001[Music] session at 607. Call to order the public hearing for Monday, May 7 at 6:07. and uh start introduction of our board members and central office officers. So on this side we'll just member Sarah member board member office to assist human resources. All right. Report. Thank you, Mr. President. Good evening, everyone. Thank you for attending tonight's budget hearing. The purpose of the meeting is to provide an opportunity for community members to ask questions and offer feedback on the proposed 2025 2026 school budget which will be presented to the voters on Tuesday, May 20th. The proposed budget total $133,800,000. Copies of the budget brochure uh which I have in my hand are available in all district buildings and public libraries. If you have chance to review it and have any questions, we encourage you to contact
002the district office. We're here to help clarify any information. The brochure includes the key documents, the 2526 school budget, uh the 6 day budget notice, property tax report card, estimated administrative salary disclosure, school district report card, the fiscal accountability summary, and the exempt property report. Are there any questions from the board signed up for questions. We will move into review our board election procedure. Vacancies on the board are considered separate specific offices and candidates run large this year. There are three open seats each with a three-year term. So, we have three candidates this year listed in ballot order are Mr. Robert Ho, uh, Miss Jamie Samson, and Miss Diana. Next is a review of important dates. So tomorrow, May 13th at central office is voter registration. And please remember the budget vote is next Tuesday,
003May 20th from 6 a.m. to 900 p.m. Next, we're going to review the voter qualifications. To vote in the annual district election and budget vote, individuals must meet the following criteria. A citizen of the United States 18 years of age and have been a district resident for at least 30 days prior to the vote. Take note that individuals who are not eligible to vote under section 5-106 of the election law including certain convicted felons and those a judge and competent are not permitted to vote. Also remember that you do not need to be a taxpayer to vote on propositions involving district taxes. Any resident who has registered and voted in school district or general election within the last four years is eligible to vote on May 20th, 2025. For any questions regarding voter eligibility, please
004contact the district clerk at 8454572400 extension 1851. And finally, a review of absentee and early mail ballots. Applications for absentee and early mail ballots are available on the district's website. Please keep the following in mind. Ballots must be received by the district clerk no later than 5:00 p.m. on the day of the vote. If your request was made within six days of the vote, you must pick up your ballot in person. All right, that's the end of our public hearing. So, I'm going to take a motion to adjourn at 612. Okay. Second, all in favor. Okay. At this time, I'm going to take a motion to go back into executive session to discuss personnel at 612. Second favor session back at 6:30 for the regular meeting. [Music] Hello. Good job. You want to go? have
005my points and How are you doing? I'm gonna That's a question. 20 minutes. That was scary. Actually, I'm session3 second. [Music] call the regular meeting of May 12th and we're going to begin nationy andice for all. emergency property support and the meeting is being recorded and will be available online later on tonight or tomorrow. Okay. All right. We're gonna jump in and take correspondence. PTA Council BCTA BC PTA council end of the year social is Monday through June the 2nd at 6:30 at the administration building. We welcome all parents to attend a school annual meeting is on Wednesday, June 4th at 600 p.m. at Cosmos Restaurant in Middletown. And the Valley Central reception honoring our 2425 retirees, senior candidates, and 25 employees is on Monday, June 9th at 6 p.m. right here at Elementary School.
006Please join us. Honorable mentions. Montgomery Elementary School student recognition night was held on April 8th. Walden Elementary School drama club presentation of Joe Wolf Jr. is on April 8th and 9th. High School Founders night is on April 9th. East Colton Elementary School Founders Night is on April 10th. The high school drama class production is on April 10th. High School Music Honor Society writing show is on April 23rd. Montgomery Elementary School's Founders Day was on April 25th. Maria Elementary School's day graduation was on April 25th. High school student recognition night was on April 28th. Middle school recognition night was on April 29th. JRTC awards was on April 29th. High school spring band and coral concert was on April 30th. High school senior ball was on the second. Day of remembrance was on Monday, May 5th. Rad
007and Norris induction was on May 5th. And middle school spring concert is on May six and seven. We have been very busy. All right. Next, uh we have our class of 2025 top 10 students. Welcome Good evening everyone. I'm Dr. Burns, proud principal of Valley Central High School. I just want to welcome our top 10 class of 2025. And if those students, as they call your name, if you can come up here and they will explain to us what their plans are for next year and why they're going to that field. So, I'm going to start with our number 10 and go to our number one. Okay. So, at the top that list, Emma and K, if you can come on up here, please. I'm Chens. I'm coming into Steven's Institute of Technology for Optical
008Engineering. And the reason I want to go into that field is because I want to pursue researching planets. And I want to find more I want an easier way on providing energy access without destroying. If you want to know what photonics are afterwards, next Sarah Sanderson. Hi, I'm Sarah Sar. Um, in the fall I attended Syracuse University studying architecture. Um, I chose Syracuse because I just I really love the campus there and I just felt so welcome like the moment I stepped on campus. Um, and I've always been like really creative and sounds really funny, but we always have a gingerbread house thinking competition every Christmas. So, I just I like really love that. So, that's why I decided to um come [Applause] So I'm Joseph. I will be attending the Rochester Institute of Technology
009studying computer science because you know future is increasingly becoming computerized and I'd like to stay at the forefront of that and uh hopefully make some cool innovations. Next, Corey Basel and I'm attending Bingington University as part of their scholar program and first year research program. Um, planning to go into like biochemistry. Um, just because it's like a very like opportunistic like degree like there's multiple pathways. I can go to med school, pharmacy school, and then going to research. So, I just think it's like a very good like pathway to like business. Next is Peter Ruff Jr. Hello, I'm Peter Ruff. I will be attending the University of Buffalo this fall. I'm an honor student computer science. I've always had interest in computing and I'd like to learn more about cyber security and AI. Next we
010have Ariana Flash. Hi, I'm Ariana and I will be attending the technology this fall and electrical engineering. Um, couldn't really tell you why. It's kind of cool and I like math and science and I actually did find a lot of this. Next we have race bars. Hi, my name is Grace Burns and I'll be attending the side of university next fall and I'm going to occupational therapy where I just want to ultimately use my vocation to help people and um I want to um study a school that will also help. Okay. And next we have Sophia. My name is Sophia. I will be attending university this fall semester in the scholar program as well uh with the bio major. And I chose this major because I want to go into the medical field and I
011want to give back to our underserved community that is overworked and needs more assistance in the field. So, and of course Victorian Amelia Gra. I'm going to read Amelia's bio. So Ameilia Krauss was admitted to Brown University where she will study biochemistry, molecular biology as well as musical performance. Emily hopes to become a medical scientist, conduct her research on medicine, earning the distinction of scholar athlete. She was co- captain of the barson swimming diving team. Emily was president of both the French and honor societies, tre treasure of the science and triumph honor societies, secretary to grad Norris, as well as member of the NAR honor society. and she's a member of the math team. So, congratulations to Millia and our valictorian Trisha [Applause] Montero. I'll be studying applied economics and management at university. [Music] So,
012it's very exciting. Congratulations to our top 10. We're so proud of you all. After this, we're going to go outside just take a picture together. And I just want to say as as a district, we should all be very proud of not only what they accomplished, but who you are as as young people. And keep up the great work. We're very excited for you all. Thank you very much. All right, next we're going to move on. We have a student presentation. We have the alterative learning center with us. [Music] Good evening, Superintendent Abula and board members. Thank you for having us here tonight. We are very excited to share with you all ALC's first and hopefully annual festival presenting this evening are Miss Katie Mor professional at ALC seventh graders Daniela at the lake junior
013senior Jones and I'm coming at so this idea was inspired by our students who wanted to be able to highlight everyone's unique cult cultural backgrounds, things that make us different as individuals, but still all part of the same ALC family. So, how do we make this all happen? How do we get these great ideas from our students and encourage them all to anticipate? So, we started with a process and that was the student focus group. The students met with staff members and then to brainstorm their initial idea. What would this look like? How did we set it up? What do we want to highlight? What do they want to show? So, this is how do we do that, right? We have all these great ideas, but how do we present them in a way that's
014really meaningful? So, we started out with the best way to figure out where we're all from. So we sent a survey to all students and staff members and that survey came up with what culture and privilege each of us identify. We were so lucky to have 100% of all the cultures represented at so any culture [Music] any so in order to just move forward we have to develop a deeper understanding our student life focus group comprised five themes that were applied across to each culture item these themes were language and flag food and pop culture, tradition, dance and music and geography development. So these themes were incorporated into crosscurricular learning where it wasn't just an event where students were working on a topic, but they were diving deeper into really understanding how these cultures had
015a meaningful application to each one of their classes. So learning began within the classroom and was able to be unpacked within the multi-grade groups where students collaborated to finalize their projects. And here are some examples of what that looks like in each class. So this is our sixth grade art class at Rochester. And what he encouraged our students to do was to use uh creative methods and showcase areas around the world. So in front of their interpretation of the star night, students drew and placed iconic architecture from around the world in our food and nutrition classes. Miss Ry expanded their pallets and they created Lympia. Sorry, I did not know how to figure that out. Olympia, it was a Filipino egg roll and they contributed that to us. In our math classes, um math students
016compiled recipes, ingredients, serving sizes, cost, unit rates, and ratios. So, this was a hands-on experience, and it enhanced their practical cooking skills along with financial skills. So, it's not just about the numbers, but figuring out how those numbers relate to the time we were expected to figure out the cost of the ingredients we're using in the recipes and this would help me in the future in social studies. Um students created posters that highlighted traditions, customs, flags, major dialect. They really didn't dive into all different aspects of of their choice. Some of them not even countries that they were representative of their heritage, but just they were into religion as well. Japan. It was it was really wonderful to see them not just excited about what they were doing, their own culture, but others as well.
