001Good evening. Since it is 6 pm, I will now call the Northwest Valley Central School District's December 4th of Education meeting to order. Would you please stand als nation district's vision as a reminder to all of why we are all here. The vision of the Boat Valley Central School District is to become the best rural school in New York State. We will accomplish our vision by providing ex exceptional opportunities to all learners and preparing them to set and reach their future goals by embedding our core values into their student experience. Number four, roll call. Mrs. Belle, would you please take the roll call for attendance? >> Tom Rodri >> here. >> Paige Potter Sult >> here. >> Paul Fenton >> here. >> Darlene Cooper >> here. >> Sarah Coleman >> here. >> Deborah Spalding >>
002here. Jason Welch >> Satie Burgess >> here. >> Okay. Number five, attendees. If you haven't done so already, would you please sign in so we can have an accurate record uh attendance record? The signin sheet is located on the table by the entrance. Thank you for your cooperation. Number six, the Smith Leadership Group presentation. Dr. Meyer, would you please introduce our presenter? Thank you. Yes. Uh we have Dr. Bob Benstein here uh who's going to walk us through uh the special education audit. Welcome. >> Thank you very much. I appreciate the opportunity to be here this evening on behalf of myself, Bob Benstein, and members of our Schmidt leadership group. We have had the distinct pleasure for about the last five and a half months of being in district working with stakeholders reviewing your special
003education program. And I'm going to deviate a little bit from what I was originally going to start with, but I I have to tell you, I've been to probably over a thousand schoolboard meetings in my career as a superintendent and as a school board administrator and now three and a half years into retirement. Um, you're the only district that starts the meeting with a reflection of your goals and your commitment to students. And we often don't take that moment in time to recognize good practice. That is probably normal for you. But I can tell you it's absolutely not typical for school districts. They jump in, they start, they can't wait to get into the beat meeting and they leave the students and the history of the district behind. So just as a lifelong educator dating
004back to Reagan's second term in office, um I can really applaud you and appreciate that. So uh Dr. Mayor, if you is there a clicker here for me or are you going to advance it? Okay. So just a little bit about myself and the and our leadership group. I was primarily the face of this uh uh study in the district. Most school districts when it comes to special ed just let it happen. Strong, effective leadership teams, as they do in the NFL, they review game film on a regular basis. And that's essentially what this study was. We looked at everything from top to bottom, a toz, soup to nuts, to take a look at what's working, what's causing frustrations, and the great opportunities in the district. As a lifelong educator, I've served in every role
005and capacity from elementary principal, specialed service provider, director, uh, assistant superintendent and superintendent. Our group has done well over 20 of these studies in the last two and a half years from districts with 1,500 special ed students and 10,000 students to a district with 124 K12 students. So, we take a look at what you're doing and I'm proud to say that you're doing well. There are still opportunities for growth and we're going to get into that. Josh, if you wouldn't mind. So, what we did in coming into this process, we fundamentally sought to answer three questions. How well is the special education department meeting the needs of students? Are the students making progress? and do the students have a generally good experience? That last one is a little hard to quantify, but when you add
006A plus B, we can start to answer the third question C. I'm happy to report that the answer is a resounding yes in every one of those areas. Yes, the department is meeting the students needs. Yes, students are making progress. Very good progress when you look at exit results and exit data. and students are having a good experience in school. That doesn't mean it can't be better. It can always be better. And what we tell districts when we look at their specialed program, perfection is not a goal. This is an imperfect process. It's an imperfect system of providing very intensive services or very limited services to a wide wide range of students. The goal should not be perfection. It's not attainable. And I can tell you with about 40 years of experience, if you chase
007perfection, you're going to become more and more frustrated. The goal is continuous improvement and progress to meeting the needs of your students. You may be close to perfection this year, and then your student demographics change, the population changes, staff models change, curriculums change, and everything starts all over again. special ed is perpetually in transition. And so we take a look at that. As I said, really effective districts do this kind of deconstructive work on a very regular prescriptive basis to kick the tires and find out what's working and what's not working. So, the fact that the district is doing this without court order, without commissioner mandates, without federal class action lawsuits, I told Sean earlier when I took my first directorship and a district of just under 9,000 students, 1400 special ed students, I walked
008in day one from the elementary school with nine impartial hearings, two federal class actions, and about 20 union grievances. districts that deconstruct and reassemble their program in a truly cooperative manner survive that. We survived that because it took a lot of collaborative effort. And you're going to hear some frequent themes, Josh, if you would advance it. When we look at this work, we take it from the lens three plus one compliance. Everything you do must be legal, compliant, and absolutely copacetic with policy and procedure. Many districts, every district has variations of compliance difficulty and I'll explain that when I get to compliance. We look at capacity. What is your ability to flex and grow? Think of it like an accordion. It might be great day one a few students come, a few students go, new
009students get identified, staff members go on maternity leave. That capacity fluctuates. It's always a moving target. And then when talking with stakeholders, we come up with common sense solutions. And that plus when you look at all three of those, you have opportunities for growth. Even in the darkest days, there's opportunity for growth. So in the audit process, we took a very deep comprehensive view. We took a deep data dump of your current database. That's all of the IEPs, all of the programs for students that are currently attending school from preK to the oldest students, 21 or potentially 22 years old. We dump the database and I will tell you that for Shawn and for the district leadershipship team should be a regularly operational standard because when you dump the database and the programs into a
010spreadsheet, you anomalies will jump off the page and you can see potential risk factors. We also take a very comprehensive look at stakeholder interviews. And with the stakeholder interviews that we did over the summer and into the fall and then the follow-up conversations, the stakeholders were dynamic, engaging, honest, critical, collaborative. They were exactly what you would expect, highquality staff members to do when they're given an opportunity to discuss and dialogue. And then we did a forensic dive into all the historical files. If the current database tells you what's happening now and your stakeholders tell you the hopes, dreams, wishes, and aspirations, the hor the holistic approach in the historical files give you a clear perspective of where some of the uh some of the issues evolve over time. Many districts continue to do in special
011ed what they've always done because of transition, time, and talent. If any one of those three factors, time, talent, and transitions happen, then there will be potential risk factors. We took a look at every conceivable data point over 33,000 separate data points. Normally in a study, we would do about 10 to 12, maybe 14,000 data points. After we started this, when um the transition occurred and stakeholders said, can you look at this? Can you look at that? We talked with uh Dr. mayor and we increased that to 45% of the IEPs and 33,000 data points which for a district this size is substantial. A district that we did in central New York just under 10,000 students about 1,400 special ed students we looked at about 20,000 data points and we had a pretty clear picture.
012So this is by far the most deep dive we've done into a single district in our uh 20 or so um reviews. Josh. Um, when we looked at the stakeholder interviews, they're about 30 to 60 minutes in length. The buildings were eng in involved and engaged. There was follow-up commentary, follow-up conversations to point us in a direction of concern, to reinforce strengths, to help identify frustrations. And as I said, the commentary was direct, honest, and insightful. It was critical that we heard the voices of the people doing the work so that we could verify all of the data findings in the report that we did. There's no instance in the report where there's a single oneoff statement that had weight or credibility. Everything in the report had two or three or four or five separate
013verifiable assurances that that was in fact happening. There is a tendency with special ed that there's a one hit wonder, one frustration and then that dominates the conversation. In our report, everything that we detailed, we found multiple instances to confirm its internal validity and the strength and the urgency of which that needs to be addressed. Um, as I said, we looked at every element in the document from the district website. Uh, 45% of the IDs were touched historically. We looked at testing reports, progress monitoring. If it's written and it's part of the record, we looked at it. The one thing that we do as part of this process is we redact the personally identifiable information. For us in our work, the name doesn't matter. Date of births matter, age matters, program recommendations matter, and the
014content of the documents matter to make sure that they're compliant and build capacity so that we can meet the needs of students. We looked at consent documentation, schedules, all of the hard data that's in print. We took a look at in multiple ways and confirmed whether it was supporting students, not supporting students, or frustration that could be addressed through some minor programmatic changes. Josh, if you would. Uh, and so we looked at compliance, capacity, and common sense. You'll see in the report tons of repetition. That's a good thing in this context. that helps narrow and and the one thing that I I shared almost a half day after I had started the staff members which is probably about 15 or 18 at that time at that first half day. I was pretty confident and clear
015after that first half day of what the top three or four priorities were going to be. Most stakeholder groups are kind of all over the place and it takes a little bit of time. This staff was laser precision clear that they wanted certain things to happen and that was administration, clerical and um uh instructional staff as well as related service staff. It was really reassuring. It made our work a lot easier to dig and find some of those issues. Um and the key priorities were stakeholder engagement, the people doing the work, the leadership team in place, transitions across the district recently and over a five, six, sevenyear period, the priorities of the district, and then professional development. Josh, please. So compliance, you have significant timeline variations and think of timeline variations very simply. There's a
016timeline and a requirement. Think of it like your New York State car inspection. It's due at the end of the month. Sometimes we push over that. It's not a huge deal. You try the week before and then you can't get an appointment and then you get in the second or third of the next month. That's kind of what we're talking about. There's often conflicting uh regulations. You have to have a meeting. The department's ready to have it. It's scheduled. All the notices go out. Mom or dad calls up the day before. I got to work. Cancel the meeting. So, you either ignore the parents request and have the meeting anyways. No one recommends that. That would really be bad for stakeholders. Or you push the meeting and then you have the meeting as soon as
017possible. If you talk with your school attorney, I'm not an attorney, but I've been sued a lot as a special ed administrator. If you have conflicting regulations, heir on the side of what's in the best interest of community stakeholder engagement to support the student. If the parent says have the meeting without me, have the meeting. no timeline issue. If the parent really wants to be there and says cancel the meeting, I think most folks would agree that's a non-technical issue. Engage the stakeholders and do that across the board. There are lots of timeline issues that needs to be cleaned up. It's a one calendar cycle. As Sean and I have spoken, every time you touch a document, you make sure that it's compliant with the timeline. And if not, you just make a notation of
018why. it may not be an issue, but long term you want to make sure you're meeting those timeline issues. Very minor issue to correct. Um, there are some technical issues within the IEP. Regular uh regulatory consistency and voice. The document should be in student voice first, parent voice second, stakeholder voice third. Oftent times we talk about Johnny can't do this, Johnny can't do this, Johnny's done this or Johnny. Okay? and we don't talk about the strengths of the student and that's a professional development need for the district. Most districts have difficulty putting the document into student voice first, parent voice second. And we've talked about some strategies in which that can happen. Again, it make the document isn't out of compliance, but it can be more compliant and it's better document when you have recommendations
019and I'm talking pretty much program ratios 15 to1 6:1 8:1 there are lots of instances in the study where the the recommendations from a numeric standpoint or a program standpoint vary from the regulations. The standard rule and best practice is stick with the regulatory guidance in the part 200 regulations. Customize the present level statements. Everybody's happy and it's a better, clearer, simpler document. Um, I'll I'll share with you just a quick analogy as to where the train can come off the tracks. We worked with the district and their IEPs, honest to God, were about 80 pages long. Nobody's reading them. It really was not a well-intended document. And what we found through reviewing it is they started Johnny or Johnny again. I apologize if anybody's named Johnny. Um Johnny has difficulty with um regular bowel
020movements. Needs to be set on a timer and 15 minute timer so Johnny doesn't have an accident class. And the document was about three inches thick. I'm thinking this student is profoundly handicapped. I can understand why the document is so thick. And as we perused the document, we got to the transition plan and Johnny's goal was to go to an IV League college. Looked at that first statement and the transition plan and something didn't align. They were taking every present level statement for that student that had ever been created and adding it to the document. Johnny was 18 at the time, was going to an IV League college, had a few testing accommodations. It was on a de uh de um uh transition plan to be declassified. Document was completely compliant. As my son says,
021technically right, not helpful. So, that's a strategy that unless you're looking at it and every document for the most part, except students that transitioned into the district as uh new registrations had a document that thick because that's what they knew. So, we took a look at that and made some strategic suggestions on how to make the documents cleaner, clearer, crisper, and more easily to implement. And then again, communication is always a key factor. The more you can communicate the better with your stakeholders. Everyone speaks with a common voice and has a common understanding of the programs. Oftentimes that doesn't happen. Josh, so when we looked at risk factors from compliance, calendar dates, annual reviews, reavails, and many districts are experiencing calendar conflicts because of psychologist vacancies. And that plays a key role in this process.
