May 3, 2022 Board of Education Meeting

001all right so why don't we stand for the pledge i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all all right we'll start with roll call peter bellante here amy battaglia here josh feldman i'm here brian libel here haley mcdonald here scott johnson here i'm not sure if roman thought it was seven o'clock so we'll wait and see if he shows up mary and jason i am here motion to accept roll please still moved second second all in favor aye seven to nothing next on the agenda is our budget hearing and then the meet the candidates so let's start with mr feldman the budget hearing yep mr dynasty if you could just share your

002screen yep virgil zoom right uh for joseph's apple tv okay thank you mr genestry uh this is the start of the required uh 2022 23 budget hearing uh after we're done with the budget hearing we'll kind of clear out up front and we'll welcome our four candidates for the board of education uh for meet the candidates night but mr gesture if you could hit the next slide please um this tonight uh the tonight's hearing presents really the fifth look at the budget that the board of education has done throughout this 22-23 budget season the budget was approved adopted by the board of education on tuesday april the 19th uh at the budget um at their uh voting meeting uh but in a nutshell you see on the slide there that the 2223 proposed budget is

00389 million 350 1 it maintains all the programming current programming at all levels in all school configurations we do add to staff uh to address some instructional needs across the district we've added three special education teachers a speech pathologist an assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction and although it's not up there a director of human resources it maintains our annual bus purchases for the 2223 school year we are purchasing uh three new or intend to purchase three new large 65 passenger buses one small 30 passenger bus and one wheelchair bus uh and the proposed tax levy does fall within the new york state and post uh tax cap uh which means that we only need a simple majority of the voters to vote uh in favor of the budget for it to pass so just

004in a nutshell there the proposed budget again uh for the coming school year 89 million 351 588 in comparison the current year we are at 85 million hundred twenty three thousand five hundred and fifty nine dollars it's a budget to budget increase of three point three million four hundred twenty eight thousand twenty nine dollars or just under four percent three point nine nine percent uh the budget does need to be presented to our public in a three-part uh scenario administrative the administrative component of the budget provides for overall general support and management activities including board of education superintendent's office curriculum staff development printing and publishing and supervision and support in each of the six schools also included in this are expenses for legal services liability and property insurance and salaries and benefits for our administrative

005staff the program budget is the instructional component that accounts for instruction and educational support for the district's 3 400 students salaries of teachers guidance counselors psychologists social workers coaches therapists teacher aides computer technicians and related clerical support staff are included as are their fringe benefits transportation instructional computers supplies and textbooks special education services and expense for summer school are also included in this component and the last component of the three-part budget is the capital component it includes buildings and grounds salaries equipment vehicles utilities repairs rentals contracts and supplies for all custodial grounds and maintenance of all district buildings it includes judgments and claims and refund of prior your property taxes due to reassessments or town clerical errors and it includes the majority of it includes the debt service principal and interest uh and inter fund

006transfers for existing capital projects and it includes fringe benefits for the buildings and grounds folks as well next slide please oh google slides did something a little different but that's okay we'll work through it um three-part budget uh the total part total budget again is 89 million 351 588 the administrative component uh for the 22-23 school year uh is seven million one hundred and twenty nine thousand nine hundred and seventy two dollars or eight percent uh the program portion of the budget is 68 million six hundred and forty six thousand six hundred and sixteen dollars or seventy six point eight percent and the capital component of the budget is 13 million uh 575 thousand dollars even or 15.2 percent you hit that next slide there it is in bar graph form um the administrative component

007went up 0.2 percent the instructional component went up 0.7 percent and the capital component went down just about excuse me 0.9 percent if you hit the next slide mr chinese um so on the revenue side of an 89 million dollar budget this is where the revenue side is funded from uh from real property taxes at 59.7 state aid at 29.2 percent reserve and fund balances 2.8 debt reserve 0.8 percent sales tax 4.4 and other uh most notably pilots payments in lieu of taxes tuitions and interest at 3.1 percent some of the revenue impacts that we've seen excuse me for the 22 23 school year include about a 1.5 million dollar increase in foundation aid uh this is part of the governor's plan to fully fund foundation aid uh by the 23-24 school year we're still

008underfunded uh foundation aid wise by about 1.6 million dollars and hopefully uh in next year's state budget well in 2324 state budget we will see a continued increase in that foundation aid we did see a 923 thousand dollars or thereabouts decrease in building aid part of the middle school project did come off we've increased our debt service usage reserve usage by 215 000 uh for uh this next coming year to keep our debt service level and you'll see that on the next slide uh and what we've done uh we've increased our projection in sales tax revenue uh to uh the tune of about 280 thousand dollars we had um a projection uh at about three point i think it's six seven five million dollars uh on april the 5th we got our kind of our

009our third quarter now payment in from the county uh that helped us take a more closer closer look at sales tax for the coming year and we felt comfortable in updating and increasing our revenue uh from a sales tax perspective to of 280 thousand dollars to total 3.9 million dollars for next year next slide mr genestry please so this is what i was talking about in terms of debt service funding the idea is to keep that debt service uh fairly level uh so that homeowners tax levies and tax payments don't do this go up and down they stay relatively flat and then the idea is once a portion a larger portion of the debt service comes off of our roles that would be an ideal time to look at doing another capital project to maintain

010that debt service funding um so uh really the the majority of the middle school project from 0.204 and that time frame comes off uh around that 24-25 school year so i would expect that we would put together uh some sort of a capital improvement project around 25-26 somewhere in there but you'll learn more about that when young and wright is here next week to talk about the results of our building conditions survey next slide so the proposed tax levy which again makes up the majority of our revenue side is fifty three million three hundred twenty one thousand five hundred and eighty eight dollars it is a tax levy increase of two point two one six million dollars or four point three four percent uh as i mentioned initially it does fall within the new york

011state tax cap you hear the tax cap is either two percent uh or the cost of living whichever is is less uh and and the tax cap is two point it's two percent this year but there are exclusions to the tax cap uh things most notably about debt service capital improvement projects and things along those lines that allows that number to get to the 4.34 the tax cap again uh we fall below it uh it would require a simple majority for the budget to pass uh the tax cap for us this year at 4.34 percent uh is lower than the rate of inflation uh which is at 4.7 percent so this is kind of a snapshot as to what uh this proposed budget might have as far as an impact uh on tax bills for

012the 22-23 school year this is really again just a snapshot because there's a lot of variables that we do not know yet this is a snapshot using assessment levels for uh 2020 2021 2022 and uh also equalization rates are not finalized uh from the towns of amherst and town wanda as of yet so this is again using uh assessment values for the 2122 school year and current present equalization rates so 150 000 market value home for the town of amherst on the town side on the amherst side would estimate at a tax rate of 15.36 per thousand which represents a tax bill of 2 304 or an increase of ninety six dollars from year to year on the tonawanda side similar home uh at uh um a tax rate of forty one estimated tax rate

013of forty one dollars and nineteen cents translates into a tax bill of two thousand two hundred and eighty six dollars or an increase of of uh ninety five dollars from present year to next year um it's important to note uh that last year you see on the side there last year at this time we made a recommendation or we made an estimation rather of a tax bill on the amherst side of 14.53 one assessment and final assessment rules came in uh in august we recommended a tax rate of 14.72 cents on the tonawanda side we estimated in may of last year a tax rate of 38.99 and when tax rolls came in we ended up at 39.48 so um it is an estimation where we sit right now we just don't know as far as

014assessed values go uh where we'll end up but uh we do have it um for those that take advantage on the amherst side the star savings on a tax bill is 397 dollars coming up for this school year and on the tonawana side 391 dollars next slide please mr genestry so in addition to the budget excuse me there are two additional propositions one uh we will elect two new board of education members to five-year terms that will expire on june 30th 2027. uh the terms of um amy battaglia and mary and jason are expiring this june and we have four candidates that are running for the two seats and we'll meet those candidates very shortly uh the second proposition uh revolves around the capital improvements reserve fund for the voters to consider we are asking

015voters to consider to amend the purpose of the reserve fund to allow for purchase of vehicles and equipment outside of a capital improvement project uh and really to utilize in addition to that to utilize 500 000 of that reserve to purchase vehicles and equipment for buildings and grounds and transportation any purchase outs in this capital improvement utilizing this capital improvement reserve fund has zero tax impact on the residential homeowner uh it's money that we've already set aside for use specifically around capital improvements we did use this reserve fund i think it was in 2020 uh when 2020 or 2019 i don't remember i think it's 2020 uh when we experienced flooding in our high school and we had to get that taken care of right away rather than going to a full-blown capital improvement project

016the voters in june of 2020 that year because uh the vote got pushed out because of the pandemic allowed us to spend seven hundred thousand dollars to uh reno uh to fix and remediate flooding mr janessa if you would just hit the next slide this this gives you kind of an idea as to what exactly uh we are looking to utilize the uh the five hundred thousand dollars for we're looking to purchase three ford three ford f-350 xl plow trucks uh at forty two thousand five hundred dollars totaling a hundred and twenty seven thousand five hundred dollars uh that would be used for buildings and grounds and facilities for plowing obviously um we purchased we'd look to purchase four uh ford transit high roof maintenance fans at forty two thousand eight hundred and fifty dollars

017for a total of a hundred and seventy one thousand four hundred dollars those would replace um many of the vans that our facilities department uses to um you know go to job sites and move between building to building uh we would look to replace uh three ford transit connect vans at twenty five thousand six hundred and twenty five dollars a piece uh for a total of seventy six thousand eight hundred and seventy five dollars uh this would replace um our mail car our mail couriers van as well as to utilize two of these vans uh to do small transportation runs and replace minivans uh that the transportation department does have um and then the couple of last items the ford box truck at fifty thousand dollars uh would be for our informational technology department rit

018department now has a box truck uh that they use to take parts and repairs from building to building that needs to be replaced and then lastly it would we would look to replace a terrain cut mower a john deere 8800 a terrain cut mower at 73 525 dollars for a total expect expected expenditure just under that 500 000 dollar marker of 499 300. i would just uh no that's okay uh uh just for ratification and the audience members all of those vehicles and equipment up there we've been uh talking about it at the board level uh those vehicles are vintage early 2000s 2002 to 2005 so we are working on borrowed time for many of those vehicles those are vehicles that for whatever reason uh prior to me being in the sea we couldn't get

019them into the general fund budget but we did make arrangements at the end of last year to put this money uh into the to the capital improvement reserve fund uh specifically for this reason so again on the ballot on may 17th the budget the candidates board of education candidates uh and then this this proposition to amend the capital improvements reserve fund the purpose of it and to authorize us spending 500 000 to replace those vehicles and equipment so at this point uh if the board has any questions or if the audience has any questions i'd be happy to answer those questions for you i have one question sure peter um the plow trucks do they include a plow or do we have the existing equipment we have existing equipment i'll ask a question you know