017So if you can see in that picture um I was asked to research Trinidad and Tago. Um it was very cool to learn about the different countries and the food and the traditions that they have in their country. And in Trinidad and Tobago they eat sharp. So lots of things were happening in ELA. Um just to kind of summarize everything, this was truly an all hands on deck approach. It was every single student that goes to ALC contributed to some aspect of the culture festival. Whether it was creating passports, researching pop culture, writing common phrases of the country's native languages, they sat together and created glass or decorated gems. We cooked meals together. We even had students in the hallways making signs and posters to display our culture festival. We even had students compile in
018playlist of the different international songs and some dance of teachers. So, it was truly amazing watching everyone come together and give a piece of themselves. So, uh we would listen to a bunch of songs and even though I couldn't understand the words that the music was saying, it had a very good beat and you could feel the energy of the music. So with all this preparation, we finally arrived to our festival day. And the day the festival was rolled out as if students were embarking on a journey around the world. They lined up in the hallway outside of our gym and pretended to be at the airport. Our SRO acted as our TSA agent and was there sending students through security and they were able to go through the gate and board the plane. When
019they arrived, they were greeted by two of our very own student pilots of the CEK program, which is here tonight, and a flight attendant who passed down. And the gym was divided into sections for each of our five, which allowed students enough room to roll around and experience all the things without having to wait too long for a particular area. Well, you guys enhance the feeling. As I walked into the airport, I was really excited to see the climate like everyone's contribution to this project. There's a lot of conversation very You had a chance to talk about teachers. So we signed passports um for them to help the students engage and participate. So this wasn't just other students had put up or that they had just done. This was all ancest. So really trying to
020invent yourself in our culture and learn how to do that and we had to find information. It was very interactive to high school students. Students and staff together. So 10 different nine nine 10 different traditions were showcased from nine different countries. Um they were all showcased with hands-on activities or QR codes and those QR codes gave the students an opportunity to use technology to foster a deeper understanding of the cultural traditions they have. So they were encouraged to go in the country to learn a little bit more and the QR code that you get involved with your home but traditions that we showcase were from Italy in Germany because of that originated right here in the USA and it's now popular in Germany. So there you go. Um the festival in Ireland, Mexican day of
021the day is Japanese festival of dark day and these are some of the pictures of our students interacting and participating in some of the exhibitions that were showcased. Hello everyone. I made honestly I appreciate I made it. We all made it at the school. You know was supposed to be help last week was teacher appreciation week appreciate it for all of our teachers but I saw it in a Mexican restaurant you know I am a little bit Mexican. So I was intrigued and I wanted to share it. I research and help people create it as festival and that is beautiful creation. It was really I also designed the poster and it's I that was in Ireland. Pumpkins were used by Irish when they got to America due to the fact that Ireland. So students engaged
022in meetings of Dr. And then students and staff brought in personal artifacts to share and explain items from Ireland and students not only showed off it and wearing the So, another one of our themes was pop culture. Um, and the pop culture research helped students connect on a personal level. This theme allowed them to view and connect with the cultures from a current perspective. Culture isn't just about the past. So, we got to see what's popular in the cultures that they use older traditions and a lot of facts about them. figure out. Oh yeah, one of our students really cool. [Music] This is another one of our displayers like that they were working on social studies. There was so much food. So, you know, if you're different cultures who like to celebrate food, food is
023always a favorite way to bring everyone together. There were over 30 different foods and desserts available for sampling at a festival this year. It was astonishing to see how many parents, students, and staff were eager to share their favorite meals from their cultures. And any student who was unable to bring something from home but wanted to contribute, they were able to work with the ALC teachers to create that meal right in school. So, everybody got a chance to share something they wanted to. And special thanks to Miss Britwalk who were helping facilitate that and we actually had two contributing to myself. And everyone is ready. with full bellies. We ended the beautiful event with a dance party and big smile. We don't want this to be our students and celebrate others throughout the school and
024life. So one extended impact of our cult is a recipe where students and staff can continue to add recipes to help enrich the lives and safety of our this is a collaborative effort that is ongoing. So our students have some final thoughts on how they help and how they feel that you should be understanding better where they know the entire culture because you may do things that they wouldn't do in their ordinary day. Everyone got to see where everyone else came from. interest. At the end of the festival, our children festival will students Ladies and gentlemen, I think that concludes our presentation for tonight. So, our students had a great experience with this first time event that we hope to continue from here on. So, thank you for your attention. Thank you for your time.
