in the window, so just gives them that life that they don't have every day. So, it's just really special that we get to do
045something like that. And the reception for the New York State Seal of Civic Readiness by Literacy, Design and Technology, and the Career and Technological Technical Education Endorsement will be Monday, June 1st at 5:00 p.m. This is just a nice day everyone will get to showcase their hard work before graduation for all of our parents, teachers, and administrators. This past Saturday, Student Council and the senior class hosted a car wash at the Town Tavern in order to raise funds for our senior class trip to Niagara Falls coming up this month. And it was successful with many seniors coming out to wash cars and Highlanders stopping by to get their cars cleaned. Um and then this week, we kicked off our Unified Spirit Week with monochromatic day today. And we'll have a spirit week leading up to
046this Friday, which is the Unified Basketball Game hosted during the day. And we have an adjusted schedule so that the students can come down and cheer on all of our friends in the special education classroom. Can you give us an update on track and field? Well, we're going strong right now. We had a very successful meet this past Saturday um with lots of our teams either placing first, second, or third. Um and we're heading into championship championship season now with NFLs and sectionals coming up soon. Yeah, that's great. And are you going to try to compete in the college? Yes. Can you tell us a little bit about that program? Um I'm committed to St. Bonaventure to run D1 cross country and track after graduation. >> We're very proud of both of you. WELL DONE.
047ALL RIGHT. THANK YOU BOTH. UH THAT BRINGS US TO CORRESPONDENCE, RECOGNITION, and good news with Dr. Bent. Yeah. So, thank you very much, Nita. I know you're here. Would you come the podium, please? We'd like to shine a spotlight on you. Uh this is Eden Van Shir. She just recently placed third in state competition for the cosmetology championships. Uh Eden, I'm wondering if you could just say a few words about that experience. It looks like there were about 38 to 40 people you were competing against, and to come out and finish in third place across the state is very significant. But just maybe give uh you know, a flavor or add some color to what your task was during the championships and how you were able to perform at such a high level. Um so,
048we had to do an updo I'm sorry, Mark, can you check the microphone for her? She's got to get closer to it. Uh she should get closer. All right. Um so, we had to do like this updo, and we had an hour and a half to do it. And then we had to do a haircut. Because we had 75 minutes to work on them. And then there's like thermal styling, which we had a half an hour to do. And the whole competition was like around like 8 hours long. And yeah, we were the one of the longest competitions there. Um yeah, it was like a lot of fun. Yeah. And what are you in 11th grade? Yeah. Yeah. So, maybe just tell our audience a little bit more when you were a 10th grader and
049thinking about your schedule for 11th grade, how did you choose cosmetology, and maybe share with the audience where you go for that type of uh uh career in technical education? Um well, I always like enjoyed the beauty industry, and I was really passionate And like my mom, she used to tell me that I was like loved to like get out of her salon and stuff. And I remember like when I was in ninth grade, and we were talking about like future schedules and all that stuff. do with my life. I was using cosmetology as something in my schedule for a little while. And I remember in 10th grade, they were like, "Are you sure you want to do cosmetology?" And I was like, "Yeah." That's great. So, for you and your friends or peers that
050go to OCES, just explain to us a little bit more. Do you go in the morning or do you go in the afternoon? Just give a little bit more information so that people may be interested in cosmetology there at 10th grade, ninth grade. Um so, we go in the afternoon. I have like my main classes during the morning, and then I leave to go to OCES at like I think it's at 12:15. And then we go there and they teach us how to do different things like different techniques and they tell us like you like me people like doing hair and And for me, I really enjoy that. And I think a lot of people really enjoy that, too. That's great. Is there anything else you want to tell us about the competition? Where was
051it held? Um there were a few in New York at like the State Fairgrounds. That's nice. And uh did some of the students in your cosmetology program at OCES attend with you or were you the you the only one who went? Um yeah, my friend Kelly wanted me to she came with me, but none of us like competed in like the same like area. And like my friend Alana who goes to Andrew, she was like too. That's great. Will you go again next year? Yeah. Yeah, that's awesome. Uh we would want to congratulate you after we give you a big rousing applause. Would you come up and get a PHOTO WITH YOU? >> [applause] >> YOU WANT TO OKAY. IS YOUR MIC ON? YOU WANT TO COME UP AND GET A PICTURE? YOU WANT to
