Tuesday, March 18, 2025 Board of Education Voting Meeting

001sorry way to tried to write it down I actually did I watch of this book [Music] wasn't me because I still [Laughter] somebody okay okay you're gonna it definitely wasn't guess5 but yeah okay close you might be right kind think the last few years all the new I don't recognize as many of them anymore although a lot of them definitely are veterans but it's they're right here at 6:30 yeah does any see one person I can definitely identify as PTA that's jie right here in the yeah at the end all right thank you for your patience while we were in executive session we are back now to public session um may I have a motion and a second to approve tonight's agenda so moved second all in favor I minutes of the previous meeting May

002I have a motion and second to approve the minutes from the previous meeting so moved second all in favor I Communications does anyone have any Communications to share I think we all received um letters from the community continuing to voice their opinions about um know things going on in the as far as the busing and the walking and I know Mr janest will address that in a little bit and um I did have a parent reach out that said they really like the musical did a great job one of the letters I got and I think a phone call was uh they they think that we're not paying attention to the bus the middle school bus and the issues that may be May uh happen with young children on a bus with older children so

003I just again just reiterate that we have heard that and and we will address that correct yeah thank you any more comments or questions okay unfinished business we have none Dr janri your turn thank you Mrs baglia um before we begin tonight uh we had uh last week the board uh recognized some of our sweet home Western New York scholar athletes and I think we have um a couple here tonight uh that couldn't make it last week um so I just um Mr schumo uh is not could not be here tonight um but he asked me to recognize these student athletes for all of their hard work and accomplishments um in their respective Sports so he uh asked me to read this statement at the end of each Sports season the New York State Public

004High School Athletic Association honors those teams and individual ual that excel in the classroom those student athletes teams and schools work very hard throughout the year and deserve to be recognized for their academic success the students being recognized today have averaged a 90 or above in their prior six semesters we're incredibly proud of the students academic and athletic accomplishments from the fall 2024 season um and so with us tonight um um number one from our game day cheerleading uh Carly baglia congratulations there you go [Laughter] picture con you and we also have um from our boys cross country team Dominic cochi congratulations do we have any others I don't see any I don't think we have any others in attendance tonight miss thank you okay Dominic and Carly you're more than welcome to stay but

005if not you know know faster than cross country I think so congratulations Dominic and Carly um before we get into uh some of the presentations tonight I did um want to just make a note and I know I sent a message out to our families on Friday um that you know we do compile a list of your concerns um regarding the um transportation in particular the 0.25 walking radius uh we have compiled a list of those concerns we continue um to um receive them uh and I know a lot of our family members expressed their concerns last week um at our board meeting um and so I just I wanted to let the public know again that we have heard your feedback um in particular regarding the 0.25 walking radius um that was that is

006slated to start in the 252 school year um we've compiled the list of your concerns and we are working as a district with in hand inand with our transportation department um and our uh safety safety personnel to draft a plan to attempt to mitigate those concerns um so we are going to go through them one by one we are going to look at them address them go on site if we have to um and make sure that your concerns are being met um and that are listened to and that we are addressing them so um while we do that it may take a little time but we would like to present our plan um to you at the April 8th Board of Education study session um and further report out uh what we are are

007in our findings so um we appreciate that we continue to encourage Community to uh write us and and and write me um and we will make sure that your concerns are compiled um analyzed and are and take it into consideration um on any future plan that we discuss at the April 8th Board of of of Education study session next I would like to uh invite up Mr Feldman to talk about our smart schools investment plan um and the mandated public hearing um regarding the funds uh Dr ol if you could just hit the next slide uh good evening everybody uh just as a reminder we were here in February uh to talk about uh an amendment to our smart schools investment plan um and uh we we we did present that to the board uh

008in February uh we are have posted our um preliminarily our preliminary plan uh on our website for 30-day comment period uh and in a second we'll entertain any questions I just want to give everybody kind of a quick overview uh on our smart schools Bond act the Act was passed in 2014 and 15 um through the New York State budget $2 billion in funds were uh supplied to finance improved educational technology and infrastructure to improve learning and opportunity uh and in April of 2024 the executive budget uh shifted the review uh from a review board uh to an administrative process uh by S uh which is where we'll head next uh pending your your board approval uh our initial um uh smart schools act funding um allocation was just over $1.8 million these are some

009of the things that are El eligible for uh smart schools projects they include uh the installation of high-speed Broadband or wireless internet uh learning technology uh for facilities um uh uh construction and enhancements to pre kinderg pre kindergarten programs and then lastly uh the installation of high-tech security features in school buildings which is what we are proposing as our amendment to our smart schools investment plan next slide please so uh as I did mention our allocation for uh our interior door hardening project we are uh asking uh for approval uh at the state level uh to move uh $551,500 uh and potentially portions of our Middle School uh we did request and received an approval of our DL of deallocation of that money uh from student devices in November 2024 uh and basically the project

010would uh look at interior uh classroom doors they'd be hardened with our card access door locks um so uh if the plan goes forward we would submit this plan to s for their consideration and hopefully approval whereas work would begin over the summertime season so again uh this is just the timeline that we've done for the proposed project uh on February 4th as I did mention we presented the um investment plan to the be to the board on the 12th uh they the board then did um approve our preliminary investment plan uh and then we opened the comment period the public comment period was from February 12th through March 13th uh we put our our plan up on our website for public comment uh and we have not receive comments uh from from that posting

011so as mandated uh what this serves is as a public hearing if the board or any community members has any questions regarding our plan uh be happy to answer them at this point just I had a quick question knowing how St is then you know everything that's happening federal government wise is that a a pretty accurate plan to have that fast approve it I mean are are things seemingly so we've gone through the deallocation that's a good question we've gone through the deallocation process we have a point person um at s that U Mr ellenfield our our Tech coordinator and I have been working with uh and we have made her aware of our plan and she didn't seem to seek issue with it so okay with no other questions we'll close the the public

012comment and public hearing section uh and then we would you'll see on your agenda tonight uh that we would ask that you uh approve the final plan uh we will submit that uh to SD tomorrow morning uh and then we oh sorry DK go ahead yes sir if you don't mind uh just a little clarification it says you've been awarded a million eight and this is 500,000 of that did I not understand that properly no you're correct so that can be used at Future years for specifically the items that are on this list here yes we've used a significant chunk of it for um uh we've used it for iPads and things along those lines um going back uh but yes those you know there is still money that's left over that we can look

013to do other things yes is it is it primarily focused on securing the school or safety for children or is is that well there are four areas that were up there that one is uh improving uh internet and wireless connection um devices to um to modernize the facility management piece of it for kindergarten and then security okay that's all I need thank you sure okay so again uh it'll be on uh your agenda for tonight for hopefully your approval uh if we do receive your approval we will uh submit it to the board uh to state education department tomorrow uh and then wait for their final approval uh and then work we have a vendor identified we'll work to get um the work started at the high school uh and then potentially the Middle School

014uh and if funding uh does not you know uh work out and Jive for the entire Middle School we've got um it in the scope of our next Capital Improvement project um at the middle school and all four of our elementary buildings so we're excited about it thanks for the consideration appreciate it thank you okay so each year as we go through the budget budget process um we work on our staffing plan um based on our uh revenues and expenditures um coming up for the 2526 school year U Mr Feldman is going to go after I'm done Mr Feldman's going to go into more detail about the budget and provide the board with a budget update on um where we are and where the budget is falling um for next year um so next slide

015Mr Felman so first I'd like to congratulate our retirees um that we've been notified about so far um on January 15th it was the deadline uh for faculty members to submit their letter of resignation for the purpose of retirement uh we will have a similar celebration like we had last year over at the middle school um so details on that to come um and celebrate their uh long uh and successful careers here at at Sweet Home uh we did also receive one administrator letter for uh the purpose of uh for resignation for the purpose of retirement and 10 faculty letters um for retirement um and uh wanted to let the board know that um tonight's information um is presented to you before any seniority based teacher transfers have been completed um but once we get

016a green light on tonight we can start that process um tomorrow um if necessary Dr janri could you pause just for a moment yes I'd like to invite our friends that are behind the presentation to come and have an open seat over here so you can see what what he's actually talking about chairs over here 10 10 or 12 chairs over here thank you oh no problem grab a seat so we wanted to start with where we are in the budget and what the Outlook is um and uh it is a tight budget um we are uh projecting a $1.3 million mandated increase in special education programming um for next year um I say mandated because um of the services that we must provide our students with IEPs or 504s um we have seen an

017influx of transfers uh into the district this year um and we're we're running um over budget on special education this year um and so next year um we are projecting a 133% increase in our expenditures for special education we are also projecting a $500,000 increase in contracted Transportation um the driver crisis continues to be present and with us um and so we are allocating more money um as we are running over budget on contracted Transportation uh this year um everything from uh private school runs to that are mandated that we must perform uh to tuition students and uh students going to private schools so um we're projecting a 500,000 increase in that budget line include our homeless yes mckin Mento yes yep um we have received our health care numbers from the um Consortium and