025motion to approve. Second. All in favor congratulate those tonight. Okay, next we're going to move on to our reports. district. I expect very There he is. for the middle school. Elementary school event Elementary School and size and families are looking to attend school special and also there will be elementary Moving into sports, we had um Dana Scott break the school record for the 200 meter dash very recently, just a few days ago, as well as last week with Kayla Marano breaking the school record for discus of 113 ft. And then moving on to girls lacrosse which they had a game against Pine Bush which they ended up winning in overtime 13 to 12 and similarly they have win won a game against Kingston um 13 to 12 in overtime. Black football recently had a game
026Saturday against which they had won victoriously. And lastly for um baseball we have today they have a game and that will be all for our normal agenda here. This year are This year, our senior, excuse me. This year, our board reps, student reps had the opportunity to pick a particular project they would like to work on and they chose cell phone cell phones to focus on and they actually conducted a pilot at the high school. So, today they are concluding their project and they are sharing their findings with you as well as the process in which they took. And so, I'll turn it over to them. Thank you. Thank you so much, Miss Abby Love, for that introduction. Can everyone hear me from over here? Awesome. My name is Laurie. This is Jen and we
027are the student representatives for the year of 2025. And today we would like to go ahead and present our findings of the cell phone pilots. Hello. So we initially began our project in November with a majority occurring in February and March um when we initially executed our pilot and over the seven over the past seven months district and state conversations have influenced the direction of the project and are helpful to conceptualize the results of the project. So as you can see we begin in November where we chose our topic in December we began our data and resources but March we conducted some interviews and late March we during the four weeks of the pilot and we put it all together and now Our project was divided into three sections structured as before, during and after
028archives. So all changes Investation intended to restrict all students during school even during non instructional time for the next year. So um prior to the plan for our pilots, we wanted to discover substantial evidence showing change in cell phone usage in the district was necessary. So the results of the research show little variation among educators nationwide um across several surveys utilizing thousands of teachers, the majority consistently complain that cell phones were causing harm to student education. However, ideas um as to how this problem should be addressed very greatly and this is an issue we address. technical difficulties. Thank you for being so patient with us. Sorry, just to summarize by analyzing the results of other districts implementing different kinds of policy usage um valid success and community positivity. All right. Um our case study was
029the Florida Orange County Public Schools. Um this was a major example that brought insight to our research and particularly the community reaction following policy change. Um banning cell phones entirely even in non-instructional time during the school day caused upset among students but also strongly improve improved student performance in class. Um it's important to note that the legislation recently approved by Governor Kathy Hokul shares many similarities with the policy of physicians particularly the use of banning the community instructional time and this slide just shows the particular policy of the district. Um, using this aspect of the case as well as other outside research, we were able to appropriate appropriately format our pilot classrooms to most effectively reflect the needs of students in our district. And now Jen will talk about the procedures of our Sorry about
030that. Now I will procide trends. My research focus was in the local procedure in the Orange County area. There was what the second fores at the beginning of the school day and they remain throughout the whole day and that day in the homes are also not on couches and in also utilizes their students user accounts every day. There's different effects of limited access to cell phones for students which include but are not limited to increased student engagement and participation and increase and mental health wellbeing for students and academic performance. So I'm going to go into detail of that right now. Um for example, um students feel more engaged and more and are more participating in during the classroom when they event also mental health where students experience less cyber bullying and there's also body image
031um issues when using cell phoning um students might not feel engaged. So they might just go on social media, they're bored and they might just compare themselves on social media which is not good. So there's also benefits when students are have used and academic performance which students test scores report cards and completion assignments are benefited when students don't use their cell phones. And in our attempts to try self classroom, we attempt to combine the courses of several different schools allowing for flexibility and allowances while keeping the rules with highlighting. For four weeks, students have access to classes by four participating teachers. The teachers were allowed to decide how kept away. Disciplinary efforts were decided sorry to measure the effects of this team. Students responses were measured with anonymous scale questions. central piet and what we
032this was about four weeks um week one no not week one but there was a preliminary survey where students were asked how they felt about cell phon so we had a pilot which is four weeks long and each Friday students filled out a survey in their classroom they um gave their feedback to to us how they felt throughout the week. I mean, access to the phone and then we had a a and a pilot survey where we asked for feedback at the end of the whole pilot and we we just got feedback from students how they felt about the whole process of it. Before we go any further, I would like to go ahead and say that all three of us had um participated in the pilot survey which we all found very fascinating towards
033the end of our research. So now I would like to go ahead and introduce you guys to the student feedback in which we have received during this pilot. So, the purpose of the pilot was to go ahead and gather specific information regarding how students felt about having their phone put away during class time. And we had 200 students participate in the pilot across four classrooms. And as you can go ahead and see, these are the four teachers which did a wonderful job at going ahead and participating in our research. We are so very grateful for them. And as you can see in this section over here, we have kind of a what grade are you in to go ahead and demonstrate the amount of students in um each grade. So the majority of our students
034were juniors due to the fact that Mr. Klitchch and Mrs. Hernandez's class are ultimately mainly juniors. So we had a good chunk of them be in that section. And then here are I'm going to go ahead and show you three questions that we had collected in the pre-esting survey which one of them is how often do you use your phone in each class and then up top on the right um top corner is a little key as to what the numbers represent in which that many students believe that they rarely have used their phones which I found so interesting as to many students always going ahead and speaking on their phones and everything. So for them to go ahead and put that was just quite interesting. Okay. Our next question was how do you feel
035about the current cell phone policy in your classroom? And many students felt quite neutral towards this decision as to how they feel about just um putting their phone away in their bags and storing it there. And then lastly um the last question in our um pre- survey was do you think having your phone in class affects your concentration which I found very interesting with the skewedness of the graph leaning towards how they believe that their concentration was not affected at all as we will go over the results of our findings you will see that is not the case whatsoever. All right. And then we have some pre-esting survey student comments. Many of our students have actually put additional comments in regards to how they feel, which we were very so happy about as to we
036want to know how students feel in regards to their phones being taken away as cell phones are a very primary tool that we go ahead and use in our day-to-day basis. So, these are just some of the little comments that they had listed for us. And I'll go ahead and read them to you guys. So, a student in group one said, "Attempting to remove cell phones from the classroom is a futile attempt to get the students to focus." Group two students said, "I understand this policy, but the result of test scores are different for everyone with or who without phones, and I would like to contact my parents if I feel sick, I need to go home, or if I'm in pain in school because the nurse doesn't help sometimes, and I just like being
037in contact with my parents." And a group three student said, "People are glued to their phone screen. It is very distracting hearing people text and watching videos and they never get their work done. They need to go. These three comments show how mixed the students are about having their phones taken away. There were many, many more comments similar to this, but these three represented the mixture of students and how they felt towards phones being put away. Okay. And then over here is our graphing and analytics data from weeks one to three. You can see it's a little cut off from there, but that's all right. The freshman class shared that they felt more comfortable and focused during the pilot program despite initially expressing reservations of a cell phone free classroom. So we went ahead and
