001Does that fit in? I don't Yeah, she's got to wait till after the meeting. I sent me something. I'm going to have you use your best judgment on that one. I'm changing the name tag name. Yeah. Yeah. It's like church. Nobody wants to Another big day. Something like that. You got that right. You got that. Dr. Janette Street's Apple TV. All right, a shot. How you doing? Very good. Cold. Yeah, that's right. New York City doesn't get weather we get here today. It's a little bit warmer down here. Step out. Sometimes they get snow, but they're not like this. Out the window. I was like, "Okay, is it still the Sweet Home Network or is it Am I?" You had to do a double take. You can't see. I don't see Virgil's Apple TV. Okay.
002No, let's put that long. I don't know. There's too many different ones. It's just [ __ ] real. Just too many trips up down the hall. Oh, yeah. Unless I'm doing it wrong. I'll just give you mine. So, if you should reach [Music] that too far away from me. back. I'm sorry. I might be that because I'm there again, but do you hear anything yet? No. Yeah, I I don't know. I'm having a hard time. Okay. Tell me on the That'll be our talk. It's Medicare. Oh my god. Yeah. I have to go for my interview and like Mr. Rio got it, but they're just like not enough. I don't know the card the whatever it is the change a lot of the rules we had for we had to get the nine forms accept this Mr.
003Valanti whenever you're ready. Yeah. All right. That makes Okay. I'd like to uh call the meeting to order. Um would everybody please stand for the pledge of allegiance? Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Um all right. Uh let's do the roll call. Moisha. here. Uh, Miss Jason here. Mr. Johnson, I am here. Mr. Ravenol here. Uh, Mr. Libel here. Mr. Miss Anon here. Um, I am here. Um, Miss Betaglia is um excused for personal reasons due to a death in the family. Um, so our thoughts are with her and her family tonight. So, um, can I have a motion and a second to approve the role? So moved. Second. All in
004favor? I against abstensions. Okay. U moving on. Approval of the agenda. Remember that any um comments we will be voting on um at actually meetings in two weeks, not next week. So um in two weeks we will be voting on the agenda. Um meetings from previous minutes. Any comments? Okay. Again, we will be voting on um the minutes at our next meeting in on the um 22nd. Um communications. Does anybody have any communications to share? I think we all got a packet today of all the different emails that came in and I know we've been receiving emails throughout the week um voicing concerns that we'll talk about later. Yep. And we we all got letters from Dave Lowry about his position with Erie County Association of School Boards. the Ammerst IDA that was on the
005work on Sweet Home Road, right? No, no, it wasn't. That's a new building that's going to be down the road. Yeah, Creek Side. Sorry. Um and then Yuri Wosi's annual meeting is tomorrow if I'm not correct. Right. Please. Okay. Um any other comments or communications to share? Okay. Um moving on to unfinished business? We do not have any. Um so, Dr. Janestri, you are up with your report. Thank you, Mr. Balante. Um we got a few updates for our community. We wanted to start with um Mr. Feldman and where we are with the budget. Thank you everybody and good evening. Uh we are um in our third budgetary study session uh tonight. So we'll take a look at kind of updates from when we last met uh last March. So I it's always important I
006like to kind of do this to give you u kind of a timeline of events in terms of our overall uh budget process. The process really begins honestly and earnest in December. Uh but these are some major milestones that we've kind of worked through uh as we get to this point tonight. Um we have um submitted our final tax cap calculation uh to the state uh on March the 1st. school board uh candidate. Uh for those that might be interested in running for the school board, petitions are due to the district clerk office on Monday, April 20th uh at 20 uh at 5:00. Uh we do have two seats open. The terms of Mr. Libel uh and Mr. Rabinold are uh expiring in June. Uh so the top two vote getters um in May uh
007will be elected to two five-year terms each, one five-year term each. Uh the last day for our board to adopt the proposed budget uh by state law is April 25th. Uh you will actually vote to approve the budget uh proposed budget uh two weeks from tonight, which would be April 22nd. Uh we do have to submit our property tax report card by April 28th. Uh and then we have to do a required public hearing on the budget uh anytime between May 6th and May 13th. Ours is on May 6th. Uh and the annual budget vote and school board election takes place on Tuesday uh May 20th. Uh and voting will take place here in Veral Center from 7:00 in the morning until 9:00 at night. Um so this is kind of where we've been to
008date. Uh you can see from the screen there uh the number of budget study sessions we are on. Uh budget study session number three. Uh this is a budget update. uh we that discussion as to kind of how things have changed since we met in March. Uh any updates on the New York State budget uh and uh final state aid runs uh as we stand now. Uh and then again as I mentioned earlier uh we will the board will vote to adopt the budget uh with or without a New York state budget uh on Tuesday, April 22nd. What are the big stumbling blocks with the state budget? Cell phones. Cell phones are one and there are two other issues that I've come uh and Dr. Justin might be able to uh expand on it more
009but that have really nothing to do with education at all. Yeah. Which are what are they? One has to do with I believe um the judicial system and one is about masking mask about mask. The other one's about discovery at trials. Thank you. Yep. Yep. So just for our community, we're kind of, you know, doing this blind, not blind, but there's a lot of factors that aren't known right now. That's correct. When we last left in March, uh this is kind of what we we had as far as next steps uh from the budgetary uh creation and process. We needed to work through and solidify the New York 44 trust health insurance numbers. Um, uh, when we met last, we literally got the numbers on, uh, our health insurance premiums the day of our meeting.
010Uh, so we've done that, and you'll see me, we'll talk about that as we kind of, um, go through tonight's presentation. We continue to work through salary lines and make sure our salary lines are sound. Uh, from that standpoint, uh, we needed to finalize. remember uh last time we presented we did tell you that we've been awarded um an integrated setting a school setting and uh in an integrated uh UPK program uh through the New York State Education Department a grant uh we are working and that that will be revenue that will be brought into um the general fund. We are working still with New York State Education Department the rate setting uh unit to finalize our rates. We have not done that yet. Uh we do have um as I mentioned earlier preliminary preliminarily
011been approved uh for the classrooms. We're just working through the the rates uh as we speak. So uh hopefully we'll get those in place by uh next week or two weeks from tonight, Tuesday. Uh we will monitor continue to monitor the New York State budgetary progress and its potential impacts on state aid. As we've already talked about, the New York State budget was due on April the 1st. It is April the 8th. Uh we do not have a New York state budget as of yet. Uh we were we are working off um state aid runs and estimates that were presented as part of uh the executive runs uh back in January. So um and then the last piece of it we would we would adjust our budget and report back to you on uh tonight
012on the April 8th study session. So on the revenue side of the budget, uh there are four areas that uh impact the re four major areas that impact the revenue side of the budget. Uh state aid u there has there honestly there is no update right now. We are waiting on the New York state budget approval. Um we do have a little bit of an update on uh Bosey's aid and high access cost aids that we'll get to a little bit later. Uh one of the things that um uh we've taken advantage of uh is working with area 1 BOSEIS to look further into our BOSIES aid and make sure that that number is true. Uh and then uh we we contract with uh uh the capital region BOSIES uh with Questar to have them
013do our uh stacking process for our special education students. Uh and we do have an update on um some high access cost aids uh on the revenue side. um real property taxes. Our our final tax cap was again filed to New York State. We do have a small uh tax cap limit this year of 04% which translates to about $218,000 for us. And the reason for that is that um this latest capital project has hit the books and we saw a significant or will see a significant significant increase in building aid. Uh and the building aid lowers our ability to uh raise taxes. Uh from that standpoint, uh as I made mention in March, our building aid going forward will remain flat. So I I believe that our tax cap uh will um kind of
014return to where it was in the past. Um sales taxes is another major area. We did receive our third quarter payment from Erie County. We got a little over 1.4 4 million um in sales tax payments to the district on March 31st. We are trending toward about 5.5 to 5.6 million in sales tax revenue uh for this year. Uh for next year, we did budget $5,450,000 uh for the 2526 budget uh in terms of sales tax revenue. Uh and then uh we talked about the reserves to to close any potential budgetary gaps andor to lower the tax levy. Uh and we have maintained our reserve usage which was consistent with last year at $350,000. So this just gives you kind of a snapshot um more more closer look at our sales tax revenue. Uh you
015can see last year uh we did net uh $5,424,139 uh in sales tax revenue. As I mentioned earlier, we are trending toward about 5.5 5.6 million um for that. Uh we had uh budgeted this year $5.1 million for uh sales tax revenue. So that that's a good um plus on our side in terms of an additional revenue. Uh and next year again we are budgeting $5.45 million in sales tax revenue. So uh on the revenue side just to kind of further this um we did see uh we talked last March uh last month rather in March about uh some Boseies rent. As you know, uh we we get we receive rent from area 1 Boseis for their use of Dexter uh Terrace Northtowns Academy uh during the school year. Uh we have worked out an
016agreement. It's actually a lease agreement that you'll see in your board packet for tonight uh for them to continue to use the remainder of the building uh over the course of the summertime. We initially uh estimated that at at $50,000. It's actually going to be $18,000. so that it can be consistent with what Boseis does at other school districts across the region uh for summertime. Uh and then uh we did uh see a small decrease in our Bosey's aid and we've scaled back a little bit um on our UPK grant for the special education inclusive program to the tune of about $55,000. But on the other side of it, on the plus side of it, we do expect um a private and public excess cost aid bump from what we originally um uh estimated of
017about $150,000. So net increase on the revenue side since we last met, $63,000. So, I know this is super easy to read, but this is the uh our kind of our summary of the uh total revenue uh for the district that we are estimating uh for the 2526 school year. We do estimate revenues of $ 105,576,012, which is an increase budget-to budget year of 5,165,590 or 5.1%. So, on the on the expense side, uh what I did here is I I just wanted to show you kind of what uh has been increased since we last met in March. Um uh to get us to uh what I'm presenting tonight to a balanced budget. Uh so, we are recommending uh an increase in overall utilities, specifically electricity in the district of $7,181. We are adding to
018uh budgetary lines for buildings and grounds, materials and supplies, $15,000. We are adding salaries. This is again getting our salaries um true uh and right uh based upon the um the staffing recommendation from from March. We're recommending we add $100,000 $50,000 to each line, the elementary and the secondary teacher line. Uh we are adding uh $23,000 to reimbursement in L of health insurance for folks that don't take health insurance. Uh we are increasing our special education tuition uh to other schools by $25,000. Uh we are increasing our technology budget uh to Erie Wooseies um for student iPads and teacher laptop lease of $43,000. We are adding transportation salaries of $30,440 and adding materials and supplies to transportation in terms of $5,000. Now, we are also um recommending a decrease in the lines of our employee