018where we will have a $700,000 increase in health care costs uh next year so um Don will go into that a little bit more uh but we know we can put that into the budget now um that we we're seeing there will also be a 400 $8,000 increase in bosei Services um students that have signed up um but also we bosis provides us many services and Technology um and resources um and so those costs are um nearly a half a million dollars more so right now we are also going to one of one of the things that are of concern for next year is where our allowable tax cap for the 25 26 school year um right now without a super majority we are only allowed to raise the tax cap to 0 4% now

019a lot of people know the tax cap is a 2% threshold um but there's a formula that our expenses and revenues go through in order to come up with the dedicated uh number for the following school year um so we did see an increase in building Aid which also um affected our tax cap and we are at a simple majority allowed to raise the tax cap 4% or $218,000 which is um obviously not a lot um this year anything above 04 would need a super majority vote by our public so right now as the budget stands we are working with a a a a gap of about $1.5 million um in the red uh where we where we currently stand right now for the 25 26 school year so how are we going to close

020this budget Gap um uh we will close it without cutting any faculty or staff we will not lay off any service employees we will not lay off any uh faculty members um we have a limited number of grades and programs that will can be Consolidated based on enrollment or or uh class size we also will not reduce or cut curent student programming um and we will not um impact faculty coaching or teacher intervention services those will remain in place um so we've done a lot of work over the past I would say four weeks lots of meetings uh lots of data um and we're pleased to say that we will not be cutting people um from uh sweet home we will not be calling anyone in and laying them off um even with a one

021.5 million budget Gap um so it's been some work uh it's been a lot of discussion and a lot of data uh but we're pleased that even this Gap that presents us um that we will um have our our people with us going into the 25 26 school year so um I also want to um show the board and our public that our enrollment continues to go up um just in the 2019 school year we didn't have full day prek uh here in the district um all of our prek students were uh educated outside of our walls and we were at 3261 um today with prek we're at 3734 so a difference of a um 500 or so students just since 2019 our um elll population continues to increase from 181 to 229 currently and

022that we also have about 100 more uh special education students in the district since 2019 um so obviously we've done a lot of Shifting of Staff over the past three years to address these changes and I think a big job for all of us here is going to continue to be manage our growth um as we project our growth will continue uh through 2034 and uh a big piece of us making sure that we are um capable of handling this growth will be the budget and so we're going to continue to uh keep all eyes on it um as we move forward but we're proud of the fact that our people uh and students continue to move into our district we're proud of the fact of our uh how great our special education services and

023special programs are that um parents would trust us to um educate their children um through the special programs department and we're proud of the fact that um that our population continues to grow in elll Services um uh we are proud of our diversity and it gives our students a worldclass education here um in uh in our district so um I think those numbers Rising are a testament up to the work of a lot of people that are in this room um tonight uh I know that's hard to read um but if the trends continue and that 2025 number that you see at the bottom is um students currently in our district students that are out of District placements and our three-year-olds um I looked today in power school that's our projection we are at 4,068

024if you include out of districts and three-year-olds uh and that number for 2025 is at 4073 so that number is right on and if this trend continues I think that bottom number if I read it correctly um we could be as high as 45 41 um come the 2034 school year um and so you know I'd be remissed to say that if one of the things in planning is not only the budget but our facilities um and we're going to hear more throughout the spring and the summer about where we are in and updating our facilities to manage this type of growth um at sweet home um more on that to come but it's it's well known out there um that we are looking at additions for several of our elementary buildings um to handle

025this growth so I also wanted to put on here our class size comparisons that we've seen um since 2019 2019 obviously is prior to covid so any that's highlighted in 2025 uh in yellow um the district has done uh um a job of getting our class sizes back to pre-co numbers and so anything in yellow means that we are at pre-co number or higher um in in uh the classes um so we're managing this as well we understand um you know our our average class sizes are growing uh we are uh looking at this number these numbers constantly to make sure that they fall within um guidelines research um when it comes to what a class size should be there's varying research out there um but we feel like we're in a spot right now

026um where we are um you know at the top of some of those of of some of those sections for sure but you'll notice a lot of yellow on there and we are back um a lot of our sections are back except for I think five I counted on there back to pre-co numbers and through covid um I also want to U make note to the board that um our FTE and trending in our FTE we had a a giant um I shouldn't say giant but we added 41 positions during from 19 uh to 20 and 20 to 21 due to the covid crisis um our total FTE jumped to 394 that year um and currently um hon honestly because of of finances and budget um we are at 39 three right now so we

027added a lot because of social distancing um and we have needed that staff uh to help us manage our growth um as we continue to grow in enrollment um special education and elll so here are recommendations to close the $1.5 million gap that we are experiencing right now we recommend that each uh we we sorry we recommend that each building um house two program AIDS um instead of up to eight um that we have in the budget right now that would be a savings of $300,000 um we have high turnover rate in the program Aid positions because our program AIDS are certified and looking for probationary appointments um whether here at sweet home or in other districts so last year we had 12 turnover um in the program aid department um we expect to have

028that again this year and if we have that number um then we will be able to house um a total of 12 program AIDS two in each building um for uh moving forward that would save us about $300,000 if we have over 12 program AIDS left um at the end of the year um either they did not find another position or did not find a probationary position we do have open teacher Aid positions in the district um and we will not lay them off we will transfer them to teacher Aid positions um at their current rate um so uh we want to make sure again um to reiterate the point we will not be laying off um anybody um even um even with a reduction in the number of program AIDS per building we also

029recommend eliminating building based Subs there's also High turn over here there's about uh two per building now uh for a savings of $300,000 uh typically these are yearly will appointments uh that we um we will not fill this year however if we do have a building based sub that has not find found another appointment uh again we will talk to them about transferring to be a uh teacher Aid or be on our sub lists uh we also recommend absorbing four positions through consolidation or reorganization um uh and special classroom in an integrated setting Grant which I'll uh explain a little bit more now um while adding two positions at the middle school based on um their enrollment enrollment growth there so um Mr Feldman in working with the special programs Department was able to work

030with State education to uh secure what's called a special education upk grant um and a special class in an integrated setting scis Grant um these we can provide up to three rooms in the District that will help support um special education students in the prek um these grants cover salaries and resources for the room we do not have them currently in the district uh but we have been told that we have we will have at least two potentially three which each room can generate up to $400,000 in Revenue which would be hugely helpful um to offset that $ 1.5 uh million gap so we're excited about this possibility of providing specializ Education Services to students in upk um right now it's uh it's a very I would say fluid situation in our upk rooms with

031uh students um but we're going to work in the summer um to identify through the screening process um have them evaluated and make sure that they are receiving the proper Services um and these uh this grant will cover quite a bit um in in making sure that that gets done mik can I just ask um for this grant do we have an end date is that renewable every year or how it is renewable every year um as long as we have the numbers to support the grant these grants are renewable so is this bringing extra people in or no it could I I'll explain that in a minute okay because I know when we did our covid and and we distancing we made it very clear we wanted those people in our budget y so

032that when we stopped they would be included in our budget we wouldn't lay off yes similar similar I I would say Obviously we need the grant for this and these would be teachers that would push into the classroom um but this is available to us it's a rolling Grant um and something that we expect to happen year after year so a district office uh we have the retirement of a principal of District services and we are going to absorb that position and late last June um we had a resignation of an assistant superintendent and we also will absorb that position at Glendale uh because of enrollment projections we uh plan to maintain the current Staffing there um at Heritage Heights we want to replace a special education consultant teacher due to a retirement we're going

033to fund the two upk positions through the upk grant um there were also two retirements in um at Heritage at the upk rooms as well and we will replace those using um using the grant at Maple Mir we have a retirement of a reading interventionist that we will replace um and because of um uh class sizes we were able to consolidate two grade level sections um at at maplemere um so we were able to like I said um move those classrooms down um because of of enrollment numbers we're going to watch and see what our registrations are like over the summer we may have to make an adjustment uh at Maple Mir um but right now it um we can consolidate two rooms over there and when you say make an adjustment that does not

034mean laying off anybody that just correct that means we would have to either hire or make another move um that would not be laying off because uh the adjustment would be due to an increase in enrollment um or an increase in registrations over the summer at Maple just wanted to make sure we were clear y so this plan allows for flexibility if we get an increase over the summer for those yep absolutely we will be we we can be flexible is this the bubble kindergarten that we're talking yes and then how do our numbers look for the prek coming in similar bubbles similar um a little higher than what's currently there right now but um it's still early to tell uh because we're only in March so we know we get a large influx of

