001good evening everyone six o'clock I'll call the meeting to order can we see please stand and say the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America the stands Nation indivisible withy and we're going to start out with oath of off off for Evan George would you mind doing that Bridget I do swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the constitution of the state of New York and I will Faithfully discharge the duties of office of school board members according to the best of my ability thank you thank you Evan for joining us Bridget would you mind doing roll call Tom BR here Evan George here Darlene Hooper here Sarah Coleman here Heather Reynolds here Suzanne Russell Deborah Spalding here thank you for coming
002attendees if you wouldn't mind signing in the the sheet is right outside the door um when you get a chance please and we're going to take a quick executive session prior to the meeting it's only going to be about 10 or 15 minutes long and we'll be right back um could I have a motion to enter executive session sorry it's to discuss the medical financial credit or employment history of particular person or persons and sorry yes so like a motion for that thank you in a second darling thank you and we'll be back in 10 or 15 minutes sorry I'm supposed to say I'm Rusty guys I'm Rusty I think discussion we go to your off all in favor I all oppose exensions motion passes all right I se all right could I have a
003motion to return to regular session it's 6:15 second thank you I hear who made the motion I'm sorry I'm sure brid didn't okay Tom and Dev okay thank you sorry about that um looking for an approval of minutes for the January 9th regular board meeting as presented could I have a motion thank you Sue and Evan second and and oh God you guys I'm forgetting my thing here so sorry any discussion on the minutes all in favor oppose extensions motion passes we're going to enter into our first public comment session we have two public comment sections opinions ideas and concerns are offered by the public will be considered taken under advisement just a reminder that we don't dge in or we don't um entertain discussion at public comment we just would like to listen to
004you and take what you have have to say um under consideration we have a 50-minute period and the audience can have time to share their thoughts with us please raise your hand be acknowledged by me and when you're called upon identify yourself limiting your comments to three minutes please would anybody like to uh yes Jim Jim Jackson toown New York um hand up first um I'm on the facilities committee I'm here tonight representing no one on the committee I'm specifically talking about my thoughts in no way is any other individual other comme involved in this conversation this evening the task at hand for you folks moving forward in the next couple of months is to take our recommendations for what we have compiled contion with the Architects and present it to you for your consideration
005to move forward presented to the taxpayers everything we're doing is a two-fold situation where we're looking at the benefit of the students but also the taxpayers um the basically the the facilities committee hardcore or hard item that has come up we've eliminated th Dam from an option and the last I recall was phrased that everyone was in agreement on having every everybody in one building and at this point in time the preference would be Mountain View um at the last meeting I had along with another individual the committee I had asked about how the room utilization of the current building is factored in to the new project uh I know that there are rooms that are specific to a ccum science labs art Etc but there are other rooms that are just generic classrooms and
006are many courses that as I understand it may only require the a teacher to teach one period or two periods in any given day I asked if that's factored into where three teachers over the course of the week might be able to use one classroom instead of having to have three classrooms and I was told to the best my recollection something to the effect of that's not really for the facility committee to consider um which I found kind of strange because we're looking at the potential for 20 additional new classrooms in in a a wing that is also going to as I understand it impact the septic system which will be another burden and unfortunately it will not time out in conjunction with the proposed new sewer system for Elizabeth Town so we're going to
007spend money on something that probably within five to 10 years or less we won't need um and and a large addition that I personally don't think and again these are my personal opinions not anything of the committee members I I believe that the addition if one is even required um is is in excessive what has to be because of the fact that we we can't enter into this and help set up a matrix also the basement area which is a very nice area today's technology you're going to spend probably $350,000 to upgrade it with the air exchange units that you need to rotate the air exchange the air every so many times an hour uh that makes those rooms down there in many cases very functional for individual offices one-on-one test Labs rooms that do
008not require Windows we're currently using a classroom upstairs for a library I repeatedly hear people talk to me about why do they have all these rooms being used for all this different stuff and the the comments come back I think they're just trying to make it look like they don't have room so you have to have more room in the school um again in a couple of months we're going to have some recommendations for you but I really have a concern that if if we're not factoring in the overall use of the existing rooms to the benefit of the physical nature of the building um we're we're not we're not treating the taxpayers dollars wisely that's all I have to say thank you very much thank you thank you thanks Mr Jackson looking forward to
009the committee's uh recommendations coming forward to us soon would anybody else like to speak okay moving on to financials uh number nine our financials a one through six can I have a motion motion thanks Darlene and a second second thanks Tom um any discussion all in favor opposed extensions motion passes number 10 csse recommendation um looking for a motion as presented thanks Evan and a second thanks Sue any discussion all in favor opposed extensions motion passes action items consent agenda A and B as presented could I get a motion thanks Deb and a second second thank thank you Sarah um discussion I just want to say thank you these donations to the community members and organizations that have uh given them it's always appreciated and um I think we should say you know we did
010receive 5600 from from the Rogers Carol family yes two two 2000 one to the art Department sorry 2 oh that's right one to the art Department and one um for a scholarship ship that's awesome um any other discussion all in favor opposed exstension motion passes Personnel consent agenda a through J as presented could I get a motion thank you Darlene in a second second thank you Tom uh discussion all in favor I opposed extensions motion passes um policy we don't have any new auditions or changes at this time and looking forward to the principal's report Mr Kyler thank you so I gave you a lot of papers at your table and I will try to speak expeditiously but slowly it's a lot to dig uh the first I'll go through is the colorful newsletter um
011worth pointing out on this our attendance rate is just at 94% which is about % lower than it was last year at this time but I would argue that a lot of school districts would be very very happy with the 94% average da rate uh I would like it to be above 95% and we were working really hard I about that our discipline is really worth noting so it's down 52% from this time last year so discipline referrals and classroom incidents have both down significantly my goal was to decrease those by 20% we are well above that goal and that's using the same system so it's a fair comparison this time okay that's awesome so question so is that 19 referrals for this school year for this school year there's been 19 referrals referrals again
