Board of Education Meeting 04/07/2025

001I get a motion to come out of executive session at 6:49. Katie. Katie. Second. Fran. All in favor? I post 70. Thank you. All right. We're going to call to order the regular board of ed meeting for April 7th at 6:50. And we're going to begin with the pledge, please. Aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay, just some quick housekeeping. Please take note of the emergency exits on the side behind you. There's no smoking anywhere on school property. And if you're planning to address the board, there is a signin sheet on the table and the meeting is being streamed on our YouTube page. So, thank you all for the last minute move shifting

002from Berea back to central office. So, um we are going to switch the agenda around a little bit and we're going to have our students do their presentation first. So, welcome. Thank you. Thanks for coming everyone. Central office uh board of ed all of our family and friends are here and a lot of staff from Walden. So, we appreciate that. It was a couple months uh before this school year, Mr. Hefner came up to me and said, "I want to raise trout." I've been a principal for 15 years. No one has ever come up and ask me that question before. So, it evolved and turned into one of the coolest hands-on engaging um learning that we've had a Walden in a long time thanks to Mr. Hefner, all of his students, and all of the

003support he received. So without further ado, here's Mr. Hefner. Thank you. We can start the So want to thank tonight I have with me Mason, Madison, Emma, Angelina, Juliana, McKinley, Enoch. You guys can wave. Olivia, Callen, and Anthony. So these are fifth graders in my and Mrs. Meyer's home room. Uh so I teach fifth grade at Walden Elementary. Um, this is the first year we have obviously done this project. I had heard from a friend in Cornwall School District that there was a lady growing fish and that got my interest right away. Um, this is the most interested I've ever seen students in anything. So, that's either what I was teaching before wasn't that good or this is that good of a project. Um, but they are literally all in from the start. Everybody wants

004to help. If I had asked for all 50 students to help present tonight, they would have all came. So, uh, it's really become a collective responsibility to raise as many as we could. The majority of our steam curriculum and science curriculum is on paper. So, giving them hands-on experience has helped them interact with living things in real time. And let's see clicker. Uh, it did hit majority of our science standards as well. Um we focused on matter and its movement through uh scarcity of clean and available water. Students worked on identifying living things in an ecosystem and the ways we could help create a positive impact on not only the planet as a whole but here in Walden. So we will be releasing. So I'm going to start with Mason here. They're going to keep

005taking turns. We bought a 55galon used turtle tank off of Facebook Marketplace. People donated a lot of things to make this happen. There's a huge shout out to Logan Heene and Barry's Grove for donating a lot of these materials. Barry's Grove is a local nonprofit that aims to promote positive environmental change throughout the local community projects. The sink in one closet is pretty old, but it still works. This was a high school science classroom years ago, so the sink got used over time. We would store clean water from the sink in the classroom closet so we could so the chlorine couldn't evaporate. After the water cured, we would discard dirty water from the tank and put clean water in the tank. None of this would have happened without the sink in the closet. And this

006is the only classroom that we could do this in. Uh we the only other classrooms that have sinks are kindergarten, but I don't think kindergarten would be managing the amount of responsibility these guys have. We use a lot of equipment to help the fish survive, including the chiller. It keeps the water temperature in its low in the low 50s. The air raator makes oxygen so the fish can survive. The filter keeps the tank clean and makes the helps the fish not get sick. The webcam this is used for some of the other classrooms to look and observe the fish grow over the year and for Mr. Hefner to check on them when school hours are not in. [Music] Um, cleaning the tank. We learned that fish are very messy, but we use these tools frequently

007to clean the tank. Our gravel vacuum creates a siphon and it helps us take water out of the tank. It's always dirty water. We always took 5 gallons of dirty water out and then put 5 gallons of clean water in, which were stored in 5 gallon buckets in the closet. We would do this two to six times a week depending on the water testing. How about life cycle? The life cycle of um the trout is basically when they're um the egg and then they become um the eye egg when you can see um like them growing in the egg and then they become the embryo which you can see their spine forming in their egg and it's just like a butterfly life cycle except you can't see like the egg isn't see-through. Then it becomes

008the olivan which has the yolk sack fry. Wait. Yeah. The yolk sack. Like the belly. Yeah. And it's the food supply. But if you like get rid of that, it's a fry. And then it and then um there's um the fingerling and it's called that cuz it's about the size of your finger and then it becomes an adult. Good job. Common problems we had were equipment failure, especially the chiller. When there was poor water quality, we had to take out the dirty water and put clean water in. Our quarantine net fell down after we had released all the fish. If there was any fishes with disease, then we had to remove them or else it would spread to other fish and then they would get sick and then we would have like five fish. And

009then when there was condensation on the tank, it was very hard to see the fish. And that was actually perfect timing because that was when we were learning about condensation. I did not coach that line. Angelina came up with that one today and I'm like, "Yes, thank you. Good job." The eggs were transported from a conference in a mason jar. Uh we started off with about 150 eggs and we got like foam insul insulation to uh cut to fit the tank to minimize loose oh light and movement to cuz that could cause a fish stress and leads to bad stuff around that. The eggs were acclimated to new water and then they were moved to a the blue breeder basket you see here. students were responsible for checking the water temperature um which was the

010low 50s and we had to make sure no eggs turned white because that was a fungus that spreads really quickly that could kill off all the fish and we removed them with a turkey baster and we kind of like sucked them up in the turkey baster and put them in a a quarantine net but we'll talk about that later. Um someone in our class Meline was checking on the fish and the temperature. Uh you could see here the fish and eggs. If these turn white that means they have a good fungus and that's when we remove them. The fish started hatching here. You could see a white empty egg shell. They would just lay there. So we wanted to minimize movement and light. Um the aliban are identified by their orange bellies. The orange bellies

011are their food supply for about three weeks. During the Alvin stage, we found two two-headed fish fish which we named doves and dynamic duo. We unfortunat unfortunately they did not make it and will not be at release day. We think they died because they could not swim. They they could not swim right. So when they were out of the alphen stage, they had no food because all the other fish would come and take it before they could get there. So what after they uh finished the stage of an alivan, they turn into a fry. They have no more of that yellow yolk sack for their food supply and they begin swimming to the top of the water. The filter and the chiller intakes covered so that way they don't get pulled in. They stay near

012the basket until they're comfortable moving around the fish tank and explore more. So these are the um fingerlings. They are very much faster than they were in the previous stages. So, um you have to watch for underfeeding so that they don't eat each other cuz um I remember one time there was a case of cannibalism like I'm pretty sure what happened like stomach open like you're coming up with the story right now whatever just cannibalism um there are there are many many visible differences um for example this guy over here um this guy we named Shadow because as you can see he's much darker than the other fishies. Well, trout, but sorry. Um, yeah. So, we name it Shadow. And then there's some that have way different striping. Like, for example, this guy, he has

013just normal normal black polka dots, but this guy, he has like red red. They're brown. Yeah. These are brown trout, by the way. Yeah. Well, just red dots. We had many classroom jobs that we did every day. Um, we did daily equipment checks to make sure everything was running up and correctly. Um, we we did water testing and we would do clean water samples that Mr. Hefner would test with chemicals and students do not handle the chemicals. We would do wakeup call which was uh a student would use a brush to check if any weren't swimming and needed to be removed from the tank. Um, we fed them every day and we did not want to overfeed them. And we would also, um, fill buckets up with water in case um, of emergency. And then

014the raffle ticket part at the end I got from my mentor. Each time they volunteered and helped out, they had to fill a raffle ticket. Uh, this encouraged volunteering. And if it was a backup plan in case we only had 50 fish to release and 90 students to release on release day, the more they volunteered, the more likely they were to be picked to release. Um, we also have throughway sporting goods coming and they've said that they have prizes and things that'll be raffled off. So, just really encouraging volunteering and it became automatically like, oh, I went and did this. Let me fill this ticket out. Testing ammonia for bad news. A nitrates or nitrite would build up as a result of ammonia. Ammonia came from overfeeding dirty tanks turkey baster filled test tubes. Mr.

015Hefner would test for chemicals. Students check the results. Other classes were welcome to visit. We posted a live stream for most of the year. Other teachers would play on the Prometheium boards during breaks or dismissal removal tally. Unfortunately, we had to remove some fish, so we did it quickly so diseases or chem or chemicals wouldn't spread. The quarantine net helped that, but unfortunately, whoever was in the quarantine net didn't survive. In the in the wild, the survival rate is around 1%. We don't actually know how many we fish we have until we release them, but we'll know soon. The last fish we lost is was on April 2nd, or the last one we lost was on the 10th before that. dark scaled fish laying on the bottom were a little bit weaker than the others

016and we didn't know why except for shadow. Like Madison just said about releasing, it's actually this Thursday that we are releasing the fish, the trout at Tinbrook at Wooers Grove Park. We are also going to be learning about fly fishing, the flow rates of streams, and the ecosystem games. And this is all through I have to get a DEC permit release. Uh this is all through the program Trout in the Classroom. Uh I went to the conference at oh I can't remember where the FDR museum in High Park. High Park sounds familiar. Um but there were teachers from New York City, from Buffalo, from all throughout New York State. Um and yeah, we are set to go for this Thursday. Last one. What time? All day. Water testing helps us know what's really in the

017water. Keeping litter clear is everyone's responsibility because it affects everyone. Water usage at home affects things we never even realized. This matches other life cycles we've learned about such as frogs, butterflies, and plants. We all play a role, a big part of a role in conservation. Raising trout takes care and patience. Trout are indicators of healthy streams. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Healthy streams benefit many species. the importance of volunteering. We all took turns helping the fish. It was not just one person. And thank you to Logan Heene, Mike Bliss at Barry's Grove, uh Ray Cummings advising us on our upcoming release day. Throughway Sporting Goods, uh volunteering helpers for that day. Custodians of Walden Elementary helping me get into the building over the brakes and feeding them and making sure that it was all running.