019benefits in terms of contributions to uh the teacher retirement system and the employee retirement system of $15,000. And then again uh as I made mentioned earlier, we did just receive um last Mar last month rather, we did just receive our uh our uh um employee health insurance premiums. Uh so we are recommending a decrease in that line of $150,000. So this is just kind of an overall snapshot of a what I'm presenting tonight. Um a balanced budget. We do have again budgeted revenues of 105,57612 which is a 5.1% increase of that. The local tax levy is 54,486,6662 which is that 4% increase that is right to the tax cap. that falls within the parameters of the tax cap which means that if this budget is adopted that the budget only needs to pass by a
020simple majority. And then on the expense side again 105 million 576 uh 012 5.1% increase we are at a balanced budget. And then I thought it would be helpful just to kind of look at our overall um major budgetary increases uh both on the revenue side as well as um on the expense side. This is from budget to budget um uh from the 2425 budget to the proposed budget of 2526. You can see on the revenue side tax levy uh again that's the tax cap $218,590. We will receive an additional We are scheduled to receive an additional $52,000 in pilot agreements uh through the Ammerst IDA. We expect to receive $350,000 more in sales tax, $340,000 more in interest, $30,000 more uh in Bosey's rent, and $3.75 million uh in state aid. both foundation aid
021and expense driven aids. That plus the additional funding that we expect to come in to the general fund from the UPK special education grant of $660,000. That increase uh gives us about $5.4 million uh in revenue increase. On the expense side, these again are major major expense side increases. Um salaries in total across all of our bargaining units, admin, service, and teachers is an increase of about $1.4 million. Utilities are $100,000. Uh our Boseies services, anything that we purchase from Boseies, uh we expect about a $52,000 uh increase. Our liability insurance for the district, a $75,000 increase. Charter school tuitions, $200,000. Special education in general. Uh this includes uh salaries. This includes materials and supplies. This includes transportation. Uh this include or not transportation, this includes uh onetoone nursing. This includes um um special education
022tuitions for out of district placements. Uh we would see an increase of $1.435 435 million. We will see an increase in our bus purchases of $147,000. Our contracted transportation, those are runs that we cannot cover with our own drivers. We would expect that we're going to see an increase of about $500,000 in contracted transportation. And then overall employee benefits, FICA, health insurance, contributions to the employee retirement system, $1 million. So you can see that those major expenses at $5,359,000 is very close to the revenues that we get in uh in terms of the $5.4 million. So I thought that that might be helpful to kind of uh set the tone, set a picture of where we are at budgetarily um from that standpoint. Uh it's quite I just one qu just if you give me
023a second just it's from my vantage point without the additional aid that we re are going planning to receive uh for these special education UPK classrooms we would not have a balanced budget and we could not make the budget work. Yes, Mr. Johnson. Do we have any control over the charter school tuition at all? We do not. How are the individual schools raising the rate or is this a rate the number of kids? Both. It's really number of kids that we anticipate going to charter schools as well as rates uh increasing and the same with uh special education. We don't have a lot of say in those tuition rates. So we're budgeting as we've talked throughout the course of the the the year. This budgetary year has been difficult because of the number of um
024special education students that have come into the district and particularly those that have been placed out of the district at off-site. um placements um and those we we haven't been able to keep up with the increases. So, we hope that this number will help us do that. We have a number for that. How many students we place in agency schools? I don't I can get that for you. I don't know that off the top of my head. When do we do the bids for um contracted transportation? We're going to talk a little bit about that. Uh we we do the we've done a contracted transportation bid in 202122 school year. So we're due well I'll just let me say this. We uh we are allowed um to continue the contracted transportation bid really honestly in
025perpetuity. Uh what we do is we increase by CPI every year from that standpoint. Uh, as we get into the evening's agenda tonight, we're going to talk a little bit about contract to transportation. When we bid the contract to transportation run in 2122, uh, we bid it based upon the schools we were transporting at the time. We were transporting 41 schools at the time, contracted transportation. Presently we are transporting about 29 schools still on that list but we are also transporting to several new schools. So rather than build rather than going back out to bid because we're not sure as to what kind of a response that we would get, uh we've met with the contractor and the contractor has agreed to uh supplement schools that weren't on the original bid um that we are
026transporting now uh onto the bid. Uh so it's advantage to us uh because we're gonna you know and we'll talk a little bit about it later but we're going to pick up some drivers and help us do some other things too. And are we still seeing a lot of challenges to assessments or not? Um not as many anymore. We got from a residential standpoint uh we got about 30 or 40. Uh from that standpoint dwindled that number. Uh yeah it's been it's been pretty quiet um thus far. Um, so I I don't know again where we'll be in terms of equalization rates or things along those lines, but I would expect uh that we won't see the challenges that we saw this past school year or this. As far as the Boulevard Mall, is that
027at any point going to start affecting us? Not not this budgetary year. Maybe next the the following year. Okay. Thank you. 27 maybe. Maybe. Uh Dr. necessary. So, this is um we've done this traditionally um to be able to provide kind of a snapshot on what present day what we believe our tax rates to be. Uh again, I'll just remind the audience and those that may be watching at home, uh that we are using um assess assessment values at this current school year's levels. uh we won't know our assessment values for next school year until August uh which is when we set the tax rates uh and the board approves it. So this is really a snapshot in comparison what we are um um uh proposing in terms of a tax levy for next year
02854,486,000 using this year's assessment values uh and equalization rates. So for 100 a home that is assessed at $150,000 um this proposed budget would see for the residents of the town of Ammerst a tax bill increase of $4. Uh and for the town of Wanda side an increase of $6. Uh and then if you hit the next slide, Dr. Janestri, uh we bumped up the the assessment level to $250,000. $250,000. Town of Amherst residents would re would see a an increase of $7. Town of town of Wanda nine. And then the last slide is $350,000. There it is. Uh town of Ammerst is $10 increase. Uh and town of town is $13 increase. The average home now is probably more closely uh tied to that $250,000 assessment. Uh and then the last thing uh we
029have two weeks we have two weeks before the board approves the budget. Uh New York State still has not passed uh their budget uh April 1st. So we are hopeful uh that the aid estimates that we've received will remain intact. Uh, as I mentioned to you before, we've received good news on our total aidable foundation pupil unit, which is what they base uh, foundation aid over. We have confirmation that our number, unlike last year, remains steady. It didn't decrease, and we won't hopefully be caught by surprise from that. Uh as to whether um the administration decides to cut any aids, um we won't know until likely uh after we vote on the budget. Um so uh the last thing that I will make mention of um we've been working with our uh in the budget
030uh itself there are uh bus purchases. We are looking to purchase four um large passenger electric buses, one large passenger diesel bus, and one small passenger diesel bus at a cost of a net cost of $1,77,000. Uh we do have um funding through both the EPA and the um New York State School bus incentive voucher program. uh that will uh help us to net uh receive um grant funding of about uh $950,000 from that standpoint to help offset the cost of those buses. Uh but we have been talking with our man bus manufacturers uh and the uh steel that is used to manufacture our buses is from Canada. So, uh, we, uh, could expect a 25% tariff on those. And if that does happen, um, I'm hopeful that once once, uh, the board passes the
031budget um in or adopts the budget on on the 22nd, we can sign a letter of intent to purchase those buses uh, if if our budget passes in May. Um, so I'm hopeful in conversations with our bus provider that if we get those in, we might beat said tariff. Uh, but uh if we don't, we'll have to have some different discussions uh after the fact. Yes, sir. Are you still confident in the funding from the EPA at this point or do we have it in hand? We have it. We have it. I am confident in the funding for the EPA. Uh we are working uh with um the EPA to um uh secure those funds and then to piggyback those funds onto the New York State school bus incentive program uh to be able to
032purchase our electric buses likely less than what a diesel bus would cost. Thank you. And again, remind me the rotation of our buses every every 12 to 13 years. Uh we've had part of the the the the funding that we receive from uh the EPA in New York State, we have to have a certain vintage of buses. So we've been kind of hanging on to buses maybe a little bit longer. Uh some are in service, some are not. Um but those help us to kind of we get for every uh bus that we trade in with the EPA funding, we get $200,000 back. And we're good with the infrastructure for our electric buses over there. Yeah. for our electric bus. Uh our first the three electric buses that we received uh they made their maiden
033voyage yesterday. Uh so they are out on the road and and transporting kids. Any questions at all from the board? Yes, Mr. Rabinol. The difference in the tax levy between last year and what you're proposing this year is roughly $250,000. Is that correct? $218,000. $118,000. So theoretically, if there's some more funding that comes in from the state and we know that before we vote, would that be used to reduce that tax levy? It could be. It could. And we would have to have that conversation at the board level. Yeah. Very good. Thank you. Yep. Any other questions? Okay. Don't go away. You're up. All right. Now, Mr. Feldman and um and Dr. Shai sit on a uh our calendar committee uh with a group of stakeholders from the district and um we are ready to
034propose the 2526 calendar uh to the board for their review over the next two weeks and up for vote in uh on April 22nd. If you would hit the first slide. So, uh this is uh I'm very appreciative of these folks. uh we met a couple times uh to discuss the calendar. Uh you can see I won't read all the names but we have a um uh a good strong representation from all levels across the buildings in terms of parents uh from the teachers association uh from the administrators association from the service employees association and then on the district uh I had the pleasure of leading the calendar committee with Dr. Shyabi who was our human resources uh administrator. So there are some considerations that we need to um uh take take hold of uh
035as we build our calendar. There are some regulations from New York State Education Department in terms of both days and hours uh to help us u maintain our aid level. Uh we need to have 100 180 days of instruction and hours in seats. 900 hours for students in the elementary level uh and 990 hours of instruction um for students at the secondary level. we need to take into consideration. Um I I'll just from that standpoint, if we don't reach those thresholds, uh it is possible that New York State the education department could come back and take back some of our aid. Uh from that standpoint, um New York, we have to do have to uh take in cons into consideration when our New York State assessments and regions exams are, legal holidays, certainly contractual language.