020my saga i ordered my van november 11. i'm still driving my 2008. yes are we sure we can get a hold of those uh well we're gonna do our darndest uh we first have to go through the the steps to get a approval from our community and once that happens and if if we're so lucky to have that happen uh we would begin the process to to purchase them i don't know what it looks like all the pricing that you saw up there uh is on state contract um so we don't have to go through the competitive bid process so as soon as we have authorization hopefully from our community we can begin that process and much like you are wait and see wait and see what happens but it is equipment that definitely needs

021to be replaced absolutely um i had another question maybe more of a comment i still don't understand maybe i'll have to talk to the town supervisor why our assessments values are going down for the equalization versus because at one point we were trying to get to a hundred correct and now we're headed back down i don't understand why i i can't answer that question the only thing that i can tell you is the further that that equalization number gets from a hundred percent the further you are are away from you know full evaluation of your home it's it's i think it's a politically more palatable way of of adjusting the assessments because you can do that unilaterally at the town as opposed to having to share you know you get something in the mail that

022says your assessment went up fifty thousand dollars there's a lot of angry phone calls correct correct it's a it's very political it's very political right now and it probably doesn't have anything to do with it but um our sales tax we rely on that quite a bit yep is there any effect with the gas tax that we're hearing is going to you know be down or lower is do we have any effect of that as far as with our fuel with any money we might reuse i don't think so it remains to be seen and kind of the impact on that honestly and the board knows this but throughout the pandemic we've been very conservative in our estimates for sales tax we thought that the pandemic would have an adverse effect on purchasing and it

023was quite the opposite so while i you know we've added to the number the sales tax number it's still moderately conservative and i feel uh pretty strongly that we'll hit that number regardless of what happens with gasoline taxes okay thank you cheers any other questions anyone in our audience mr raiden's back to the slide with uh equalization rate right oh yeah so that's correct so in the may 2021 amherst estimation of 14.53 and then august 2021 amherst final good catch error on my part my apologies seeing all your questions mr gesture i think that ends our um our budget hearing just a friendly reminder that budget vote takes place on tuesday may the 17th uh in this very room from 7 a.m to 9 00 p.m you do need to be a district resident you

024will need to bring some sort of id but we look forward to a great turnout and hopefully some support from our community how many years have they supported the budget and since we've had a successful budget passing since the last one in terms of a vote 1977. excellent i think it's important to note too you did a comparison to uh the rate of inflation but i think the set-asides that you talked about are important because those are individually voted on propositions right i mean so that is something you know the general program the general budget hasn't grown that much really if you talk about setting aside the capital improvement projects which are a separate referendum so we're actually considerably if you set those aside underpacing inflation which i i think we should be proud of

025and it's i think it's a sustainable budget i i i commend uh the board this is my third budget in in this seat um you know and i've had the vantage point from another seat at the budget process the board does a phenomenal job balancing fiscal responsibility with core programming and we're in a in a good place financially as the as a district uh we've had continued support from our community and these folks up here are to be commended for that and you've done and you just oh you've got to create your whole office too you're fine no i mean i just i take we take suggestions we take priorities and i i just build it you guys set the priorities and that kind of thing i don't know if the community knows this but

026we've been working on a budget since january yep yep so it's kind of a long process you have i mean we've been working we've started with meetings with department heads and things like that really in december just before christmas there's been years that we've had to make some really tough decisions unfortunately this year okay so that uh that concludes the the budget hearing portion uh yeah jeff sorry when he started budget during january inflation was now where it is now uh how worried is the board about inflation continuing to go up if you set these numbers months ago correct and contingency uh well it's a good question um you know we have uh you know the rainy day fun john the assigned an unassigned fund balance piece of it we carry forward and assign fund

027balance but we also of 2.4 million dollars for for some of that very reason uh we do have an unassigned fund balance that that we can bring forward uh generally you hear that four percent marker every year um uh we make recommendations to the board in august based upon where we are um you know as a district on reserve usage and on that unassigned fund balances where we might anticipate some unforeseen expenses we do have a couple of contracts that we're working through now that hopefully will be settled um you know shortly but if they're not that would be an area that we would look to kind of offset some of those expenses and we are very conservative when we do this i mean and some of these things i think the public probably knows

028a lot of this we don't have a say in you know the contractual the health care there's there's a bunch of things no that are we doing i feel you know and we're in the midst of a uh of a state controller's audit now and i think very soon that you'll see some results of that over the summer time and i'm con we're in a good place we're in a good place financially i also want to say that like the budget that we were shown in february looks different from what we're seeing today as it uh responds to numbers coming in that we didn't have at the very beginning of the year so it's constantly kind of adjusting and adjusting until we get to this point when we can say we have all the data

029we need to have so and i i think that the you know we meant to mention of it that we're not fully funded in terms of foundation aid i think the current administration is committed to fully funding school districts um so i think that we will see that you know the aid projection that we got in january from the governor's office um didn't budge throughout the budget process in fact it went up about 35 000 so normally there's a there's a give and take there and it's very political but i think both sides of the house so to speak uh realize the importance of fully funding schools uh just because of you know what we've all been through really the last two and a half years scott what did you say this is the first

030year that as far as yeah yes we meet with our legislators to talk about budget issues and and what we feel believe we need and as we did i met with um every one of the uh the area representatives this year as part of harry county stuff and when we walked in the door we said this is the first time we're not walking in the door begging for money for foundation aid and we're happy about where we're starting so it was i've been doing this for my 16th year of doing it so okay so this moves us into uh the meet the candidates portion of the evening um so just as i made mention early on the voters school district voters will elect two members uh to the sweden board of education on tuesday may

031the 17th uh the terms of mrs amy battaglia and mrs mary and jason are up we have four candidates running for the two open seats amy battaglia marianne jason john jonathan makeley and jessica stevens the two top vote vocators again will be elected to a five-year term expiring on june 30th 2027. so uh i would just ask everybody besides mrs jason and mrs battaglia the board could have a seat kind of in the audience and then jonathan and jessica if you could grab a seat at an open table that would be great [Music] so that the mics are on they're live you don't need to do anything to turn them on but for the folks at home one two because you're first on them so you'll probably make your statement first because you're first on

032the ballot sure yeah switch the first time we're meeting i don't know what i did with the tv it's all right we'll well we'll it's okay it's all right out loud there we go so uh welcome to meet the candidate tonight everybody uh as i made mention we have four folks running for two seats um what we'll do uh is we will allow each candidate uh to um read or share with us a small statement on why they're running for the board and then after that we'll let all four go and then after that uh we'll allow for questions uh just what i would ask is if you do have a question you can come up here and and state your question from the podium uh with the microphone and we're live streaming it on

033our website so just for people if anybody's watching at home so um i think if i remember correctly the order on the ballot uh jessica jonathan you guys are in reverse order thank you thank you it's been a long day so i thank you so much uh we'll just go in order of the ballot um so uh mrs stevens jessica stevens i would welcome you to start thank you very much um i'm jessica stevens and i'm running for the sweet home board of education i was educated in public schools and i attended the university at buffalo for environmental geography and chemistry i worked as a technical writer and environmental scientist before starting a family with my husband todd together we have two girls currently enrolled at willow ridge sally is eight years old and currently

034in second grade and cora is 11 and currently in fifth grade cora will be starting at the middle school next year i'm running for the board of education because i hope to be a voice for all stakeholders i believe in transparency accountability and communication i believe that all stakeholders in the in the community have a voice and they should be heard i believe there's room for the table for all points of view and voices i have a unique perspective that would make me a great board member based on four hats that i wear or have worn first being a parent of two children currently enrolled in the district i do have a vested interest in the current and future direction of the district second serving on the willow ridge pto board for six years i

035spent three years as board treasurer one year's board membership in the last two years as co-president last year i was awarded the said obracher award presented annually for outstanding voluntary service to school and community and i was a finalist for the western new york infotech good neighbor award through the pto i've learned how to work with different people with different views and i've seen the challenges presented to teachers students and parents and i've also tried to help foster a working relationship with the other parent groups throughout the district third during my years working as an environmental scientist i had to learn how to read local state and federal guidelines rules and regulations i had to understand them enough to be able to both explain them to my clients and to implement them to keep their

036employees the surrounding communities and first responders safe and in compliance similar guidelines are set forth by the federal government but to a greater extent the state department of education and i really do look forward to reading through the latest guidelines and seeing how we can interpret and tailor those guidelines to meet the specific needs of our district and finally i started a business during the pandemic i never expected to be a small business owner but i had to quickly learn what it takes to take a new product market it license it and my business follow all state regulations and everything that it takes to run a business in new york state and selling my product throughout the country and overseas anyone who knows me knows that when i start a project i'm all in there

037are no shortcuts and everything is done as it should be done as a board of education member i will be accessible to all stakeholders in our community i want members of the community to be able to voice their concerns even if they know or suspect that i don't agree or see eye to eye with those concerns because any concern of a stakeholder in our district is worth listening to hearing and trying to find a solution because in the end i'm a voice for the district i'm not a voice for myself or just for my family and i wish to initiate positive change in this in the district i hope to work as a team with people that i agree with and also with people i disagree with because when everybody agrees and change never happens

038and when change never happens and growth can never happen i hope to foster a feeling of belonging and community throughout our district every student one community ready for the future and i hope to continue to make sweet home a place that everyone is proud to call their district their home i know there are teacher shortages bus driver and service worker shortages i hope we can find a way to keep the employees that we have and encourage more to join our team one of the biggest goals i have is to figure out a way to address the learning gaps created during the pandemic and to bring back a sense of normalcy to our students and teachers some students are going to need more resources than others to close the same gap and that's why i think

039it's important not just to look at the learning gaps as data points but as individual students with individual needs i hope that in doing so we can focus on mental health because everybody knows a pandemic has affected all of us in the community but my goal is to work with the community to make a more inclusive place where everyone is invited to participate where we constantly work and creating an environment where everyone wants to participate and to lift the barriers in place that prevent everyone from participating and i know that we must work within specific limitations including budgets and i know they can get messy when we don't have unlimited funds to attain the idealistic goals that we speak of but i've dealt with budgets on a much smaller scale but i'm a numbers person

040and i'm really up to the challenge of breaking down every line of the budget year by year and making sure that we are getting the most out of it i know that sitting on the board of education will be a learning curve for me i know that i will have a million questions but i'm not afraid to ask those questions i'm not afraid to seek out those answers and i'm not afraid of the hard work that it's going to take i've always been an all-in sort of person and i'm confident that my experience knowledge hard work and determination will make me an asset to the board of education thank you jessica jonathan i would welcome you and now to kind of state your your reasons for running for the board hello i am uh jonathan

041makely uh i have lived in this district for several years uh i was educated in public schools and uh attended college at uh alfred university and university at buffalo uh in my uh professional career i'm a historian uh with focus on the history of uh american reform movements as a historian my uh work heavily involves uh working to uh research and analyze complex uh subjects to uh understand them uh and to uh help convey an understanding to others these are skills that i believe would be useful when uh trying to uh look at the issues that are facing our uh districts to uh understand them and to look for uh the best possible approaches for addressing them as a historian i have been involved with several different uh historical organizations from which i have experience