035transfers in in the summer and we're going to just have to watch it uh as it as it continues to grow at Willow Ridge uh there were two retirements we are proposing replacing both a uh grade four position and a kindergarten position uh at the middle school we are going to replace two grade six positions due to retirements uh we're currently advertising for a World Language teacher um um to replace a retirement and due to enrollment increases uh we are proposing um and working with the middle school team there to add two following POS of the following positions PE Health which is one position and an art position there uh those are due to large class sizes that are currently there and we project to have uh next year and then at the high school

036ready special education department uh we have a retirement of a psychologist there and we are working with the special programs to reorganize How We Do Psychology Services in the district to make them more centralized um and we believe that our psychologists um will be doing more uh in the ter they do a lot um we want them to focus a lot on avails um and re aails now in their positions um so we're going to uh look to centralize psychology um and work with special programs to make sure obviously um it's a change um but that our services remain the same um for our students will this leave space for them if they're called for a kid in trauma or I mean because I know they're vital in that y so the district has added

037um they can help with that if there's time available however the district has added counselors um and social workers at the buildings and our uh principes and administrators and teachers are reing receiving training on on that all the time as well so overall we have one administrative retirement that we're going to absorb in one resignation that we are absorbing 10 faculty retirements um absorbing four there um that include the psychologist two Elementary grade levels uh and then once we settle the district transfer list um we likely have one other position um that will be absorbed but we have to settle that list for before we know what that is we want to add two faculty members at the middle school Grant fund two upk positions at Heritage Heights um but I want to reiterate that

038we are not laying off our anybody um in at sweet home um and we can still we could do that without with with closing the $1.5 million budget Gap um that we have in place so um I I give a lot of credit to Don and and Katie um for their work in um finding some uh Revenue um I appreciate the work of our administrators that we've talked to about the plans um and I know uh you know it's going to be tight next year there's no question about it um but we have to operate um in in a place where uh we are closing budget gaps um overall so I also want to say other factors that could Impact Staffing throughout the summer because it's still march registrations and transfers kindergarten registration final and

039approved New York state budget um this is important because last year we had the rug cut out from under us at the last minute um and we had to account for that $600,000 that was pulled from us um we're still fighting for full funding um when it comes to Foundation Aid with New York State um and then we absolutely have to watch our federal funding uh we are confident the federal funding we will receive our allotment this year we're confident in 2526 that our federal funding will be in place um but obviously we all know there's been a lot of changes in Washington um especially at the Department of Education um and so we're watching after the 25 26 school year and we'll have a lot of advocacy and um a lot of conversations with

040our elected officials um to ensure that that F Federal funding stays in place because it really does go help our um underserved uh populations uh here at sweet home so um lot of work to be done there but it's important that we keep our federal funding what have you heard as far as um ontime budget it will not not have one I've heard we it will not happen so um that's another thing we need to monitor uh with our with our legislators but yeah I I don't think it's going to happen yeah what have you heard same thing nowhere not a chance exactly we're going to be making a budget where we do not have all the in I mean we have a guess a good guess but correct yeah last year was a strain

041for sure and then when you when it did get approved and we found out we were cut um now we I will say that we found our uh reason for the cut or the reason they told us anyway was our total uh allocation of pupil funds or um pupil unit funds sorry um we believe that number is dead on this year in the in the foundation Aid formula um so we're not expecting if there is a cut that that would be the reason um but we're not expecting a cut of our state aid this year any questions from the board so just one quick question um are we cutting teachers nope no we are not and sure no cutting program are we cutting programs no go figure we go back to the World Language position

042yes where are we with languages being taught in the high school so we are trying to find a French teacher right now um and German um unfortunately has been very difficult to find So currently we are phasing it out of the high school um just based on Staffing okay Latin teachers are longone gone right I'm sorry Latin yes Latin is uh teach yes you'll end up with just Spanish that really where we're where we're heading I I hope to find a fren we hope to find a French teacher yeah yeah we are we are advertising for one right now if anybody knows anybody our German kids though that have gone through the process are being taken care of so they don't lose that credit yeah when I say phase out um that means we are

043um taking care of the students who have entered that program and making sure that they have all the credits available to them um throughout their senior year okay thank other questions all right thank you uh so that brings us to our our budget study session number two I'm going to stay here uh and run kind of both things here uh with my notes so so if you have questions along the way uh please feel free to um let me know so uh again just to bring it uh back for all of us uh these are uh the budget kind of our overall process uh and School Board elections important dates uh We've hit some of them uh as Dr janest made mention in his presentation uh we do have a final tax cap calculation uh

044the the tax cap calculation has has been submitted uh to the Office of the State Controller uh in time for the deadline uh which was March 1st um going forward uh for those uh that might be interested in running uh for the school board uh the terms of Brian liel uh and Durk rabenold expire on June 30th uh 2025 uh petitions for those um board seats are due to district office uh on April 21st uh per New York state law the last date for the board to adopt our proposed budget uh would be April 25th you'll see shortly in a couple slides we're going to do it a couple days before then we do have to submit a property tax report card on April 28th uh and then we have to do a required public

045hearing uh on the proposed budget from May 6th uh time frame through May 13th and then our annual uh District budget vote and School Board election uh will be held on Tuesday uh May 20th uh from 7:00 a.m. to 900 p.m. right here in this room uh I know that there was some discussion about where the location was going to be this year uh because of other things that are going on including the vote uh on uh the panther but we've made a determination that we are going to hold the The District budget vote uh here in in virgils uh much like we've done uh for the last several years um from 7:00 uh to 9:00 on on Tuesday um May 20th uh and Shameless plug there'll be a dollar for Scholars chicken barbecue then

046too um from that standpoint um so relative to Sweet Home this is kind of uh at a at a point as to where we are in terms of of our overall looks at the budget uh as I did mention we are in budget study session number two um to this point uh back in February we did present to the board uh what we call a program maintenance budget uh based on the executive budget proposal um and began to really establish uh objectives and priorities uh from that standpoint uh tonight you'll see kind of an update on our overall budget uh any um Revenue updates that we have uh and then as Dr janest just did um we'll uh in terms of staffing recommendations uh and what has been uh put into the budget uh and

047then on ail ail 8th uh you know again uh to Mrs Jason's Point uh the the New York state budget uh is required uh to be uh fully ratified and approved by April 1 uh We've not seen that the last three years I think I think it's been at least three years uh so uh we are um trying to build a budget with best guesses at this point in time uh from the New York State uh governor's office assembly in Senate uh from that standpoint uh our board uh regardless of what happens in New York State uh will approve uh the budget uh we'll vote to approve the budget on Tuesday uh April 22nd and then again as I say uh the annual budget vote will be held on Tuesday uh May the 20th so

048when we left you in February uh these were some of the steps that we needed to kind of work through um and and and get ready for this evening's presentation um so uh we did uh need to determine where the board was with the tax cap and our use of reserves um you know we've we've settled the tax cap we'll talk about reserves here in a few minutes uh we've worked through the retirements uh its overall impact on Staffing and the budget um we've uh obviously uh you know heard Dr janest um presentation tonight we are making some recommendations on additional staff and we have got those into the budget uh we will continue to monitor anything related to uh state aid uh and as Dr gestri did say uh we have uh an update

049on our Taff poo number uh which for those keeping scored home is our total aable Foundation pupil unit it is the number uh that the state uses uh to project uh basic Foundation aid for us uh so we have some good news there uh we have worked to solidify uh our bus purchasing and funding uh we've gone through the budget uh really line by line uh we have uh gone through uh with uh the help of V1 bosies uh to finalize our overall participation numbers uh and get cost estimates to that uh and the impact on the budget and then uh this past week I want to say Thursday Wednesday uh we did receive information from uh the New York 44 trust uh on our health uh Insurance contribution rates uh and there is an

050increase and we'll talk a little bit about that uh so we have adjusted and made adjustments uh based upon all that work um and we are ready to report back to the board uh here tonight uh we were scheduled for last week but uh we postponed to this week so we are on a target for May March 18 so on the revenue side uh there are four uh real um kind of major areas that impact the revenue side of the budget state aid real property tax and the tax cap sales tax and the use of reserves so I'll touch on all of them um state aid uh We've again no movement on state aid at at this point um we're still waiting on on the budgetary approval uh from the state uh to to see

051what our final Aid runs look like uh but again we do have uh an update on the Taff poo number which is our total aable Foundation pupil unit uh last year and you can see on the bottom in that um in that chart that we did for you uh last year um we saw from the time that the executive budget was out to the time that the New York state budget was approved approved we saw a decrease unbeknownst to us of our overall Taff poo number by 73 kids and what that translated to for us was um was a a a loss in Aid of about $380,000 couple that with the fact that uh although we were promised uh to be fully funded for foundation Aid we saw a further increase in Foundation Aid of

