001here they're so cute with you they'll let me know when'll like had water we'll send we'll send down pictures andu you get every morning but he will turn it on he turns it on turns it off and does it but still I mean we're getting there the path I knew you were okay mic check this is mic Number One mic number one check check microphone number two microphone number two 1 2 3 4 check check mic number two to the character microphone number three super mic mic 31 123123 check check mike number four president Mike Mike number four 1 two 3 4 1 2 3 4 [Music] ISD microphone number five check check 1 2 3 4 M number five microphone number six microphone number six 23123 Podium mic Podium mic 1212 check check one
002two Podium mic one two yeah it's be interesting to okay you got to mute it right now stand [Music] byting two e e e [Music] the saw birthday [Music] the [Music] comfortable I had [Music] on [Music] those [Music] Tom [Music] Le [Music] if I do [Music] got [Music] and how long they don't anticipate the my place perspective [Music] good toy you're here hi are you I'm good how are you nice to see you too looking forward to hearing from you [Music] okay welcome everyone I'd like to call the public session to order and begin with the Pledge of Allegiance [Applause] please Al to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for it stands one nation God indivisible Justice roll call this evening we have Roger broker trustee Jay Grover trustee
003is excused Sher stuffins trustee Jude our district clerk Dr Brian Graham superintendent Dr ashy Dr Ashley Dreer president Sue maren vice president uh Joy lamara trustee Daniel Bruno trustee Cheryl Cardone assistant superintend for people Personnel Services Dr Robert Merkel assistant superintendent for school business and finance Mr Fitzpatrick director of personnel and curriculum and instruction is excused as well um if uh you could silence your cell phones please I would appreciate it and um there are emergency exits directly behind me and directly front of me in case we have to leave unexpectedly with that could I have an approval for the agenda for this evening please a motion all motion and a second all in favor I any objections any exensions motion carried 60 and if I can have an approval for the minutes from February
0043rd please motion and a second all in favor I any objections any exensions motion carried 60 that brings us to our student ambassadors um if we could have an introduction for the middle school student ambassador please we have jackn Worth right hi everyone I have the pleasure of introducing jacn worth to you this evening she's an eighth grader at vcms who is the public relations leaon for the student C and she's also a web leader she plays lacrosse is on the JB cheerleading team and does cross country in addition to chorus and she was just participated in all County over the weekend my name is Jaclyn worth and I'm the middle school student council public relations liaison as you may or may not already know there are many things going on in the middle school
005right now recently stud Council sold suckers for Valentine's Day we sold many suckers and made a very good profit our next event will be this Friday March 14th from 2:15 to 4: the name of the event is March Madness there will be many minute to win at games and late buses will be available tickets will be sold during lunches $10 today and $12 Tuesday through Thursday leading up to minute to Wi we will be having a Spirit Week today was pajama day tomorrow is dressed like your favorite teacher day Wednesday is on Wednesdays we wear pink Thursday is class color day sixth grade will wear yellow seventh grade will wear red and eighth grade will wear blue Friday will be Jersey day and the following Monday on St Patrick's Day will be weor St Patrick's
006Day Green the PTA will be having an event called Penny War March 17th through March 21st each grade will have their own jug to collect money students can gain points for their grade by adding pennies and bills to their money jug students will also be able to donate online to earn positive points for their grade grades can deduct points from each other by adding silver coins such as Nickles dimes and quarters to other grades drugs the grade with the most points wins this will this event is to help raise funds for Courtyard improvements and other PTA related things Mrs mulber is having a reading contest where students can earn raffle tickets for a chance to win a free pizza from SE cheese each each project will learn this will earn the student one raffle ticket
007if the student does multiple projects each is required to be done on a different book however students are allowed to do the same project for multiple books this project that students will be able to create are a book scene diarama a comic strip summary a book trailer a word art poster a travel brochure a board game design a character Survival Guide a book inspired recipe a book review podcast or video themed book marks a new book cover or they can rewrite the ending and our high school Ambassador Hayden Gary good evening it is my absolute pleasure to introduce Hayden Gary he is the senior here at the high school Hayden is involved in many after school activities but you probably see him at our school store where he is the general manager of cas's Corners
008he also is in the community as a assistant manager at tops so you might see him there on your weekend travels uh he's also been involved with Deca he plans to study at Sunni Niagara for a business degree before he goes to mortuary [Music] school is it true everybody's dying to get [Laughter] into uh please pleas continue can't comment on that um good evening my name is Hayden Gary and I'm a senior here at Grand Island high school I'm honored to have been selected as tonight's student born Ambassador for the high school this month tonight I'm very excited to share some amazing news with you about upcoming events and student accomplishments this week our Grand Island high school students and staff have been participating in Clash week each day is a certain dress up theme
009in which the class with the most people to dress up gets the most points today was blue and white day where the whole school show their school spirit tomorrow Tuesday will be holiday day where everyone will dress up like it's their favorite holiday Wednesday is Welcome to the Jungle day where students dress up in Safari gear or if they want to dress up as their favorite jungle animal Thursday is bikers versus Surfers where students will show if they are a team biker or team Surfer Finally Friday is class color day where students will show off their class colors freshmen Wear Yellow sophomores were red Juniors wear green and seniors wear pink also during the day there will be an ultimate game of rock paper and scissors happening during Pastime each sh will be given a
010necklace at the beginning of the day but win a game during Pastime and you win that person's necklace the class that has the most necklaces at the end of the school day will win that day over the weekend for youth art month students who love art and potentially want to learn more about it attended yam Fest the K12 District art show at the community center and Nike Bas park it was also opportunity to make art in the studio as well also this Friday the World Language department is excited to host our annual salsa night from 4 to 6 p.m. a great opportunity to learn Latin dances and culture and enjoy food from ma tacos I encourage you to sign up there are so many spots available the Deadlight was extended I'm not too sure what
011that was um it's only $17 and you get a choice of two tacos uh chicken beef or veggie with chips and cheese and churros with chocolate sauce so no miss out afterwards is Clash night where the final battle of the classes takes place right in the main gym at 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. fun events will take place such as tug-of War mattress relay musical chairs and much more also happening this week the class officers like the vcms are currently going around during the day with big water DRS in their classes color to to collect spare change for darari Jackson Jr a senior at tapestry high school and buffalo who is recently diagnosed with aute B leukemia last week The Grandin law team also dominated the courtroom Saturday morning in Buffalo City Court the team contributed
012to brilliant objections and arguments against deute high school and congratulations to the team for a great performance recently the Grand Island boys varsity basketball team pulled off a great season this year they had a 20 21-2 overall record with a league of 10 to1 putting them at the first place spot for their A1 Conference standings they were also crowned NFL champs for the first time ever and ended up third in sectionals overall I also want to give out con congratulations to the Grand Island Viking unified bowling team for winning second place at their end of the year bowling tournament at AMF Airport Lanes as they cheered each other and on and bold their heart outs great season to them and special congratulations it goes out to all of our athletes who have participated in winter
013sports great job Vikings and the last subject I'd like to cover is our celebration of inspiration seniors are asked to nominate a teacher lunch staff or anyone else that Inspire them at any point in their academic career from sway all the way through GS the event is to take place Wednesday April 30th in the grand Viking theater personally I've been looking forward to this event for a while now because I felt so impacted by the kindness some of the teachers went above and beyond the show me I will not spoil who I chose but I deserve but I chose a deserving someone who had a big impact me on my high school career without further Ado thank you for having me to here tonight and go Vikings all right Aiden welcome yes and I was
014um just recently notified that I was placed third team in the NFL sectionals nice I was also placed fourth overall in the sectionals um I also almost had my first 300 game um uh yeah fourth game nine strikes in a row and then I left um single [Music] pin I was on the floor uh was not was not fun but yeah B 279 that game so I can't complain and heyden your buddy JN is competing advancing right correct he's going to States and he actually bowled his first 800 Series this year yeah fantastic so congratulations at your pictures in there and you guys were section six champions for three years in a row now congratulations congratulations [Applause] okay moving on to our correspondents recognition and good news we would like to recognize our Grand Island
015High School academic top 10 for the class of 2025 all right this iset hary come the news good evening Board of Education Dr gr dist administrators this evening we are proud to recognize our Grand Island High School academic top 10 students for the class of 2025 these students have demonstrated exceptional dedication perseverance and commitment to academic Excellence throughout their High School careers their achievement are a testament to their hard work intellectual curiosity and their passion for learning beyond their impressive GPA these students have balanced rigorous coursework including AP courses and honors classes while also excelling in extracurricular activities leadership roles and service to our school and Community each of these students has made a lasting impact on our school and we have no doubt they will continue to achieve great things in their future I
016am going to ask that each students it's a full house so I'm going to have them come up front there isn't a whole lot of room by Podium but if each of you could please stand and come up front and join me we will start with meline Gallagher [Applause] KY Green Zoe Anna wesac Anna STI Evan Pickering Isabella B siarra Murry kayn Ash kayin is our salutatorian and Grace Carpenter and valid for again grp we're going to start with mine if the board often likes to hear about your next steps post high school and you know if it isn't finalized yet but maybe some aspirations so we can start with mine that we'll go right down the list I going to the stud Pharmacy in off excellent [Applause] congratulations I still to make a choice