042serving on organizational boards working with a variety of people to come together to complete projects designing policy and crafting budgets in addition several years ago i spent a year serving as a representative on the curriculum and teaching committee at the for the college of liberal arts and sciences at alfred university uh where he helped to provide uh input on issues and decisions facing the committee for me i've cared about uh issues of uh education community and civic involvement for a long time ever since i was a high school student running for student government uh trying to make change that way throughout my throughout my life i've been engaged with uh with the public issues i've spent uh years engaging in legislative activism on issues affecting the state uh including uh advocating for policies to help

043improve funding for uh public education and libraries and working to help make college and trade schools and other forms of a post-secondary education more affordable and available uh to people and i've often been involved in the communities that i've had the privilege of living in uh for uh and here i am uh hoping to uh if i were to be elected to use this as a means to help give back to this community to help build a better future for the students of this district when it comes to uh my reasons for running my uh soul my main purpose and goal is to uh work to help ensure that we can have a good quality education for all students in this district i believe that uh different parts of our community each have important inputs

044to provide in that uh how to seek to try to bring together uh all these different parts teachers parents students and other members of the community to listen to their uh perspectives to work to foster a broader general understanding so we can uh move forward and uh with the that i believe that uh some of the most uh important uh tasks that are facing us in the coming years include working to try to strengthen the quality of the teaching of key subjects such as reading writing science math history and to uh support work to support student development as we know we've uh faced a lot of the challenges in this pandemic and it's uh created a lot of uh gaps in education and it'll be important to work to uh close those gaps and to

045get our school more back on track as we uh navigate into a world that after the pandemic uh furthermore i uh we believe that uh another important uh thing that we should work on is working to foster uh informational literacy and critical thinking skills as uh skills of uh being able to uh find information uh evaluate his credibility and figure out how to use that information in a useful ways are important general skills that will serve our our students throughout their lives no matter what career or direction they go in since uh everywhere they go that the task of uh dealing with information will be there uh furthermore uh another uh important thing that we used to work on is to do our best to make sure that our schools are inclusive that uh we

046do our best to try to meet the needs of of individuals individual students to help uh foster their growth and success and towards the those overall ends we should work to foster a greater community engagements to bring the different parts of our community together towards uh the common goal of uh working to sure to ensure that uh all students that uh come out of this school will have a good education that'll set them up for success in life and uh that those are the reasons uh why i am uh running for the school board since i believe that uh my uh skills in regards to uh research and analysis combined with an effort to uh engage with community could uh help to provide uh useful perspectives as we work to uh move forward in the

047coming years thank you mr makely uh i'd just ask um uh mrs battaglia if you'd like to say a few words about why you're running for the board um i won't speak long um i've been on the board now for three years i'm finishing up obviously this term and looking to continue the term into the next five through the pandemic things have been we'll call it challenging um we've you know had our differences but we've always come out with the best interest of the students in in our uh goals and in our in our sites um as we as we move forward into whatever the new normal is going to be um i'd like to see that through i'd like to be able to um continue to bring back all of those things that we've

048lost i'd like to be able to help our students who who have experienced some learning gaps um get back to normal and and our staff needs support they need to be heard they need to be supported in everything that they do and i feel that i i've always been a good voice and i feel i can continue to be that voice that's pretty much all it is for me moving forward it's me thank you mrs battaglia mrs jason same uh statement either hi my name is mary and jason and i'm asking for your vote on may 17th i am currently serving as board of education president and will use my experience to continue working with my board colleagues to improve the district i've truly enjoyed making a difference in the lives of the children in

049sweet home i'm a registered nurse in the surgical care unit at millard fillmore suburban for 32 years so i bring a unique perspective to the board especially when we've been talking about covid i'm a parent of two daughters who both graduated from sweet home i got my start in the district by joining the maple mayor pta and that hooked me i became president for two years at the pta and here i am now so all you pta people out there be careful because you may soon be sitting up here i deeply appreciate all the things that parents and teachers do when working together for the benefit of the children as we move forward i will continue to fight for transparency in all the district does it's important to continue listening and including all the constituents

050of the district in our decision-making process parents or guardians input is important and they do know their children best regarding communication so how do i put my money where my mouth is let's look at my record for example throughout covid and i know i've seen a lot of you on zoom calls um we had numerous zoom meetings as we went from step to i know you're shaking your head from step to step to step and we included staff we included parents as many constituents as we could and we discussed immediate actions and made future plans for reopening our schools safely we are in the process of currently hiring some new people for central office staff as well as a new principal and has always been the sweet home way a diverse group of constituents will

051participate in the process and i've also received numerous emails from parents and staff and i strive to respond to those pretty quickly i know many of you in this room had taken advantage of this to raise concerns with me and while you might not have always agreed with me and the actions i took i hope you do value the attention i've given to your concerns mental health will be a focus of this board that we must deal with not only the mental health of our children but the mental health of our staff to that end we've added two great crisis counselors three social workers two school psychologists so we're we're headed in a good place as we transition from pandemic to endemic we need to find a way to make up the learning gaps i

052think we've all said that children need to be physically present in school they need to see their friends daily develop social skills and interact directly with their teachers this is one reason our entire board was insistent on returning to in-person attendance for the past school year we need to find innovative ways to move the needle to help our kids succeed and graduate with the skills they need to be productive members of society during my years of service i remain steadfast in my goal to effectively efficiently and responsibly use the financial support of our community to ensure that all our students are prepared for future endeavors i've been involved in several capital projects as i know you have to and stayed within budget at and have improved the infrastructure of our district one project i would

053like to see to completion is the northwest amherst community center i've been working with the town of amherst for the last six years on this project we were looking at wetlands we were looking at nests of birds and to see it come to fruition and the start and as it's moving forward is great this is going to be a game changer for our families so please give me the chance to continue my work with my fellow board members i'll continue to work hard devote countless hours into making this district the best in western new york this includes every student one community ready for the future thank you thank you mrs jason so at this time what we would do is we would open up to questions if anybody from the audience has questions uh will

054allow each of the board members to answer of the individual questions so if you have a question i just ask that if you come come up to the podium so that we can do the question and answer period come on john you always have questions oh boy so my name is john raiden's i live at 25 kmart drive um for those who know me i live i was on the school board for 10 years and been involved in the community for a long time at willard civic association i have several questions what do you think about sweet home central school district being involved in transportation and being in lawn maintenance as opposed to to save money contracting that out you know we see a substantial amount of money needing to be spent for lawn care

055and [Music] snow plowing i think we probably have to do that and going back many years i you know hit a brick wall still must be hitting a brick wall why are taxpayers in the transportation business because of the legacy cost of that it's not just today's cost the concern is the legacy costs that we have so whoever would like to respond to that i'll go ahead and start okay response so i know we've looked at it in the past and it didn't go anywhere a lot of our bus drivers first of all a lot of our bus drivers are working for health insurance they work part-time and and that's how they're getting their health insurance the second thing is a lot of those bus drivers live within our district so to unemploy them no

056okay anybody else i mean they could get a job at another district but it's the legacy cost okay i guess my question is what what would be the alternative contracting you contract the bus out like the city of buffalo does or williamsville i think is now doing both contracts okay and lawn maintenance i you know i still cut my own lawn but you watch these lawnmet contractors come and they're in and they're out and it's moved on and then we would we're we don't have to buy a lawnmower well then i'll answer your question okay and i'll answer it by saying you might not like this answer um because i honestly don't know enough about this in order to have an educated opinion on it it's something that i think i would want to look

057into i would want to hear why we've one of the worst reasons to keep doing something is well that's the way we've always done it i don't like that i don't like that but i want to know why it's the way we've always done it and i marianne touched on it a little bit so i i would like to i i would like to hear more about that and then i would like to look at the alternative and weigh the pros and cons but i'm not looking to change things up on day one first you need to learn me me i need to learn why things are done the way they are but to say that that's the way it always is that's that's not a good enough excuse so i i i would like

058to look into that i i suppose when we had the discussion we also mentioned that if we do contract out we lose control which you know it's nice to be able to send buses places i know and it's a balancing act but at the same time i'm looking at our residence i'm looking at losing control okay jonathan or amy do you have any comment well uh as to that matter i would uh say that uh you know what having uh deciding to have uh certain uh services such as busing uh controlled from uh within the district can have uh its uh values in regards to uh providing a level of uh control and stability over services though i would say if uh elected i would uh look into the details of it uh and uh

059consider the various uh pros and cons of the different uh positions for that and then make a determination as to what would be uh soon to be best going forward thank you jonathan amy i just would like to say i think it would be irresponsible of us to contract them out we just put all sorts of money into a brand new bus garage um we've we've put our faith in those people to take care of our children for so many years without looking further into it it would be irresponsible we're wrapping up a capital improvement project that our community has voted on and they've said yes we think our buses are important enough so i think that the community wants us to have our community members serving as our drivers and and our buses being

060our own um i'm glad to see that there's um some competition in the in the school it's good to see many times we've seen one person run for one seat and um so it's healthy for the community so my question goes to is probably the two challengers challengers come forward often because they think something can be improved and they want to to do they what is it you as challengers probably to jonathan and to uh uh jessica what do you think could be improved and how would you go about may implementing that improvement as a board member because there's only a few things you can do absolutely um i love that question like i i just previously said i'm not i'm not running in any specific agenda or initiative i don't have one goal but

061i think as a board of education member that's a good thing you have too many too many things coming in and out to focus your attention on just one thing um do i think we can do things better absolutely i believe that we can always do things better i think that once you stop trying to do things better that's when growth stops what can we do better i think a lot of the things that we're going to be faced with in the immediate future is going to be directly related to learning gaps brought forth with the pandemic um we're still kind of in it as i mean i'm actually in my five-day post-covet must wear a mask protocol right now so we're still kind of going through it but the learning gaps are something that

062we are definitely going to have to do what specifically i don't have a specific answer as to there is no magic wand or magic answer and if there was i really think that any of the board members would have done it but i i do believe that it's important to always strive to be better um you can always self-evaluate and find ways to do things better jonathan yes that uh i would say that uh when it comes to my reasons for running the big thing that i'm uh focused on isn't you know trying to help uh ensure that we have a good quality education for uh students uh that uh we either will be facing challenges trying to uh overcome the educational gaps and trying to move beyond that and uh try to do what

063we can to uh support students in terms of uh i would seek to approach to doing it as a board member i would say that to one part to involve being active and then forming myself and as the issues to uh look as to what available information there is on the matter to look to what to do what schools and educators or various places are doing to approach uh challenges and seeing uh what uh is or isn't working to uh work to uh have the lines of communications with our teachers to uh gain infra sight from them as to uh what uh challenges uh they're facing in the classroom and what they need to be able to better uh handle their uh task of the teaching and uh what they think can be done to