052about $300,000 so we were in the neighborhood of about6 to $700,000 short in what we sh expected to receive so now if you look in that chart in January our Taff poo count from the executive budget was uh 4,279 kids the Taff poo count in February which is what our state aid number is run from is 4,281 kids which is an increase of two kids so we will we should not we should not see any um decrease in our overall Foundation Aid yes Mr John quickly obviously we don't have nearly 4,300 kids in this in the school district can you do a brief explanation of what TPO means I know but I mean well there's so there's there's certain weighted numbers that are assigned to students there's your general education student there's elll students there's

053special education students so for each of those students depending upon how that student is classified they're given a weighted number to get us to over the the total number of kids that we have is it possible for there to be more one more than one category and even higher number that I don't know I I depending upon uh generally speaking the highest number for the kid however the kid is classified the highest number is assigned to that student okay ex sure um property taxes in the tax cap uh we did file the final tax cap to New York State and the office of State Controller we are at a 0 4% increase in our overall uh tax cap increase which means that we can increase the total Levy from this current year uh to next

054year by 0 4% which trans translates to about an increase of $218,000 when we presented to you in February we talked about the idea of some rollover funds uh because we did not go to the full cap last year we've learned um and again we had never done this before we had we learned uh from the state controller's office that we are not eligible uh for rollover funds and I'll talk about that in in a coming slide uh our sales tax uh we'll talk about that in the coming slide uh but our third quarter third quarter payment remember we receive sales tax from the county quarterly uh we've received two quarters half of our sales tax thus far uh our next one is due to come March 28th uh and we will uh obviously make

055any sort of adjustments uh as needed uh but we feel as though that our estimate um there uh for the current school year 2425 and the 2526 school year is pretty spot on uh so we feel pretty good about that uh and then uh the last area is the use of reserves to close any potential budgetary gaps uh based upon what what what has come in from the revenue side what we've done is we've maintained our Reserve usage consistent with what we've done last year uh and that was to the tune of $350,000 any questions on the revenue side to this point those uh tapoo numbers who deter determines that classification who determines for the student is it something we do internally so yeah we do it's it's based upon it's it's information that we

056put into the state database then they draw from that uh based upon how the students are classified and assign us the Taff poo number okay so it's something I guess is it being reviewed just to make sure that yeah we're getting you know the most yeah last year was can yeah last year was a very unique year I've never seen um in my time uh state aid pulled at the at at the budget approval phase by by the government so um we studied it this year um we're on it and we know that we're looking at that number so there's no you know I know it was what April 30th surprise this year I'm I'm more wondering like you know the student is classified one way and then you find out after the fact or

057you look into it deeper and find well they they had some extra services or things that initially so each this is like reviewed by for every student every year yeah it's based on bed's day data yeah so that day in October that's kind of like where we are on that day in October then we submit that to the state and that's what they use for the year okay so the tax cap um so uh the tax cap is Dr janess had said earlier on uh is is 2% um you know uh for districts um obviously there's some exclusions that go into that but um the tax cap is is is really it's 2% or uh CPI whichever is less CPI this year ended up at about 2.8% so the tax cap Levy limit minus any

058sort of exclusions for every District across the state is 2% you then take that number and multiply it by the tax-base allowable tax-based growth factor and in 2024 our allowable tax Bas tax base growth factor was 1.016 this year the state controller's office has decreased that number um by uh two one a flat One Flat 1% so generally speaking the state controller has said that they've decreased our allowable tax-based growth by 1.6% so if you look at our Levy this year kind of in that in that right hand side you look at our Levy our overall Levy this year is 54 m268 72 if our allowable tax Bas tax based growth factor remained at 1.016 this year our allowable Levy would be 55,1 136 361 however because of that it remains at one it's basically

059saying that we cannot minus any exclusions we cannot raise our overall tax levy so our tax levy Remains the Same so by decreasing our growth factor number by 1.6% the financial act to the district is about $868,000 which is the those two numbers subtracted from one another and then this is our tax cap uh our tax cap uh for the 2425 school year uh as mentioned is 0.4% uh it's uh um translates to a dollar amount of 218,000 $590 uh as I mentioned our growth factor is a flat one this year as opposed to the 1.016 last year um and again this is now this is where we were talking uh in February about potentially some rollover numbers a rollover use of of um uh Levy uh I had conversations in February with um uh

060some colleagues I had conversations with State education department and I was pretty solid that we were allowable or we were allowed uh to do um rollover funds when I met with uh our contact at uh the office of State Controller they said you can as long as your Levy from the current year is less than your permissible Levy before adding all of our exclusions so you'll see there that our actual Levy uh is 54,2 68,7 before exclusions to our overall Levy it's our our Levy is 49,5 71311 because that number the permissible Levy is less than our actual Levy we are not eligible for uh any sort of rollover funds as such uh uh I own that mistake that's a mistake on my part um our Levy uh allowable Levy for a simple majority vote

061uh come May 20th is0 4% or 28,5 $90 sales tax again this was just a kind of a repeat of a slide that we gave you back in February uh last year uh we saw sales tax uh proceeds uh to the district to the tune of 5,424 139 you see uh on the right hand column uh for the present year uh you know we've we've received just a short short of $2.5 million uh from that we believe that uh we will uh track uh to uh well to get to our our estimate and we are estimating our sales tax receipts for the 25 26 school year to be $5.6 million since we last met uh these are a couple of items that we're using to kind of look at and um close our Revenue Gap

062um so uh Dr destri talked in detail about the upk uh special classroom in an integrated setting uh we have received uh conditional approval uh from the state education department uh for up to three classrooms in 2526 uh each of those classes must have uh at least six to six to eight students on an IEP we've estimated that our our classrooms would have eight students with an IEP uh and and then um that grant funding would uh would be given to us uh to kind of work through uh the general fund uh to allow us to fund a number of things including uh a special educa portions of salaries of special education teachers portions of salaries of school psychologists of um really anything that might have uh direct or indirect contact uh with that classroom

063custodial salaries supplies materials um you know portions of administrator salaries things along those lines we are right now um again we've received a conditional approval for the the classrooms themselves uh we are in the business office working with uh Ned's rate setting unit to finalize kind of our overall budget for these we believe that um the the classes would generate you know upwards of $400,000 for each of the classroom so we are putting into the general fund uh $1.2 million uh of funding uh from that standpoint uh we also are working with uh irie1 bosies uh irie1 bosis has expressed an interest uh in as you know they they have um a portion of Dexter tffs northtowns Academy they've expressed some interest uh in doing a summertime program uh this summer uh at North towns

064and we are working with them on kind of finalizing cost but we would expect that we would see uh $50,000 in additional rent uh this year this coming next year uh for the use of our facility over the summertime when we talk about some of the schools we talk about the space constraints do we have space for those three classrooms we we do they would be they'd be integrated into our existing classroom spaces so uh on the revenue Side based upon all of these additions uh and changes to the tax cap our 2526 Revenue uh estimate as we sit here today is5 mil 513,000 12 uh it's an increase of uh a little over 5.1 million or a 5.1% year-to-year increase on the expense side uh you know again we've talked about these things um

065before but just you know for the good of the audience uh we do have uh several known budgetary impacts uh we have the service employees contract uh which is uh includes our confidential employees uh they are on uh a 6% annual increase uh our sha teacher contract they have a 2 point uh 2% annual step increase but those folks receive step plus increment and then our chassa uh admins uh they have we have a tenative agreement in place uh but that tenative agreement uh ends up at a 3.5% annual increase uh we have budgetary uh bus purchases um $147,000 increase in bus purchases uh to just over a million dollars in bus purchases uh we have a Debt Service increase of $80,000 uh we have contracted transportation increase of $500,000 as Dr janest had said

066um you know uh we will look to um kind of depending upon how things uh hash out uh with the new um kind of walking radiuses and things along those lines we'll likely look to rebid our contracted Transportation uh we feel pretty good about uh seeing some um cost savings from where we are currently this year uh our special education uh budget uh we are um as as Dr God bless you as Dr janri had said uh we are seeing an increase of uh $1.3 million uh our school tuitions charge School tuitions an increase of $200,000 utilities across the district $100,000 uh the teacher retirement incentive uh remains in the budget at about $745,000 which is about 10 or 11 retirements uh our Bose's participation uh increase um of about $480,000 that includes anything from

067PD to technology Services um things along those lines uh and then the New York 44 uh trust rates uh were just announced as we said last week we are anticipating an increase right now of about $700,000 quite frankly I haven't had an opportunity to go through it all because it's so new uh but we'll we'll provide updates on a a more um solid estimate uh for next next next meeting and then from a staffing perspective uh it incorporates the budget that we're sharing now uh incorporates all the Staffing uh as part of the plan presented uh to the board this evening how many kids do we have in charter schools you know Nicole I don't know how many kids in Charter par school kids somewhere in that neighborhood yeah okay um so uh here's just

