001You had two. So that's really Yeah. All right. Going to make a motion to come out of executive session at 6:35. Katie second. All in favor? I. 6. Thank you. Now call to order the regular board of ed meeting for March 25th at 6:36. And we're going to begin with the pledge, please. Alian to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God, indivisible, liberty and justice for all. Okay. Uh, some housekeeping items. Please take note of the emergency exits on the side and behind you. There's no smoking anywhere on school property. And if you're planning to address the board, please sign in on the sheet provided. This meeting is being streamed on our district YouTube page. I'm going to jump in and we'll begin
002with correspondence. So, we are in for a treat this coming week and this weekend. On March 28th, 29th, and March 30th, Valley Central High School will be performing the presentation of Cinderella. So, I hope you all can attend. Really excited about um being part of that performance and just want to tell the students um about how happy and proud I am of them. Um they've done a lot of hard work, a lot of practices, and kudos to them. You said you're a part of it. Are you in it? I'm not in it. Not that way. kind of pardon it because I I know what they're doing. No. At Berea Elementary School, dear graduation is happening on April 25th at 11:00 a.m. Okay. Commendations. I am pleased to announce the valictorian and Salaran of the class
003of 2025. The valictorian is Patricia Montero and the Salatoran is Amelia Krauss. Congratulations to both of them. Was that the ceremony for them? They were a little bit surprised and their parents were extremely happy to be there. This is an exciting and happy moment for the high school to identify and recognize these great students who are doing so well. Let's give them a round of applause. Some honorable mentions. Um the high school middle school uh pop concert happened on March 13th. Montgomery Elementary School's dare graduation happened on March 20th. Walden Elementary School's community reader day was March 21st. Was happy to read to a wonderful kindergarten class, Miss Fenny's class. East Coldenham Elementary drama production, Willy Wonka Jr. happened on March 20th and 21st. All right. Thank you. Next, we'll move on to the proposed
004consent agenda. Can I get a motion to approve? Katie. Katie. Second. Diana. All in favor? I Post 6. Thank you. Next, we'll move on to reports. Superintendent. So, I had the opportunity to continue our um academic site visit. In fact, today I had the pleasure of being with two board members. We visited ALC and also um the middle school. Had an opportunity to go in classrooms and see students and just really um enjoy what's happening in our schools. at the middle school pop concert. Um I attended for a brief moment, was able to do that and also the presentation at EC with Willy Wonker. Our children are so talented. Um sometimes I really feel I know they're little but I'm out at Broadway with the way that they um are so invested in acting um
005and singing and just performing and they just love it. So I hope they I tell them all the time to continue and hope to see them on the stage when they get to high school. And I also attended the Montgomery DARE graduation on March 20th. And this past Saturday, we had our first recruitment fair. I know Mr. Tolantino is going to talk about it, but I do want to say a special thanks to all of the administrators, central office staff that attended, our clerical staff that attended, and our teachers. There were teachers there as well, and board members came to visit. Um, it was over 188 people that attended our our fair. And what that says is a lot of them came for this community that Valley Central is very valued and people really want
006to be here and they understand that this is a special place and it's it's an honor to be working at Valley Central. So I just want to thank the community as well as everyone who attended and a special thanks to Mr. Tolantino for organizing our first fair. It'll be the one of many. Okay, great. Next we'll move on to the assistant superintendent for business. Nothing for me tonight. Save it for later. All right. Assistant superintendent for curriculum construction. Okay. Um so we had our DEI committee meeting on March 11th. We also had um I participated in the SEAL pilot committee where we had a presentation for two uh possible pilots using and utilized our evaluation tool to support our decisions moving forward. Our professional learning comm community um committee met also last week on Thursday
007and I attended with central office staff and some board members the Willie Wonka Jr. production at East Coldenham. The students did an amazing job. It was a really great production to view. I also attended Walden to read to Miss Moore's first grade class. That was very exciting. And uh visited classrooms at Montgomery who were celebrating kings and queens end of unit uh for our CK at CKLA for CKLA end of unit where we all dressed up as royalty, myself included. Uh just kind of going in saying hello to our students that were all dressed as princes and princesses and kings and queens and knights and dragons. Um and they were and they were having their festivities. It was it was a really fun activity. Um I am presenting tonight on CKLA. So I will do
008that now as well. Yeah. [Music] Little hard to see. Um, I'll go this [Music] way. Okay. Um, so I have been talking a lot about our amplify CKLA, our core knowledge language language arts pilot program that we've piloted this year for literacy. So I just wanted to take the opportunity to also just give a little bit more information on the pilot as well as the feedback that we have received from our parents, our students and our staff members which we have some pilot teachers in the room here tonight. So amplify CKLA is a comprehensive literacy suite right um it speaks about it includes assessment in direct instruction and explicit instruction for our for our teachers and students practice as well as intervention. So some of those things include but are not limited to our MClass
009dibbles which is our which is an assessment that is looking at the literacy skills of each of our students and it's in regards to that tier one instruction. So amplify being your core instruction for tier one meaning that it's for all students at their grade level. Then you're looking at at tier 2 interventions and that MTSS block and really looking at what are those targeted interventions? how are we utilizing the the curriculum but also to target students where they are and Amplify offers boost reading which our students did have access to this year and that's a more personalized path to meet them where they are to support some of those skills and teachers also have the opportunity to meet with students individually or pair them within groups as part of the program. So why do
010we have to even pilot CKLA to begin with? So last year we started with approximately four five programs that were presented to the ELA committee in for the elementary school for the elementary school grades K through five and we landed on onto either HMH into reading or amplify CKLA. The reason that we were in we were introducing a pilot program was because there was feedback from our community about needing a more structured approach to literacy which while also looking at our our data and um noticing that our literacy scores are much lower than they have been in the past and we're continue to see a slight decline. That's also coupled with the leg state legislator with state legislation from the governor, excuse me, from the governor in New York State in regards to our literacy
011briefs that are now in place and back to basics plan from Governor Hokll requiring that our that we attest that our literacy program is aligned to the science of reading. So science of reading meaning right that there's a word recognition language comprehension in order to gain meaningful reading. CQLA being one that is aligned to the research behind science of reading. We're gonna skip that. This slide simply gives you another view of that that skilled reading but also layering it with the composition and trans transcription of writing to give you the skilled writing on top of that. So CQLA is is really um aligned to K2 K and K2 they have a knowledge strand as well as a skill strand. Students are working on both sets of strands to begin to integrate as you move from
012learn uh reading to learn to I'm sorry learning to read to reading to learn in year 35. So in K2, you're really looking at language comprehension, which includes vocabulary, your sentences, your reasoning, your mental models, and your skills like ver word recognition, sounds, letters, so on and so forth, and increasing that strategically and automatically to get into your skilled reading in three through five, which is your integrated strand. So again, this is just another visual of how CQLA is broken up and the way that it is purposefully met within K2 and leading into 35. And once you get into 35 is where you're really looking at um making meaning of those complex of those complex texts again to transition from learning to read to reading to learn utilizing skills to build knowledge such as close
013reading unpacking complex text writing writing to evidence vocabulary to context response to text morphology grammar and spelling. What was very specific about CKLA and what we've noticed and some of the feedback as well is that their thematic units. So it yes it is a literacy based program and you think of English language arts and you're reading your text but that's layered with your science components as well as some of your your social studies as well. And so it builds upon itself each year. This year what we some of the challenges was that our students in third grade did not have TKLA in second grade. So some of those skills were missing and that's where we also began to see okay well we didn't currently have that in our in our literacy curriculum. So how do
014we continue to build upon that? Um CLA has mapped that out for our teachers and our and our community in regards to one the language arts and how that the through line is for K kindergarten through fifth grade but also in science and how they interlay science and social studies into those program as well. So if you see here, just because I know it's a little small. So those blue lines are now linking in the ELA standards as well as some science and social studies. So that it is not just an isolation the way that you would normally see it in an instructional. CQLA also has digital assessments built with within the program. So homegrown assessments anymore in regards to our and just at the K2 level, but assessments that go from kindergarten through fifth
015grade so that we are progress monitoring our students and that we are looking at that information to make instructional decisions. Again, kind of a one a one place to begin to look at at a one place suite so that you're getting a comprehensive view of a student in English language arts. I want to always preface that I tell all of my teachers that any program is not perfect. Right? And so although I'm speaking about the these components today, right, they're not going to give you every single piece of a student and that you still have to do your due diligence as an instructor to assess students, to make instructional decisions, to utilize that evidence to change lesson plans, so on and so forth, and differentiate for the students you have in front of you on
