001that you might like to ask them. They are they're ready to do so. >> Mr. Brian, could you give them that mic so they can pass it the either that one or the one on the Thank you. >> I'll start. >> I have a question for Lance. >> First, Lance, why aren't you wearing a Giants jersey? All right, Lance, what? >> We all know why, sir. >> Touche. >> Lance, what sport do you like covering the best? >> Football. >> Yeah, that's your favorite. All right. Who's going to win the Super Bowl? >> Uh, Patriots. >> Honestly. >> All right. Good. You might be right. You might be right. Thank you. >> Go next. >> Yeah. >> All right. I have two questions for Zoe. Who are some of the interesting people you have interviewed?
002>> Um, probably I did this very recently. Um, Santa Claus for our surprise guest for all the students. They're very happy to see him. >> That's a good one. And my second question for you is, can we see the Zoe on the block in person, please? >> Yeah. Awesome. >> She came up with that on her own, by the way. >> Love it. >> I have a question for Caleb. >> So, this is your second year on MEV. So, how do you choose which activities are best for the students based on your weather predictions? >> So, based on by the weather, like if it's sunny, I would say go outside, ride your bike. If it's raining, stay inside, play a board game or watch TV. If it's snowing, you can go inside or you could
003stay outside and play. >> Excellent. So, why are you so passionate about meteorology and who's your inspiration? Um, Ben Nol is my inspiration and also um I just think it's really fantastic how the weather can change every day and how there's climate and everything that happens in a lifespan of a day. >> Thank you. EXCELLENT. >> I have a question for Cheyenne. Hi Cheyenne. What are some topics um that you recaped on me TV? >> I did Thanksgiving, Christmas, Snow Days. Um >> yeah, >> Cheyenne was a newcomer, uh midseason MEV. She had been asking me for probably two years to be on MEV and we finally found a role that we thought was good and she was able to do so. She did. >> Awesome. And what is it like when the cameras aren't
004rolling in the studio? Um, everyone kind of just goose off in the steam lab. >> It's very serious work. >> It is. >> My question is for Camila. Um, I understand this is your second year on MEV. Um, so why did you come back for a second year? Um, I came back because it was fun last year and like Cheyan said, everybody goofed off, but it was fun to act and like express your feelings in acting. >> That's good. >> And you were so good last year, right? We had to keep you. >> Yeah. >> Can you also tell me what's different about this year than last year? >> Um, there's a lot of new people and a lot of people that I met and I didn't know until this day. So, I'm really grateful
005for that. And also last year there was like more people that also went to sixth grade. Okay. >> And then one last question. Do you think you want to do this as a career when you grow up? >> Um it's kind of maybe because like there's a lot of things I would like to do in the future, but also I really like this job. So I I think it's cool and I think it's an opportunity and I think I maybe I could do it. >> I think you can do it. I think you already showed that you can. You can. >> Good luck. Hi there. My question is for Lorenzo. So, this is your first year on MEV. Uh, why did you want to be on METV? >> Because I think it will be fun
006and I like people to watch me. >> Nice. And what's the most difficult um part about your position? >> Uh, nothing really. It's just fun. just >> it all comes naturally to you. >> Perfect. >> And I have a a third question. Would you like to do something different next year on METV or you'd like to stay in the job that you're doing now? >> I like to stay. >> That would mean you'd have to do fifth grade again though. >> Or started at the middle school. just talking with that with one of our old uh sports reporters who's here this evening. >> There you go. Thank you. >> All right, Jack, tell me about New York Giants football. What's What's going to happen next year? What do we What do we like? What are
007we concerned about? >> Honestly, they could have had a better season this year if they had um all their good players, including Malik Neighbors and Cam Scataboo. Um they even though they went um four and 13. >> Yeah. Sorry, Dad. Maybe next year they could be a little better at trying to make the playoffs. I'm not guessing, but at least they have at they have a beast of a running back and a really good receiver to um come back and play for their hometown team. >> Awesome. Awesome. What who's your favorite player? >> Honestly, I have three. The all the rookies. Okay. Jackson Dar, Kim Scatabibu, and Abdul Carter. >> Abdul Carter. You know where he went to school? >> Penn State. That's right. >> Yep. >> It's a good one. >> If anyone knows,
008he does. >> All right. Good job. >> Thank you very much for having us this evening. >> All right. Thank you. Great job. Thank you. >> Okay, we're going to continue with the agenda and we're going to go >> Huh. >> Oh, you guys are welcome to stay or you're welcome to go, whichever you'd like. Uh, we're going to go into correspondence. Keep with that new theme. So, I'd like to share that the OSPA delegates meeting is on Tuesday, February 3rd at 7 p.m. and it's a virtual meeting. >> That's all I have for tonight as far as correspondence. >> Oh, that's everything. >> All right, we'll go into commendations. All nine of our fall sports teams have earned the distinction of the New York State Public High School Athletic Association Scholar Athlete Teams. The
009teams include boys soccer, girls soccer, boys cross country, girls cross country, football, game day cheer, girls swimming and diving, girls tennis, and girls volleyball. There were a total of 123 scholar athletes, each maintaining a grade point average of 90 or above. Please, let's give them a round of applause and congratulate them for their hard efforts. Honorable mentions, Valley Central High School, Middle School, and Montgomery Elementary School winter holiday concerts was were in December. the generosity of school community to Valley Central families, school and central office to numerous to mention individually but were offered anom anonymously from dress down fundraisers to collections by student groups, central office and school buildings, adopting students and families, code drives, etc. throughout the holiday season. The generosity of the school community is outstanding and we're very proud of all that
010we do to give to people during the holidays and throughout the year. So, I want to thank everyone for their donations and for their hard work in collecting um those efforts and it just shows that we are extending to our community to support everyone not only internally but externally as well. >> Thank you. >> Great. Thank you. All right. Next, we're going to move on to the consent agenda. And I get a motion to approve. >> Katie second. >> Diana, any discussion? All in favor? >> Opposed? 70. Thank you. Next, we're going to move on to reports and we'll begin uh with our students. >> So, on December 19th, the high school came together and hosted our second annual winter fest. The classes competed in competitions and ended with the sophomore class winning the entire
011event. Our senior class recently ran a food drive and gathered a generous hall of donations from students throughout the high school for our local food shelter. And then the boys and girls indoor track team have competed in multiple meets with outstanding performances leading to many school records being broken. >> The boys basketball team and swim swimming and diving team have had a strong performance throughout the season so far. The advanced ceramics cores had their artwork put on an art exhibit at Orange County Community College. As for school climate, throughout lunch periods, there are more interactions between students. This is primarily due to the integration of fun activities that promote entertainment and collaborations during lunch. And that's all this. >> All right. Thank you very much. Next, we'll move back to the superintendent for her report.