068kind of a quick snapshot of the New York 44 trust uh plan uh rates uh we are part of uh the traditional plan uh through the New York 44 trust uh so there are four categories of health insurance coverage there's a single plan that single plan um uh would see an increase from the current year of uh 2% uh the um enroll uh employe employee uh and spouse or domestic partner would also see uh an increase of about 2% um the enrol or employee plus child or children would see an increase of about 6.5% uh and then a traditional uh family plan uh would see an increase of 7% uh from the current year you see there are contribution rates for each of our associations contribution rate for the Teachers Association the Educators Association is

069uh 133% the administrators Association also 133% and the service employees uh 10% so I know that that last line is hard to read uh but uh we are anticipating an increase of about $694,000 uh which is about a 6.2% increase again because we just got these numbers I'll have to go through them more um closely to to get a more solid estimate but uh to the best estimate as we sit tonight that's where we're at two questions Dan um do you know about how many people are in each of these four different categories I do so right now we have 573 employees that are enrolled in uh District sponsored Health Plan uh single uh folks that take advantage of the single plan are 155 uh folks that take uh advantage of the employee and spouse

070or domestic partner is 93 um folks that take advantage of the employee plus child or children is 42 uh and folks that take advantage of the family plan uh is 283 which is about 49% of our total overall enrollment okay thank you and the second one is the a monthly Cobra rate what is that for I don't I know the term Cobra but I don't know what that's uh that's generally if if uh folks opt out of health insurance and need health insurance in the event of either um termination or something along those lines okay thank you so uh as we sit tonight uh our overall budget snapshot uh as I mentioned we have uh a budgetary uh revenues budgeted at $15,512.71 486,000 uh based upon where we are today uh our budgetary expenditures total

071out to be mil4 64,8 31 uh which is a 5 point flat 5% increase uh from year to year uh so if you do the math and subtract the expenditures from the revenues we have a surplus of $48,000 um from that standpoint so the obligatory story uh tax uh impact tax rate impact uh I always uh um make a qualifying statement here we use uh to kind of estimate tax impact we use uh assessment values uh for this current year because obviously they've not been released from the towns uh we keep the equalization rates as what they are in the current year so for Amherst the equalization rate is currently at 100% the Tanana Equalization rate is currently at 23% uh and these rates are based on going to the tax cap limit of 54,4

072186,50 to we've traditionally used um before the town uh went to the town of amoris went to full assessment we've traditionally used $150,000 as kind of an average home that's probably not accurate so you'll see in the next couple of slides kind of the impact on uh higher assessed homes but for $150,000 assessment uh assessed home u based upon these things uh residents in the town of amest would see a an estimated tax bill of $1,455 which is an increase of $4 then on the Tanana side um the increase would of translate to a bill of $1,463 or an annual increase of $6 this next slide is for a $250,000 assessment translates to uh translates to a um an increase uh for a town of Amherst resident of $7 uh for a town toana Wana

073resident of $9 uh and then the last is a $350,000 estimate I would say this is probably closer for us the $250,000 estimate on an average home uh and then this is uh kind of a higher end uh the $350,000 assessment uh would see um an estimated increase in their tax bill in town of Amherst of $10 um and in the town ofana wand of $13 realistically um and I don't quote me on this but you know when we received the assessment values from the town over the summertime I would honestly expect that those numbers would probably be a little bit less but because of our tax levy T our tax cap number being only 4% um you can see it's a minimal increase from those St that standpoint and for full transparency again nothing's

074final until we get those finals in August correct we get we work with the towns uh in the towns and the county really in July uh and August and then we make a recommendation uh based upon the numbers that we receive from the towns and the county uh to the board uh in their for the August meeting uh and tax rates are approved at that point in time Don I just want to say thanks for adding the additional ones more realistic sure we're talking about sure so the last slide that I have we need to do some work kind of going through uh some things here um as we get to our our approval date of uh April 22nd uh as I made mention um we need to work through and solidify our New York

07544 Trust health insurance numbers um again because we got them I haven't just had an opportunity to go through uh and do um real hard and fast math on them uh we will hopefully get uh some news from State education department on the specialized classroom an integrated setting uh we'll continue to take a look at salary lines and and get those as best we can uh and then we'll monitor the New York State budgetary progress process uh and um any potential impacts on state aid uh as we go forward um as we've said the New York state budget is due on April 1 um I'm not holding my breath uh I'm going to gather that you will likely have to approve a School District budget before the New York state budget is passed just where

076we are uh and then we will um work through these bullet points and make any adjustments to the overall all budget uh and report back to the Boe uh on our April 8th study session so I did want to just real quickly um before I forgot so this this number um the 04 and Dr janest touched on it a little bit um from uh 2020 I have to get this right from 2023 to 20 to the current year 24 25 our last Capital Improvement project uh the building Aid hit our books so we received a significant increase in building Aid building Aid is one of the exclusions because we saw such an increase in building Aid that mitigated that really necessitated the the the smaller tax cap figure going forward our tax our building Aid

077because the project will be on the books for an extended period of time our building Aid will level out and I would expect that our tax cap would look more like it has in years past um kind of in that 1.3 1.4 million dollar range this year just was an anomaly that's all it was so uh from that standpoint so I'll go back I think that was my last slide I guess I would ask if the board has any questions at this point time just I for a point of order I guess I because it's a hearing is this open to the public at this point or do they this this particular one is not a hearing it is not it is not a hearing the M the hearing will take place uh at the

078first budgetary meeting in May the uh Hearing in April be open to the public re questions again not a hearing uh in a correct to not classify is a hearing so I misunderstood that that's okay that's okay so let me just if I can account which I come from a little of the curent conservative side here with finances as you know it looks like you've done a very good job uh with taking care of the taxpayer but again here we have an increase in the budget of $5 million right so whether it's coming from Grants or somewhere else at some point my concern is well those grants those fundings those things from the state the foundation Aid and all that stuff we kind of advocate for to continue what do we do I mean at

079some point we we the taxpayers I would believe are GNA be caught holding the bag on that do you do you think about that at all or you must think about well of course of course we think about it uh I would say um you know it's our job and that's really honestly why we start the budgetary process as early as we do when we start talking about the budget in December uh it's our job to present a budget and work with the board to present a budget that is both um programmatically sound as well as fiscally responsible for for our taxpayers we have never the board really honestly and I don't want to speak for your colleagues on the board but in my this is my fifth year in this seat in my five

080years and in my time before then the board has always kind of mandated that we stay below the tax cap uh so we'll continue to do that uh unless you know things things may change the Spectre of um losing grant funding is is is real honestly but I will also say you know and we'll have to work through that we'll have to find solutions to do that we have reserves we could look at using more reserves but also over the course of time to your point about the growth of the budget you saw in Dr janesty's presentation that in five short years we've gained 500 almost kids in enrollment so it it honestly that's the kind of the translation from that standpoint that growth and enrollment uh is really driving a lot of our overall

081costs we see an uptick in kids that are classified as special ed you saw that that you know that was $1.3 Million uh from that standpoint um and you know really honestly the the the major expenses in the budget are um from from staff salaries to contracted transportation to special education costs uh to health and to health insurance and health benefits uh from that standpoint so you know we'll we'll continue to look at things we feel as Dr gestri had said in his presentation we feel good about the grant funding not only for this year but for next um if I had a crystal ball I i' tell you what we would do but I don't know what's going to happen from that standpoint okay I got a question the um the rollover uh for

082the tax cap if because we're at Point for this year then is that are we eligible to potentially have more or is that the cap now for this year no I so Mr liel it's a good question um so we have a number of exclusions so the tax cap provides you with a couple of numbers the tax cap gives you kind of a permissible increase in the tax levy you take that number and then add all of our exclusions so all of our exclusions include bus purchases include Debt Service and include uh building and transportation Aid so because our exclusions to the tax cap are so high in terms of those that those numbers that's about four five million do for us I don't foresee an area where uh minus the exclusions that our Levy

083will get to a point where we're allowed to do any sort of rollover so our number quite frankly in my opinion is what it is okay and you know I did notice just as a comment the um that growth factor it's like 90% of the districts have an increase which would have increased funding a few hundred, and you know we're one of the few that didn't which is kind of surprising because every spring I look out and I see more construction being done and you know yeah taken down and whatnot you know it's funny um on the flip side of that coin I would say just in conversations with my colleagues across here on Bose's if the district saw a significant increase in Foundation Aid which sweet home did their allowable growth factor went down