018Uh Ken Sweeney in our tech department helped me set up the live cam. Mrs. Hefner and all my colleagues for listening to me go on and on and on and on and on about Trout. I I understand. Thank you. Uh and most importantly the students because I couldn't do it without you guys. So thank you. So, what's next? Uh, so our goal now is to dream big. Like if we had a living wall with a tank in the hallway that was like 400 gallons and plants running through the filtration system. Um, I have had some people reach out to me in other buildings in VC about the possibility of doing this. Um, I'd be happy to help with that. It is a big undertaking. And I wouldn't recommend doing it in your first few years

019of teaching. Um it was a lot of teaching at the same time while I'm water testing in the back and checking all kinds of things. It kind of has to be in a classroom. We talked about the idea of having it at the greeter's desk. Um it's just it's a lot of work. So initial startup costs are decently high. Um but then it's lower annually just like some chemicals water testing. Our goal is 1,00 fish to actually be released in one year. Um but that would take multiple sources. And any questions? No, looks like a lot of fun. Thank you. Thank you. [Music] All right. Now, we're going to continue with our regular agenda and we're going to move on to correspondence. At this time, I do not have any correspondence commendations. So, I'd like

020to take a moment to acknowledge Wendy Chai and Jada McNeel Pro were named the Orange Olter Bosei senior scholar humanities honores for 2025. They were recognized for their achievements at a ceremony at the country club at Artill on April 2nd, 2025. I want to share a little bit of why they were acknowledged. Wendy Chai is most often recognized for her architectural and set design skills. She has played an integroup role in the set design club and stage crew since her freshman year. She is member of several honor societies including the National English Honor Society, National Social Studies Honor Society, and National Art Honors Society. Wendy plans to pursue a career in architecture. Jada's musical and theorat theorical strengths shine through her participation in band, choir, and the drama club. She is a secretary of the

021tri honor society and the and the pep band. She is a recipient of the 2024 director's award for musical achievement and a member of the National Honors Society and the National Social Studies Honor Society. After high school, Jada plans to study music education. Congratulations to Wendy and Jada on their accomplishment. Let's give them a round of applause. Some honorable mentions. The Bisnic Marketing Honor Society induction ceremony took place on March 26th. East Colenham Elementary School's Dare Graduation was on March 28th. Valley Central High School performances of Cinderella was March 28th, 29th, and 30th. And Valley Central's uh junior prom was on April 4th. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Next, we'll move on to the consent agenda. Can I get a motion to approve? Sarah second. Angela. All in favor? Opposed? 70. Thank you. Next,

022we'll move on to our reports and we'll begin with our student representatives. Welcome So, there has been a lot of fun events happening in the beginning of spring. Um, first off, there was the Harlem Wizards game in the high school on April 1st. There's also the, as Mrs. Avala said, the Cinderella performance, which I went to, and it was phenomenal. It was chef's kiss. And there was also the junior prom on April 4th, which I heard it was very exciting and fun. And upcoming events at the high school is the PTSA Founders Night on April 9th. Um the student recognition night on April 28th from 7 to 8. And on April 10th, the drama 2 production will be performing at the high school from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. For elementary schools on April 3rd, there

023was the Walden Elementary School Culture Night, which was hosted from 5:45 to 6:45 p.m. And upcoming events for the elementary school will be the Montgomery Elementary School student recognition night on April 8th. There will be the Walden Elementary School drama production which will be performed on April 9th from 7 to 8. And there will be the Montgomery Elementary School tall and small ball on April 25th. Moving on into the sports with the spring sports officially starting and many of our teams competing, we go ahead and see, you know, what has happened so far in the season. So for both varsity lacrosse boys and girls remain undefeated so far in the season with with both teams having three wins from the boys and four wins for the girls. And the outdoor track has had a quad

024meet at Gan which was VC versus Gan Newberg and O'Neal and VC won the whole meet which was awesome. The boys tennis team had a meet at um Meris um against our Lord of Ladies and they had won the VC match. And upcoming sporting events is our golf team on April 8th for the girls over at Tri Valley. And for the boys, their game is today against Monroe Woodbury. And then lastly, I wanted to go ahead and say because I had talked to the um one of the girls on the flag football team and she wanted to go ahead and say a few words that despite their season going off to a rocky start that they believe that they will pull through and manage to go ahead and have a wonderful season um in the

025future. And that is all for our report today. Thank you. When's the variety show? Do we miss it? When is it? It's coming up, right? Huh? Thursday. Okay. Thank you. Sorry. All right. I'll look it up on the calendar. Thanks. Yeah. Okay. All right. Thank you. All right. Sorry. Cold up here. I feel like a trout. What happened? All right. We're gonna move on to the superintendent in schools. So we had the opportunity to visit um the high school in ALC and so monthly we at from central office and the district school administrators come together to visit schools. During that time we have the opportunity to go into classrooms and visit classrooms and see students in action and see learning in action. It's some of the best days and rewarding days that we have to

026be side by side um next to students and see what's happening in our classroom. So this last opportunity um we were able to focus on secondary. I also had the opportunity to attend Westchester Putinham School Boards Association workshop on students smartphones and social media. It was a two-hour webinar and really talked about the benefits as well as the disruptors of social media and how it impacts learning. So more to come on that. Attended the Boseis humanities breakfast where we honored Winnie and Jada. and then also attended a technology meeting that was hosted by the superintendent in Monroe Woodbury um as well as in Marboro and they had a focus on AI and the opportunity to use AI in an appropriate way that forces and supports instruction and so it will support the learning that also

027happens in our district for our teachers. Thank you. Thank you. Next is the assistant superintendent for business. Nothing tonight. [Music] We fell for that before. Next is the assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction. Good evening. Um, today I just wanted to say that our instructional materials for CKLA will be available to the board for your review in the executive room this week. You're welcome to set up time with Ellen so that you can review those materials. also send the board a digital access to our digital materials as well as the sampling you will see is simply a sampling and not everything that's available to our teachers. Um, additionally in the past two weeks I I was able to attend the East Coldenham DARE graduation and I must say it was a success. I especially loved

028the DARE song that was performed at the end. Um, I I I really did as a former principal uh who hosted her own DARE graduations. My students didn't sing the dare song and I felt like they were missing out on something. Um, with our grading committee also met last Monday where we discussed our takeaways from our session with facilitator from the grading reform center. Um, and we started to talk about what we may want to include in a possible grading policy uh to recommend to the board. Still in its very infant stages, so just discussion at this time. Additionally, on April 2nd, we had our our family and community engagement face meeting at the high school where we presented on New York's inspired plan developed by the recommendations from the Blue Ribbon Commission, which is

029intended over the next uh five years to adopt a New York State portrait of a graduate, uh redefine credits and learning experiences, sunset diploma assessment requirements, and move towards one New York State high school diploma. Uh this is not adopted at this time but we were uh ensuring that our community is also aware of the recommendations from blue ribbon commission. It was a little cold. I agree. Uh we hope that we we are not seeing the uh amount of community members that we would like to see at these meetings. uh but we are seeing more which we're hopeful we're very thankful for that but we would love to see an increase in participation as it is open to the community our next phase meeting so our family and community engagement uh phase meeting is May

03013th and that will be at Berea a an agenda is sent out prior to so please look out on parent square for that agenda as well and that's all I have great thank you next is the assistant superintendent for human resources good evening everyone I have a short update Tonight, we have recommended our new director of physical education, health, and athletics to Valley Central, Teresa Ulski. Welcome, Miss Uhski. We have also recommended our new school nurse at the high school and three par professionals to the district. So, welcome to all. That's it for me tonight. Thank you. All right. Next, we're going to move on to our alcohol and drug awareness council presentation. Do you want to stand near the Do you guys? Yeah. Yes. Thank you. You want to hold this? Speak up a

031little bit. Um, I can hold this. Well, let me here. Oh, thank you. How does it go in there? That you put that in there for me. Okay. Good. Yep. And how do I click this way? Yep, that's going to work. Okay, great. Uh, good evening. Hello. My name is Cynthia Lardy and I am a impact supervisor for the ADAC Alcohol and Drug Awareness Council of Orange County. So, how do I get rid of that? Yeah, there's just something on the screen. Can you gra get rid of that for me? All right, perfect. Thank you so much. Okay, thanks. So impact, improving mindsets, policies, and communities together. I'm going to explaining what that is in a few minutes, but first of all, I'd like to talk about ADAK. So ADAK um has been around in

032Orange County since 1972. Um we want to be a positive connection in Orange County, New York. And the way we do that is we work to address the impact of substance use uh disorders by educating the general public um reducing stigma, advocating on behalf of those who do suffer from these disorders and also using tools of education and information to help prevent this from happening to other people. Um we have James Conklin. He's our executive director. Mary Alice Kovatch, I'm the supervisor. And then very shortly I'm going to be introducing Natalie Gatau. She's your prevention specialist here in Valley Central. Okay. Some of the things we do at ADAC in the community and through our impact program is we provide resources. We attend many trainings and we stay uptodate on current drug trends. So we