012um as I have a few reports and then I have a presentation um as well to talk about superintendent's initiatives. And so just wanted everyone to know that we are continuing to meet with building principles and directors um to have budget meetings for their individual departments. Um the Montgomery Elementary tree lighting was on December 11th. Um we continue to v build visit buildings and have conversations at faculty meetings. um about the upcoming activities as well as learning targets and uh do questioning as many other items and answering questions and the whole team goes the assistant superintendent and myself attend those meetings and we will continue to to visit them during their faculty meetings. I do want to just ask for some assistance um from the public. We are currently seeking the public's help regarding a
013property damage case involving our athletic fields. On two separate occasions on December 27th at approximately 9:54 p.m. and January 3rd around 1:00 a.m. a silver cyber truck entered the property causing damage to the field by doing donuts. And for anyone, I didn't initially know what a donut was, so I had to ask. It's going around in circles and messing up our our fields. Um, if anyone has information regarding the vehicle or the incident, we ask that you please contact the town of McGomery Police Department and please thank you for assistance in this matter as we want to preserve and protect our fields. And so I'm going to move over to the presentation this one. >> Okay, I'll use that one. We have microphones now. >> I know. Okay. So, just wanted to share some highlights
014from this coming year as well as um initiatives for next year. do want to start with our our vision and just to remind everyone that we this work is grounded in our vision as well as our strategic plan. So our vision central school district empowers innovative critical and collaborative thinkers and learning community where all celebrated feel celebrated confident and ready to lead choicefilled lives and I do want to reiterate that community means everyone. It means the staff, the students, the teachers, the employees, everyone in our district. Um, and so that comes from us working together to continue to have a learning organization. Our mission at Valley Central, we champion curiosity and s set high expectations. Our mission is to empower every member to achieve at high levels and embrace the joy of continuous learning. Today,
015you heard students do two things. one, they're excited about going and participating in this activity as well as learning and that's the kind of joy that we want to see all throughout the day in every subject and every and every part of the school day. So as I identify the priorities I wanted to highlight and we are going into our third year of our strategic plan. The first priority is elevating student success and engagement. Last year we focused on student achievement improving and we did that. We showed that in a couple of ways definitely in our NWA data but also on New York State scores and that occurred from grades 3 to 8 as well at the high school with our region scores and the increase in graduation rate. We will continue to focus on
016achievement but moving forward this year we focused on learning environments that are affirming, welcoming and promoting a growth mindset and we will do that in several ways. One way is showing children students work throughout the school year and also identifying areas to make it more like a an environment that children feel comfortable learning and engaged throughout the school day. So some highlights we began phase one of the implementation of CKLA and that is our new literacy program. We are focusing on learning targets DOA questioning I ready and I ready is a way to assess how children are doing model classroom visits. students will uh it's not students, excuse me, teachers that have identified as model classroom teachers will begin to share and open their classrooms for visits um first among each other of the model
017classrooms and then across their school. Revision of grade policy. We have a grading committee that has been actively working on revising our grading policy. And as everyone knows, we have uh no longer have cell phone use during the school day. And so we have limited the distractions of preschools. Moving to 2627, we'll go into phase two of the implementation of CKLA. We then will develop by the end of this year the grading policy and if it's adopted by the board then we will begin to implement that grading policy next year. This year we launched just the plan and having our MTSS plan and so we will begin to working on phase one next year and as the state has adopted their portrait of a graduate each school over the course of the next couple of
018years will be required to um create their own portrait of a graduate and implement New York inspired. So we will begin to develop our portrait of a graduate next year. Priority two is community belonging and VC pride. And we focused last year on community members feeling a sense of belonging and value. And this year the interior and exterior spaces becoming inviting and instilling a sense of pride in the district. And so we are working on decreasing chronic absenteeism and the in the middle school and the high school. And that really supports students wanting to come to school and being excited about that. Um we are still debating on whether or not there'll be a possible uh SEAL curriculum um one at the middle school and also possibly a pilot at the elementary school. A series
019of workshops we already had an I Ready workshop for parents and we'll continue to have two others for uh within the school year. department newsletters that will be coming out soon that they we will have department newsletters to give parents an update on what's happening in the district and our facility committee has been working on identifying furniture that we would have so that there'll be some consistency across the district so that we can update that interior um classroom that is getting ready to be much more modernized than what we have at the moment. So there is a facility committee that consists of staff members and students across the district. The students are from the high school. The the the staff members are across the district and they actually look at and sit on different samples
020of furniture and have discussions about what would be best for students. Um there will be discussions on our behavior practices. Last year we had a committee and then we actually updated policies last year and so now actually talking about how to make sure that everyone is consistently implementing them. Um we've already established the facility committee. Next year again focusing on the collaboration of how do you have the portrait of the graduate? So there'll be many different venues for people to work together on how do we have that development. um looking to have student ambassadors to show off and really demonstrate how they're pr how they're prideful in their in their buildings and maybe beyond and having continuing to have focus groups clear transparent and communication. Um so the two areas that we are focusing on
021or have focused on between the last two years is community and stakeholders feeling informed about the district and school events, practice and updates. the community having opportunities to share their perspective, ideas and concerns. And so this year was the full implementation of parent square. We started with the pilot last year. We began the full implementation. We are working on uh developing and enhancing our website to improve it. Um and that we are getting from feedback from our communication committee. We gave a survey the end of last year and we have been working on developing that. We've had a couple of drafts and we'll continue to do that. And we have a language line to help with translation so that we can make sure that we have parents involved at cse meetings, at parent teacher conferences,
022and other meetings so that we can communicate and they can communicate as well. And next year we hope to launch the website and continue to have parent workshops to really support the navigation of the workshop and par portrait of the graduate and help everyone understand the changes that will happen with New York inspires. And so with that, do you have any questions? >> Franilot, what does that mean? the next year >> it depends what the pilot comes out and says. So for example, as you know, being on the this committee, one of one of the areas of pilot at the elementary level primarily was second step, but they are implementing a reading curriculum. So we want to make sure we are not overwhelming our staff. And so we that's why we're going very slowly and
023there are a few teachers may want to pilot. So next year might be just additional teachers because this is the first year of CKLA and we have to give them the opportunity to focus in the literacy program and not give them much more. But some teachers are very exciting and still wanting to pilot and I don't want to prohibit them um and give them that excitement and give them choiceful life so that they can begin to do that. >> Questions. >> Thank you. >> Do you have more or you're done? >> No, I'm done. >> All right. All right. We're going to move on to the assistant superintendent for business. >> Okay. Thank you, Mr. President. So, just a few things uh for me tonight. Just to make you aware, um we do have the
024transportation RFP out um for proposals right now. We um had a pre-bid meeting last week. It um a few contractors did show up and um we will open that on the uh believe on the 29th or the 30th. Uh we do have a a big bid opening this Friday, which would be the construction work for phase three of the 23 project plus some work from the 25 capital project that was approved um last week. So, we're hopeful that those bids come in favorable. Um, the Walden property search is ongoing. Um, so that is happening behind the scenes and um um so I just wanted to let you know on that. And then also we do expect to bring forward some capital project recommendations uh for your consideration this year. I don't expect anything significant. Um
025but we do um have to make some upgrades to our water systems at the high school as well as Berea. And um we may have a few other minor projects keeping in mind with the Walden project coming down the road. Um the board could choose otherwise, but we do not anticipate to recommend any substantial amount of work this year. With that, that's all I have. >> Great. Thank you. All right. Next, we'll move to the assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction. >> Good evening. I wanted to share an update regarding um our our program, Today's Students, Tomorrow's Teachers. At the beginning of the school year, the district had paused the TST program to review the program's impact as well as the partnership with TST. We're happy to share that we have resumed the program for