038we took the four, you know, freshman, sophomore, junior, senior, and we found that the freshman actually felt the most focused during the testing. So about 40% of students that remained neutral to a priv a phone free classroom, 52% of students wrote additional comments and 62% of students felt more focused in class without their phone. And then lastly, we have the post- testing pilot phone um feedback which was administered to go ahead and collect a reflection on how they feel post survey and post collection. So a student comment over here in the left side says I believe that I know when and where is a good time and place to use my phone. Also with sports, I need to check my phone if I have practice or not through SportsU, which is an app that coaches
039go ahead and contact their students and the parents to go ahead and let them know about daily um notifications or any changes with practices and games. And then a second student, Connor, over here says that I like the policy, but I wish there were exceptions for what we need to use our outside or studying using materials that are blocked on school registered Chromebooks. Other than that, I feel appreciated how focused and social the environment is without cell phones always being hacked. And then I'm going to go ahead and move forward to work which will go ahead and he will present the overall findings from the study. The findings from our study show overall positive growth. Um however the findings are always positive change as noted by students there are several factors but negative reactions into
040difficulty access and regulations of procedure. Another important voice in shaping cell phone procedure is the teachers educating under such procedures during our pilot an interesting question. Are teachers willing to act as strong police for the safety and security of students with our teachers responses or to explor Oh yes, I cannot read it. Can you guys hear me? [Music] Perfect. Okay. So, in class one, I will just read it. It is my opinion that ongoing training of building central administration needs to be h had to help dictate what math instruction should look like with. But again, this must balance the demands of direct instruction necessary for high stake regions testing and how to learn mathematics. in class two. Um, another teacher said, "I think it would be best practice to have of a progressive discipline flowchart
041of how this looks like in regards to discipline. I cannot fathom doing this next year and having a student escorted out of the class for device use. And in class 3, I think this plan has worked well overall, especially because it is very similar to that of the middle school cell phone policy. That consistency helps create a smoother transition and clear expectation for students. In the four last four weeks, I've only had to call the office three times for students who have their phones up. So, it shows the different opinions of teachers, how they feel. Um, one of the teachers felt very well about it. You know, they're my age and the other two um didn't really like it. They knew they were we hadn't made students about it which is understandable because it is
042a big task to tell students to put their phones away. You know there's always going to be that tension between your cell phone um addiction and you know there's other side parents as well. So we also have to put that in perspective and yeah so Our conclusion and recommendation following the project is as follows. The implementation of the cell phone procedure in the fall 2025. Sorry. Okay. The implementation of the cell phone procedure in the fall 2025 should be strongly considered and it is very likely to happen in the near future due to statewide changes. However, Administration should be prepared for the backlash not only of students but of parents and negative reactions again from students and parents and of teachers of course basically to all this chaos. Though changes may occur rapidly attempts to
043ease in policies will make for better student response. Additionally, student concerns as well as the needs of teachers in aiding clarity of enforcement should be accounted for and applied to some procedures to better address the needs of students. Overall, as provided through our pilots, the changes made with made will benefit the district providing opportunity for student engagement and academic success. Thank you very much. And this concludes our presentation. Um, does anyone have any questions? We'll have you back next year to help us implement for student refs for next year. So, all right. Next, we're going to be continuing reports. We'll move on to the superintendent. I've had the opportunity to visit each school and go over our project presentation individually and allow staff members to ask questions along with Soph join together and us going
044and sharing that information and we also share that information the central office the opportunity to attend founders night at the high school in East Coldam it's always a such an opportunity to thank people who are working so diligently for our community and have done it for many many years. And the fact that they're being acknowledged in family is is a great way to show the appreciation. I attended uh their graduation at Berea Elementary School and also the spring concert at the band and uh for concert on April 30th. Recently was at the Walden concert. I attended the senior ball and had opportunity to dance with many students and teachers that were also there. and um also attended the day of remembrance at Walden Elementary School and the AOC cultural celebration which they just presented on.
045So I had the opportunity and the food is they they reported that was only 30 plates. It seemed like a lot more than that um that was present and the students were engaged throughout the whole activity. the birth of chatter that was going on and sharing um different experiences and really enjoying themselves as well as the teachers also feel the pride in sharing their cultures as well. So just want to thank all for all of those fun experiences as I go around the district and visit uh different schools and have that opportunity. Next we're going to move on to the superintendent for business. Thank you Mr. President. So, um, we've been quite busy, uh, attending some meetings, um, for capital project, um, planning for the summer work. Um, Mr. Vine is here. He'll fill you
046in a little bit on the, uh, work that's happened recently as well as the upcoming work. Um, budget follow-up meetings. Uh, as the superintendent shared, we did get around to all buildings and set it in, uh, central office as well and went through the presentation um, that Katie loves so much. So um our final meeting for the public if you have any uh budget questions or would like uh to come out and ask questions is here for you tomorrow night. Um for the uh face community face meeting we will go through the budget presentation one additional time and take any questions that you have. Uh, also I held the budget follow-up meetings with um all of the principles and directors to kind of close the loop on any um outstanding requests that they had from
047our initial meeting back in December. Um, and we also did the council and started the uh budget presentation there. So, um, in the business office where we've wrapped up the on-site, um, piece of the internal audit, uh, the external audit has been getting off the ground and getting going. Uh, and we also have our five-year fixed asset inventory um that our insurance company requires us to have. Uh, they actually send the vendor out to do that. That's in progress as well. Uh, we scheduled our spring, our final round of facility walkthroughs for the district. um that'll be happening in June. And then just a note on the consent agenda tonight, you saw a lot of donations from our PTOs to help support uh field trips this year. As a reminder, uh we did talk about
048this during our budget presentations last year that these had been added um during the years where we had grant monies available to us. Very difficult decision uh to pull back on that. Um, our PTO's across the district are just simply every single building continues uh to show that they go above and beyond the donations um not only formally for trips like this but also what they do for our uh students on a daily basis. Um there was a lot of questions this year. Um we've done our best to meet with all of them attend council meetings and um fortunately uh some if not all of them had kept their budget allocations in their budgets during the years where we were provided but um just thank you. They have really provided great opportunities for our Yes.
049Um there's always questions that they ask questions. Um we had a good conversation at one of the buildings about um the uh recommended tax levy where there's there's some feedback out there that helps hiring cautious of the years ahead. Um and we think the money is on the table. We also talk about what's going on in the community. Um, and just trying to avoid those peaks and valleys and just stay slow and steady, making good decisions as we have opportunities to make them each year. All right. Thanks. Next, we're going to move on to the assistant superintendent. Um, I first wanted to start by addressing a public comment regarding FCCLA and this update that FCCLA was a class that was introduced to middle school in 2022 23 school year. the that year the district funded
050state level competition and did not fund the national competition. In 2324 the district was able to plan for and fund state level competition again. Um however nationals were not discussed with the department but the district was later able to accommodate the funding for nationals. However, we conveyed that although funding for states would continue, it would not be we would not be able to financial similar to that of the first school year. A parent meeting was held on April 7th and a followup letter was sent on April 28th clarifying clarifying the funding for the competitions. Additionally, I want I wanted to state that we are continuing to meet as a DEI committee and will continue our work to support all of our students in alignment with ICF guidance. On a more lighter note, I guess um
051April A by attended professional learning regarding empowering ed with technology. It was a very insightful session with local leaders and teachers. We also had our tax steering committee on April 9th, our MTSS committee on April 24th, our grading committee on April 28th, and our mentoring committee on May 1st. Lastly, I was able to attend the annual Brad Norris dinner, which is always a lovely evening with our new inductees into our national honor society. And that is all. Good evening everyone. Hiring season is upon us, so the HR office has been quite busy. We have recommended six teachers for appointment on tonight's agenda. one custodial worker, a physical therapist, and a physical therapist assistant. I'd like to congratulate our retiring administrator and thank him for his years of service to us. Next, we're going to move