084if they didn't see a significant increase in Foundation Aid their allowable growth factor either remain the same or went up so game we play it's a game it's a game any other questions from the board at all since you have your crystal ball out and we're talking in the future and stuff um I'm sure we'll hear a report from the town supervisor are we still on track with our um Boulevard Mall project as we move forward and gain our kids uh you're voting on an easement for um sewer work tonight um for Costco no no no this is for this is for the it's on the agenda it's for uh sewer work and infrastructure work to get to the Boulevard Mall so uh to the best of my knowledge I don't know if the super

085tenant knows differently that project is moving forward moving forward yep it has been um few months since I've spoken with the supervisor but so I ow a call so see CCO moving forward I saw a structure there today so yeah we're moving Stone every day there ready I tell you what you we'll get you you'll be the first membership card you promised that not me thank you yes uh any other questions from the board thank you I'm gonna say I'm gonna say one last thing sorry I just can't help myself so it looks like in your uh your proposal here the average home is going to go up $7 or the levy will go up $248,000 roughly correct now if we again this is sensitive topic here and I know there's some bus time stock

086time people here tonight if we were to put out to the public some additional increase in that still under the cap or is that the cap I'm sorry I'm not following your question an increase at the cap we're at the cap yes around numbers bringing that money in would we find additional funds either in reserves or some other places to do away with the start start stop times is it close enough in that 248,000 plus some other money to possibly do away with the start stop time I'm trying to get you to just say what is the number that we need to do away with the start stop times Well I oh it's a sensitive no I it's not I I appreciate the question um I don't I I couldn't even begin to guess terms

087from that standpoint it would really depend upon what the start and stop times look like for me able for me to be able to put a cost to it um we we've we've made a recommendation to move from kind of our staggered Elementary times to a flat Elementary time if those things went back to how they were there's there's um implications there so from that standpoint quite honestly I could get you numbers I'm just not comfortable in answering it now based upon I don't have the information I I just again I just for my own sake I just curious what that would do to the budget so well we are we are at the tax cap right now we are at the if there were any additional costs to that we would have to go

088above the tax cap obviously the board would have to decide to do that and if we went above the tax cap it would require a 60% approval rate of our budget on May 20th it'd be interesting to see if they got a vote for that but that's just me well yeah or we take it from reserves or somewhere else I right saying that yeah okay thank you sure any other questions from the board okay we will report back on April 8th I apologize for the length but nonetheless here we are um just a couple more things uh we talked last week about the smartphone uh task force I know Dr Wilson's working on that now um um and made some progress on on finding members uh this week um so I don't know if you

089have enough actually the communication is going out this week to extend and okay offer yep and we definitely want students part of that par parents um our uh oh I have a question on the smartphone I assume that also includes smart watches yes okay yes devices and earbuds and earbuds yes it's any communication okay proc it also depends on what they approve for a law because yeah than the one house budgets have both of them have come back with different things that the governor proposed yeah um so while we want to get ahead of the work we have no idea what the regs will be yet um or even if there will be but we want to get ahead of it because we know um there's work to be done um our Panther contest is

090in full swing and we met with 26 shirts uh all of the of the final concepts are in development with 26 shirts now um and we will be ready to put them on display for the public to have plenty of time uh to come vote here in Virgil's on May 20th um for your favorite logo concept um so we'll announce soon after the budget vote um what the official Panther will be and then uh we will make it part of our branding guide um here in the district so want to thank our partners at 26 shirts um for working with us we met with them um earlier in the week U or last late last week and um just they're excited to be part of this uh project and um to know that uh this

091is Student Art um really um even motivates them more so um we're we're ready and we will have updates um as the um Concepts get developed um I was fortunate enough to attend Once Upon a mattress this weekend on Saturday night um just a phenomenal show kudos to um everybody from the um the cast The Crew um our um um chaperon and adults that were a part of this um incredible production I know it takes hundreds of people to make this work the music was phenomenal um and it was just great um to be in our Auditorium uh hear uh crisp sound and uh see great lights um and and our students certainly um were up for the task so uh I hope everybody uh got to see it um and uh it was just

092a phenomenal show so it's kudos to our students involved um and to all of the people involved with the music and the crew and the stage uh just a phenomenal job um on Saturday night um and I I continue to get asked a lot about Federal funding and I wanted to put this slide um on display because I want our public to understand um what um categories of federal funding um that we have um um in our district uh right now so title funds are really there to uh serve the underserved uh basically um throughout the country um we have IDE Ida idea grants uh that service uh um uh special education students uh we have grants for elll and immigrant students uh Universal prek and prek expansion um up there um so right now

093the rolling grants that we get on a yearly basis are three are about $3.5 million um and a lot of those grants are tied to salaries um so it is important that we continue to Advocate um that these monies um continue to flow uh to districts throughout the country um because they really do serve um an important um population for us um and they really U make a difference here at sweet home so U this does not include Medicaid funding or Medicaid reimbursement this does not include our EPA grant for um electric busing um but these are um the rolling grants that we do get um on a yearly basis and the number of Staff members that are tied um to them so um I don't put these up there to scare anybody I put

094them up there to um ask that we continue to Advocate um not only for this money but for more um and and it goes to an amazing use for our students um and um it is it is important that we keep these um programs in place to janri are these staff POS it says staff members so are these teachers and AIDS are these teachers okay so it's every yes yep and this is this current Academic Year so Does it include this the new grant that we just talked about for upk it does not that's a state Grant so perfect y um and then finally I just want to say um on the agenda tonight is a new collective bargaining agreement with our administrators and supervisor ERS Association um I want to thank the um leadership

095of chassa um for working with us through the fall and into the winter um to complete this this uh contract and put it up for your vote tonight um obviously we uh work hand inand with our administrators um in their work here in the district um does not get recognized enough um for all the time and effort that they put in um with our students and in their buildings and in their departments um and I can't thank them enough um for the work that they do um and I um am confident in saying that the uh contract reflects uh that that work uh so I just want to say thank you again to chassa members um that were on the leadership team um and that voted um in favor for this tentative agreement um and

096excited to move forward uh with our administrators um into the future uh it's a four-year agreement um and uh again just want to say uh thank you to their membership um for uh continually putting students first that's all I have tonight any questions for Dr janest okay uh will hit wait what's today that was last week um Dei committee meeting is tomorrow as well as Heritage stem night U Maple me Maple me here has a w Winter Dance coming we've got some music uh festivals coming up for the high school and then our PTA starts up again um this brings us to our first open session in coordinance with board policy 1510 two open sessions will be held at tonight's Board of Education meeting during the first open session comments must focus on the agenda

097items for this meeting speakers must be at least 16 years old limit their comments to three minutes and state which agenda item they are addressing speakers should announce their name address and group affiliation if applicable non-district residents must also include their business name or how they engage with the board participants are expected to address comments to the board president not individual board members and may not discuss specific individuals or executive session topics the second Open Session will allow speakers to address topics appropriate for public discussion the same rules and time limit apply please note that the board and the administration are not permitted to respond to the comments during these sessions thank you for your cooperation we have uh one person signed up Karen Silsby you can speak first parin ssby 219 Park Forest Drive

098that's all right I get it all the time um so good evening um I am a proud parent of three children one at Maple Mir and two at the middle school my husband and I have been incredibly grateful for the support and exceptional education our children have received at mapir elementary we are also very pleased at with their experiences at the middle school where teachers and administrators work together for the benefit of our students I have always felt honored that my children have found a home home in Sweet Home both schools priori prioritize leadership development and we are incredibly grateful that our children are learning to use their voices take initiative and advocate for themselves and others these skills are essential not just for their education but for their future successes but while we teach

099leadership to our students it is just as important that adults model it the Board of Education represents the community they are the voice of the district true leadership means not just making decisions but actively engaging with those affected by them it means modeling how to build communic community by communicating openly and honestly with all stakeholders when leadership is rooted in transparency respect and collaboration it strengthens the entire district and sets the example our children deserve I stand before you because I can no longer stay silent Sweet Home is not the district it once was and it's time to address the issues that are hurting our students our teachers and our community what has frustrated me and so many others since the teacher contract negotiations is the lack of transparency and communication from both the board

100and superintendent when our teachers some of the most dedicated and caring professionals were struggling for a fair contract the administration chose to bring in outside help rather than work collaboratively with the Educators who shape our children's Futures that decision didn't make sense then and the continued dismissiveness toward teachers staff and families doesn't make sense now sweet home used to be a district that worked together but what I've seen in the last few years contradicts everything I once knew about this community decisions are being made behind closed doors concerns about budget cuts Staffing reductions increased class sizes Transportation issu issues are not being addressed openly parents teachers and even board members who raise concerns are silenced our district keeps making the news but not for the right reasons it's time for that to change I along

101with many others in the room I'm tired of feeling unheard every stakeholder in this District students parents teachers staff and administrators deserve a voice and yet too many are being shut out of the conversations that directly impact our children's education we need lead leadership that values transparency fairness and collaboration we need a board and administration that listens to and respects the people who make sweet home what it is so tonight I ask you what kind of District do you want sweet home to be do you want to continue down this path of Divi division secrecy and lost trust or do you want to restore the collaboration respect and community that once made this District great we are here because we care we are asking for honesty fairness and a seat at the table our students