017but I'm playing studing engineering excellent clear what college I want to go to yet but I also plan studying [Applause] engineering I plan on going to [Applause] I also don't know where I'm going yet but I plan to study [Applause] education I'm also still on side where I'm going I plan to study something STEM related [Applause] EXC I plan to go to pit University and stud neuroscience [Applause] I plan to study nursing at Mount Al's college and play division 3 Lacrosse [Applause] um I'm G attend hon University and study bioch our board and Mrs CHR Harvey could join the students we'll take a group picture Alice get ready good all right I'll grab the first view get ready eyes open three two one perfect and Al want top in how about moms and dads if
018you want to step up and get a group picture that would be fine round we're going to ask Mr Austin to get a nice group photo out by the Viking head for all of the students as well conratulations under curriculum instruction if I could have a motion to approve curriculum and instruction a second all in favor I any objections any exensions motion carries 6 we [Music] have okay sure yep I think John and Amy provided the board with a great document it's in board doc just reviewing some of the information that is there and Amy are you speaking during the the budget presentation on cric sets where those slides are I think I think that's for your yeah so you you can hold for second okay during the budget input session but it is exciting
019to see Amy and John along with all of our teachers and princip working together to generate high quality data to take a look at student growth and I think Amy and Max will be at the I ready Symposium this week tomorrow starting tomorrow which uh is is a great tool that we use in the district okay thank you um so that brings us to Personnel instructional if I could have a motion to approve pi1 through Pi five please motion and a second second all in favor I any objections any exensions motion carries 60 and then Personnel non-instructional I could have a motion to approve pni 1 through pni 5 please motion and a second all in favor I any objections any exensions motion carried [Music] 60 I don't see any introductions thank you okay so
020that brings us to uh the fin section Dr thank you um so I've got uh several items for Action tonight items a through I uh a is to change the central Treasurer as you know Kathy mcgo retired so looking to replace that with uh Joel Stapleton B is an extension of the Verizon tower lease we've already had this for um 10 years we're looking to extend it for another 10 years C is a Giza donation for the High School Technology program uh D is some a couple of Transportation contracts those are not new contracts they're just uh the for the remainder of the year we did them as emergency contracts earlier in in the year um we will likely have another contract for next uh session for uh a student that we're working on right
021now uh item e is a donation uh for New York from New York Life and Christina Casper ziki um item f is budget transfers over 15,000 item G is to uh set the capitalization Threshold at $5,000 um in the this has been recommended in in audits uh years 21 22 and 20 23 and 24 so just looking for the board's approval on that threshold uh item H is to approve a new vending machine and service provider item I is yes ma'am know if this is on there um is that the only vendor that you received from no ma'am there was there was two vendors uh I think the other one was Servo mation um and the the prices were lower on the one I'm recommending and the uh the amount that the the district receives
022back is a little bit higher so both both things were better on on the one that's that I'm looking for recommendation on I can send the other one over to you though and how do we get the the vendors to because I know there was a couple other vendors that you know people were looking at were they like how did people noted to send it yep so when we do an RFP we uh put out a public notice so uh we did put a public notice in our our local newspaper which is the board approved newspaper that we do on the reor meting so that the public notice goes out there also anybody who's contacted me in regards to providing those Services I would send the RFP to them uh directly uh so there was
023two or three that I had known of that I had sent it to directly so there's various ways it also gets put up on our district website uh so there's a lot of different ways that that gets put out can you just receive two back yes ma'am that is correct okay good you're wel um item I is uh selfed self-funded health insurance plan consultant and administrative Services uh and those are all of the action items any question questions on those items I just have a couple things on I just wanted to make a public comment on the threshold that's up from 500 to 5,000 I think we may have had conversations about that in the past two 500 just too low on the capitalization so um and I just also wanted to mention on the
024um self-funded health insurance um I we did receive um the um company this we did receive all of the um all of the RFP responses RP through I did read those today I did I just um wanted to note that we did see that they are not attached here but the board was privy to the information that they received to make their decision um and I just wanted to just kind of ask you know what what Lobby had um above everybody else really kind of what what led you in in that direction I mean I noticed when I looked through they to local company and um their fees they seem to be like one fee and it didn't look like they had a bunch of the add-ons right so corre I kind of like that
025about that but I was just curious as to what the committee felt as a whole and why we went in that yeah so uh I'd be happy to respond to that so doesn't anything similar process you know I I had several people reach out to me in regards to this specifically so uh we put the public notice out I sent the RFP out to all the people that had reached out to me and said hey you know the RFP is out now um so we received five responses back um we worked with the committee to interview those five five teams uh I sent out some questions that were developed with our internal committee and after I sent out those questions one of the Brokers did withdraw and they they felt that what they had to
026offer wasn't in alignment with what we were looking for so we interviewed four different uh Brokers um the uh incumbent um you know there was some frustrations with them so you know they were eliminated pretty quickly uh the committee didn't feel what what they had to offer was enough to overcome you know their past uh history with us they're also merging with another local company so that was part of the decision to not uh decide on them but at the end of the day it was kind of really close between uh Lai and USI and we felt Lai was um you know much more familiar with the local market they have most of the local school districts was self-funded and um so that that was ultimately what led to the decision at the end of
027the day they had more of the Local District correct I forget which one was primarily and the other on like they were correct yeah so you know after the interviews uh I myself reached out to some of my colleagues in different districts uh to to get references on all of these firms the unions uh that were on the committee also did the same and you know we shared that feedback in in a meeting after the interviews and uh ultimately all the is where we landed okay great just curious absolutely and Dr Marco Could you um for the capitalization threshold again for those board members that weren't at the facilities meeting we did discuss this at the facilities meeting uh regarding the stoppage of work and change orders and things like that to just go over
028why um why the increase yeah so that's a a little bit different at the at the capital meeting um um so that has to deal with the c Capital project but the the capitalization threshold is uh so when certain items cost a certain amount uh like when we do our annual audit for the uh District's financial position currently anything $500 or over would be uh capitalized per the IRS policy so that value would be decreased by a set amount every year um so rather than having everything at5 $500 and having to go through that exercise with both our internal uh staff and the Auditors we want to raise that a little bit it just makes more sense you know this the we this is something different than corre ma' yes correct thank you you're welcome
029uh it sounded like the vendors will have the healthy option so that they can be open all day long is that correct uh we we are going to still have that conversation um but yes if if there able to meet those guidelines uh I I had a real quick passing conversation with him he discussed having one vending machine with just healthy options that it would be uh open all day except for during period yeah uh as long as there's only healthy options in there right and then is this going to be in the high school and the middle school or just the scho uh it's been a few minutes since I put out the RF uh but it was all outlined in there like so this would be machines throughout the district so I think
030there's drink machines at the elementary schools I believe there was one snack machine at the middle school two snack machines at the high school okay thank but we'll adjust you know as necessary we can always add more maches to are there any other questions all right if I could have a motion to approve finance a um and is a i i a i please I'll and the second all in favor I any objections any exensions motion carried 6 thank you so items J through n are all informational which leads us to ow the second budget second dra budget input presentation very good so as always we thank the board uh for the hard work each year to build the budget and to guide us along the way uh some things have changed in the past
031our board is well aware of that but our mission statement has been modified during the last strategic plan so it says we will We Inspire each well our mission is to inspire each student to achieve their Highest Potential by honoring their unique pathway and that was uh specifically inserted into the mission uh during the Strategic plan fostering academic Excellence personal growth and social responsibility have been the Staples and the foundation of our mission all along but we're very pleased that we're focusing on unique Pathways and we thank the board for their guidance in that budget goals really haven't changed in the nine years that I've been here we want to honor uh and develop a long-term sustainable budget designed to provide the best Diversified program up to grade 12 we're always seeking to retain all
032the community mandated student programs and activities that have existed and uh we always strive to protect the fun balance uh these are the Strategic plan goals that have been approved by the Board of Education in December they're here for your review uh we we're very fortunate that we have a board of education that believes wholeheartedly in each of these goals and in particular student well-being and uh as we've been working through this uh budget development process it's a lot of work in our business office and starts very early probably starts well even before December uh getting everything ready uh for the board's purview um in now and in the future so we thinkk the business department for their work and uh we're not done yet we will meet again uh on March 24th to review