052on to our capital project update. Good evening everybody. Um, just let me be very upfront. Not much has changed since the last time we did a presentation. I think it's closer we get to the summer time, we're going to see a lot more um available to to show you guys what's happening out there. So, uh, today's agenda, the updates are going to include the 2021 capital project for the phase three, uh, the 23 capital project, the 23 transfer to capital, and the, uh, 24 capital project as well. Uh, capital project 21, phase three. We are in close out phase. Um, we're just about to receive the final design and structural documents that we can provide to the contractor for the archway. um get it uh into fabrication. Still looking to have it for graduation, but
053I'll be very honest, this is something very good at this point, but we're going to do everything we can to get for the 23 capital project phase one. Um we've been obviously been approved by uh SED in October of 24. All the contracts have been awarded. Uh we anticipate construction tennis courts is actually happening as as we speak. Uh we were able to get the asphalt down in the sunny days that we had a couple weeks ago. Uh we do plan on doing coating in the next couple weeks. We're waiting for good weather. Uh waiting for the the asphalt to kind of cure off gas. Um and then we'll start seeing lines get painted very shortly on that. Um the anticipated construction for the as a admin building uh is actually mostly complete. We do
054that over the break. The vestibules and a high school heating and pooling. Uh we are currently doing night work as we speak. Uh we've got about three different contractors working inside high school, middle school, uh multiple elementary schools all at the same time kind of doing infrastructure work. That's why I can't show too many pictures. It's all in behind the walls above the ceiling. But it's very good preparation for what's coming through the summer. Uh phase one of the counter project. This is actually the district office. The few pictures you see here with two from left to right. Uh we'll put new boilers uh for the AM building. Uh we started some new exhaust fans and then on the far right is the new boilers uh for the high school. So they're currently being stored
055in the warehouse. Uh we went to witness them, make sure they were the correct ones. Um all the numbers match like that. So that's great news that we have these things. Uh as long as we can materials, uh issues. uh for the capital project phase two uh we were approved by SED in January of 25 uh all the contracts that have been awarded uh in March of 25 uh we are also doing night work so we have phase one and phase two simultaneously working in all buildings at night or with multiple contractors um in September of 2025 through December of 25 uh we'll be doing Montgomery Elementary School Um that's kind of uh one of the one of the schools that be done starting in the fall rather than the summer time due to the
056material. Our standard ships are going to be a summer of all at all schools and then summer of 26 we will be at the elementary schoolers and all it's a little more difficult there because it's one ste of the 23 capital um is in review at SCD. I believe we've had a couple approvals. We're waiting on a few more. Um we anticipate the approval um this month uh for public bidding. We're waiting for the fall for strategic reasons. Right now we feel a lot of contractors have fulfilled their quota for summer work this year. Uh we want to make sure we we start a little early for the next summer of 26 uh to get all the contractors right off. Uh that will be a standard shift starting in spring and summer of 26. We
057anticipate close out by December 202. Uh the 23 C uh transfer to capital is the track resurfacing which we anticipate starting on or about June 30th which is uh two days after graduation weather pending and the tennis court. We spoke about that hopefully start seeing the lines going down and color happening over there in a couple weeks. Uh we were approved by SED in October of 24. We awarded the contracts in December of 24th. Uh standard shift spring for the tennis that's going on and then summer track for the track will start on June 30th. I anticipated close out for the track is December of 25 and the tennis will be 25. Here are a couple pictures of the asphalt going down. Um in very beginning I want you to see it's really basic everything
058underneath it. All the poles were set for all the netting, concrete, all the supports, all the comping stuff. Uh, and on the two pictures on the right hand side, you see the asphalt going down. It's actually the base layer. And for the 2024 capital projects uh were award were approved by NC January 25. We are currently bidding um the roof and skylights uh which we're hoping will get awarded. Uh the pool deck is out on the street. The exterior doors and gym uh dividers are actually on state contract. We've collected uh all of the pricing from the state contractors and we'll be ready to make award recommendations. Um we've already awarded plumbing electrical. Uh we expect the construction on standard shift this summer and fall 25 and the summer of 26. a lot of work
059happening. I got to tell you, the district, including the staff, principles, everybody's been absolutely amazing. We've been meeting with them. Um, every two weeks, sitting down with principles, going over the plan for the summer, making sure everybody's aware of what's happening, what classrooms we're going to be in, notifying, uh, teachers, uh, everybody. It's been absolutely amazing. So I appreciate everybody's help. Thank you. All right. Thanks for moving on to the technology committee. Yes, we had a a very um informative meeting. Um a lot of items on the agenda. Um we talked about the um Google services um and how those changed due to privacy student data. Uh we also talked about all the the card swipes that are being installed. They've already been installed he's holding the central office. Um, we talked about all of
060the summer technology work plans, um, including, um, all the new technology, um, improvements that are happening in the classrooms, um, this coming year and how all the staff have been um, informed about what is happening. So, they know to back up their computers before they leave for the summer. All right. Next is MTSS and I'm with that come back to move on to grading committees. Yes, that's me. I attended the grading grading committee with facilitating. Um there's a great discussion on attendance and homework and we um go deep on purposeful learning and um how much or if homework should what I happen. So um it was a really great conversation. Consensus was we should be looking at data decision research based data and also looking at districts before we implemented our next me. I attended
061uh PTA council and Brad presented the budget. Thank you. Um also I just want to the elementary schools do such a great job of their fundraising efforts. Um there is a common thread amongst all the district among all all the elementary schools with fundraising and school trips and howity trips. So conversation come on that but I just want to work that all right social work we had a meeting on May 1st said that the is very engaged in exploring different programs for social learning did a comparison. There's about 15 sets of criteria for each of the exploration. So, it's very exciting. Nothing has been decided. Um but there will be some potential piloting going on a little bit for I attended a couple of girls. I also attended basketball. Also, I went on a site
062visit. Thank you to Mr. and his staff. Mr. showed us um a news video broadcast that went um put together where students acted as journalists and were interviewing other students. Um, the graphics and the content were great. So, thank you for that. And I did one more thing. Oh, I attended the BC scholarship council. attend the tri variety show um have a wonderful group of talented students um and it was very entertaining I was also able to attend the scholarship council did not um the meeting for May was cancelled due to attendance because everyone was attending school so there's that um I was able to attend the middle school of course and concerts which were great as usual and um any sporting events baseball games, softball games and I guess I was able to attend
063the elementary drum production of Jungle Jr. which was super cute and amazing what they put together as far as set design and I mean it was just they did a really really good job. Um I also was at the high school of course and band concert and I have to say they have symphonic band they really showcased a lot of student talent and I mean we did a whole let's zone set like who does that and then they did an arranging amazing grace with bag claves just phenomenal. Um, and I was also able to attend the MAC disaster. Um, previous to going outside and doing the whole presentation outside, there was a presentation inside. Um, a woman named Marian Angelo spoke about her son Matt passed away in 2004. Um, very impactful. I mean, this
064has been going on since probably late, like since we were in high school, way before. And it's it's something great for kids. It's definitely um, it hits you hard. That's it. Oh, I did. I ran. Okay, I'm gonna jump back to NTSS. Sorry, put on the spot. No worries. I didn't have to look. Um in MCSS we are going to be partnering with branching minds to develop um to sort of develop our MCS handling. We do have a MCS plan that is in place. So we can discuss that briefly at the meeting. We also discuss the tier. So what what is the tier one two3 intervention? What is it mean by the difference between differentiation as well as the intensity or frequency of the and what does that priming look like in our district? Um
065the NTSS committee has been doing a lot of work because we've been listing that there in practices throughout the district. However, we've been finding a throughine. So, I'm very hopeful in the work moving forward and excited to unpack and implement September. I would have to add that for tomorrow night to not be able to secure. Thank you. All right. Next, we're going to move on to public comment. We're about to begin the public comment portion of our meeting. We encourage public comment because we believe it's important for us to hear the concerns of community members. Please be advised that public comment is not designed to be a discussion. The board is here to listen and if warranted, the board or designated staff member will research and concerns and respond accordingly. We like to point out