033can give information on um many different drugs or even a specific drug if we need to. We do presentations in the community um and in schools to either students, staff, parents. Um we do lunch and learns. We actually have an annual poster and essay contest. You had a grand prize winner recently. Um Isabella Braglia um she won the grand prize of the poster contest and she's now an intern at ADAC and she's working with us. So it's pretty exciting. We do um many many different activities during Red Ribbon Week in October. We build community coalitions and capacity. We teach evidence-based programs. Um one of the main ones we use is the Too Good for Drugs and Too Good for Violence program here in Valley Central. We do teen intervenes. I'll talk a little bit more

034about that in a minute. Um we have a strengthening families program which is a parenting education program. We just recently started doing Girls Circle and Boys Council. Those are groups for kids um 8 9 to 18 and they're groups. We're starting to pilot those. The in ADAC impact program which I'll talk about in a minute. Um we have youth and adult peer services. So if we have somebody who's struggling and needs to talk to a peer, we now have a youth peer that can work with the kids in our school to actually provide services to them. We have a family support navigator. So, if we have somebody in the community who is struggling with substance abuse or somebody in their family, we can um we can attach them to the family support navigator and they

035can help them go through the process of helping their loved one. We work with stop DWI and task which is a um a program in the jails for anybody who has been um they have been um caught drinking and driving and they can work with somebody to avoid incarceration and go into a program. We have the prevention resource center which works with coalitions. Team awareness works with actually employment um people in in workplaces for mental health awareness. We have WISE, which is the wellness initiative for senior education. Um that's for um adults 60 and over and we teach them things like healthy medication management. Um we we talk about aging and then what happens. Um and we also have the Clyde survey. So this is something new that we're going to be rolling out. So

036we are rolling out the Clyde survey to 10 um communities in Orange County. So it is a validated survey that collects current and relevant data regarding youth substance youth youth some youth excuse me youth substance use that's a hard thing to say developmental risk and protective factors and other key community characteristics. So, like I said, 10 school districts and communities in Orange County have agreed to participate. We're going to be surveying 8th, 10th, and 12th graders. We're going to be using three measures. Their use in the last 30 days, if there was any use, um their lifetime use, if there was any use, and their perception of harm. It's a completely anonymous survey. The only identifiers are age and grade. Um and it has been vetted by the Orange Olter Bolsey's IT department. Um, ADAC

037is paying for this through opioid settlement funds. Um, and why would we want this information from the Clyde survey? Um, because it does provide up-to-date data on youth substance use, behaviors, attitudes, positive and negative. Um, and includes includes questions on trending issues such as vaping, cannabis use, and mental health. So, it's like a needs assessment for communities so we can then focus our programs and our resources um on where our needs are with our youth in our communities and that is rolling out um in the 10 districts and we we're hoping to have it done by April 30th. So, we're pretty excited um to see this information. And then what we really want to do is in two years have another needs assessment, another Clyde survey, so we can follow the eighth and the 10th

038graders and see if there's been any changes in in what we're doing and what we're working on to really focus our programs. And this is I do have information I can hand out in a little bit regarding the Clyde survey. Just another one pager for you. So, what is impact? So improving mindsets, policies and communities together. So about 10 years ago, u my executive director James Conklin and Mary Alice Kovich came up with this idea because we were working with schools. But how about each school district have one committed trained prevention specialist in the school to assist the community in developing a universal substance use prevention message um that would reach all students, staff, parents, and the community. So, thank um luckily some funding came through and we applied for a grant and we were

039awarded a grant through opioid settlement funds and now we have um seven prevention specialists in seven district in seven different school districts in Orange County. So, um we have a prevention specialist in Goan, Highland Falls, Fort Montgomery. We just recently picked up Middletown, Monroe, Woodbury, Pine Bush, Port Jervis, and Valley Central. Um the program has been running for about a year now and it has been pretty amazing seeing what has been happening in the schools with our prevention specialist. They we want our prevention specialists to be the trusted face, the adult that the kids can come to to talk about substance use. Um and we do um do things through an evidence evidence-based program. So let me show you how we help. So using evidence-based programming and curriculum, we enhance the students protective factors, teaching

040them to make healthy choices. The two main programs we use are too good for drugs and violence and teen intervene. So, Too Good for Drugs and Violence is a universal violence and substance use prevention and character education program that promotes development of skills, attitudes, and behaviors consistent with positive pro-social living to encourage healthy emotion management actions, resist peer pressure, and influence and self-awareness to foster a drugstreet central since 2016. We started out doing too good for drugs with third and fourth graders. 2018 we added kindergarten through 2 grade and um so every student in Valley Central right now does receive too good for drugs or violence K through fourth grade. Fifth grade I understand um you guys use DARE. Um it's a great program. It's they love it when we come into their classrooms. Um,

041we use puppets and robots and role plays and posters and activities and games and we're teaching um protective factors to mitigate risk factors um to these to these kids. So, we're really excited and happy we've had that collaboration with Valley Central for so long. The other program we use um is Teen Intervene. So, it's an expert. That's a screening brief intervention and referral to treatment program. It's for adolesccents aged 12 through 19 who have been identified as having a mild to moderate substance use disorder. Um the way we use this program is it's three 1-hour sessions. The first two are with the child and or the adolescent and the third um session can be with the parent. We do need parent permission to do this. Um and it uses motivational interviewing stages of change to

042encourage the youth to learn healthy alternatives. So, I've been doing teen intervene for about three years. I was trained by the um developer of the program, Ken Winters. He's out of Minnesota. And I have to tell you, um, when you sit down with a child who's recently been caught vaping or somebody thinks they may have a substance use issue and you tell them that what they talk to me about is completely confidential, unless of course they're at harm of risk to self or others or somebody's harming them, they do open up and they do talk to me or us about what's happening in their lives. Um, and it goes through a system of quest questionnaires that actually looks at what they're using, when they started, how much they're using, um, and then why they're using.

043So, um, the main reason that kids are telling us in Orange County why they are using substance is, um, not to fit in, not to be cool, not for excitement, not for experimentation, but because they want to relax and they want to relieve stress. they want to sleep and they want to forget. So, um those are the reasons they're telling us they're using. So, then we look at that and then we try to show them some other coping mechanisms or skills. We set a goal with them other things they can work on to try to um not no longer use substance. Um most of the time they do not need a referral for treatment, but we have had kids who have come in and their use is at a level that it is beyond teen

044intervene. So we do then refer them on um for other services. So we do know the resources and the agencies that we can refer them for either outpatient treatment restart and every now and then somebody has to go into inpatient to receive help. So it's a great program. We love it. These are the two we are using most of the time. So here's some numbers for Valley Central School District since the impact program started in January of 2024 until current. um March 325. So we've done 2016 intervene referrals in your district. We've done 36 alcohol, tobacco or other drug presentations or mental health presentations. Now those can be for students. Those can be for staff, um parents or the community. Um and there's topics like current drug trends, a pacific a specific drug, um social

045media and mental health, high potency THC and mental health. So just depending on the need that um the teacher or the counselor or the administrator is asking us for we can um tailor our presentations to whatever is needed. We have reached 178 participants through those presentations. We've done 42 information awareness events. These are tableabling events. So one of the things we do is we table in the lunchrooms um and we do something called the spin the wheel. So, we have a wheel, we have prizes. The kids during their lunch period come up to the table. They have to answer a question either on nicotine, cannabis, or alcohol. If they get the answer right, they get to spin the wheel and they get a prize. That's one of the tableabling events we do. We have reached

0464,08 students in Valley Central through those 42 information awareness tableabling events. Evidence-based programming, that's our two good for drugs, too good for violence program. We've been in 176 classrooms. This is just our impact specialist and we have reached uh 3,213 students through our too good for drugs and too good for violence program. Like I said, we've been working with Visa since 2016 K through 4. Okay. So now I would like to introduce you to your very own impact specialist. So um Natalie and I started working at ADAC around the same time about three years ago. I started like maybe a month before her. Um, and she's an alumni from Valley Central. Some of you may recognize her and know her. Um, we were we're so happy to have her working at ADOCK. And when she

047came up to us and said she wanted to apply for the impact prevention specialist at Valley Central, we were like, that's going to be a really good fit. Um, so she applied and she got the job and, um, we just love working with her and I know she's really doing wonderful things in your school district already. So, I'd like to introduce Natalie Gatau. Thank you, Cindy. Hi. Good evening, everybody. Um, first I want to thank you all for allowing me the opportunity to be here, not just tonight, but also in the school district. Um, it is such a unique opportunity and it's such a pleasure to be doing this. I'm very passionate about it. Um, so thank you for that. So, I'm a Valley Central graduate. I actually sat on the board of education as

048the student representative my senior year. So maybe one day you guys will be up here presenting too. Um so it's really great to be back. Um I love Valley Central. I've been working at ADAK for over three years now. For the first two years mostly I've been going into the elementary schools. I see a couple familiar teachers. I've taught in those classrooms doing the too good for drugs program and then I took on the impact prevention specialist position because I just couldn't pass it up. Um so I've been doing that for the past couple of months and I absolutely love it. So in my position, I have a really unique opportunity to work with every single age group. Not many people can say that. Um, so the goal for me is to meet the child

049in kindergarten, watch them grow up through elementary school, be there with them through middle school, and then eventually see them into high school. A lot of students tell me in fourth grade, they're very nervous about that transition to the middle school. And when I tell them, "I'll see you there," they're very happy to hear that. Same for middle school. It's very stressful going from 8th grade into 9th grade, even though they're connected, it's scary. So, when I tell those students, I'll be here. You can come say hi. You can come have lunch with me, their face lights up. So, it's amazing to be that constant face of drug prevention for them. Um, so they know they have a trusted adult to come and talk to. So, in my position, um, I meet with students that