026the eight students and we'll continue to explore programs that are best met best meet the needs of our students. Um, communication will be shared with families and the new regional manager, which was replaced at the beginning of the school year by TST, will begin meeting with students shortly. In addition to that, I did want to address um one of the it's it's not a budget item. It's not a budget initiative, but it was a question that had came up from Angela regarding uh just the our personnel for dual enrollment. And I did look into that a little bit more. And so um from Sunni Orange specifically and some of the other colleges, I didn't go into every single college that we're partnered with. in regards to course instruct instructors generally a master's in the in
027the subject discipline a master's in the teaching of that subject discipline or a master's in a closely related field is what their colleges are looking for so it's not necessarily a dual um masters in you know in English and then and then um in education but a lot of the time our 7 through 12 obviously are English teachers and so they have that certification as well um so I just wanted to let you know and to be updated that it was an or and that it we're not looking at anything that will restrain us in the future. And that's all I have for this evening. >> Okay, great. All right, we'll move on to the assistant superintendent for human resources. >> Good evening, everyone. We have recommended two teachers for appointment tonight along with one
028occupational therapist assistant, two pair of professionals, and one clerical staff. I'd like to congratulate all of our employees who have decided to retire at the end of the school year. 29 Valley Central staff members in total on this agenda. And as we begin to recruit to fill many of those positions, I would like to announce that our district will be holding its second annual job fair on Saturday, March 7th from 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. at Berea Elementary. Uh you'll be seeing more advertisement and announcements about this in the coming weeks. >> Okay, great. Thank you. All right. Next, uh we have an update for professional learning committee. >> That's me. >> Okay. >> Um the professional learning committee met on December 16th and the discussion was mostly about professional developments happening in the buildings
029versus the district level. Um most of the discussion was on the building level for those professional developments. Grade level um CKLA training will be continuous and ongoing. Um they there was a discussion about um having Bosey's learning targets to come in and do some trainings as well as Jessa Blank and then there was a a pretty extensive discussion regarding how to work um teachers sidebyside with the power professionals. They found that it would be extremely helpful if they could um coordinate time together to um pretty much configure their classrooms and divvy up responsibilities around the classroom. So um that's continuing. >> Thank you very much. Next we'll go to the Orange County School Board Association. Yes, I attended that meeting uh virtually on um January 6th and as we move into um lobby season um
030with Albany um there was a um last year's uh I guess list of items that the Orange County School Board um school board association put together to um you ask our legis legislature um people to you know think about as they're you know making their um budget suggestions. Um so I distributed it through email and if we could just talk about them as a district what we would like to um you know push forward through Orange County School Board Association um that would be great. We also had um Brian Fesler from New York um schoolboard association. He's the chief advocacy officer um speak about what he thought was going to be um in the budget this year. It sounds like um education um is there's it's kind of flying underneath the radar. So, they were
031kind of happy about that that there probably wouldn't be a lot of changes to um the budget this year as far as education is related. Um and then we also had Patrick Longo from um the NISBA uh relationship engagement manager and they shared a couple different programs that uh NISBA has to recognize um students, staff and board members for their exemplary service. Um and so I can share those programs um if we would like to you know nominate somebody from our district for those for those programs. Um and then finally um the uh Boseies reported that they had just delivered one of the small houses to the uh veterans um program in in Port Jervis. Um the small house was built by um the Boseies um um different programs. Yeah. And um it was um
032they had a send off from Boseies and then they had it delivered to um on site in Port Jervis and it was a great experience for everybody involved. So >> do you want to like expectations for the next meeting? >> Oh sure. Yeah. So, I mean, the the list that I emailed around was last year's list. So, if you we all could just take a look at it and see if there's anything. Well, obviously some of the things were already addressed last year. Um, but if there's any other things that we want to add to this list for this year, if we could bring those to next the next meeting, I can take it back to um the the OXPA um at the beginning of February. >> Okay. So, we'll have that as an agenda
033item on our next meeting for everybody to get feedback. >> Okay. Great. Thank you. And if we I could also hear from administration as well. >> You guys have I followed it. >> All right. Great. Thanks. Okay. All right, good. Thank you. >> All right, next we'll move on to your participation. >> Well, it feels like a long time ago, but I went to the winter concert. Um, the music was amazing. The Allelujah chorus is just, you got to see it to believe it. Um, they did a great job. >> I have nothing to report. >> Yes. Um I was like Bob um and Diana we went to the u the winter concert was an excellent event and also to a couple basketball games boys >> as Angela just mentioned I attended the high school
034winter concert and yes the Hallelujah course is always the highlight of that and it's always really wonderful to see all the alumni come back and get up on the stage and sing and it's just it's a treat. Me too. I was also at the concert. Um I don't know. The Hallelujah Chorus is good, but that chamber choir was >> impressive. Very impressive. We should start charging admission. Just saying. Just throwing it out there. Brad revenue. >> Yeah, I went to the winter concert as well. The singing was good. Great. I thought what was most impressive was how they got on and off the stage like so quickly without like we can't get out behind this table without bumping into each other. And and also Dan Walker with his baton. I was thinking, man, I wish
035I could run my meetings like that, you know. >> Please don't. >> Good. That's I'll use this side. >> All right. Very good. All right. Get ready. >> Katie's going to read for us. >> Katie's gonna read. >> Yeah, she >> I'm going to read. Ladies and gentlemen, we are about to begin our public comment portion of our meeting. We have public comment because it it is important for us to hear concerns and issues from our community members. Please note that the board is here to listen and public comment is not designed to be a discussion. If needed, the board or a designated staff member will research your concerns and get back to you accordingly. We want our schoolboard meetings to serve as an example to our students. So, I ask that we demonstrate mutual
036respect. We ask that speakers address their comments to the board directly, and we will insist that all speakers and members of the audience maintain civility and respect on opposing views. The board reserves the right to shorten a speaker's time if that speaker violates the board's public comment rules. I also want to point out that under board policy, we do not entertain any comments or questions about specific school personnel or individual students by name or by implication. Please know, however, that we take personnel and student concerns very seriously. On these matters, we ask that you review our board policies and go through the appropriate administrative channels. The board will now entertain public comment for 30 minutes. Each individual speaker is allowed four minutes. The individual time limits will be enforced so that as many members of
037the public who wish to speak may be allowed to do so. >> Okay. Thank you. All right. We actually have one person signed up and it's David Wixs. >> Just wondering if there's any information. >> You could step up here if you want just so uh they can catch you at home and they can hear you. Good. >> Um over in Walden. We're wondering what's going on with the Walden School project. I know I heard that they're searching for property. Can the board shed any light on what the future of Walden School and what's going to be done? That's my question. >> Um, so I guess everything's on the internet on the web page, right? I mean, so, so at this point, uh, it's up to the state for review. There's a proposal up to
038the state and we're just waiting for feedback from the state. But I think there is there is there an outline >> just to just to kind of follow up on what I mentioned before is that there's a search going on in the background to identify a piece of property. Um we are not ready to discuss that at this time but there is some things going on behind the scenes. >> Yeah. And and we do a quarterly update um just just so you're aware and you can watch for it on the agenda but uh at this point we're waiting on state approval. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Sure. >> Okay. All right. So, um I just want to make mention on the agenda. So, according to the agenda posted, we're going to go into executive session,
039but that's actually not going to happen until 8:00. So, what we're going to do is we're going to keep moving forward through the agenda and go as far as we can, maybe even done um up until 8:00. If we don't finish the full agenda at 8:00, we'll go out to executive session and then come back. But with any luck for you guys, we'll get through it all. Right. >> So, so we're gonna call Jason up right now and and for old business, he's going to talk about the long range financial plan update. >> Okay. I feel like >> no introduction needed. So, Jason, take it away. >> Thank you. Uh good evening everybody. I'm uh Jason Schwarz, president at Donigan Incorporated. We're the district's financial adviserss and we're here to um do a quick update
040on the district's 5-year long range plan. Um so this is a couple years in a row we've been doing this now and um you know it's always a good update just to look at I think uh the district continues to do a good job uh managing its financial position. Uh but it's still good to kind of take that look at what the outy years look like and be aware for future planning as well. So, um, just jumping in real quick to the, uh, there we go. Perfect. Thank you. Uh, just a quick summary for anyone who hasn't seen this presentation before. What's a long range plan and why do we do it? Um, so we're really trying to take a look at projecting future revenues and expenses and use that information to kind of see