066that under district policy, we cannot entertain comments or questions about a particular student or employee either by name or application. Please know however that we take student and personnel concerns very seriously. On these matters, we ask you to follow appropriate administrative channels as outlined in the district policies. We will now entertain public comment for two four minutes for first. Okay, good. Okay, so actually I'm just sort of like a little community because things have been happening in law school and students and it's really pretty exciting. First, I wanted to tell you we did have one first place winner at the Women's World state art contest. Yes. I had to fight because they said the judges were already here and judging and I said, "Wait a minute. You can't judge without our entries." So, they they
067got um number two, I wanted to just talk about the Walter Monument Walking Tour, which there's a nice little write up paper. And so, this is like going on for 20 years now. and your teachers are here. Your fourth grade teachers, the students, the students this year were bel um so it was very exciting and one thing I haven't heard enough about it is that we realized that this year is 100 anniversary to the laying of the cornerstone for the post office and I've been doing a whole bunch of research on it. So if any of our teachers need some information um maybe we're going to try and make a celebration along with the post office celebration. So it' be great to have our students involved because there's some things in the post office that
068they find fascinating for the postal inspectors to watch what the postal workers were doing. So it's pretty cool. Um also and Jame This is something that sort of animal 2026 will be the 225th anniversary of Charles coming here and digging up the bones and making a complete skeleton of mass and we had a thing at high school a number of years ago. Students love it. So please, this should be a district one thing and I would encourage maybe the board could get in touch with the different building people and at each grade level and we make a big thing out of this because came back in 2020 and then CO hit on display at the Smithsonian from Germany. Co hit shut down the museum. How many people to see it? very few. But it was
069a very impactful um event because the Europeans were giving the young American nation hard time. You silly people over there. You don't have anything. We have everything. Cathedrals, monsters, Greek mythology, pyramids, we have everything. And the Americans said, "No, wait a minute. We have this monster." And so it's it was really impactful in ter and the beginning of Americanology because they hadn't really unearthed dinosaurs yet. So this was the first monster that people got to see and it was pretty exciting. So I would encourage that. And I just have one little anecdote um last week and tomorrow just doing a little program at the library. the old um the wall and dog licensing register from World War I. And one little girl came who had been on the walking tour and she says, "Oh, you
070remember me. You told me I have all the answers." But she came and she says, "You know," she says, "My mother let me walk here today from school alone to the library." And she was just Um, before I begin, I just want to note I'm a face of PTO with PA Council. What I'm expressing tonight is that Hi, Mom. I'm excited to keep it together. So bear with me because there's definitely some feelings involved. I'm also going to leave out the whole middle of this to respect your rules in regards to implying someone. I did a really good job in their name. Um I want to leave some stuff out and I'm going to do my best to respect your rules. Um but I'm here to express I'm not going to make it. um my
071sheen disappointment and frankly my disbelief regarding some recent tenure review. The particular individual I'm referring to is love and adore. I I think I have to stop. Okay. So, um so I'll just say I'd like to call specific attention to Valley Central's mission and values. The ones that specifically stand out to me are those that are trust and transparency. It's incredibly difficult to find trust in a district that would pull a rug out from under us like this. Very big shoes to fill and the decision is wrong to the community. You're welcome. I'll make it nice and I'll email it to you if that's okay. Yes. Thank you. Okay. Next, we're going to move on to future Walden. So I just want to kind of run through what what we're going to do here because
072be a lot. So we're going to begin with presentation, right? We have multiple presentations that we're going to talk about. We'll after that we'll do any questions from the board uh regarding presentation or anything else. From there we'll discuss the intermediate approach in a roundroin format and depending on uh the interest in that we'll talk about if you need to go any direction on that. If there's no interest in that then we will talk about a new school for Walden and and possibly a vote on that. And if you get that far, then we'll also discuss 430 versus 540 and vote on that. That make sense? A lot better. So, a lot of if and Okay. So, we're going to begin with the presentation. Okay, this hear me. So, um, a board meeting or two
073ago, we were asked to prepare some additional, uh, information to the board. Uh, just so everybody hopefully knows who I am, Congress with CSR, uh, who works as the district's architect. So, u, we put that together. I'm going to go through it. Some of this is a recap of information the board has already seen. So, I'm going to try to be uh move quickly through that and then other uh information is new to the board. And so, I just want to review that uh to make sure everybody is on the same page. So, uh the additional information we looked at um five different things really six, but I'll call it five. A new Bald Elementary School on a new site. And again, that's either for 5 540 or 430. As far as student population, uh
074we looked at uh two options to reorganize the the elementary into kindergarten through third grade schools and it really depended on whether it included neighborhood or not. Uh and then a fourth through sixth grade Berea school. And in two of the options that is with an annex onto the existing Berea school and in two of the options that is all of the elementary schools including Berea would be K through three either with or without neighbor and then we would construct a new 4 through six elementary school on the Berea site. So those are the different options that we're looking over took a while to get some green. Okay. So, and then the board really wanted some additional information about uh what we can anticipate for building aid for each of the options. And uh we
075have provided the board with a sideby-side cost comparison. I'm going to put it up on the screen at the very end. None of you are going to be able to review any of the numbers because it's so so small, but it will be on the district website uh as all the presentations are. So, of course, I'll remind everybody as I always do, purpose of school construction is to improve education for children. So, uh, we stay focused on the kids. Uh, that's really important. So, new Walden Elementary School on a new site for either 430 or 540 students. We've reviewed these options before. None of that has changed. Uh, so for 430 students, you're looking at a little over 71.5 million uh, including all contingencies escalation incidental expenses. And uh for 540 students, obviously a bigger
076building, uh you're looking at almost $80 million for that project. In both options, we have put uh uh 1.2 million, a little over 1.2 million in for acquisition of the site uh just as an allowance for that. It's not based on any particular set. Uh so we did talk about building a here. building a really based on um you know the replacement of existing Walden and elementary school and justifying for the education purpose that that made sense given the age and condition of the existing facility and so we have estimated the amount of building aid at 10.9 million for 430 students and this is really based on the capacity of Walden currently and 14.4 4 million almost 14.5 million for 540 uh students as well. Uh again required financing new school new construction would be
077over 30 years. Uh and after building a um you' be financing 60.6 or 64.7 depending on which building. And then the total payments across the loan, we'll show you at the end uh over the 30-year cycle, um is part of the additional information with the total compilation of all the all the different instructional costs. So now let's talk about the grade level reorganization. So we've already reviewed this one, but let me go through it real quick. So option A, I call these option A, B, C, and D just to keep them clear in our head. Um and everything follows that. So option A was kindergarten through third grade. And so that was um uh that was Walden, uh Eastan and Montgomery. And then a fourth through sixth grade at Buran with an annex for the
078sixth grade. And option B is the same exact option except we add in um to the mix. So we look at these two options and you look at option A and again this is without labor. and you start to look at the number of classroom sections we're going to use across Walden, Montgomery, East Golden, uh we have 56 sections of of classes. Uh and we have four unused class sections across all three buildings. So, not not so big. Average class size across the three buildings is 20.12 students. So, within the district's preferred uh class. Um and then we look at when we look at option B and this again adds neighbor to the mix. You can see here uh the way it shakes out amongst the four buildings we're actually using more classrooms 64 in
079this case just how the students spread across the grades. You can see the reason for that is the average class size was down to 18.49 49, but we end up with 13 unused classroom sections, which obviously stands to reason. So for Berea again to accommodate that uh annex for the sixth grade in a four, five, six uh um scenario, we've mapped out all the different academic spaces and sport spaces that would be required. Um, and again, we would provide the efficiencies here. We wouldn't recreate cafeteria spaces, stated spaces. Those would work with that program as well. We're looking at a annex of approximately 30 point 30 3,400 square ft. Um, we did show this in the previous iterations about, you know, where the annex could be engaged with the existing building. Uh here we're looking