050have a mild to moderate substance use issue. That's the teen intervene. I call students down to my room, they sit with me and we go through that paperwork together. They are usually very receptive to it. Um, I do find that it is very impactful for them because it's not judging them. It's coming from a standpoint of I understand that addiction is really hard. I know it's very difficult to just stop using, right? That's asking a lot. How can we cut back your use? How does it work for you? Right? Every student is so different. We have to meet them where they're at. we have to view every student individually and I'm able to do that with them after they meet with me for those first two or three times. Um I do a lot of

051collaboration with the student assistant counselors and the behavioral specialist so I kind of hand them off. I like to think of myself as a bridge um between myself, the student and the school. I can kind of point them in the right direction. Sometimes the teen intervening is enough. If the student just has general questions about drug use, sometimes that cuts it. Sometimes students have to continue meeting with me or their um counselor. So, it really depends on the student and I refer them on to someone else afterwards. I do a lot of collaborations. Um, I attend child study team meetings at the high school to talk about the different students and I collaborate with the behavioral specialists as well at the high school. Um, so that I can work with students who maybe don't have

052an issue with substance use yet, but maybe addiction runs in their family, students that are at a higher risk and maybe need that person to talk to. Um, I'm not a counselor, but what I do is somewhat similar in the fact that I serve as a trusted adult and can point them in the right direction. I run a journaling club. That's been really exciting for me because I love to write and it's a really great healthy coping mechanism for students. I have anywhere from 20 to 30 students that come every week, sometimes multiple times a week, and we write, we listen to music, and it's been really helpful for them. I've had students tell me that they've written about things that they never would share with other people, and I have a little shredder. They

053can shred up their feelings afterwards. They can vent. It's really great for them. Um, I collaborate with other clubs as well. Some of those being Morgan's message club. It's a mental health related club, HOSA, which is students who are interested in joining the medical field because a lot of drug prevention has to do with medical things. Um, I also work with the SAD club for the middle school and the high school. Um, it's not SAD to be in it. It is students against destructive decisions. So, we do a lot of work and informational awareness events as well. Um, I teach many different classes. So, last week alone, I did 18 health classes in the middle school. I saw every single student currently enrolled in a health class. I taught them about vaping. I taught them

054about alcohol and they were extremely receptive to that information, asked amazing questions. Um, and then now I'm currently doing seminar for life classes in the high school. Um, I already did a social media and mental health presentation. They asked me to come back and talk about vaping and then in two weeks I'm doing healthy relationships and the week after we're doing um healthy coping skills. So it's fantastic just to get to know these kids and work with these students. Uh I also am collaborating with a lot of different departments. The English department I'm reaching out to so I can reach more students that are enrolled in English classes. I also am working with um other classes and art is a big one because art is a really healthy coping skill for many students. So I

055reached out to the art department. I am on the textbook committee for the health classes to review the text and um give my input which is such a great opportunity as well. Um I also am working with the drama club. Mrs. Carver reached out to me and asked if I would collaborate with her. So that's going to be exciting. We're thinking of doing a a drama skit together about drug prevention and the sports teams is also a huge one as well um for student athletes. So I the last thing that I want to talk about is my volunteer opportunities with students when I do spin the wheel events outside of the lunchroom. I don't know if any of the students have seen that I sit at the red table. I give out candy and stickers

056and prizes. It's entirely volunteerrun. I have a Google classroom with about 130 students in it and I put out the volunteer sign up and students sign up right away. They want to be involved. They want to help. Many want to do the positive healthy thing. Um so I try to make it fun because a lot of students may say, "Oh, she's the anti-drug lady. It's not fun." No, I want them to know that they can come talk to me. It doesn't have to be all don't do this, right? What can I tell them to do? what are the healthy coping mechanisms that I can teach them about? So, that's been great. We do bulletin board decorating. In the next slide, you'll see one of my bulletin boards that entirely studentrun. They get a volunteer hour

057for helping with that. Um, and that's really great to spread awareness around the school and make it fun. Um, lastly, I also do some parent presentations as well. Sometimes not many parents show up, but um, we do put the information out there. So, if you are a parent or just interested in general drug knowledge, um we do some of those presentations. I'll be at the middle school orientation. I'll do back to school events and giving presentations on that. Um I'm also helping out with prom. Senior prom is a huge event where students unfortunately drink um use drugs. So, I'll be at prom. Never thought I'd be going back to prom at 24, but I'm very excited for that. Um, and I also created flyers for that, put information on the website so that people can

058proceed with caution and with education. So, I just want to quickly share one success story to um highlight how great this work is. Two of the students that I called down to my office for a teen intervene, they were caught vaping and have a vaping problem. Um, they actually came back to my room. I usually keep my door open and give out stickers and candy just so they know they can come talk to me. Um, they came back to my room and they sat down at my table and just talked about their day and that meant a lot to me because I called them down because they were said to have an issue with vaping and they felt comfortable enough to come back to my room, sit with me, talk with me and that's a

059success to me because they know that they have a trusted adult to talk to when they're ready to quit vaping. So, I appreciate your time. Thank you so much for having me and I look forward to continuing working with all of you. Thank you. Your prevention specialist, Natalie Gatau. Yay. So, great. Um, and I do work with the other school districts, so it really is important that the person who is in the district fits in and understands like the workings of the district and feels comfortable. Um, and this has been a great match for Natalie and Valley Central. We're really happy she's here. So, thank you. So, here is her bulletin board she made. Uh, you are. It's an affirmation station. So, that's beautiful. It was the volunteers, the kids that did it. And here's

060our prom campaign. We're working with Stop DWI. Prom stands for please return on Monday. So, we're working with many different um districts in the county on this campaign to make sure our kids return safely home from prom. So, uh that's our presentation. Does anybody have any questions? It's a lot. Thank you. Okay. Thank you very much. We're really happy. Thank you a lot. Thank you very much. Oh, you're welcome. Just let us know when you're doing those parent presentations because that's how you were invited. Somebody was at that presentation and said they were amazing. You need to have them at a board meeting. So, yes, anything we can do to help. Yes, we would be more than happy anytime. Would we love it and if we can get the parents involved? That's really like a

061goal for us is to get more parents involved because when we do these presentations with them, they really they're like, "We didn't know that. We didn't." They really do learn information about what's happening out there, drug trends, most current drug trends. A recent one we just found out about was smelling salts. A couple school districts kids were being caught doing smelling salts. It's something that athletes do. And um so now we have some websites and we have information about smelling salts and how they're being abused. So we do keep current on the trends. Thank you so much. We appreciate the collaboration with Valley Central. Thanks. Thank you. [Applause] All right. Next, we'll move on to our guidance advisory committee. That's me. All right. So, the one of the things that was talked about was that

062the district has a 22% chronically absent rate. And one of the for me surprising statistics was that ALC has 62% chronically absent rate or 30 of the 48 children. Um however it was disclosed that because students from ALC have different start times during the year from their home school. They take their attendance with them from their host home school to ALC. Um, so the 62% is not really accurate as far as attendance at ALC itself and that there have actually been many improvements from the host home school to ALC. Um, there's also a lot of talk about a social emotional program evaluation. There's a lot of comments for and against a new program. Some people felt that we don't need a new program. we should assess what we have and weave in any new tools

063and ideas in the existing curriculum because we have a lot of different pieces already existing. Um and then others thought and this you'll love this that we need a consistent message perspectives vocabulary across the whole district and a new program could bring that. Um obviously we need to have buyin from the teachers. um this new um program could be more costly and there was some talk about ruler and how that was trained and kind of fell a little bit flat. So there was just discussion about what would be the best across the district for that. So it was good conversation. That's it. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Next is the Oxford delegates meeting. Uh that's me. Uh we met on April 2nd at Boseies. Uh we had a presentation from David Shaw and Beth

064Harris, two attorneys from Shaw, Parlelson May, and Lambert who gave us updates on current legal and collective bargaining issues. Um what's going on with um DEI, undocumented immigrants and ICE, Title 9, student board members, and um everything with collective bargaining. Um I sent you all the presentation uh slideshow. Um it was very informative. Uh next meeting is Wednesday, May 7th. Um the annual meeting uh and dinner is Wednesday, May 4th. And on April 9th at 9:00 a.m. they're doing um uh the next Boseies tour on the Gibson Road campus. What did I Did you have questions? Okay. When was the dinner? Sorry. Uh June 4th. Wednesday. June 4th. Did I say May 4th? Sorry. Good. Yep. That's it. All right. Thank you. Next is the social emotional learning committee. I'll I'll present on that. Um,

065we had a meeting last Thursday and we are continuing to look at different curriculums to um, address exactly what Miss Knight was talking about, having a consistent program that addresses the diverse needs for all of our students, K through 12, and to have that consistent language and support for our students. And so, at this point, we're just exploring. There are representatives on that committee from um, all the different schools. And one of the things that we just looked at was Second Step, which is an SEAL curriculum and does abide by the castle standards. So, more to come as we continue to evaluate uh the curriculum and what's next steps we're going to take. Thank you very much. Next, we'll have our capital project update. Thank you, Mr. President. So tonight, um, the district's architect, Tomthaler,