041where we expect fund balances to go and how any decisions we're making as far as uh, you know, program uh, capital improvements, things like that, how they're going to impact the financial position of the district. Uh, so that we can make good decisions about the affordability of those things. Uh, you know, they're not static documents. Um, a lot can change year to year in New York State finance for school districts. So, we like to, you know, get updates, see what the latest information is, uh, and see how that affects the, uh, plan as we look forward to the future. And it's important to to track them and update them regularly. And one key distinction that we always like to make is this is different than your budget, right? So, you're getting right into the throws
042of budget season uh, as you get ready for the May budget vote. This is a good tool to guide your budgeting discussions, but these are not the numbers we're saying you should drop into your budget uh for any reason, you know, any number of reasons. Your budget will look a little different than this because you have to plan for the unexpected and make sure you have room uh for anything that might come up mid year. So, jumping into the updates themselves, um just a quick uh look at your current debt service picture and local share from your capital improvement projects. This is another big piece um that we work with the district on outside of the 5-year plan and it's also very important and critical to the long range plan because of the fact um
043that your local share of your projects is an exclusion within the tax cap. Uh so these updates uh is is a mix of um debt service that has already been permanently financed from some of your older projects as well as projections for the current projects that are ongoing. Uh this is just the the highle summary, but this does include assumptions for uh both the 2021 project which we're anticipating bonding this coming summer as well as projections for the um 23 24 and 25 projects uh which as Brad was mentioning earlier those are ongoing. Uh you have some bids coming up for those. So, uh, we're assuming another year of, uh, short-term financing for those this year, and then potentially, uh, if things are in good shape, looking to bond those next year in June of
04427. Uh, but overall, we're continuing to manage that local share in the far right column, try to keep that local share level at about that $550,000 level, uh, which helps keeps the tax cap nice and smooth and make sure that we don't have any additional tax increases from any of the projects. uh getting into the plan itself. So we always like to start with a just a quick look back at the last three years and see how things have been going just as far as you know if there's any trends or anything like that. Um so on the bottom line you know we have the breakout of all the different uh categories of fund balance. Um but down on the bottom right above the dash line the key thing is just looking at that overall
045total fund balance. So as you can see that's been continuing to grow a little bit over the last couple years. So the district has done a good job of continuing to uh build up those reserves and u put yourself in a good financial position going forward um with some surpluses the last few years getting into the projections themselves. Uh again like every year we kind of always start by looking at just the state aid as a separate you know this is one line item from the revenue side. Uh but obviously there's a lot that goes into your state aid picture. So, uh, most of the things we're doing in the state aid, we're assuming are going to stay relatively flat. Um, projecting onto the future. The couple spots where you will see some changes, you
046know, foundation aid, we've assumed kind of flat growth. Traditionally, that might be like 2 to 3%, but it's also been being evaluated. So, conservatively, we've left that flat. The two biggest things you'll see in here are the transportation aid about four rows up. Um, from the bottom, we've shown some increases there. just expecting increases in the transportation contract going forward. Uh and then also the highlighted row at the bottom, the building aid, you'll see that number going up over time as some of those newer projects come on and the aid starts to flow for those. Um so we have overridden that number to match the summary page that we had right before this. Getting into the revenue projections, uh a couple key things just to highlight here. Uh again with the taxes on the top,
047the property taxes and star uh these projections for the long range plan assume going right up to the uh projected cap over the next five years. And you can see those percentages across the top of the page there. Uh around like mid3s most of the years. You will notice in 2031 right now we're projecting that number might be a little bit higher because you have some pilots rolling off. So you lose the revenue from the pilot side of the budget, but you do get a higher tax cap number that you can go to to replace that loss revenue uh if you want to recoup that in the tax levy. Um the state aid again is uh projecting from the prior pages and most of the other uh revenues we've assumed will remain kind of flat
048going forward in terms of miscellaneous interest earnings, things like that. And one key thing to point out here again in the uh bottom right hand corner you can see that 5-year average of revenue growth is about 2.6%. So if you just keep that in mind as we go to the expenditure page here. Um again with the expenditures we're projecting out uh based on some historical averages and discussion um with the business office on what to project going forward for salaries and kind of miscellaneous operational increases. Uh again the the big thing here or one of them anyway is the um transportation category. We know that contracts coming up in 2627. So expecting a little bit of a bump there and then hopefully some more smaller increases going forward. And then again like we saw on
049the revenue side with the building aid. We are expecting the debt service to kind of ramp up over the next couple years here as some of those newer capital projects come on. So an increase in the budget overall but not in the tax levy due to the projects because we had that building aid coming in to offset it as well. And then in the bottom right hand corner here you can see just as a comparison point on the expenses uh we're expecting closer to 4.3% increase on the expenditure side. So very similar story that any district in New York State is experiencing. You have kind of expenses outpacing revenues. you know, as you see salaries going up to remain competitive with other districts in the area, the increased cost of insurance that everyone's dealing with,
050whether you're a school or private business, anything. Uh so obviously there's some pressure on the expenditure side and you have limited resources on the revenue side to be able to make that up. So you get that gap which creates when we look to the fund balance page as you see it in some of the outy years uh potentially projecting some deficits on an individual year basis. Uh but again, the good news is over the past couple years, you know, the planning the district and the board has done to set some money aside as you've had surpluses gives you kind of that um room to take on those deficits and and plan uh over a few years instead of having to make hard decisions in a given year when you have the deficits because you do
051have that fund balance available to kind of help offset those as you u go into those and kind of make decisions as you see how this all develops over the next three, four or five years with state aid projections, you know, expense, you know, insurance, things like that, how that all plays out. So, you're able to use some of those reserves that you set aside that we saw earlier in the report to help with some of those deficits knowing that that's not a sustainable long-term plan, but it does help get you through the next couple years as you kind of see how everything shakes out. Uh, so overall, you know, we do a lot of these long-range plans. This is a very good uh picture compared to a lot of your peers. There's a lot
052of people that have those red numbers hitting a lot sooner and a lot bigger. So, it's a a good position to be in to be able to know that those are coming and we still have to make, you know, good decisions every year to maintain the position, but they're in a good strong position to start from. >> So, yes, most of our expenses are contractual, so there's not a lot of legal, right? So does that mean that if state or even goes down that tax revenue that is that something we as to plan for? >> Yeah, that that's kind of the and we'll we have like kind of a recap page right at the end where we talk about what are the options, right? That's essentially what you can do is you try to control
053your expenditures as best you can whether it's being aware in you know future uh contracts you know looking at staffing when there are retirements for how much of it needs to be replaced or what can be um you know what's the right way to allocate uh things within the district uh looking for shared services like that. Um, but yeah, once you know, if you kind of turn over all those stones and then you've also started to use your fund balance, then really the last thing you kind of control is the tax levy and whether you might have to look at uh overrides. But, you know, with the picture that you're at right now, it seems like, you know, those could be discussions down the road, but not uh anytime, you know, in the near future
054with where you're at. I think a lot of people don't necessarily understand how the the intricacies of the budget and and looking at that it's like okay we have all this money in our savings account that's great but >> remembering that so many of our expenses are contractual we don't really have you know Brad can't wave a magic wand and drop a lot of this stuff so >> right >> and I I think the big thing to that point with the tax gap which we'll talk about in just a second is also you can't carry over the money you leave on the table in any given year. So although you're in a good position right now, when you don't go up to that maximum cap, it does >> accelerate some of those red numbers forward
055and it makes it harder to recover that position without going out for a super majority vote. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Right. >> A lot faster, too. Right. Uh again, last page here is just the tax cap projections, how we're getting to those numbers. So, you know, primarily, you know, 2% uh growth factor plus your allowable growth factor that's specific to Valley Central. And again, the the pilots increasing over the next couple years brings it up a little bit and then or sorry, brings it down a little bit, but then in 2031 when you have some major pilots expiring right now, uh you would see that bigger number in 2031 if you wanted to plan for that. And then this is just the summary page uh which we already kind of covered with that last question.