036uh the regional Bosey's calendar. We do try and mirror our calendar as best we can uh with the Erie 1 Bosey's calendar because we do have a number of high school students in excess of a hundred I believe uh that do attend Bosey's programs. Uh so we try and mirror their uh schedules our schedule with their schedule so as to not impact uh their instruction. And then we do have to look at um both the potential for emergency snow closures and make sure that we have enough emergency snow closure dates or weather dates um um into the calendar so that we can maintain and meet the regulations set forth by New York State Ed. Uh and then we certainly do take uh stakeholder feedback from from each of the groups. So, these are the legal
037holidays that we may not schedule uh school on. Labor Day, Columbus Day, Indigenous People's Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day, New Year's Day, Martin Luther King Day. New last year is the Chinese Lunar New Year. The Chinese Lunar New Year falls this year on February 17th, um which is during our midwinter recess. Uh so we uh we caught a little bit of a break there in terms of a day of instruction. President's Day, Memorial Day, Junth, and Independence Day. So these are the dates that we are proposing uh as part of our uh 2526 calendar uh for the board's consideration. Uh we will start uh we would like to start uh on Thursday, August 28th uh with a staff development day and an opening day uh situation much like we did uh this past
038school year. Uh and then our first student day would be on that'll be the virtual I'm sorry. Correct. It would be a virtual day. Uh but what we also did there too is um we invited our our service employees in uh for that day including our bus drivers. Traditionally, our bus drivers has have done, you know, a day of dry runs uh as we prepare for the start of the school year. Uh last year, they actually did two. Uh so, um and that that seemed to work fairly well. Um so, uh the first student day would be uh Tuesday, September 2nd. Uh election day, which is November 4th, Tuesday, would be a staff development day. Uh and no school for students grades uh UPK through 12. Uh Thanksgiving recess is Wednesday through Friday, November 26th
039through 28th. Uh on Friday, uh December 5th, it's an elementary half day. Our elementary students will be in attendance uh in the morning uh and then be dismissed uh midday uh and allow our elementary staff to prepare for report cards. Uh and then December 12th uh would be uh elementary parent teacher conference days. also a day of no school for our elementary kiddos. Uh December uh we hit winter winter recess. The winter recess this year is two weeks in length. Uh it is Monday, December 22nd through Friday, January the 2nd. Uh that again mirrors uh what uh Erie One Boseies is doing uh from uh from their calendar that was approved last month. uh mid-winter recess uh again February 16th through the 20th as I made mention earlier. The lunar new year is on February
04017th. Uh March 6 would be again much like December 5th the half day for our elementary kids uh in the morning. Uh and then afternoon would be report card day for our elementary staff. March 13th would be a full staff development day. No school for uh all of our students UPK through 12. uh grade 12. Uh April 3rd through April 10th uh would be our spring recess. Uh and then we would end the year um June 24th and 25th uh much like we've done in the past with two elementary half days. Rating day would be June 26th and then the teacher last day would be Monday, June the 29th. that is structured such that contractually um the uh the the agreement between the district and the teachers association the sweet home educators association says that
041teachers will have 187 attendance days by putting that day on June 29th that gets them to 187 uh in building the calendar uh Dr. Janestri just put out a note today about the Memorial Day holiday. Uh the more because the calendar for next year is so tight. Uh that Memorial Day holiday situation will not happen uh next year. If uh come April 30th, if the if we have three emergency days or more left, the day that will be removed from the calendar is the June 29th day uh for teachers to help them get to 186. Before you move that, which if we did have to start pulling two or three days because bad snowstorms, where do you start? I'll let Dr. Janestri answer that one. I would uh you know again uh we we talked
042about because of the we didn't have a lot of flexibility. Uh, I would think likely, um, this is my best guess, like we would start, we would probably start because we talked about the December 22nd, 23rd days. Uh, that's a Monday, Tuesday. January 2nd is a Friday. Those would be days. And then, you know, obviously that's mid-inter. Uh but as we got into um you know April I I probably probably break t typically over you know by the time January is done we've got the bad weather out of the and hopefully the lake is I mean the real stormy weather so you know you'll see wood fe you know it depends on where the weather hits I guess. You'll see on the next slide that or maybe two slides that we do have a number
043of of emergency days built in. So, so uh this is just kind of a calendar summary as I made mention uh the teacher work days is at 187 uh which is uh contractually bound. The student attendance days as per the state education department secondary 186 uh so which means essentially we have six emergency days built in. The elementary level is 185. we had 185. We wanted to make sure again that we had an ample number of of emergency days from that standpoint. And then superintendent conference and staff development days, August 28th, November 4th, March 3rd, and uh June 29th. So this is uh our calendar as compared to the Bosey's calendar. Uh I know it's not real easy to for folks in the audience to read, but uh the board does have that in their
044packet. Uh the calendar on the right is the sweet home um proposed calendar and the calendar on the left is the Erie one Bosey's calendar uh that was approved uh by their board uh last month I believe. Uh so this will be up for vote um in two weeks uh to the board. Um I do very much appreciate uh again there wasn't a lot of flexibility in this year's calendar so there wasn't a lot of discussion but I do appreciate the input that we received from the calendar committee and building the calendar and um I guess I would open to any questions. I have one question. So teachers have that first day that virtual right day where they have to do training and what is that day? So it's they actually have a month to
045complete the training. Um it it would be the same as last year. So we open up the training window. Um and they would have um I don't remember off the top of my head that the hours they would have to complete that, but worked in there is hours they can come in and set up their classroom as well. So they're not reporting necessarily on that day, but there's there's trainings they have to complete and then there's time to set up their room before students come on that Tuesday. I was going to ask an unpopular question. How how much time? Because I've I've been the teacher that has had to like do the bloodborne pathogen training and then our admin wants us to learn a new program and then I've got kids coming like the next
046day. So the mandated training is about four hours. Yep. within not not the virtual training that you're talking about like no mandated man mandated virtual training that's all the same okay that's the four hours they would have to do and then the rest hour and a half I think is for setup it's not a lot of time set well I mean again the buildings are I mean folks can come in the buildings anytime that standpoint too got it are there any days that don't mirror Boseies where our kids would the Only day is the day before Thanksgiving. Thanks, Marian. Sorry. I like it the other way around. Boseies is off the day before Thanksgiving. But yeah. Well, well, Boseies does have um our contract is the Friday before Memorial Day. So, we would have Boseies
047would be closed on that day. Okay. But it's the same situation. We have to have two snow days. I think we have to have two emergency closures. But yeah, so that's the first day Boseies takes back if they need is that Friday before Memorial Day. So that that's the only other day. If we had no closures at all, would would there be would would we be have the day before Memorial Day or the private? Not next year, but they would the we've worked out with uh the teachers to take away that June 29th day. So that's the day that Right. Any other questions? Okay, I'm done. Um, we had our first session with the smartphone task force update and Dr. Wilson um is leading that effort. So, um, just want to turn over there. Good
048evening everyone. Um, so we had a good first meeting. Um, we had, um, a good review of what's out there that we believe could be coming from the governor. She's put a lot of information out about her plan um to she's proposed a law around bellto bell um no use of this of phones in schools um but that does extend to other electronic devices. So we're looking at smartwatches um headphones and so on. And so we wanted to get a sense of what's out there right now, what are people doing across the county. So we had surveys that we had from school districts from across the county to see what everybody's doing. Um, and then we wanted to look at what do we have currently in place across all of our schools, the elementary schools,
049middle, and the high school. So, the committee had a good foundational look at what's out there, what's currently in place in our schools. And the committee was excited to get into the conversation to bring consistency to Sweet Home around a district plan that would support electronic devices in our schools. So, from the smartwatch for smartphones and headphones. So, we are poised to get into the meat of it. We had all of our foundational conversations. We are waiting to see what happens with the um governor's proposal. Um we are ready to um well, we're beginning that work of jumping in and making sure that we are ready uh with a district-wide policy that will help us with our work here in Sweet Home going forward. We look at this as an opportunity to add to our
050um district code of conduct. Um and we have a number of opportunities to reach out to students. Um we've already started that. Um uh Dr. Janestri has a number of sessions where we meet with student leaders across all of the school sites and um the last one was what just last week? Yeah. Um with the high school. Um and so we take an opportunity each time to ask students about their thoughts around um cell phone use in our schools. They have a very mature um response to that. they they do believe that they are a problem and that kids are distracted and that there should be something that across the board helps everybody focus in on it. And so we want to um have this foundational plan and then take it to um town halls
051to get more feedback. Nothing will be finalized until we hear back from the students and parents um across the entire district. But we do have a good cross-section of different people from across the district that are representing this work. Um, and they volunteered their time to um, sit in on these meetings and dig into developing that plan. So, it was a I thought it was a good start. Question. Yeah. Is there any proposed um, funding from the governor's office? Yeah, we dug into that too in our meeting. Um, isn't great. What is it? One point. Well, for us it's 12 million, I think. 12 million total. Yeah, it's 12 million total state. It's about $13,000 for spring. Okay. So, we didn't we hadn't seen the breakdown. We just divided the number of districts in New
052York State. We're guessing and we were and we came up with like a a number. Um, but of course, we knew it would be poor pupil. Um, so we hadn't seen that number, but we're thinking it's a very small amount, especially given the fact that she's saying, well, you can hire staff to monitor this. And I thought, hm, sure. But um we we'll we'll take it. Yeah. And we'll use it to support the the plan that we have that we will develop. Thanks, Dr. Wilson. Um okay. as u oh I would only say I hope the plan includes some celebration and rewards to the students for getting you know it's it's a little bit of a of a um accomplishment I would say if they can can kind of get used to that and they
053should be you know these these are tough things for adults to get rid of let alone kids I I must say that the response from even our we we've asked at our elementary schools the middle school and the high school. And the response is very mature. Our elementary students say, "Oh, yeah, I have one, but I just leave it at home cuz it's not it's not supposed to come to school. You know, that was what was said in in in the one particular session." Um, so they do understand that they need to take a step away from it and focus in on school, but they that was echoed across all of the It was except for probably the eighth graders who don't have them at the middle school right now and thought they were going
054to get them at the high school and that could change. So, but but I was really impressed with the high school group that we met with last week um and how mature they were about it and understanding that it's an issue, understanding that a change might be coming. Um they were very curious about what how how this would be implemented. Um and we told them, you know, we're working on the task force now. Uh and we'll do a series of town halls with them to make sure we get um their input, too. Yeah. Okay. Um, as promised, we wanted to provide uh you with a uh transportation update based on a lot of the feedback that we've gotten since we've announced our new start and stop times um and the uh policies surrounding them. Uh
055and so just want to go back a little bit to where we were. We began uh discussing this publicly last year once we ratified the contract with our teachers association uh because that contract called for an additional 15 minutes of instruction for our students uh in starting in the 2526 school year. So um we knew start and stop times were going to change anyway because of the 15 minutes uh of instruction. Uh we've done tours with our PTO PTAs um this fall to discuss it. We wrote about potential changes um in the Amorisb and the Swedom source. Uh we sent some emails out of course. Uh and then back then at by the February we received about 68 email responses. Um some of them positive, a lot with concerns regarding what the uh policies were.