066as well as our our main construction manager, Guru, Bill Divine, uh, they're going to give you an update on the, uh, capital project going on. So, they're going to just change it up a little bit for the months going forward as we really get into the construction season and, um, we've asked them to, uh, come plan to come to each board meeting and put together a slide of some information and take any questions that you may have. So, with that, I'll turn it over to Tom and Bill. and you want to grab them microphone there. Thanks. Good evening. It's great to be back here with you uh to give you an update on the capital uh presentation. Thank you very much. Let me uh see if I can advance that. Okay. So, uh the agenda

067for tonight, of course, we're going to go through the recently completed projects. We're going to talk about the 2021 capital projects. going back quite a few years. Um, but it's almost complete. We're going to talk about the Chris on the ARPA projects, the 2023 capital project, the 23 transfer to capital project, and then the 24 capital project. So, we'll go fast. So, recently completed projects, of course. So, we had the Walden Elementary roof repair that was part of the 21 transfer to capital. So, that is is complete. uh along with the high school scoreboard and the administration building vestibule that we all walked through tonight that was all replaced that was under the 22 transfer to capital project. So district's been making good use of their transfer to capital and doing some really good things

068with it. the 2021 capital project uh phase one and two um that's also completed and then the Chrissa and Arbor projects uh with the Walden Elementary School ventilation improvements uh those are complete as well. Like I said, no no no pictures yet. Uh the 2021 capital project uh phase three, we're in closeout phase uh for that project. So that's just about wrapped up. Uh so give you a little bit of a glimpse of phase three. So here's all the parking lot improvements that were done at the high school and the middle school. Uh so everyone who's been to the high school recently sees uh before you get into the stadium uh all the new asphalt uh and all the work that was done on the uh east side of the high school and then uh

069the parking lot that was uh retopped and improved on the west side by the middle school. So hopefully everyone has seen that the new gateways. Uh so the Chrissa and ARPA projects uh the outdoor pavilions and playgrounds. Uh and this was at various buildings throughout the district. Hopefully everyone has seen those. Uh Walden has a very nice one right up front. Um and that's in closeout phase as well. Uh Valley Central High School, the art and wood shop renovations were in the closeout phase of those projects also. And so just so you can see uh what some of these improvements look like. Uh so for the uh for the um shops, this is the new art room at Valley Central High School. Uh so if you have a chance board members to to look at

070that, it's really really nice. Uh it's going to serve the students well. A couple photos, you can see a lot of new caseworking cabinetry so that they can store their uh all their uh different uh features appropriately. And then uh the new hangdown core reels for for use almost like a maker space uh environment. Uh and now the new wood shop at the Valley Central High School. Here you can see uh all new flooring systems, all new uh electrical lighting. Um you know, we've re situated all of the equipment that they use. Uh really an incredible improvement over We probably should have had a before and after picture with this one because this is like a total transformation of this area, but uh very well. And they're very uh happy. we've been uh working with

071the the staff there to make sure that every item uh is addressed that they're not happy with and so I think that's all all completed at this point. Um the 2023 capital project. So we have this in different phases. So phase one uh it's been approved by uh the education department. That was back in October. Uh the contracts were awarded as the board knows in December. Uh and so we have anticipated construction of the tennis courts. Um that's going to be on standard shift. That's going to be in spring. We're kind of waiting for the weather to break a little bit. Uh and then we're going to have the uh anticipated we were anticipating construction for the admin, the vestibules and the high school uh heating and cooling. Uh that's going to be done on

072night work currently from April through till June when the students let out and then we'll go on to a standard shift for the summer and we're looking to close that uh project out by the by December of 25. So that is progressing nicely. Um for phase two, uh we got our approval this past January uh by the education department. Uh contracts uh were awarded in March and we're looking at uh construction again uh night work from from May to June and then we'll go on standard shift uh for the summer and then also the summer of 26. So this one this project will go across two summers and won't close out until December of uh 2026. It's a lot bigger, more involved project. Uh so phase three is in review at SEDD. So it's been

073submitted. It's in review. We're anticipating that approval uh sometime during the month of May. Uh and we're looking at bidding that in the fall. Again, this is a future phase. So we don't want to bid right now. Uh you know, contractors are full up of work right now. So we're going to bid that in fall. And then construction would begin summer of 26 with a closeout anticipated in December of 2026. And then the high school track resurfacing. Again, uh we had our approval. This is part of the 2023 transfer to capital. Um contracts were awarded in December and we're looking at doing that this summer on a standard shift and we'll close that out um December December of 25. The work will be obviously done mostly in the summer. Um, so the 2024 capital project,

074this is the most recent project approved by the voters. Uh, we are approved by New York SEDD, the state education department in January. Uh, we're currently in the bidding process for that work. Uh, again, we are anticipating starting, uh, construction on a standard shift in summer of this this summer, 2025, and moving into summer of 2026 as well. Um, we're looking to close that project out in December of 2026. See, that was pretty fast. That was pretty fast. Sure. You're going to be doing this regularly. Can you just Sorry. Is it possible for you to also include a summary of what the project as I was going through it? Yeah. Thank you. Absolutely. Absolutely. What what's uh I don't know where it falls, but what's the status of our arch for the the the pillars

075without the arch? The arch was where CS Arch was. Um so admittedly, it has taken us uh much longer to finalize that that design uh than we had anticipated. Uh however, we are we are at the finish line. We've had three meetings with students over the last few weeks to help us put that final design over the finish line. And our final meeting is expected on Friday. So once we have that, we expect to be able to turn it over to the team. They can work with the contractor to get it up as soon as possible. We all want to see that arch. Trust me. Um Bill, I don't know if you had planned um just to give a very high level overview of the work that's planned um for upcoming spring break. Sure, just

076high level. Yep. Thanks. So I'll start a little back from that. Um, like you saw on the on the slides, we're doing a lot of night work. No, no more slides. Yeah, we're good. No, we're okay. We're okay. Um, so some of the projects kind of give you an overall view of of what we're doing. You know, there's uh many projects that we're working in kind of men together here. Uh, and to try and alleviate some of that big workload over the summertime. We are we are inside your buildings doing night work. Um, and it's been working out pretty well so far. just getting all the infrastructure in um on you know behind the walls above the ceilings things like that uh we're taking advantage of all the breaks uh like Brad was mentioning uh

077we'll be here uh in the in here we'll be uh at Montgomery we'll be at Maybrook uh and we'll be at East Coldenham as well we've got three abatement projects that we're doing over this break uh for the entry vestibules so that's really going to uh help us with two weeks of time uh that will get back for the summer to actually do some of that construction work and put those uh those projects on track So, um, lots of work. Uh, we're really ramping up for the summertime. We're we're getting material. Uh, all the mechanical equipment is slowly coming in, which is great. I always preach that without material, I can't install it. So, uh, procuring material is very important. But, uh, we are uh, coordinating with all the trades, multiple contractors at the same

078time. On top of that, the school district is also doing things uh, with other vendors that we're also coordinating with to make sure that we don't have any mishaps um, and everybody knows where they're going, where they have to be at what time. So, uh, it's going very well so far. Questions? This lead time getting faster than it has been or So, as you get closer to the summer, it actually gets worse because a lot of school districts or buildings um around the district will make their order at the same time because summertimes for school districts are always very heavy. So, we were very fortunate and thank you guys to the board uh for approving that the train package and all the mechanical equipment. when we did, it was very important we did that to

079make sure we got in the factory uh before everybody else did. Great. Any other questions? All right. Thank you. Thank you. All right, we'll move on to community participation. Start with Fran. So, I had the wonderful opportunity to attend the opening night of Cinderella at the high school performance u musical performance and as usual it was a wonderful uh performance and you could tell by the work that was put into the music and the sets and the costumes and the talent. Um just very exciting. I was happy to be able to attend. Andrew. Uh, yes. On March 20th, I worked with Tammy Coleman. Um, and for the lottery of the UPK. Everyone did get in. And according to the website, there's 10 more spots. So, it'd be great if we could fill up those 10

080more spots. I also attended uh Cinderella. It was phenomenal. And a couple of girls lacrosse games. And I also spent time with the PTSA for the Wizards. They did a phenomenal job. It is not an easy undertaking. They were sold out. Um it was a just a huge um a huge project and uh I'd like to thank Courtney Stafford, the president, and the executive board. They just did such a great job. And also the um staff of the high school who played basketball. Thank you. I uh I also attended Cinderella. I echo Fran's sentiments on that. It was phenomenal. Um, my favorite part was the dress unfurling. I don't know how they do that. I still can't figure it out. Um, I also attended the um Bosey's budget dinner which a rest of you or

081most of us did. Um, it was great to see the um the student uh presentations before the dinner. Um, and then also to eat the dinner that the students prepared which was phenomenal. Um and then I also um was able to attend the um Westchester Cuthnham School Board um presentation on smartphones that um our superintendent attended. And um I was I guess I expected um one view going into the presentation but heard a completely different view. Um which was um one of the the phrases that she used was it's like putting up a fence around a pool but not teaching kids how to swim. Cell phones. Um so this is actually book that the presenter wrote. So, um, after I read it, I'll let you all read it as well. Thanks, Sarah. Um, I was

082also able to attend the performance of Cinderella, which was amazing. Um, I'm always in awe by the costumes and the acting and the singing and the set design. It was just great. Um, I helped out at the Harlem Wizards game, too. It was nice to see everyone from the district come together for that. and the um Bosey's dinner and budget presentation and the food prepared by the students and the desserts were amazing. I also attended the performance of Cinderella. It was phenomenal as usual. Um al I've been thinking a lot about those costume changes. I don't know how they did it but it was amazing. Um I also attended the Bose's budget dinner with the student expositions. Um the students did a phenomenal job in their presentations. We saw a lot of interesting things there

083including watching a virtual oil change um in the room. There were there was some electric work and there was a body I remember where they were yeah they were doing the EMS and the yeah and the presentations for life-saving measures. It was quite interesting. Um the dinner was phenomenal. was prepared by the students and it was like CIA worthy. It was fantastic. Judy, I was also at the Bose's budget presentation and dinner and to echo what my other fellow board member said, the students very impressive the the presentation they served. I mean, it was just it was really very impressive. Um, I was able to attend Modified Track Me. And I bring that up because I got to give those two coaches a lot of credit. They corral these middle school kids who are like

084little hyenas all over the the track and they do a great job. Um, and then I was able to attend all four performances of the musical, two of them backstage to help out. And it was a long weekend, but again, it was great. The kids did a great job. And I did get to talk to some of the women who um actually made some of those dresses and they they revealed their secrets. They did and they made them themselves. I was so impressed by that. Yeah. So, we have some very talented people um helping out behind the scenes as well as the staff and teachers and students who are, you know, up on the stage. Great job. Great. I also went to the CEK dinner. We're volunteers, so if somebody hands out food, we're going.