064help to uh have lines of communication with our parents community members to uh gain insights as to uh what the needs of uh their children are to uh be able to factor that in is to uh what we uh prioritize and uh acting and by bringing those uh together or to have a dialogue and figure out what it is that we need to uh address and uh what can be done to help on that matter and uh as a board member uh work to the process of designing the budget to make sure that we are uh investing in the kind of uh things that uh students and teachers will need and uh that we are handling our budget in an efficient way okay that's a great segue for our next question in the interest of

065time okay uh in fairness and equity i would welcome uh amy and marianne to answer the same question about uh things that you would look to improve that's true yeah um i guess if i'm thinking down the road in the next five years i you know i i spoke on bringing back the normalcy of of what our kids expect on a day to day the things that that they've missed out on in the last few years with the pandemic and things um so that that would be probably my number one thing to that i see going forward that i'd like to improve um i also you know we have a new superintendent we have some new people in in our buildings we have you know i'd like to to help get them acquainted and and

066know what sweet home is when we built um the um every student one community ready for the future we built that they weren't here i want them to know what that is i want them to know that sweet home is a family and we have a great reputation and i want them to carry it on so that's what i look to do in the next five years very end and also i think bringing back that normalcy i mean get the kids back in the cafeteria eating um let them back to the gym there's just some things that we we need to get these kids back into some normalcy i mean our second graders or first graders kindergarten first grade pretty much has been mask time um and again as we move forward mental health i

067think we're going to have to focus on but we have to realize that as a board and as new members if they come on board you're one person out of seven so collectively is how we work not singularly with agendas so um the other thing and you said um right when you went off is some questions to our new board members it is just so great seeing this many people because i don't think we've ever had this many people at a meet the candidates usually it's one no you're making faces it really isn't okay yes so it's we're maybe we're getting the word out there and people are finally seeing they need a voice come to these meetings maybe people want to be involved locally because it's albany's been pulling the strings fantastic so what

068can we do locally on it's important yeah mr raiden's just in the interest of time and so others can ask questions we'll give you one more question [Laughter] i'm gonna pick one out okay i guess i'll ask this one to marianne um you had said you to fight for transparency is it a fight do you is it difficult i do are you is transparency achieving transparency a difficult thing i think we have i use the word fight because we have to focus on continuing to do that um we've got to involve all our constituents our parents our teachers we just we can't leave every anyone out for this um we're still when we talk about constituents we're still fighting to get businesses to come to our meeting so we have their input do we have

069any real businesses it's great to see people here but we need to continue to fight for those groups that maybe aren't so much represented but parents come on down because you know we're we're dealing with a lot of heavy stuff in your children's education you need to be a part of this i don't i don't have a question of a comment um you did say that with the with the budget uh maintaining programs and that we have but i think like from the safety committee earlier there's going to be psychologists and you mentioned mental health i mentioned so i think it's yes three psychologists that the districts have so i just want to complement the district for recognizing a need for some of this mental health and putting some money in the budget for that

070uh purpose thank you thank you i heal the floor thank you [Laughter] are there any other questions from our community from the floor hi my name is chris jason i live at 91 ava lane and um i am married to one of the candidates but you'll have to guess which one that's the tough one new questions though i'm not sure what he's going to say so my questions are mostly focusing on cove but it's been a huge impact on school and everything else in our whole lives so during this past school year sweet home like most suburban districts in western new york chose to only offer full-time in-person schooling for the previous school year sweet home offered a hybrid option where parents could choose to send their parents in person against their students full-time or

071remote schooling full-time did you agree with the decision for september 2021 that only in-person instruction should be offered or should we have continued with the hybrid model but maybe we had jessica if we can start on the other side of the table this time i'd love to answer this question just because um i've been very vocal about this particular um question and i will say we chose remote learning last year for our children number of issues my daughter's high risk we have a home environment where we could educate our kids at home and by doing so we could open up more spots um for those parents who needed to send their kids in person um at the very beginning of this year i was very vocal very very very vocal about continuing remote learning i

072have to say that i was wrong for me personally my children would have continued to do great in remote learning this year but my children are not the norm that is not the experience of of most of the children in the district and when we make decisions as a district we can't make decisions just for my child we have to make decisions for the majority for for what's good for most so i'm happy that they went back in person and yes i i i am admit because i was very vocal and and you know you heard me um i think all in all it's been a very good thing uh there's was a lot of socialization a lot of educational uh aspects that they were not getting at home and that i really wasn't aware

073of until they returned to in person so yes i believe the decisions that were made this year were the correct decisions i believe the american academy of pediatrics would also agree because if you ask any of those agencies they will tell you that kids need to be in school in person so while i personally had a problem with at the beginning um and especially if i am elected as board of education member i'm not pushing for my kids i i'm working for everyone's kids so i just wanted to make sure i answered that first because i don't want to come off as a hypocrite i'm admitting exactly where i was at the beginning of the year and why i've changed my mind so thank you thank you mrs stevens jonathan same question yes to uh

074that matter i think that uh overall it is a good that the school's made progress uh towards uh returning to uh to uh in person education that at the time uh there was a reasons for having a hybrid education regard due to how uh things were going on with the pandemic that ended over all we should work uh towards the aim of uh being able to regularly have uh impersona construction uh going forward although uh it uh may be important to uh have the retain the possibility for uh remote instruction at least for some students who uh would have a medical or otherwise a serious need that would uh keep them from in-person instruction likewise that we may not know how things are going to be going on going forward in regards to what uh

075would be required to the school from the state uh in regards to uh instruction uh so we may have to adjust in some sense but overall i say that we should work to be able to have it where the general student population can receive instruction at school uh and uh be able to return to a normal uh learning environment thank you jonathan amy uh yes i agree with the way that we brought students back in september i had some concerns that i voiced at the time i you know was nervous as is every parent i believe putting their student or their children into you know what some consider to be the lion's den of the illnesses um but as as we've grown through the year through the first bout of the pandemic and continued in

076through this year what we've learned aside from a lot of things about the pandemic itself children are resilient and they'll if they have to wear a mask so they can be with their friends they will if they have to sit six feet apart so they can have lunch in a group they will if they can go back to what they knew prior to that they'll be very excited but you know children are resilient and i think that they they've been through the most but i think that they were able to rally and uh when we made the decision to send him back i think it was a good decision i should say with 100 a surety there is not one single person on this board that does not consider the safety of your kids and

077staff number one priority if there was any doubt our kids would be safe they would not have come back but you know what gang we need to live with this kovitz covet's going to be around like the flu if we go remote every time a few kids get covered we're not going to have these kids in school and they've got to be in school we've seen that we've mentioned it ad nauseam tonight they need to be in school so safety of your kids number one priority and that's how the board made that decision officer jason did you have another question a pretty quick question do you all uh encourage people to vote yes on the budget 100 yep absolutely absolutely for example yes yes anybody else from the audience have questions come on up hi

078uh chris irwin edgewater drive uh so thank you all for volunteering your time and your energy to be on the board or you know to run for the board or to be commended uh thank you uh so where are you what's your position on you know critical race theory in our schools you know forward against it moving towards it moving away from it what do you think i can answer oh you know i answered first last time no it does you know we are first of all we are not at that point it's very premature i think for any of us to give answers on something like that we have a diversity committee a dei committee that is just beginning to delve into diversity um i think they've had three meetings maybe this is not

079going to be something that we can answer in a quick one-minute spiel um i think to be determined and this is going to be a long process while we delve into diversity delve into our dei and we've got some very capable members headed up by joanne that can help make some decisions and and move our community forward in the future we'll have to answer some of those questions but right now i think it'd be premature all right my opinion amy i would have to agree you know we've got the dei committee that is you know just starting up and and getting that ball rolling um it's important conversations that need to be had you know we all believe red in my opinion and and we should all be treated as such so going forward i

080think those conversations need to be had um but it is very premature to have these conversations in mind jonathan same question yes for that uh matter of the term critical race theory has become a term that's a political hot topic with a very differing uh understandings between different people as to what it's even referring to uh and uh i would say that uh it's important to uh look beyond the buzzwords to look at the core important uh issues that uh we work to make sure that uh the school is uh inclusive towards uh all students that we uh hold to uh principles of equality and mutual respect and that we work to ensure that our the teaching of the subject such as history and social studies is uh based around uh providing a solid facts

081and context and a decent understanding of uh how past events have uh affected the society in which we live thank you jonathan jessica um i just want to start by saying um i i believe a lot of people misunderstand critical race theory as dei so dii diversity equity inclusion is really what our district is focusing on more critical race theory as it stands and as it's a political um hot button issue there really has not been any discussion of crt at the elementary middle high school level and if something like that became part of our curriculum it would be handed down by the department of education it's not something that we don't really get to sit around and determine what the curriculum is we can take the curriculum and kind of i just think that

082um the questions about crt i think are a lot of times comes out of not quite understanding the terms so in our district it's it's definitely diversity equity and inclusion which i think anybody can get behind and as far as the the you know crt let's leave that to the colleges for now let's leave that for you know debates um but outside of the public school system thank you jessica i hope i thank you great answers explained thank you any other questions from the floor behind you right behind you that's okay how are you i'm good i'm jody roberts at um jeffrey drive um i just wanted to say thank you guys for all of your focus on mental health um being a parent of two as well as a social worker and therapist in

083the community um i think it's um something that is really important um so i understand the importance of for mental health for our students teachers and staff but i'd like to ask how you could maybe encourage um or increase the supports to the family units as a whole um you know family systems theory if we touch one everything else moves around right and everybody else is affected and i think it's going to be important i guess to my question of keeping in mind the socio-economic and cultural differences of how each of our families have been impacted differently in the district and just wondering how you guys would address that first of all thank you for what you do and thank you to the people who say thank you to us for what we do um

084some of the kids think we earn a whopping salary [Laughter] zero so um it answered your question that's why i'm so excited about the northwest amherst community center working as kind of a wrap around for some of these services we just went to the ribbon cutting last week or two weeks ago and um they're going to have the basketball courts they're going to have things for kids they're going to have things for grandparents they're going to try and get in no walk type things over there so there's going to be it's going to be a game changer so that's one of the ways um and noah continues to work her magic she does i mean she what can we say about you um just helping our families people think amherst it's such a rich just

085no no no no we have a lot of of people who are struggling i've talked to older people who are trying to make decisions between food and medicine so when we have that going on we cannot sit back on our laurels we need to do better and we need to do more but i'm so excited about this community center because as i said i think it's going to be a game changer thanks marianne amy um you know we're invested in in the mental health of our faculty staff and students uh case in point the hiring of our psychologists and counselors and in providing them with professional development so that they can better serve our constituents within the buildings our families have the opportunity to reach out to ann nowak in our community center and dan