022And there's been some positive movement in the district to get those dates realigned. Meeting timeline, start dates. Um there's a regulatory piece that the IEP process needs to be concluded and then the new document implemented within that timetable, generally 60 days. Most districts follow a spring March Madness annual review schedule, which means you have an annual review in say February or March that doesn't start until September. Again, you've always done what you've always done. The state is looking at making districts go to a true anniversary calendar. You have a meeting February 1st. The new program starts February 2nd. Um, many districts are doing that. Most districts have a large percentage of their students already on an anniversary calendar. They're just not calling it that. So, we've talked about how to clean that up and provide
023some technical assistance. And then regulation variation. As I said, when districts stray from the numbers, a 6:1 teacher assistant ratio to help kids out. That doesn't exist in the regulations. Uh that doesn't exist here. But as an example, when you customize and overcustomize, you stray from regulations, not best practice, not easily implementable, and certainly not defendable if you find yourself in an impartial hearing. So stick with the regs. Um there are already substantially improved communications, visibility and collaboration just in the past six months and that will solve a lot of the frustrations that staff has. Uh in terms of capacity, we as I said we looked at thousands of data points and your capacity limit in the district is a function of how large you are as a district. Smaller districts struggle to provide a
024full continuum. Again, unless you have needs for the full continuum, which most districts don't, even large districts, you can provide very specific programming, resource room, integrated co-eing, special class programs, you can you have great flexibility and you can meet the needs of students in many different ways. If you can collaborate and partner with neighboring districts, you do appear to have some space in the district to create some programs uh to meet your students needs. and then act in a capacity to fill those spots with other neighboring districts. It could be an investment in those unique programs that could be budget neutral for you. Districts are doing that. Um we we can talk with the district about how to do that based on specific population needs. That is a way for you to be a regionally
025a good neighbor and district and friend. And it's also a way for other districts to partner with you because they may have a program that fits your need rather than trying to create a program for one student. Um, just generally speaking, the break point for creating a new program is two students. After that, it's cost effective. You have one student, it's hard. Two students is kind of at that breaking point, particularly for special class programs. And if you have the ability to use that to entice other districts or to stabilize enrollment because you have an outstanding program, it it's something worth uh having a collaborative conversation as a governance team and with the administrative team. Um I would say a point of growth is defining your programs. There's great variation what integrated co-eing means from
026building to building, teacher to teacher. uh and um I I think some professional development would be wise and engages the experts that you already have on staff. You don't have to reinvent the wheel, but making sure that everybody knows what the wheel is and how to do it uh would be helpful. And uh there are students that would benefit from that to have a more prescriptive uh integrated co-eing model. And I would just simply say that the process of writing an IEP is something for the new administration, the district stakeholders to take a look at. Um there is a gap where you can provide better time and talent for your staff to write highquality exemplary IEPs. They're compliant for the most part, not major concerns, but giving staff time to write those documents in a
027more effective manner would be money well spent. And we do recommend minimally at re-evaluation time every three years and every time they transition from building to building to zero out the IEP, the PEPs, the program, the test mods, the supplemental supports and uh make sure the stakeholders have time to write a document that truly reflects the students current needs and not Johnny going to Cornell. Okay, Josh. Um, again, risk factors. your cohort sizes will always be a challenge for you. Um, and the leadership team transitions, whether it's the director or key positions like psychologist or clerical, every time there is a transition in every district we've looked at, there's been a slow downward tilt towards effectiveness, implementation of comp compliance, and uh, capacity building. Stability is one of the most effective strategies in special ed
028because you get to know kids, you get to know the stakeholders, the parents, and you get to know program and you get to create those relationships. Districts that have lots of transitions rightly struggle. Um, Bokeut is no different. Uh, one district we worked with had six uh, director vacancies in less than uh, 18 months. They had some issues. Um so transition time and the ability to be stable in that position is going to uh produce high return on the investment. Stakeholder feedback and uh positive indicators. Your stakeholders love your kids. They love working here. They love their colleagues. They're frustrated by special ed. They're frustrated by time requirements. They're frustrated by communication and silos. Anything that improves that will improve the uh special ed program. Absolutely. And your paraprofessionals are one of your strongest assets.
029They want to be involved more. They need some more training. They don't need and it's not necessarily productive to say on Wednesday morning to Mrs. Smith, oh, you're going to go in with Johnny at uh at noon today. That's your new assignment. They need time to understand the students needs. Uh and to the extent that you can make those transitions seamless, smooth, and uh without hiccups, um that's going to help the paraprofessional, that's going to help instruction, and it's certainly going to help the student that needs additional pair of professional support. Uh a few common sense solutions that we found. Uh all based on time, trust, and teamwork. Your staff consistently supports students with disabilities. Staff is stretched. We're not recommending additional staff based on this. But I'm as as the team will tell you
030in all of our avails and in my entire career, cutting special ed services and supports does not stabilize the department. It makes it worse. You do not have a need for additional staff at this point. But to the extent that you can maybe utilize some teachers on special assignment to help with IEP reviews, helping write IEPs more effectively or to help communicate either through a department chair model or something similar. That would be a good lowcost investment to improve communications. Um, differentiated professional development is a key. Not all stakeholders need the same PD. Uh, a kindergarten teacher who has two autistic spectrum students coming into kindergarten is going to need different professional development than a secondary teacher who's teaching 12th graders who are going to college. Don't be afraid to customize the professional development for
031the stakeholders. Allow everybody to take it if they want to, but provide the targeted PD to the targets for the students that you need. Uh, and again, a quick easy uh, step, parent voice and student voice is a priority. Start writing IEPs. And I've I've talked with the leadership team. There's a couple of districts that are doing bulleted IEPs, putting them in through filters and customizing them through AI filters to make sure they still have to do the data entry to talk about the student. And then the filter helps put it into student voice. You still have to edit. You still have to correct it. There's a couple of districts in Erie and Niagara County, they're doing some really fantastic work with that. Some districts in the southern tier and the Bingington area that doing
032some really good work with that in terms of creating programs and aligning it with standardized test. The key is use the technology to help save time. Um I talked about the pair of professionals. They'll need some additional training and as your cohort size is a little challenging, that's always going to be an issue with scheduling. Make sure your administrative team continues to uh be um aware that every schedule change impacts dozens of related service providers and the implementation of related services and highly specialized programs. Before you make changes, make sure you overcommunicate. Make sure everybody understands what's happening and why and seek input before making schedule changes. That's particularly important in the summer for the secondary students to make sure that their IEPs are in effect and have the type of supports. Just so you
033don't think it's all conflict driven, the stakeholders are valued. They're comfortable advocating for their programs. In fact, I didn't feel for a second that any stakeholder was apprehensive in sharing their true feelings. It was a dynamic, robust and occasionally salty conversation. That's a good thing. Create and nurture and foster those opportunities. It will provide excellent bang for the buck. Um, professional development is critical and and I will just say this, I'm not talking about bringing in national speakers. You can do that if you want to. If you're launching a new initiative, most of the PD supports that you need, you already have the experts on staff. And it comes back to time, talent, and trust. And allowing those individuals to create an opportunity. One of the best sources of professional development are your speech therapists,
034particularly in the early grade levels for language development. If you want high intense return on your investment, talk to your speech therapist. Get them to talk about phmics, phmic awareness, vocabulary, and fluency with your primary instruction teachers and let them go to town. Give them a little bit of time. And I believe I shared with Sean a reading program that's uh approved for a closer Ignite reading. Tremendous COVID gains. Uh some districts are reporting 18 to 24 months gain in less than a year following this program. Doesn't replace instruction. It supports the instruction that's already happening. There's lots of examples of those high quality programs out there. PD is excellent and it doesn't have to be sit and get or full day training. Um those are some of the worst ways to get professional development
035as as we all know that's not effective. Targeted quick intensive trainings an hour half uh hour and a half two hours tops get them in let them pilot it then provide them the support in the classroom works really well. and a few other uh issues that I've talked about. You've got some space to work with other districts to meet regional needs. Um your related services are really really really effective and providing excellent return on your investments. Um you have the adequate staffing but schedule challenges exist. So for the principles, the administrative team be mindful of that. Talk with the service providers in April, May, and June when you're talking about building your schedules particularly at the secondary level. uh so that you can make sure you include those special ed students program needs in your