012are bigger behaviors uh in class small things teacher classroom behaviors so like I just want to make sure that when you say bigger things so like a punch a kit get hit referral incident uh a punch would be a referral something managed by the office by the principal a classroom incident is more teacher managed classroom behaviors think insubordination foran lying something um and I want to point out the back so you can look at last Friday we finalized app for a grant through the adic foundation $20,000 it's a big deal I'm really hopeful and it's under of literacy there's four components to it essentially what I would like to do is train family members to be literacy coaches to to anybody who is interested um in the district and the push for this will be
013trying to get younger families so not school age birth through age three three prek families invested in literacy and working with families so we one of the components is putting bat Valley them bookshelves in places like jams and doctor's offices and businesses so when kids are with their parents they can get a book while they're shopping getting coffee uh so we'll find out in April whether we get that Grant very hopeful uh I'm going to transition to talking about our curriculum so the bottom half of this amplifies our new CC we've talked a lot about that I wanted to emphasize in this slide that um the implementation of the new curriculum is literally a science there's research papers devoted to implementation science we did not just implement this curriculum in September and give teachers that
014training in September and say there you go good luck there's your scop and sequence have fund we've literally provided um training session after training session with the company where they come on site or virtually to work with our teachers with implementation with casing with resource report uh and that's a list of the times that we've worked with them here to work with our teachers they've done one-on-one coaching group coaching and it's been a really uh amazing resource working with our our amplify support that curriculum is what we use for tier one for everybody all the way up to tier three for our most significant students I'm go back on that in just a second uh since we're on the curriculum I want to go to the one that looks like this really quickly so last
015I don't remember when summer fall uh M Dr Meer and missx I went to a training at CES on the science of reading literacy GS this is the handout from New York State one of the components of the the one of the requirements of these literacy briefs is for us to examine our curriculum to Ure that in line with ass science of reading so on page two it's what those what is required as part of that review those are the domains that we are required to review our curriculum uh with the power of open AI I copied and pasted each scope and sequence for prepay through fifth grade and the science of reading and came up with a review guide that's attached to it uh if I can summarize it in one our curriculum meets
016the requirement of curriculum it's in line with the sence requirements that has not always been the case this new curriculum meets those standards so we are in good shape as I talk I'm happy to answer questions um the next thing I want to point to um off topic for a second is a New York state science test so I have here a science test comparison that I've given you the second and third page are sample test questions from those science tests so this the old test was given in four this is that test it's 24 pages long if I open it up to one of the sample test questions it is which animal has wings bird frog mouse or rabbit easy relatively easy question and if I open the science test that's now grade five
017539 Pages the complexity is much greater there is a lot of inferencing required vocabulary is higher that you definitely pass the grade five science test is a in my opinion in the opinion of others a much more rigorous test a much more reading intensive test I encourage you to look at both tests so why I bring this up is because um our Proficiency in science on the state test has come up and and the science test Statewide the proficiency from grade four to grade five drops significantly our grade five science test was not great our proficiency I think this points to part the reason why it's more of a reading test uh and it it's a long test we had a couple of students last year who were sitting for this test for four hours
018or more and that is a long time I'm sorry it's in grade five and it used to be day so I wanted to highlight the difference between the test that's what that top page does it's it's a long hard test forth graders is it timed or it's not timed students can take their time but they have to finish it in one day they have to finish it in one day and if they don't then then we we submitt it as not submitted yeah so this is the grade five test score overall with different schools or schools finding the same thing I I would Dr I know if speak to it but I would assume that principles would agree with me that the grade five test more rig and the grade four and efficiency drops related
019I don't have data to support yeah and just one thing that that I will say um from from an actual science perspective I think it it's a great test it's you know it's actually testing science right the the the grade five test it's not so much knowledge based to Mr Kyler's example you don't need to know which animal has wings you know you need to reference the charts and the tables and go back yeah and and what what so from from that perspective you need to have less science knowledge but far more ability to read and understand charts and tables yeah and yeah and you know I don't think you have to do it for five hours yeah yeah I I don't I don't think anyone's disagreeing with that but it seem to be better
020questions yes okay the last to look through is our I ready uh results some of our benchmarking results so we Benchmark our students for reading in math three times per year beginning of year middle of year end of year and that is a way for us to get a temperature check on where our students are and what supports we could provide to them um so I want to go through this uh carefully because it's a lot of the top page the top two pages I should say are the middle of your diagnostic compared to the beginning of your diagnostic so if you look at this top graph if you look just at the two bar graphs there the red is less and the green is greater that's great that means that we have less students
021below grade level and more students moving to above or on grade level the yellow we expect to see consistently yellow because students are moving from below grade level to the low grade level still but moving more towards the green we want to see the red get less the green get greater and you could see for each grade level except kindergarten this kindergarten does not take the beginning of your diagnostic if you turn the page to the second page sorry I did not the second page shows each grade in the movement between the levels so the darker green is one or more grade levels above green is on grade level yellow is one grade level below red is one or more grade level below and two is two or more grade levels below so you can
022see the movement from the most recent diagnostic compared to diagnostic one and every grade level move positively which is good news this is just for reading every grade level improv I want to show it to you a different way you turn the page to the third page it should say diagnostic grow upward left again this is just for reading because we give Benchmark twice we we expect to see 50% progress in the middle of the year and 100% by the end of the year so for a med students that upper left showed 70% growth that means that we exceeded that 50% growth by 20% that's great for reading we had 70% progress growth from the beginning of bech monting again I already tells this we would expect to see 50% that's great yes test is
023given to G the test is given three times per year The Benchmark is given three times per year yep test changes if the test firstest it changes with the grade level yes yeah and it adjusts questions in real time based on students responses so it does change the complexity as students engage with the the questions at various times of the year correct yeah yeah what's important to note with I ready is that it's it's a computer-based test it's not given by a teacher so students have to give effort right so I'm not convinced in fifth grade that 100% of our students try their that in fifth grade we do see like a little bit of I ready fatigue just uh so with diagnostic growth you can see also growth from where they should be so
