March 17th, 2026 - Board of Education Meeting

001Good evening everyone and welcome to our March 17th meeting of the Anturo Board of Education. We have a tobacco policy in place. There's no smoking within 100 ft of any school building. Please rise for the pledge. District clerk, will you please call roll? >> Trusty Smith >> here. >> Trusty Jared >> here. >> Trusty Mitchell Morell. >> Trusty Jerome. >> Trusty Goodrich >> here. >> Trusty Kensson >> here. >> Trusty Bishop >> here. >> Thank you. Thank you. Uh, Principal Gabriel Bono will welcome the board. >> Yes, I've He's He's changed a little bit. >> Um, good evening. My name is So different. >> Yes. So different. He grew a little >> some hair, but um, good evening. My name is Jolie Morris and I am Mr. Bono's administrative intern this school year and will

002be speaking on his behalf tonight. We have been busy coordinating events with our PTA since you have last been here. They put on the biggest sweetheart breakfast to date with over 160 people. This included students, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, sisters, brothers, and friends that are called family. Thanks to everyone's amazing collaboration. On March 10th, the PTA held their first cool school of the year with seven activities and 111 students in grades K through five. The activities included art club with Artis Yamba, cooking with a Chowi, cooking with Christina, dance and movement with Olster Arts, flag football with Liam, field hockey with Stormmy, and clay sculpting with Adam. We look forward to the next two weeks of cool school. We had one tonight which also went amazingly smooth. Many thanks to the PTA. Uh Kit's Interactive

003Theater once again put on six shows in two days here at Bennett. To celebrate Women's History Month, Kit performed Women's Rights to our fifth grade class. In addition to Women's Rights, she also performed American Revolution, Mother Nature, Colonial Trade Fair, One Room Schoolhouse, and Grace the Pirate. Kit does an amazing job of including the audience in her interactive theater and I was even chosen as a pirate taught a dance and was able to do that with the students. So, we'll do the dance now. No, I'm kidding. I don't remember any of it. Um, but at the time it was a lot of fun. Um, we celebrated the 100 days of school with many 100 day themed activities in all grade levels. Fifth grade started their field trips to the Ashoken and kindergarten went to UPUPAC

004to see the Billy Goats Gruff and other tales produced by Mermaid Theater of Nova Scotia. At the beginning of the month, we celebrated Readacross America Week here at Bennett. On Friday, Mr. Bonit Mr. Bono joined us as a guest reader and read Peace Train by Cat Stevens during each lunch period. To make the experience even more memorable, he ended the read aloud with a song and led students in a conga line back to their classrooms while blaring music throughout the school. His big speaker on a big cart. Um, it was a joyful way to celebrate reading and community together. Today we celebrated St. Patrick's Day with leprechaun traps set all around the school. We may not have caught that sneaky leprechaun, but plenty of silly shenanigans were had were had by all. We now look

005forward to the spring weather ahead. Thank you for your time and continued support. And Mr. Bono is here to answer any questions. >> Oh, later. Okay. Um, I'm going to invite Mrs. Corso, the math liaison, up here with her her information. Good evening everyone. Nice to see you. Um so I'm just going to provide some math updates here at Bennett. Um so our district has a program called First in Math. Um it's a proven math practice tool that leverages students love of online gaming, which seems to be really popular in this generation um to help build strong math skills. It's a program that encourages high levels of engagement while providing deep practice that's necessary for skill retention. It helps students at all skill levels and they're able to participate and practice at an appropriate level.

006It helps improve math proficiency, confidence, and attitudes towards mathematics while also encouraging students to become stronger problem solvers. So, with that being said, First in Math is um offering a First and Math tournament on March 19th, this Thursday. They're hosting a statewide math tournament for all New York school districts. And um this year fourth grade is going to try this tournament out um and report back to see um what it's like, how it works. Um so we'll be participating and competing this year. Um we'll be piloting and hopefully potentially expand the participation to grades one through five next year and hopefully become a special um little thing for for Bennett each year. A nice fun math competition. Uh the tournament is based on the math game 24 that many kids are familiar with. It's a

007card game that uses all four operations with four numbers on each card and they have to come up in three steps for fourth grade anyway in the tournament and come up with the number 24. Um we've been practicing regularly. At first I got a lot of responses like these puzzles are impossible. 24 is wrong. um blaming it on the game, but now students are excited, they're engaged, all they want to do is practice. Um and it's really really helping out with math skills. Um they're passionate about preparing. Um and they're so excited that if they advance to the championship round, um they get to travel to Albany and they get to compete against winners from all across New York State. and uh top prize is $5,000 to the school they're from, a trophy, uh a

008certificate. So, it's a great thing to be a part of even if we don't make it that far. It's just a great community builder. Um so, we're really really excited to pilot that this year. Um so, some other stuff going on in math is we had a great professional development in math instruction with David Tranter, our Bosey's math liaison. Um, our training was focused on the five practices for orchestrating productive mathematics discussions within our classroom. And we were talking about the five practices that include anticipation, monitoring, selecting, sequencing, and connecting and how this should lead our math lessons and how this should help our math discussions not only with our discussions with the students but the discussions among the students. So anticipation is how the teacher should predict how students might interpret and approach a