052>> Oh, you were working. Thank you. I'll take three pictures and then I'll see take some. Is that easy? 3 2 1 >> [applause] >> Congratulations. You did great today. Well done. Uh that brings us to public comment session agenda items only and I'm not having one sign up for that. Curriculum instruction nothing at this time Mr. Burke. If I can just mention that we had an event this last Tuesday where we did a strategic plan refresh. So we're working with Dr. Kevin McGowan to refresh our strategic plan that was done two years ago and things are always changing in New York State so it's important that we stay on top of things and evolve the plan as it's necessary and members of our Board of Education of course, teachers, administrators and members of the
053community participate in the refresh. So we're looking forward to that and I want to do a quick reminder that U P K lottery will be this Wednesday at 1:00 live right here in the PD room. Parents are welcome to attend. And this Thursday is our I don't know, it might be our sixth emergency needed conference where eighth graders participate in a career fair at the Niagara Falls Convention Center. Thank you. That's great to hear to hear that the refresh of the strategic plan that's such important work getting to help guide us. Okay, so thank you for everybody who participated in that. Um, on to personnel and instructional. There are no questions. I need to put forward a motion to approve PI1 through PI10. Need a second. >> I'll second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion
054carried. Do we have any I think we do. We have some intros, maybe? Good evening, Board of Education, Dr. Graham, and district administrators. [clears throat] Tonight, I would like to introduce you to Mr. John Korczak, who will be joining us at the high school in September. John, if you could please stand. He will be joining us as a science teacher. Mr. Korczak has a bachelor's degree in science from UB and a master's degree in science education from Buffalo State University. He most recently taught in the Tonawanda City School District and comes to us with a background as a research assistant at Children's Hospital, as well as as an associate microbiology scientist at Fresenius. He is also the son of our very own Patricia Korczak, who teaches third grade. And we are excited to welcome John
055to GI JHS, and we look forward to having him join our science team in September. THANK YOU. >> [applause] >> THANK YOU. MR. HALL. >> GOOD EVENING BOARD OF EDUCATION, DR. GRAHAM, district administrators. Um it's my pleasure to introduce Ruthie Principato. She has been She will be joining Kayge Bayne as our new general music teacher and choral director next school year. We're very excited to have her. Ruthie brings with her a wonderful combination of talent, experience, and enthusiasm. And she holds her bachelor's and master's from Buffalo State University. Over the past several years, she served as a general music teacher through Orleans-Niagara BOCES, working with students across elementary and middle school settings. She has experience directing concerts and talent shows, and she brings creativity, compassion, and energy to everything she does. Um what stood stood
056out most about Ruthie during the interview process was her knowledge of music theory and her ability to make music accessible and enjoyable. She is an accomplished piano and ukulele player. We're very excited. Um and that combined with her passion for music and community building makes her excellent addition to Kayge Bayne. So, welcome to Kayge Bayne and WELCOME TO BUFFALO. [applause] WELCOME. UM ON TO PERSONNEL NON-INSTRUCTIONAL. Looking for motion to approve PNI 1 through PNI 4. I'll make a motion. And second? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? None. Motion carried 5-0. Can you address us the finance spectrum in the room for percentage points? On finance, we have four action items and two information items. Uh the first action item are transfers of $15,000. The first one is about $85,000 because we're hiring substitutes for assistant principals
057and people that are going to be out, etc. Uh the second transfer is for $24,000 annually and this is to replace six um switches in the wire closets. We have There's over 100 switches in our wire closets that control our computers. That goes in the capital project, but as they fail, we have to replace them. So, it cost $24,000 just for six of them. That's the first action making So, Yeah. Yeah, why don't you introduce all the actions? We can do them all together. Okay. The second one is donations to the awards dinner for the support personnel. Leonard Bus Company, $1,000 and Marston Power Equipment, $250. The next one is the St. Stephen's and St. Timothy's UPK contracts. We have 72 children going to St. Stephen's, five children going to St. Timothy's. So, they're asking
058for that to be approved. And the last one is for action. It's a resolution to join a cooperative bid. There's four other BOCES that came together and bid uh data security and privacy services. And we want to take part in that. So, it's just something that needs to be done. And uh we can get the best prices through this cooperative bid. So, those are the four actions I see. Anyone have any questions on those items before we Okay, so if I can get a motion then to approve finance A through D. And a second? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carried 5-0. Two information items. The first one are the treasurer's reports and revenue reports. And the second one are various transfers under $15,000. Any questions on those items in the board revision? Thank you,