036master schedule development obstacles. Um we've talked about conflicts with scheduling communications uh uh to the extent that you can eliminate silo conversations. Tell it all tell it consistently. Use the same language. Make sure that everybody knows what's happening is a significant improvement area that every district can benefit from. and you've already made some tremendous progress uh just from the evaluation process. Um there's already been steps made to try and recoup some Medicaid funding that is just simply a pull down menu issue. I'm calling it psychological services versus counseling services and making sure that's done by a qualified person. Um many districts are in that boat. They think counseling is just counseling. Um and one of our teammates, uh Dr. Kristen Dudek uh who sits on the commissioner's advisory panel has been instrumental in helping us
037get that word out to districts that it's a technical change and then it opens up the door for Medicaid funding. Um whether or not students qualify, that's a different story, but you don't want to put up obstacles that eliminate any source of funding. Um, in most districts in their annual review cycles when it comes out to make sure that the district has a 100% compliant document every time you touch it and then get it back out to the staff and that's a clean up with the frontline system to clean up your database. Um, priorities, frequent staff meetings already happening, visibility and stability happening, more planning time in IEP writing, a work in progress for the district. Oversight and review of the documents is ongoing already and developing a professional development team um may be very
038helpful. And in the full report, we've listed kind of a model template of a number of professional development strategies. Um, one uh element that we've done consistently is the ABCs of IEPs. We've customized that to include the one 1234 the 123s of 504s because there's great misunderstanding of IEP processes for general ed and the 504 process for all stakeholders. So, we can provide some support and I think um we've talked about the compliance, capacity, and common sense roles. That's pretty clear. I think I've covered most of those. And the last part to this is um we stick around in district, not physically. Uh I live in Buffalo, but I'm happy to come up here anytime you want. And my wife is thrilled to come up here, too. Uh but we stick around for 6 months
039a year to provide technical support, uh coaching for the leadership team, and even technical support for the clerical staff if they have questions about how to do things. One of the things that we're proud of is we finish the study, we give you a blueprint, but we don't finish the work. And even districts that are two, three years post report, they still frequently call us and say, "Can you take a look at this document? We're happy to do it." Um, it breeds better communication. It breeds better documents and it creates the opportunity for documents that meet the needs of the students without any conflict. I can take any questions if you want. That's a lot. I could talk. This could be a full day, but uh I wanted to give you a comprehensive overview. And
040the takeaway is you're doing fine. A few technical issues, but you're doing okay. >> Okay. First, I'd like to thank you, Dr. Benstein, for being here and for taking the time and effort that you and your team put forth to provide us with a very thorough audit of our special education department. I also want to thank and acknowledge the important work of our special education department and the dedication of our staff who work every day to support our students with disabilities. Um, as part of our responsibility for oversight and continuous improvement, the district engaged your firm to conduct a comprehensive audit of K through 12 special education programs. The goal was to obtain an objective, detailed assessment of our systems, practices, and compliance with state and federal requirements. We recognize that our staff has been
041operating through significant leadership transitions, staffing changes, and the many disruptions uh of recent years. So, we appreciate their commitment and professionalism during that time. Now in reviewing the audit, I personally identified several serious concern detailed within the the findings. These included some compliance issues, scheduling irregularities, document inconsistencies, data entry errors, procedural gaps as well. Um issues were also not noted regarding pleft statements, torque calculations, related service coding, and overall program oversight. These findings point to systematic challenges that really need to be addressed. Now, at the same time, the audit's final conclusion presented a much more positive picture of the program effectiveness, one that does not seem to clearly align with the issues identified in the findings. This discrepancy raises some important questions about how the conclusions were reached. What quantitative data or outcome metrics were
042used to to conclude that clear measurable progress is occurring? Were all conclusions based solely on objective evidence is one question and as part and don't get me wrong I am thrilled that you have found that we are doing the right thing and we're making progress so that that absolutely thrills me but as part of the board's oversight responsibility I personally feel that it is necessary for us to have clarification from the auditing firm regarding the methodology utilized specifically how the conclusions drawn correspond to the evidence. Could you please justific uh so part of the work that we do with this is uh there are some elements that are qualitative the numbers and and as I've said, we we found instances where timelines were misaligned for for valid reasons based on stakeholder input. Um when we
043take a look at the qualitative data, students are making progress and we look primarily at really three measures. The overall graduation rate, the standardized test data for individual students from reavail to reavail to reavail, are they making grade level progression? So when we look at the forensic files of actually touching the students files, we could see instances where the data from year to year to year was showing student growth. We saw that and again it's a little hard in special ed because there are so many data points there. We see students that saw decreases in related services over time. We saw some students that maintained the same level of services. And the one element that that I think um really crystallized it for us was how do the stakeholders interpret the work that they're doing
044in the lens of looking at individual student progress. That's why the stakeholder interviews are so critical uh in this process. So that uh if if the forensic data dump of the existing files and the historical review is the data point then that is tied together with the emotional abstract of what the stakeholders view their role and how they're providing students for program. It's not an express formula that says yes this is happening. It's more of a targeted look at a long range estimate of how did the students do overtime. And if you take a look at your student identification rates for example, and this is is one element that initially we were a little concerned about because the percent of students increased slightly from 21 to 24. That's tied directly to the overall cohort of
045student population decreasing. the number of special kids remained essentially the same, but the uh the overall number of total district enrollment decreased, which negatively impacted the students uh handicapping condition percentages. And so we look at it all in that context. And when we get to the point of yes, students are having a good experience. We saw the trajectory of how students progress grade level to grade level. And so that's how we got to that point. And with uh the stakeholder engagement, they talked about the successes that students were having in small cohorts. >> So you did use quantitative >> both. Yes. It it's kind of we take a look at the the data from the current file, the historical data and then the stakeholder interviews and we kind of amalgamate them together to say, okay,
046what is outside of the norm? What is stressful? And in in Bokeet's specific circumstances versus other systems, we found significant glaring issues in other systems where we could not say that across the board they were yeses in every area. For example, one district had almost 90% of their speech students only in individual speech. That's statistically impossible. And we found that that was a reflection of stakeholders and trust and making recommendations that were in their interest, not staff uh student interest. And when if you were to look at just the numbers, you can't get that. But when you put the stakeholder input with the data, it gives you a pretty clear picture. It's not it's not precise uh to the extent that it's an actuary table, but it's it's a pretty targeted set of recommendations. It's
047pretty close. Does anyone else have any questions? >> I have a question. So you keep like earlier you said stakeholders and administration, you know, you spoke with does that include the parents? >> In in this particular instance, it did not include the parents. Um sometimes it does. In this particular case, we made the the I guess the uh the audit decision that there were too many transitions at this point and we wanted to get the district started. Um we are certainly happy to have follow-up meetings with stakeholder parents. Um but because the work began in the summer, we we thought that that might not be as productive. it doesn't diminish the quality of their voice because it was pretty clear that the parent voice wasn't in the IEPs. And that dated back to I think
048the earliest IEP we looked at was 2002. Um, and that was a consistent pervasive 20-year uh reflection in the parents voice. The the record showed that they attended all kinds of meetings. Um, but it in this particular instance, it did not because we wanted to get the recommendations to the district. But that would be an absolute recommendation to engage parents more thoughtfully in the in the future conversations. >> How often do you uh re audit or what would you be your recommendation to reodit? >> Uh well it's we'll stick around for about six months uh easily uh to provide some technical support to the department. Um, and we in the three and a half years that we've been doing the audits, um, we have not gone back to re audit a district to check for
049those issues. We could certainly do that at the district's request. Uh, but I wouldn't I wouldn't undertake that for probably at least 18 months. >> Okay. So, there's no formula that can change your tires every 5,000 miles. I I not not in this case because it's going to take a cycle to just fix the annual review calendar dates. It's going to take you a year to get through those kids. We're not recommending you start meeting now to just change dates. It's a technical issue that doesn't impact programming as long as you know it needs to be cleaned up. It I would take the full cycle and 90% of them will be done probably by May anyways. So, we wouldn't change it just to change it in December and January. That would be disruptive to instruction.