033the third iteration of the budget and uh continue to modify it as the governor's final budget presentation is adopted by her and the assembly and Senate so we hopefully will see that before the 14th I know I think April 1st is usually the deadline and so we will have a special meeting on the 14th to review any of those changes and then uh the last regular scheduled board meeting to adopt the budget is the 22nd uh so we hope to have that adoption occur on the 22nd with a public hearing on the 6th and then the vote on the 20th so lot it's going to be very busy as we move through this so now it's it gives me a pleasure to introduce Cheryl Cardone who will be talking about the pupil Personnel Services uh
034program that uh impacts many many many of our students throughout the district thank you very much and Dr gram you're gon to do the slide turning for me please okay so um this presentation outlines um the people Personnel budget requests for the 2526 school year um it ensures that for student well-being in compliance with all of the mandated Services um and just a review this is but if you look at the personel Services um we can all read but but so I'm not going to read all of them or list all of them but it ranges from special education Section 504 and most currently um our youth mental health first aid program as well I do want to highlight our K 12 special special education summer school um it does we will be doing that
035again this summer um it encompasses about a 100 kids and we do also include our enl population in this um summer school so very very very busy time of the year um and March is the time that we start preparing for that going to thank the Board of Education and Dr Grant for being very very supportive of uh the needs of our students um current PPS Personnel uh we have speech language seven speech language Pathologists um we have five social workers um so each building um has their own social worker this year um actually the high school has two we have six School psychologists one of those School psychologists is the cpsc csse and 504 chairperson um we have seven school counselors we have two at the middle school um four at the high school
036and then we have an elementary school counselor that splits um her time between H um kabine and sidway uh we have five nurses um and you know thank you again to the board for um appointing two floating nures because I will tell you that we do not have buildings that are not are uncovered anymore so the floating nurses have really really really worked out well and currently we have four EML teachers and they are split among all five buildings so this year uh my requests are as follows I am um requesting that uh we have a fulltime enl teacher to um help with our increase in population a tosa for Behavioral support and also a viking Voyage summer program um I'll be highlighting the first two then we also have Jessica hutkins here to highlight
037the bking voyage summer program for students s specific do you have in mind for the uh first I do I am do we currently have a TOA we have Jessica actually is a tosa um she is she's a tosa social worker so this would be a different position this would be a TOA for Behavioral support and I'm sure I'll get there to the second slide so they can ask questions all right Kurt um if you look over the course of the last few years um that is our enl population you know it ranges from um 50 and up to EML students at current times so um as you can see if we just keep increasing however I will also say that the needs keep increasing of our students as well because they do come in
038with a with limited English and there's still no funding for that right so we the only funding that we get is there's a title three funding um and we get approximately about about probably about $10,000 every year it helps fund supplies for enl um students and then it also fully funds our whole summer school program for them but that's about all we get from the title three funding and there's nothing that they're looking at right now that would fund all this extra need that schools are being inundated with you mean from the state M I haven't seen anything the next iteration of the governor's budget will come out hopefully by April 1st and we'll see whether or not they I know there's been talks okay other schools that are really really inovated and even more
039towards like New York City and that I think if you look at Western New York Maryvale sweep home Reed more Foundation Aid than St Grand Island and those schools have been inundated with additional uh families who've immigrated and needed those supports so it does appear it just it just appears that the foundation is worn when you when you know their circumstance you just kind of do an educated yeah right so our current state of our EML population um just to summarize we have high school and middle school students that are missing EML support however um they do get dual support so we are servicing them in special education we have third grade students that are lacking um mandated and mandated instructional minutes but we've um worked that from an inclusion program work towards a pull
040outout program um we have seven commanding students at the high school um they are not receiving their second year but they did all receive their first year one of the ways that we are combating that again is to run that four-week summer school program again to make sure that these students get that support in the summer and that four-week summer school does um support them in ela and math skills so as Sue asked a couple minutes ago you know what what I'm looking at we're looking at or what I'm requesting is that it would be ideal if we could have one enl teacher at every building you know currently right now all of them except for one travel amongst the schools so that we can make sure that the children are receiving those mandated Services
041um this way all of the students would be receiving their mandated services not only enl but special education as well for those students that receive both and we're also looking at you know helping our students that RTI support so that if they need that extra help they're pulled into a semi- resource room support to help them help them with their skills so that's what the request one is the second one um and Sher you asked about this go ahead many we have we currently have four each building has their right now and it changes every year so for example right now sidway has 1.0 because of their needs um you know but that fluctuates every year last year I I believe it was I think h Road had a 1.0 and then sway kabine split
042but depending on the need and depending on the level level of need of each of the students even if we hired this position they would still FL as the need where the needs are right like they would set res set to a building yeah well two things yes it would be nice if they could each be assigned to a building to start with but absolutely so say if the high school didn't have the need you know then then that high school um teacher would then actually float over to kabine to help with the extra need again we just make sure that the um teachers are floating to where that need is every single year so all right so the tosa for Behavioral support I know um last meeting and Sher weren't here so um Dr
043Graham did speak about this and I the board asked me to find out costs of each program um so in order to send students Tok it's about $30,000 um OLV which is Baker uh would be 75 um Summit is 90 and ramol is 55,000 I will tell you that you know Fulk at 30,000 looks ideal however I have to tell you the wait list for Faulk is unbelievable we have not placed a student at Faulk in a very very long time uh turning point and Alp are our consultation um agencies and uh Turning Point runs $109 per hour and Alp runs 110 hours for that behavioral cons consultation do you know how many students were sending off um I have a list that Angela Amato um keeps for me um I would say we're probably
044at about 25 to 30 that we send off Island that we that have such high need that you know they're not able to come to district and that's a variety of programs that's not just Behavior programs those are like those are some of our um students that receive um services for autism as well so are we feeling if we hire this position bring some of those back so if so our goal always is to bring students back you know we don't like to leave our students you know at an agency um with this increase in position we could we take a look at it every year even you know without this position the um the issue one of the issues is is that um this person that I'm asking for and I'll get to this
045in a minute is to really start looking at those tier one and tier two strategies in the classroom so that the so that the teachers um can have those strategies on hand so that we can keep our students you know in the classroom instead of you know sending them out to Brett having Brett push in so we can some of those services so that we're not at that point where Brett can't service them and then we have to send them out as well so is this person almost training some of the teachers on what to initiate yes yes so can I okay thanks all right so currently um Brett finnon is our Behavior Behavior person your consultation person on his case flow right now K12 he has 71 students which is a lot he is
046responsible for completing fbas which are functional Behavior assessments behavior intervention plans he does classroom observations he's at csse meetings he's at instructional team meetings um he also is at parent meetings uh we are transitioning from our CPI training um into safety carees training Brett has already taken that training he will help train um our teachers training and he also is a person that goes to sa on a regular basis to help with our Behavior students at SAA so that they're successful Brett finnon is our current behavior therapist in our in District so we have one Behavior therapist for the entire district and he's not like like specific school he's all schools plus he does um work at St Stevens some of our students that are at St Stevens and that he also has a couple
047of um homeschool kids that he works with as well correct because our goal is to always okay so the toal responsibilities you would be to um provide behavioral support to the Elementary classroom teachers at one and tier two levels you know as Sher asked before so it so it would be um behavioral support for elementary teachers within the classroom also training staff on trauma and for practices training staff on ADHD autism and classroom management strategies um supporting positive behavior interventions and supports and implementation and um on the second slide Dr Graham it would Al be to help us with um our RTI practices RTI leadership has existed for a long time it's respon intervention you know and what we have found is that um it's always a good start every year um but this person
048would be an expert in RTI leadership and really take a look at the tier one strategies within the classroom the tier 2 strategies in the classroom and what that really does as Sue stated before would be to help reduce the referrals to CC help refers reduce the referrals for functional Behavior assessments um and reduce those referrals to uh 504 plans Etc so it' be a lot of teacher training to make sure that we were responding to intervention in the classroom is this BR so bre Brett to to I'm trying to think of how to put it so Brett gives direct service to students this would be giving training teachers on how to utilize the RTI strategies within that classroom behavior and and those things so it would be to assist Brett so that his case