086always will reach out to if she knows there's something going on so you know we definitely put our money where our mouth is when we talk about working on our mental health for our faculty staff and students to remember all three of them um it's very different at work um but it's important and we've talked about it at length and and where we're going from here next year should be um we should have further initiatives going forward next year with our new mental health employees i'm like those people thank you amy thank you jonathan same question yeah i'm similar to the comments i've been uh said before i'd say that the district has been working to make progress with mental health with things such as the community center and staff for uh supporting uh counseling

087and such that those uh viewers have their initiatives that they are working on uh and i would think that it's a important uh for the board to be in communication with the those who are doing this work to uh understand uh what uh they need and what we could seek to do to help support them in their efforts thank you jonathan jessica um as marianne and amy mentioned um the district has already started taking steps to address mental health and those are steps that i greatly appreciate i make it no secret that i myself deal with anxiety um and i have a history of depression so i think one of the things is is we really need to fight against stigma and we need to not be afraid to talk about these things and i'm

088not that is personally but i was recently reading an article i believe it was the academy of pediatrics that children need should be evaluated for anxiety starting at age eight and that's kind of that was kind of an eye-opening thing for me to read that it could happen that young um i do think that and this isn't a criticism because i think we can always do better no matter how good you're doing you can always do better i think maybe the district does have to seriously consider um some kind of intervention of a screening at that young of an age looking for things looking for anxiety giving the kids the tools to deal with those things before it does become a greater issue and especially with the pandemic all of us i mean teachers staff

089i can't imagine what it was like trying to you know get um teachers to man rooms when um you know dealing with substitute shortages and and things like that and so while there's always um mental health mental health is always something that needs to be addressed but i think especially within the last couple of years that we all dealt with together um i i do i do think that we need some more um early intervention programs and i believe that what we have and what we're planning on doing is great but yes there's always room for improvement thank you thank you jessica are there any other questions mr sebandara good evening on behalf of the teachers association just want to say thank you for your time and commitment and dedication to all our current board

090members and past board members your time and dedication is amazing um supporting our children our programs our staff um everyone and to my colleagues out in youtube land happy teacher appreciation day um so here's a soft toss question okay um what's something that you're particularly proud of about our district that we do it's a non-negotiable you don't want to change so what are the things you'd like to see preserved uh in 30 seconds or less thank you well no i went firstly how about jonathan jonathan why did you go here well i'd uh say that i'm uh one thing i'm particularly proud of is uh all the many people throughout this uh community uh whether teachers or parents or other community members who care so uh care so much about the future of uh children

091in our district and are willing to lend their time and effort to uh support the school especially uh in the these uh trying times in the recent years thank you jonathan i'm gonna go this way amy you're going nuts panther pride all day um you know every student one community ready for the future is is our tagline but so many of us that is really what we are you know here at sweet home we have such a pride of who we are and where we are and what we are it's pride this is jason so eight nine years ago i sat in a room with 10 other people and that's what we came up with you and i came up with that and i'm very proud of that but mostly i know you you and

092i um our commitment of staff to kids they take safety and run with it we don't rest on our laurels we're always thinking safety i think every staff member here whether it's custodial whether it's teachers bus drivers i think they bleed blue and gold because they're very committed to our kids and the parents out there should be so happy that we've got such committed adults and we continue to say please if each kid could make a connection with an adult that's going to go such a long way so it's mostly commitment of our adults to our kids thank you jessica um i will definitely agree panther pride is definitely something that is is um to be noted i want to say also though uh since day one in the district i'm a very opinionated person

093um i've always felt comfortable bringing out my concerns i've always felt comfortable bringing up my ideas even if they were not agreed with or well received and that's one thing that i think is really important in making a good strong district is the ability to listen to different points of view the ability to to hear those concerns and um to always be willing to kind of self-reflect so i think our district's ability to self-reflect and um you know strive to be better thank you jessica last call any questions from the floor come on this is fun come on so just a huge maybe a round of applause for our candidates this is never easy um so thank you to jessica to jonathan amy and marianne just a reminder that uh the four candidates will be

094on the ballot uh on may 17th from 7 a.m to 9 00 p.m right here in the virgil center which is when the district vote takes place so at this time i'd ask jessica and jonathan to come back into the audience the board members to come back to their seats we do have a meeting to finish up there's a presentation on the 2223 school district calendar and a presentation from mr genestry as well before we lose our audience if i could editorialize a little bit um first of all thanks for the great questions there are outstanding questions and just like marianne said we don't see a lot of folks in our audience a lot um we're john i would love your question to have come up during the budget hearing i mean that as two

095stewards of the taxpayer dollars we owe you that answer we owe you the debate and with the district office staff and the full complement of the board i think we can give you that answer the question about uh social work i believe one of our study sessions we're going to have the family support center in here that's a great opportunity to bring that up and make us talk about it make us give you the answers you're looking for um but please continue to come if nobody expects you to come all the time it's pretty boring most of the time but certainly there are times when uh when there's a great opportunity for your input and and our debate so thank you we occasionally tell jokes yeah we do we do we do they're not always

096good but well just brian i like the people are gonna stay wonderful so next is the approval of the agenda we'll be voting on that next week any questions concerns all right minutes of the previous meeting any questions or concerns any communications we've received i don't think i saw funny i did get a communication from the swim club which i forwarded on to to don requesting information about potentially running out some of the facilities they're they're at ub right now it's growing they're growing um and so they were just looking for an opportunity to have that discussion okay just want to mention that and i think i receive communication peter from a group that's doing a meat raffle uh the baseball program there you go what is it may 14th at north town wanda the

097vfw post on service erie i believe okay and if people wanted tickets uh it's online you can contact me email's on the website any of the baseball parents also have tickets that's good anyone else all right this takes us to our first open session as per board policy 1512. we hold two open sessions at each meeting this first session is limited to comments on the agenda items for tonight's meeting the board welcomes attendance and participation by district residents people having business within the boundaries of the school district and people who do business with the board of education speakers must be at least 16 years of age and are limited to three minutes please preface your comments with your name address group affiliation if appropriate non-district residents must include the name of their business or how

098they do business with the board of education all speakers in this open session must state which agenda item they are speaking on and later on in the meeting we will have a second open session any takers all right seeing none that takes us to unfinished business there is none and next the superintendents report thank you mrs jason um we're going to start tonight with a presentation from mrs bayless on our proposed calendar for uh 2022-23 okay good evening everyone good evening good evening i am i'm here to share with you the proposed calendar for the 2223 school year the proposal comes from the recommendation of a committee that we brought together i'm going to ask mr genestry to advance to the next slide to share with you who served on our committee but essentially i

099get this pop off every once that's okay we're not in any hurry i can i've got some things to share too okay but um essentially the calendar committee gets together is convened annually around february to start talking about the calendar for the next school year so we had some new members join our team this year um there was rumors that it was a really exciting committee to be on so people were excited to be on their first calendar committee meeting some years the calendar committee is really exciting because there's lots of days to talk about and play with in terms of how we want to allocate um the the required number of days over the course of the calendar and some years there's little to talk about because the calendar is so condensed this particular

100year is one of those years where the calendar is super condensed meaning labor day falls late and the last day of the teacher rating day for exams falls earlier in june so the calendar is very tight and when the calendar is tight there's few days to play with in terms of where you want to allocate the days so there wasn't a lot of conversation but i wanted to recognize those who share who's participated on the committee our parents lisa cases from the high school mallory patoric from glendale liz bechdel from the middle school pta julie thompson from maple mere jessica stevens and deep deep sinai from um willow ridge from our our teachers unit paul semandera our president of the shea unit eva basehart jen heidinger and amanda glenn from our service employees unit ron

101farlio president and dan foulars from our shasta unit bob palino and from district myself and mr feldman joanne can i just stop you real quick yeah for sure um i know that the heritage heights pta had a big loss this year yes are there plans to include heritage heights in the calendar committee next year yes so so heritage heights was absolutely invited to the committee that that particular day um the representative from heritage was unable to make it okay i just wasn't sure if this was the the form of the committee yeah and there were others who were invited to the committee as well but these are the those were the members who are able to actually show and um participate in their meeting okay um but as we know when we were putting the

102district calendar together there's a lot of considerations that we have to include including the state education department regulations which i'll share a couple in a few minutes we look at the new york state assessments for regents exams and three through eight assessments we look at our legal holidays our contractual language for our bargaining units stakeholder interests the boces calendar and emergency closure concerns those are some of the big ideas that go into the framework or parameters of our calendar um on the next slide um some of the regulations that we um need to abide by um mr mr gesture if you could advance this slide thank you include education law with regard to the number of days schools must be in session to in order to maximize their foundation aid um so we must be

103in session for 180 days um the commission regulations also require us to have a minimum number of aggregate number of hours so for grades k through six essentially it's a five hour day at 180 days or 900 hours in grade 7 through 12 it's 5.5 hours a day at times 180 days or 990 hours and the regulations do permit half days or shorten days of student attendance to count towards those aggregate hours on the next slide some what does aggregate hours mean and those are essentially the days that school in which school or with student attendance is taken those are the days that we count as student attendance but we're also permitted to count regents exam days and state assessment days as student attendance days whether or not all students participate in the assessments and

104up to four superintendents conference days per year are also permitted to be included in the aggregate number of hours and then there's some parameters for which those four superintendents conference days can be allocated i won't read through all of them but there are some parameters there and when we look at the in the next slide when we look at the state assessments um for the next school year that we the regents exams in january are the 24th through the 27th and in june the 14th through the 22nd we also have our new york state assessments currently scheduled um our ela for april um 19th through the 21st and for grades three through eight math scheduled for may 2nd through the 4th of 2023 we look at our legal holidays to make sure that we're abiding

105by our holiday calendar um we also just of note i've highlighted the juneteenth holiday and that has been a legal holiday that's been added to our school calendar i'm in line with our dei initiative and the importance of recognizing juneteenth that has been added as a holiday for all of our bargaining units and obviously for our students and families across the district the next consideration that we look at in terms of contractual parameters we our teachers contract does call for 186 teacher days which includes the four superintendents conference days by contract we start after the labor day after labor day in september and our last day is the the following day following regent's rating day would be the last possible day for teacher attendance we recognized two half days near the last week of the

106first two trimesters for our elementary teachers to complete their report cards and two um half days of elementary student attendance the last two school days of the year we do um provide for parent-teacher conference days in the calendar at the elementary there's one full day and one extended day and at the middle in high school there's one extended day and typically in the fall for the for middle and high school families some additional considerations that we take a look at are wanting to make sure that we maximize our instructional days and hours for our students we obviously are a member of the erie 1 boces region and so to that end we try to align our calendar with the boces calendar so that students who participate in our district in the boces programming that there

107are days the days we're in session are similar to the days that boces are in session and vice versa so that we optimize those days for our students participating in those programs we like to build in options for emergency closure if needed one of the goals that was shared out by parents years ago and has continued to be a a concern and a consideration is minimizing the number of half days of student attendance at the elementary level for child care purposes um the importance of providing evening hours for parent-teacher conferences for all at all levels um continuing to provide elementary trimesters that was a um an initiative that was started several years ago with through the district and collaboration with our our teachers in um and parent groups in terms of thinking providing the idea