009mathematical problem and the monitor step is how the teacher should observe the students thinking and the strategies as they work through the tasks. Uh the select step is where the teachers choose specific students to share their work based on strategies that can promote meaningful discussion. So that's day that step is where you choose different strategies. you see different levels of thinking, different ways of solving the same problem. And then sequence is when the teacher purposefully orders those student responses to help build towards the lesson's mathematical goal. And those students get up and discuss their thinking to how they solved the problem, what was the basis behind their thinking. And last step is connect. And that's where those students lead the classroom discussion. Help students make connections between different strategies and solutions. and that's shared by

010the classmates. Um, and another thing, last thing I'm going to talk about, um, is our continuing book club on the building thinking classrooms in mathematics. We're continuing to meet every month. Um some discussions that we're focusing on are effective questioning techniques um within our classrooms, how to present and structure mathematical tasks, the use of vertical non-permanent surfaces um to increase student thinking and collaboration. And in our last meeting, we talked about defing the classroom, which is shifting instruction away from teacher centered lessons toward more student driven thinking and problem solving in math. All right. All right. Thank you so much. Yes. >> So, in the tournament or any of these other exercises, >> uh, how much do you do teamwork collaboration to solve problems as a team? >> Well, for the tournament, when we first

011started practicing, we just played with the uh with the cards. We didn't practice online because the tournament's online. So that was a lot of teamwork and collaboration as as a warm-up like a group thinking to solve and now we've been more independent because the tournament is independent. Um but in terms of collaboration and group work during the math lessons um we always do independent work at the end. So I get a I get a a grasp on what the students learned during the lesson. But I lot I do a lot of turn-in talks within my my uh student tables. They do work together. They collaborate on tasks um to show off their different thinking, their different strategies. I have small group work um based on same levels, but then also on fun Fridays, they're in

012different leveled centers where we work on fluency work. So, there's a lot of collaboration in different ways within the classroom. All right. Thank you. Thanks, Liz. And now I'll introduce Miss Kovac, our ELA liaison. >> This is going to be a little short tonight. Um I was told I didn't really have to speak, but here I am because I have things to say. No. Um really all I wanted to do tonight is invite all of you. Thursday, March 26th, we're having our second annual literacy family night. This year's theme is a celebration of reading and art. So artist um Robera Zamba, I always struggle on her name. Um and the librarian Bernardet, she's involved. The reading specialists here were all collaborating together with the PTA who has sponsored a book for every child whether they

013attend or not. So we have a highinterest um book that we've already there's four options for three through five, four options for K2 where they're going to get to choose a book that of interest. Uh, and it kind of goes with the theme of art, too. So, that's exciting. A new twist, too. Um, Mr. Bono has sponsored a uh professional storyteller to close the night out. So, we'll all come as a community and hear this storyteller. And it's we're really excited. There's gonna be cookies and cocoa. So, if you are available, we would love to see you. And and last year, um, so it starts at 5:30, doors open. And what they'll do, I should also say, um, shout out to the teachers. We have numerous teachers volunteering their time to run sessions. They'll be

014reading an, uh, interactive read aloud about art. Um, somehow the book will be connected to our theme and then the students will create a craft or activity that goes with that. So, they'll be walking away with an intimate session with the teacher. It might be a previous teacher, a future teacher all throughout and they get a special ticket. Um it's really a nice organized event for all the family. I think the family members who come enjoy seeing the teachers, seeing the kids um on the carpet reading, interacting and and then just that um the fact that the PTA Bennett, the teachers, it's really it's just that community piece that we were talking about. It's a special evening. Any questions? >> Yes. This isn't so much a question, just a really quick story because you're making

015me think of it. Um, when my kids are in elementary school, we had a math community night. Um, and that's where I learned of the game 24. And that night after we played it, I bought a copy for the family. We still pull it out. Um, you know, this was 15, 20 years ago. My kids are grown now. Um, there's difficulties. One, two, or three dots. And I'm telling you, those three dot cards befuddle people with graduate educations. Um, but it's it's it's one of those games that's really terrific because you can level it so that adults and kids can play it together. And so these kind of events are great for families to learn about what their kids are doing and and also just things like you may you may discover a game that

016may be in your family for the next couple of decades. >> Thank you. Thank you. Um, Liz, Amanda, and Jolie. Um, I didn't completely yield my time, but uh I I I'm I'm learning to let go. Um, does anybody have any questions for the boring old guy? >> Thank you very much. Have a good night. Good meeting. >> Did I cut you off? The reading night was March 26th at 5:30. >> Yeah. Okay. Got it. Got it. >> Okay. Come on. I was just queued in on um what I knew was my job. I am prepared to do it. I just didn't know it was happening right now. So, um I'm gonna take a little time to talk about Miss Amanda Kovak. Um for those you don't know out there in the audience, she is