049load didn't keep growing because that's sorry Brett started with us a few years ago and he went from 20 kids to the start up to three years in where at 71 students that he is directly seeing on a weekly or bi-weekly basis any questions on the en or TOA good evening thank you for allowing me to be here Cheryl thank you for asking me to present this program um the Viking voage summer camp is a program that is designed to work with students incoming grades four five and six over the summer um to provide them with an opportunity to have a continued connection with a support person from school uh what we know is that we've got a a real strong group of kiddos who could really benefit from having that support you know they
050they leave school at the end of June and they don't come back until the beginning of September and they go without those connections that they've become very very dependent on so the goal of the Viking summer camp is to provide a supportive environment for those kiddos to build resilience Foster a growth mindset and learn self-regulation skills this particular summer camp curriculum was modeled somewhat after the SEO summer camp that I ran during the covid um pandemic with middle school students and during that summer camp kids were given the opportunity to create a coping skills toolbox so every session that they came to for the summer camp they did some type of Hands-On activity that Tau got them A coping skill so they made glitter um bottles they made stress balls they did um vision boards
051for themselves and everything fit in this in this toolbox so my hope for this summer program is to continue with that toolbox um and to also give students the opportunity to practice the coping skills um the summer camp would be facilitated by some of our mental health professionals within the district we have three who are interested um and the students would come twice a week over the course of four weeks they would work with the facilitator from 9:00 a.m. till noon and then we would have the opportunity to provide them lunch as well um we have the opportunity to work with the niagar County Youth Bureau on their um the um it's their schools their food summer food service program and they provide lunch and a snack to our students through that program at no
052um breakfast breakfast too if we want it um so we would provide transportation to and from this summer camp for the students um via school bus that's part of what's written into the budget for it um so we would we would work with 36 students tops those 36 students would be identified by the mental health professionals within each School building so we would have a cohort of incoming fourth graders a cohort of incoming fifth graders and a cohort of incoming sixth graders those cohorts would work independently throughout the camps and also in in large groups where the activities um allow for that so the proposed budget includes the salary for the facilitators the transportation for the students and all of the supplies that are needed for the summer camp and the outcomes of the camp
053would um give the students the understanding to practice resiliency and self-regulation skills to build confidence in managing their emotions and overcoming challenges and they would leave with that Hands-On toolbox that they could then use to implement those skills after they've completed the camp was there a reason you picked fourth fifth and sixth grade um those students tend to really be dependent on the the support that is provided by the M health professionals in the schools um I think that they are also at an age developmentally where they can really learn those skills become comfortable practicing those skills and then implementing those skills um I think it can really have a stronger impact on them at those ages and I think to you know starting with a small group this year you know obvious just like
054we did with you know BNL summer school and a special at summer school and then growing it to see how the program works you know um might be a really good idea as well you know if we were going to expand that later on do you feel like out of the 7 students it's kind of heavier onade levels or is it like all over the needs just wonderful on I just wasn't sure so so I would I would say that it's a larger a larger group okay absolutely what ages will we have in the summer school program this year again will be so K to 12 okay we have K to 12 summer summer school for special education and then our enl group um actually is probably K to seven you know dep again depending
055on neede you know every single year so how how would this impact if there's fourth fifth and sixth graders that also need summer school how would this impact their ability to participate in this or how how will that work Char you if they need both so so if they needed both um so if they really needed both who wanted to participate with both we would have a meeting you know with the parents to just decide so for instance if say if there was a fourth grader that was in a self-contained class that ran all day long right from 8 from 9:00 until 2 you know we can offer they wanted to participate in the summer mental health program we could offer services to them outside of that program such as see it such as speech
056OT Etc so we would we would make it work if they really wanted to attend vote I'm not sure that we'll have a lot of lead over um but we may just have ACH so work out there and we would be responsible anyways if it was on their individualized education plan and they were attending the summer special education program if they had counseling services on their IP we would be responsible for menting that this is uh there's two different things this this the regular special education summer school program if there was a fourth fifth and sixth student who could qualify for this new program but they had on their IE counseling anyways they would get that in the specializ program which one is 5 days a week for six hours or so a day they
057would get those services this is over and above this is a different group of Cs so this is till right though this will end at noon after lunch it ends they the programming would go till noon and then they would have lunch okay and then so I guess my question too is if there was bleed over and there was a couple kids that did qualify for both would they be able to stay for that the rest of that day to get like if they qualify for summer school would they still be able to have summer school after that I don't know how that work like if it summer school goes till or summer school summer school goes till three yes so I mean again we would take a look at you know the mandated services
058on the IP and you know if they wanted to you know make accommodations for kids all the time they want to do double thank you I have a question in a different direction so I see Teresa there do we have trouble getting bus drivers in the summer um I have to ask yeah and it's a good question um I never know exactly how many I have been talking to some people it seems like there's some interest again but as they um as people start to retire they start to drop working in the summer um or considering working in the summer um I have yet to not fulfill a position um but typically when my substitutes or people who just began I get them in and and working so um this incorporates um you know four
059more drivers 12 two days a week I can't intermix the kids of um special ed and and being regular you know this wellness program I couldn't be able to do it I'd have to had four more bus drivers um and probably not attendance not not an additional 10 I don't think they need that but need four buses yeah large buses because to cover the whole island I have I need Le four yeah yeah yeah I understand I just no great question I he questions along their lines but I question I I didn't hear um what facility what location the middle school high school complex okay so and are we combining the grade levels so would they be in the same room together like fourth fth graders and sixth graders so we have three teachers you
060know that are U that are committed to working in this prr if it's approved so I believe that they would split the coor would be by great level okay it would it be like a with the you know summer school programs going on at the same time you know it would that wouldn't be any sort of distraction one to the other we have the middle school high school complex has lots going on in the summer even Community end is here in the summer too there's swimming there's you know school um summer school I mean it's a busy place in the summer time thank you I just wanted to add one more thing about the tosa please um so Su you're right the program is to keep students you know um from attending Outside Agency schools
061but Sher to your point about bringing them back you know I I think this extra person when we do bring back our students one of the um one of the um concerns always is who's going to be prepared for this student so this so the too will help the teachers feel more comfortable accepting students back into the classroom because they're now equipped with those tier one and tier two strategies when the students do return to us so it's a little bit of and that's a good idea because the school that I worked at before um they did do this Mass return and nobody was prepared for it and they struggled greatly of course with the students because they came from these small classrooms where there was a much more focus on them to this large
062school especially in the high school so that thrh students like how I mean if you have you know 40 or 50 kiddos maybe you know qualify how do you narrow that down to I think we just put a number number out there right now just just the base number I mean if there were truly 40 students Jo then we would accept 40 students for sure and these are kiddos withs they could be any could be any kiddo J or special ed any student who relies on the mental help support within the building during the school year who the providers feel like could really benefit from having that continued support throughout the summer we just want them to maintain that connection with the school so was the that age group all of a they're isolated you
063know and they're they don't have the connection to their teachers to their friends Etc we just thought it might be really important to keep that connection I think it's a great idea I'll be honest with you because especially the kiddos going into sixth grade these were the kiddos that were in kindergarten during the pandemic had masks on and weren't able to communicate and are still going through socialization and learning so it is a great idea so guess the question is it going to be the teacher in the classroom that's going to determine or is it going to be like how are you like how are how is the parent going to be presented with hey your child need benefit from this is it going to go in the take-home fer a I mean like how
064how is these are going to be high risk right high risk yeah so there'll be students who are social workers counselors and psychologists kind of have on their radar and then if we if we invite them the we did during Co um the facilitators reach out to the parents they explain the curriculum they invite the child to participate If the parents take the slot they take the slot if they are not interested we move on to the next person and and and fill the slide and and because it's social workers counselors and psychologists reaching out they've already had that relationship with the family so they're com the family's comfortable talking to that particular practitioner about this program anyways these conversations have probably already happened with the some point and you know it would just be
065a continued conversation and by removing the barrier and providing Transportation then we hope that that increases the opportunity for kids to access this uh wonderful well fought out program based on case loads do you anticipate that you'll have at least 36 that would be probably more then that right away do you have a current number off the top of your head of just the students that are at Family Support right now oh jeez yeah we're servicing um with family support we're servicing 60 students in the district with mental health counseling and we've made 80 referrals to uh mental health counsel so far this school year so I don't think 36 will be to fil and it may be more if need be thank you all right thank you and we're going to invite Amy to