108of trimesters versus quarters to be more supportive and timely for sharing out feedback on with regard to student progress and finally providing elementary teachers with half days prior to conferences to get those report cards to the parents before those conferences occur so in proposing the the calendar for the 22-23 school year we looked at this this is the those are the general parameters that we that we worked with and again little time um to play with in terms of some of the days that we might like to have a recess day that wouldn't fit into the school calendar but essentially our opening day is a tuesday september 6th would be the proposed opening day staff development day september 7th would be the first day of classes for our students we would have an additional superintendent's

109conference day or staff development day on november 8th which is aligned with the elections for 22 20 are for 2022. um thanksgiving recess there had been some good conversation about looking at trying to take the day before the thanksgiving recess that was one of the days that was up for consideration uh the calendar wouldn't provide for it in terms of getting in those required number of days there was some good conversation um and in the end um there was you know our looking to like serve all of the members of our school community i mean that in trying to take that day worked for some members of our community and not for others and in the end the decision was to stick with the the two days for the thanksgiving recess it's just as opposed

110to trying to find a creative solution to provide that extra day which would have required our teachers and service employees to arguably start before the labor day in some capacity we looked at the winter break aligning it with the boces calendar of december 26th through january 2nd the mid-winter break for february 20 through the 24th an additional staff development day on march 17th spring recess for april 3rd through 7th graduation day on june 22nd with our rating and last day of teacher attendance on june 23rd with that calendar in mind it does provide a contractual workdays for our teachers at 186 days it provides student attendance to meet our state education requirements at the elementary level it provides for 184 days at the secondary level 186 days it builds in those four superintendents conference days

111there are two half days at the elementary level between december 2nd and march 17th to make up for that fourth day and then i think that is essentially then the calendar as proposed this is obviously a calendar that you can't read from your seats i'm sure but i did provide a hard copy for the board to have in front of you you can see that if you look at that calendar and the one the next calendar which is the the erie one western new york regional school calendar that they are fairly aligned to the extent that we could make that work um and so in the end this is the calendar as proposed certainly in future years when there is more room to play within the calendar that you know the consideration for example that

112some of the other conversations that we had at the committee um looking at uh the day before thanksgiving as an i uh um a desire a wish list looking at potentially the day after and like extending this the spring break by a day is always a depending on where um though the easter falls if you will for the days that for travel days and what have you for families is in addition but also looking at um some of the other days that support um some of the religious observances of other um cultures that we are certainly are a part of our school community so we did have those conversations about being responsive in our calendar and whether or not we could fit them into the calendar itself or making sure that that those important religious

113observance days are communicated to our teachers and staff and school students and communities so that we can be cognizant of those days with planning events at school um tests and as such um to make sure that we're being as responsive as we can to some of those important days in holidays that we can't embed in our school calendar in terms of actual recess days um and i think that's really all i have in terms of the calendar but i certainly welcome any questions i have a question and you're probably not going to like us but has to deal with that day before thanksgiving so as a boces teacher i work in a high school that has students from all 19 components districts coming into our building when district calendars come out every boces teacher's building

114looks at those calendars and makes a list of when schools are off when schools are not so of the 19 component districts and boces that's 20 district we have 17 calendars right now sweet home and alden are the only two that have school on that day are we at all concerned about attendance not only from students but from staff who have kids that go to other districts that are going to be home i'm just concerned about that data we're us in alden there's two other districts i will preface that have um pt uh parent-teacher conferences akron has parent-teacher conferences and chief delaga sloan has a staff development day on that day that concerns me that we're one of two districts and i think the attendance is going to be a big issue on that day

115so a really great question um and i think attendance tends to be problematic on any day before a break um it tends to be whether it's before whatever whatever the breaks might be the winter break the winter recess or the spring break or on the thanksgiving recess attendance tends to be down those days before um so that is always a concern and when you back it up it tends to be that day as that if you make it the day before then it's that day that is there's content attendance concerns as well with regard to aligning with the boces calendar um we do have on our district it's fair it's fairly unique that um our as you know the irium boces um contract does allow erie one teachers to come back before the labor day

116break um or the labor day holiday so many districts in area one do start they do professional development the last week of august and which gives them those extra days to play with our district doesn't have that capacity to come back the end of august in order to um have some of those days to play with like many other districts do there was some conversation about having a floating day if you will for our our teachers unit over the summer um to allow for that day before the thanksgiving break however um and we had a significant conversation about equity and that day before the thanksgiving break would be uh would would have been a day without pay for our service employees um if we didn't have school that day and so we have um close

117to 300 members of our service employees unit who would be without pay on that day before the break so the service employees unit was significantly concerned about that and we felt it was in the best interest of the district in honoring all voices to to take care of our service employees as well peter how do other like how would other districts address this service unit that like how would that be i just find that it's rare that we listen i've been at boces for 19 years this is the second time we've gotten that wednesday off and i think now this is the second time that sweet home has actually had school in those 19 years so i i i understand where you're where you're coming from joanne but i foresee some i don't know is

118there anywhere else to take that day from i mean i know you're so tight is there rob peter to pay paul is there somewhere else on here that well so keep in mind that from from labor day so our um our service employees by contract they work the days of student attendance so student attendance by this calendar provides for 186 days of student attendance so if you take away one of those days of student attendance which is what would happen if you took that day away our service employees would lose a day's pay so you could have them come in alone on the day before thanksgiving and do something but there was a question about what does that what message does that send to the service employees to come in by themselves the day before

119thanksgiving to get paid um so we had a significant conversation with our administrators union um who um would then arguably have to come in that day for supervision of those of the of whatever staff development might be on that day um which isn't necessarily a bad thing by any means but there was those conversation about the the um the equity of it all um and to that end um if we took that day out of the calendar there was a couple a couple consequences one is a significant one that our service employees would lose that day's pay but also we would lose a day in the calendar for um in terms of closure emergency closures if we went from 186 days to 185 days in our student calendar we're down one day in terms of

120the ability to manipulate days in the event of some kind of emergency closure that shuts us down and requires us to find days somewhere else so that would be a day that we would lose to play with it's a tough calendar year um and as i said sometimes the is the contraction and the expansion of the calendar and when the calendar is going to then in the next couple years expand again and there'll be days to play with some years that's it's so expanded that you can take the day before the memorial day holiday is a four-day weekend sometimes it provides for that extended um holiday there in the ability to extend the thanksgiving recess or some of the other breaks when the calendar expands permits that but next year is a really tight year

121and there are unfortunately our contracts don't provide allow us the opportunity to start the school year before labor day like most many districts do for the um a couple couple questions one is uh the 186 days we're required to have 180 is that correct six days allow for some flexibility and buffer i guess related to this issue is is there are those six days primarily um because of snow days and what i'm wondering about is is there any way to see how the first few months go and if we still have if we haven't used any of those days so then say we have a little more flexibility going into thanksgiving because we've gone through a third of the year or 40 percent of the year without using any of those buffer days i guess

122it's just that's a risk mitigation question um and then uh i again also you know i assume that flexible flexibility allows for snow days or you know the super bowl parade or something like that actually um [Laughter] i mean certainly the board of education can always declare a super bowl for a day right or should there be some consideration for there to be uh you know that the issue is if we don't have school um our if it's not a day of student attendance our service employees don't work days when students are not in attendance by contract and that provides um an issue for pay for service employees um is that something that we could work on all right i also another i wanted i want to um just mention i would like to understand

123the discussion about um the week of um spring break or this not not the first um not the first break in february i'm talking about april because i've had a a few people discuss and ask me about or seem disappointed that it wasn't the the following week and i want to understand the discussion around that i know i it looks i know i would assume a lot of that has to do with the western europe you know aligning the calendars yes um so one of the reasons behind that so my understanding um so what certainly our goal is to align to peter's point our goal is to align to the west new york regional calendar the calendar i believe was that week was was picked because one of the considerations is that in terms of

124the state assessments being scheduled for the week of april 17th that if you um had that spring recess the following week that kids would come back and start with the assessments so the having the recess week the week before gives a week back and a couple days after to get ready for the assessments as opposed to just coming off a break and here's the assessments so i do believe that the the reason the west york regional school calendar puts the recess week the week of the third is for the is to support the assessments and then we fall in line as a component district um to take the same week that week just so i just so it's clear though i mean it would if if the week if because i believe star point has

125that week off they don't have off in february it's niagara county and so niagara county does not have the february and that's i i asking my understand is is it's really there's really not any flexibility around that because then we would be out of alignment right and our students that are going right those programs they'd miss that week yes because then you missed two because they'd be off a different week so that it missed in two weeks yes you're right okay so that's but i think that's important right because we're getting these if we have a quest or somebody says hey how come we don't have this week instead of that week it's important for the public to know that the kids attending those programs you know we have to align those to make it

126to make it work right and so the the way the calendar is currently built there's only one day um that we're at in conflict with the um boces calendar or the west new york regional calendar um but that that suggestion would would double those weeks um in terms of the conflict with the calendar yeah okay and i do believe in niagara county some school districts do take the two weeks in april um which isn't it was a practice many many years ago um before there was a february break but this this region here follows the february break one week and one week in april right yeah well i appreciate that um you know explanation i think again it's just i i'm okay with um the the how it stands i just think it's important that

127you know it's mentioned because again it's the the other side of it is is not um you know it's we wouldn't want to do that we wouldn't want to be not in alignment but um i think a lot of parents probably may not have kids you know they may not be at that point yet they wouldn't understand you know they don't understand the reasoning so for sure i agree um i also want to go back to the um the snow days um so i saw recently i actually quick side note i heard in i saw in the news that there were two districts that offered a mental health day and i was looking to see which districts they were so i typed in mental health day school district erie county and sweet homes family support

128center was the second thing that came up and we were talking about um how important mental health is to sweden so i just wanted to share that um so i wanted to echo um mr bellanti's point about maybe trying to see if we can figure something out with the um with our support staff union um so that in the future we could maybe like once we're past snow season like in july maybe or at least out of the woods when we don't need six um to have a day um sometime in the spring as like a mental health day i remember hearing that on the news and just thinking that it was a really nice gesture especially since it's so important to us for our own focus as as a board focusing on mental health

129and there's a lot of different ways that we could use a day um like it doesn't necessarily have to be that no one shows up maybe it's a day where we're promoting mental health in like we can get creative with it but i think it's something that we should really think about um for the future but i i absolutely think that we should find a way to make sure that all of the constituents of sweden are benefiting from that equally um so maybe that's something that we can think about going forward and also i was i was wondering there's a superintendent's conference day on november 8th i assume that has to do with um maybe the trimesters and elementors oh that's election day that's out of our control mcdonald's we've tried to put it [Music]