050>> Didn't you recommend in the report that um we hires like a compliance officer or something to check in? >> That's that's uh that's a great point and that would typically be the director. So, that that doesn't mean that the director would sit on every possible meeting in a small district. That usually means that. But every IEP needs uh an individual that the district will recognize. It's not an additional expenditure. It's kind of job responsibilities so that every document comes out compliant. Doesn't mean that Shawn has to sit in on every single amendment. No meeting or things like that. Um but the point person for the compliance should be the last one to touch the document before it goes to the parent. >> Okay. Does anyone else have any questions? Yeah. >> Yes. >> So,
051forward forward thinking, have you seen in the three and a half years, have you seen any best practices from other districts um after after having an audit completed? And there's some recommendations and some findings to to to develop an action plan and and stick to it, resource it, and make progress o over the course of a year. you know, I'm sure there'll be a good bit of support needed >> um for that team. So, do you have any >> Yeah. Um a couple of best practices that we saw uh a district that we saw had um I think it was 800 students and there was one administrator trying to chair all the meetings. Physically impossible. Within about six weeks of starting it, we recommended immediately to the district that they needed to have either a
052teacher on special assignment or something uh to do that. uh it's impossible for a director to direct while they're in meetings because there's so much other technical work to do. So that was one of the initial recommendations is balancing the load of running regular meetings so the district can continue to move forward and that uh Sean and the leadership team with the help of the principles can continue to move forward. other systems. It's targeted professional development to make sure that the gened staff understands what special ed is. And an emerging area which is is growing is helping all staff understand that 504 accommodation plans are not a consolation prize uh for a student that has struggles. And we tell districts through some of the trainings that we've done or that we've put people in touch
053with um or have had uh success with districts creating their own special um professional developments is the answer is already in your district. Usually it's it's a very simple answer at the training the gened staff so they're not referring staff or telling parents oh just refer them you can do it you'll get all this support. Um, I think one of the best best practices is regular frequent meetings with staff. Some staff members in districts that we've touched can cite that they haven't had a meeting with the administrator in charge of people services or special ed in two or three years. Prior to it was COVID. That can't happen. You got to have regular meetings and you've got to make time for it. And perhaps maybe a close second or third to that is making sure
054that your instructional time is sacred. Don't meet just to meet. If it's stealing instructional time, it's very hard to get that back for some of your most atrisisk students. Figure out an adult solution so that the kids aren't in a classroom without instruction happening. >> Okay. Anyone else have any questions? >> Okay. Well, thank you very much, Dr. Ryson. Thank you very much for your question. Very clear. >> Dr. Meyer has my number. Um it's in the I believe it's in the report. Um if anyone has any questions or followup, we're here for as long as you need us to. >> We appreciate that. >> Okay. Thank you. >> We as a board are committed to um address the concerns that you identified. We appreciate that you did identify those and we'll work with the
055administration to develop a focused corrective action plan to strengthen our compliance, improve our documentation and support staff so that every student receives the services that they need. So, thank you. Okay, we'll move on to number seven, capital project update. Dr. admire please inform us that you have learned something from state ed >> sort of. Um so uh long story short the process is just taking a little bit longer than uh than we anticipated. The big hiccup right now is during the last iteration of the project um when we put uh in we were able to use our enrollment projections that were used during the merger study. Uh now they're saying that those are that was too far back. So we need new enrollment projections. That just takes a little bit of time. So we are
056in the process of getting that done. Uh and getting um uh then you know getting that submitted to state ahead. Um but um we're hoping to have that very soon hopefully within within this week. Um but you know just takes a little bit of time. Um, and then just a quick review of what the project looks like. You haven't seen it in a bit. Uh, it's the addition on the back end of this campus sort of connecting um the uh the back hallway to the gymnasium. And looks a little bit closer. Uh and again just the elementary classrooms, two sections of each elementary classroom and some intervention spaces as well. >> That's all we got for you. >> Any of the board members have any questions or concerns for Dr. Me? >> Okay, we'll move
057right along then to number eight, board discussion. Old business. Um Mrs. Spalding, >> I do want to bring up something. At the last board meeting, I think it was Brian Hway brought up about the veterans exception and I would like for us to think about putting that on the ballot for the mayo for the public to vote on. That's could be something I don't know Josh vote on that put it on the ballot or >> uh that's a good question. So my understanding is that uh the board of education has the ability to make that decision for the veterans exemption and I believe uh I don't know if you want to consider this as well but I believe he also is talking about the um >> volunteer fire. >> Yeah the the volunteer fire exemption
058as well. Um I so as I understand it the board has the ability to approve that. However it can also go to public vote. Um if my two cents would be would to uh be to recommend that you do it as a public vote. Um you know if if anyone is getting um any kind of tax exemption that means that others are paying more in in their taxes. So uh you know there's certainly valid reasons to do that. Uh, but I think that the community should weigh in on that and we can look into um we can work with Bridget on that to see what what specifically we need to make that happen, but I don't see any reason why we can't do that for our May vote. >> Yeah, just one point on that.
059Um, so I have to submit that paperwork by January 1st every year. So if it was a May vote, it would take effect the next year. Yeah. So I actually just >> So it wouldn't be until January 27th. It would affect the next year's 26 27 affect the 2728 tax year. Okay. >> Um just because I I just submitted the form this morning actually. It's brought up. >> Well, at least we could get it on the May vote and get it. So, >> so besides veterans and firefighters, um is an ambulance exemption. >> Yeah. Okay. Just wondering if we're gonna >> Yeah, I need a motion for that. and Josh >> um >> on the vote is now for May. >> I I would say we probably need one before May. I don't know the
060people right now. >> Yeah. Why why don't why don't we get a little more information? We can see what other breakdowns there are and then we can continue the discussion in January and and get something. But we our plan will be to have it on in May. Um, but we'll we'll gather some more information so we know exactly what that motion needs to look like and move forward from there. >> Thank you, Deb. Appreciate it. >> Thank you. So, we'll get more information on that and let you know at the next meeting. Um, new business. Any other old business that we need to address? >> New business committee updates. Uh, joint study. Either Tom or Paige, would you be willing to provide us with an update on joint study? Tom or >> Paige? to go
061page or me. >> Okay, doesn't matter. >> Choose. Okay. >> Page us to do youth commission. >> Okay. All right. I'll take it. Um joint study is is made up of uh two teachers, two uh board members and uh the superintendent. It's probably been in existence since uh for at least 25 years. And the idea behind joint study is to look at various problems insignificant problems but things that would you know like a new copier or uh you know whatever that would facilitate better understanding between the board and the uh and the uh student uh teachers. Um there would be no voting there would be no recommendation. it just be make uh the superintendent or the or the board aware of certain things. Um this year the uh it changed a little bit. We're looking
062at a new uh curricular proposal by the state um called portrait of a graduate uh is supposed to be implemented by two uh 2027 in the lower grades fifth grade. So it it would start in the um 2028 29 school year >> school year. All right. And there are uh six or seven different areas of the uh of the portion of the graduate. It's going to change curriculum a little bit. It's uh that the student would at graduation be academically prepared, be a creative innovator, a critical thinker, an effective communicator, a global citizen, and reflective and future focused uh graduate. Now, some of these uh need a little further clarification by the state. We're still working on process. It's probably going to take a while to do this. We've got some time to do it
063and we'll take a look at as we go along. Okay. >> It also seems that we're a little ahead of the game, which is nice to see. >> Paige says we're a little ahead ahead of the game. All right. >> It it sounds like it's probably something we should consider when we're setting our our district goals and vision too, like how we may want to change those to align with graduate. >> That's specifically where I think we're ahead of the game. I think that they already do. Like I think that who we're trying to create in the district um aligns with that very well and that's why it's really nice to see >> and we're potentially looking at internships, student internships with with uh employers locally uh to see if we can figure out something
064of that. Um and I think the goal here is the fact that uh you look at the number of college graduates that go on has decreased over the years and more of the trades are involved of getting kids uh involved in work. >> Okay, >> we'll be working on it. >> Thank you, Mr. Broad. Youth Commission update. Paige, would you like to provide us an update? Um, we are in basketball season. Games don't start until next year, so there's not really a whole lot going on. Um, but the ice rink is now >> close. Yes. >> Well, cool. Weather is good for some. >> Okay. Thank you, Paige. Um, policy committee, Deb, Jason, or Sarah, would you like to provide an update? Sure. We met yesterday. We made it through the 3000s and 4,000s of
065policy. Um, no major changes. Just clarifying a few um wordage language. Yeah. No one in public comment. For some reason, I remember that one the most. I don't know why. Yeah. >> Okay. >> And I was I was not present. >> We need to text her next time. Okay. Thank you. Um, number two, legal services discussion. Dr. Myers, would you like to start our discussion? >> Um, I'm happy to start. Uh so uh I was surprised to receive an email uh from our attorney who um said he received an email from uh board president requesting the uh attorney or the other two attorneys. So, with the new attorney, Gersio and Gerscio requested the contracts of the other two attorneys. Um, uh, has the board president made requests to, uh, terminate the services of the other
066two attorneys and what that language would look like? Um, so we're on it's on here to discuss. >> Okay. Does anyone have anything they'd like to say to begin with? Well, I know like with our new lawyer, I like the transparency. Um, I feel like I know a little bit more what's going on. I personally haven't met or even laid eyes on the new lawyer, so that's not who I would be comfortable talking with. Um, you know, I've used I've been on the board for seven years and I'm comfortable with the lawyer we've had. So, if I have a question, that's what I'm going to go ask. >> Yeah. Well, >> is we're dealing with a contract. Should this be for executive session? >> No. >> This is required for public because it's would be
067a vote on business issue. So, it's not appropriate for for um executive session. Um, I believe that there are reasons financially to try to consolidate and not have so many um, attorneys uh, employed by the district just to help with financial costs. But the main issue is the transparency. Um, there are lots of reasons to select a very transparent law firm. A school district has a responsibility to operate in a manner that is ethically sound, financially responsible, and aligned with the public's expectations. Hiring a law firm that demonstrates a high level of transparency directly supports those obligations. A transparent law firm provides clear communication, open billing practices, and documented decisionmaking, enabling the district to maintain accountability for all its stakeholders, including the students, the families, faculty, staff, and taxpayer taxpayers. Transparent firms minimize the risk
068of misunderstandings, unexpected costs, and conflicts of interest by offering detailed explanations of their legal strategies, their fee structures, and work process seats. This visibility allows district leadership to make fully informed decisions, evaluate the effectiveness of legal representation, and ensure the council's actions align with district policies and values. Additionally, because school districts operate in a public environment and are often subject to open records and sunshine laws, working with council that understands and practices transparency helps the district uphold compliance and maintain public trust. A lack of transparency in legal services can erode community confidence spark allegations of impropriy and increase the likelihood of disputes over billing strategy or communication. For these reasons, selecting a transparent law firm is not only a matter of operational efficiency, but also an essential component of the district's commitment to integrity, accountability,
069and responsible stewardship of public resources. The firm Gerscio and Gerscio provides that type of transparency that our district truly needs, providing the whole board with legal memos regarding all legal issues. And it is for that reason that we have a walk-on item concerning the termination of the Honeywell Firm, excuse me, the Honeywell firm. May I have a motion to add this walk-on item to tonight's agenda? Can I just continue the discussion? >> Yes. >> Great. Thank you. >> So I have a couple slides prepared. >> So uh if if we look here um so you know I I don't think that anyone would argue that uh Gersio's transparency I don't know how you could argue Stafford Owens or Honeywell's transparency either. I am certain that they have never been asked to produce uh the memos