016that given day in that given year. So I just I want to preface with that and also include that in this presentation as we go through because some of the things are like, oh, it's all in one suite and that's great. Um but yes it is but it's not it is not meant to be the driver of all instructure all instruction and instructors also have to make their decisions and utilize the data to make evidence-based decisions. With that said it does help to aggregate that data and show some important displays for students within their suite so that teachers can look at that and begin to look at patterns and trends while they're making those day-to-day decisions. So, what do kids say about Amplify? So, I'm going to give a quick video, not too long because
017I know that we have a long night ahead of us. A quick video for what some students are saying and then I'll go into what VC students say. It works. [Music] It's basically a science with with other stuff and experiments in history and all of it's really cool. If I was able to describe in one word, it would be awesome. Awesome. Every day we do something different. Exquisite, educational, amazing. The best part is researching all of like all the adventures for me because I like to get to know them because usually a lot of people didn't like to do it all because we didn't know what a lot of people very different because we've had new textbooks that are very different from the old ones and they're full of great information. The favorite thing that
018I like about General Black is um that she led the French to justice. I would recommend CKLA to my friends cuz if they want to learn about different stuff like the Middle Ages which is like old like if they like castles and dragons and legends that's kind of what it's about except it's not [Music] Okay, so that was what the general public, right? A nice video from CKLA gave us in regards to what students are saying. But what are our students saying in three, we surveyed students in from first grade to fifth grade. But this slide, this presentation specifically speaks about the information that we got from the three through our third through fifth graders because they gave us the most information. Um 234 students participated in the survey and what they liked the most
019about CKLA were hands-on interactive elements. So to be clear, CKLA doesn't give you these hands-on interactive elements. When I met with the committee this morning, they were like that's not really part of the program. We made those decisions. But students were loving the end of unit assignments and activities such as Montgomery's Royal Ball, right? The Royal Ball was not part of the CKA curriculum and program, but the teachers had an opportunity that the students had just learned about kings and queens and things along those lines. And so they introduced that to the classroom, had festivities, had them dress up, and then kindergarteners danced with each other in a royal ball. Cutest thing ever. Um, in addition to that, there was a poetry slam and I believe Joan, was it fourth or fifth grade that did
020po poetry slams? Fifth fifth grade at Walden did a a poetry slam um at the end of their poetry unit. Another another grade level this morning was talking about how they did a Jeopardy at the end at the end of a unit. And so students were really loving that the ideas that were coming from our teachers in addition to what the program had to offer. They also specifically love those old times, right? Past civilizations, Aztec, Inca, the Maya, Roman empires, Greek myths, uh diverse topics that included solar system, the human body, animals, geology, and classic literature. Those are things that you tend to think about when you're thinking of social studies and science, but really embedded into your ELA curriculum. Read alouds, including partner and group activities, and new vocabulary with discovering interesting facts. So,
021some of the things I loved when I got to write my story got to write my stories and learning about the old times. I always I got really nervous when I saw that that that that quote because I was like like the 90s or but they were really talking about ancient times. Um I also like how fun they are and how we learned a lot in every lesson. I like learning about the stories of ancient Rome because I I like learning about history. So in regards to whether or not the students would recommend CKLA to other students in the district, 82% of the three through five, the third through fifth graders said that they would. 89% of our second graders and there were 52 responses there said they would recommend this program to other students
022and 87% of our first graders said that they would recommend it. some of the quotes. I think CKLA is a is a good program and other kids would like to use it. CLA is honestly really fun and unique and should be included more in our school curriculum. It helped me and my friend learn more. So I've spoken a lot about in regards to students uh but also we surveyed our pilot teachers and our pilot teachers are the ones implementing it and if we move forward with um with adoption of this program at districtwide is where we'll have our student our teachers will have to also implement as well some of the helpful as aspects of CQLA the clear and explic explicit teacher manuals they had structure to lessons and and streamlining those lessons pre-made slides
023a lot of the things that um and comments that were made from the committee is that there's a a form of common language that is now being used across the district. Right? So when you're when you're utilizing the program, if you're in third grade, you you're saying the same things and students are being exposed to the same curriculum in a slightly different way that we currently have with literacy collaborative. Although there's structure in literacy collaborative, there's a lot more autonomy and so they were making different instructional decisions. And so we could see something completely different in one class versus the other. Materials being all in one place. Grammar, instruction, spelling, and writing and and writing and comprehension integrated into a single into a single program. The MClass and Boost are a great program that align
024to specific skills that students are struggling with. And because those manuals are so explicit, when it comes down to sub or coverage, it's a lot easier to leave some of those plans for subs for subs or coverage because the slides are there and there's a manual that will say this is what you this is how you should do this. This is what you should say. As you get more in tuned with the program, you know that you're not just reading from a manual, and that's not effective instruction, but it's very helpful when you need coverage and there's a lesson plan that's needed so that your students stay on pace. So we'll I'll highlight some of the quotes as well here. The quotes include from and this is specifically from our pilot teachers. Um vocabulary is
025one particular area where students scores on the NWA were going up. Vocabulary has improved. Comprehension strategy and strategies have also improved. Students are blending words and reading. Students can decode words, read and write decodable words. Students of all reading levels are able to participate and improved conventions of writing reading and reading more independently able to and they're able to find evidence in text. So I don't have included on the on um this presentation but I did want to share some feedback from parents as well. We had 65 parents that responded to our CQLA feedback form and parents included uh notes about seeing significant improvement in their child's reading comprehension, phonics, and vocabulary acquisition. A few responses indicated that while CKLA is beneficial, it is a lot of work and has and some students do find
026it challenging. Not that they can't raise to the challenge, but that it is that it can be challenging and that it does take time to learn. A few parents commented on their child's increased confidence and engage an engagement in literacy activities. Of the pilot teachers uh that took the survey, 81% of them have recommended this program for the district. So if you have any questions, please let me know and if anything, I will get back to you as well. Yeah. Thank you. Are there gonna be any new or different benchmarks either now or in the future? Are there going to be any new or different benchmarks either now or in the future depending on roll out of this for the effect effectiveness of the new program? When you say benchmarks, do you mean within the
027program or um yeah, within the program or just ones that we've been using? Is are we going to be continue to use the same? Um so FNP has uh uses their bench FMP benchmarks though those would phase out but um CLA offers Dibbles benchmarks and so that with MClass and that offers progress monitoring and intervention so that you can so that you're able to then identify where students are and student achievement. In addition to that we utilize our diagnostic data that's three times a year. So NWA currently and that also helps to then say okay how are students on grade level in the beginning of the year middle of year and end of year I will say um and we did look at p at information the data for pilot students versus non-pilot students at
028midy year um without having end of year it's hard it's hard to give a full picture but four out of the out of the six grade levels had shown increase for pilot students compared to non-pilot students. uh it's hard to include kindergarten because kindergarten doesn't doesn't have beginning of year. So, but that's preliminary data and I can get more information uh come June. Okay. Thank you. You want to add talking about I Ready as well. Yes. The question. Um so, Prince I Ready is definitely something we're exploring. I Ready was a so we currently use NW NWA maps for our diagnostic assessments. We've tak this year we've taken a deep dive into that data so that we can begin to look at how is the data informing our instruction and how are we using that
029data to form groups identify students priority students AIS students and try and use that as one measure of data so that um we're meeting students where they are with that said I think it unveiled some challenges on how to dive into that data as well as how to access that data and make of in the- moment instructional decisions with strategies that are available to to teachers. Last year we piloted I Ready in our before and after school program and had some really great reviews from our teachers. And so we are exploring possibly transitioning to I Ready for a diagnostic because it comes with that personalized instructional arm which is adaptive the similar to boost reading that allows once you take that diagnostic it places you a student onto an individualized personalized path and then um
030based on their needs. So it's completely different than the child that's sitting next to them and fills in some of those gaps that may not that you may not get in tier one instruction because there may not be on grade level and they may not be ready for that. And so that is something that we're exploring. Next tomorrow you will be receiving an memo from myself all staff. That memo did go out to principles today. Any other questions? No. All right. Thank you very much. Thank you. You want to stay there or you want to take a break? Do I want to state? I'm Okay, never mind. Go ahead. No, Brad is up next. I thought she was doing another presentation. All right, we're going to move on to the assistant superintendent for human resources.