059Dr. Williams. Okay, on to special education to report personnel services. This is two action items that I can have action on CSC and CPSC program recommendations for our students. Okay, we have a motion for the special education services A and B. And second? I'll second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carried 5-0. Thank you. It looks like that's you, Dr. Yes, this is my written report. Thank you very much. Um, we also, you know, we had a wonderful opportunity to recognize Aden and her accomplishments. So, thank you to her family and all that support her through our school district as well as BOCES. Uh, most recently, uh, Henry Carney along with, uh, the team were honored by the Buffalo Bills recently. Very exciting because the the board has been very supportive of adding this program
060a few years ago. And our coaches have been doing a fantastic job. So, what you see on this slide is just an email that was sent to our coaches and, uh, with the announcement that they will receive a $1,000 check that will go to the girls flag football. So, when that comes in, I know Doug will make sure it's earmarked, uh, for flag football. So, we congratulate Henry and all of the coaches that support our kids. Uh, you've heard from Sienna and Charlotte about the national university and college signing day. Um, that's my personal note to all of you. I there. So, congratulations. And this is lovely, right? We have college signings for our athletes, and it's also great to recognize those kids who want to participate in national signing day. Like I said, a
061lot of people watched the video she created. So, congratulations to our students as well as Ali. This past week was teacher appreciation week. Sienna or Charlotte, did Was there anything interesting or exciting going on that you you want to shine a spotlight on our teachers? Well, we ended the week by giving thank you notes, personalized thank you notes to each of the teachers. Student Council, each person chose a teacher that they had felt like they had a connection with to write a letter to. And then on Friday, we finished off the week with lunch for each of the teachers from Holy Taco. And each of the teachers enjoyed a nice meal from the food truck. Yeah. It's very, very nice. And it's, you know, for our board and for our community, obviously, our PTAs are
062very supportive of teachers, our elementary schools, and middle school, and so forth. But the things sort of shift a little bit to the agency of our students, and it's just great to see our students doing leading initiatives like this. So, thank you for your contributions. This These are just some amazing pictures of children that are part of our special education life skills class enjoying a guest presenter, somebody that specializes in making bubbles and thinking about the science around this. And you can just see the joy that we're, you know, was captured by, actually, by Ali. And we're just very pleased that all of our kids can participate in activities like this. So, we thank our principal and the leadership of the PTA as the way you're helping to fund that special program. Uh this you
063heard Charlotte talk a little bit about uh unified basketball. They're back. Uh there's going to be a big event, I think, where they're going to compete during the school day. Do we have a date? I think maybe you already mentioned it. This Friday. This Friday, right? And that's about 1:00 or 12:00? 10:00? 10:00 10:00 10:00, okay. Uh so, for the board, uh you uh the board had vision and um you were innovative in allowing the district to have unified uh sports for our students with special needs. As you know, they partner with uh children who do not uh who are not part of the life skills program, and together they compete with other schools across uh Western New York. And we're having a special day here on Friday where they will compete against another school,
064but in front of the majority of our student body. So, they will really get the sense of what that feels like to have a great cheer for them. So, thank you to our students and our principals, and of course our coaches that support the students. All right, Charlotte. Mrs. Gray, so you were just honored at this special dinner, right? And recognized as one of our outstanding athletes. Uh tell us a little bit more about this award. I think this is a nomination, but you did get some financial uh financial award as a result, right? Yeah, it was actually a really cool process. Um Mr. Baker nominated me, and then I there was a like meet and greet like dinner, and I got to meet all the other nominees and kind of get to know their
065stories and what sports they do. And then I had an interview, and I also had to apply, and then there was an interview with a panel of judges, and it was cool to It was a good experience to learn how to do an interview like that. And then there was the brunch, and each nominee received a initial support, but then there were two nominees chosen. I both got to receive the actual award. It was a really good experience overall. Yeah, congratulations. Very proud of you for that, and thank you to Mr. Baker for thinking about you for that nomination. Tom, this is a slide of bus driver appreciation day time from the Lions. So, if you have any interest in applying for the award, you could be on a slide like this in the future.