070that that you're discussing. And if they were, I'm sure they'd be happy to produce those. But uh as we look here with both districts, prior to the merge, there's a long-standing relationship with Staffford Owens and with Honeywell, the admin team who works with the uh attorneys pretty frequently has very high levels of satisfaction with both firms. In October, a couple months ago, the board approved adding Garcio and Garcio, which is fine. There was no resolution, no discussion of termination of that time of the existing firms, and there was no uh discussion about consolidation of legal services. The multiple ser multiple firms have continued to serve the district and that seems to have worked out just fine. Um, but speaking of transparency, and I'm so glad you brought that up. So, when I emailed you, when
071I received the request, I emailed you and asked why we be doing that, and you said cost >> and transparency. >> Nope. >> You said C. So, B, so to your question, board superintendent emails, that's an executive session discussion in which you'll see the emails where there was absolutely no mention of trust or transparency. simply cost. That's great. In the memo from Gersio and Gersio, it was all about trust. No mention of cost. If you'd like to see that as a side by side, you can see that the response I received from the board president was all focused on cost. The attorney was all focused on trust. These explanations are material materially different. I find the to be extraordinarily problematic. Now what is more problematic is that when questioned about this I was assured by
072the board president that she already had a majority for this. So let's just discuss how that works. that after the November meeting, before the December meeting, with no public discussion, a majority was already reached by the board president outside of a public meeting. So, uh, you can read here a little bit about what the New York State law requires. I'm sure that our attorney when another board member reaches out to talk about what that means, I'm sure that the board will get a memo on what that looks like. Now, let's talk about cost because that's what I was told to be prepared for tonight. So, if you take a look here at the last three years, 2023, 2024, that was our capital project vote here. So, looking at that cost, that $40,000 number, a large
073portion of that was related to capital project. Moving down to 2425 about $19,800. This current school year we're at $13,200. The projection based on that is $31,680. The board of education of that $13,200 is $5,800. And for the first time ever, we have a line for board president consult uh consultation which is at $3,332 this year. Projection looking at $8,000 for the year. So if anyone is looking for suggestions on how to reduce costs, I have one. So if cost is the concern, I believe the data showing that the process is accessing expenses, not the pricing. Also, fun fact, Honeywell is the cheapest of our three firms. If trust is the concern and the board trust, use them all you'd like. The administration trusts Honeywell and Stafford Owens. And I don't see if if trust
074is the issue, why should we not continue to use those firms? Different responsibilities require different legal relationships. Okay. I have a few things to say. When I spoke with the attorney from Gersio and Gersio and I informed him that there were some trust issues and I have spoken and when you say that I have the majority, the attorney asked me if the majority of the board members would want to um would want to terminate the Honeywell law firm because of trust issues and there were also the issues that because I feel that when I'm contacting Gersio and Gersio Dr. Meyer you are contacting Honeywell to try to get a different answer. Okay. So that's >> Hey, can you pull that data for the next board meeting please about the dates of that Honeywell was contacted
075versus very soon >> almost a um dual financial cost. Okay. So >> Tom also in executive session you'll see the superintendent's cost compared to the board president's cost. Gio and is some of that though for Honeywell >> or for you're saying the super the um board president going and and getting information is some of that for the Honeywell not Versio and Gerscio because Mrs. Salving and I took a trip down to Albany in July >> to not um we drove ourselves to avoid the cost of having um the well representative come to our district. We drove ourselves. I used my car, my gas to save the district money. Okay. and we went down and we spent about an hour with him and we did not get many answers. The questions that we asked were not
076answered and at that time he even admitted that there is a bond. So I was re it was recommended by the lawyer from Mercio and Gerscio that I reach out to the other board members to see which I was not if there was a majority because last time I reached out to you Sarah and asked you to please call me because I didn't know your number you never responded to me. So what did you did you get received that email that asked? >> Yes. And you never respond. So why >> I responded to you every time you called? >> Yes. >> I was part of that committee. >> How come I was not notified that you were going down this pathway? >> Perhaps I should have contacted you. Okay. >> You didn't contact. >> But
077I did contact the rest of the board. >> You contacted the Yes. >> And >> you contacted the Yes. I actually think that this is again not a productive conversation. Um and personally I don't really want to set this any longer. Um no matter what happened previously, this is not going to uh fix itself today. Um and I think that we should move on. Uh maybe I'm alone in this. you're welcome to say your feelings but um no matter my feeling on the the point um the discussion is not helpful and I don't think that we need to keep going down this path. Okay, I am going to read and ask for a motion to add this walk-on item to tonight's agenda. Then I think the discussion should continue. If you if you're not going
078to page his stuff, if you're not going to, then I think we let Tom finish. We let Sarah finish. >> Okay. >> Go ahead. Is if there's anyone else who would like to comment, go ahead. >> I just don't see why you feel you should regulate who the rest of us work with as far as lawyers. Why why why can't you just let I work with Honeywell you work with Gersu and Gersu why do you feel the need to regulate that there there can I also if I can just add all the attorneys that we work with are built hourly period also and I I will I will check this but to your point about Honeywell and the travel I believe Honeywell is also the only firm that doesn't charge us mileage or for parallegal
079fees they are significantly the um cheapest of the three. I I will double check. I I I Yeah. However, I know that they are the cheapest of the three. And um so so no no the the point is that an hour is built there. There's no flat. There is no for for you to say that the gentleman from Gersio felt that he could save the district money if we move all of our business to him. Like it's it's amazing to me that a business owner that surely gets paid because of more business that he brings in wants more business. >> And this motion was not to rid both terminate both of the other firms. It was just >> just the one that I worked at. >> Just for Honey. >> Right. Right. Just the one
080that I work. And I am not the only one on this board that feels that there is a problem. >> I feel >> Sarah, you're think you're saying that it's I want to control this. This is not just me wanting to control this. There are other people that have issues with this law firm as well with the trust. But that's who I trust. I've worked with them for seven years. So why should you be be the one to say that? I don't trust Gersio and Gersio. I've never seen them. So why do you and I'm putting it out to the whole board. Okay. If the whole majority of the board did not want to go this route, then that's the way that they should vote. But I'm going to give the uh people the opportunity
081since there have been issues with this particular law firm and not just with me with other people as well because I was told by the lawyer do you have and I did not contact them all at once. It was all done legally. >> Okay. >> So John, we're recording tonight, right? >> Uh yes. Yes. >> Okay. >> That's what I was told by the lawyer to do to reach out and to find out if there was support for that and then the resolution would be drawn on top. >> Just just to share my chair where I stand stand on this. I have I have no no evidence or reason myself to terminate Honeywell as one of one of the lawyers. I I haven't seen any instances of that causing issues for the for the district.
082So that's that's Ryan. >> Well, one more question if you don't mind. Uh Sean, who is the law firm that is in special education? >> That's Honeywell. >> Honeywell. And if I it was I I know it was probably 30 minutes ago at this point, but I believe that one of the recommendations one of the one of the big issues there was consistency with in the audit that we just heard was consistency in special education. So terminating Honeywell, which is probably the single most consistent thing that is happening at the higher levels of that department seems asinine after the audit that we just heard. Can you explain that again? >> This is absolutely a public discussion. I didn't I didn't Can you explain that again? >> So, Honeywell is the law firm that has been
083working with um special education. They've been working with special education all along. Uh prior to Honeywell, it was Harris Beach and there were some people from Harris Beach who moved over to Honeywell. So it that that is the most consistent thing happening at the upper levels of uh our special education world is the Honeywell law firm and it seemed very that was one of the the key factors was consistency in special education was one of the issues. So, I don't know why we would get rid of the attorney. And again, again, I will go back to say that if special education is working with Honeywell and that's who they trust, that's great. If our principles work with Stafford Owens and that's who they trust, that's great. If the board wants to work with Gersio and
084Gersio, that's great. We've appointed three firms. We and with they're all paid hourly. We can appoint 10 firms if we want and it shouldn't increase the cost of the attorneys. I just see absolutely no reason to eliminate the attorneys. If you don't want to work with an attorney, don't call them. I I don't know. I I just seems >> personally I have a question that I don't think I can ask unless it's executive session that pertains to this and I would not vote until I was able to clarify that. >> Just >> Okay. Well, and we'll just add that to executive session then if it's a it is an executive session question that can't something that cannot be discussed. can't really clarify it in a public sense, so I'm guessing. >> Okay. All right. Um,
085one other thing that I wanted to mention is that Versio and Versio specialize in education law. They have a number a large number of special education lawyers and other litigation lawyers. Everything is specialized in education. Honeywell does not specialize. If you have a heart problem, you're not going to want to go to a general practitioner. You're going to want to go to a cardiologist, a specialist. So, why would we not want to take our legal issues to a law firm that specializes in education issues? So, I mean, there are so many things wrong with that statement. Um, Honeywell, again, the people that we work with at Honeywell, they only do education. Does their other firm do different things? I I'm I'm sure they do. I've never called them about other things, but they they do
086they the people that we work with, they work in education. The people that special education work with only do special education law. I I was part one of the interviews uh for all three firms. They all were great. They're all competent. I'm sure that there are thousands of competent firms in New York State. We could I would I would support a resolution to appoint all thousand of those firms before I would start reducing firms. It it does not make sense. >> Okay. Well, we will just continue this discussion in executive session then. All right. Let's move on to the next item number nine, public comment. Our agenda offers two public comment sections. ideas um opinions, ideas and concerns that are offered by the public will be considered and taken under advisement. We have set a
08715minute period giving the audience time to share their thoughts with us. Please raise your hand to be acknowledged by the board president. When called upon, please identify yourself and give your address limiting your comments to three minutes. And Paige, you are going to your timer. Thank you. >> Yes. Go ahead, Mr. King. Good evening. My name is Josh Kingszac. I live in Westport. I have two kids in the elementary school. First and foremost, I wanted to um thank the school. I think it was on Thursday or Friday, and I'm not sure who all was involved, but they brought in a gentleman who rode a BMX bike and and uh my kids came home totally jazzed. Uh their friends were jazzed about it. I went had dinner with some fellow educators. My wife's a teacher in
088the high school. and everyone was so excited and I hope that um as a school uh we can keep facilitating these types of things. Uh I I want our school to do better and better and better and I I feel like we're really on a a good track with with these things and that was just a a highlight. Um >> I agree. My second thing is is sitting here tonight and listening to this discussion. Um, as a citizen, as a taxpayer, as someone who voted for some of you people, uh, I feel like there is no transparency. I feel like, uh, there's a lot of lying going on and there's a lot of, uh, uh, it it it looks like I'm watching like a middle school where there's like little clicks. So you all need
089to uh I don't know sit down and re-evaluate what you're doing here because as a citizen I am unhappy and I do not think that uh what you all are doing is is making a lot of parents uh happy and it's not like anything strictly but it's the fact that there's there's calls to to lawyers from certain people there if this has been like going on this year uh and it's it's a real bummer. because I I don't like I don't trust you guys to make decisions for the betterment of our school, for our children, for the educators or for our town or our budget. So, please like hear me. Thanks for your time. >> Thank you. Anyone else? >> Yes. Go ahead. kind of together, so forgive me. Um, Megan Mstroski, 27 Mos Road.