031Good evening, everyone. On tonight's agenda, we have two new teachers who we are welcoming to Valley Central as well as one new school nurse. Our first job fair was held this past Saturday at Berea. I'd like to thank all of the Valley Central administrators, teachers, and administrative staff that volunteered and came out to assist at our event. We had close to 200 attendees and several promising candidates for our open positions, including multiple teachers, paraprofessional, and clerical candidates. There was a fantastic turnout from prospective teachers uh who attend our local universities especially Sunni news uh as well as veteran teachers who are employed by surrounding districts. Uh as our superintendent mentioned we also had a large turnout from the community interested in support positions around the district. So it was great to see that. We look
032forward to further interviews with those successful candidates coming soon. Had the pleasure of attending East Coldenham's Willy Wonka Jr. musical play. I was really impressed by the musical and acting abilities of our students at EC. So, I'd like to send a shout out to the EC community for their efforts there. I also had the pleasure of attending Montgomery's DARE graduation last week and thoroughly enjoyed watching how excited our students were uh in receiving their DARE graduation materials. Finally, thank you to the second grade students in Miss Uzenski's class at Walden for allowing me to visit their classroom last week and read to them on community reader day. I had a great time and enjoyed speaking with them. So, that's my report. Thank you. All right. Next, we're going to move on to the Parent Square
033communications presentation. Hi everyone. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Aaron Johnson. I am the public information specialist for Valley Central School District and I'm here today to talk to you a little bit about moving to Parent Square and how it's transforming communications for our school district. So what is Parent Square? Parent Square is a uniform platform that improves school-to-home communication by providing a central hub for schools to communicate with not only families but with each other. So why do we move to parent square? Well, it supports our strategic plan uh which priority number three is clear and transparent communication. And beyond that, we had said that one of our pathways to success in pursuit of the strategic plan priority was to select and implement a platform that supports external communications.
034So, parent square is really great at breaking down communication silos. So it promotes internal communication by supporting uh effective collaboration across teams or departments. It simplifies the exchange of messages between administration and staff. It allows say a fourth grade cohort to be created across all of our different elementary schools. That's just one example where they can create a group and share best practices, uh share materials, talk to each other. It also promotes external communication. It allows seamless communication with parents and guardians, middle and high school students, which will come a little bit later in our roll out, and community members. Um, it also allows us to create community groups in which we can have non-parents uh that would also like to receive notifications of like say our school closings or delays due to weather. So,
035an example of a community group that would really appreciate that would be like our UPK pro providers. um they like to know when we're closed so that they can make those decisions for their students as well. Um it's also really will also be really great for athletics and extracurricular activities. We got some really great feedback that during our senior trip, the chaperons were able to create a group for all of those students and provide momentto- moment updates for those parents like, "Hey, we're getting you ready to board the plane. we've just landed all the things that you know parents want to know to make them feel more comfortable when their students have left the state without them. Um so it also really supports accessible and transparent communication which is incredibly important. So for accessibility, it
036allows trans two-way translation in over a hundred different languages and that is done through uh the setting of uh preferences in the app. It promotes ADA compliance by encouraging the use of alt text for photos. So for those of you who don't know, alt text is what screen readers use to read what is happening in the photos. So somebody with uh visual impairment can get a sense of what that photo is in context with the words around it. It's also legally required. Um it also replaces it will also replace other apps so that there is one unified communication platform that is going to be used districtwide. This will cut down on a lot of having to look and check different apps for different information from different schools. Um, it's also wonderful that the app works
037during power outages or internet out outages as long as there is cell service, which will come in handy should that happen. Uh, for transparency, it offers communication tools that support many different needs. So, it offers the opportunity to create posts, which is basically group messages. Um, and participants can comment and appreciate those posts. Kind of similar to what you would see on social media, like give it a little heart if you like it. Um, direct messages encourage two-way dialogue. Smart alerts relay important but not urgent information very quickly. And urgent alerts allow critical information to be delivered quickly in real time real time by phone call, text, and email simultaneously, ensuring that if there's ever an emergency, parents are going to get that notification across all different areas immediately. Um, it also allows us to
038create targeted messages by group, class, grade, or school to ensure that messages are helpful and relevant. So, for example, if you have a message that you need to send out that parents need to pick up their caps and gowns for their graduating seniors, our principal can send out a message specifically to our 12th grade students. Meaning, everyone in grade 9 through, you know, 11th don't have to get that message because it doesn't pertain to them. So, this means that parents can count on messages that are more tailored to their needs. And we we anticipate that this will increase engagement with our messaging automated automated attendance. So automated attendance messages provide timely notifications to parents and guardians about absences and parties. And um so the one good thing that this this platform does is it enables
039um the staff previously had to manually upload reports in school messenger which caused a little bit of a delay in those messages going out. This system allows those messages uh for goes that uh that need to upload reports and so those messages can go out in a more timely manner. It also makes it easier for parents and guardians to provide a note about their child's absence. So in the app or text message or email, there will be a link that you can it says click here and you can provide a note. So you can just easily say hey my child was out because they were sick today. So user control preferences are probably one of the best features about this platform in that users have the power to to basically determine how they want to
040receive their messages. They can res receive any non-urgent messages either in real time or they can select daily dry address. What that means is that it will store up any messages received throughout the day and instead of getting five messages from different principles or teachers throughout the course of the day, it'll store them up and at 6 p.m. you'll get one message, one digest of all of those messages. Now, it's important to note that any urgent messages will still be received in real time. So this really should help reduce you know fatigue with getting so many messages at once. So that is definitely one of the benefits of this platform. So another interesting feature is that it has engagement tracking right. So our admin dashboard we can see like how many people are commenting appreciating
041posts um using the other features in the platform like RSVPs or using direct messages. So over time, we should be able to see how our users are interacting with the platform and hopefully see how we're doing and improve if if needed. It also allows us to provide needed quality control. And so we were able to create templates for our uh principal thoughtful Thursday emails that go out every Thursday with the school's colors and logos creating branding for our district. and also admitt admins can can review all the messages that go out and ensure that there's consistent communication uh across the district. Um it also encourages linking back to our website which is what we want because we want people to see our website as the primary source of information for our school. And that's pretty
042much it. Um any questions? It's um it's partially rolled out at this point. Yes. So we have started we basically have parents uh are allowed to use it right now but only a small group of teachers have agreed to pilot the program. And so we're getting ready to train all of the teachers on it and then once we do then it can be rolled out fully uh districtwide. Great. Any other questions? How about sports? Are we going to use it for sports? Yes. Our goal is to try to get the coaches trained uh in the next couple of months for the following school year. And so this will be a great thing for sports. Uh they can set up groups by team. They can go as granular as sending messages, you know, only to their
043modified, only to their varsity, only to their JV or to all of them at once. Um, so that's not only going to be helpful in keeping the parents on the same page, but also the student athletes as well. Great. Sounds good. Any questions? So, I just want to add, um, so right now our athletic teams and parents are using Sports U until this is rolled out. This will be rolled out in September fully. So, we're in a transition going phase by phase and and making sure that everyone is comfortable to use it fully and then September we will switch over. So, just wanted to clarify that so everyone knew that it's not happening right away. Training will happen the rest of this year so that everyone is ready to make the the transition. Great. Thank
044you very much. Thank you. All right. Next, we'll move on to the social emotional learning committee. So I attended that meeting as was presented. Um it was a very interesting meeting several presentations ex explored the different components of each one of the curriculums and how it would be used um in the classroom. You know the different uh modalities and so the committee is really exploring it very thoroughly. No, nothing is being decided at this point and I believe there's more to review before we um move towards a decision. How about DEI? No. Anybody? Okay, we'll skip that. We'll do that next time. All right. Next, we'll move on to health and safety committee. That's joined by Chief Corner. Thank you. I'm not going to remember that. And the new chief in Walden, Chief Delicio. Um
045some of the notables from the meeting, uh any chaperones for field trips, we're going to start vetting them through visitor aware system. Um, and we are also going to have lockdown drill training for coaches and evening staff. It's already been done, you know, for the daily, but we're going to do it for evening as well. Um, that's it. All right. Next, we'll move on to community participation. Diana, start with you. Um, I was able to attend the East Coldenham play last week. It was very entertaining and the kids are very talented. Um, I also attended the valadictorian and the saludiatoran announcement at the high school. Um, I also did the community reader at Walden. I read to the fifth grade class and went to the tricky tray for the VCEF and I also attended the