024annual progress growth so kindergarten again they they should not have growth because they will not have taken kindergarten I'm sorry grade one is showing 48% progress that is the only gr I'm sorry and gr that is below that 50% so that tells me I need to focus my efforts in grade one and grade five where they don't have that 50% progress grade two three and four you can see they're graded than 50% progress grade three and four are 106 and 107% growth they've already met their years's grow they could stop them um so I'm going to turn the page now to diagnostic results where it should have some purple and red so our reading proficiency on the state test last year for 345 averaged 40% what this top graph shows is if our students took
025the state test on the same day they took the I ready test our district proficiency would be 46% stop instruction for the rest of the year 46% 6% growth from year it's great I'm happy with that however so we're not stopping instruction we expect that high quality instruction will continue the rest of the year the bottom graph shows if the students make typical growth what I already says is growth that should happen for individualized students this is to the students our proficiency should be 57% compared to 40% last year that's that's really great I saw that and I was very happy if they do better than expected which we have some students that are outperforming their growth if all students outperform their growth the last page shows that our our 345 proficiency will be 63%
026again compared to 40% that would be amazing so it's safe to say I I would even venture to say like hold to this standard that our proficiency should be somewhere between 57 and 6 3% on three four and five that would be phenomenal yes you explain what is stretch growth yeah yeah stretch growth is we expect students to make their typical growth stretch would be Beyond yeah beyond that stretch growth a goal to aim for yeah that would mean that they're making greater than 100% growth which is great the next is our math placement so um it says diagnostic results and math just this again just Compares our first diagnostic to our second again the red is smaller the green is bigger if you're looking at just the colors that's good news you can see
027the comparison by grade level this is just uh students on um on their grade level placements and then again uh diagnostic grow so math growth is a little bit less than our reading but I think that is somewhat expected because the focus has been on literacy reading but for the diagnostic growth we have shown 58% growth again we expect to see 50% growth that's more than expected and it's broken down by grade level kindergarten is not included because they don't take that that Benchmark in the fall going further so diagnostic results with expected proficiency the last two pages if our students took the math state exam on the same day high ready our proficiency would be 43% which is below what our proficiency was in the spring but if they make their typical growth if
028they grow to where we expect them to grow they will be our proficiency will be 66% just 21% higher than last year if they make their stretch growth it goes to 76 again if I am the wedding person I would say that our proficiency should expected to be in that range of 66 to 76% which I would be excepted that would be tremendous grow i' be very happy with that I want to point out to this is one data point I ready is one data point that we use for determining interventions for a student amplify our curriculum gives us endclass intervention so we progress monitor our students are three students every 10 days we get a little blip on the graph every 10 days of where they are and we meet as a team to
029determine what do we do with this data we we have more that we can give students so we have a GST that meets and determines what more interventions can we provide for students I can talk about that as much or as little as you want to at another time but this is just one piece of at least three pieces of data that we look at as a team yes question yeah um first of all I want to say I'm very happy to see this progress um that you're making using this new science for reading science of reading based program I do have some questions however regarding the effective effectiveness of the program for special needs students um since the co- teaching model is being utilized for all special education students um in other words the
030students are going into the General Ed classroom and you're using co-teachers to special ed teachers in the classroom um how are we addressing the students individual needs the needs of the special needs students for example if you have a child in the fourth grade who is reading at a first and second grade level um how is that fourth grade curriculum that the child is being exposed to addressing the pheic awareness skills that are necessary for the decoding of the words to become literate reading skills at the primary level often Focus Fus on learning how to read whereas the skills at the intermediate level focus on reading to learn so how is this program addressing the gaps in these skills that are fund fundamental for all students to learn how to read sure good question there's
031there's a lot I can respond to you um it's important to know that our endclass Intervention Program that we use as an intervention for our tier three students addresses those foundational skills so when a student is benchmarked using mclass it tells us where to focus in in the breakdown of skill areas placement by domain this is just I ready but um mclass will tell us to focus on phonological awareness when you make awareness letter sounds letter names decoding it'll tell us where to focus and a group students buy that similarity of need and that's where that specialized instruction is delivered for those students in addition to the tier one instruction or tier 2 instruction that's available for I ready and there's more resources available in I ready that I can get into that the re
032the Intervention Program aligns where the focus is which could be below grade level to the grade level expectation of the student so that's one answer the second thing that's worth noting is even if a fourth grader is reading at a third second first grade level that does not mean we deliver tier one instruction at that grade level unless that student is alternately assessed we still have a responsibility to teach them at that grade level because they will be responsible for taking the state test in May at that grade level so we provide tier one grade level instruction at the using the the curriculum and embed support using tier three supports which is the mclass progr which focuses the instruction of the skill identified in benchmarks so they're still exposed to the fourth gr grade curriculum
033if you have a child reading at a first grade level yes but so when when is that additional help being provided is it during the day during the lesson uh so it's embedded in the lesson as part of the gri part of the training on my one pager there is the there's there's something called an assessment and Remediation guide that amplifi provides to our special education teachers to give differentiation modifications accommodations to support special education students um and that specialized instruction is delivered outside of the general education classroom in intervention and this is this is not um so those students are still being pulled out for oh yeah yes yes yes and being taught by special education teachers yes or or an interventionist depending on the grouping of the students so what's an interventionist uh
034so right now we have four interventionists and we have one teaching assist providing intervention using the program so what is the certification of interv for uh right now it's I I don't know the certifications of the interventions the reading Specialists they have Elementary certification and I believe so they are reading specialist yes okay that's what I yes thank you sorry I don't know specific certifications but they are reading specialist yeah so and the same thing's happening with math same thing is happening with yeah so so there there's also this is not um interventionalist is probably just like a different word that than you know that that um we're using but it's the same thing that that was happening you know years ago in Westport and Elizabeth T Lewis you know same thing just um just