085Went to the play. It was great. Every every year it's like you sit there and you have to remind yourself that they're high school kids. Just phenomenal job. And I also took uh coach Stoddard up on his invite to go see a lacrosse game. So that was very exciting as well for their home opener. So it's good. All right. Next, we're going to move on to uh public comment. Jane, if you want to start us. Sure. Uh we're about to begin the public comment portion of our meeting. We encourage public comment because it's important for us to hear the concerns of community members. However, um please be advised that public comment is not designated as a discussion. The board is here to listen and if warranted, the board or a designated staff member will research

086your concerns and respond accordingly. We also like to point out that under district policy, we cannot entertain any comments or questions about any particular student or employee either by name or implic implication. Please know, however, that we take student and personnel concerns very seriously. And on these matters, we ask that you follow appropriate administrative channels as outlined in our district policies. Um, we will now entertain public comment. Uh each individual speaker is allotted four minutes and Katie will be timing. All right, great. Thank you. All right, we're going to start with Mrs. Palanco. Good evening, Valley Central board members and staff. My name is Jay Deise Palano. I am a parent of a sophomore, a fifth grader, and a UPK student. As you know, I sent an email to the board on April 3rd to

087provide some insight into what is transpiring with our FCCLA class. I am here today to seek your support regarding the funding for the FCCLA National Competition. Unfortunately, the school district did not effectively communicate to parents that attending the national competition will be a financial obligation on the parents and that it would not be a Valley Central supported academic event. We are only receiving this information now after the competition which took place on March 26 to the 28th, leaving us with insufficient time to fund raise for such an important event. This last minute decision places an unnecessary burden on both parents and students, adding stress that they do not deserve. Instead of focusing on improving their projects and addressing any issues, they are now left wondering about financial constraints. Valley Central has lost the trust of

088our students due to the miscommunication surrounding this process and there has been a lack of transparency throughout. We should be focusing on empowering our students academically and investing in their learning experience. Unfortunately, this situation has caused my daughter to lose faith in our school district. I would like to remind the school district that we are a title one school, which means that we have a significant number of lowincome families in our district. Imposing a financial burden on our students and their family exacerbates the situation. Furthermore, this decision risk creating a divide between those who can afford to attend national competition and those who cannot. This approach runs counter to our strategic plan. To quote priority one, we will equip students with the necessary tools, resources to support to achieve academic success and provide equitable opportunities

089for choice and fulfillment. I would like to emphasize the word equitable in this context which means fair and impartial. In this c crucial time, we ensure students the opportunity to participate in a meaningful experience without facing financial burden. I urge the board to reconsider the funding for the FCCLA national competition to uphold the principle of equity and support for all our students. I also want to add that uh FCCLA does need a respond by Wednesday of who's going to attend. Um Valley Central did have a significant amount of students that place for nationals. If some of us aren't able to attend, we have to give uh you know the opportunity for our alternate to attend and as well I wouldn't want to impose this type of burden that we are being imposed of now. Thank

090you for your time. Okay. Thank you. Uh next is M uh Mrs. Nes. business news. Good evening, members of the board. My name is Jalissa Neves, and I come before you not just as a student, but as someone who deeply cares about family, career, and community leaders of America, FCCLA. I am here to express my disappointment and honestly my loss in faith in the decisions being made by our district administration. The Valley Central FCCLA class perfectly embodies the values of all three priorities outlined in the Valley Central strategic plan. FCCLA has changed my life in unimaginable ways. Without FCCLA, I would not be here speaking to you today. That is why it is difficult to understand why this class is being denied the opportunity to reach its full potential. It ex it is extremely difficult

091for me to see something I am so passionate about be shot down without a second look. This failure is happening because the future of our students is being placed in the hands of individuals who don't understand what CCLA is. The opportunity to send Valley Central to nationals was denied without a full understanding of Valley Central's positive impact on our students and community. Board members and administration were invited to attend the FCCLA showcase to learn more about FCCLA. Sadly, only two accepted the invitation. And those and to those two, I would like to say thank you for showing your support and attending the SECLA showcase. It did not go unnoticed. But this is more than just a missed trip. This is a missed opportunity to live out the district's mission and to show students that their

092hard work and leadership and excellence matters. I urge you to reflect on the trust that is being lost. Trust that takes years to build but can be broken in a moment. I hope you'll consider taking real steps to rebuilding that trust of 31 students. Not only are the members of FCCLA disappointed, but so is the entire Valley Central community. When I came back from states, I was met with overwhelming support and pride for my community. People were genuinely excited and proud of what we had accomplished. I was over the moon. I had just been accepted to nationals and earned a gold medal. It felt like a dream come true. I even dreamed about being there at nationals with the other 30 national qualifiers representing our school and our hard work on the national stage. Now

093it feels like that j that dream is being jinxed like the amazing opportunities we earned are slipping away but not because we didn't work hard but because we're being held back by the decisions made by administration. I I urge you to reflect on the trust that is being lost. trust that takes years to build but can be broken in a moment. I hope you will consider taking part. There's so much more that I could say, but I want to thank you for your time and for listening. I truly hope you take our voices and our futures into consideration. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, next is Becky Pearson. Thank you for having us. Um, I want to just say to start what a great uh program on the trout. It was awesome. Walden Elementary did a

094great job and I always say that Walden has impartial has some of the best teachers in the district. Um, I understand their dilemma with the school. Um, but a school doesn't make a great teacher. a teacher and their dedication can teach anywhere and that's what makes them great. Um, I don't know if you're voting tonight. I'm here for that for Valley Central uh for Walden Elementary School. Um, I read in the newspaper about a new site and a new building. I didn't know that you had gotten that far and you had all the answers that you needed for everything that was before you. Um, so I know you won't answer me. I just wondered if there's going to be a vote tonight. Um, and what are you voting on? Are you voting on a building?

095Are you building on selling a building, demolishing a building, keeping a building? Are you voting on how much it's going to cost? Are you voting on whether the school is going to stay in the village center or not? Because I don't know if the paper had the the right information. I don't know. I just read the paper. I was at I couldn't be here at the last meeting. I'm sorry. Um I tried to be here. I was at my own meeting. So, um how much is being spent on the property? Where is the property? Um, is the property in the 800 thou 80 $80 million? I don't think it was. Um, is that $80 million still going to stand because of tariffs and what's going on in in Washington and money? And well, and that

096was last year's amount. What's going to be two, three years down the road when you decide you're going to build this or going to have it built? And I don't know your time frame. So, what is your time frame? Um, are there any real numbers for the project? I know we've talked about many different things. I read the whole proposal for you, but I don't know if there's any real numbers for anything. And I don't know how you can put something up to a vote for the public if that's going to happen this term. I'm not sure this vote. If you do, how is the public going to know how much you're spending and what they're paying for um their tax dollars? What will that go for? Um is there going to be extra busing?