056But you know again looking at how you manage your expenses using reserves and fund balance to help uh where there are gaps and then just knowing longterm really the main uh offset if you don't get increases in state aid or you do start to tap into that fund balance is really looking at that tax levy. >> Questions. >> Okay. It's not that's not that bad. You know, I I will say just real quick, I I'm looking forward to see what you know, precedes my presentation next year because you've had a a media show. I think one year I had to follow like cooking from the culinary program. It's it's a good thing you guys really like Bonds and Fun Balance because, you know, otherwise my this would seem really boring following all that. >> Uh
057and Jason, thank you very much. Jason moved his schedule. Um he was supposed to be with another district tonight. however, he loves Valley Central. And uh so we we got Jason to come down for this meeting. We always like to kick off the budget season with Jason's presentation and we have him booked out for the next 10 years. So he will always be here at the first meeting in January. >> Great. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Next, we'll move on to the approval of high school club charters, Control Viking Club, and the VC Debate Club. We'll do them together. If nobody objects, take a motion to approve. Fran second. >> Jane all in favor. >> Post 70. Thank you. Dan here. >> I'm gonna keep going. >> Is Dan here? >> All right.
058We're going to keep going. >> We're going to keep going. New business 2627 budget presentation. >> You want us do the um action items while I set up and then jump? >> Sure. Great idea. >> Great idea. All right, we're going to move on to the approval of contract with language line services. Can I get a motion to approve? >> Angela >> second. >> Katie, any discussion? >> No. All in favor? >> Post. 70. Thank you. Uh motion to approve the 2526 health and welfare services rate. >> Jane. Second. >> Diana. Discussion. >> All in favor? I >> opposed. 70. Thank you. Um well motion for the approval of girls modified flag football team. Can I get a motion to approve? Diana second. >> Bob discussion. I'm going to have discussion before we go. So
059I just want to mention this is on here because section 9 is is trying to get this thing up and running. Um, and I think there's a memo. Does it have the districts in the memo? >> Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. So, just just for awareness, there wasn't a lot of teams that were signed up for. Okay. So, all right. Um, all in favor? >> I >> opposed. Okay. 70. Thank you. Next is the motion to approve the agreement with Sunni Fredonia. Can I get a motion to approve, Angela? >> Second. Jane. >> Jane. Discussion. All in favor? >> Opposed? 70. Thank you. All right. Brad. >> All right. So, here we go. Uh, we're going to kick off our budget season here. And of course, I will go through this as as fast as possible.
060I did try to make the numbers in here a little bit bigger than Jason, so I hope you can see them. Um, but first tonight, we're going to look at our budget development timeline. We're going to review the current year budget. We're going to look at some tax levy and budget history, renew uh revenue and expenditure trends. Uh then we're going to look at our fund balance and revenue overview. We always do this this time of year. Moving on to our budget development goals, look at some uh key items that are driving the budget and then talk next steps. So our upcoming budget development timeline, our next meeting on February 9th, we will get into some uh numbers for the departments of athletics, technology, operations, maintenance, techn uh transportation, and security. As I did mention
061before, uh we are having a RFP opening um for a new transportation contract in the next coming week. So, we'll be able to give you an update. Then, moving on to March 9th, we'll do curriculum and instruction, special education, high school, middle school, and elementary programs. On March 23rd, uh at that point, we'll um we will present the superintendent's proposed um budget, which is essentially the the full picture of what we are recommending for next year. On April 13th, the board will adopt the uh fiscal year 2027 budget that will go to the voters. Um for anybody interested in running for board, uh nominating petitions are due to the district clerk um by the end of the business day on April 20th. Uh I believe there's two seats up for election this year. Uh, moving
062on to May 11th for the budget hearing and then on to I want to make sure I I this is very small on my paper, but May 19th, the budget vote at the high school. Uh, same time as uh has historically been 6:00 a.m. to 900 p.m. So, Avette kind of already hit on our mission and priorities. Uh, of course, um, I just want to revisit our district priorities, which are elevating student success and student engagement, community belonging, and VC pride, uh, clear and transparent communications, which is what we are doing here tonight, presenting a five-year financial plan and going through, um, what is coming as far as budget development and revisiting what we did last year. So, to revisit where we were at last year, you may remember we did make some key investments
063um, in instruction and building leadership. So, the new ELA program was approved um by both the community and the board and the CKLA literacy program is up and running this year. Um at the time uh we we were planning to um we did see a need for a special education teacher. However, we were able to maximize our own resources and we did not need to hire that uh special education teacher. So, this is just a good reminder as we start talking about um budget. you know, we're here in January, February, and March. A lot of things can change before um the school year begins the following of September. So, we had also proposed uh some additional administrative support for uh East Golden, and that was an assistant principal, a new position um which has been
064hired. On the technology and cyber security side of things, um we did make an investment in our cyber security protection. Uh so, that platform is up and running. We did hire some summer help. So, these were student employee positions, a total of four. Um, and they were extremely valuable to the technology team over the summer. I think uh Greg much appreciated having some extra help around. There's a lot of things that happen around the district um during the summer when the students are not here. On the athletic side of things, we did approve some additional coaches and chaperones for teams that only had one head coach. Uh we did allocate some monies for athletic uniform replacements. our new athletic director has has put in a plan uh in place to have a uh refresh cycle
065going forward. We approved uh an increase to our huddle platform. So um some of our games are now being streamed on uh Huddle. And for facilities and capital, we did make a significant investment to begin to replace district furniture. Uh we have been working on identifying um with both um teacher, custodian, administrator and even student input on what um we should be looking at going forward. And uh we did um hire a maintenance foreman. This is a new position that will really help us improve our day-to-day maintenance programs. Uh so just as a reminder, our fiscal year 2026 budget, which is this year, was supported by the uh voters. We were well below the tax cap, 51% below the tax cap. Actually, our cap was 5.1% and um the voters approved a tax levy increase
066of 2.49%. Um voters approved that by a margin of 67.8%. We had 693 yes votes, 329 against for a total turnout of around 1,000 voters. Um, and we do have about 18,000 registered voters in the uh Valley Central School District. So, I think quick math about 5% actually show out uh show up to vote. So, um we hope uh that increases over time, but it has been pretty historical. Um that is an average turnout for us. Looking back uh over the 10-year trend, our budget has grown 3.4% annually while the tax levy averaged just 2.09%. Um so Jason did talk a little bit about that. Um there was an exception there in the year of uh 2024. So a few things um that were driving that first. That was a a a major year of
067um a state aid increase. So you'll remember the the lawsuits that were happening up at the state. Um so there was a phase in period where the state um did make districts whole. We were one of them. So we had a significant um state a increase. We had the Boseies capital project that hit our budget that year. that was a significant hit,500 or $600,000 there. Um, and also we had the grant programs that were expiring that year. So, a lot of those uh positions that that we made it um valuable and important to keep in the in the district all came from the uh federal fund or the grant fund into the general fund that year. So, it it did drive uh the budgettobudget increase up. However, we were able to keep the tax levy
068increase um below 1% and uh if you do remember, we did increase the tax levy uh that year by just the amount um for our local share of that Bosey's capital project. So, we made sure that we were uh obtaining the revenue going forward on that. This does look at the same information. This looks this looks at the percentage points between uh between the two. In the essence of time, I'm going to just skip over this one for today and we're going to move on to our fund balance and reserve appropriations. So, this as as we have talked about um we should not be relying on fund balance and reserves in the budget uh to fund our revenue. We have decreased that 76 uh% since 2019. Now at that at the peak in 2021 um
069and also in 22 we were appropriating some uh monies into the budget for uh transportation. That was the peak COVID years and transportation as you know it's an expense-based aid. So while our transportation expenses um we anticipated were going to be down that would drive our aid down. Um and the same thing next year. So using fund balance um wisely is something that we need to do. So although we are anticipating uh the trend across the state is that districts are um seeing an increase in transportation expenses um and since that is expensed driven we will not um we will not receive that revenue until the following year. So we will likely appropriate some fund balance into next year's budget to offset that uh increase in transportation. So, um, our state aid has increased, uh,
070since 2020. As, um, I was saying before, the the state did make districts whole on their foundation aid over the last few years. And now, uh, no surprise, they're talking about no increases uh, in the outy years going forward. Our local um, increase has only increased uh, about 16% over those years. 61.3% of our budget during that time has been funded by the local taxpayers. Our total of 426 almost $27 million and 38% has been funded by the state. So we always say we are we are no different than any other any other district in this area of the state where most of our funding does come from the local uh taxpayers. This um this is a very high level look at at our budget and uh uh categories of general support, instruction, transportation, benefits