046mock trial in Gan and that's very interesting if you haven't been there. Um the kids all come together from all over the county and they make that experience as authentic as possible where they even have real judges there and um the kids have to follow the very stringent court rules and the kids can object and the law the judge will rule sustain or um overrule with those and the kids have to think on their feet. Um, a lot of times they had to rephrase a question and it's a very difficult skill, but you know, they're working at it and getting better every year. I attended last year too and you can see that the progress that they made was really significant for this year. They did a great job. And today, um, I went to
047the ALC and visited a few classrooms and saw what was going on there. It was a great day. We saw a science lesson, ELA, Spanish, and math. That's it. That's it. That's all. Katie, we'll get used to it. Um on the 14th, I visited East Coldenheim Elementary. Um this principal was speaking a lot about team building, communication, collaboration amongst the staff and how that's been trickling down to the students. So, positive things happening in that school. I was able to observe a lesson using CCA CKLA and the students loved it. They loved to tell me all about it and how much they liked it and learning about different things. And um the teacher was able to use the program to simultaneously teach other skills in addition to what was going on in the lesson which
048was pretty cool. And I also got to see the new rock wall in the gym which was very impressive, very cool. And I believe the PTA raised the funds for that, right? Was PTA? I think so. Um the 21st I also read at Walden. I read to Mrs. Myers's first grade classroom. And on the 22nd, I did swing by the career fair. It was very well attended, seemingly quality candidates. There was a lot of excitement there. Um, so kudos to Ivan and all the staff who participated and facilitated that. Was great. That's it for me. Okay, Fran. Uh yes, I attended um sorry I attended the Valley Central Education Foundation Tricky Tree fundraiser but a huge success. Thank you for all that participated and donated and attended. It's always a fun event and proceeds will
049go towards teacher grants um throughout the year. And I also had the pleasure of attending the VC Jazz Band's performance up in Albany at the Empire State Plaza. I work up in Albany and I happened to be up there the day that they were playing and got to watch them during my time break and uh as always they were incredible. Thank you, Jane. Um I was uh able to catch the um Valley Central marching band in the um Gan parade. Goan uh Mid Hudson St. Patrick's Day parade that was in Gan. Um they they look great. They sounded great and it was great to see them out and entertaining the public. Um I also attended my um academic visit today at the middle school. um was able to see an um social studies class, a
050ELA class, and then my favorite, an art class. Um where the kids were trying out all sorts of different techniques with watercolors. So that was very, very interesting. Sarah, thank you. I was able to attend the valictorian and saludiatoran announcement at the high school. So congratulations to them. That's always exciting. Um, I got to see East Colden Ham's uh drama production of Willy Wonka, which was excellent, and the Montgomery Elementary School DAR graduation, which is always nice. Thank you. Thanks. I also attended the Valor saludiator announcement. That was great. And I had the opportunity to uh read to Mrs. Newman's and Mrs. Dan second grade class in Walden, the love monster. So, that was a lot of fun. Always a good time. That monster found love. All right. Next, we're going to move on to
051public comment. Uh Jane, you want to kick us off? [Music] We are about to begin um our public comment portion of our meeting. We encourage uh public comment because it's important for us to hear the concerns of community members. Please be advised that public comment is not designated to be a discussion. The board is here to listen and if warranted the board or a designated staff member will research your concerns and respond accordingly. We also like to point out that under district policy we cannot entertain any comments or questions about particular student or employees either by name or implication. Please know however that we take student and personnel concerns very seriously and on these matters we ask you follow appropriate administrative channels as outlined in the district policies. Uh we will now begin our public
052comment period and each speaker is allotted four minutes to share. Thank you. Okay. Thank you uh Mary. time. Does this work? Oh, yeah. Okay. Um, all right. I'm gonna read I'm not going to read word for word, but I'm gonna go fast. So, um, I'm not speaking for other people, although I know I'm not the only one who feels this way because of course I had a couple of proof readers, so they agreed with me. And I'm just, it's a complicated issue. We all understand that. Uh, there's no simple answer, but I'm just want to pick on a couple of points that sort of really either got to me or that I just kind of want to emphasize. Um the first one is was goes back to the beginning with the Walden committee and we
053repeatedly asked for who was on the committee, how could we communicate with the committee, what was the committee doing and we never got an answer and we never got an answer from a member who was on the committee and I just it still bothers me and it bothers a lot of people because we wanted to go into this thing knowing what was going on and that seemed to be like this big secret and it just didn't sit well. Um I have concerns about the consultants and the cost to the taxpayers. Um I was particularly concerned about the last meeting when um I don't know his name from CS Architect. He got up and said, "Well, I'm basing this on uh the old figures. I'm not basing it on changes in catchment areas." says, "Well, then
054why did we spend money, probably a week's worth of work with his firm to give us information that really can't move us forward because it's not based on what we might do." So, to me, that was like a waste of taxpayers money. Uh, Maybrook school back in play and actually that's welcome news and I think people in Morgan who have heard of it like the idea. Um, and we also want to hope that it's maybe taught the district a lesson not to really to not take our schools out of our neighborhoods, which is of course, you know, that's what we've been talking about in the village of Walden and that's what we've been communicating to you. I know the village board has sent you communications from the board resolutions as a whole. So, that should
055have some weight and I hope that it does when you start talking about what might happen in Walden. uh the building tours. We went on the first one, group of us, and we went on the last one. And by the time we went on the last one, I thought, "Oh my god, we better get out of here really fast because it's going to fall down around us." And partly what George, but [Music] um I just I think that people in Walden, myself included, we have a concern that and maybe it's just a perception uh that the building has not been wellmaintained or taken care of to the extent that it should have been. Um but there, you know, there's no point in going back to that. you have to go forward. The building is, I
056believe, structurally sound. That's what I've heard from all of you. And if we're going to use it, then let's use it. Let's do what needs to be done to it. It's that building is probably maybe better than this one. Who knows? It's built at a time when you just didn't build for things to last for 10 or 20 years. So, that was my take on that. And then the the issue of going out and trying to sell this plan and spending another $50,000 of taxpayers money to sell a plan that we don't even know we have yet or we don't even you you know keep the what that well that goes back to the last meeting when that was brought up. Um so I'm just uh I think that looking for more accountability in how
057the money is spent. I mean, I'm sure I could foil for it, but I think that it should be forthcoming. And I do want to leave you with this, and I do want to say it out loud. I'm sorry, but what's gone on at Walden Elementary really could be construed as demolition by neglect. All right. Next, we're going to move on to old business and it we're going to start with the future of Walden. Um, so I'm going to kick us off with a statement and then we'll go from there. So, first I want to thank everyone who's worked on this effort to date, the committee, the residents who spoke, just had one, took tours, attended meetings, and went to the town hall. Uh, it may seem like a long process, but we should recognize
058that more has been accomplished in the past year than ever before. There's a lot of information and things to consider, so we have to be diligent and can't rush into a decision. At the same time, we will not take any longer than necessary. The important thing to know is that when a decision is made, action will be taken to address the needs at Walden Elementary School. At the December 9th meeting, the board had a roundt discussion about the recommendations and different options. The board requested a lot of information. On March 10th, the information requested was presented to the board. Since then, we've had time to absorb the details. So, we'll have another round table discussion tonight, allowing each member to share their thoughts. I encourage everyone to listen carefully and be respectful of everyone's opinions.
059I'll get us started and then we'll go around with Diana and go around this way. Okay? So, I have a few pages, but it's big font and double spaced. So first I want to start with the disclaimer. Uh the exact amount of state aid available can change. So as I discuss cost, I want to note that I'm referring to total project costs before any aid is applied. Any other numbers I mentioned are based on estimates that were provided. So after consideration, I don't believe it makes sense to renovate or expand the existing Walden K through5 school in the village. At a price tag of 38 to 46 million, it's a lot of money for a school that still wouldn't meet requirements. For me, that leaves two options. Building a new Walden Elementary School at another
060location or adopting an intermediate model. The construction of a new K5 school in Walden is estimated to cost between 72 and $79 million. The intermediate model that I'm referring to is estimated at $73 million, similar in cost. The model would restructure our elementary schools to serve K through three with an intermediate school housing grades four through six. This model would involve reopening and renovating Neighbor Elementary School as K through three, reducing the students at Walden and renovating Walden Elementary as a K through three, reducing the students at Montgomery and East Coldenham to make them K through three, and repurposing Berea Elementary as an intermediate school with a 15 classroom addition serving grades four through six. The estimated cost to reopen and renovate both Mabbrook and Walden would be $47 million. Adding 15 classrooms to Berea
061would cost an estimated $26 million, bringing the total to that approximate $73 million. While this plan presents some hurdles, particularly regarding to state funding, it also offers the district long-term benefits. Both options come with a similar price tag, but we need to think strategically. If we focus solely on Walden now, how much more will we need to ask taxpayers to spend in the next five or 10 years to address our other schools? An intermediate model not only meets Walden's needs, but also accommodates future growth. We also need to look at the financial implications over time. Keep in mind that we do not get funding for ALC and Mabbrook. Now, even if we don't get funding right away for Mabbrook as a K through three, we should examine how long it would take to break even.