066come up and uh share information from curriculum department so thank you thank you um John apologizes that he's not here tonight he's actually at a conference um out of town that is focusing on student agency um and he's already sent me a couple videos of starting this conference and he's so excited about all the things that will tie into the upcoming graduate the new graduation requirements so he's very excited about that um I'm sure you all know it John's an intentional leader and he's developed this lens for curriculum instruction to focus on engagement empowerment and belonging um there's been a lot of discussion um of the needs of our educational system due to all the impacts of covid and now um with the introduction of AI so the Strategic plan is a living document that
067will evolve and meet all of our changing needs so tonight's presentation is just going to be a little midyear update and progress on the ways that we're aligning to this strategic plan so this slide focuses on our major curricular focuses for the 2425 school year this is not obviously everything that's happening in curriculum but it's just a little Glimpse and um some of our most important um initiatives so first you'll see the transition to the the um science of reading we've been very fortunate this year to work with Katie Augustine from bosis she is um very knowledgeable and well respected literacy specialist in our area she travels to Albany she's on all the dyslexia committees and she has just a wealth of knowledge that she has been able to share with us and help our
068elementary teachers um in understanding the literacy briefs that came from the state and best practices we were also um able to secure her for another 17 days next year and are looking forward to developing that plan and continuing it on as we go forward um the state she's gone through the literacy briefs so this leads us to our Focus streamlining of the K to5 literacy curriculum over the past two years our K to2 classrooms have added youly which is a University of Florida foundational program for explicit and systematic teaching of fonet we've begun investigating new K to2 programs that will help us vertically align with our 3 through five our 3 through five have just started a new magnetic program this year um the magnetic reading program 3 through five for comprehension so we're looking
069to streamline that and have that vertical alignment so our office is is has been creating a district K to2 curriculum map which you have in your packets you'll see um it's a 5year it will be tied to the Strategic plan um the curriculum map is like a living document it'll evolve as the changing measures change um and as we introduce the new graduation requirements and it'll guide us in making smart academic and financial decisions the Strategic plan is linked right on the curriculum map so it will be central part of all those conversations John always stresses The Importance of Being intentional in all actions focusing on engagement empowerment and belonging this map highlights the importance of the transparency between the in collaboration with teachers and administrators so in the spring we'll review that plan again
070um after we add to it we are adding to it next week with our department our grade level chairs and it'll be a continuous ongoing process um but then we'll look towards the summer with our leadership trainings and what we need to you know put into place for the summer so the next slide is just a snapshot of where we are now at the midpoint um you all have the midpoint reports all the full ones this is just a quick little synopsis of the um all the areas of growth as well as our regions reviews so starting with Elementary our I ready math assessments that show that 42% of our students are at or above grade level while 46 % are one grade level below and that's just currently right now those those numbers will
071change obviously for the end of the year all schools are demonstrating high performance in math and our district is outperforming State and National Norms another data point is of course the New York State assessment this data shows a need for improvement across all grade levels this data can be a little skewed because of our um High refusal rates in 3 to8 so we're addressing the gaps through ready math and the my ma or my path individualized education program through curriculum Associates yeah do you know what that refusal is just like close like has it gone down at all since these assments have it's not high in third grade it's at its highest point it could it's approaching 50% or less at eth grade is that number come down and on I'm just curious as I
072know there was a big U when they first started I was just wondering if we've seen any pullback in any any higher participation for sure the younger grades and if if parents are watching tonight at the middle school please encourage your child to take the assessment uh it's uh they've done a really good job in creating assessments that are at the grade level and not above the grade level there's always separator questions but for the most part our children uh do perform very well when we compare ourselves to our peer districts so it is good information the trouble with the state is they're so late in getting that information to parents that it becomes a frustrating um piece topic to talk about with families uh aside from that the great work of all of our
073teachers and our principles and our curriculum Department using tools like I ready uh from Anthony LA and other tools that are built baked into uly and magnetic do give us those daytoday checks and help us stay on track but it is it is okay to look at our student achievement compared to peer districts across the state and it does get difficult to do that through I ready we get some data but it is good for us to know U How We Do compare with other districts that are very similar in wealth and poverty and budget size than I just C more out of curiosity I know there was such big push back when they first came out Le were seeing more participation at the younger grades hopefully will change over time in in the higher
074grades yes um so our I Ela assessments 3 through eight showed that 53% of all of our students were on or above grade level 32% were just one grade level below and again all schools are demonstrating high performance and outperforming the state Norms the New York State Ela assessment shows growth in 3 through five a little dip in 6 through eight which were addressing again through that use of my path individualized instruction the next slide for the high school John chose to look at the cohort of 2020 um and their data across the Regent's exams and compare them to the New York State ratings this cohort began High School in 2020 with virtual instruction and no Regents exams for two years the New York state report card data speaks volumes of our teachers and our
075students when we see how well they've done on when they started taking the regent exams any other gaps that will be addressed will be using kigo which is a new um AI 247 tutor tool that's available to middle school and high school and data driven driven decision making and professional development throughout the year so moving forward we will continue is this the last slide you're good be quick um moving forward we'll continue to work on all the different um needs throughout the district and I forgive me because I cannot see that that far away um but all the different initiatives that have been started um and again putting them into that distri District curriculum map to kind of um mitigate how much new is coming into everybody's life every year spread that out give us
076a better plan um I know we've talked about report cards and um the need for those to be relooked at so that's all kind of they're all part of this plan as we move forward so thank you you do we have any students here today do we want to have a natural break and they can come and get them sign anybody need used the bathroom or this would be a good good opportunity I did you doing [Music] I said [Music] good that's like your favorite holiday oh trust I'm so done with this [Music] and e e [Music] thank you [Music] took I think it was this is [Music] all right I thank the board for that little break and our students are so appreciative so they can head home so as we move along uh
077I know that uh Dr M went through the governor's executive budget message there really hasn't been a lot that has changed uh there are a lot of rumors and I share those rumors with Bob and John and Jeff I'm sorry Bob John and Cheryl when I get them and receive them uh there is still a lot of conversation about a lot of different things uh we're eager to see if anything changes with zero um zero emission uh bus mandate so um we'll continue to let the board know when we see uh you know something that's concrete and crystallized but there there's a lot of advocacy all over the state uh to have a common sense approach to Z robust submissions and uh many other initiatives um and we are hopeful that what you what you
078saw last week or the last time we were together and what you'll see tonight we're hopeful that that Foundation aid number gets just a little bit higher we're not we don't have any concrete evidence of that but we're hearing that uh the house and the Senate are working to create a one um bill or one uh package yeah one house proposal one house proposal that uh made see a little bit more of an increase in Foundation Aid across the state anything else Bob on this particular slide it's what they saw the no no additional information on it that at this time all right Bob why don't you take it away here so uh you know this ties back to to that so really no changes here what is this private access so that relates to
079uh the students that we send out for special ed services so the dist responsible for a certain portion of that and then we receive Aid on uh the amount above the districts proportion of that I think our proportion want to say is about $45,000 per student don't quote me on that but uh we have a certain uh portion of it that we're responsible for and then that Aid kicks in on anything above that so that's uh an expense based Aid uh so the amount of Aid we get back is based on the amount that we so are we short is that well uh that's just the year-over-year change uh that's that's the difference so you know those always kind of vary but if if you look at uh both of those together it's it's pretty
080similar uh but that's always based on our expenses um so like the the foundation Aid is based on the formula and the number of pupil that we have Etc uh versus the expense based Aid like both SE an expense based a Transportation uh any of the special ed uh High access cost or Public Access cost those are all expens based AIDS based on how much we spend and Sher just to add a little bit more context uh if a student um exceeds the average tuition for special education services Maybe by 5060 70,000 more um and that child graduates right the change you may see changes in that line uh because there may be less students that qualify for that high cost or more right so it does fluctuate every year if that makes sense um
081so onto our revenues uh no I I didn't change many of the numbers uh for this presentation uh I anticipate having much more changes for the next meeting uh but I didn't want to keep changing and changing and changing the numbers I didn't want to cause confusion so really the only change on this slide um was the the real property tax levy at the top that number changed by about $400 and that's based on the tax levy limit formula uh last meeting it was a draft I did submit that to the Office of the State Controller it changed by about $400 from my previous draft so I did reflect that in the revenue that was the only change in the reue at this time uh here is the current budget assumptions these will change as