035kind of group them into one title as interventionalist but could be a reading teacher or math AIS or or something like that for grade four specifically there's two two times 30 minutes per day intervention one is by special education teacher and one is by interventions are the students ever one on one or two on two with those I think our smallest group is two students at two grou and it's it's using the program using the data to delivered the instruction every 10 days I look at that data and regroup the students based on me so while one week the focus may be and letter signs so next week it may shift to comprehension if that student show growth in one of those two areas so the program is constantly collecting that data and telling us
036what to focus on with those students it's not it's not even decisions made by me it's it's literally a program that is decided what's work on students and at the same time you're meeting the needs of the IEP 100% following the IEP 100% yes the curriculum is the tier one support at grade level and there's tier three support for the students identified yes the students that are benchmarking so yes so the progress monting takes maybe five minutes okay for every 10 days and it's uh it's a timed test so that that we encourage students to do their best but it's very quick it's it's not in my and so po students this we trying to teach them all level what happens to our poor students who are so far behind that when we're feeding them
037quot grade level there's choking who helps those kids who are at the bottom of that M putting up that hard Stone yeah that every day they fail so how do we help them and motivate them and what do we do because if you're throwing somebody and you're finally saying you're in that only on two grade level now you have to figure out how to think and you can't even read sure what are we doing for those four kids so good question yes so at the same time that students are pulled from the grade for intervention pulled from the class for intervention there's supports that are happening in the classroom so a small population of students is pulled for tier three intervention with classroom teach is doing tier two intervention for the students that are staying
038in the classroom and part of the training that I included on there for amplify is supports for the teachers and ways to bridge that in my opinion in opinion of the research the answer is not low expectations for grade level it does not mean because they're reading at second grade deliver second grade curriculum you have to bridge that Gap you have to meet them uh in in differentiate the instruction to meet the student halfway we definitely don't want our students driveling we don't want to get them too much that they're not showing growth I think what I try to demonstrate for you is that our students overall are demonstrating growth we do have a handful of students that we are working really intensively finding more supports to them that's ongoing that's but uh the purpose
039of that data is that those students come through we know those students we we're not naive to the needs of those students and we constantly meeting with amplifier meeing as a team to identify support to them I I just did a little um research on amplify online and I read that it is imperative that students learn at their level in skills instruction according to the amplify CK guide I agree and that's where that that's happening in intervention that's that grade level instruction is happening I'm sorry skill level instruction is happening during intervention that's that's a 30 minute pull out yes and the other instruction is a 90 minute rigorous uh depending on the grade level K12 is 120 Minutes broken up into to 1 hour or 30 minute sections and 3 four and five is
0401 hour there's no special education curriculum for the amplify the tier three curriculum is the endclass intervention there's no special education specific curriculum our students are in integrated co- teing so there would be no special education curriculum for integrated co- teing okay and do you have data to support the progress for special needs students with using this program yeah I don't I don't have it readily available but I could say I I could prac just do tomorrow if you'd like to everybody but we had students who were in a self-contained special education classroom last year receiving a separate curriculum who showed little or no growth who this year are showing above average growth okay I'd be interested in see yeah uh I have to find a way to block out the name so I can
041get tomorrow sure thank you yeah how long we've been doing this how long how long have we been doing this so the the curriculum is great we just implemented it in September the Intervention Program is uh we've been it's called bies we've been using that for years uh that's not new but the Intervention Program is new to us it's it's promising it's really good so at no time is kindergarten tested kindergarten is only benchmarked in the middle of the year and end of the year we don't do it beginning of the year primarily because it's a computer based test and they don't yet know how to type or clip so we have to teach those skills before we put them on the computer I didn't see any yeah they don't have they don't demonstrate growth
042because they don't have a pre- test to prepare grow too it'd be kind of interesting to test them in the beginning to see our kindergarten teachers want to next year so that's what no my grandson read go Dog go Kindergarten yeah so so uh my next board meeting to present is April and I'm going to present at that time some of the data from amplifi so you can see what that data looks like it's far more complex than I already it's student specific so that's okay I'm gonna P ask one last question how do we get to the parents so that they are well aware with a system where their child is struggling where their child needs development how do we Ure that this parents know this and that that gets clearly stated for them
043where they could reinforce what the student needs because I'll be honest I've helped a bunch of students this is before you started this program so I'll you know before you came and and vocabulary bonic awareness did not exist vocabulary development was horrendous um and ability to do any type of reading so at the end I don't want parents to hear at the end of first grade well your kid still in the beginning of the thing they should be hearing that quarter by quarter by quarter sure so and they should know that they're struggling um so I just don't know how this data gets conveyed to them and where you could show them this is where they need what they need and maybe say this is what this means yeah so amplify has a home connect
044feature that we can turn on with families so they can see the skill that their child can work on at home and provide many lessons my my qu with that is that kids get tired kids get exhausted they want to go home and not have homework not have more instruction um so my my advice to families is read with your children let them read to you you read to them make reading fun not not laborious at school sometimes uh but there is a home connect feature we do share ibody results with families we share the endclass results with families uh I haven't yet put an expectation on families of continue this instruction at home that's something that we could talk about is turning on that home feature if you want to Lobby the ader on
045that foundation for that $20,000 I just don't I just feel that so many people have come to me that they've been hit with this oh they get these quote things that so and so's doing really well but wait a minute there're still they didn't advance in Reading that's a good point so I I I can think of a second second grade student who has made 138% growth this school year but it still shows up that he's reading at the first grade level so that's what do you mean they're reading at the first grade level I try to focus on the growth that closes the Gap don't focus on that grade level that they're in on look at that growth and that's what we we are focusing on um but I'm hearing you say maybe we