062If covering that gap over the period of time would save us millions in the long run, it's worth considering. We're asking our taxpayers to support a large investment, and we should try to address district-wide needs and the future. A new elementary school is estimated at an increase of $300 per year in taxes. So, a senior from this year's class of 2025 who bought a home back in our district would be paying for until they're in their 50s. Earlier, I said these options are starting in the $70 million range. A new Walden Elementary School would be paid for in 30 years for an estimated total payment of 130 to $139 million. A reorganization renovating Mabber Walden and adding on to Berea would be an estimated total payment of $102 million because renovations would be paid for
063in 15 years and the addition at Maria Intermediate would be paid for in 20 years. This option would be paid off 10 years earlier, which by itself is an estimated $30 million savings. Given the estimated cost and the district's needs, we should take a strategic approach and closely evaluate the actual cost of an intermediate model before committing to a new elementary school in Walker. Diana, is that on? Yeah, I'm just going to walk you through my thought process and coming to my decision. And Brad, thank you for helping me with my figures that I'm mentioning. I was a member of the Walden Building Committee from the start. As you know, the committee worked hard to gather information from the community, conduct tours, and to look at the options available to reimagine the school as it
064could best prepare its students for a bright and productive future. As a board member, I felt that it's my responsibility to consider the all the options that were recommended by the committee while also considering any and all other options that may best serve the entire district as well. My only priorities as a board member are and always will be considering the students, their families, faculty, and staff and the taxpayers of this district. So, my decision will be influenced by only these priorities. I carefully considered each of the many options that were presented by CS Arch. The renovation options of the current Walden Ele elementary elementary school had the lowest cost to taxpayers, including the additional costs of up to $2 million for the relocation expenses of students. Any renovation any renovation option fails to address
065some of the most significant issues and challenges such as a lack of parking, congestion, and the absence of green playground space. Also, the relocation of students for a time period of two years or longer is a detrimental disruption to our students, families, and staff that I cannot support. For these reasons, I do not believe we should put up to vote any of these renovation options, the renovation with an addition option or any new construction on the Walden Elementary site. The last two options that I consider next are the district-wide grade level reorganization with the Bria Annex and a new Walden Elementary building on a new site. The reorganization with the Bria Annex requires the reopening of the Map Brook Elementary School. Although I was interested in exploring this option, I have serious concerns regarding the
066meeting of the standards required by the state for reopening as well as the high cost taxpayers which would necessitate the tax cap to be pierced. Um, according to the budget estimate summary sheet, I looked at the numbers with the um the building aid um the cost of renovating Mayor Brick and Walden along with the construction of a Bria annex to accommodate the district-wide reorganization option. It would be similar to constructing a new Walden Elementary on a building site. Additionally, more renovations and the reorganization of elementary students across the entire district would cause even more disruption for our students with additional significant costs for relocating them. And the issues of parking congestion and the lack of playground space would remain unressed at Walden Elementary. I believe our children have suffered enough disruption in their lives during
067and following the co years and I do not wish to see them displaced and uprooted any further if it can be avoided. For these reasons, I'm putting my full support toward building a new site for Walden Elementary School. The heart and soul of Walden Elementary does not lie within the building located on Orchard Street. It lies within the students, the faculty, and the staff who work daily to bring about the magic and excitement of learning with loving support. They have made this happen year after year in spite of the building and the conditions they have been working in. I strongly believe that moving the heart and soul to a new structure and location will enhance their efforts and will further instill VC pride and unleash an untapped potential for even greater success for our students.
068And I sincerely hope that this will be the number one priority of everyone in our Valley Central community. Thank you. Thank you, Katie. You're fired. All right. Right. I'm a numbers girl, so of course I did an Excel spreadsheet because that's who I am. Um, initially I was interested in the idea of reopening Maybrook. Um, but looking at the fact that we would be spending almost $10 million and still be below minimum standards does not make that appealing to me any longer. Um, I also really can't fathom spending millions of dollars and still being below minimum SEDD standards. And this is the case in all the renovation and renovation addition options. New construction options are close in costs, but the on-site option, which was initially my favorite one, adds a potential 2 million in costs
069for the alternate and temporary classrooms, and Walden will still be lacking play space, parking, and performing art space that the community has indicated our priorities to them. the new construction on the new site is the most expensive option. And I guess my concern is it doesn't really provide any benefits across the district. Um, and I think my biggest concern of this one is what will we do with the existing building? Are we going to sell it as is? If so, fine. But if we're going to hold on to it, we're going to have annual maintenance costs and or renovation costs if we repurpose it for something else. And none of those costs are included in any of this at all. So, all that being said, um I think I like the idea of a reorg
070um with an annex at Berea, but minus the Maybrook building completely. Um this would provide current and future benefits across the district. We could use the annex for grades four and five or four through six depending on what would be best for the students in the district. It provide much needed res renovations to Walden and I believe that would bring it would still have Walden be one or two rooms below minimum standards. So I again I don't love that. Um I think if we're going to spend all this money we should have nothing below minimum standards but the constraints of this make that a little difficult. Um the concerns with a reorg with an annex would be additional busing costs. Um you know moving students around as Diana alluded to and I I'm not sure
071of the cost benefit of having them move around and disrupting them. You know is that going to be better in the future if we do this change for the school district? Is that going to be better moving forward for the future or not? Something to consider. Um but it does look like if you know that is something that could be amanable to the district. That's all for me. Thank you Sarah. Um first of all I would like to say thank you to everyone involved in compiling all the data to all the questions that we as a board asked for more information on. I know it probably seemed crazy to get into all these other topics at this point, but I believe that we had to do our due diligence and considering all the options available
072to the district. I realize it was a lot of asks and a very timeconsuming process and I appreciate everyone's hard work and efforts. Um, I know it seems like we've been discussing this for a while and not making a decision, but I think again it is our responsibility and important as a board that we consider every option out there because we are tasked with what is best not only for the welding community, but for the entire district. I've carefully considered all the options presented to us. And when considering all these options and the costs related to each option, my preference for this project would be to move forward with the planning of a building a new school on an alternate site in Walden. And I will say um ditto really to a lot of what
073Diana said um not a lot of these other options fe seemed feasible to me at this point in time. Uh Maybrook as a K5 building has some of the same deficiencies as Walden does with classrooms not adequately sized um to standards. Uh not sufficient room for all the specials and services required, not enough cafeteria space, a lack of green uh and play space, and it would also displace the uh ALC program that we have running there. um any version of the grade level reorganization that will require us to use Walden or Maybrook as a site for certain grades will still leave us with some of the same issues with classroom size and space and the above issues I just mentioned. Um this is a very expensive option that will affect every elementary school and will
074require major construction at Berea to accommodate. It would leave empty classrooms in certain schools which affects state aid and I'm not sure the community would be fully in favor of this option. We would be spending a lot of money that could be put towards a new building and we would be affecting all the other elementary schools. Renovating Walden or building a new school on the same site will not do much to address the issues with space on a piece of property that is only so big. Uh what I really don't like about either of these options is the fact that these students will need to be relocated for at least two years of construction. There are no real options to keep these students together during that construction and they will be spread across the district
075and in portable classrooms. I don't love the idea and the cost of portable classrooms and displacing students is very disruptive to two years of their education and we would again be spending a lot of extra money that could be put towards a new building and again it would affect all the other elementary schools. Uh so what is left is uh building a new school on a new site. I believe that this is what is best for Valley Central as a whole. It will be hard work and expensive and I'm hoping that we can garner enough community support to get this through if this is the way we go. I do worry about the logistics and finding land and getting all of that to align perfectly. And though I worry about all of that, I don't
076think that that is a reason not to try. I think that we have to try our best to put it through and let the community decide um what they want. I don't want to regret not trying to get this done. Our students have to be our priority and I believe that a new school building will serve our students, the district, and the village of Walden hopefully for many generations to come. Thank you, Jane. Okay. Um, so I I have to thank the Walden Committee for all their time and effort that they put into um their um explanation letter that we got last October. Um, and knowing that this is a district-wide decision, um, there were a lot of questions that we needed to ask as a board, um, so that we could have all of