066Just I'm just saying. It's something to consider. Um additionally, uh our music department has been recognized again. I think this might be for the 15th consecutive year as uh the best communities for music education, the best communities. So, we're very, very proud of our music department and all that they do to contribute to uh the joy of learning how to play music, whether it's an instrument or to sing, and to be recognized nationally as the best communities for music education for the 15th consecutive year is quite the honor. So, thank you to all of our teachers and parents who support uh the music department. I don't know if I showed this to you. We special dinner in honor of our Pam Kercher and Kim Chadwick uh at the Western New York Education Service Council. They
067received awards of excellence uh for the work that they do. So, big congratulations there. And we had the meat raffle. It was great. We want to thank the community for uh participating in that, and we raised about $6,500 of profit for uh toward uh Rotary Youth Services and the Growing Growing Readers initiative. There you go. Thank you very much, Mr. Grover. Appreciate it. Thank you. Okay, on to the Board of Education report. It looks like Beth you have any Erie County reports. Yep, just a quick update from that. Um for those of you who have never been to one of those meetings, um they conclude with a round robin. Everybody every school district basically gets one minute to share something unique or interesting that's happening within their district. Um and I was able to share
068information about our charter meeting for our special education PTA that we held last week. Talked about the strategic plan refresh. Um but also mentioned that we have four candidates running for school board um and that we had our meet the candidate night last week. Um and many districts don't have anyone running this year. So, I was proud of us that we do have some representation here, but there was especially a lot of um really positive feedback for that special education PTA organization and the other districts that have also formed um that particular PTA just agreed with me that it's like an entirely different vibe. That whole meeting was just a really celebratory environment and um really look forward to what that group is doing. So, that's my only report from that meeting. Okay, thanks, Beth.
069Sue did file a report for that as our liaison for that, but she did want me to mention that we going forward with this need a permanent lunch debt. So, I don't know anyone who was interested, keep that in the back of your mind and congrats. That is just such a great accomplishment for them to be able to establish that. So, absolutely look there. Okay, so that brings us to public comment session. I have a general business not in this agenda. We did not have anyone sign up for that. Uh which will bring us to committee of the whole items for the routing starting with Roger. I'm all set. Thank you. I'm all set, too. Jude? I'm going to vote. On the 19th, 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. in the high school gym. Will be
070chicken barbecue ready? Any other things? Mhm. We'll have a cookout for dinner and vote. So, any announcements? Um I'm all set. I'm all set. Thank you. I'm all set. I'm all set. I'm all set. Happy graduation. Jude took took it. Yeah, I know. Took my notes and heard everybody to come and vote and share your perspective on the vote and we really appreciate that and our partnership with the students. Excellent. Um that just leaves us with a couple of announcements. Like Jude said, May 19th, annual budget vote and trustee election, 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. in the high school gym. Um and then our next board meeting will be June 8th. Uh and it will also be our tenure and retirement reception at the high school cafeteria, as usual. Yeah. 5:30. At 5:30. All right.
071So, with that, if I could have a motion to adjourn the regular board meeting. I motion. And a second, yeah. Okay. All in favor? I. Opposed? Any abstentions? Motion carried 5-0. Everyone have a great night. Thank you for coming. For students, if you need your agenda signed,