097I mean, if you take the village the school out of the village, are the buses going to go up the village streets? Are they going to be picking up the five and 10 year olds in a certain space? Are they going to be It's a little different than middle school and high school because they're small. And where are you going to put them? Um, where are they going? Is every street going to be bust? And do you have the money for the busing in this proposal as well? The extra busing that's going to have to happen. Um, what will the name of it be? It won't be in Walden anymore. If you're taking it out of there, uh it can't be Walden. Is do you have a name picked out for it? Um if you're

098not keeping the school, um who's going to maintain it? Uh are you going to sell it? And I said, if you're going to keep it, who maintains it? And what will you use it for? Um how can any as I said before, how can anyone vote on as a public, as a taxpayer, how can I vote on something that you're going to put out there without knowing what you're what you're proposing the plan? I don't feel a plan is I haven't heard a whole plan and I don't know if there is one. Um we will make a ghost town of Walden and I'm sad for that. My heart is actually breaking if you're going to move. Um we will lose our sense of community and we will lose all those projects that we just saw

099come out of Walden. And I get it and I understand. I'm sorry but be emotional. It's been a long time that school has been there. I went there. My parents went there. My kids went there. It is a I get where the teachers are coming from and I understand the process that you need to go through. I understand it. But we will become a community that nobody wants to come to. So thank you. Thank you. Uh next is Cheryl Baker. All right. Next is Mariela Matise. Hi everybody. So, I'm a little wowed by the time frame. I mean, I know government moves slowly. I've been in government for 20 years, so and maybe that is moving slowly, but to see how long it takes for a project to be proposed, to be approved by the

100state, which local government really doesn't have to do, but school district does. and then the time frame involved to get it off the drawing board and actually make a project happen. It It's pretty overwhelming to me. You're talking like a two-year time frame for just to pave a parking lot, which is kind of crazy, but that's reality. Um, so when we're talking too about revamping or putting a up a new school, we're really talking about a much longer time frame than that, aren't we? Probably four or five years. So, that's really a long way out. I was glad to see the comments um about the um finishing the projects in Walden because some of them really needed to be done and that's been a concern of everybody in the village for a long time and

101I know it's been a concern of the board. Um I'm just going to I'm not going to read any of them but uh the Walke Valley Times posted their article online on Facebook. I don't know how many people follow Facebook, but to me it's the morning newspaper in Walden because we have no newspaper. So, I'd always check Facebook. What's going on today? What's happening this week? And somebody reposted the article and there were 40 comments under that posting. Um, some are positive, some are negative, some are, you know, gee whiz, what's been happening? And of course 40 people didn't show up, but 40 comments were online about the school and and good a lot of good legitimate comments. So I don't know if you can access the site I it was a friend site that

102I saw. So um people are out there and they are talking about it. I'm just want you to know too that I don't just I'm haven't really come to board meetings, but it's not that I haven't been involved with school. I mean, I had done history club with Nancy Phillips for what 15 years, maybe more. I can't even count anymore. Um, since I've been involved in women's club, which is since 2003, but I know that they probably did it 20 or 30 years even before that when Gian Gidley was the art teacher. So, that goes way way back. Um we've been doing the student art contest and I have work to bring to the state contest at the end of this month. Um since 2009 20 thou around 2009 I started the youth community service

103awards for based on children in valley central high school and so every year we give out three awards and consist pretty consistently we've won at the state level. I did enter a project again this year. I don't know and no guarantee that we'll win but um people in the community have been involved with schools for a long time and so we do care greatly about it even though my son graduated in 1988 so my intimate association with the school is a long time ago but you know George the trout project is great and I don't know if there is any validity to it but you know the house on the corner of walnut and maple There's always been this talk that there was a diversion like a stream running through the basement and that somebody

104in that house used to raise fish. I haven't been in that basement. Me neither have I, but it is a Walden legend. So there you go. Nice to see you picking up on it. Thank you. Thank you. All right. So, next on the agenda is the future of Walden. Before we go into that, I just want to pump the brakes here just for a second talking about busing and buildings and all this stuff. So, I just want to clarify what's going to happen when a decision is made regarding Walden. That's the first step. That's to send the information to the state for approval. So, the the public is not going to vote until at least a year after that. So, I know you mentioned how long things take. I mean, the the children we're talking

105about are in diapers right now are not even born that this will impact. So, to be talking about buses and futures of buildings and and votes and stuff, we're not there yet. Okay? We're at we're at step one or or maybe we're approaching step one, but step one is getting it to the state for approval. And that's where the final cost and all that other stuff comes into play. So, I just want to clarify. Let's pump pump the brakes just a little bit and just understand that. Okay. All right. Uh so we are going to talk about the future of Walden and um we did have a round table last time and and uh board members had an opportunity to talk. Angela was not able to be with us. So Angela, I do want to

106give you the opportunity to um you know talk about the information you received and and so on. Yep. Okay. Thank you. Uh yeah, thank you. Due to illness, I was not able to attend at the last board meeting. Uh I would like to first thank I'd like to first like to thank the Walden Planning Committee for all their hard work and input. Uh I moved into the district in 2005 and in 2012 I had the privilege of being introduced to East Coltonham Elementary under the leadership of Mr. Heidman. Fast forward to to 2022 where as a first year board member, I visited Walden Elementary as my first site visit alongside Mr. Heidman again. remember that I spent about three hours there that day and I was supposed to go back to work and I didn't

107um be and I I met the incredible teachers. I um and you know and he was just spoke uh so proudly about the staff of Walden. Um but he also expressed significant concerns regarding the state of the building itself. That was my first real introduction to what was going on. As I approach my decision as both a as both a taxpayer in a district and an educator of over 20 years of experience, I know that Walden Elementary is a major major issue. But in my view, it is also symptomatic of a much larger concern. The aging infrastructure of our district's buildings, the influx of new housing developments, and the everinccreasing cost of constructing a single school all require careful consideration. These challenges are further compounded by the changing landscape of education as reflected in NISD's

108blue ribbon commission of New York inspires also known as portrait of a graduate. This init this initiative is reimagining education where the concept of graduation extends beyond the four years of high school with graduation projects beginning as early as fourth grade as it was referenced during meetings that I attended both at the Rick and at Duchess Boseies. In light of these evolving educational standards, um we as board members have the fiscal responsibility to ensure that our decisions align with the need of our students and the future of Walden. It's essential that we address these infrastructure issues not just as isolated problems, but as part of a comprehensive approach to meeting the needs of our students, staff, and the broader community. So based on the information presented, I am advocating for an intermediate school model. Our

109elementary teachers are birth through Kc certified or K through six certified and having them in buildings where they can specialize in their craft would be beneficial for our students and prepare them for the New York Inspires and their innovative approach. Additionally, years from now, this approach could alleviate anticipated crowding at the high school by 2033 as referenced and the middle schools could take up some of that space if needed. Financially, this model offers significant savings from what I read over $30 million when compared to a single building. Having said that, we as a board function well and I value all your opinions and we all decisions big or small are based on majority. So, I will fully support wherever we go with this. In conclusion, change is hard and no one likes it. But with

110every decision, there are challenges. And I, as I like to remind my own students, that challenges often present us with opportunities. Let's embrace embrace this opportunity to shape a future that better serves our students and community as a whole and simultaneously being fiscally responsible. That is my statement. Thank you. All right. Any other comments from the board? Any any questions, comments? I guess I' I'd like to um bring up based on um Angela's comments and and I guess piggybacking on on yours, Joe, from the last meeting. Um I mean, you brought up an interesting point that there that the the difference between the two scenarios was potentially $30 million uh difference when you look at the financing involved. So, I was wondering if we could see what the cost to each the taxpayers would be

111um for the life of each one of those loans. And not only that, but not the whole cost to the taxpayers, but what would be to a a standard house like the simply put um for all whatever it would be 30 years, 20 years um and see those numbers side by side um because I think that might make a big difference um in where our decision comes. Um I think the other question I have is um as far as the intermediate model is concerned, can we have a preliminary conversation with SED to see um how that would they provide building aid for us to move to a an intermediate model or um how would that process work? Okay. Um, so are you changing your position? Yeah. Um, I'm not changing my statement from before, but

112you both brought up a few things that I hadn't thought about before and that's what this discussion is about, I thought. So, so you would like more information? Yes. Okay. All right. [Music] Um, okay. So, I think what we would do is we would Huh? No, we need to vote. So, what I'm going to propose is that we based on what I'm hearing, it sounds like we want more information. So, I'm going to do a vote of the board of who would like to gather more information before making a a decision on a new school or renovation at Walton. Okay. And then let's do that and then we can we're going to have to talk more like right now about that. Okay. All right. So, I'm going to ask for a motion to gather more

113information on an intermediate model uh within the district. Well, a comparison of the two is what I'm asking. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, let me get a motion on that. What kind of is it just for the building or all of the other extra costs that are involved? So, it would be for the intermediate model. What I want to do is get a vote on that and then after we have the vote, we will outline specifically what we're going to be asking for because they're going to need that. Okay. So, let me let me do a motion to gather more information on the intermediate model at Valley Central. I'll make a motion. Angela second. I'll second. Jane. All in favor? I I opposed you. Yeah. What' you say? Yes. Yes. Okay. Okay. So, 52 in favor

114of gathering more information. Okay. Now what we need to do is we need to outline for central office what information we want and then they will assess it come back to us with a date and then we'll consider that information. The only thing that I will say is um when that information comes back then we have to make a decision. Right. So, so this is where we need to get it all on the table of everything we want, right? And this is good. I'm not saying this is bad. This is what we're supposed to do, right? But at the same time, we don't want to, you know, keep keep going around and around. So, um, let's outline exactly what we're asking of them. Okay. So, I don't know who wants I'll go first. Okay. I'll

115go first. So, what I what I would like is I know we did t-shirt size estimates. I'm not sure if that was at, you know, 80% accuracy, 90 95. if we could um understand what they're at and and get to a higher level estimate of that also um the SED portion of it um you know 5 year 10 year 15 year as much information as we can get from them and then the other thing that um SUB approval if we wanted to reopen work and funding of that okay so there was a part of there was a question about funding for Maybrook because of the need to open or not open the school. So we need to understand what funding we would get. We opted to open new book. Okay. Um the other thing is

116I know in one of the presentations I don't remember which one it was but it was about enrollment and and future enrollment for the next 5 10 15 years if if we could gather that as well. So I feel like I like independently these things are great but I feel like the you know bundle can really paint a picture right so no I just want to ask clarifying but I'll wait till you finish because we have some clarifying questions. Sorry my mic isn't on. Um so th those are the things that uh jump out at me. So basically we did t-shirt right and and now we want actual as close as we can understand all the scenarios for the intermediate the reorg scenario reorg scenario including and excluding me broke yes so I just want