077the information or as much as the information as we could, um, before we could make a decision. So, I appreciate your patience while we go through this process. um based on all of the things that I heard through all the the information that we received. Um so one was the building conditions throughout the the district. So we have to remember that we have three buildings in our district that were built in the 20s. We have um four other buildings were built in the 50s and 60s. So all of our infrastructure is is aging at some point. So we have to keep that that in mind. Um also through the um the demographic update that we got um we know that the high school is going to be is projected to be over capacity um by
078the year 2020 uh 2033. So we have some time but um but we do need to keep that in our minds as well. So, um, I think that's sort of what maybe led into the reorganization model of looking how we could move students around in the district and still use our space adequately. Um but in the end I came back to um what the Walden committee recommended in the first place was rebuilding or to build a new school on a site as close to the center of Walden as possible. Um that it eliminates the um aging infrastructure that we're facing. It also um relieves the fact that Walden is the only elementary school without um grass playfields, without on-site parking, without special ed classrooms, um without um ADA compliance, um conference room, uh deficient art
079rooms, um OT, PT spaces. Um, it solves all of those problems for that elementary school that is the only elementary school that doesn't have those. Um, um, I did have a question about the, um, financing and I don't know if this could be answered. Um, state aid does not come back immediately, correct? So we would still have to finance the full amount of the the construction upfront, right? Yeah. Yeah. Start once the um project kind of comes online, final cluster report. Got it. Um, I do think this, um, offers an opportunity to look at equity for our fourth and fifth graders by doing a centralized location at Berea for fourth and fifth graders. Um, having talked about um, how SED would look at reopening a school that was closed when we don't need that additional
080space. Um, I don't think reopening Maybrook is going to be an option, frankly. Um, I also wonder if they would even allow us to put on a a sixth grade wing at Berea when we have plenty of room in the middle school right now. Um, so I guess my my um um you know feeling is we need to rally the district to support u a new school at Maybrook. You're welcome. Why did the group start? It's usually me. All right. All right. We're going to move out to Fred now. Okay. Well, I'm going to probably be short and sweet. Um, being the last person to speak on this. This is my second time on the board of education. I was on the board of education in 2013 after the decision had been made to close
081May Elementary School. So, I know the passion and the care and concern that the community feels and um and having not been on the board to make that decision, I really approach this with sincere um patience and concern and inquiry to make a decision because I know it's a it's a weight weighty decision and it impacts a lot of people. After listening to the Walden committee make the recommendation, um I wanted to keep an open mind and explore all of the areas that we, you know, considered and through all of the data that we asked for and collected and reviewed and um and the considerations around the possibility of a reorganization at this time. sort of looking at the take a moment in time and say wait is it just this is it just this
082building or do we want to use this opportunity to really explore the whole district and I think we've done a pretty good job at due diligence to really get as much information as possible to explore the various options. Um, it comes down to me that right now we have a school that is below SED standards and we've been wanting to really explore the equity for Walden students for a really long time. And for me, the path to that is to build a a school building on an alternate site. Having said that, I think we should return at some point to consider a possibility of reorganization and also I think we need to look at what's happening in our communities right now. There's a lot of expansion happening. There's a lot of growth happening. Um there
083was some uh pause for a while, but I think we're starting to see new development, new housing, and we don't know what that's going to do in terms of impacting all of our schools at some point. So, I do think reorganization is on the is going to be on the table at some point. I don't know if I'll be on the board at that point, but I do think um we will be able to come back to that conversation again. And I strongly believe that our students um should have the least impact to them while we're changing things around u for the better for them. And that building a having a new building built while the students are still in school to me is also a plus. I will say that I hope that the
084decision that gets made, the majority decision that gets made, I I really hope that the community can get behind that decision, support that decision, make this a positive decision that will positively impact our students um and come together and support this growth. And then, you know, and then we pull up our sleeves and take a look at what else, you know, we need to do at the, you know, after that. Um, that's that's where I'm at. All right. Thank you, Fran. Thank you everybody for your input. It's very beneficial. And we will move on now to our budget presentation. As Mr. Conklin gets up to begin to present. I just wanted to um ground the discussion and the presentation in our strategic plan and that we did a couple of things. One, meeting with administrators
085at each of the schools to really understand the progress we've made at a strategic plan and looking at our priorities, getting feedback from them as well, and really looking holistically to see what the needs are of our community. And so, Mr. Conlin will pre be presenting the proposed budget um with that lens in focus. And we had a lot of feedback from the building administrators and directors in our district in order to um put this proposed budget together. And I just want to thank all of them for their feedback as well. All right. So, thank you. Um, just to uh kind of I guess wrap up the discussion that the board just had. As as many of of you know, I've been at this table since 2013. Um when uh Fran and I both came
086on the board at the same time, uh Fran took a little sbatical, I took a paid position and here we are today. But I think um I give the board a lot of credit. I know that there's been a lot of discussion over the last few months. Hasn't moved as fast as uh perhaps everybody was hoping, but I think you've considered a lot of options. I feel like um the finish line is in sight for you and that was probably some of the best deliberation question asking um and followup that that I've seen in my time here. So I give you a lot of credit for that. So with that, we'll go into the boring and dry stuff of the uh recommended budget for the 2526 school year. it look like a hot mess because
087I wanted to hit on some points here as we go through. So, I know we always take a look at the calendar to to kind of drill it in where we're at. So, March 25th, the superintendent's uh proposed budget is being presented tonight and uh we'll take any comments and feedback from from the board andor the uh the uh community and come back on April 7th. Uh at that point we would be asking the board to adopt uh the 25 26 budget to be put to um the community. So we're going to jump right into what are some uh new budget priorities this year. So as Mr. Aila said we've uh taken on a very transparent process this year. We've had a lot of conversations uh with district administration and uh this kind of summarizes
088um the consensus of the group and uh the superintendent's priorities for next year based on where we're at with the strategic plan. So, beginning at the top, CKLA literacy uh curriculum as Miss Moika did a a fantastic presentation on that program tonight. Uh assisting coaches andor additional chaperones for athletic teams. Uh this was I believe a request of the board um when we reviewed the priorities uh athletic uniform replacement. So there will be an allocation in the budget uh for approximately $50,000 to start addressing some of our um outdated athletic uniforms that we need to um get a replacement plan in place. I know it's kind of fallen by the wayside over the last few years. Huddle for athletics. There was conversations earlier this year about going to that additional huddle package. Uh cyber security
089protection allocation to replace district furniture. This would actually touch on two of the prior two of the three priorities um from the strategic plan. Priorities one and two. Uh the recommendation to hire an assistant principal at East Colenham Elementary School. Uh facilities and capital project support. So this would kind of fall in line with the clerk of the works position that was discussed. um a few weeks ago. Um but also use that position to provide some assistance and facilities, summer technology help. Uh as you know, we do hire summer uh custodial staff, which is generally a students to help out with uh district needs across the dis across districtwide. Um this will provide some support to our technology department. Um, as you know, with the amount of construction that we have going on this year,
090um, there is a a lot of classrooms that need to get taken apart and put back together in a short amount of time. Uh, as well as a special education teacher to provide some assistance um, with our kindergarten and possibly some preschool help down there. There's a huge need coming in. So, we're going to go right into the fun stuff, the three-part budget. So this is the the budget summary as we have to present it every year. The capital administrative and program components uh you can see slight increases uh which brings us uh to the 2526 in the righth hand column of $133,800,000. That would be the recommended budget at this point in time. I'm going to skip the slide and come back to in a second. This puts it into a percentage. Our program
091component is 81% of our budget followed by capital at 10% and the administrative component at 9%. Some fast budget facts. The proposed tax levy increase would be 2.49 uh% which is down from last year at 2.99 I believe. Uh the proposed budgettobudget increase 3.48% 48% uh which does bring us to that proposed 202526 budget of $133.8 million. Um since we generally do get the question of um do we know what our neighbors are doing, I can speak um our neighbor to our south, Washingtonville, they're estimated to be at a 2.97% tax levy increase at 4%. uh our neighbor Pine Bush to our northwest, I guess they're looking at a 5.9% budget-to-budget increase. However, um their tax cap is much lower than ours. They're at 1.6 uh on their tax levy, but that's due to the