090First, I do um want to thank the board uh for rearranging the agenda, at least trying to. Um I think it's very helpful for me as a parent and some other parents um to be able to come when we can kind of get an idea of what's going on. New business, old business, capital project updates. we can have a first public comment where we really can't be here many people till 9:00 when we have little ones. So, um pushing forward an informed uh community is is very much appreciated. Um however, I am growing incredibly frustrated with the amount of derailing this meeting has come to. what you all go through behind the scenes because looking at it from the public it is I don't know I wouldn't want to I wouldn't want to bring out
091someone outside our community here to see it it's it's embarrassing um so Gersio Gersio education law labor employment personal injury construction law special education law civil rights law re real property taxation and tax whatever and litigation um Honeywell they specialize if you want to know um in special education in education, um, labor and employment litigation, construction law, and adoption law. Um, so to say someone doesn't specialize in the law field, you better never have them on retainer because in the law field, you want specialists and you want more than one specialist because when you have, say something comes up, there's an issue, um, maybe Gersio Garcio's better at some components of special education law than Honeyal or vice versa. So I think in true transparency, the introduction of anyone getting a special budget, that being
092unprecedented, a new budget line that concentrates power in a single board officer deserves clear justification, public explanation, and full board approval. Budget should serve the district, not individual positions. Transparency cannot be selected. Transparency means empowering the entire board to access accurate information, not restricting communication channels or centralizing authority in one rule role. A functioning board must operate operate as a united governing body. I feel like I keep saying this. Um, no board individual should have more authority to regulate over the others. Um, they should be able to use counsel and find resources as as they trust. Um, I I I don't know. I'm again just off the cuff of this really. Uh, the community depends on a board that works together. Um, not one that concentrates power in a single seat. So, can we please
093be unanimous and show the community that we're unanimous because we have things coming up here beyond what we're talking about. you can, as mentioned, take on as many lawyers, you get build when you use them. Um, so I think that's important. I think derailing our conversation for something that's not about the capital project right now or or the voting coming up coming up or things that are extremely important. Um, I just think this is a waste of everyone's time. So, thank you. >> Now, ju just to be clear and transparent because I I would not want anyone to hear those comments and think otherwise. The board president has absolutely no more right or authority to contact any of the legal representation than anyone else on this governing team and there's no separate line item in
094the budget. Is that correct, Dr. Meyer? >> Not not in the budget. However, when we broke down the the legal >> you guys broke it down for the purpose of that >> campaign or that >> that Yeah. >> slideshow >> any board member can contact the a legal representative. It's not just the president. >> Right. >> Just so everyone understands that. >> Yes. Go ahead. Hi, I'm Kelly Ecker. I live at Port Harborview Terrace and I have two kids in the high school. And I have two things I want to say. The one is, you know, I sort of experienced the school through the, you know, through through my kids. And in this last month, month and a half, I have been so touched by how thoughtful and caring and supportive the entire school staff
095has been from people in the office to the guidance counselors to the teachers. I've just sort of been witness to um such like people going the extra mile and really caring about my kids and the kids at the school. So, I just I want to say that I'm I'm just constantly amazed at how much the teachers and the staff and the administration does. Um, and as I'm sitting here in this meeting, I'm thinking, gosh, this this seems like a mess. And what if this culture that you all seem to be experiencing, what if this starts to trickle down? Because right now, I mean, I'm a parent and a taxpayer, right? So, those are two things very important to me. And it's so important what the teachers are doing. And I just don't it's very confusing
096to me the dissonance between what I see happening here and what's happening in the school. And also, I'd like you to know there's often not a lot of kids here because they're busy playing sports and doing homework and whatnot, but they do sometimes watch these meetings. They sit in living rooms and watch you. And you know what? I don't think uh I don't think they're seeing things they want to emulate. So I also like other parents would want to really encourage you to look at what you're doing and why you're doing it because this school could be this school is a great school and deserves a better board. So that would be my request. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else? >> Okay. Number 10. Yes. Okay. Go ahead. >> Excuse me. >> Did
097I after? She's after. Okay. Number 10, executive session. Specifically, the board anticipates entering into executive session to discuss number six, the medical, financial, credit, or employment history of a particular person or persons. Number eight, to discuss the proposed acquisition, sale or lease of real property or the proposed acquisition, sale or exchange of securities, but only when publicity would substantial substantially affect the value of these things. Do I have a motion to enter into executive session to discuss items 10, A, and B? >> Motion. >> Thank you. And a second. >> A second. >> Second. Thank you, Deb. Uh, any discussion? All in favor? >> I I >> I opposed abstensions. Motion passes. Anticipating be being back in approximately 30 minutes perhaps. Hopefully. Okay, we'll see you soon. She's pretty content. >> No, I'm very excited
098about that. Do I have a motion to reconvene into open session? >> Motion. >> Okay. Thank you. And second. I'll second. >> Okay. Any discussion? All in favor? I >> opposed. Abstensions. Okay. Motion passes to reconvene at 8:38. Okay, exeicio student school board member report. It's our pleasure to have Satie, our student representative once again and some fellow fellow board um student council members, too. >> Um yeah, they helped make it. >> Oh, okay. They're not here. Okay. Um provide us with the report on behalf of the student body. Thank you all for your willingness to provide us with another student update. Thank your cohorts there for helping. Um go ahead Satie. The floor is yours. Thank you. Um the bullets got a little messed up, but the first one is Champagne Valley Model UN.