130um because of this year's i don't think anyone had really off the day before thanksgiving lewiston porter's superintendent gave them the mental health date uh day which was a snow day technically on the day before thanksgiving this year an answer to your question you were you said you would looking it up i know that my niece enough you go to lewport and that i know that's he did that i think he was the only one also when we have snow days do our service employees not get paid for snow days no emergency closure days are paid days okay they're considered by contract it's an emergency closure day and they are paid days for all staff if we have an october storm i just want to know where would we where's the first place we'd start

131picking from to add back on if we started running into issues with days so currently we have six days built into the schedule well there's four at the elementary level so we have four days initially to play with if we to get the six days to get the additional two days back for the elementary we would have to pull it from the end of the calendar where those half days are for elementary school and look at the parent-teacher conference days would be the next area to go to parent-teacher conference days can be converted to superintendents conference days so you could gain back that parent-teacher conference day as well as a super coded as a superintendent's conference day to get that day back if if those options run out and we run out of our the

132allotment that we have it to maintain 180 days a couple things that have to happen sometimes the depending on how severe or significant the situation is the state education department grants waivers for districts i think that when there was that hurricane in new york city there was a waiver that was granted to those school districts so they couldn't right right and those wait those days were waived or that requirement was waived in terms of getting your foundation aid um a worst case scenario is you'd start taking it off your um the february break or the april break days would come off of those breaks i think that happened many during the october storm we started actually that was what we had the memorial day friday and monday so we actually gave back the yes the

133friday so anybody else thank you to you to you and all the hard work of your committee uh it's just mind-boggling that you can make all the pieces fit well it was it was it's a it's a just a really tough year um and you know i suspect future years there'll be much more flexibility um to be able to meet the the requests and um considerations of all of our community members okay sorry one one last question the end of june um there's the elementary the half days then it looks like is thursday a full day then for them so they go two half days and then a full day they're done after the half days elementary they're moving up okay i just want to because it says reasons testing i'm just trying to understand

134because they're done after the half the half days are elementaries done yes so but but obviously in high school they may have to be in for testing okay okay thank you thank you okay thank you okay uh just a couple quick updates um from uh from us uh just to um i know i've mentioned this to the board in in our memos but there is uh this year um basically as a surprise the new york state um budget when it was approved in mid-april uh basically doubled our grant to 710 000. for upk contingent on offering a full day program uh in the district so um the benefits to child development are really endless when it comes to full day pre-k uh not only are we talking about kindergarten preparedness uh but their chance of

135graduating is higher their chance of work uh workplace um development is higher uh going to college is higher less discipline issues throughout their schooling um and so it's just the list goes on and on so the principals have been meeting over the past two weeks to discuss the pre-k program our goal is is over the next three years to house it here at sweet home and make it a sweet home program and right now we're still um under consideration we've had a lot of discussions um with our teachers with uh the administrators about offering a hybrid as we make the transition to full-day uh pre-k so those plans are still in development and and we're working through with all the constituency groups and stakeholder groups um to make it work but we're looking uh we

136met with four seasons as well and they are on board to discuss um this hybrid model um obviously in the district we have spacing issues we're still wrestling with kovid and spacing as well so we are looking to add four rooms where those are going to be um are still up for discussion with the principals but you know we're moving forward on those plans and and very excited about the fact that um we can offer this um service to our four-year-olds uh just an update on where we are with glendale um next week um as as you know we've we've stayed on our on our timeline for this um next week may 10th we will have a candidate uh for the board to meet an executive session and to ask any questions of um there

137um it will be our our recommended finalist um at that point um and then of course the board um can offer feedback uh to us and and and see but we're very excited about the search um it was multiple rounds including a screening we uh of 13 27 applicants 13 candidates were screened seven moved on to a committee that included stakeholder groups and then two candidates moved on to a visit at glendale in front of other state group stakeholder groups as well on april 28th the finalists then yesterday interviewed with our cabinet and they also interviewed with central office staff um and like i said we'll have a candidate to present to you um next week for our recommendation to you so great big pool very very um so these three searches we are very

138encouraged by the quality of our candidates um not only are they experienced but i think they fit the mold of the sweet home way and uh we're very excited of of um where we're going um with our with our admin cabinet so um yeah it's good it's good good times for sure our director of human resources search we had 18 applicants 10 candidates were screened seven went in front of a committee uh there was a finalist interview with with cause and with the cabinet as well yesterday um and again same same procedure we would like to bring this candidate to you next week an executive feel you you can ask um questions and then invent the candidate that way and then we would like to make that recommendation of that candidate for the board for

139vote on that night then finally our assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction position we had 34 applicants 14 candidates were screened sorry i should say we're screened on april 25th six candidates went to the committee today again we had all stakeholder groups represented from parents to service to teachers to administrators central office staff as well we we brought that list down to three today that we all agreed upon those three will make a presentation in front of the dei committee a short presentation in front of the dei committee then we would like the finalists or finalists to interview um with cause and cabinet and then interview with the board as well so we plan on having that search wrapped up by the june voting session mrs jason mentioned northwest amherst community center we made the

140announcement on april 20th of the opening of the nwacc we've had a advisory committee meeting of a small advisory group we're trying to establish a governing structure as we speak um and so the the preliminary thought is to have 25 members of the community uh sweet home would have five of those seats um include and i i would have one myself um so we're going to and then there's a community advisory as well so that's still being hammered out but um in the meantime on may 14th from 10 a.m to noon that's saturday may 14th there will be an open house at 220 north point um there will be community tables set up for for people to come in grab information and then we need your feedback people are going to see a very empty

141building when they come into that that day and that's going to be exciting because then we want to hear their ideas and there will be volunteers set up um courtesy of the town of amherst that will take feedback from anybody who attends open house um there will be i think uh the amherst police department is cooking hot dogs that day there will be students on hand to offer tours i think we're about ready to finalize and approve a don don pushed it off on the amherst police department this time and and there will be students on hand to offer tours of the facility so there will also be a may 16th monday night from 6 to 8 p.m as well same event so there are two open house um to to grab feedback from the

142community and what they would like to see um at the new center uh mr genestry you said um you'll have one of the five seats or you'll have a seat and there will also be i think right now it's one of the five no i i'm sorry sweet homeless five i have one okay so it's five plus me yes okay thank you tony heading up this tony is right now heading up the group and um i think he's uh i don't want to speak for him but he looks like he'll be leading um this new governance structure so mr day um is staying heavily involved in in this which is exciting because i know he started it with you six years ago yep uh and then uh just a reminder to everybody that friday night

143is our friday night lights event our girls flag football team which i think they won by about 40 points last week they are will be on for their first inaugural home game 7 30 prior to that there will be a community night uh there will be bounce houses for the kids food food trucks uh hot dogs again and um so uh and just a couple other there's a tennis match um at four o'clock there's a varsity softball at five o'clock versus william williamsville south um and then on saturday don't forget there's girls lacrosse and varsity baseball um as well and um uh one one more important note on may 5th at 12 30 p.m that's thursday in our gym our unified basketball team will kick off the athletic events for for the weekend um so

144the public is invited to attend the students will be there from the high school to cheer on our unified basketball team um and they are playing cheektowaga uh that day in the main gym so very exciting um weekend ahead mr genestry yes um i know that this week culminates with a student dance at the high school yes um is there going to be more information sent out regarding such an event yes because it's not on this um there's been some confusion as to what time it starts tickets all of that okay i was going to mention it to roman when he was speaking he was going to give me all the information that i needed but he's not here so we'll make sure we'll get that out tomorrow i see a head shaking at the

145back side thank you is the unified game going to be streamed oh i would please say yes marissa was going to try and do that yeah i think it's greatman had alluded to that early on because he wasn't tripping to everybody everybody yeah he's going to be a full house oh yeah for sure so i thought they were working on that yeah i think so uh and then just to make an announcement uh the students have voted and they have voted to have graduation at the university of buffalo back in the performing arts center um so it was about a 60 40 vote and so um so the pla the the event location has been reserved and it will be at the university of buffalo that night any question it's an evening six o'clock we

146get there at five like 5 5 30 to get settled settled in anybody else all right thank you everybody so lots of upcoming events and i see concert season has started so lots of good concerts again the budget vote open house so this takes us to new business that we'll be voting on next week so first off is class placement special education i will admit there were 187 pages i did not get through all of them but i will have them done by next week promise next week we'll get it for our new monthly financial reports c is all our different bids there are health medical bids any questions two is our athletic and physical education supply bed three is our roof maintenance and repair can you just tell me what that which it's for

147all of our roofs um you know generally um as the new roofs come on particularly at heritage and dexter terrace those will be under warranty some of our roofs are falling out of warranty um and those are just for general repairs okay great thank you i got a quick question if we end up in a situation where we like we had at the middle school a handful of years ago where it got damaged by the icf yeah with these this company still do the repairs and then we go back to the insurance company for the correct candidate okay correct uh and mrs jason just i have confirmation that the unified game will be streamed awesome good good good good um next is football helmet and shoulder pad reconditioning questions d is school district calendars which

148include district attendance district payroll and district holiday oh go ahead no never mind it was there there was a typo in the old docks but it was it was changed in the new yes e is our revised policy second reading of 1410 any questions on those f is erie one boces budget correction what are we corrected from uh they gave us the wrong number right for administrative budget you voted on a different number last month last month that's just a correction okay it has nothing to do with our budget right it's boces right okay actually i i was looking at the wrong document um juneteenth is not on the um school district's holiday separate sheet just so you know um oh and the payroll killed me that was cool yeah you did have june tea

149party it was in the presentation it's just the the one titled oh they got the cherry that cheers you for catching holiday observances i think was the title thank you g is disposal of obsolete property is this from the kitchen uh yes i don't remember what was on there do you remember what i don't remember it was a floor sucker it was okay it was like yesterday that was in the basement basement the stuff that was in the basement in high school oh okay so it's stuff that's not been used for a long period of time okay and probably broken stretching we did some spring cleaning h is our agreement with the town of amherst i guess declaring you as a authorized executive to execute intergovernmental yes the fuel okay for the fuel yep and

150i is our annual district vote policy 16 lux 1611 inspectors of election we're taking lorraine out putting karen in yep anybody have any questions with any of this we'll vote on it next week next day it takes us to informational items peter okay so um i was part of one of the groups that interviewed the two finalists at glendale um two very worthy candidates i do not envy you for having to make a decision um i don't think we could go wrong with either pick right um also i was chosen as one of the teachers from erie 1 boces to be on the superintendent's interview committee on june 21st 22nd and 23rd so i will have a little bit of a say in in the new superintendent for our yuri one boces um and then

151the last thing i wanted to congratulate all winter athletes the names were just way too many but anyone who received all ecic western new york state and scholar athlete awards for the winner and also to sweet home volleyball and sally cuss off our former coach who i think this was just announced yesterday that the greater buffalo sports hall of fame is naming them as their 2022 team of distinction congratulations thank you peter scott a couple different things uh safety committee meeting today this afternoon um we talked about a number of things uh uh our officer mayweal said we we're returned to our pre-kova drills and four have been done in all the buildings except one and that's going to be finished tomorrow and don talked a little bit about the capital project and transportation area