092tax cap of where they're at. Um our tax cap, as you'll see in a little bit, is uh 5.1%. You'll see that when we get to the revenue area of our budget. So, expenditure summary. This this kind of boils it down to um as basic as I feel like we can present it. Um salaries on the top. Uh that's all the salaries for the district, an increase of $1.4 million for next year. Equipment increase of $440,000. Uh this is where we would um address some of the furniture needs across the district. Supplies and contractual. So this is as it says all the supplies for the district. This also includes things like Boseies, professional development, uh maintenance contracts like boilers, HVAC, uh things like that. Transportation would be in there, auditing, uh different software. At the
093B, next one down is our debt principle and interest. This will increase uh next year as well. This is obviously for uh capital projects that have been approved. and the employee benefits uh slight increase in that line 514,000 uh for next year which is a total uh increase $4.5 million. So now we'll go into the line by line area of the budget and we always start with capital. Uh down here I'll just bring your attention to some uh you're going to see some big numbers that are showing a negative and a positive. Um, but the overall increase of this group is our debt, principal, and interest. But as I said before, it's the 291,766. I skip a slide. I'm looking for a 13. 80 slide didn't know administrative. Here we go. What the heck? 123
094right down here. Okay. So, one thing I wanted to point out. So, this slide down here at the bottom, uh, fiscal agent fees. So, this is increasing slightly next year. So, this would be obviously our our financial advisors. Um due to the amount of capital work that we have ongoing, especially with ongoing conversations regarding uh Walden Elementary School, we are going to increase that line by a small amount next year, $38,000. This um I want to bring your attention on this slide to the Boseis capital project. Um this is the final year of the full phase in of those project costs. Uh last year we budgeted 720,000. Uh now the final year is 1,51,412. This should remain fairly consistent uh going forward for the life of that project. Uh so pretty significant increase on that
095line, $331,000. Next in the administrative uh component, you'll see a sizable increase here in the principal salary line. That is obviously um as we talked about an assistant principal as well as a year-to-year contract increases for that group. Next slide. Now we are into the program component. Uh bring your attention here to the Boseies occupation uh line which is um this 228490 line. That is an increase of around $43,000. This is our our CEKC um cost for the year. We're currently budgeting for 130 spots based on uh our current enrollment there. And as we discussed before, it's not necessarily a lack of interest in the CEKC program. It is uh CEK's availability to host all of our kids that want to go. Um so just a slight uh percentage increase there that is set by
096the Boseies. Sure. Administrative component contractual expenses going up 330,000. Yeah. Did you say what that was and I missed it or you did not say what that was? This would be um in the curriculum and instruction component of the budget and this would be regarding CKLI. Okay. And then on the next slide uh there's a under equipment there's a $432,000 increase. Yep. So, this would be so the 2110s are the instructional component of the district. So, this would be where we're budgeting to increase our expenses for the furniture replacement across the district. Thank you. Yep. Good. Can I please note that for a literacy program that is not just for one year and it's for multiple years for all components? Yep. Yeah, you can split it. you can there's some options in regards to splitting,
097but if you're going with this specific program, um it it's for multiple years and so it's discounted actually over the multiple years, but just to note because I know it's not it's not an every year expense. Have a question about the I know nothing has been decided. Is the plan not to budget money for a curriculum in this budget? So the plan is just a pilot next year. We have monies already encumbered that were given to us. Okay. I have another question about consultants. I know that there's been monies, you know, this year, last year that were put towards consultants. Where does that fall into the budget? And is that is that staying um the same? Is there a plan for some of that to go down? would go up. So last year we had
098budgeted uh $175,000 that would be in that 2110 uh 400 line and uh we're not proposing to increase that at all for next year. Jumping forward 2800. So, um, here on this slide, um, bring your attention to the nurses and LPNs. Uh, so this would be, uh, this year we've had to, um, add a one-on-one nurse, uh, due to a student need, and we are also budgeting for an anticipated, uh, student need for next year. Uh, would be another, uh, incoming student with likely a one-on-one, uh, nurse requirement. down at the bottom, the 2000450 line, that increase of uh 49,000. This is in the athletic area of the budget. And this is where um we would budget monies to address uniform uh a uniform replacement plan. We could not replace all of our district uniforms
099uh with that amount. If we wanted to do all district uniforms, home away, different colors, uh we'd probably be pushing into the $150,000 range. But we're hoping to to take a small step and uh begin to address the uh the ones that are of most need and we will obviously work um with the athletic director to come up with a plan uh going forward. So hopefully once this money is in the budget and we're able to sustain it going forward, we'll see an increase in our uniform expenses. Can I just ask a question about that? I I thought we had our athletic director had a schedule of rotation where they're constantly replacing things so that No. So part of the rotation did not include modified as it should have and so we are in this
100in this budget we're including all of our teams. Beautiful. Thank you. Yep. So, um nothing really on this slide. This is transportation, our inter fund transfers. Um transfer to federal funds, that's really uh a transfer over to support um our summer school expenses. uh the line below that which is zero. You know, as as we've talked about in years past, we've had to make a transfer from the general fund uh to the cafeteria fund to support that program. Um we uh have uh over the last few years and we expect to continue uh to run a profit in that area. So a uh a transfer to food service is not needed um again next year. So, this uh at the bottom brings a total program component increase uh year-to-year of $2.6 uh million. Next on
101fund balance uh and reserves. So, this is the same information we hit on um back at our very first presentation in January. No change. Uh this is endofear results um uh of our fund balances. Uh here this is uh again a summary of where we were at last year uh June 30th on reserves. And Brad, our fund balances are all where they need to be percentage-wise so we don't follow in the footsteps of other school districts with issues. We are we are under the 4% limit on fund balance. Yep. Thank you. Now, we're going to talk uh about revenues. So, as I mentioned before, uh tax levy limit 5.1%. So, um for those of you that that don't know, um we could go as high as a 5.1% tax levy uh levy increase and only
102need uh 50% plus one. Uh to do that, we are uh recommending a tax levy increase of 2.49. As I mentioned, uh here's the calculation revenue summary overall. Appropriated fund balance 1,250,000 which is less than this year. I'll show that on a future slide. Transfer from debt service 825,000. That is an increase um from last year. Other income uh 5.3 million. state aid uh 55,695,000. As I always say, we are uh exactly the same as other districts in this part of the state, funded predominantly by our tax levy. For us, it's 53% 42% by state aid and 5% all other. How confident are we on that state aid? Um, you know, it's hard to say. Typically, it only goes up from the governor's proposal that we get in January, although there's been some chatter this
103year that it could be slightly less. So, do we go conservative or did you go conservative with that number? Play it safe. I I am protecting ourselves with with that number. Yeah. Um, if the state approves the budget um by April 1st, I think that's their deadline. We come back April 7th, we can make an adjustment there. Um but right now this is the number we're most confident in. We are um proposing an increase in the interest and earnings uh category of the budget from 200,000 to 325,000. Um this is one where we have continued to outperform what we've budgeted thanks to Jackie and her hard work back there. As I mentioned before, she uh brought in over a million dollars worth of interest in earnings for us. we are a little um I guess
104unsure of where the market is heading uh in the future given a lot of uncertainties. So uh we're hoping to take a small step in increasing that but we um really not confident to go much beyond that for next year. Uh the good news is we continue to decrease uh our reliance on appropriated fund balance and uh we have used that you know to kind of offset those equipment purchases over the last few years as well as uh to uh reduce the tax levy by a bit. So we are recommending to decrease that from 1.5 to 1.25 for next year. And uh we always like to show the the historicals here. Whereas um you know in that one year of 2122 we were appropriating a higher amount of fund balance um specifically to offset transportation
105uh due to the decrease in costs and um if you remember those conversations during COVID um but pending litigation it's still ongoing with our our former um transportation vendor. So um anyway that's why we had to do that. Transportation is uh is aided on your expenses in the year prior. So if your expenses are down uh your aid will be down. So we had appropriated uh more monies to uh protect ourselves against that. Um and then a slight uh increase in uh this year but then a decrease next year. So, uh, board of education candidates, as I mentioned last time, there's three seats open for election for a three-year term commencing July 1st, uh, and expiring June 30th. Nominating petitions are available by contacting the district clerk, Ellen McGoldrich. And I don't have on here,
106what's the date that they are due, Ellen? April 21st. They're due to the district. closed, but I'll be here. So, Ellen is sharing that the district is closed, but Ellen will be here all day. So, with that, I'll take uh any questions that you may have. Questions for anybody? Hey, Brad. For the um the Boseis capital project, we are in year two, three of how many? I think I wrote it down. So, no, I just said final year of of phase in. I think this is year three. Yeah. Year three of how many years? 30, right? 30 years. No, I think 20 18 18 15 or 15 or 18. Yeah. Yep. So, yeah, we'll we'll carry that million dollar cost um for uh you know, a good number of years. Um we do get some