056So, um, again, going back to when we announced, uh, back in early winter, uh, the transportation situation, we knew we were adding 15 more minutes of instruction. The driver shortage continues at crisis levels. Uh, we are about a half of the amount of drivers we were prior to the COVID crisis. Um, so I think we're at 62, Mr. Feldman. About uh, yeah, low 60s, give and take a few, it seems like, every single day. So it um uh um we were over 110 uh back before COVID. Um and that has um really put us in a strain. Um as we know, we've been talking about that strain for the past three and a half years or so. So back then the proposal was to um have high school and middle school have a similar bell
057schedule. Grades 6 through 12 would ride the bus together to and from school on the same run in order to uh create efficiencies. um in in order to fit the 15 minutes in. Um and we didn't want to push the middle school end time back any further. Um if we just added the 15 minutes of instruction, the middle school would end probably 15 to half an hour uh later than it already does. And we think with a 355 4:00 end time now, uh it is the latest end time of a middle school in Western New York. We also recommended at that time um that we institute a 0.25 walking radius around our elementary buildings because um the driver crisis uh really um is not going away um no matter what our recruitment efforts are like
058and we continue to um build on those. Um we're we're continuing to work with um the service union uh in order to address it. And so um but in the meantime, you know, we're not the only district that this is happening to. uh there's a driver shortage across the country really. So, um we have to uh prepare that as our enrollment continues to go up um and our drivers continue to go down, something has to give. So, just as a reminder, here's the 2526 proposals um that uh that we have on the books for our start and end times. Um the high school would start at 7:19 for instruction. the middle school at 740 for instruction and the elementary level at 855 for instruction. Uh this as you know will combine. Right now we have
059staggered runs at the elementary level. So we have an elementary one and an elementary 2. This was to to split the driver force. Um but we believe with this plan now we can bring that together and that has huge benefits um for all of our um from professional development benefits uh to to uh benefits at the music level as well because now our kids can practice together at the elementary level after school. Um, so you know, just a couple notes. Uh, we're proposing a 42-minute periods at the middle school and high school. Um, enhanced ELA math and social emotional instruction at the elementary schools. Um, contact time goes from 6:29 to 6:44 at the high school and the middle school level. Um, and then at the elementary level, it would go to 6:30. And then
060the teacher length of day, which is it currently at 7:15 right now, would stay that way. So, back at the February meeting, um, we analyzed what the concerns were. Uh, the walking radius, the work schedules, early times, and 6 through 12 on the bus were the major categories. Um, like I said, I received some in favor, some against the proposal, and some just had questions regarding it. Since the March meetings, uh we've had 40 community members reach out um either through email speaking at the board or email and speaking at the board uh and um recorded their responses and their concerns. Um and most of the concerns um since we announced the walking radius is the walking radius. Um, and we recorded what our, uh, community members have told us about the walking radius, lack
061of crossing guards, um, uh, unsavory characters, I'll say, uh, and in our communities, unsafe drivers, the weather, kids walking alone, sidewalks in the winter being cleared, and just general safety uh, were some of the concerns that uh, were raised um, by those concerned about the walking radius. Other concerns that were expressed since um since our uh free our meeting in uh March, work hours, um cost of child care, long lines at the drop off and pickup, 6 through 12 riding together continues to be a concern. and then uh the earlier start times. Um families expressing concern at the elementary level about getting their child to school uh with the change especially at uh Glendale and Heritage where um the time is going to be 25 minutes later than it is right now for instruction. Uh
062but at Maple Mir and Willeridge instruction is going to start 5 minutes earlier. So um that shouldn't be an issue because parents are used to that uh right now. So, um, we took what parents have told us and we wanted to address some of the specific concerns. First of all, the walking radius, uh, and talk about what the work that we've done since uh, the past month uh, regarding those concerns. So, the walking radius, of course, safety will always be our number one priority. Um, we've had constant discussions at district office. We've met with the Amoris Police Department, our contracted services, the street home transportation uh department, and our administrators. Um I want to say, you know, that that you know, in talking to and having meetings with with people, especially Amherst, um we we
063believe our neighborhoods are safe, our communities are safe around our elementary schools. However, there's always going to be a concern and you know and and monitoring it 100% of the time uh is is you know is very tough. Um and we've discussed ideas uh basically and you know one of the things that we looked at and talked to was our contracted transportation. So, uh, what we are recommending next year, we came to you earlier and said we would like to rebid because we're, um, we contract out 41 daily runs. Uh, as Mr. Feldman mentioned before when he was given his budget presentation um, and we're utilizing right now about 2930 of those runs. It changes, it can change on a daily basis. We were talking about rebidding them next year. Um, so we are not
064um because the budget is tight, we are not um overpaying for runs that we're not using. Um, however, in in uh I'll let Mr. Felman elaborate his negotiations and our negotiations with our transportation services. Um, we believe that we can we'll keep the 41 runs uh here and pull back some of our drivers and use our contracted runs um for out of district runs in McKini Bento. Did I say that correctly? Yeah, you did. Um, so when we bid uh the the the the large contracted transportation bid in the 21-22 school year, as I me made mention earlier, there were 41 runs to the 41 schools that we were bidding at the time. the the winner of the bid bid gave us two prices kind of an alle cart price for each of the schools
065and then a a price a significantly discounted price if he that um vendor was awarded the bid in its entirety. So what happens now is we are paying a significantly discounted rate uh based upon 41 daily runs. However, we're not using all 41. So, we met with the contractor and I said either I'm going to go back out to rebid or we're going to have to look to do something a little differently uh from that standpoint. So, uh he said that, you know, we and Dr. Jester got up there that we had 30 runs. He said, "Give me 11 more runs um and we'll just slot them into the spots that you're not currently using. we'll maintain our price uh and you won't have to go back out to rebid. Um so we felt as
066though from that standpoint that would allow us to to do more again with our drivers uh because if you remember back in um well I guess it was probably either February or March when we talked about the the the walking radius that we felt as though it was probably that we could pull back four maybe five buses. So by doing this, while they're 41 runs, they're not 41 buses. It might be a number of runs on one bus. But by doing this, we feel as though that we can pick up the drivers that would allow us to put those five, four or five buses back into the rotation that we would otherwise take out uh with the walking radius. So Oh, sorry. Just Dr. Jess, one more question. I think I see some confusion for
067people about us busing beyond just our six schools that people don't necessarily understand where we're required to bus people. Can you elaborate on that a little bit? Sure. We required to uh and you're going to catch me off guard. What's the Sorry the Mckenny vent. Well, the the private schools I know I can't off the top of my head. The radius for private 15 miles. It's 15 miles as the crow f flies. So anybody within from their home to whatever school that they want to do as long as it's 15 miles, we are required to transport anything from a McKin Vento. If a if a student is granted Mckin Vento status uh and they are placed in our district, if they attend school in uh I don't know Frontier or Hamburg, that radius is 50
068miles. So we have to transport those kids up to 50 miles. Can you just explain Mckin Vento? Mckin Vento are kids that have been classified as homeless. Uh so they they have either experienced uh a move uh um some catastroph catastrophic event where there may have been a fire or they've gotten displaced or or things along those lines. So if they federal law that is federal law if they are placed in our district they're generally placed by the county. Once they are placed in our district in temporary housing, they become Sweet Home becomes the home district for them and wherever they go, we have to transport them and we have roughly 52 McKenna Vento students that we have to transport. Thanks, John. Yes, thank you for asking that question because I think that's there's there
069is definite confusion about what we're required to do and some of those are out of district runs because of the mileage radius. Um so thanks Mr. Feldman. I so our recommendation to the board tonight would be to eliminate the 0.25 walking radius from the new transportation plans. Um this will also help ease concerns about some of the longer drop off and pickup lines. I know you know um they are there now and um um we didn't want to add to them as well. So um we are going to recommend that we eliminate that 0.25 walking radius uh from the plan. All right, the next concern um child uh care in the morning and work schedules. So, uh, we've had a, uh, we understand any kind of change in the starting time and start and end
070times is a disruption. Uh, no question. So, um, we want to re reiterate to our Maple Mirror and Willowidge families that it's actually starting five, uh, school will be starting five minutes earlier next year. Glendale Heritage is a concern because it is a 25 minute later start time than the current time. Uh we had an awesome excellent meeting with just for kids uh last week and they are fully aware of the change because many of our families have already called them um for uh updates regarding uh the our school plans for next year. So we're working in conjunction with just for kids and uh we will be issuing a survey out to our elementary community to determine a demand for services. uh JFK it will is willing to open additional centers if the demand from
071Sweet Home is there. Otherwise, the district will provide transportation from center uh from from a JFK center which could be at any one of our four um elementary buildings to their community elementary school. Um drop off for JFK is at 7 a.m. And there are income based pricing structures for our families that include free options. So, a family of four making less than $108,000 can work with the Department of Social Services for free um morning daycare at one of our uh JFK centers at one of our elementary schools. Uh we've been told by JFK that that threshold will rise when the new rates are set this this uh summer. Um so stay tuned for that. But we are getting paperwork in from JFK now. We're getting um um more options and we will be getting
072that survey out to our families soon so we can start determining what the demand is for um daycare and how we can work with our families to uh ensure that the disruption is minimal with this start time uh at our elementary buildings. Dr. Destri, if I could just add, um, JFK, uh, they have sent kind of from that department of social services with the income thresholds, they have sent kind of a step-by-step application process to us. Uh, it is also on their website. Uh, we'll put it on our website, but we'll also include it with the survey that goes home. Uh from that standpoint, uh I will just say that I had another conversation uh with the leadership at JFK today. Uh they have been a phenomenal partner of the district. Uh they have been