099Um high school students who are going to Harvard United Nations in early 2026 participated in the Champagne Valley Model UN in Platsburg last week. Um, bokeat valley delegates earned best delegate, outstanding delegate, and an honorable mention. And our school also won best delegation. This was a great way for Harvard model students to prepare for the bigger conference coming up. >> Um, when Harvard Harvard end of January. >> Yeah. Thank you. Um, in the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving, we had the grow a Griffin turkey challenge in the middle and high school. When a teacher saw students demonstrating one of Brilliant Papley's six essential skills, a feather was put on the Griffin mural at the end of the middle school hallway. Um, it's a great way to acknowledge students who are demonstrating teamwork, networking, agility, leadership,
100goal setting, and perseverance. Um, green team update. We had our first green team meeting last week. It was led by the seniors who went to the youth climate summit in November. They gave us a summary of what they learned from the conference and then we created goals for the green team and brainstormed how to educate both campuses on the importance of recycling and composting and other environmental things. We're looking forward to future green team projects. Um and finally, a professional DMX biker visited both Lake View and Mountain View on Friday. Um along with performing various tricks, he shared his experience working through setbacks. um and who left students with a message of perseverance and encouraged us to pursue our goals. We're very grateful that we get this opportunity to see them perform. Um moving forward,
101we have several holiday activities planned for the end of December, which should be a fun send off into holiday break. >> Thank you. Great. Thank you again, Satie. It's always great to get the firsthand accounts of what's happening and we have a lot of positive things happening in the district. Your contributions are very valuable to us as board. Thank you again. Number 12, the approval of minutes. Um, approve the adoption of the agenda and B, approve the minutes of November 12th, 2025 board meeting as presented. Do I have a motion to approve items 12 A and B? >> Thank you, Deb. Second. >> Second. >> Okay. Thank you, Tom. I guess uh any discussion? All in favor? I >> I opposed abstensions. Motion 12A and B are approved. Number 13, financials. Approve the following financial
102reports 1 through five. Do I have a motion to approve items 13A 1 through five? >> Motion. >> Thank you, Paul. Second. >> Second. >> Okay. Thank you, Sarah. Any discussion on these items? All in favor? I >> I opposed abstensions. Okay. Motion 13A 1-5 have been approved. Number 14, CSE, CPSE, and 504 recommendations. Um number A, letter A, accept and approve the committee on preschool special education, committee on special education, and committee on 504 plan recommendations as presented. Do I have a motion to accept CSE, CPSE, and 504 recommendations presented in 14A? >> I motion. >> Thank you. Second. >> I'll second. >> Thank you, Deb. Any discussion? >> All in favor? >> I opposed, abstensions. Motion accepted. Number 15, action items. Consent agenda. A. approve and adopt a resolution approving the host community
103agreement and consenting to the amended and restated pilot agreement of the CHP LLC project as presented. And B, approve the group voluntary vision care plan contract renewal for the period January 1st, 2006 through January 1st, 2028. Do I have a motion to approve action item 15 A and B? I'll motion. Thank you. Second. >> Thank you. Um is there any discussion? >> If you don't mind, I'll just very briefly talk about the post community agreement. Um so back in August of 2021, uh this is the the project that is going through the lake, the big cable that's going through the lake right now. Um it's it's associated with that. Um, I I I believe um I may have this wrong, but I believe any municipality on Lake Champlain that has um that the municip the
104municipality has lake frontage um is getting money as part of this agreement. Um it some communities uh use the pilot. Um Essex County uh has moved I'm glad now that I say that at least the schools in Essex County have moved to the um host community agreement. It's a slightly different model but same amount of money. It's $1.7 million over 30 years. Um and uh I believe starting in the in the next fiscal school year from the 26 27 school year uh we will start getting um some of that money. >> So >> that's not all our money. That's everybody. >> No, no, the 11.7 million is ours. >> Oh, okay. >> Yeah. >> Is it is it flat across the 30 years? >> That's a good question. It is not flat. It um >>
105it doesn't say it. It says it in the >> um >> go up and down. >> No, I I I believe I I I think for this one it starts small and ends big if I remember correctly. So yeah. >> So in year one we're getting 170,000 and in year 30 it's scheduled at 983,000. >> So 170 and then 930 in the last year. Yeah. >> So the following year will be tough. >> No. No. So So that but that that's actually really the question. That's why we pushed for it to switch to the community host agreement and not the pilot because in year 31 uh which I I hope to be retired and then um yeah that would be a very difficult year for uh tax discussions. So that was my >> So is
106the difference between the host community agreement and the pilot is that they'll pay taxes after the 30 years? >> No. So, okay. So, um we we at the last board meeting, we approved, you approved a pilot agreement for the Westport Hotel property. >> Okay. So, that property um got approved for whatever rate they're paying, which is less than what their taxes, >> yes, >> would normally be for a certain period of time. I don't recall what that was, >> but the idea is that when that agreement ends, then they are paying the full value of of their taxes. Yeah, >> because this is on non-t taxable land. It's in the middle of the lake. >> It didn't make sense for it to be pilot, you know, it's not on taxable property. So that that was
107why the switch. >> Okay. Is there any other further discussion? All in favor? >> I opposed. Any abstensions? Motion to approve item 15 A and B approved. Number 16, personnel consent agenda A through M with the amend items 16N. Do I have a motion to approve item? A motion? >> Yes. Item 16 A through N. And then addendum item 16N. >> Thank you, Deb. Second, Paige. Thank you. Is there any discussion on any of these items? >> Yeah. Um I think I brought this up before, Josh, if we could talk to maybe it would be Aiden at some time. If we can get off the minimum wage for those employees somehow and squeeze it somehow into the budget >> to increase to further increase the sub rates. >> Yeah. Well, for the um minimum wage
108employees that we have to get, >> you'd have to break down the sub rates to see if any of them are at the minimum wage, but I think it's mostly about the hourly >> Yeah. >> Uh so yes, however, I think because the change wasn't effect January 1st, they need to approve this tonight, >> right? But >> down the road we can look at it. >> Yeah. >> That conversation closure. >> Okay. All in favor? >> I opposed. Any abstensions? Items 16 A through M with the addendum item 16A N um are accepted. Number 17, policy as recommended by Erie one policy services approve the revision of policies one policy uh and policy number two board members nomination and election. Do I have a motion to approve policy A1 and two? >> Motion. >> Thank
109you. Paul second. I'll second. >> Okay. Thank you, Sarah. Any discussion on these? >> Um, excuse me. I I think it's you, Bridget, that sends these to to us. Can you just highlight in some way uh what the differences are because otherwise I'm comparing them and not doing a good job of finding it? >> Thank you. >> Like, yeah, >> Dr. Yeah, I I can give you a quick version. Um the first one uh the policy 1210 that adds language to address the student board member. Um and then policy the medication and personal care items that has to do with uh the um nebulizer and believe we have we've removed the nebulizer from things that we are automatically providing. Is that correct? Yes. So if that would still allow someone who needed a nebulizer to
110bring theirs in and we can facilitate that but we are not providing anything. >> Okay. All in favor? >> I I opposed. Any abstensions? Okay. Policy items in 17A 1 and two accepted. Number 18 administrator director report. Uh the director of facilities Mr. Rice. Scott Rice, you have the floor. >> Thank you. >> Good evening. >> Probably busy buffing tire marks. >> The tire marks weren't that bad. Although, while you were in executive session, I really wanted to go get the tennis ball and get stuff marks off, but I bought the All right. So, I've broken this down into both separate districts, buildings, same district. Uh, but then a district-wide update. So 95% of the lights in this building have been updated to the LED lights. They're more efficient and they come with a significant
111rebate. The majority of the lights here, your standard 4ft light bulbs by simply removing the ballast and buying the $6 a piece light bulb we got. I think it was $12 back for every light we installed. PM Liry was consulted recently on a drain back up here in the Mountain View campus. Uh there's an interesting corner in the cafeteria and we cannot seem to snake that with any snakes that we own. So we end up contracting PM Larry once or twice a year. It seems like the gymnasium windows have been a constant distraction for the athletes and the students in there. And we looked into having those tented, but the cost was going to be very high. So instead, we used Rustoleum spray paint and frosted the glass. And it seems to be working. We're
112going to finish the rest of those when the students aren't here because it smells bad. The gymnasium floor was just redone prior to basketball season, so our students and our athletes have a really nice working surface similar to this floor, only it's an older floor. Ice Time will be here this month over the break. We talked about it two board meetings ago to update the walk-in coolers and replace those. So, we have no more issues with those here. They've been losing freon gas. Moving over to the Lake View campus, the grinder pump and the septic system went down. So, we had to once again contract with PM Larry and Hometown Electric because along with having an electrical issue, one of the pumps was jammed up. I think it was a Lego inside it. It's an
113elementary school that happens. Uh over the holiday break, we've got a broken pipe coming out of the art room. So, currently we're washing all the paint brushes into a five gallon bucket and then taking those down the hallway. We're going to refer that, but it's going to be pretty extensive and noisy, so we're waiting to the holiday break. The hallways and the stairways, including the ones with the math facts, are pretty much constantly being repainted. I think the math facts are pretty cool. Working on the heat system over there. We've managed to cool down a couple of the rooms with some manual valves. We've got another individual coming in tomorrow who's going to work on the pneumatic, so hopefully we can get that to a normal temperature. I'm not very hopeful because it's a pretty
114old system. As far as district-wide updates, uh we just replaced our 2018 truck with a 2025 F250 plow truck. We also have two new school buses which are 2026 Bluebirds and the new tractor has been delivered. They're all in service and working. Numerous teachers have received gently used desks and chairs and a couple filing cabinets from Clinton Community College due to their closures. Thank you, Dr. Meyer, for setting that up for us. They're actually pretty nice. >> All right, we have a couple new part-time employees. They're actually students here. We had a couple students who started working with their National Honor Society hours to get their community service hours and transitioned into part-time employment. Uh we interviewed two more students today and I think it's absolutely great having students on staff as substitute cleaners. The
115annual air quality and fire inspections are all complete and the elevators were also inspected this year. Everything is up to snuff and we are running. The fall fire drill requirements are taken care of both campuses all done. Our emergency go home drill has been completed. Our snow day cancellation and our two-hour delay protocols have been established for the remainder of the school year, and we will not need to delay tomorrow. And this morning, I was honored to be part of the fifth graders because Mr. Kyler asked me to help him out as a veteran and somebody who knows how to fold a flag and work for them. And it was a great activity. They're great kids. We worked on it. A couple of them are a little nervous that they were going to make a
116mistake. And once they realize that mistakes happen, don't worry about it. You just fix it. I just heard a squeak. >> That was my shoe. >> Okay. I wasn't sure if I did something up here. My herinade is buzzing. Other than that, we're fixing the problems as they come and there will be more problems because we have old buildings, but when they come, we're going to fix them. >> Okay. Thank you. I do have a couple questions. Um, member, as part of the energy performance contract we signed last year, I believe a new boiler replacement was a significant part of that. Is there any status to when that will happen? >> We have very old boilers in this building >> and we cannot get parts for them anymore. It's a >> huge project, but we
117have newer boilers that are horribly inefficient in the other building. So, we're working on both. So, I don't have any >> with that contract performance contract. Aren't we supposed to get new boilers? >> Yeah. So that that's a good question. So I I can answer that. So as part of that energy performance contract, the boiler was part of that. If you remember, we would get 80% reimbursement on on the whole project, but if we did it as part of a vote, we would get 90%. So uh so an additional 10%. this all made sense when we thought we were voting this fall then February and that so so um I just need to circle up with um day automation and say what what's the new plan you know to to see what what makes the
118most sense right now. Um so uh we we could do a vote just for that. Um but we can also cost it out and see what makes the most sense. But good, good question. >> All right. And then my other question was you, you did say that you were getting the heat regulated in some of the rooms, which is good, but um I know since now we're mandated by the state to keep rooms under a certain temperature. Um how are you monitoring the excessive heat at Lake View? >> When you read the state mandate, it says 3 feet off the ground in the center of the room. So, we have a digital heat gun, just your standard Milwaukee digital heat gun, and you walk into the classroom and you pick a desk because that's approximately
1193 ft off the ground in the center of the room and you >> Oh, okay. >> pull the trigger and it gives you a temperature reading. >> So, you're doing that on a regular basis. >> Yes. >> Great. >> I have a question. Can you do like a followup on your sub cleaners that are students and see if peer pressure helps with keeping the the older kids picking up their own messes? >> we've had a our first student cleaner who came on was Palmer Martin. So she started as National Honor Society said this isn't that bad. I like it. And it worked out really well. Stayed on through the summer. came back the next fall, stayed on, and then was a summer cleaner again. Is still on the substitute list, but is currently in college.