071and then others. So others would be transfers out for example into the capital fund into the federal fund um when a capital project gets approved that appropriates fund balance that hits that code as well. The biggest uh drivers there was uh instruction which is obviously predominantly salaries uh and new positions and benefits as well. So this is our uh an overall look at our fund balance. Um so on the non-spendable category, these values are as of June 30th, 2025. our our non-spendable in the general fund was $1.5 million. In the restricted category, it was $21.2 million. There's a lot of our reserves sit there. The assigned that $2.8 million that would be what is appropriated to the fund balance um appropriated to the budget and also any carryover encumbrances that we need to account for.
072And then the unassigned, this is the category that is subject to the 4% limit uh for school districts. As as you may know, districts cannot carry more than 4% um in their unassigned uh fund balances essentially our savings account. Um compared to our budget, uh we were below the t the 4% limit last year. Uh so for a total fund balance in the general fund of $30.8 million. And as I always say, that is not even though it looks like $5.3 million is a lot of money for a district our size, it is really not. Just to kind of put it in simple terms, we always like to say just average a $100,000 household budget. Um the state would say that you could only keep $4,000 in your savings account. And of course, you know,
073if if anybody lose their job or has um any sort of um unexpected expense happen during the year, that is not a lot of money to rely on. Keeping uh moving forward to our reserves, um we have $21.8 million in reserves. The most is the capital reserve, the 13.6 6 billion um which is there for us to do uh capital repairs or investments or apply some to the Walden Elementary project that'll be coming. So the board will have to uh decide at what point do you want to tap into that some? All none. Um it's a conversation for a later date. Our retirement contribution um reserve is $2.57 million. Uh debt service $617,000. This is the the reserve that we have been spending down over the last few years and we have the plan in
074in the long range plan that Jason just presented to continue to spend that down over the next few years. The Ebelar reserve that's the employee benefits acred liability reserve $2.6 $6 million there or about 12% of our reserves tax certiary uh $2.3 million there which is for prior year judgments and claims and then uh the insurance reserve of $56,000. Um I added this slide in here this year. Uh we typically uh have not uh had enrollment in the first presentation. Um but I thought it was important just to um show you guys the trends over time and uh specifically I've highlighted East Coldenham. That's that's an u that's a school we're keeping our eye on and it it may come in the near future where we are going to recommend a boundary change for East
075Coldenham. Um and there's a couple different ways we can do it. um we can do you know the right way my own opinion going forward over time is to to change the boundary but any new regist registering students would then come to a different school rather than impact um the families that are there um the building is getting very tight. So if those trends do continue um and we expect they will we will uh we will come back to the board with a a plan and a recommendation moving forward. But um over those years a uh a 14 student increase and these these uh enrollment numbers are as of beds day which is the first Tuesday in October. District staffing. So this is also a new slide that um I wanted to show this year.
076This breaks it down by bargaining unit. And one thing to note this is FTEES as of June 30th. And one thing that may be missing here, so I just want to emphasize, we take this slide with a grain of salt, is if there are any vacancies. So when we run this report, if there's any vacancies on our system, it's not going to get flagged as a as a 1.0 FTE. Um, but it does kind of show you the trend over time. It breaks it down in all our different bargaining units from confidential to CSEA which is our custodians, nutritional, our food service workers, our paraprofessionals uh which is part of the SRP group, secretarial standalone. So they would be employees like uh Eively Ivan and myself that are not members of of a bargaining unit
077but um you do have us as employees the VCAA VCTA and then non-affiliated at the bottom. Those would be our subs, tutors, lifeguards, and others. So that has actually decreased over the last five years by 25. All right. Next, we move into our budget development goals. Um, I really don't want to read these bullet for bullet, but I guess um I guess I can. So, maintain and strengthen programs that demonstrate positive student impact. Uh, adhere to the the New York State tax cap. But we have been very good about adhering to the tax cap. I don't think we have overrode the the the tax cap in a long time. We've been well under. Uh I I I expect we would be recommending if if the final tax cap number does come in at around uh
078three uh and a quarter or three and a half%. Um I I anticipate we would probably be recommending to go there this year after a few years of of below three, especially with not really knowing what is on the horizon. Uh as far as uh state aid, we continue to hear about the deficit that they are running and its impact on school aid going forward. Um but we can always hope for the best. Um we will continue to reallocate our resources based on enrollment and student needs. We have done a great job of that over the the last few years. Even as I mentioned for the special education teacher, uh as we anticipated the need, it did not come to fruition. So we did not fill it. Um and we always are looking for ways
079to reallocate our resources. Um also align our spending with uh strategic plan priorities. Moving on, uh student needs and program demands. So we of course look at our enrollment trends which I showed you before. Um our growth in our special education placements and service needs, you know, population. We keep an eye on that. Uh continuing uh growing mental health and social emotional support needs. We've um been through our first round of of budget meetings with all of our district administrators and this is a common thread that um is again uh being discussed as it has been in the past few years, class size targets and staffing allocations. So um one of one of our favorite things we do with the administrators is um kind of a reality check. So of course um they always they
080don't want to reduce any staff when they can. Um, and they also uh like to ask for additional teachers. We have a a guideline that we try to follow. So, we go through that process with them and they really can see where they can uh move some teachers around and uh help address class sizes without having to hire new all of the time. Uh, CTE uh participation, this would be CTAC. Um, we did increase that over the last few years by a few spots. I think there has been budget requests to go even higher. However, Boseies has limited capacity. Um, so not every student that that wants to get into that program uh is able to get in. Moving forward, of course, state aid projections and legislative changes. So, we'll have more information on that
081over the next few weeks. Our allowable levy levy growth factor, transportation contract rebid. So, we are expecting a rate increase there. pilot agreements and assessed valuation trends, TRS, ERS, employee contribution rates, health insurance premium increases. We are expecting to see a more significant increase there than we have in the past few years. Um, and of course the Bosey's administrative and capital uh charges that big capital number from Boseies that we have seen increase over the years, we do expect that to remain relatively flat going forward. it has been fully phased in on the aid side and the only thing that will change is a is a factor of that calculation on how it gets dispersed among the school districts. So if we have more students that are going there or utilizing their services, we will
082pay more of that share. Um but I don't expect any financial or significant changes to that financial impact. And then lastly, um look at some inflation and instructional supplies, materials and other contracted services, utilities and energy costs, maintenance, uh repair and replacement for aging facilities, which uh again um our buildings are not getting any younger. Um moving down to the bottom there, Bosey's program costs and annual rate adjustments. So we did um have a meeting with Boseies last week and they've indicated that we will not see a significant increase in the Boseies rates this year. Um they they will have those rates out in the near future, but it was it was uh kind of comforting not to know we don't we do not have to panic there so much. Um moving on to emerging
083pressures um that present a long-term risk consideration. So volatility and state aid. I know I keep saying it, but um it will impact us. And then uh you know, of course, as we talked about before, the only way to make up that state aid revenue is on the local share or through reductions. Um increased competition for uh staff and hard to fill areas. I know sometimes Ivan has had to come and say, "Hey, what did you what did you budget for this position?" Because I have somebody that's good. Um but the only way we're going to get them is uh bump up the salary than than higher that we were anticipating. um next steps. So, of course, uh we'll continue to have engagement with the board here and public input, ongoing discussions with the district
084and the building administrators. So, we will talk about this at upcoming principal and cabinet meetings. Um we will refine our personnel assumptions, review the program needs, and um as I said before, the athletics technology on&m transportation security budgets um will be presented to the board on February 9th. And as always, we will we will post this presentation online. If you do have any questions for us, uh both the board or the public, please do not hesitate to reach out. We are here to answer any questions you may have. We always say please do not believe what you read on Facebook. Um always always get your news um from the district and we are happy to talk to anybody that does reach out. So with that, >> okay, >> any questions? >> Love the new format.