046can share more with families of the data so they understand that's the focus so they understand the need to read to their they understand the importance of that because maybe some of us get that importance not everybody does and I can't tell you the Mantra I have out there with people tell to to speak to them pick up the paper a little magazine article focus in every newsletter that I send out every Sunday promise you it's we wanted part of the classtic book fairing March is giving a book to every kid they got a book and Le with a free book that's amazing that we can do that um Diana George is an amazing librarian who makes reading fun uh we have a lot of systems in place to make reading not not a labor
047but make it fun for kids and that's that's com for thank you of course that that up to you good thanks Mr kler thank you and take it away Josh superintendent's update all right uh Mr Kyler I'll turn it right back over to you for the grants update if you don't mind uh so upk we're gonna do uh an amendment soon to update our child counts so we did this in the last fall we update it now uh we're working with uh our partners at Head Start to fill uh some 2K vacancy uh I don't know too much about the ESS Grant other than we have to do that report soon we did amend recently is that fair okay 61 619 is Dan yeah um we reallocated um some money from those grants to and
048extended school day I it's going exceedingly well I think we've already met our quota for Oasis this school year uh and those are some of the trips that yeah we have one more year left of the extended school day Grant and we are set to reapply for that um I just can't even tell you the opportunities that our kids have had and I'm really hopeful that we can continue that is that state or federal uh it it's Federal be effect um I am certain that nobody knows the answer that question uh facilities committee our next meeting is on February 27th uh here at the lake view campus uh the notes presentations and recording is on our website as uh Mr Jackson mentioned um we are I believe that we have are crossing some items off
049the list and uh that there should be a recommendation uh coming your way uh hopefully in the next couple months here um as far as uh cell phone policy goes um we we as you likely remember uh over the summer we talked about um continuing um tightening our cell phone restrictions that's gone uh pretty well we've been apprehensive about um coming out with any uh any language ahead of the governor um I don't those of you that uh were around during the time of covid um I used to get in this habit of you know waiting as long as I could to say something I would make an announcement and the government would come out like 24 hours later and I had to take back everything I said so um so so I decided with
050cell phones let's just wait because we were really going to do like a full imp implementation next year um so we're we're going to wait uh based on the State of the State and some other language that has come out and we're certainly expecting um this to continue but we just want to make sure that what our uh procedures end up being that those are in line with what the governor is going to be requiring um and our bus fleet report I'm actually I'm going to stand up with here um our bus fleet uh report and our priorities if you take a look really we're looking at the at the these two buses down here um uh 49 and 51 uh you look at the estimated remaining life uh in years you see that this
051has a negative two meaning that that that has gone beyond um beyond our expectations uh this is in uh 51 is in its final year both listed is four there's excessive rust there we are certainly expecting um to auction those off this year which has been our practice in the last handful of years and look to purchase a couple buses that you'll see when we get into talking about the budget um everything else in terms of the bus uh buses um you see this report every year Continue to update that um and again we'll talk about the purchase of some of the buses the electric bus initiative uh unless the language changes and everybody that we've talked to um agrees the language has to change the electric companies have told New York State they told
052school districts that they cannot provide enough power for this mandate so that being said the language still has not changed so we need to be ready uh to uh start purchasing these buses in 2027 um if that uh if that is the case if nothing changes and we will uh we'll take it from there um uh Mariah does have a couple uh does have a couple um electric buses and uh Malone uh School District also has a couple I believe that those are the two closest in our region um both have been told I I believe Mariah has two and Malone has four they have both been told uh that the electric company cannot support the purchase of another bus from either one of them so please don't buy anymore how are they going how's
053it going with those buses not uh they they uh both say Okay um not not not great but but okay uh the same problems that we knew that we would have uh most of our buses you know they'll do like a morning run uh and then use the same bus to go make another run whether it's to um CBS vineville or up to platsburg um and uh we know that electric buses would struggle with that second run um so they they certainly have those issues but we are uh we're the superintendent talk about this all the time and we're just trying to figure out some solutions that that make sense okay so budget meeting so you have a folder in front of you um we'll talk about budget here in your folder the green folder
054in your folder you have a Pack pet of this presentation and then the second um uh Heather do you not I didn't get one that's all right I can there's probably an extra somewhere we yeah thank you um sorry and um the second packet that you have is really any cable or anything in here that I thought might be too small for you see I try to make it a little bit bigger for you so our total budget uh we're in the neighbor neighhood of 15.7 million the three main areas of that budget we have Capital administrative and programming are the three parts fa maintenance administrative leadership and operations programming that's instruction and student services uh in terms of expenses when we talk about expensive that's what the district spends the money on Revenue that's
055our funding sources state aid uh federal aid are a good portion of that and then local tax taxes are the other portion we talk about local taxes here because that's as a school board what you are deciding on you have almost no opinion uh or no no um no input uh on the state aid or federal aid that anyone's really going to listen to so that's why we we focus on the local taxes um our budget has to be balanced meaning that the revenue and the expenses must match and our budget vote is May 20th this year so so uh as we get into this so we're going to talk about the tax cap um our the tax-based growth factor uh is up here 1.013 adjusted growth factor 2.0 I'm going to blow this up
056on the next slide for you this uh tax cap calculation here um and we have three options in terms of the tax cap we can go below the cap at the cap or exceeding the cap uh in previous years since uh since the district formed we've gone at the cap each year this formula here is a pretty long formula that talks that is how the tax cap is created and there's a misconception about that being a 2% tax cap 2% is one of these many numbers that goes in here it's right here this 1.02 that's the 2% that we talk about but you can see there's many other factors there I don't believe that any District in the state going through this formula has ever come out to be exactly 2.0 Z some may choose
057to go with that number but um the 2% is just one of the numbers that goes in there uh out based on our tax cap projection uh and this is a preliminary number so you might see this change between now and our next meeting uh is 3.05 29% that would be an increase of $253,950 if you look at that number that's right in uh the range of where we've been in previous years last year we were 2. .57 year before 3.08 2.28 .98 4.15 so you know anywhere from just below one to just over 4% that's where we've been and we've been at the cap uh for each of those years uh uh nisah near State School boards puts this out every year around budget time common budgetary mistakes to avoid only budgeting for right
058now uh we want to make sure that we're laying the groundwork for our future needs and improvements uh not preparing for the unexpected so we need to make sure that we set aside money for any potential surprises uh that that that come up a lot of times when we talked about this um especially in districts of our size uh we talk about special education students be a special education student a high cost special education student that moves to the district that could be out of nowhere $100,000 or more um that that we weren't counting on having to spend on that student so we do um we do need to prepare for for things like that um you know potential uh um issues with with uh either campus in terms of safety or um you know