073willing to work with us every step along the way. Uh what they told me today was that in addition to um the help from the department of social services, if there are extenduating circumstances in your family situation to reach out to them directly, JFK in the application process, they do have some scholarship money that is available to help offset some costs uh from those standpoints. But um the message that I got from JFK that we've got from JFK all along is don't let the cost you know don't don't be don't let the cost be a deterrent. JFK will work with you and to work with your situation to help you as best that they can either through support from the DSS or from their scholarships. And I think they value our partnership too. But I
074was just really impressed with with their leadership there. and um their willingness to work with us and our families. So um great partnership. So one question I have about that cuz I've heard that they're really great um as far as doing this kind of stuff and I've heard lots of positive reviews. One thing that they do not do though is service special needs kids. So if we have families that are in need of before or after school care for special needs kids, JFK will not do it. Yep. What are we doing about that? So we we have to work with special programs in order to address that. Again, I think we need to determine the need and where it's at. Um because right now, especially Heritage and um Glendale um so we'll work to determine
075what the need is for before school care and we'll um do it through this survey and figure that out. Right. So we encourage those families to do the survey. Everybody do the survey. Otherwise, we will not know. We will not know. And then we cannot provide that service that they may need. Excellent. So fill out the survey. Got it. 6 through 12 ridership. Um we know uh in doing uh our our transportation department uh does the schedule every day and counts the number of riders each and every day. So at the uh just you know for for information purposes the morning ride at the high school averages 17 riders per bus. Now there are more some buses with more some buses with less but the average is 17. Um the average is 19 at the
076middle school in the morning. Uh 16 in the afternoon at the high school and 21. So one of the concerns that we heard was spacing issues. Uh we've and working with transportation. We will have space on our buses uh for 6 through 12. By keeping all contracted runs 41 next year, we have a chance to put more buses on the road if we need to to address any spacing issue. Um, we are reaffirming our commitment that each bus will have a bus aid to monitor student behavior. Uh, we will put we've put out a call for additional aid. We've received 41 applications for bus aids. Um, as well um we will continue with training um on how to spot issues and behavioral management techniques to mitigate issues. And our bus aids will receive additional training
077on reporting structures. Although there is a great reporting structure in line with our administration right now, our aids have a direct line to the principles and and building administrators um in order to report issues. So, we really value our bus aids. We we know they do great work every day um on our buses and we will make a commitment to put bus aids on each bus um for our elementary and high school riders. Janice, also cameras. Every bus, every bus has cameras and each camera has audio and visual. So, um, so we can we we look at bus footage every single day. I would just say that that number that bus aid number of the applicants is very encouraging. Uh, number one, because many of our new bus drivers start as bus aids. Uh, so
078they start from that standpoint. Uh so um you know once they kind of learn the bus aid route many of them hopefully knock on wood uh will continue on to get training uh and and do the required number of hours to to become bus drivers. It's like a feeder team right that's the hope Mr. Rabinol, that's the hope. Um, you know, again, uh, you know, we arm team, I guess. Yeah, it is. It, you know, many many many aids come in expressing an interest to become a bus driver. There's obviously some training that they need to do, number of hours, they need to get licenses and things along those lines. So, they'll start as aids. Um, some continue on as drivers, some don't. That's my hope for the resolution of this issue. I I think
079in the end it is bus drivers we need. So I that's but I did have a couple concerns I've heard. The again safety is our number one issue. I understand that. Also the length of time for the middle school kids on the bus I've heard have have you addressed that and all. So it goes from a relatively short ride to a longer ride because you're picking up a greater bunch of kids. They'll be picked up at the common stops. So the only extra time would be them getting on and off the bus, just additional students. So the middle school and the high school will have the same they'll have the same stops, but they they meet at common stops now. Um anyway, so that shouldn't increase. The the one increase that might take place is
080that the morning run will go to the high school first and then drop off and then go to um the uh middle school. That'll be a 10 to 15 minute increase. But as far as the length of the runs, we don't see that increasing because we have common stops now for middle school and high school. Very good. Mr. Ripple, if I could give you an example, I live at a T intersection and and there's a bus stop for the kid for the kids in in front of my house basically and there's four kids from the high school in the morning. Then an hour and a half later roughly there's another four kids from the middle school. So those kids would all be jumping on at the same time now in the morning. I think they'd
081actually be filling up the buses faster. So the run minus the part between the schools would actually should get a little bit shorter. Okay. How long does the run itself take? That I have no idea. It It depends. I It could run It's usually anywhere from 20 to 35 minutes depending. Now, again, the goal is to try and kind of get that number fairly consistent across the board, you know, based upon uh ridership and things along those lines. Like the the the transportation department now is busy kind of planning and routing from that standpoint. So, uh, you know, students may not be on the same bus as they were this year that their bus number may change based upon the overall ridership of that. Uh, and you know, really to max out the the the
082number of seats on the bus. So, if we estimate conservatively like 30 minutes for a run, we are adding 10 minutes to that just that's the only increase, right, is is the time that it takes to drop off kids at the high school and then head to the middle school. Yeah. And I honestly I I don't even know if it would take that long because they they really they come in, they drop, and they go. So it might be five minutes. Um but we built it a little extra hopefully. And I had other Go ahead, please. Um the we know what the start stop times are, right? But we don't know yet the pickup times when they're at the need to be at the bus stop. And how soon do we know that so that
083parents and uh people can start finding can something from what I hear it's 10 days prior to school start generally. So we get hundreds of kids over the summer either withdrawing or registering here and it's a very fluid um piece. So we send out postcards over the summer but by the time people receive those those postcards are outdated because we've had people move in or register. It's very difficult to give a time. I would say it's relative to where you are now. So if your bus comes 20 minutes before the the start of instruction, I would plan on that um being relatively the same. Again, I think that information needs to get out. I I I would agree. I think we could get provide an estimate to kind of start. Yes. Uh but to to
084Dr. to Destri's point and we had 300 kids register over the summertime and that of last summer and that does impact our our our our routing, but we could provide a albeit a rough one, but we could provide an estimate as to times that folks could expect busing. Stopfinder actually made things happen a couple of days quicker than usual last year. I know my son didn't drive, but like it I kept the app on my phone and it popped through. Correct. and then the postcard came like days later. So that's and and what I would encourage the stopfinder is real time so that if there are changes uh based upon you know last minute enrollments and things along those lines in terms of either stops or um pickup time the app is updated um you
085know so I would encourage folks to get the stopfinder app uh and we will send out again communication. We've done it every summer but we'll send it out again uh for folks to do that. We might change up the postcard just to put it more on an estimate than a actual time because like I said it gets outdated really really quickly. Probably the day you get it it's already outdated. And then with my question with the change the in the afternoon the high school kids will already be on the bus at the middle school. So the middle school bus runs would pretty much be the same. Correct. Frame. Correct. Correct. There is no added time to the afternoon for the middle school. Just the morning is kind of take turn. It's it's alternate. It's longer
086in the morning for middle school and longer in the afternoon. Exactly, Mr. Guanti. Exactly. And one more question. I know we heard from a few of our parents with special needs kids. If your IEP is specific, that is not going to change. Following the mandate, mandated by law that we follow the and finally earlier start times. um being a concern um for our community. Uh we knew we had to add 15 more minutes of instruction uh based on our um contracts with our teachers association. So, uh we didn't want to push the middle school end time any further. Uh and we knew we needed to make this change. So, um, by putting the elementary run as the last run of the day and all on one schedule, it'll help eliminate delays that we are currently
087experiencing. Um, at the elementary level, our middle school students will now have more time in the afternoon to participate in extracurriculars. Middle school students could also be home in the afternoon to care for their younger siblings. Um, we hope and and have heard that more middle school teachers could host after school activities, including coaching. Um we're getting closer because of this plan to our goal of reestablishing after school runs to pre-COVID levels. So we are excited about that piece of it. Um by eliminating the staggered elementary schedule, we improve after school music activities for band and chorus now that they're all on the same schedule. And we will continue to work with office of curriculum instruction, PE, health, and our administrators um for programming, additional programming on cell phone usage, media habits, uh and the
088benefits of sleep um and what that can do for our students. So um you know, we understand it's a change. We understand, especially at the middle school, it's earlier than it is now. uh but we believe there are many benefits to it and we of course will help um with our wellness campaigns to make sure that um our programming is uh modernized and up to speed um to help our students. So in conclusion um I want to thank our community for the feedback. Um it has been gathered, we have listened to you. I know I've written um probably hundreds of emails at this point. Um and that has been it's been great. it's been how uh it should work and uh we appreciate that that our community um has expressed their concerns. Um we've appreciated
089the ones that have expressed positive uh feedback as well. Um and always encourage um to write, call, email, or stop in for a meeting. Um the recommendations we made tonight in the plan uh are based on what the community has told us. um they include the elimination of the 0.25 walking radius at the elementary schools. We will survey the community to determine needs for our parents that are working and have child care needs in the morning. Um we will staff each bus with a b aid or monitor and provide behavioral management training and we'll work to provide additional wellness programming for our students in grades uh 6 through 12. So I wanted to see if there was any questions about that. You know, I just want to say one thing because I think we've mentioned