080at um a 20-year uh bond note because you can only bond this uh for 20 years because it's the addition. It's not new construction. Um we estimated building age for this whole scenario because it's work uh related to Walden Elementary School at 10.1 uh million for aid related to Walden upgrades. We have not estimated any age relative to the to the annex because your annex space that we won't be able to justify as you already told us they're going to provide building for that. So after the estimated building aid in this whole scenario uh which is all the walls and improvements and the improvements with the annexia we're looking at almost 58 million with an annual tax of 5.4 million. Now for option B, again this brings neighbor into the mix. And so we've added
081all those improvements for neighbor online as an elementary program for K3. Um here we're looking at a total dollar value after the building a and again that building only for the wall and improvements um of 67.3 million and an annual tax impact of 6.3 million. And these would be all summarized in the end. So now let's talk about the two kind of newer options. Option C and this is kindergarten through third grade again Walden East Golden um Montgomery and now Berea. So four elementary schools at gate three and then the construction of a new fourth fifth and sixth grade school on the Berea campus campus is plenty big enough to support new school and meet all of the state guidelines uh for for that standard. And then option D is the same option, but now
082we're bringing Montgomery or we're bringing Maybrook in the mix. So we would have five K through 3s and then the four through six grade new school on the B campus. So this one maps out a little bit differently. So you can see in option C where you just have the four um uh the four elementaryaries uh serving the K through3 program. Again, we're using 56 classrooms across the four buildings. average class size is 20.21 but we have 24 unused classrooms in this. Uh so and then the available capacity across those buildings is another 186 students. So we have 186 student capacity in addition to that. And then if you look at option D which brings Bayrook into the mix obviously you can imagine it gets even worse. Uh the number of classrooms we use is
08362. Average class size 21. But we have 31 unused classrooms in this scenario. It's just you know five buildings to certificate population. Just it's more classrooms uh available than we would ever need. Um and here we would have an available capacity across all the buildings of an additional 330 students in this scenario. And again we looked at this um with respect to the uh new building uh after building aid and again we would get no building aid for neighborhood and we would get no building aid for the new 46 building uh we would be looking at financing about 128.4 4 million and a tax impact of 10 $10 million a year. Uh and then in option D again similar scenario where you're bringing neighbor 137 uh8 for the overall uh um financing and then 11
084a little over 11 million for the so then to summarize all these set up the columns forecast I apologize it's really small to get it all on one side but we are going to put this up on the website So you can see then you'll have the loan payment um this is the monthly loan payment the annual that I referenced for each of the options and then we have the total estimated payments remember this is over either 30 years um 15 years for renovation 20 years for addition uh across the program and so you can see the terms are all there so blended so you can see in option A the total estimated payments 94 million option B 108 8 186 for option C and 201 million across the full term zone for option B.
085These are the two new construction options. Again, they're over 30 years. 130.8 to 139.7. And um I hot because I didn't know anyone to talk about. Okay. So obviously for reopening Maybrook or any of the great reconfiguration uh any new construction uh you have to justify to the state education department the need for that. Um certainly they can't deny you to do it necessarily, but they're going to certainly deny you the ability to support that effort. Um we need to conduct a new five-year demographic study. They want to see uh the demographic study and they're really looking in that fiveyear window. I know we do these studies in the last 10 years. Really looking in the fiveyear window when they're talking about population. Um and they're looking at enrollment in a state study across all
086elementary buildings. We would have to show them the capacity of every elementary building and how it's being utilized relative to uh the enrollment projections that are within that demographic study. And then um you know they would look at how you plan to reconfigure the district in that regard. Um, and then you know, obviously they're going to increase or or decrease or deny yourself a district building a for things that they don't feel are supported or justified. Tom, can you go to the slide after the question slide? Yes. you want me to do this one or so this this was a slide um that I I had in a presentation that we gave in I believe December the demographic enrollment update and this really puts our utilization of each building out there um and we go
087out here as far as 2034. So it it allows you to look at Marie Elementary School, our operational capacity of around 637. We're going to peak uh in the next 10 years at 88% utilized in 2028. The lowest utilization is projected to be at 78% um in 2024. East Coen, Montgomery, Walden, and I'm just going to jump down to the secondary here. This is where um there were some concerns uh initially. So at the middle school overall not not too bad. Um although anybody that that works or students down that building knows it is it is very tight. Um but 1,26 is the uh stated operational capacity there and we would reach that in 89% in 2032. And then uh the high school at this point is projected to be 103% of capacity in uh
0882034. But as as Tom said before, this is way outside the five years. Uh something we definitely need to keep an eye on. Um but SC would want us to come to them in around the 2029 school year and say, "Hey, we we've got a problem on the horizon and here's our plan uh to address it." and we wouldn't be any point. Right. All right. So before we jump into questions, I just want to clarify one thing. So whether we talk about if we talk about intermediate, what we're really talking about is moving forward to get public feedback. We already have the feedback on all them. If we decide to move intermediate, we are required to get part feedback before we do anything else. And then what we do similar to what we did, but
089that wasn't on the table before. So we are required to do that. So if if we decide to move forward with the intermediate, that's what that means. If we decide to move forward with the ball, that means sending it to state for review. Okay, just just clarify. So um I do want to go around and have everybody have an opportunity to ask questions before we do round table. So Fran, I'll start with you. Any questions that you have? Yes. So can you tell me what work is included at the temp that is proposed in here if there was a utilization of the elementary school. So uh so that 10 million is what we're estimating for building a so I don't want you to be confused. Maybe that wasn't clear, but the work at Walden um
090is uh projected at 38 million. And this is one one it's the things that were identified in the 5-year capital facilities plan. Um it was work identified in the building condition survey. It was also work identified to um to bring these spaces as much as possible up to current education department standards. That's if we continue to keep that mold in sight. Correct. So those costs aren't in the new construction options obviously. Um but they were carried through in each of these four options that you have um in the grade reorganization. Okay. I just didn't understand what specifically was needed in the renovation project. I guess I have to go back to We're revising a lot of the classrooms so that they meet education standards and putting in the elevator for the accessibility across all the
091building. So it was everything that we would be able to do but still doing that there was discussion that was still not that was not going to meet the needs just yes I'll correct there are still some places that would be under the standard uh a few that are outlined in the report but remember in the K3 scenario would be a little bit different because you're not ser K5 population so you know That's that runs through the building a little bit differently. It's hard from a pl stand number of section. Okay. Um and just to confirm that there is no building a forex. So because you were adding elementary space that wouldn't be justified by the education department standpoint meaning in your enrollment projections then we support it. Okay. And are there any objections at
092this point using any fund balance or the numbers that we see at the bottom? Is that does that consider is it just taxpayer dollars at this point or is there some consideration? Right. So the simply put numbers that have been provided uh do not take into consideration any use of cash uh or capital reserves um to lower the cost. I think um the best course of action there would be to decide on which model we want to go with the kind of get a better idea of what that state aid will look like right because these are all just based on estimates been very clear about that from the beginning but then we can really have that conversation How much cash and or reserves does the board want to apply there? Final answer really about
093the annex and the state and just the history. I I didn't realize the history behind that the history of I just on the annex u you know building age. So, anytime you're going to create new elementary school, new space for elementary school program, um you have to justify that through your enrollment projection. But right now, your projections don't justify adding additional space such as an annex even if it's bringing the because you're already accommodating all those sixth graders up up in the uh in the middle school. So in that context and I actually we've had conversations with them where they've told us they support providing building. Thank you. Um so um the the simply put numbers that we had in our package um the ones that were included for these new scenarios, do those include