082we fin tune the budget over our next couple sessions uh So currently we project uh a salary increase of about 990,000 you know obviously it's going up by much more than that uh this is a a budget to budget increase last budget we were still negotiating with two of our units so we ended up coming in a little bit higher higher uh than the actual which is why this looks lower than it than the actual increase is uh we currently have seven retirements let me just let the board know that uh for the most part you'll see that number increased to eight at the next uh budget presentation so uh there was some work being done by the Gita and the district office to make sure that the eighth person would be on this uh
083slide at the next budget meeting uh a decrease in TRS of $100,000 at this time an increase for ERS of $5,000 uh retirement benefit increase of 195,000 and a lot of that relates to our retirements um uh Health Care increase at this time of of 20,000 we're still finalizing that number uh and then a Debt Service increase of 275,000 going on to the major expend again there's no changes at this time we will incorporate those as we are fine-tuning things uh so next budget input session I will have some changes on those and I will highlight those changes uh so again no changes to the other category at our last session um I was asked about our contractual expenses and our uh miscellaneous expenses so here I did uh spell out any of the contractual
084lines that were uh about $10,000 are over to highlight some some of the major expenses um you know if you look at the unallocated Insurance contractual that's our Property and Casualty Insurance that's about 350,000 that's uh seven or eight items down uh special ed contractual that lines about 550,000 Athletics is is uh pretty big that's 225,000 that includes referee fees and uh things like that our green fees Lane fees uh Transportation contractual that would um have uh some of our our transportation contracts our Tyler Technologies is our routing software that's about 50 to $60,000 supplemental health is some of the the nurses that we have to have on our runs Health Works is uh where we send our drivers for their physicals uh and they come to us to pH Les as well uh her
085of tire that's for tire installation so there's several contracts there and then uh there's a half a million dollars for contracted Transportation um which will likely be increased uh by our next session so um in regards to Transportation I've had some conversations with Teresa to try to get a a good handle on where we're at and and where we see ourselves so for the next presentation I'll have I'll have more for you on that but we do anticipate the contracted runs are going to go up again next year based on our staffing projections um so I will be adjusting this and um possibly the salary line and taking a look at our buses I know we're not we're going to come to buses in a little bit here but uh taking a look at our
086buses to see if we're going to modify our replacement plan based on having do more contracted runs what's included in the um special education contracts uh so those are our students that we have in placements uh outside of the district yeah yeah otpt any of those services that we would have to purchase that our our intern people folks would provide any other questions oh the miscellaneous category I'm sorry uh I left that off in the bottom so I took a look at this uh most of the the miscellaneous categories in the business office line and that's primarily used uh one another line runs short we would do a budget transfer hasn't really been used much this year um in in the past but primarily when when another line runs out of funds then we'll hit
087the miscellaneous line and do a transfer out of the miscellaneous line to cover that expense in another line um so it's it's not used as much and it helps us provide a little bit of a buffer for when we have unanticipated expenses in other categories I believe uh I believe it was total miscellaneous for this year was about 84,000 and I and I want to say about 50,000 of that is in the business office line um and that also helps us cover emergencies if we have to do an emergency recur or anything like that um so any questions on contractual or miscellaneous items no thank you for that though you're welcome um so not many changes here uh really the only change is Page 38 that ta tax levy limit again uh when I updated
088that formula it did change by about $400 that was uh really the only change on that at this time and that brings us to enrollment so uh did you want to actually there's excuse me very little change if any I don't think there are any changes in enrollment so for Sher you know this is the same same slides you know we we shared at the last board meeting so that'll catch up a little bit so really we can just uh nothing really has change to these so I'll just move ahead look we just P several slides that's not a bad thing just once again as I just shared with the board this will change to eight Gita members and that's seven at the next budget hearing that or budget meeting we have and so you'll
089see Elementary at two uh full-time equivalent positions secondary Social Studies secondary science and Ela reading recovery reading teacher uh secondary teaching assistant secondary uh language other than English and then you'll see in addition to um a secondary vocal teacher so that'll be on the next next presentation all right so uh moving on a lot of these slides are similar to last time uh we highlighted the past two years uh initiatives that that uh we undertook and then uh slide 63 is um a ballpark cost of an FTE obviously that can be higher or lower depending on the position depending on how many steps a teacher might be hired at but just to give us a ballpark figure of what those FTE uh might cost and but this is a good slide not only for our
090board but for the community sometimes people think that a full-time equivalent teacher is you know step one on a salary schedule but sometimes they forget about the other columns that you've created to demonstrate how that cost can grow over time correct so uh here are some of the current year requests uh we we're still working through these and having some conversations on these we have U made some notes on there based on our conversations um throughout so slides 64 and 65 have not changed a ton other than you know a few notes on there of uh things that we envision doing for next year uh or considering for Beyond next year any questions on those all right uh that brings us to page 66 and 67 so uh we Rec had a meeting with our
091Architects uh so we there o oacm meetings owner meaning us the district um architect is the A and then cm is the construction manager so uh I believe we talked about this briefly last time but um you'll see two things on here is BCS priorities BCS is the building condition survey so we went through um every single building uh Florida ceiling we talked to principles we talked to the directors of all the Departments to figure out uh what where they felt problem areas were and then uh we worked with young and Wright they had a whole team of uh folks out here uh throughout the summer assessing the condition of our buildings and uh they provided us with a very comprehensive report we went through that and prioritize things um to you know figure out
092what we need to get done versus is what we want to get done so you'll see the BCS priorities that came from that on here as well as the district enhancements that uh came from conversations with all of our stakeholders throughout the district on on things that they would like to see or things that U they feel would benefit our students so just wanted to include that for the the B board in in everybody to see that's kind of our our starting list of the scope that uh we're hoping to put out to vote in December of 2025 uh I know tomorrow we have another o ACM meeting um with uh the architect and the construction manager to talk more about this and we'll be refining the scope starting from here and um you know
093as much as we would love to do all of this stuff you know there's going to be limited funds uh in order to do it so is some of this going to be in the capital Improvement yes that's exactly what this is uh or you figure out what's going to go on what's not correct this is this is what we're looking at and then we're going to prioritize and refine the scope from this list so we're going to have to go through through this list with our board committee with all of our various stakeholders this list yes just quick question I see on here it says replace high school gym floor that we did um so you know by the time we actually get into the project and do this it will be uh probably
094time to replace it we we just refinished it you know and that refinish you have to refinish it every so many years I do not see my um that was that was actually emailed to them after this but I did email it to the Architects so it it should get added to the list so in front of the sign that says Grand Island I think district office there's a light pole that stands right in front of so like when you walk up the entrance there's a light pole in front of the sign say so once you see it you can't un um and it happened and in the SC work it was supposed to be fixed but whenever they were coming back to fix correct me if I'm wrong dude they didn't do it right
095they didn't come back and fix whatever so it didn't make sense to move it didn't make didn't make sense to just come back and move I did send them an email last week and I did ask them to add that to it's just a thing you'll see it now any other questions on Capital project items I just Bob I want to thank you for including these two slides I think it is transparent uh we have three board members on the committee but now every board member gets to see these items and it's just great communication so our board once our uh board committee members and the district facility committee presents to the board they will have seen this throughout so nice job thank you um so slide 68 is uh just a a review of
096our federal funds for this year so as everybody knows uh we get um several different title grants so Title One title two title three and title four title three is not listed on here that's the one for the NL students we work in collaboration with Erie W bosis on that um so these are our allocations for those grants as well as the uh section 611 and 619 grants to help out our uh special education students and then uh the Federal upk grant um so you know it's it's always interesting when the state puts out the budget runs like upk for example is one they say our allocations like $991,000 or something but it it's based on $5,400 per pupil so we only get that if we've got enough pupils to get that in reality uh
097like for this year I think we're right around 700,000 for that um so you know those are some of the adjustments that when we're when when we're looking at the revenue I'll I'll subtract some of that out and try to make a a better projection on where I think some of those things are going to be because uh sometimes the state likes to put out numbers that aren't actually going to happen to make it look better but uh um these are our allocations for this year as of right now um no indication that any of these programs will be discontinued uh going forward but uh keeping a close eye on as I'm sure you're all aware there's a lot of conversations on on uh the federal uh education landscape there so keeping a close eye