090it probably a few times in some way or another to the community. We read every single email we get, every single letter, every single phone call. I know we've all received phone calls that we absolutely listen to. And some of um some of the feedback has been, well, you're not listening. We are listening. It might not agree with what you're thinking, but we are listening. We hear what you say. We've got 3,800 kids to watch out for, but I just want to assure you each and every one of us take this seriously. I mean, we have a big commitment on this board. So, I just want to tell parents, we are listening. We hear what you're saying. Can I just add to that, too? If anybody sends an email just to an individual board member,
091we do share it so everybody on the board is aware of what what's been said. And also, I guess I'm going to add this too. If you address it to a specific person, then we try and answer you. If you address it to Dr. Janestri and the board, usually it's Dr. Janestri who will respond. If you address it to the board in a whole, the board president is usually the one to respond so that six people aren't responding to you. Questions? Thank you. Um on our May 6 study session, we will unveil the final uh 10 Panthers. These are the student concepts that you see. um 26 shirts uh is working with us right now to develop these into um and refine them um so they can uh be our sweet home logo. Uh we
092will vote on May 20th. The entire community uh our kids um parents, faculty, staff are encouraged to vote and we can't wait to release uh what the final 10 look like to you. Uh but we're getting close to doing that and uh you'll see them on May 6th. I've had a lot of questions this week regarding um a request from thei United States Department of Education for local school districts to sign off that they do not have DEI policies or practices in order to receive um federal funding. Um this is uh basically US Department of Education's interpretation of title nine. Um, and uh, I want to thank the New York State Department of Education for hopping on this really quickly um, and not putting New York school districts in a in a tough spot. Um,
093and they have deemed the attestation uh, that the USDO DOE wants us to sign um, as completed already um, due to past their own interpretation of it. So, uh, NICED believes that, um, school districts are in compliance with Title 9 and they are not forcing us to, uh, sign any attestation. Um, in an April 4th letter to the United States Department of Education, uh, the New York State Department of Education states that no action needs to be taken by state or local school districts to uh, in terms of this attestation. So, um, lots of changes happening at the federal level. We will keep you posted. I thank our community for writing um their concerns to us. Um and obviously this is something that we're going to um stay on and continue to follow. And Dr.
094Janestri, I know you've mentioned this before, but just for the benefit of the audience, our funding for next year, regardless of what happens, is we're not in jeopardy of losing that. We are not um as of today. So, we are very confident that that's um but it's a very fluid situation and but as of today, we are confident that our federal funding, which is in totality about $5 million, $6 million um will be uh here at the district. The uh the risk here, and I guess the state's taking that risk, if we don't sign off on that, there's a risk of losing the funding. Is that correct? There there's always a risk, I would say. Yes. So if and that's what they're they're saying that they don't think there's a risk of losing it. What
095what I took from that letter from the department of educa the New York State Department of Education is there's a legal battle brewing over this um definition of DEI thinks. Yes. Practices. Okay. I just wanted to clarify that. Thank you. Yeah. No, thanks. Thank you for the question. Uh and then Mr. Feldman mentioned this earlier in his calendar update, but um and I I I sent out a note to families this week um for planning purposes um that we have a new provision and working with our teachers uh that allows for us to extend the Memorial Day holiday this year if three or more emergency days remain as of April 30th. Um we're not at April 30th yet and um well, you wouldn't know it today, but hopefully winter has passed us and we are
096not going to use any more emergency days. Um, so we do have three emergency days that remain in our calendar. Um, unless we use one of those between now and April 30th, the district will be closed on Friday, May 23rd, um, in observance of Memorial Day as well as Monday, May 26th. So, it will be a 4-day uh, weekend that weekend. And we'll announce that on May 1st when it becomes official. Did we need to um I know some of the days did not count against us because it was um deemed um emergency. Did we have to apply for that or do we not need to at this point? So, we do not need to because we have emergency days remaining. So, what that provision allows for is if uh a district exhausts all of
097their surplus of emergency days and has to um eat into the 180 days, the state because of a state of emergency that they declared for a weather event will allow us to apply to get those days back. Okay. Other questions? Yeah. Um, in our last meeting when we were talking about positions and the people that were retiring and what we're going to do with those positions, we had mentioned at that point, you guys have put in your presentation that the um, psychologist position from the high school was going to be absorbed and not filled. Um, in the couple of weeks since that time frame, I'm sure everybody on the board, including just before we got here tonight, received some emails, phone calls, whatever else you might have received. But I've been thinking about it a
098lot since that time frame and I've got some concerns about it. Now I tossed that over to you before the meeting tonight says you guys are ready and and I I'd like you to try and explain what the plan is. What I mean I don't Yep. I don't because we didn't talk about it last time. It didn't it didn't jump on me then. It has now. And I'm just concerned that we're prop still going to be properly servicing a population that's been growing. Yep. For the last several years. Yes. And so um Dr. Wilson has been working with Mrs. barer and special programs um on this since we've announced it last time and I know they're working on a plan that um she'll give a preview to but we're uh we have a May 2nd
099um cabinet meeting that we're going to introduce it um Dr. Wilson and Mrs. Bareri we're going to talk to our administrators about it um and get their feedback but I will let I will turn it over to her. Yes, we have an extensive plan that will cover all of our needs across the entire district so that there will be no loss of service. Um very thankful to director of special programs um Katie Barileri who worked really closely with our current psychologists to develop this plan. And what they did was they they looked at every single role that our psychologists cover across all of our sites and really wanted to make sure that we had a way to identify um how we were going to make sure that happens. And so basically we've broken it down
100across the seven sites if you include ready is a seventh site uh plus our out of district um students that would be uh private schools, charter schools, agencies um and our um our committee on on preschool special ed CPSSE um and making sure that all those numbers are accounted for. So they actually started with the foundational numbers and looked at how we cut across the entire district and making sure we stay true to all those things that we needed to make sure we support across the entire district. So they have been um chipping away at this plan. We rolled it out um um shared with Dr. Janestri um and the rest of the central office team. We've rolled it out now with the um curriculum and instruction team. Um and as Dr. Janestri stated uh
101our next plan is to go on to our cabinet which is all of our district leadership and then continue to fan out across the district so that we are communicating the plan and how we will work to make sure we have no loss of services for our students. It's not nearly enough information for me to understand it. Um so I think okay here's here's the the question that I have um because we got these letters. So, just for everybody that's sitting here, the letters that we referenced at the beginning of the meeting were signed by members of the high school English and ENL departments and then members of Sweet Home High School special education department. And it sort of outlines what the role of a school psychologist is and what some of the things that
102they're responsible for. So, I know I'm also on the committee for that um plan, the the plan for um the counseling services comprehensive plan. I'm getting that wrong. I'm sorry. It's on the website. Um, and so I I looked at the number of times that a school psychologist is actually mentioned throughout that plan for different components of things that they handle with elementary students, middle school students, and high school students. So, they service all students. It's not just a special education population that they service. They're not just servicing kids that are having difficulties. They're kind of like they're there for all of our kids. And so, when I look at the number of times that they're mentioned just in our district comprehensive counseling plan, did I get it right that time? I feel like that
103was right. Um, I got to wonder how we're reducing numbers and I know that there was mention in the budget proposal that these services would be centralized, which as a former ed well, some still an educator, I'm always going to be an educator, is tragic to me because we have a school psychologist in each of the elementary schools except for one who is split between two. We have one at the middle school. We have one at the high school. To take those individuals out of those school communities so that they are unable to become embedded in that school community, get to know the kids, be able to just do a quick check-in in the morning and put them somewhere else. What are we doing? Like that is tragic because it doesn't allow for the type
104of responsiveness that a lot of these kids need from a school psychologist. So, I think like when I see this not knowing what your plan is because I haven't seen your plan and I know that there's going to be a plan. Yeah, but that's my worry here. How how are we expecting people to do so much more with with one less person, which you know, I read this study before and I think I had seen this um elsewhere, but we actually don't have the recommended number of school psychologists per students in the district that are being serviced. We're under. And so to eliminate another position now, we're further under. So, I'm hoping it's a banging plan that's going to really solve everything to eliminate this really dire need to piggy back on. Well, now I'm
105embarrassed. My face is turning red. Something you were saying, um, this person's role is different than other people's role in here. I mean, they specifically, they're pretty specific for our kids. They hit all our kids. A lot of our kids are coming from trauma situations that it seems like they're the only not the only one but their top leader in helping these kids get through it and they can be called upon at any moment. Is that when a situation happening? So if you look at that plan that that that the the comprehensive counseling plan it outlines there's an amazing grid on there for each of like elementary schools, middle schools, high schools for like who is involved in as a response. seems always that person seems to always be mentioned. Even if it's not in
106writing, I feel like they probably do cover a lot of the other stuff depending on what the need is because again, we're under our number of people. So, as Danny said, I haven't seen that plan either, but it seems like it really has that's a big shoe to fill for our kids and we've made progress with with our kids at all the elementary buildings and I would just hate to see that taken away and and jeopardize those kids. It's a support team when you look at what we need across our schools. So, we have our school psychologists, we have our social workers, we have our counselors, we have everyone that can wrap around and support our students. And so, that the comprehensive plan that has been developed incorporates all of those folks coming in. A