059maybe Transportation issues but some certainly some unexpected uh items that we want to set aside money to prepare for those surprises uh in terms of overstepping the role of the board we want to hear public concerns provide feedback to the administration act on recommendations and present the voters with the budget that's uh that's the responsibility of the board uh we want to avoid inadequate public participation uh we want to make sure we have Community out Outreach through forums and Community groups so why we do this at our meetings in February U March April and then finally present um the final budget in May and we want to use the district's fund balance to reduce the tax levy uh we want to avoid doing that we want to rely on the fund balance and depleting resources
060um that's indication of fiscal stress we want to be careful doing that as well terms of a budget timeline what does a budget look like in the school district it's unusual at any point during the school year to only be talking about one year's budget so March 31st which is coming up here you know in a handful of weeks uh that's when our teacher spending requests are going to be completed and those orders we order for July 1st for next year's budget right all while we're still currently working in this year's budget August 31st the administrators and Athletics those spending requests need to be completed by then December 31st all spending stops um now we say all spending stops are there situations where you know where a teacher might need to get some spending done
061after that or an administrator or um all spending sure there's things come up right and so but those are our targets um then February 28th which is the the end of the month that that's when we really try try to um make sure that absolutely everything um is uh is is done and we can really start to project what um what our fund balance looks like we start to project where we want to put any money in reserves um and start making some decisions about um about the current Year's budget any potential excess funds what's going to happen with those and uh the next year's budget March 1st uh you start getting those fund balance projections um around that time and and uh June 30th that's typically the date that all of our grant spending
062needs to be completed and of course on here I put emergencies because those can happen whenever and we need to be prepared for those that can adjust our time as far as New York state is concerned in January we have the executive budget which you'll see um some of that coming up February or March we see the legislative budget and then April 1st we get an ontime budget that's the agreement between the executive and the legislative bodies we've been relatively fortunate in recent years with a couple exceptions um where it's been April 1 or pretty close to April 1 uh if you go you know if you start getting to the end of April beginning of May that's where when districts need to start guessing and that's when things can um can not be great
063for school districts so we hope for an on-time budget so getting into the executive budget proposal so again you have these you have both of these uh in your packet this document right here over on this side this is what we get from the state okay and I I just think it's it's a it's a terrible setup the way it is from the state you get 20 24 25 up here 25 26 down here and it's tough to compare those numbers side by side so on the next chart I have those side by side for you so uh this is the this is the one we're going to talk about but it's the same numbers just carried over and if we specifically look at these four lines the arrows that that um that I have
064highlighted for you uh first looking at Arrow number one uh that's the foundation Aid the governor proposed 2% increase to Foundation Aid that is exactly 2% more than I thought we were going to get uh so you know there there have been years where we've had um we've been zero uh there have been years where we've had um you know like 0.3 or something like that but very minimal amounts 2% is it really it's it's significantly better than than I was hoping for um there was a legislative breakfast with uh Billy Jones Stan St Matt Simpson were there one of the questions that was asked was um in uh since I've been a superintendent so going on seven years here uh the legislative proposal the foundation Aid was always equal to or higher than the
065governor's proposal is there any indication that that would be lower and all three agreed that that they wouldn't not expect that to be any lower than two so that that's good good news for us said we might get a hair more but that that's the state minimum so the the districts across the state who got the lowest amount got 2% uh looking at some of the other lines Universal uh prek is always an area where it looks like um we're getting a ton of money so if you look at the uh 2425 number it's $126,000 25 26 number is $275,000 and you might say oh that's great we're getting an extra $150,000 that's not that's not the way that works it's based on the maximum number of students that you could possibly have in that
066program we've never hit the maximum um there there just aren't enough kids uh in in the region to to hit the maximum uh so because of that um I I made some uh I made an adjustment uh down down below that I'll talk about in just a second so um really what do so we're down here I just rolled this year's this year's amount over just so you can see what it looked like and there might be a small increase on that based on the number of students enrolled or a small decrease again based on the number of students enrolled but that's far more accurate to use uh excuse me to to use this number the the the current Year's number compared to um the projection for next year uh you look at a lot
067of the other a you know Bose's Aid um just about the same you know an extra $11,700 not much change there um high cost uh you know extra $7,000 not much of a change there um hardware and Technology where we could use plenty of money here we got an extra $194 uh so you know we're not talking about any massive increases here um and then you get down to the operating reorg incentive Aid that's that's the merger that that's the the aid that we get for for having merged and we lose we we get $65,625 and then and then we'll we'll get Zer dollar year 16 we would get zero um so you get all the way down to the bottom here so if you look at the total uh if you add all these
068up and get the total it looks like we're getting an extra 1963 $20 with 2.78% increase but that takes into account the prek which I told you we're not going to get all that money so it's going to be much closer to the highlighted number on the bottom $ 46,8 se4 or a 66% that's the executive proposal we don't know what's going to come from the legislature but we're hopeful that it will be equal to or higher than what's proposed across our bosis region if you look at the foundation Aid all these districts here they got the state minimum uh and the districts they got more than 2% over there pintown nor Eastern platberg Sak and Mariah with their uh percentages over there and across the whole uh the whole B region Foundation Aid there
069was a $6 million increase um boses Aid there's a $3.1 million increase and total State a10.2 million increase uh to the [Music] region I lost my M next sheet here the revenues and expenditures so this sheet is broken down to three sections um the next few slides uh you can see each of these individually so revenues expenditures uh and then the bottom where it compares the two so if you look at just the revenue section there um so the uh proposed tax L increase here the difference um about 253,000 uh there's a decrease in the other income state aid projection that 260,000 increase Community Schools set as side so this is something that has been removed um and I'm interested to see what the legislature does with this I I think the legislature is going