098on that as well Bob I'm grateful that you included this as well uh it's very informative and it lets the board know and the community how important These funds are from the federal government I appreciate that absolutely um so slide number 69 on our uh L proposition again I have not changed this at this time but I do anticipate having a change on this for the next presentation um based on you know where we see contracted trans Transportation going um so more updates to come on that are we looking at any questions yeah so you know we discussed that you know I've talked to some of my other colleagues around and they everybody's kind of just in a holding pattern right because we're not sure we the Rumblings we hear at the state is there's
099going to be some changes made um you know I I still haven't been able to get a good answer on how I put a charger in uh without doing a capital project so there's a lot up in the air so I decided to to take proposition what we discussed could possibly have proposition three off at this current time until we get some more information on that yeah we had a I I I don't know we you looked at the last Bud presentation we had we had actually a l discussion I'm sure you listened it was what do you do right she brought she brought ex yeah we just we didn't decide on anything with the executive order and everything you have the state the federal government that literally are clashing right now with the federal
100government issuing that executive order and then the state pushing back so it's like what do you do because here's us you know for Grants right to try to get some some of the other you have to the executive order literally takes out the requirement for electric buses this is the conversation we had at the last meeting so if you have the federal government coming in and saying we are now eliminating this mandate for electric buses but you have the state coming in saying well we're still going to do it this is the problem that and actually you can see it on national news if you turn on any national news you have States literally going back to back with the federal government with some of these executive orders and one of it is the electric
101Mand that is being rolled out on the state level but it's being stopped on the federal level and that's what we had a pretty long discussion on so be interested to hear when we finally get some sort of information because to be honest it's like how do you vote on something when the federal government saying no and then the state is trying to push back when the federal government overrides and I think and I think um Bob was talking about money correct last at the last meeting too that was another Factor we were playing into because there was grant money that might expire and stuff so we took that all into consideration going off the top of my head um the I I did a 10-year analysis on the cost of a gas bus versus
102an electric bus based on some of the figures that were provided in the L study that we did um and and so with the incentives I believe they both came out around $400,000 uh the overall cost for 10 years so they with the incentives they came out pretty close but that was assuming about $275,000 in incentives so take those in incentives out and it's it just makes no sense to to do an electric bus it would cost almost double uh over 10 years to to do an electric bus versus a diesel bus okay uh so budget recap again the the only real change on here was the uh anticipated tax levy on the bottom that changed by about $400 I'll make uh more changes to this once uh we include more of our other uh
103priorities here so the draft budget recap on the top you'll see the year-over-year change uh the change in the tax levy so even with that change in the tax cap formula that still kept the the 3.14% increase year-over-year on the tax levy uh 1.3% year-over-year on the budget uh at this time um on the bottom there is our our fund balance and our reserves um so you'll see that at the end of last year we were about 24 million uh almost 24 and a half uh so a a good fund balance and a good Reserve balance um I would like to point out that those top two lines the capital reserve and The Debt Service Reserve we will be looking to use almost all of those two reserves uh for our uh EPC project and
104for our next Capital project so based on the projections that we provided uh with the facilities committee at the O oacm last time that was uh using these two reserves so that would bring us down to about $18 million um so you know we do anticipate using a good chunk of those reserves over the next couple years to help uh offset any tax impact uh of any of any of those projects um based on my projections uh through the end of the year I'm hoping to not have to use much of our our fund balance of reserves through the end of the year um but um you know get new surprises every day so I do want to thank the board and the business office and all of our administrators supervisors were working together to
105build back that fund balance at one point the board will remember that Rick Tims did a presentation to the board and it wasn't looking good and Ruby followed those action steps uh built in uh elements to help secure and create a better fund balance Bob uh has been very aggressive coming in to ensure that that continues he has done a great job in looking at ways to invest the district's dollars to receive interest back that has helped to grow the fund balance uh so there's lots of pieces here um and this is a celebration so I just thank the board and Bob's office for working hard to build that back up so thank you and I'm working with Tims now on that long range Financial as well um so we'll have more more info to
106come on that in the near future as well uh page 72 this was the the final tax levy limit that I submitted to the Office of the State Controller again it changed very slightly from last time uh the Pilot's receivable for next year went up by $2,000 and then uh the capital tax levy also went up by about $2,000 so the overall change was only about $400 it didn't change the percentage um at the end of the day so that was submitted uh to the office of the state controller for the district this past week um you know just more of of how that's calculated and um some projections you know the projections are are can vary quite a bit because you got your Capital exclusion and we're going to we're getting ready for a
107capital project so I'll also be working with Tims on these projections to uh try to get some better projections out into the future 74 uh again the um this did not change based on the the slight adjustment to the tax levy limit so this has stayed the same so uh that's it for the budget presentation for tonight future dates coming up we have another our third presentation on March 24th and then uh tenative special meeting date of April 14th with our hopeful uh budget adoption date of April 22nd our uh public hearing is scheduled for May 6th and then our vote is scheduled for May 20th any other questions on the budget at this time right thank you very much I just I just want to say that um I had requested the detector um
108report I I appreciate it I I I do notice that we have a lot of alerts with only confirmed UMES which I guess is a good thing right um but you know I'm just noticing when we have hundreds of them um can I ask questions on this before yeah for sure um I just I I'm really appreciative that you guys did it and I don't want you to think that it's not going to be looked at it either but so you know we look at like December let's look at January of 2025 because there was 241 of them um number of confirmed Vapes was two right which was great I guess but 241 so does that mean those are false um and then what's the time consumption on you know 239 false alarms great question
109I I just Che I'm not trying to knock the system right I I love that we're being alerted I love that we're monitoring it I just there's a couple of pieces so we have found that we do get quite a number of false alerts we do find that aerosol sprays including some of the girls perfumes deodorants and so forth do set those off we have also found that we've needed to work with the company on a couple of occasions because there are repeated alarms so it might hit on one of those aerosol odors and then keep flagging flagging flagging repeatedly for a number of minutes so we've had a couple of barriers with that uh yes it is absolutely timec consuming I know we had just discussed that that was anticipated um and the reality
110is we can't get to every single one because we are still operating a building we do get to many of them um we do conduct as I'm sure you've heard over time many searches so when it alarms and we do get to many of them we do conduct the searches there are many times where students are not in possession of a b device and so forth with that being said we've also run into the challenge which I'm sure you've heard of Maintenance um of students flushing Bap devices so that has become a bit of a plumbing challenge at times that we're working through um but that is also an alternative result of having those devices set flag kids will have a situation where they choose to just flush it so it's also my understanding that
111if the students are in the bathroom they can tell if the alarm goes off when they are in the bathroom is that true or there is a Visual Alert that happens with these detectors you can turn it off but the barrier to turning it off is then none of the monitors know it's alarming the only other way to see is through the email so if you're not sitting at your email to be able to identify that that is happening you wouldn't otherwise know does that answer your question it does you know only in talking to a few of the students you know some of the some of the students are nervous to go into the bathrooms because they don't want to be in there and the either goes off fely anxiety for um relatives that
112have faped in the past right that are no longer in the district right um Cheryl can you you know I just I'm not negating it I I you know it looks like our numbers are going down I love that right I just um just because you did the report I just wanted to bring up some of the points that I have heard since we put them in right the anxiety um you know of the kids that don't want to use our bath because they don't they don't want to be searched they don't want to fly be whatever um but it's great to see the numbers go down and um it's amazing how many alerts there are with so few right so obviously there's a lot of Falls so thank you I really appreciate Great's look
113at it you know we put investment and something it's really great to see the reports that come out good cherl just a layer over the top of this this conversation about vaping I know that we're participating in the community schools Grant and that Horizon Health Services will be working with us particularly on baby correct maybe just share just little right we actually have a meeting with middle school admin and the high school ad with Horizon thers us add issues IDE this Thursday thank you thank you Hillary thank you Sher okay thank you that brings us to the special education CU of Personnel Services with Cheryl so I have three action items please there is a CSC and cpsc program recommendations and then also a recommendation for um an impartial hearing officer as well okay if
114I could have a motion for a through C please a motion and the second all in favor I any objections any extensions motion Carri 60 thank you that brings us to the superintendent report thank you everybody thanks for your attendance and your tenacity uh and being able to be resilient for a long meaning this will be brief uh just a lot of things to celebrate uh as you heard from Hayden today lots of great things happening in athletics and these are just some photographs of the sectional finals very exciting uh packed house um so John Neville uh received the uh character award there and some of the seniors uh posed for a picture with their coach uh lot to celebrate uh lot of spirit we had fan buses and tree leaders and a really great