120And college comes first. I'm trying to >> Andrew applied. >> What was that? >> Andrew Denton applied, right? >> Andrew Denton is currently working, but I was talking to Satie during the executive session that Andrew Denton has abandoned us for sports again. >> But that's more important. I wonder if the fact that it's high school kids cleaning if the other high school kids are like, "Oh, there's the garbage can. Now I'm going to walk over and put in the garbage can instead of this for the ones that are like, "Hey, >> clean up." I'm the one picking up. >> It would just be interesting to see what happens. >> I think as we get more and they realize that it's not a difficult job, commute is pretty good because you get out of school and
121you go right to work. I think we'll see more. So, our our newest two haven't even started yet. They just had their applications and their job interviews today. And hopefully uh they want to start next week, but >> I think that's a great idea. >> I I appreciated the I appreciated the update. >> Yes. >> Thanks. Thanks to you and what your team does. >> Sorry you lost your Legos. >> I've been trying to get your daughter to work with me every day and she keeps telling me it's my job. >> Yeah. if you figure that out, let me know. >> Also, thank you for the uh attention to the flag. Um that was also brought up during during the study. Um and I appreciate that you guys went over that. Then >> it none
122of them I think did any of that maliciously. I think the fact that somebody had to put it on Facebook instead of just pointing it out or fixing the problem. >> I don't think any of it Facebook is sad. I don't think any of it was malicious. Um and but still the response to it is what I appreciate. Um including uh putting it in a different place now or a case or whatever you guys are doing. Um just to double down on that. So thank you. >> Anyone else? Thank you, Mr. Rice. Thank you. We appreciate that. >> Okay, Mr. Stack, I think you're up next. >> Hey, that's me. >> Okay. So, um, I just want to give you guys, we just got the audit report. I don't know if you knew that, uh,
123maybe, you know, two days ago or something. So, I, um, sort of circled up and went over everything that did it and, um, kind of drafted a little bit of an overview of what has happened since, uh, he wrapped up in late September. U,, these are this, you know, the list based on the recommendations that he made. Um, and these are things that have been done. Uh things that are in process, things that will be done. Um yeah, on top of that, I also am formulating a two-year plan. Um I believe I formally present in January. And so I'd like to have that done to talk to you guys about that sort of a long-term sustainability plan. Um but this is what where we are today. Um so little just a little snapshot. Um, so
124I do have a formal statement. If you would like me to read that, I can do that. Good evening. I'd like to provide an update on the status of the special education department as of December 2025. When I stepped into this role, it was clear that the department had experienced several years of significant turnover, directors, clerical staff, psychologists, teachers. the level of instability affected uh not only confidence and communication but also the day-to-day experience of our students, families, and teachers. Uh my focus this year has been to bring stability, communication, and consistency back to our system. I'm pleased to share that many of the highest priority issues identified um in our audit have already been identified and improved. Obviously, there's a long road to go, but what we've been able to do in three months
125that I've been here or so, we've done. We now have clear communication pathways for staff. Annual reviews have been scheduled for uh this spring within uh timelines. Um parent communication is documented properly and PWN's compliant documentation and amendment procedures have all been corrected. Um these are foundational pieces necessary for a functional student centered department. We've also reinstated medical Medicaid billing. Uh that was a real win and took a lot of people and thank you to everybody who did that with me. Um we've corrected coding issues and rebuilt RMTS which is random moment in time study procedures as a result of which we've already submitted around $13,000 and counting in reimbursements. This is revenue that directly supports our students. Um, numbers and systems are only a part of this story. However, I would like to acknowledge
126the teachers, service providers, pair professionals who have carried this work with me. Everybody has been extremely open and wonderful. Um, their flexibility and professionalism often while balancing full and complex case loads and shifting expectations uh has been remarkable. They show up every day for our students. Um, and their commitment is what makes real progress possible. So, publicly I would like to acknowledge the team for their hard work, resilience, and heart that they bring every day. Um, many additional improvements are actively underway. We are rebuilding trust after years of transitions. U, we are meeting regularly as a team monthly at each building. Uh, this Thursday we have a full department meeting for half a day. I'm really looking forward to it. Um, and as a team, we are ensuring high standards compliance and clear communication. As
127we move into the February through May annual review season, our focus shifts to quality. Uh, we are strengthening parent and student voice and ple as a priority. We are ensuring accuracy and program ratios, cleaning up testing accommodations, aligning program descriptions, and ensuring that every service is fully compliant with our state regulations. Alongside this, we're developing a two-year department improvement plan. This plan will translate the audit findings into clear goals, a timeline of actions, and measurable outcomes. The purpose is simple, not just to fix problems, but to build a sustainable system that supports students and staff for the long term. We do have some evergreen challenges, however. capacity, limited program options due to small cohorts, restricted planning time, but now we have regular meetings to address those challenges thoughtfully and proactively. Um, and I have been,
128as Bob mentioned when he was speaking, I there have been regional conversations about uh program sharing. So, we've begun those conversations. I think that's really the next long-term term step as well. So, um, in short, this year has been about trust, stabilization, and rebuilding. We've corrected many compliance issues, restored critical revenue streams, put consistent systems back into place, and strengthen communication. The two-year improve improvement plan will guide our next phase of work. We will build clear and sustainable systems that will allow us to deepen instructional quality and strengthen programming for every student we serve. Uh, thank you to the board for your continued support um, as we move this work forward. So yeah, that's what I got on that. >> Thank you very much. Um, and I'm amazed that you have done so much so
129quickly after the report. >> So it's nothing. >> So I congratulate you for being so proactive in getting these things >> such a timely manner. >> Happy to do it. It's actually pretty fun. You know, we're having a good time. So yeah, >> um >> as I've told you before, I appreciate your um the information you provide the board on a monthly besides the actual numbers. >> Yes. >> I appreciate the narrative that you >> Yes. >> provide us with because it tells us a lot. >> Hey, Lisa, can we find it again? >> Communication. I can't find it, but communication. That's what this year's about. Um, on on another note, I know that there you guys have a a current attorney discussion um that is ongoing. Um, you know, I don't know the history
130with what um you've all gone through or um what uh issues have been in the past, but I can say from my experience working with Honeywell, they've been instrumental and incredibly supportive and responsive uh when I've needed to speak with them. Um, so that's just my two cents there. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> Thank you very much. >> Okay, one one quick discussion item, Mr. Stra. I do want to say the your focus on like sustainable improvements I think is awesome and I would ask you can continue to try to build those systems like like you're doing and then you know doc Dr. admire. I I know he's going to fully fully support the improvements required. Um just know that you have a a board that that is here to support as well. So
131when there's, you know, hey, I need I need I need some sort of additional resources, some sort of additional help, support, whatever it may be. Obviously, Dr. We know Dr. Meer Meyer is going to take care of that, but we're here too. >> Thank you. That's a nice >> Yes. Good point, Jason. Thank you. Okay. Number 19, superintendent update. A superintendent report. >> Very. >> Uh so just with our grants, uh yeah, he's still up here. Would you like to talk about the grants? >> There's not much to say. It's uh it's almost amendment season. So we're going to be submitting amendments in the spring and then planning begin shortly after, but it's kind of slow season for grants right now. So, yeah. >> Can I ask a question? >> Yes. >> Um, was the
132Oasis grant due in December or you're you'll apply now in December? I can't remember. >> It hasn't been released yet. So, >> yeah. Okay. >> But is is it released typically in December? >> I I don't know that. So, >> I feel like I remember. >> Typically, it's released in December or January. >> Okay. >> I don't foresee that happening. >> There's been So, I think it's going to be a while. there. Okay. >> It's an election. >> That is it. >> Oh, thank you. Any other questions? >> Okay. Number 20. Thank you, Dr. Mario. Number 20, public comment. Our agenda offers two public comment sections. Opinions, ideas, and concerns that are offered by the public will be considered and taken under advisement. We have set aside 15minute period giving the audience time to share
133their thoughts with us. Please raise your hand to be acknowledged by the board president. When called upon, please identify yourself and give your address, limiting your comments to three minutes. I request that if you wish to make a comment, you please use the microphone that is located in the middle of the room. Would anyone like to make a comment? Don't want to speak at once. >> No one. >> Can I say something? >> Yes, sure. >> Could you Dr. Meyer? Um Lee, I don't see. Could you guys make sure that the teachers um get a thank you for the maple syrup? >> I sent out. >> Did you? Hopefully. >> Very good. Well, I thought about that on the way out tonight. I was like, I never did anything. I got >> No, we did
134send out a and brought it to the office. So, I'm assuming that the teachers association received it. >> Okay. Any other comments? >> Yes. >> Each person over there have a name tag like this because I don't know who any of these people are. I don't >> So, everyone at >> So, I can't say, "Hey, you over there." >> You know, it's only right. Everybody knows we're not in the school enough to see it, you know. I'd like to see >> Mr. Dunton is new so it would be helpful probably to him and >> it doesn't have to hang over their neck you know you know something to understand who everybody is. >> Yeah, makes sense. Good suggestion. All right, thank you. Number 21, next meeting. Hey, regular meeting um will be on Thursday, January
1358th at 2 2026 um 6 pm at the Lake View campus and 22 executive session. Specifically, the board anticipates entering the executive executive session for the following reason. A number six to discuss the medical, financial, credit or employment history of a particular person or persons and B number eight to discuss the proposed acquisition, sale or lease of real property or the proposed acquisition, sale or exchange of securities, but only when publicity would substantially affect the value of these things. Do I have a motion to enter into executive session? A motion. Okay, thank you. And a second. >> Second. Thank you, Tom. Any discussion? All in favor? >> Opposed? I I'm opposed. >> Abstensions. Motion passes to enter into executive session. Um >> I I think I think quick. >> Yeah, it'll be quick and we
136probably will not be any action after the years. We're free to stay if you'd like or you may go home. We're nice.