085>> Yes. Yeah, >> listen. Not only is it shorter, you finally dropped that Microsoft 95 template. >> It's great. >> I did. So I as as one of our goals of clear and transparent communication, I did uh take a lot of time actually and and I built this myself and not that I'm bragging. Um but we did it was the same presentation that I had presented since uh 200 uh 20 really. It was the first time we we did the budget. So I will a trivia question though. What what do you think made me um include the color gold in our budget presentation this year? >> Okay, I think you're pushing it luck, Brad. Just gave you >> the So, I tried and I and I don't know if I pronounced this this word um
086correctly, but pay uh homage. Is that is that how we say homage? Um to Walden. So when the the three villages merged into Valley Central School District, um Walden was known as the Walden Warriors and their colors were black and gold. So since Walden is a topic for all of us, I thought no better year to to throw in a little bit of gold and we'll wish for the best as we continue to move forward. So >> very nice. >> All right. Very good. >> All right. >> Tissues. Tissues. Anyone? >> Oh, wait. We have a question now. It's a a comment question, something for us to to think about. How do we get >> better voter turnout? 5% is just >> not great. >> Y >> and you know, I I I'm not saying
087that we're worse or better than other districts, but I just I I would like us to talk about how we can improve voter turnout. >> Okay. >> You can have that as an item going forward. >> Yep. Okay. >> Okay. Thanks. >> All right. Thank you very much. Um, >> okay. So, that's the end of our agenda items, but I'm going to go back and add one. So, I'm going to go back to old business and we're going to do a walk-on of board of ed budget initiatives. In our last meeting, we talked about budget initiatives and there was a few items that uh we asked central office to do a takeaway and get some more information. So, I'm going to ask them to present the information they found and then we'll go around and
088I'll ask each of you if you want to continue to pursue that as a budget initiative based on their feedback. >> Okay. So, who wants to go first over here? >> I can start. >> Great. Thank you. >> Right. So um in our last meeting we discussed um expanding the workbased learning program and specifically looking at evaluating and reviewing goan and pine bush and referring back to them as well. So in your board packets I have included a uh a brief memo just summarizing some of the things that I would discuss today with you today. Um but I just wanted to give some education in regards to work-based learning program in general. So specifically work-based learning is authentic learning experiences that allow students to explore their goals, abilities and interests while applying their academics and
089technical knowledge and skills in real world context. So specifically is the umbrella term used to identify activities which collaboratively engage employers and schools in providing structured learning experiences for students. These experiences are planned and supervised by instructional staff in collaboration with business, industry, and community partners. It is separate than CTE, which is what I'm thinking that um based on my information the my research for Pine Bush and Gan, they have CTE programs at at which are funded through which are through the district and school itself. So specifically go if you uh go to the second page is the beginning they have um the third page they have a cyber security CTE pathway and in Pine Bush they have engineering business engineering business and woodworking CTE programs that are pathways which both have workbased learning programs
090embedded within CTE programs are approved programs that lead to industry recognized credential certificate or an associate or bachelorette factor if I could speak correctly today degree and offer an an opportunity to apply academic concepts to real world situations preparation for industry-based assessments or certifications the opportunity to earn college credit or advanced standing while still in high school and work-based learning opportunities where students demonstrate mastery of skills essential in the workplace. Um in specifically I want to go back to our work-based learning program. We do have a business teacher who is our coordinator as per New York State guidelines and for workbased learning. There's three different C course programs for that. Uh we offer half credit courses up to three total in our 9th through 12th grade years. Um it is open to all students and
091really specifically speaks to the career interest as well as paid and unpaid internships. Um, with that said, we have current we currently partner with 26 agencies that range from retail establishments, restaurants, sports, trades, auto, and other businesses. And for the 2526 school year, our current student enrollment is 13. However, over the past three years, we've had an average of 15 students um enrolled in that pro enrolled in different aspects of that program. Um I do want to point out that also work-based learning speaks to as we Jane I know you were speaking about uh portrait of a graduate and New York inspired plan and and making sure that we are aligned to that. Um and really what it workbased learning is also in in CTE content areas. So for instance you're looking we also have
092business and marketing education which we do have at the at the high school level computer science family and consumer science technology and we are partnered with with CEK with Boseies as Brad has um just presented CEK does have limited capacity however we've increased our participation with those programs these content areas are aligned to the local relevance student performance and authentic application components in New York state portrait of a graduate which identifies six intercon interconnected attributes of a New York State graduate. I would like to say that and when you're considering a budget initiative here in regards to expanding such program, you're really looking at a CTE pathway. A CTE pathway would apply. We need to apply to the state to be approved for CTE pathways. And any CTE programs, we would need to consider materials,
093machinery, certified personnel because the CTE person needs specific um certification space within the building. Additionally, when I've spoken to both of these school districts and my colleagues previously, um maintenance of of equipment and scheduling, so i.e. Student enrollment, number of sections, year-to-year course offerings must also be considered. So, when you're looking to expand, you have to understand that you may not necessarily have a full course load even to begin based on the number of students that you have interested. And so, um, in my recommendation, I think that we do need we absolutely need to continue to expand on our internships and opportunities. However, I think that we also need to look at the certifications that we have inhouse and really maximize and leverage moving forward. So just a question um why do you think we
094have such low enrollment? >> So I actually when I spoke to the department chair who was also our coordinator in regards to low enrollment. So there are like I mentioned before there are three different types of internships. There's unpaid there's paid internships and there's career exploration. And so emails do start in regards to our partnerships and things along those lines, but they don't always continue based on the criteria that is outlined by New York State. Um, in addition, you're looking at number of hours for the credit employer has to agree. Um, there are times that when we build a partnership, then they may discontinue so on and so forth really due to management of expectations of a high school student to be very honest. Um, and then in regards to you're looking, we incentivize based
095on student needs. So if a student is looking for credit, if a student looking for a GPA booster, if a student is looking for uh additional money for from a paid internship, those are the things that we communicate with our our staff, but if it doesn't fit into a schedule and our students are jam-packed, um, which is a good thing. Uh, that is where we've run into some of the challenges as well. >> Yeah. And I I think that's what I was kind of alluding to. So like do all of our students know that this opportunity is there? Like how do we communicate or how like they know it's there? >> So I will say that our high school department uh especially around scheduling, they do presentations regarding the courses and the and course offerings