107number of the things like for example tied to 504 plan have already been shifted um in the past year or so to social workers because we have beefed that up. So in sweet home we actually there the mandate for school counselor and social worker at the elementary we are above and beyond. So we have um the extra support around a whole team that would support our students in the same areas. So it's a pretty extensive plan. It does take every single role um because they really they they they went through and listed out every single role at every level that the psyches are involved in and how will we manage making sure we still have it. So correct. Oh, I'm sorry. And I think what we'll do, obviously, we hear the concern and we will
108um take that and put that feedback that we're getting um into into the plan um and review it. Um so, here's the worry though is that we have to vote on this budget next meeting. Just going to say as a board of education, we're crafting a budget and we're being asked to vote on a budget in two weeks that eliminates. Yeah. That eliminates a position. We don't know what that that work is going to do. And that's a very important position. And I mean, wait, Sweet Home has been and we talked about it. We talk about it all the time. Sweet Home is known for our special education services. People come here for the special education services. I don't know the exact number, but I believe it's like the last 8 to 10 years, our
109special education population has doubled. And yeah, and I'm sorry, 13% number that I I just to take away some services. And I know and I've talked to the parents as they're leaving the school too. It's not just what they're doing here. When they finish school, when they leave Lisa's classroom, they have to they have to get a plan to how they're going to work with services outside that. And those those the psychologists are working on that. And we need to have those people because they need to understand the kids. And taking one more body out of it to me makes it that much tougher to know the kids, to know the families, to be able to do what we need to do to properly put those kids out into the world when they're done. And
110that's just one piece because it's also 13 grades worth of kids and we have to do the same thing for right I know there's a lot of stuff we get the cse stuff for every meeting we have this month it's 300 pages as the person that reads that that person just sounds too integral and too important in those meetings I mean it just I don't know how that well this becomes this is a budget issue correct like the the solution I guess as a board we have the authority if I under I mean I'm just throwing this I mean we can fund this position right we can say we want this position to be maintained. Yes. And as a as the um in you know make essentially direct the administration to you know work through
111a budget that would maintain that position. And obviously there would be cuts somewhere else potentially another I mean these are the the challenges but there certainly is enough I mean I know also you know with with you know that how how the relationship that these uh counselors and psychologist that what they build and that that's what is so integral to helping these kids um and and that relationship you don't know when it's going to it could be the morning could be the afternoon when incidents and situations come up and we constantly are telling kids and and we know kids grow by having that trusted adult just making a connection with a trusted adult and it sounds like this person is one of those trusted adults that I just hate to see taken away from our
112kids. Right. Well, let us work on it and we will I'll move quickly on it. I don't have an answer right now, but we'll move quickly on it. And then will you let us know be before we're we'll work on it tomorrow. Thank you. Thank you for listening to our concerns. Anything else, Dr. N? Okay, that's enough. All right, so moving on. Um upcoming events. Um Friday is the last day before um spring recess. We are off from the 12th through Monday the 21st with a return date of Tuesday the tw April 22nd. Um we have some uh PTA and uh meetings and high high spring concert at Heritage Heights. Um and then multicultural night at Heritage Heights on the 24th, an art show at Maple, and then to wrap up April with the DEI
113committee meeting in uh on April 28th. Um okay. Um any questions on any upcoming events, comments? Okay. So, moving on to open session number one. Um remember per board policy 1510, this open session is for topics uh related to tonight's agenda and is do we have anyone interested in speaking? Um do I need to read the guidelines for you? Okay. Thank you very much. Um, first and foremost, Melissa Hockenberry. I have uh preschool twins here in Willeridge. Also an alumni of Sweet Home preschool all the way through 12th grade. A lot of these teachers and administrators I grew up with. So, I made a difficult decision to actually move my kids into this district because I know what kind of education they can receive and what I know from my experience, I've seen you guys
114um be quite committed to. I was very distressed about the walking radius as I know a lot of the other mothers were. Thank you for hearing our concerns. Thank you for responding to them in a way that gives us hope that you really do have their safety in mind. Um, and it it's going to build a lot of community trust. I I can assure you with the parents especially. So from the bottom of my heart, thank you. You just immensely impacted my life and uh helped me made made sure I can ensure employment. Um, that was a big concern. So thank you. Um, secondly, just wanted to uh express some of my concerns for all the stuff going on in the federal government with the budget cuts and threats of funding um being held and
115especially around DEI. Um, I don't have a concern that the district is going to make the wrong decision. Um, I know that we value diversity. If we don't have diversity, we're going to be in an echo chamber. And we don't need that in this country right now. We need people who are going to be bold, progressive, stand up for our kids, and not give a crap about politics. Period. Politics should have nothing to do with education. And if we want this country to be better, we need to invest in our children. We need to make sure that we are teaching them to be emotionally intelligent, that we're teaching them critical thinking, that we're teaching them to use their voices. I took my preschool twins to the uh hands-off protest this weekend so they could see
116what democracy looked like firsthand. They had an amazing time. I sent pictures to both of their preschool teachers. Civic duty has fallen off the radar in schools and I think in our homes. People have gotten very complacent in thinking that this democracy will stand no matter what. It will not. If the challenging of the Department of Education isn't enough to prove that to people, I don't know what is. I could not think of a more insane idea than to take away education from the future of a nation and expect that we're going to end up in the right direction. However, right direction is probably pretty um subjective at these po at this point. Um so I hope and I'm very confident that you guys will stand tall and make sure that DEI is not not
117only not stripped away but it's actually risen up and it in it increases. So once again, thank you guys. Thank you. Anybody else like to speak? Hey, seeing none. Okay, we got one more. Good evening. My name is Christine Lenhard and I live on Sherwin Drive. I have two children, a 2019 graduate and one who is current classified senior. I have a vocation in both mental health and substance abuse counseling and I have been a counselor for a school counselor for 25 years. I'm here tonight to discuss my concerns over the attrition of the school psychologist position. I have grave concerns over the reduction of special education staff at a time when there is an increase in need. General education cannot stretch itself to legitimately meet the needs of the students that present themselves to
118teachers each day. The increase in students with IEPs can be attributed to better recognition and diagnosis of common conditions such as ADHD and autism spectrum disorders. As board of education members, I'm sure you're aware of the mental health needs and the families in our district. A cut to the student support team is exactly the opposite solution to addressing the growing needs of our school community. The National Association of School Psychologists and the New York State Association of School Psychologist recommends school psychologist to student ratio at approximately 555 to1. If this cut goes through, our psychologists will have 1,17 students to one. Our students deserve better. Many of us, including myself, moved into this district for the quality of special education you offer. Chipping away at special education staff is truly chipping away at the quality
119of the programs you offer. Many people often confuse roles as school counselor, school social worker, and the school psychologist. Although there are overlaps in our responsibilities, we play very distinct roles in student success. A school psychologist role is different from other roles in that they are primarily responsible for screening, behavioral assessments, interventions, evaluations, consultations, case management, and due process. They are required members of special education committee meetings. The assessments and plans are critical to students success within the classroom. Educators don't throw out random interventions and hope something sticks. School psychologists provide accurate precise testing results so that accurate precise interventions can be applied. If you look at their role in this perspective, the role is actually fiscally responsible because it's efficient. They play a huge part in delivering effective services to our most vulnerable students,
120cutting on cutting down on wasted time and resources. Ultimately, this will increase the success of students as they transition to adulthood. School psychologists play a strong role in helping students link with AccessVR and OPWD. Currently in this process, I am currently in this process with my daughter. Elizabeth has been a huge support for us, attending meetings, supporting us, and giving us information and guidance. It is easy to make cuts to the district jobs that work behind the scenes. School psychologists don't often affect school psychologists don't affect classroom sizes. The best and brightest of students, the easy ones may never meet a school psychologist. We're talking about fulfilling our job ethics and responsibilities as public educators to meet the needs of all students despite learning differences. I implore you to look elsewhere to manage your budget
121and maintain the quality of program of special education my daughter and all others deserve. Thank you. Anybody else like to speak? Jonathan Hello, my name is uh Jonathan Migley. I'm a committee member in the district uh five Durham Drive. Uh and uh I would like to speak on a few uh issues that have been talked about at the meeting. Uh and first off I will saved that uh in here we have the important work of uh trying to do the best we can to try to ensure that all students can have access to a good quality education to try to meet that need as well as we can. uh and with that one important aspect of that is uh diversity, equity, inclusion. Uh I myself am a member of the DEI committee and uh the
122DEI committee and other aspects of the school that do this DII work have uh play an important role and uh working to uh promote a sense of belonging for students to uh promote a sense of community to work to uh better ensure that the needs of students are being met that there's a fairness in how students are being treated and of working to expand the opportunities that are available for students so that uh each student has a better opportunity to grow and to learn. Uh additionally another important aspect of this uh work comes to for inclusion comes with the matter of special education. And uh for uh with that uh special education uh work is an important aspect for ensuring that uh all students have their needs uh met. uh as a member of the
123autistic community myself uh having a good quality support within uh education is a for my experience a very important thing to ensure that uh students can better meet their potential to learn to be able to have a better quality of life throughout their lives. uh that's I would say that's important to do the best we can to ensure that uh we are pro providing as much support for students as we are able to to continue to work to make uh progress on that uh front and uh additionally I would like to speak a little bit in regards to the busing matter which as we all know in these months has been a major topic of discussion that many people have voiced their concerns about Thank everybody who's uh participated in that discussion for making their