094the additional costing and staffing? That's strictly building, right? That's strictly the the borrowing costs for these options. Okay. Um there would in addition be staffing and additional so that's not reflected in these numbers. So it would be even higher just and just to go back to Angela's question about the aid that's um we're actually living that right now. So, with the proposed in the 23 capital project, uh the library renovation at Thundering Elementary School was included and um we're going to be expanding the library out into that little courtyard area that's there. Um and um just that small little project, we have had to confirm to the state that we understand we will not receive aid on that piece of renovation. So, this is just on a bigger scale. couple questions. Um, so the eight
095I I want to say I don't care. I don't it's not as concerned because there's still less money, but your busing estimates are trouble. So for 12 A and 12B, 12A, you have additional buses and staff for 30 years as $84 million. And I'm curious how they can. So on the busing side of things, what we anticipate is you're have a three grade um level here, which is essentially your middle school run. So your middle school, those three years would come in at the high school. We would now be looking at busing five grades at the same time. We wouldn't be able to run an additional. So we have in that scenario right now we would have 13 buses that would be over capacity. So we would have to add an additional nine to 10
096buses to address that. So those additional buses are um cost that we do not currently have. Okay. But that comes out to $2.8 million a year busing and then additional staff members. So when you take um teachers from the middle school then you have to consider whether or not you can how you distribute this to the teachers. So what we would we estimated uh a range of maybe needing five additional teachers. Okay. So, how much of that is Mr. You did exactly what I did, which is you divided it by 30. Yeah. And then I went back to Brad and said, "Have you estimated escalation over each of the years?" So, you can't divide it by 30. I made the same mistake. So, he's got the first year cost and then every year thereafter is
097compounded by a 2% interest increase across both the busing and the staffing. Um and that's why the number of kids to work I I asked the same would be well the lowest would be right that would be less I think so so how much is the building it when we would go to 4 to6 we're talking about 899 students and then when we're thinking about additional um teachers or any and we will be pulling from the other schools as well but we we estimated that we need five additional staff. Yeah. So, not so much the staff. So, we have 319 loans right now and in this budget we have that at 1.8 million in the budget we're looking to vote on next week, but we're saying it's going to cost 2 million or whatever the
098lowest number is to do one additional run. Same number of schools, just another a lot of money. It would be it would be another package, right? So another we would have another bus for essentially five hours. Now could you in theory just have okay one bus come in just to do the high school run because that's where our biggest capacity is. But you can't hire a driver who just wants to work two hours a day. So you're looking at having that bus for the entire day. nine additional buses, not just nine individual runs. Nine additional buses. So, let me do it this way. If we're going to have a K to3 run, we couldn't we could right now we have a K to five run, a middle school run, and a middle and a high
099school when you change the configuration to that intermediate. You can't do that because of the time. You have to change the run. So, it would be a K to3 run, a four to six run, and a 7 to 12 run. So when you do that, that 712 number is what the issue is because of the number of additional buses that because you can't have if we do a K to 5 run, you would have some students coming in at the elementary time in that intermediate school. You'll have four and five in and then you have six come in at the middle school. That means all of those buses would come in and have to make all of their runs. And all of the the sixth grade students from across the whole district come into Maria
100at a different time, right? If you do if you leave them with the middle schools and that adds to the run that will add to the run and would not make it's almost it's almost like doubling it by adding one. And then the next example 12B which is one additional school you're adding $355 million. The first option is 84 million. Then it goes to 355 for one additional school after that. That's that's busing and staffing, right? So now in that option setting elementary school and that is the total cost for 30 not per year, right? No, I get that. I get so that breaks down at a minimum to 11.8 which I know is but okay and and I don't know if I'd say reaff I I I just wanted to ask because it seems
101insane but when you open if you open Maples Elementary that would be additional step because right now all the other students would have you would have K3 already there if you don't open elementary And questions change. You can um but it so what what so if you're talking about having like we change elementary or we change high school button. Okay. All right. Thank you. All right. Any other questions? Okay. So now we will do round robin. We'll start with you over there. And so basically the question is whether you would like to uh continue to look at the intermediate model or if you would prefer to not continue looking at the intermediate model. Angela Jane. Okay, Sarah. Okay, Katie. Katie, continue. It pains me. It pains me because I feel like intermediate model is the
102way we should go for the strategy strategic uh the it's less money. We have room available even without funding. It's less money and everything else. But I can't ignore the busing aspect of it. And um you know like it's it's like getting a 30-year mortgage versus the 20 and you know the 20 is the better value but you can't afford to go to 30. So I'm going to say no to continuing the intermediate at this time. as painful as it is for me to say that I do feel like I'll be out there in three years and I told you so. But anyway, three years from now. Okay. So that puts the rest to the intermediate model for this time. Thank you very much for your work. Very good presentation. A lot of lot of
103information. Okay. So now that moves us to wall. Okay. So the first thing we have to do is we're going to do an official vote to move forward with a new school waling. And and again what that means is that means bringing it to the state for approval. After uh let's assume we get the approval then we come back to the taxpayers for the vote. Okay. So, I'm going to ask for a motion to move forward with a new uh elementary school in Walker. Sarah second Fran. All in favor? Okay. Sure. So, I just want to say that it's not that I don't think school. I just struggle with spending $60 million on school and I feel responsibil versus 540. and I'll I'll do it and then you guys correct me. Okay. So, the difference
104between the 430 and the 540 is right now some of our Logan students are at other elementary schools. So, if we do the 430, they would remain there. If we do the 540, then those students get to come back to elementary school. And that's why there's a little bit of a cost difference between uh the two. So um let's do discussion on 430 versus 540. How do you feel about that? And then depending on how we feel, we'll vote. So I support the mic. Yeah. year. So, I support the 540 um number of students. We um will be getting even though it costs about cost about maybe 7.6 million more. Um we also get almost $4 million in building a so for 30 million um to be able to support more students and keeping well
105students together. I support that. I also support the 540. I think it makes more sense long term and things. Um I guess I I question whether we should be looking at higher number 430 or 540. Sorry. Okay. That's the only two options. That's the only two options right now. All right. 540. Okay. That's a whole other estimate. 540 for the same reasons. Katie, [Music] I support 540 as well because that also uh creates capacity at 72 schools. Okay. All right. So then we're going to take a motion to approve uh a new wall down school to 72 state for capacity of 540 students. Fran secondra all in favor opposed 6. Okay. So the future of Walden is to send a proposal to the state for approval for a new wall for 540. Is that Yes.
106Okay. It's a new elementary school on a on on a site in W. Okay. Next, we're going to move on to new business. We have the approval of the agreement with the center for discovery and this is our annual agreement with them. So, can I get a motion to approve? Sarah Fran second. All in favor? I opposed 6. Thank you. Next is the approval of the Greenwood County Mer Emergency Medical Services. This is for uh football and sporting event staff. Fran second. Katie. All in favor? Opposed? 6. Thank you. Um next is uh to reject the 2024 capital case work. Can I have a motion to reject? Jane, is there a second? All in favor? Opposed? 6. Thank you. Next, the approval of 2024 capital project bid award for roofing construction. Motion to approve. Sarah
107second brand. All in favor. 6. Thank you. The approval proposal for newborn flooring. Flooring. That's for this middle school stage and gym. Motion to approve. Katie. Second. Sarah. All in favor? opposed 6. All right. Next, motion to establish the 2025 annual reorg meeting for July 14th. Motion to establish a second. Jane, all in favor? Sure. 6. All right. Next is the establishment of the public hearing for the code of conduct on July 14th. Motion to establish. Second. Jane. All in favor? Opposed? 6. Thank you. Okay, so that brings us to the end of our agenda. Um, we are going to go back into executive session. Um, when we come out, we're just going to close the meeting. No additional action will be taken. So, can I get a motion to go into executive session at
1088:37 to discuss personnel? Kenny second. Fran on favor. 6. Okay, thank you everybody. Have a good night. [Music]