152basically being done kitchen getting started and the roof was almost done at heritage heights and that was pretty much my notes on that um i also had the hall of f excuse me the alumni board meeting yesterday i struggled to take notes because i was driving and it makes a little bit tougher so this is from memory but anyway the wall of fame ceremony where they're inducting two people is on friday the 13th the entire board is invited if you'd like to come but uh please drop a note to mrs lebreak and let her know they're doing a mailing for their i guess that's five year intervals am i correct on that down i think you're involved in it and i know it showed up at everybody's houses in the last day or two um

153and they will be having a table at the homecoming event and they're looking for details of any class reunions if you know any that they don't already have published on their social media and they do have social media and they're looking for people to stay involved with that um i don't have the note on here but i know we had a legislative team meeting for erie county association of school boards we went over a lot of a lot of different things unfortunately we didn't have a enough people for a quorum we were one district short so we couldn't vote on anything but it's it was just we finished up a lot of the stuff from the year talked about some of the ongoing things that are there and for things that we might have to

154look at next year for you know follow it up on a few of the things that was one of the important parts was things that didn't get through the budget this year that we were pushing just about everything did but there still was a handful and we want to follow up on those over the summer to make sure that they don't forget about them and then again once they start session get right back into the same items again so we're going to get some more information out about that and that would be it for me i just want to say thank you to your year of advocating with all our different representatives you you have just done a yeoman's job talking and trying to get our message out so thank you thanks kaley sure i

155was also at the legislative meeting um it was a really nice meeting like i just really enjoyed it i don't know i don't know why but um i wanted to mention that there is a bill up i don't believe it has a sponsor in the senate that makes it a crime to harass sports officials um which i think is pretty cool um and then i also wanted to mention um november 19th is going to be the legislative breakfast they're also talking about doing a legislative dinner uh next year i believe we usually have two spots um we've got a lot of people at uh from sweden on this committee because mr johnson is the co-chair um but if anyone is like super interested in attending um josh and myself are the i'm the alternate alternate

156um josh is the representative but like if anybody really wants to go let me know um and just kind of throw in that the dinner the point of that would be kind of reverse at the breakfast where we asked them questions it'd be a chance for them to talk about what they did over the course of the year and how it fit into the things we're looking at and i have to say i attended the breakfast for the first time in the fall and it was really wonderful i learned so much i think peter was there i also had a question um i think it was williamsville mentioned that they got um an extra bit of money for their teacher center and i wasn't sure what that program was or if it was something that

157we might be interested in looking into but i just would like to hear more about that and that there's apparently some generous state aid for that according to williamsville um somebody also mentioned um a community forum for the board i don't remember i didn't i stopped writing down names with districts at the end um because it was a long meeting um but they mentioned a community forum where the board offered breakfast where they got to talk with um just constituents parents you know community members and we had such nice participation you guys are really sticking it out too so i thought that would might be something for us to consider and then i wish roman was here somebody mentioned a senior junior mentoring program where the seniors mentor the juniors through college application processes which

158i thought was such a great idea i don't maybe we have something similar to that and then lastly ecasb is thinking of hosting an inter-school gathering of student reps and i'm so excited because i brought up how our student reps wanted to get more involved in the actual advocacy part and they're really um it's kind of taking off so i'm really looking forward to see if anything comes of that then i also attended the dei committee meeting last week we are on to our mission and vision statement which is super exciting after that the fun can start um and they will be here in june to present to us where we stand do you take off during the summer then or do you still have meetings in the summer for dei i would suspect that

159our subgroups might start to get summer good never take a day off because that's all i got great thank you kaylee josh sure thanks kelly for attending the legislative team meeting and briefing that out i was out of town um so two things that i was able to attend this last week is uh chef had their board meeting their monthly board meeting um i i won't go into all the details but they have a lot of irons in the fire and and they're gaining momentum on a lot of the initiatives that they have so there's quite a bit of conversation about how to resource and staff some of these um and there's some talk about reaching out to ptas and getting outside of the of the uh the circle of folks who are directly involved

160and i think it's a great idea i actually was able to bring it up and that gets my second point um i was at the the maple mere ptsa or pta meeting um which is a good meeting that uh marianne and jessica were both there and they were able to to say a few words but they're also uh their their fundraising has been outstanding this year um i mean they're in the in the several thousands per event um so it seems like folks are eager to get you know back involved um and and the ptas are reaping uh the benefits of that interest so and they're you know they got a full slate of activities they had they just finished up the sock hop they have uh they're not their turkey trout obviously it's their

161um another fun run i think it's what they're calling it and just a whole slew of activities leading all the way through the fifth grade moving up day which i understand they're not we're all doing at the uh at the high school now that's it great thank you brian yeah um two things one is uh i did attend the north uh the the community center um uh ribbon cutting and i i just want to mention marianne and mr ginestri i think he did a great job spoke a little bit and uh representing sweet home as well as the students that we had there so it was nice though it was all about them with their ribbon cutting and it was just great to see all those kids there yeah it was a nice event and

162then they also it was i i saw there was an article and a a picture um in the uh i saw it in the amherst b i'm not sure if there was one in the buffalo news but um you know it's nice that we got coverage there and it was just a nice event the other thing i just want to mention with uh being teacher peace appreciation we can appreciate and i know we all do with everything the teachers do but also um the ptos and the ptas and in all the work that they're doing uh because i have seen with willridge you know that you know it's multiple events in in in some cases and you know every day in different things they're doing so there's a lot of work being put on by

163those groups to to recognize the you know the teachers and um so i just also want to recognize them for all their hard work to to go ahead and do that because it's a lot of effort and volunteer um work done by them thank you brian amy just a couple quick things i've i've attended a good handful of our athletics in the spring season everybody is rolling in in full force it's been exciting on a lot of different levels but it's been really great to see them out there you know the first full spring season in three years maybe um so that's been really great um just a real quick thank you to all of our teachers and nurses next week nurse this week in may so no thanks marianne i appreciate it thank you

164to everybody in our districts you know that that work with our kids and our students and you know teachers are are more than the instructor at the front of the class you know we're all teachers in some way shape or form but if you are working in a school building in any capacity thank you for your service anything else that's it all right i just have a couple things um scott mentioned the health and safety meeting that we were both at joanne a special thank you to you i you really do a great job guiding that group keeping us in with our time constraints but really offering guidance to that group um they were talking about the threat assessment with don schomat and the staff commenting that they were so appreciative of being included in

165that which i thought spoke volumes um a couple of things these i they did say the asbestos work had already been filed with the state and we were okay they're going to work on the summer with our water led situation or whatever needed to be updated with that um the district safety plan had no changes uh see they have to beef up our internet bullying cyber bullying right for our policies okay on personal devices and they'll be presenting in june for that we already mentioned the northwest amherst community center um the last thing i want to mention i eat chicken and fish but on our meat raffle with john feldman i had a piece of meat hanging around my neck that was so successful don how'd you do it we made about eighty six hundred

166dollars yay i had so much fun i have never been to them before it was my first time i also don't really eat a whole lot of meat but my family does they got away pretty good um but you you guys were just running all over the place you were a seller so you guys were really running it was it was a lot of fun really really well oh i want a gift card to llb which i'm very excited i won a gigantic a pork tenderloin yes i still can't understand the draw of the pizza logs people go nuts there was an audible drone in the in the whole room when somebody else won everyone was so angry they were just so excited about that many it's two boxes two boxes but i cannot understand

167i don't get pizza i don't know [Laughter] anyway don congratulations it was the job well done thank you um all right next is our second open session before i read this anybody want to be takers okay let me read all right as per board policy 1512 we hold two open sessions at each meeting this second session may be used to address board on topics appropriate for open session not necessarily addressing our agenda items the board welcomes attendance and participation by district residents people having business within the boundaries of the school district and people who do business with the board of education speakers must be at least 16 years of age and will be limited to three minutes please preface your comments with your name address group affiliation if appropriate non-district residents must include their name

168of their business or how they do business with the board of education no that's okay it's okay we have two big events coming up and we're really kind of excited for it we have multicultural nights coming on may 27th and we also have a science night can you send us each those dates just because i don't see them on our upcoming events just so we have them right all right great thank you anybody else um jody roberts again uh 139 jeffrey drive i'm going to read this just because i want to make sure i get all my thoughts so um i have two children in the sweden district my son is attending sixth grade at the middle school and my daughter is attending third grade at heritage i first want to thank that i appreciate

169the time and effort you have all put in the district and the community i want to take this time to discuss the transition back to our new normal i understand that legally we must follow the regulations set by the federal state and local governments and i am not here to question those regulations or guidelines i do want to begin the discussion around lunch for our elementary kiddos parents were recently made aware that there were some discussions in-house that the elementary children may benefit from staying in their classrooms during lunch resulting in lunchrooms being permanently not used for the next school year and on um i have spoken to both mr swirl and mr genestry thank you for your time about my concerns and the concerns of numerous parents and children that i've spoken to um

170it was communicated to me by mr schmorl that evidence shows children are stressed and have more conflict in two areas the bus and the lunchroom and that the elementary schools have noticed a decrease in behaviors without the lunchroom as a mother first but also as a social worker and therapist i have many concerns first i think it is not appropriate or beneficial to keep kids in the classrooms as a way to manage behaviors second our children need the ability to move around to see their peers friends and other staff outside the classroom group they need the ability to learn social skills including conflict resolution and a stress tolerance third most parents and children that i have spoken to are often they're often using their tablets and watching movies in their classrooms during lunch our children

171need a break from these screens and the electronics it was also communicated to me that the children are happier than ever as evidenced by mr squirrel not hearing any complaints or any situations within the building and i do not take children silence as happiness um i think that we need to do better than that um i believe that there needs to be better communication around the decision and this is not presented to parents but rather found out by the whispers of staff and parents in the building that's the only way that this was kind of brought to us um and and i think i talked to mr genestry about that that was quite disappointing for me um given amount of communication that this board and this district has done given covid um you guys have

172done tremendous um in making sure that we've all been informed so i think we were all really taken back me and a group of parents when we found out that this was that these meetings were being held within a small group of people i think the decision should not be made by that small group but rather a large discussion with parents students the board administrators staff you know the the lunchroom um yes i think that was it in my list so i just wanted the board to be aware of that since we were just now hearing it and it wasn't really um presented to any ptas that i'm aware of or ptos and so i just wanted it out there for the board thank you for the information thank you anybody else all right that

173takes us next to personnel teaching and administrative and service any questions all right any questions so no next i need a motion to adjourn to executive session for three things negotiations employee situation and a student situation it's almost do i have a second second all in favor seven to nothing thank you and thank you and we are not returning to do any voting and thank you all for sticking it