124voices known and for those that have worked to try to incorporate that input into plans and I hope going forward that we'll continue to make progress be able to try to do the best we can to try to make a plan for busing that can work as best as as we can for people and can try to show that that uh community has a sense of that they've been hurt on this matter and that's what I've had to say. Thank you everybody. Hello everyone. Thank you. Um I I first want to say I completely 100% second what Christine had said um in regards to the school counsel the school psychologist um situation and that's what I'm here to speak about today. My name is Jessica Wagger. I reside at 245 Sunset Court in Amherst. My
125son Blake, you've all seen him here. Um I'm a proud parent of of two boys. One graduated last year. Um and then Blake is a super senior. Um, I built my home here in the district 12 years ago because of the reputation that Sweet Home has for special education and inclusion and the quality of staff and having the best teachers and supportive staff. I stand here today disappointed that we even are having this conversation in today's climate where talking about removing such a pertinent role in the mental, physical and developmental health of our students. School psychologists have many roles and perhaps a lot of people don't know directly. However, their primary role is the stability of our students and they are the heart of our buildings. It has been suggested that such a crucial position
126be absorbed by an already short staff team. Christine mentioned the numbers. In this climate of rapidly increasing students with mental health and behavioral challenges, how can we even think on lessening the staff that support them? Is this a good way to improve the safety for all of our students? How can we divide the heart of our buildings into pieces? Perhaps it's because Mrs. Sigretson has done such a phenomenal job that it has been lost. And I'm sorry I'm emotional because she and her work has affected me so personally and has helped my children. She has done such a phenomenal job that has been lost just how important the role is with our students. how seamlessly she manages to complete her long list of mandatory demands within the special education system and yet still manage to
127genuinely care for and support the students and parents that she works with every day. Not just our special needs population, but all of our children. I can bet the majority of students have crossed paths with Mrs. Sigurson or her amazing counterparts at some point in their time at Sweet Home. Thankfully, someone was there to give them the trained support that they needed. I implore you to reconsider the absorption of this crucial position. We need to add, not to not subtract, and immediately begin the very difficult task of finding her replacement. Thank you for your time and consideration. There anyone else who would like to speak at this time? Okay, seeing none, I will we will move on with our agenda. Um, so new business, remember we will be voting on this new business items A
128through L next week or I'm sorry, on April 22nd. I missed my note that I even created for myself. Make sure I didn't get it wrong. Um, okay. So, let's go through our new business A through L. Um, letter A is the budget adoption for the 2526 school year policy 5130. Are there any questions or discussions on A. Okay. Moving on to B, special education placements, uh, class placements and preschool class placements. I know Maryanne, you said it was over 300 pages. I'm getting through them myself this month. So give me a little time. Well, usually March, April is is the big month because that's where our our CSC meetings are. So give me a little time to get through those 300. Okay. Um special education also preschool class placements included in that. Um C
129monthly financial reports policy 2140. Any questions or discussion on them? Okay. Um uh letter D, sorry. um office supply bids, um athletic uniform bids, and art general classroom art supply bids. Policy 54 uh 10. Is there any questions or discussion on those? Okay. Um E is the district uh vote policy 1611. Um we will be voting on our chief election inspector and our inspectors of election um at on the 22nd. Any questions, comments on those? Yes, go ahead. Believe it or not, someone asked me how they can volunteer for that day long job. Is it something that goes through home office or the we approved our volunteers, right? Like I don't know if it's a This is approving volunteers like No, this list right here for the people. Yeah. So, they've already done it. Well,
130I I I know, but if somebody wanted to volunteer do that job, how would they go about asking about They can call the district's office. Call the district office. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions or comments? Okay, moving on. Uh letter F. Erwan Boseies, our Erie Bosey's budget um and our Erie Bosey's board members. I believe there are three open seats with three interested candidates. Um, Mary Busy and Mark Mecca are incumbents running for another term. And Cam Hall is a new Yeah, he's vice president. Vice President Hamburg, I believe. Um, who would be running for for the open seat? Um, is that um Mr. Loe's retirement? I believe so. Okay. That's what I thought. Who was the retired? Who was Andy Lobe? Oh, Andy Lo. Yeah. Oh, Andy. he ret uh he's been as
131far as I know he's close to for at least 40 years in working and volunteering on school boards both in his home district and at um Erie Wosi. So I think he retired already at the beginning of the year so his seat is currently open. I think so. I'm not I'm pretty sure he already retired. Um last I knew he was still playing senior hockey. So I I don't know. I but the Cam Cam Hall is running as a as his in for his open seat. Um any questions on letter F comments? Okay. Uh moving on to G revi revised policy um policy 1410 our second reading. Um those are on uh title 9 um equal education opportunities and educational services for married or pregnant students. And I believe are those are all deletions or
132basically we're taking us back where we were the last one the 7555 had been something that was put in a few years a year ago maybe at the recommendation of Bosey's policy service and with the changes and going the other direction and and the title n stuff it came back out did I say that right Sher so 7554 right defaulting to the 7554 did I understand that right I sorry I didn't hear You're defaulting to 7554. Are you reverting back to that? Correct. Yeah. Yes. So 46 pages letter later. Okay. The language in there I'm concerned with. So I'll probably just vote no on that. Just so you know. All right. It's recording. Okay. Any other questions or comments? Okay. I'm moving on. Um our school district calendar, the district attendance calendar, the payroll calendar,
133and the holiday calendar. Um, any comments or questions on that? I know we did have a discussion on that earlier today. Um, uh, new business continued letter I, the acceptance of donations. Um, they believe there are four separate $730 donations for benches. Is that correct? Okay, that's correct. Um, so we have one from the is it the RO family? Is that correct? Rush. The Rush family, one from um the Mandel family, the high school PTSA, and dollars for scholars. Where are these benches going? So, the Rash family, uh, it's in memory of, uh, a longtime high school math teacher. He actually taught me math when I was here 112 years ago. Um, he, uh, was also the track and field and cross country coach. Uh, so, so Mr. Schumo, our athletic director, and Mr. Resh's
134son uh walked the cross country course and found a place for the bench on the cross country course. Uh Sue Mendel is a longtime administrator here in the district. Uh lastly, the uh the principal at Heritage Heights Elementary School. Uh she is asked to have a bench put out uh in memory of her daughter out near the Heritage Heights playground. Uh and then the PTSA at the high school and the dollars for scholars committee are placing two benches along the alumni uh walkway, the brick walkway outside of the main entryway of the high school in memory of Lori Kachinetti. Uh Lori was a longtime PTSA mom uh and also uh was on our dollars for scholars committee and Lori passed away about two months ago uh from cancer. So this is how they are honoring
135her. So this program has it been around for a while. It's a nice program. I relate it to other things. Senior center does something with bricks. They sell bricks or people can buy bricks in memory of things. Yeah. The high school PTSA uh does an annual fundraiser for brick sales for um you know alumni or anybody that they really want to um might honor. Um, the brick walkway has been in place for about I think this is three years now. Three years in place. It doesn't just have to be in memory. It can be any reason. It can be Right. Right. It can be any reason. There can be any reason. You can put anything on a brick that you want. Uh, they traditionally do it a couple times a year. Uh, when it comes
136out again, I can certainly forward it to the board uh so that they can see it. But they do use the money um to offset the cost of the brick and then to help fund uh scholarships. So which organization does these bench things? Well, the the if not the bench that the benches are in memory of people that have passed away. The families have of each of these folks have u asked the district to place a bench in memory of a loved one. The high school PTSA and dollars for scholars got together uh to kind of figure out a way to honor the memory of Lori Kachinetti. So, we're placing benches outside. So, it's not a set program. They came They came to the district and said they'd like to do something like this. Okay.
137That's correct. That's what it's want. It's a nice thing. It's very nice. Yeah. Thank you. Um, any other questions or comments on letter I? Okay, moving on. Letter J. Um, SEQR capital outlay project. I believe that is for the new digital sign at the high school and the door the locking mechanism for not the locking there's there's just it uh the capital LA project is again it's dependent upon the budget passing in May it's $100,000 that allows us to do small capital projects without a voter referendum. Uh it will be to replace the digital sign out in front of the high school uh as well as uh several doors in the athletic wing. Okay. Thank you. for the clarification. Um any questions or comments on letter J? Okay, moving on to letter K. Um Bosey's
138Dexter Terrace uh sweet home contract. Um this is I believe for Boseies to use uh Dexter Terrace in its entirety for a summer school pro a six week summer school program. Um any questions or comments on that? Okay. And then finally, letter L is uh dispose of obsolete property. Believe that was a cutter or mower, something. I don't remember what it was. Something like that. It's something from the maintenance department. I remember it was some kind of upright cutter or something. Oh, the mixer. The mixer. The mixer. Okay. That's right. It was from the food service department. That's right. Okay. Um All right. That leads us to Are any questions or comments about that? Okay. That leads us to our second open session. Um would anyone like to address the board um and our second
139open session? Okay, seeing um nobody, we will move on um to our personnel. Again, we will be voting this on this at the 2 sec on the 22nd. Um so we have uh first uh teaching and administrative um ABC uh regular appointments and leave of absences to substitute appointments and intercolastic activity appointments. Um any questions or comments on them? No. Okay. And then um to service um again we have regular discontinuence, retirements, resignations um some appointments um and then some other regular appointments and reinstatement from leave. Any um questions or comments on any other personnel? Okay. Um we do not have any items of information. We are going to do our information segment um on the 22nd. Um which leads us to adjourment. We will um we will not be we with we are adjournment
140we there is no need for an executive session so meeting will be ended. So may I have a motion and a second to adjurnn the meeting? So moved. Second. Second. All right. Thank you. All in favor? I opposed. Abstensions. Okay. Our meeting is over. Thank you very much.