107aid back on it. I should have hit that on the uh on the revenue slide. So, of that million dollars uh this this set line second from the bottom, we do expect to get uh $487,000 of aid to offset that. So, still a sizable expense. Yep. Thank you. You're welcome. All right. Any other questions for Brad? All right. Thank you, Brad. All right. You're welcome. Less than 30 slides. We like it. All right. Going back to old business. Can I get a motion for the approval of the CSR proposal? Okay. Let me take the motion first. Katie second. Sarah discussion. Yeah. Um, the last time this was brought out, I think we were talking about whether or not there was a lot of information that was available because of all of the building. Um, yeah,
108there was a memo in the packet that kind of brought it all together. Oh, I didn't see. And the answer is a lot of the information that they're going to do in this study was not part of the original study. A lot of it has to do with electrical and Okay. I didn't see that in there. Okay. No. Okay. All in favor? Opposed. Okay. 6. Thank you. All right. Now, we'll move on to new business. Um adoption of resolution capital project type two action under SRA. I get a motion to adopt Katie. Second Jane. All in favor? No. Not that. No. N. Next is the adoption. I have it written. Next is the adoption of resolution special proposition for capital project. Can I get a motion to adopt? Jane second. Fran all in favor. Post
1096. Next is the establishment of the 2025 annual meeting procedures annual district election and budget vote. This is a roll call. So this is as we normally do. This is a very lengthy document. This is five pages. Um it is very important. It's important to note that it's available on our district website uh to review. So I am going to as I always do just kind of hit on the highlights um not read the whole resolution word by word but um this is very important language and um we at least need to um get some of it on the record. So with that being said, um the resolution is such that be it resolved the board of education of the Valley Central School District as follows. Section one, the public hearing required by education law
110uh section 1804 subsection 4 to solicit public comment on the 2526 annual budget will be held on Monday, May 12th, 2025 at 6 p.m. in the Valley Central School District administration building, 944 State Route 17K, McGomery, New York. and the notice thereof will be substantially in the will be insubstantially the following form when it is published on 44 418 52 and 516 notice of public hearing central school district number one of the towns of Crawford Hamptonburg Montgomery Newberg Newsor and Walill Orange County and town of Schwangunk Olter County New York here and after referred to as the Valley Central School District notice is hereby given that there will be a public hearing held on Monday, May 12th, 2025 at 6 p.m. in the Valley Central School District Administration Building, 944 State Route 17K, McGomery, New
111York, to solicit public comment for the expenditure of funds and budgeting thereof for school purposes for the fiscal year 2526. Now, we're going to skip to page two. Notice is hereby given that the annual district election and budget vote will be held on Tuesday, May 20th, 2025 between the hours of 6:00 a.m. and 900 p.m. prevailing time in the Valley Central High School at which time the polls will be open to vote by voting machine upon the following items. to adopt the annual budget of the school district for the fiscal year 2526 and to authorize the requisite portion thereof to be raised by taxation on the taxable property of the district. Two, to elect three members of the board of education as follows. Three, for three-year terms convent commencing July 1, 2025 and expiring June
11230th, 2028. Three questions or propositions that must be submitted to appear on the ballot in accordance with the rules and regulations here to for adopted by the board of education pursuant to education law uh section 2035 provided a petition in proper form is filed with the district the school district clerk in and not later than April 21st 2025 and four to vote upon the adoption of certain propositions as set forth below. So, proposition number two is renovation and improvement of school district facilities. I am not going to read uh the full language on that. I'm going to skip to the next notice section. Notice is hereby further given that pursuant to a rule adopted by the board of education in accordance with section 2035 and section 20008 of the education law, any propositions to be
113submitted for voting at said annual district election and budget vote must be filed with the school district clerk on or before April 21st, 2025 by 5:00 p.m. prevailing time. Must be typed or printed in the English language. must be signed by at least 47 qualified voters of the school district, which equals 5% of the voters who voted in the prior annual district election and budget vote, and must state the name and residence of each signer. However, the school board will not entertain any pet petition to place a proposition on the ballot which does not fall within the power of the voters to determine or which fails to include a specific appropriation where the expenditures of monies is required by the proposition. Almost there. I'm going to skip to the next page. Page three. Uh, second
114paragraph notice is hereby further given that the board of registration will meet for the purpose of registering all qualified voters of the school district pursuant to section 2014 of education law at the Valley Central Administration building on Tuesday, May 13th, 2025 between the hours of 3:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. to add any additional names to the register to be used at the Aphro said annual district election or budget vote at which time any person will be entitled to have his or her name placed on such register provided that such meeting of the board of registration he/ she is known or proven to the satisfaction of said board of registration to be then or thereafter entitled to vote at such annual district election and budget vote for which the registered is prepared. The register so pursu
115so prepared pursuant to section 2014 of education law will be filed with the school district's clerk the school district clerk's office in the administration building 944 state route 17k Montgomery New York and will be open for inspection by any qualified voter of the school district beginning on Friday May 165 between the hours of 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. prevailing time on weekdays and each successive day prior to the day set for the annual district election and budget vote except Sunday, Saturday by appointment and at the polling places on the day of the vote. Two more and then I'm done. Notice is hereby further given that the place where the where said annual district election and budget vote will be held is the Valley Central High School. And notice is hereby further given that petitions nominating
116candidates for the office of member of the board of education shall be filed with the district clerk not later than Monday, April 21st, 2025 before 5:00 p.m. Vacancies on the board of education are not considered separate. specific offices. Candidates run at large. Nominating petitions shall not describe any specific vacancy upon the bo upon the board for which the candidate is nominated. shall be signed by at least 25 qualified voters, which must be a citizen of the United States at least 18 years old and a resident of the school district for at least 30 days immediately prior to the election of the district shall state the residence of each signer and shall state the name and the residence of the candidate. I I believe I've hit on the highlights, so if there is a motion, I
117am happy to take that. I'll make a motion. Motion by Mr. Bond. Second. Second by Miss Mess. All right. So, now for the roll call vote. Uh, Miss Mcnite, yes. Miss Messing, yes. Miss Fox Bonia, yes. Miss Ravour, yes. Miss Samuelson, yes. Miss Terrell Laboro, absent. And Mr. Bond, yes. Motion passes 6. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Next, we'll move on to the adoption of the Boseis cooperative perching resolution. This is There's one more. Sorry, this one is much shorter. Yes. This is this is the resolution for appointment of permanent chairperson, inspectors of election, and assistant clerk. May I read the resolution? Yes, you may. Whereas the board of education of the Valley Central School District has provided that the 2025 annual district election and budget vote will be held on Tuesday, May 20th,
1182025. And whereas it is now desired to provide for the appointment of permanent chairperson, inspectors of election, and assistant clerk for said 2025 annual district election and budget vote. Now, therefore, be it resolved by the board of education of the Valley Central School District as follows. The permanent chairperson um will be Frank Patine and um the follow the the inspectors of election and alternate election inspectors are the names that are listed within the resolution. I am not going to read all these names for you. and the uh the assistant clerk will be Lisa Kimell. So, you've had a chance to review the resolution. I will take a motion if you are ready. I will make that motion. Motion by Mr. Bond, second by Miss Mcnite. We'll call the role. Miss Mcnite. Yes. Miss Messing. Miss
119Fox Ponia. Yes. Miss Raor, yes. Miss Samson, yes. And Miss Teroro, absent. And Mr. Bond. Yes. That motion passes 6. Thank you. Thank you. Floor is yours. Thank you, sir. Next, we'll move on to the adoption of the Boseis cooperative purchasing resolution. This is where we do our supplies. Motion to adopt. Sarah Fran. All in favor? I oppose. 6. Thank you. Next is the approval of agreement with American Fence Company. It's for fencing at Walden Elementary. Motion to approve. Katie. Katie. Second. Diana. Diana. All in favor? I opposed. 6. Thank you. That brings us to the end of our meeting. Tom, thank you for being with us tonight and streaming us. I We have one question. We have a question. Do we have any idea what our next steps are? Well, yeah, we're gonna have
120to vote. We're going to put it up and and adopt a resolution to move forward. Okay. Um, want you say that again? Yeah. Well, so as I wrote it down, there was a majority to move forward with Walden Elementary School. New building. A new a new building, new site. So that's what we will vote on probably at our next meeting. It depends on how fast we can draft legal, but I suspect at the next meeting we'll make a vote, but the majority said yes to moving forward. Okay. So Okay. Thank you. Do we need to discuss the size? Um proposals. Yeah, I guess 430 and 540. Yeah, I guess uh we will. I think what we should do is probably we'll have to talk about how we do that. Maybe draft two and then in
121the next meeting we can decide on the size and then move forward to vote because I don't we weren't prepared. We didn't know who was going to say what tonight. So we'll address it at the next meeting. So okay, good. Any other questions? All right. I will take a motion to adjourn at 8:23. Sarah second. Katie, all in favor? 6. Thank you very much. Enjoy your evening. Thank you.