102staff and principles deserve better thank you anybody else like to speak tonight hi I'm Jessica Stevens I live in the district and I have two children currently in the district okay today I'm speaking up about sweet home's dismal music program at the elementary level the band teacher has 200 students we have one Orchestra teacher for four Elementary Schools elementary orchestra meets only once a week after school and Elementary music lessons are only once a week as well at the middle school level students at least Orchestra students that I can speak for meet for lessons only one out of 10 school days and that's only if there isn't an assembly or other schedule change that makes a students miss their lesson then it would be one out of 20 days my fifth grade daughter attended All

103County this weekend most people in our community aren't even aware that last weekend was all County and even more have no idea what all county is for those who don't know it's a ER county music educators Association it's a collection of talented students from all around the county who come together to perform as a group students try out to be a part of all County Performing a piece of music leveled for difficulty as well as scale site reading and other things this is a huge deal for the students an amazing opportunity to feed their interest in music this year Elementary All County took place at kleinan Music Hall there was very little mention of this especially since our Middle School was the host School this year when I dropped off my daughter which was the

104sole elementary orchestra student at Sweet Home who made it into all County at the middle school for one of her her rehearsals I saw buses of students representing other schools buses full of orchestra band and chorus students Elementary El County includes grades four to six by the way our elementary chorus teachers do not have a schedule that even allows them to work with students doesn't give them enough time to prepare them to even audition they can still audition they just don't have the time to really work on it with the with the teachers oh as it stands with our current music funding and Staffing our teachers are stretched thin and only students who are privileged enough to afford the time and money for private lessons like me have a chance at making it in it

105was embarrassing to be the host School this year with hardly any representation we can do better our Sports programs are well funded as they should be we are long overdue to properly fund our music programs and on that note let's give these students the proper recognition for these ACC compliments in trying out and making it and I'm not speaking just for my child she gets plenty of Praise I'm speaking for all the children who make it into all County and and all state as well we always seem to know when there's a football game and again as we should but we don't always know when up when these music programs like all County happen sorry I get flustered at the at the time uh and I know that there's but I'll make it real quick

106I know that there's budget concerns I know that what I'm asking requires money but if we can hire an athletic trainer for $59,000 and I'm not saying we shouldn't but if we have the funds to do that we have the funds to support our music program and uh that's all I ask for tonight thank you hi Christine Stewart um I reside in the maple Mir area I am the President of the Sweet Home music parents Association many of you board members know me I'm also very involved in the musical um I've spoken to the administration and I am so grateful for your time that you have given to us and I realize that we are in tremendous budget cuts the one thing that I would ask that you focus on and look at as our

107growth happens is that we fund our music program as well as other programs when we grow our music program especially the elementary school program is at its Max uh what Mr buznik does and what Jackie does is amazing there's student to teacher ratio is unbelievable and you probably don't realize this but out of their day because they work in different buildings they actually go from building to building and then they come here and set up for the rehearsals for the fourth and fifth graders that come it's an hour to set up and an hour to replace and reset everything for the groups to come back in that's a lot of Staff time that they give to those kids and it doesn't just happen with them that means that since their rehearsals are here at the

108high school that means that the high school teachers also all three of the high school teachers are helping them set up and tear down and they're a really good team I can tell you from my own experience they're a very good team at working together and pulling together to try to fill in those pinches and I am so grateful that Dr Wilson has mentioned to us that we can get some admin help to help with Mr budnik's uh rental program that we desperately need he's when you deal with a lot of rentals and a lot of paperwork and you don't have an admin in the department to handle that it either will fall on your volunteers or it's going to fall on the graciousness of someone staying after and Mr bugni and Mr moral have

109put in countless hours to make sure that that happens and and I'm grateful so much that you are going to help us get get that done the one thing that I would ask you to look at as a board with the growth of this program is to please look at our elementary schools that if you're looking at growing them please look for a way to incorporate a performance area for them so that there is a place that if you're going to grow the cafeterias grow that performance space so that they have a place that they have set that they can go and rehearse it's going to save you on busing and getting them there but it's o going to save staff time that can be better used to help our children with their lessons the

110other thing that I would like to mention is I am I know that a lot of parents are not happy about the start time with all of the elementary schools but if you knew the impact that it has on the at on the music teachers having classes come 15 minutes 20 minutes it cuts into the rehearsal time so it's extremely important that these buses and the kids are getting to the high school at the same time and again I you know I've I've talked to several of you we could use two and a half positions I know that there's not funding for that I understand that but I would really like to look at some grants to bring in some more funding for our music program thank you thank you anybody else hello my name

111is uh Jonathan mickley I'm a Community member live at five Durham Drive I uh just wanted to make a comment in regards to what I saw with the uh budget presentation earlier I uh noticed that it was uh said that uh it's expected that there' be some consolidation of programs and I fear that uh I and presumably others would be interested at some point to know what uh that would look like as the the details get planned out hopefully there'll be you know further updates to the public as to what the scope of those consolidations would be and uh what programs would end up being affected by that thank you if I respond to that iction um it's just a it's a consolidation of grade levels Mr meley and no no programs are being Consolidated

112so anybody else hi I'm Jessica gner I'm an ultra Park um resident but I'm a teacher at Maple um I just notice that Maple Meir has the highest student faculty ratio among all four elementary schools and it also serves the highest L population and special eded students um in our district additionally we are one of the highest performing elementary schools not just at sweet home but in our surrounding areas uh given the class sizes across the district seem to be relatively similar uh could you help us understand why we are one of the only schools that are consolidating positions thank you anybody else all right moving on all right right may I have a motion in a second to approve the consent agenda on items a through P so moved second all in favor I

113right brings us to informational items Misha would you like to start um yeah okay uh let start off with the musical again this weekend wrapped up once upon a mattress the students started this whole process back in November and there was so much time and effort put into the musical Once Upon a mattress was a semi-finalist in the she's Wonder Awards so a huge congrats and thank you once again to the cast and crew and everyone who dedicated their time in bringing the show to Life Next another update on movie night thanks to Dr janest student government has gotten permission to utilize the auditorium to stre to stream Spider-Man no way home which was decided through a survey that was sent out to all the students movie night will be on April 2nd right after

114school so students will only need to arrange their own transportation home thanks to Mrs Bruce AMC will be supplying us with huge bags of popcorn and posters we have teachers and students from both student government and National Honor Society volunteering for decoration set up and cleanup so we ant anticipate this to be a big free event for everyone just in time for before our prep rally leading into to Spring spring break next members from our student government's food and nutrition and environmental action committee towards Central Kitchen with Mrs S Jack and Mr trusel we discussed the pros and cons of ideas such as bringing back the salad bar a compost bin to reduce waste and everyday food options like fruit cups yogurt and chicken nuggets for the elementary school students next this month is the

115high school's gambling awareness month which was facilitated by Mr is adoric so a big shout out to him especially because statistics show how prominent gambling is among High School boys he encouraged students to make slideshows jeopardy games and posters which were later presented in front of the cafeteria and it was a huge success students spread awareness provided Health Resources and shared their own personal stories to support their peers who might be struggling our diversity and inclusion Community has set up a hen stand and it's been super nice to see everybody come up with their friends and get their henna done and celebrate cultures around the world tomorrow some of our members from student government and National Honor Society will be volunteering at Heritage Heights STEM night March 21st is World Down syndrome day and the

116high school will be participating by rocking colorful and mismatched socks to represent chromosomes in order to raise awareness and promote diversity and lastly today a wall was put up in the high school right when you enter to display and recognize the top 10 seniors and we hope it'll be a way to encourage the younger classes to continue to do their best academically thank you Miss Jason hi I know we went through our um agenda spots but I always like to stop at special education there were 246 Pages this month I don't know if Peter you got through them all but I got through them all every single one of them and again every month I give a shout out to our special ed department but I would like to say when I'm talking about special

117ed I'm talking about PT OT speech just the incredible job you do for our kids so thank you for that um I went to the musical thank you Christine it was great and I was ticket scanning I'm on the computer stuff now and um the craft fair on the computer ST the computer stu um the craft fair awesome craft fair a good attendance uh lots of vendors and how much did we make did you well dollars for schar have that's a good question we counted yesterday I didn't get a final tally okay to be determined TBD all right and that's it thank you Mr Johnson couple quick things I went to the Multicultural night the other night over at Willow Rich um Mr P if you could share my congratulations everybody I think they did