117to just be clear right because we did a couple scenarios for intermediate right we did where K3 would be at all of the elementary schools and then it would be four five then it would be a five six So, I just want to be clear on what exactly it is that you want so that we can do that. And and I will tell you there is some limitations on getting we may be able to get closer, but there are limitations because you do eventually have to present it to the state for them to give you the accurate numbers. Sure. And I think that's where the future enrollment comes into play for me is that that would help kind of projecting that. So for me, I'm talking K3 with a four through six intermediate. That's the

118one I'm referring to. I don't know if it in the annex of Berea. Annex of Berea. Is that what you guys are referring to? Yes. Jane. Jane. Yes. Yes. So, you're talking K through three and all elementary schools including Yes. And can we get one excluding May Brook? Yes. Can we do both? Yeah. Um, and then Jane already stated it, but I'll re I'll restate it for her. uh the costs simply put like for the 20 versus the 15 I think it was and and what those projections might look like and then I'll I'm going to pass it on Katie. Anything else that you were looking for? Um no. Okay, Jane. Um I think you've said everything. I just want I guess want to reiterate the what the SEB question is will they provide state

119funding for us to reorganize our district. So I can answer that. You can't answer that. So it is based on enrollment. You have to prove that you need to have a new if you're going to create a new building, right? that um and you're not closing another building and you're creating a brand new building, whether it's an annex or whatever kind of building, you have to show that you need or reopen a building, you need to have show that you have the enrollment that the existing buildings do not hold your existing enrollment in order to do that. So the answer is we would not get state aid for reorganization at this moment. No. Correct. Um I feel like we have explained it but obviously we have not explained it clear enough because there's a lot

120of questions left. Um, but also in in enrollment, they are going to look at your next five years only. And I asked Tom if he wants to confirm that, but they're even though we have a demographic report that shows enrollment 10 years out, they are only going to look at our five. And as I've said from the beginning, we do not have any uh project enrollment projection numbers that would, you know, satisfy that need for them to give us aid on reopening Maybrook Elementary School for uh elementary students or building um an addition onto let's just say Berea for an intermediate uh type of program. So then if we're not getting state aid for then then that needs to be included in the budget projection. So that's what I need to see. Right. No, which

121would be part of that estimated cost estimate that Joe's asking. Correct. Right. But I Right. But all of those that we saw included state aid. Right. But if we're really looking at apples to apples, it can't include the state aid. Right, Angela. Anything else? Okay. I mean, I have questions on costs, but I think that comes down the road once we figure out what direction we're going. So, for now, but is there a particular item of costs that you want to look at that we haven't mentioned already that we can make sure we have for you? Um, there are things I don't think we have answers to. There things like if we move from the existing building, what are we going to do with it? What's going to cost us? I don't think there's things

122we can answer yet. But in this model, we're not moving from the existing walls and building. Right. So that's why I'm saying we don't know which direction we're going. So I don't think question. Okay. So you I think F. I just wanted to ask as we're looking at we're looking at 430 versus 540. Those were the two options that we were given, but we haven't really discussed. Well, that's because we haven't discussed that the last time. The last vote was based on whether Well, I I think if we reached a point where we're voting to build a new Walden Elementary, then we would discuss the 430 to 540. But that also has monetary also, you know. Well, we do need to see those costs. I see what you're saying. what you're saying, Fran, because that's

123what we want to compare it to, right? So, I guess we need another cost alternative is for the two. I I don't know what you're talking about. We have a cost of building Walden at 430 or 540 if that's the direction we go. The intermediate model is not building that school. So, I'm not sure what you're looking for. No, I'm just wondering if the decision is going to be made. It sounds like people need to make their decision based on the costs. And is that cost going to be intermediate versus 540 or intermediate versus 430? I think it needs to be all three. Well, we ha we have the 430 and 540 already. We do have we already have that, but we don't have the 30-year um individual car like um more tax cost. I

124don't know. I'm not Yeah, we did. We had it at a board meeting. He presented that. It was like $300 a year for 30 years. We have it. We have it. We have it. Walden was you got to remember the uh the last estimates were t-shirt size. The first for Walden renovation and the new school were more I don't know if they were 100% but they were they were better than t-shirt sizes, right? They were more vetted than a t-shirt size. So, and if I'm wrong, tell me I'm wrong, but I feel like we have that information for the cost of Walden. Maybe what like what you said, we need it all in one package now. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think I think our spreadsheet that we have will get updated with actuals and and

125closer numbers and stuff like that. So, but uh Okay. So, you guys talk if you need further clarification, which CSR does. Go ahead. I just wanted to point out mentioned the um yeah okay that's good okay all right okay so we'll ask you to look at that give us a date of when we'll get it. When we get it, we'll process it and then after that it's decision. Okay. All right. Any other questions or comments on that? Everybody's good? Yes. All right. Very good. That's my agenda. All right. Next, we're going to move on to the adoption of the 2526 budget and approval of the property tax report card. Can I get a motion to adopt? Do you need to do anything? Do you have a presentation or anything? I do have a presentation. Okay.

126I will say it's it's exactly the same as the last one. However, it does include the simply put page if you Oh, perfect. Yeah, let's do that. Yeah, let's do that. And then uh we do need a roll call vote on the property tax. Okay. Are we? Uh yes. Thank you. So just in the essence of time tonight, um we are going to skip to what I believe is the only change in this presentation from the one that was uh presented at the last meeting. And we did receive the uh this is a new slide. So this just shows the difference between our tax levy limit at 5.1 and uh the proposed tax levy at 2.49. And uh here is that simply put uh page that we present every year. It was also well of

127course it'll be on the um the website but we will include this in the budget newsletter that goes out. So this is attempt to um kind of boil it down to the real world impact. Again this is an estimate based on full value. Uh this is not fair market value. This is full value. And so on the column on the left, which is a senior with star, um let's just keep that middle uh the middle row there. So if a senior with star has a house that has a full value of $300,000, the estimated monthly impact is $642 or 77 for the year. Moving to the right, this would be a non senior uh homeowner with star at $88 a month and uh 97 for the year. And then uh moving to the right columns

128would be no star non- primary residence at $9 a month uh or $108 for the year. And I am just going to skim through this to make sure that there's nothing else that slipped in. Uh at the last meeting, the board did approve the additional proposition. This is a summary of that resolution. So this year, uh voters will vote on the annual school budget. Uh three board of education seats as well as a capital project. Um the scope is uh exactly the same as we've talked about. Uh board of education candidates will have some information on that. uh later in the agenda. And as a reminder for everybody, um Tuesday, May 20th at the high school, 6:00 am to 9:00 pm. So I think that's a new record. Any questions for us? Very good, Brad.

129Okay. Thank you. You're so good to us, Brad. All right. So I'll Who's going to do You'll do the roll call, Brad. Sure. All right. Is there a motion? I'm sorry. Who had the second? Katie. Oh, Katie. All right. Miss Mcnite. Yes. Miss Messing. Yes. Miss Fox Bonia. Yes. Mr. Raore. Yes. Miss Samson. Yes. Miss Taboro. Yes. And Mr. President. Mr. Bond. Yes. Okay. Now it is official. Motion. Motion passes. 70. Thank you very much. And uh thank you. Appreciate it. And uh now we start sharing with the public and we'll see you at the ballots on May 20th. So thanks. Great. Moving on to new business. Can I get a motion for the approval of branching minds proposal? Diana second. Fran. All in favor? Opposed? 70. Thank you. Approval of textbook adoption high school

130college math. Angela. Angela. Second. Jane. Jane. All in favor. Opposed. 70. Thank you. Approval of agreement with the center for discovery 2526. Can I get a motion? Fran. Second. Diana. Diana. All in favor? Opposed? 70. Thank you. Motion approval CSR water study proposal for Bria Elementary School. Can I get a motion for approval? Katie second. Fran. All in favor? Opposed? 70. Thank you. Adoption of resolution purchase of HVAC controls from Seammens through the General Service Administration. Can I get a motion to adopt? Angela. Angela. Second. Katie. Katie. All in favor? Opposed? 70. Thank you. Approval of contract for the 2023 capital project phase one. Motion to approve. Diana. Diana second Fran all in favor. Oppos 70. Thank you. Motion to approve contracts 2022 capital project phase 2. Fran second. Katie. Katie. All in favor? Opposed.

13170. Thank you. Uh the approval of bid recommendation for 24 capital project electrical construction. Motion to approve. Angela. Angela. Second. Jane. Jane. All in favor. Just want to be very clear. This is electrical and plumbing. Vectoral and plumbing. All in favor? Opposed? 70. Thank you. Adoption of the municipal cooperation resolution New York liquid and New York cooperative merged. Can I get a motion to adopt Fran? Second. Diana. All in favor? Opposed? 70. Thank you. Take note. review of curriculum is available at central office and you'll have some electronic stuff as well. Um and next we're going to move on to review procedure for candidate placement on ballot. Okay. So, as a reminder, um, petitions are due to the district clerk no later than April 21st at 5:'lock p.m. The following morning on April 22nd at

1329:00 a.m., there will be a drawing held here in central office, and those that are interested are welcome to attend. April 21st is a Monday, right? Correct. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Ellen's going to be here. Ellen's a trooper. All right. Okay. Uh, that was the last item on the agenda. Any walk-ons? No. All right, Greg and Paul, thank you for being with us. I'm going to take a motion to adjourn at 8:45. Katie. Katie. Second. Fran. All in favor? Oppos? 70. Thank you very much.