070to put it back in this is uh but but I but again pure speculation there so we'll see what happens with that uh small government assistance we're down a little bit there as well um and if you look at the uh appropriated reserve for transportation so this is where um some of these numbers uh can can look like they're a little bit higher than they actually are so what this means is we're basically pulling out or we're going to propose that we pull out $386,000 from our transportation Reserve so that's money we already set aside use that to purchase two buses so it would be no increased cost to the taxpayer for those uh for for those buses but it comes as Revenue because we're pulling that from our reserves uh to then spend it
071um on on the buses uh again the uh merger Aid the reorganization aid I talked about that already so the total revenues $668,000 uh difference but again 386,000 of that is the buses again making that number appear a little bit higher than than it actually is on the expenditure side of things um this this we're we're seeing the increases in the same areas that we typically see the increases uh for example um uh the health insurance here line 16 about $83,000 in health insurance increases as you continue to to scroll down salary increases about $118,000 increase there and then you see the transportation Reserve that's that 386,000 that's where that's going to be spent um and other than that we see some other um much smaller increases is there but so really salaries and health
072insurance which being a district that uh you know employs people who we give health insurance and salaries to it makes sense that that uh that's where we see a majority of of the change I understand there we go uh and then the the the very bottom here expenditures compared to the revenues and if you look at the what's circled here if you take the bus purchase out then the increase in uh expenditures is not the 4.27% it's only 2% is the increase without the bus purchase so again that that skews the numbers a little bit and I just want to make sure you have an understanding of where that money is actually coming from and where it's going next uh sheet is this one here and there so this is a sheet that you'll see
073at each of the meetings coming up and as it gets updated we'll talk about there's really there's not much um to talk about here today it just breaks down some of the some of the AIDS a little bit further and I I I can let you look at those but nothing um nothing really jumped out as being uh being anything we haven't already talked about terms of our fun balance uh fund balance um right now so if you remember uh the com fer likes to see this at 4% uh most nearly every small district superintendent I've ever talked to in the state is significantly higher than 4% uh based on uh just based on our size and anticipated um uh uh you know needs that we might have and just kind of preparing for for
074for a rainy day so to speak uh that number was as high as 133% uh dropped down to below 9% and now we're up about 11% um so we you know we have there are conversations with the com controllers how to get that number down a little bit we have no interest in being in the 4% range uh but 11% is probably a little bit higher than than we need to be so we can uh look at some Avenues to reduce that a bit then our reserves um our our reserves uh unemployment ERS TRS Insurance our tax CT elar and our capital reserve uh so you can see the projections um moving forward and again these are definitely projections at this time uh we can um these are we we might see some changes based
075on how things play out for the rest of the year but um I think our reserves our reserves are in great shape I think that we've done a really nice job um you know as a district uh really trying to stock those reserves um in preparation for um for our future so big picture 2% increase Foundation Aid more than 50% of New York State schools receive that minimum number two two uh the 2% no real significant increases to any other AIDS merger incentive Aid continues to drop roughly $66,000 each year and that funding totally stops in 20133 2034 uh just again I know I mentioned it plenty of times here but the universal prek number is deceiving for bit Valley so just keep that in mind as you look electric school buses we need to
076always have talk about that and until we get some um other indication uh what's going to happen there and the budget vote is May 20th uh oh la last thing that that I had here our TRS uh we were at 10.11% this year that's dropping to 9.59 not not a huge um not a huge decrease but it is a decrease so so that's that's something can remind me what that is the I'm sorry teacher retirement system got it I and the ERS the Employee Retirement System um I I can make sure you have that number for next time um at our next meeting we'll see the update on the legislative budget more updates on revenue and expenditure property tax Cap Fund balance B's budget health insurance Debt Service fund balance and Reserve report update that's
077what you can expect to see next time just have a question on fund balance um weren we cited before for having an excessive amount of fund balance and if we do not get that down will that affect future Aid uh so um anything over 4% is seen as excessive right it's also worth mentioning during this conversation is school districts are the only municipalities that have a limit to their fund balance meaning and even like the state of New York has a fund balance that is way over 4% uh the the you know any town has a fund balance that's way over 4% um so when uh when the comproller uh comes in they say this is over 4% you just need to plan on what what to do with the money but even the conversations
078with the com controller I have never had anyone say the words you need to be under 4% it's you should have a plan to decrease this I I would go as far as saying and even with our fiscal advisors that being under 4% is probably irresponsible we we we need a little bit more there just based on the size of the district no but they they can't affect our state aid because of it well I I I mean I I suppose they um that that has not happened before but I I suppose you know they could come in and say over 4% where you know but that that that has never happened before you want wait on that on any topic couple years um I do want to point out just quickly though when I
079sent this to Josh I do realize that the unassigned fund balance for June 2021 is not2 million 2.2 million I just I realized it was something's not right there thank you um but as of right now there hasn't really been any discusss about your 4% affecting it you will see it on our internal for internal independent audit that we have every single year is always a finding always okay and other districts are they they're similar yes so in our Bose region the fund balance ranges from 2.7% all way up to 97% um there's only one District in our Bose region that is below the 4% and that is um not due to them putting money into reserves that District actually has very little in their reserves it's just financial situation and then we have one
080district with only 30 students that has 97% because they only have a couple of students so it's quite easy to to get that number going pretty so yeah I'm not saying it's a bad thing I would say we with all the other districts right now I I see mainly to 14% for most where would we like to be ideally well I would like to be under 10 okay um and we deal with that with reserves right yeah yeah uh yeah so any any other questions just one second uh so if you do have um other particular um budget questions you don't you don't have to wait for for meetings to ask questions you know good questions you can email them to me or ask for uh forther clarification like that I'm happy to happy to
081give you that information oh I do have one question yep um regarding that graph that Mr Jackson passed out before um I think it it does show clearly that um boat Valley has a large number of faculty and staff members more so than other districts even including districts that have more students than we do um I know in the past prior to our merger we had agreed the Westport Central School and the Elizabethtown Central School to eliminate excessive staff through attrition and I don't believe that we have doing that are we going to start doing that now we have from my Rec we've been doing that all long yeah I can get you a list yes we have not filled positions I couldn't tell you off the top of my head who they are but