115crowd uh cheering on our teams um our cheerleaders did capture the NFL co-ed division uh at the varsity level so congratulations to them uh this uh is a great picture of Ricky who um really uh did a great job in the sectional playoff game with a 7-1 win but in particular a special moment oh that's Ian a special moment uh for Ian as he became uh just the second player in GI history to reach uh 100 points in his career for hockey so congratulations to him and uh Cole Randall went uh to states to compete in wrestling in the 108 pound division this is a picture of the state competition um so he's a young wrestler with a high ceiling and we wish him a continued success as he finished as a runner up uh
116we're very uh Le uh we mentioned earlier our bowling team did very well and we're section Champions and we're looking forward to John km and to see how he does and the state uh Championship coming up uh between March 14th and 16th in Syracuse our own teachers Cheryl Amy and Jamie received the Grand Island zanta yellow rose award this past week was a little special ceremony at the Welcome Center and uh really really wonderful attribution to their leadership and their work with our students um we hosted as you heard from our Middle School uh Champion today who was an ambassador we hosted the All County junior high concerts uh this weekend we got to give a lot of thanks to our custodians and our cleaners this place was packed on Friday packed on Saturday many
117many concerts uh many of our own students uh also participating uh with their peers from across uh Erie County really wonderful job by everybody involved Saturday also we have the annual Elementary fiza Department uh 3b3 basketball tournament really well um attended lots of kids uh competing and enjoying and meeting their friends from other schools and we had six students placed in the top 10 in Deca States so congratulations to those students I know Mr Merkel went or Dr Merkel went out to visit uh in Rochester so uh I'm sure doc anything any feedback or Reflections on that you know it's just so impressive to watch these Kids In Action um so they they had a little VIP tour for uh some of the superintendent and District officials out there and they had uh some stations
118where you know they had the students present their do their present St and I'm just always so impressed on on how well they do how articulate they are and uh you know just awesome I went into the to the big uh meeting room there and holy smokes there's 3,000 kids there plus advisers I I didn't realize I've been there as a judge before a few years ago I didn't realize there was that many kids there so just very impressive to see that many kids engaged um and and the level uh to which they're they're engaging you know it's not easy to compete it's the the competitions are tough and it's just very impressive to to see the work that the students are doing out there yeah for sure uh additionally uh we want to congratulate
119Brooke Christensen uh with the weight throw she placed third in the entire state that is really a fantastic accomplishment uh she I I remember years ago when she was in Middle School i w i was watching her compete then very dedicated to the uh the art of uh the throw and uh I think also influenced and inspired by Stacy watt so really a great accomplishment for Brooke so congratulations to her and Savannah Bowski uh received a special recognition on the unified bowling team and we thank her and her coaches for all the work that they do to support that program um the district uh through Stacy Scher Watts leadership hosted a stem event in the middle school last week uh so this is Stacy and she invited some expert uh stem leaders uh and had
120a really wonderful program so we thank them and the zanta uh group of GRE Island for supporting that uh Jude has been working really hard behind the scenes to really uh get volunteers and people to come out to our uh our meat raffle the meat raffle uh is in of growing readers and we've added another layer uh we are partnering with the D parman imagination uh literacy program so we will be sending a check to Dolly Parton who has had a longstanding literacy initiative that is focused on birth through grade five but we also will continue our efforts to provide a book at every well bab visit for infants um at 2 months 6 12 18 and 24 months so if you have the opportunity to either get a table or put a basket together
121we'd love uh to celebrate that special event and it's coming up in March 22nd at 7 o' at the christoo Columbo Society Hall in nagar Falls and uh we're also excited down the road we'll have our second annual Giza um Grand Island cruise night it was super successful last year and we thank Hillary and her team for giving us the space on June 18th to celebrate that special event of course we're always uh asking the community to consider being bus drivers uh being the board being so gracious into providing health insurance as well as a higher uh starting bus rate uh we're very grateful to them and I think that's just an old slide right there but we do have the golf outing on July 25th so I know you know Sue may talk about
122that and don't forget the Viking Tip Lane we do thank the community we thank the students we thank the parents who use the biking tip line remember when it's filled out even though it's Anonymous it goes to our building principal and Sher herone uh and it's a great way for us to keep kids safe so thank you very much to the board do you have any questions all right and don't forget the community can email the board at Boi GIC csd.org thank you that brings us to the Board of Education Report with uh Sue and giz was going to mention the car show in June golf tournament um as you could see Giza did um give a donation to our um top department so those events do matter and they do directly reflect or uh
123reflect wrong word they do impact our students so please um mark your calendars and if you can um attend those events or donate to those events um we would appreciate it J and I both work very hard to have successful events to students let me just do the PTA Council then we can jump at the bottom um I just wanted to say that I attended the PTA uh council meeting was it thday last week I can't remember Dr Graham always attends it with me I I have to say it's been uh rebirthed this year it was at um it was going to cancel um and it's really kind of nice to see that it has been reborn and it has new life and they're really doing great working together um as as a unit with
124all of the um ptas present and they're really working together to um on pictures and agendas and different things so it's exciting to see it it come back to life so um just wanted to mention that the PTA not only working at a school level at a council level they work hard and they do a lot of great work for our district to impact our students and bring additional programs and that's exciting to see and thank you um so that brings us to our facilities meeting on February 26th um we will have another facilities meeting on March 26 um we looked at the building condition surveys and we will um make sure that we have a um plan to address all the needs of the facilities across the district um and after we meet on
125March 26th we'll set a date where uh young R will come with camp AG to present to the board so you will have the opportunity to um hear the plan that we will um put out for a vote December of 25 and then um ask any questions that you have um as well at that time any have any questions okay that brings us to the public comment session General items not included in this agenda we did not have anyone sign up for that so then we'll move on to Committee of the whole items information for the round table beginning with Roger I think I'll just be back on to um the pts are incredible um I didn't realize how much they did years ago until I actually got on the board and started participating and
126um just the funds that they bring and the you know the work the hard work that they do and they get no um real pets on the back for it they do L of the kind of that heart so really awesome um I wanted to mention the school calendar that is on the website is incredible I think that each district is updating it with what's going on and I just want to or each district each building um and it's awesome it's color coded it tells me exactly what's going on in each school it is phenomenal best I've ever seen so you guys are doing a really great job there so thank you thanks J just real quick I wanted to say that um I attended an art show last Saturday at the um Buffalo launch
127club and it was honor Mrs takowsky who was a teacher here at Grand Island and it had um all artists that were residents of Grand Island and Jude was there um I just wanted to say that Mr majio was was there he was a teacher here at Grand Island and he had quite a following there to to see him Jude was there to see him Petty frenzo was there um Nicole Osler um some students that graduated before us but it was exciting to so many kids he retired from Grand Island in 1995 so it's been quite a few years since he taught here at Grand Island but it was really exciting to first of all see him and to see him do so so well in his passion for art he was an art teacher
128he was also U my class adviser and he also was a photography teacher and he was in charge of the yearbook when I was here but he really touched the lives of so many of us that Spann spanned many many years when he was here at Grand Island so it was really kind of exting exting to see us all waiting for him to show up at this at this at this um this art show um so it was great to see his work it was great to see all of the all the other artists but it it it really goes to show the impact that the teachers have on students after I mean I graduated in 1987 and I was excited to go back and see him he really touched me as an individual and
129really impacted some of the decisions I made in life and to be able to see him so many years later and to thank him again was was fantastic so what we do here matters and it matters many many years later and I think sometimes students may not see that today but when they look back and reflect it really really is impactful and insightful so um it was exciting the artwork was phenomenal um I think it's a yearly thing I think this was the second time they were here if you guys get a chance to go the the the art the artists we have on Grand Island were phenomenal and some of the pieces were I don't know if you want to add to it I mean it was amazing it I almost did yeah Mr
130everybody was waiting for Mr maio he um he had something that he had to do that was unexpected and we all thought he was going to be the right from it was from 2 to 8 at the lunch club and um we all actually went back because we found out that he was going to eat dinner at the launch club and then break his exhibit down so we all like kind of snuck in and um and went visited with them just just super that's why I love doing uh taking pictures I took photography and was in the same thing likeu and the Yearbook and everything and it's my love for taking pictures and brailon of but yeah he's a great guy and it was there was somebody like Fritz pror um he was the one
131Fritz pror made all of the pictures in the Viking Diner all those old time pictures of yeah so he handed that I bought a print from him yeah this is it was awesome so next year for sure we'll promote it again we contracted him to so yeah but anyway it was exciting and I just you know I always like the opportunity to I mean it was like going to see a rockstar we all left he came back and we heard when we finally heard he was back we all went back um so we have our next board meeting March 24th and our joint Town Board of Education meeting March 31st just note that that'll start at 7 pm here in development room um anything else no okay with that I'd like to ask for a
132motion to adj the regular board meeting at 9:39 p.m. please motion and a second second All In I any objections any exensions no one ever does thank you good night everyone