118a awesome job there um just walking down the food tables which there was I think 14 of them I counted them right I only got through half of them and I ate food from at least a dozen different countries so it was not to mention all the other things they were doing was pretty good just to listen to music that was being played the activities the kids read I thought that that was awesome and just there's a bunch of things I'm just going to jump to one in particular a couple weeks back we had a um a training session for First Responders for our electric buses for those of you who don't know already um and Mr feldom talked about them last week our first three electric buses have arrived they I saw a couple

119of them charging the other day I'm assuming we're getting closer to them being ready to use very soon okay cool anyway the training was put on by um Thomas bus that that provides these particular buses and it covered a lot of ground and I have to say from my perspective even though I've talked to some vendors about electric buses before and asked a lot of questions just to hear everything they had to say about them and all of the safety features that were in these buses and the redundancy to the safety features was just I I was glad to hear it the First Responders that came had a lot of good things to say to the chief of the bright and fire department also works for a county um emergency response in there so he

120had a lot of good put on it and some things that we might have to change on how we do things but it was just I think it was well worth our time and I was just I was I was fascinated by the whole process and I wrote down a number here and I was going to say the only thing that the one thing that really jumped out of me and I don't in front of me yeah the batteries U Mr Jason was there with me they um the battery that you see under the bus each one of the batteries actually consists of over 8,000 little batteries or like eight you know double a size batteries to create that giant battery they're also separated because those are the high voltage system there's also a regular

121voltage system like you would have in your car and they're separated by the two and shut it off the regular voltage kills the the high voltage stuff too so just the whole process I thought was well worth our time Mr Johnson if I could just add on that just for the good of the audience um there is a New York state mandate that says starting in 2027 that any uh vehicle that the district purchases in terms of Transportation uh needs to be zero admission and our Fleet needs to be completely uh zero Mission by 2035 so we've been working very hard on that but one of the things that I did want to point out uh in the one house budget now uh there is some talk uh from I think it was the Senate

122side I don't remember uh but to have uh uh language in place to allow districts to um ask for and receive extensions to that timeline whether or not it gets to the executive budget and gets to the endline and gets passed we'll see uh but there is some conversation out there about extending um either not not maybe not necessarily extending the deadline but providing districts with mechanisms to request extensions to said deadline so we'll see yeah it' be interesting to see because I know this is the first time now since that was passed three years ago whatever it was in the years past when I've talked with our Representatives they said there was no discussion at all so that's actually yeah step in the right direction I'm not convinced that we'll see it move a

123lot I again i' we've operated under the under the under the uh kind of the guys is that it's gonna it's going to be here uh and we're working towards meeting the Mandate thanks time sure anything else yep I'll say thank you um Mr liable yeah I I um also just wanted to congratulate uh the students and uh parents at Willow Ridge for uh their Multicultural night I know my kids participated um had a very nice time they brought in pretzels to represent the German culture then this year it was um there was a lot of um different foods and uh dancing in the Irish uh dancers as well so they did a great job um the other thing I wanted to mention is there was uh for the middle school there was a club

124and art show um exhibit um at the library over here in autobond and so the Middle School artwork was put up which um it's you know they did an amazing job and it was um really really um fun to see from sneakers being painted to um impressionism type of things so uh again great job there and then the the clubs a there were teachers there and students who represented different clubs and organizations um so it was nice to see and just to get to talk to everyone about what they're um you know the various clubs that are there and what they're doing um I also wanted to mention um just a retirement which I don't normally bring up on the agenda tonight which is my dad um after 17 years with uh Sweet Home prior

125to that nearly 40 years with General Motors so this will be the first time that he won't be working but just want to um recognize him and recognize all of our bus AIDS our bus drivers and all of our Frontline workers you know um tonight I mentioned the uh Multicultural night which was put on by the PTA you know our parents I mentioned the clubs and activities which is so much of our teachers participating and doing the extra work um to give our students those opportunities and then you have the Frontline workers like my dad who um you know for a number of years I mean I don't think he missed a day of work um and so I appreciate everything he's done and I appreciate everything you know those bus AIDS are sometimes the

126first PE people those students see um and the last ones sometimes they see from from the district so everyone has a purpose but uh you know it's the one as a parent i' I've said this many times that the those who are interacting with our kids on a on a day-to-day basis they're really the so much of the heart and soul and and you know when I think of Sweet Home I always say what do you want you want you know those are the people you really want to do a great job and I'm proud of all the people we have here who do such a great job um so I think yeah that's it for me thank you okay Mr RAB well thank you Dad for for us I'm sure the district has already

127extended that thank you but that's very nice very nice that he does that I think people are the most important piece of the puzzle here at sweet home and I was able to get to the um March Heritage Heights PTA meeting and they're planning on their stem night March 19th and some other activities towards the uh end of the school year family night and some other things um some of the conversation didn't again surround this bus issue and their concerns of safety primarily um I did see some of those folks show up last week which I happy to see and always for myself happy to see participation and and speaking at these meetings I know isn't easy uh but we appreciate that I appreciate that so St Patty's Day I was out and about and

128I ran into believe it or not a fellow that drove a bus for laid law and had a little bit of conversation there about his Union and and what happened there also ran into a young fellow that just completed the training for another school district who was bragging about what a great part-time job this will be for me and he at night he tends borrow or whatever he does but it it works real well with the benefits and anything so maybe that's an area we can in the future look for recruit fruits for maybe those young folks that are working nights and would like something during the day so again it happened to be St Patty's Day long as they're not hung over and I'll let you handle that one Mr rabit folks there so

129I don't know but yeah I wouldn't mind by the way so anyway that's all I have thank you Miss y okay so uh no PTA at Glendale um this month but they do have a MC teer night happening on March 20th from 4:30 to 7:30 at the McDonald's on the corner of Sheridan and sweet home um our Glendale PTA president is here tonight she has MCG Girl Scout cookies so if anybody wants to hang out afterwards um so I wanted to give a special shout out to all of our uh special education students who participated in the Saba ice show today um I'm going to try not to cry while I'm explaining this because my son when he was at Maple Mir participated in this program so if you're not familiar Saba stands for spirited

130athletes bold at heart they are a mostly volunteer organization that Services about 500 kids throughout Buffalo uh they have a school age program where they actually partner with school districts like sweet home and give them skating lessons so I want you not to imagine you're a teacher because most of you are you already know so imagine in the middle of your workday putting on ice skates right after you have gotten all of your special needs students onto a bus and taken into the rink in Riverside in Buffalo and you get them in their skates and you got your skates on and you're all there trying to teach them a routine okay so I want you to just Envision for a second how difficult that is and it's set to music and it's beautifully choreographed and

131everybody's having a great time so I did not get to go to see the show today because once again my day job prevents me from having fun um but I did get to see a little video clip I'm hoping Christine you got more pictures and things like that because I would just love to see the kids and and how how it all went down today um but just to give give everybody who participated in this a special shout out Glendale had seven students in three staff Willow Ridge had 11 students and seven staff Maple me had 16 kids and 12 staff and we had two ready Academy kids that go and participate in this program which just blows my mind how amazing that is so um to kind of piggyback on what marann says about

132our special education teachers thank you so much much this is a wonderful opportunity that our kids have here at sweet home um I just like I couldn't have been happier with when my son was in the program and I'm just so grateful that so many other families get to participate in something like this as well so thank you yes that's it Mr balante okay I did attend the play on Sunday and you know words cannot describe how wonderful it was um especially watching kids that my son who is a senior grew up with and now up there it it's phenomenal um I attended two PTA meetings over the last month one at Willow Ridge one at the high school um we talked about the Multicultural night they also have a science night coming up on

133April 4th at Willow Ridge um at the high school they sponsor the basket raffle at the craft fair and they are putting together a plan Mr Feldman to read all the scholarship essays I believe so they're going to help out with that um we also had open Dialogue on the concerns for the with the busing um and time changes um the other things I did was I did some I had some legislative meetings um I was in Albany on Tuesday March 4th um with other teachers from around Western New York um we talked about Foundation Aid the cell phone policy CTE aable salary cap teacher Center funding Universal school meeting so we're all pushing for those and then last Friday I attended a legislative breakfast at the Kenton CTE center with our area legislators um

134and um the our um irie1 Bose's leadership um we took a tour of the CTE Center um and we also had some students um speak to us one of them is our senior uh Nick Schmidt who is in the electrical um program at at Kenton CTE um he did a fantastic fantastic job so I want to give kudos to him he spoke to the legislators about his experience in the CTE program and how it's going to help guide his career plan his career plans um upon graduation he has two options um he can go work for nice EG or he can become an apprentice at a local Electrical Company so good luck to him and that's it okay and I have nothing that brings us to our second Open Session would anyone like to adjust

135the board going once going twice all right moving on May I have a motion in a second on Personnel items one and two so moved second all in favor I I that brings us to the end of the meeting may have a motion in a second to adjourn to no nothing no nothing to adjourn period so moved back all in favor