096that we do have and that is part of the presentation. Um in addition, our counselors do a really good job in meeting with our students onetoone and exploring those opportunities as well. Okay. Any questions? >> Okay. So, as of right now, based on your findings, there's no budget money needed for what we're doing. >> Not for what we're doing. However, if we are looking to expand upon that. So if we are looking for certification like an additional person for as a coordinator um or additional CTE certifications and we want we want to incentivize incentivize our staff to explore CTE certifications then we may look at proposing paying for school or certifications moving forward. Um but in regards to alignment to New York State portrait of a graduate, we are currently in line and continue and
097we'll continue to build based on the programs we have. >> Okay. Any anybody? >> No. >> Well, so I guess that's the question. It doesn't sound like we're looking for anything. I I think the only thing that would jump out at me based on this is if we wanted to explore these CTE pathways more. I would like to do that >> to find out what it entails and the costs associated. So I guess that could be a budget item is >> there could be some lowhanging easy to get CTE, >> right? So I think we don't need a lot of equipment for >> Right. So I think the budget asks would be to set aside to explore the CTE pathways. >> So I I don't know if exploring the CTE pathways would be a budget
098a budget impact, right? When you're looking at adding an additional CTE person to run a course, that's something different. That would be a set aside and that would include a salary and benefits. However, in regards to exploration for next year and looking at what we could apply for for the 2728 school, so you're applying and then you're kind of g gaining who you can and so on and so forth. I would say that it would probably be more beneficial to then create put up set aside for the following school year. >> Okay. So, we can explore the pathways and then from there see what it might cost if we want to go down one of those pathways as far as teachers equipment and stuff like that. Right. >> So, not a budget, >> not a
099budget item for this year, just an item to explore the pathways for potential later budget items. So, are you looking to continue the conversation? >> I think so. Yes. Everybody looking to continue the conversation? >> Yeah. Yeah. So, we'll continue the conversation. Not again, not a budget item for this year, but something to explore for future. >> Are we going to take or do we take a vote on that or do we not? Just out of curiosity. I just didn't know. >> Um, we could take a vote. All in favor? >> I post. >> All right. There we voted. It's the EA program. >> Okay. And we can talk more if if we need more direction on that and detail. We can talk some more. >> Okay. Perfect. Thank you. >> All right. >> Okay.
100Next item is in regards to a district-wide field trip starting at one grade level. We specific we voted on um a trip for every third grader in the in the district. So, in my preliminary research, I explored one example just to give you an idea of the cost of having a a third grade field trip. Uh, I looked at Museum Village, which is specifically aligned to curriculum in third grade and New York State learning standards. Um, if you're looking at uh at also a memo in your board packet, it is approximately $13 per student for non-title one schools and $10 per student at student and chaperons and chaperons include parents and things along those lines. It does not include teachers, paras, and nurses. For title one schools, it's $10 per student. Um and then in
101regards to transportation at 3600 we're looking at approximately $6,888 for our third graders if we are uh many partner many vendors do now partner with Boseies and so I have also reached out to Boseies in regards to making uh making sure that we are able to contract with them through that through that partnership and through that closer um specifically for M museum village and u I would assume some other vendors although that may be a big assumption the the vendor does work with the district on multi-year contracts which may allow for discounted pricing. So if we were to say that this would this is a field trip that we want to do for the next 3 years or 5 years then they would give a discounted price in regards to if you wanted to do
102other trips. So things to consider like traveling outside of the local area to Liberty Science Center or locations in New York City, you're looking at an increased transportation cost and a higher price per pupil. So for example, I gave Liberty Science Center as an estimate of probably about $16,000 to $18,000. Based on these considerations, I would recommend to the board that budgeting 10,000 to $15,000 minimally for a grade level district-wide field trip for the 2620 school year 25 school 26 27, not 25, we're in 20. It's gone. Um would be recommended. >> Okay. So based on that, I'm going to ask the board to vote on whether we want to support this. I >> Okay, go ahead. >> So my question is I'm sorry if I don't understand this. Is the total 608 per per
103school? >> No, I did it based on our total number of third graders. >> Okay. >> Well, let me rephrase. I did it based on the total number of second graders because next year they would be in third grade. >> Okay. >> Yeah. So again, this is where the last meeting we said about giving everybody a trip, right? So, all right. So, I'm gonna I'm gonna say my opinion, then I'll ask where people stand and then we can vote. I would like to vote on a higher amount and this is all good, but sending kids to Monroe just doesn't excite me. I'm sorry. Right. So, I I would like to go for something Liberty Science Center. I've never been there. I heard it's fantastic. some some place like that that kids might not have an
104opportunity to go on their own. Right. So that that's what I would ask for and I'll just go around and see where people stand and then we could we could take a vote. So I'll start with you Bob. >> Uh I'm for the higher amount. I don't I don't have a problem with that. >> Okay, Fran. >> Sure. >> Jane. >> Yes. >> Okay. All right. So thank you. >> Thank you. Those are the agenda items I have. >> Say again. >> We're all set. That's it. That's all I have for this time. >> There's more, right? One more. Two more. >> Yeah. >> Hold on. >> Sorry. This going Brad's next. >> Two quick updates. And I and I don't think um uh well, one uh so energy study. So we have learned from
105NAERTA. There's some information in your board packet tonight that we are eligible to have an energy study done um at no cost. I mean there are some caps on that, but we do anticipate that we will be able to have that energy study completed at no cost and it will make us eligible for future project funding um when that grant period opens up through NAERTA. However, we do need to have the energy study done first. Uh and then second on the the transportation side of things, just one note um is that I know we had some conversation about doing a feasibility study and I don't think we decided to move forward with that. I just want to share information. Um, I had a meeting with the county uh business officials on on Friday and there's
106three uh Orange County student um school districts that do their own in-house transportation that cannot um basically do all the runs. They are contracting out to support their in district program. So, our position will not change. Uh we do not recommend we go into the transportation business. Um but I just wanted to share that information. >> Okay, great. Okay. So, the NAERTA, you don't need anything from us because it's free and we're going to do it. >> Yeah, it is. It is free. Um, I did give you some information in the board packet. I'll put pull together more of a detailed scope um by a vendor and share it with you at an upcoming board meeting. >> Okay, great. >> She's talking over there. Time's up. >> I don't know. Okay, which we're good. Okay,
107that brings us to the end of our agenda. Thank you very much for staying. We are going to go into executive session to discuss contract negotiation, a student matter, and meet with district council. We will not take action when we come back out. So, uh that just wanted to mention that. So, Greg, thank you for being with us and and um streaming and thank you everybody for joining and I will take a motion to go into executive session. >> Fran second. >> Katie, all in favor? >> All right. 70. Thank you very much everybody.