082I know for a fact that we have done that do you agree Sarah absolutely Sarah's been longest with Mo most recently we had we had four El teachers until last year two years ago that we have three now um well just be the reason saying that is because I know we have quite a few retiring this year and wondered if we actually need to replace them we always have that discussion when we're when we have retirees we always have that discussion of what we need to replace and what we don't and that's always a question that the board and I'm sorry just that point so we we had a retiree that's on the agenda for tonight that we we absolutely that's a um an elementary uh interventionalist reading yes we need to replace that right
083right yes yeah have those every every time someone leaves the district we're having those conversation okay I think Jim brings out a good point but we're the only School District on there that's going to em merger yes shows that and we'll probably see though that graph get more in line the efficiency in one building would be we would save a lot and I I would say this so I know um shayz is on there right right yeah shayz is $20,000 square foot building on one campus with fields on site and we learned they don't have a physics teacher they they one building okay now understanding how efficient that could be I thought that was great the community did not so so we so we're looking for other options and that that did not happen overnight
084I would also say this I'm I having worked in shayz chayz is very I they underst step they are adding positions because they had they had to cut so much you know 2008 2010 during that period a lot of their teachers were down to like 75 80% teachers and they they've added they they've added stuff recently so so I the what is the ideal number it's somewhere in between those two I'm sure but okay I just want to make sure were considering I just hesitate to think about staff worrying about remediation yeah yeah we have we have an elementary school that's underperforming and I certainly do not want to be thinking about a attrition when we are needing to nourish that sta that that school that that group and we also need to nourish our
085high school students and have enrichment because we have good students in leaving the district and doing homeschooling doing other things because they're not being enriched so I'm thinking that you know I'm not saying that I want to totally spend Millions but I also feel that we need to educate and put give our children an opportunity to have access to SCH education and during while they're here and I don't know that we can discuss that until we're starting to discuss what we're they put their plans together and then feed it back to us what are the needs because this year you may have the need for a lot more in in certain areas than you might in somewhere else and I don't know maybe we might decide we want to have children start to learn languages
086at a younger age we don't know what our district wants and for us to sit there and only discuss we said we would do this would be unfair to the things that we said you know and cutting but we also said we would try to offer more so I don't want to be narrow and focused on one issues I want to be focused on what we can do with staying within the cap staying within a financial fiscally responsible but not worrying do I have to cut a spot do I have to because that but what what is most important in as long as it's considered yes it is and I can tell you from from the Inception of this District that's always been a thoughtful discussion is replacing positions and you'll experience that this year
087because we'll go through that um this spring when kind of look at next year but I soe you mentioned about keeping the elementary I'm going to say I'm disappointed my elementary grandchildren don't have a concert I know that sounds really small compared to ELA and math and all everything else music and we' like it exactly exactly you find out that there's not going to be a concert was devastating when you know that's something they'll never get back you know you'll never get back to kindergarten Christmas concert holiday concered and I think that's sad so Elementary is losing right but that wasn't Administration was just Administration is I do have a question on this graph where it says staff is that including all staff of the district so like administrative teacher support I would assume off
088the website I have to assume that staff is faculty and staff right through Administration or teachers rather and the administration calls into with [Music] facil okay just the overall numbers every every line shows a very similar correlation between the The Faculty ratio and the teacher Ratio or staff ratio and teacher ratio um so we're we're we're keeping up about that same proportion all the way through it's just and the times of mar we are an emerging situation where we've got this overlap going on which will change but uh to know the exact number you know what from a facility standpoint how do you base our needs do you look at the ground Point K lb numbers or you look at the Shay you take a half ofum in there um don't know where we need
089to be and until we can get into a discussion of room utilization things along those lines another another comment I've been where I've had to move from classroom to classroom know that situation sign on the textbook and then that was in the beginning when I was here move from one room to the other by the time I got there to the end of my career I was having two rooms together D that I could use in that lab and so the quality of my teaching went from you know going down with two gallons of water to do a lab as opposed to having flush water all over the place and you know computers in the room certainly brought I think the way I feel brought that level of exitation from here up to here oh
090I don't dispute that all time in fact I I commented on that fact that curriculum specific needs need to be met but when it is a room that does not to be tailored to a specific curriculum that room becomes a Learning Center how a teacher how many teachers you put in that during the course of a week and I'm not an educator so I'm just speaking through having having that room vacant for 90% of the time exactly as opposed to the cost of a new room right to accomplish EV the same thing how much time is that new is going to be entty now so we should probably move on to our uh public comment part since we're kind we're kind of public comment thing anyway um so this is our second public comment section
091opinions ideas concerns offered by the public will be considered I'll just a reminder that we don't engage in back and forth discussion but we would love to hear anything anyone like to present to the board um please raise your hand and acknowledge and 15 minute comment section three minutes per person if you don't mind Mr Hooper uh I would just wonder is it possible when you're having people address the board that instead of being over here like this and I don't care you know who I'm tell any speaker it's rather polite to be out here than to looking at somebody's backside all the time is that is that possible to have that done thanks for your comment Mr Hooper thank you and Miss Monty I think I saw you yeah I just had a very
092quick question um when you were talking Josh about the purchas buses I'm sorry if I missed something but will they be electric buses that you were purchasing or yeah I'm I'm I'm happy to answer that now no they will not be electric uh yeah no no just okay anybody else like to address okay so we are going to enter into executive session and I'm going to invite our school attorney Douglas heart to join us and just for room sake we're going to use executive session in this room um we're going to be discussing the medical Financial Credit employment history of a particular persons or person and we will not be uh making any decisions after this public is welcome to stay and we will walk up and and have anybody come down if you'd like
093to um for the close of the meeting um but our next meeting we might as well address that while we're here our next meeting which still we're going to have two meetings in March March 13th will be our regular board meeting and March 27th will be our budget meeting and both will be held at the Mountain View campus um could I have a a motion to enter executive session motion thanks Deb and Darlene second sure um thank you and any discussion all in favor I opposed extensions motion passes up and see anybody's there