017um getting awarded tenure hopefully tonight. We'll see what happens. Any bets? Anybody want to place any bets? So, Miss Kovak began her career here um three years ago in March. Um within the first few months of her employment, her natural leadership ability and playful interactions with students made it extremely clear to everyone that she's an asset to this school community. A lifelong learner, she continuously brings the latest research to our staff, presenting at both state and national conferences on vocabulary development. She's led professional development sessions for her colleagues and is an active member of our professional learning community committee. Excuse me. In addition, as a member of Antou's PTA, she co-f facilitates, as she said earlier, the family literacy night. You even brought um you and others partnered with math last year, right? So, it

018was a math literacy night last year. So she reaches over to other disciplines as well. Um yes and and that math literacy night uh it brings teachers, students, caregivers together uh to celebrate reading and and strengthen our our home school connections. Her skill set to gain attention of literacy staff and help provide support of teaching literacy is utilized every day and is appreciated by everyone at Bennett. She's an integral part of the success of phological awareness and the latest ped pedagogical practices everywhere. Miss Kovac is extremely popular among students. She is well respected by all and a pleasure to work with. with a pleasant demeanor, an extremely strong work ethic, and a dedication to our students truly makes her an asset to the Antior Central School District. Based on a comprehensive review of Miss Kovac's

019credentials, classroom observations, performance at the PTA and board of education meetings, it is my strong recommendation to the superintendent of schools that you consider recommending her for tenure this evening. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Bono. Great speech. So, on to item 3.01. The board of education will grant tenure or award tenure. the following named instructional personnel having served a period of probationary status consistent with the education law of the state of New York and provisions of the commissioner's regulations and having received continuing satisfactory evaluations of performance is hereby recommended by the superintendent of schools for approval for tenure status with a probationary period of March 23, 2023 three to March 22, 2026. Certified in read uh a reading teacher, Amanda Kovac hereby receives tenure on March 2023, 2026. May I have a first? Trusty

020Drum. Second, Trusty Canudson. Any questions or comments? Yes. >> We are so lucky. We certainly are. All in favor? That's unanimous. >> Amanda, come let us all shake your hand. Item 4.01. Our director of pupil personnel services, Carol Griema, will present the 2025 2026 special education services plan. Welcome ladies. >> Um, thank you. Slight change in plans. Um, um, congratulations again to Miss Kovac. We are very, very lucky to have you. Um, and my name is Ariel McGrath. I'm the interimm assistant director of PPS. Um, our director, Carol Griema, is right here. Um, but she unfortunately lost her voice. So I will be pinch hitting for her this evening. Um so we briefly wanted just to provide an overview of the supports that PPS provides to the district. We um support and oversee universal prek

021um committee for preschool uh special education as well as committee on special education Mckin Vinto which supports our um unhoused students, foster care and section 504 students. So um really when we look at PPS we think about uh providing supports to remove barriers for students. Um, you know, these are some of the services we provide right now at the preschool level. Um, the county does pay for these services and provide them, but we help um develop this the IEPs to support our preschool students. Um, just for clarification, our special education itinerant teacher, we get a lot of questions around that. That is a special education teacher that goes into a general education preschool um, classroom and provides supports. We currently have 42 um UPK students and 11 of those are classified students that we provide

022supports to. um our providers. Uh one of the really special things that we have at Antiora is that our related service providers from the diff district are providing supports to preschool ser students which um you know it allows our students to um have familiar faces when they come to the school. But it also provides us with a greater insight as to who those students are and how we can support them in um kindergarten and coming into the schools. Um these are an overview of the special education programming that we provide at um the elementary level. We provide related services. Um special education classrooms. Um you'll see on our special education um classes it says 1211. That indicates 12 is the maximum number of students that we have in the classroom with one special education teacher

023and one TA. Um integrated co-e looks like a general education classroom with a special educator coming in to support those students um with differentiated instruction and related services are provided by our OT PT and speech. Um TODH stands for teacher of deaf and heart of hearing and um th that provider is contracted through Boseies. We also have special class reading which is a multiensory approach. Um and that just really means that there's an integration of learning modalities to support a whole learner. Um you know research shows that when you integrate and utilize multiple modalities such as visual, auditory, kinesthetic, the retention and integration of skills in reading um is better. This is where our programs are currently housed. at the elementary level. Um we have a special class is currently at Bennett. Um but we

024do have Matt's class at Woodstock and again those numbers next to the class indicates the maximum number of students to one special educator and then the one or the two on the end indicates the number of TAs that we have in the class supporting students. Um Woodstock su successfully integrated um co-e at the fourth grade level last year and um successfully with fifth grade integration this year. These are the supports that we're providing at the middle school level at this time. Sixth grade is completing their second successful year at the middle school. Um and the services that we provide are consistent from last year to this year. We are seeing that as well at the high school level. Again, the services are um consistent with last year. Co-e is where the special educator is coming

025into those um core academic classes where there's um a general education teacher as well. And those regions intensives really indicate special class with a maximum of 15 students, one special educator and one TA. This is an area we really wanted to highlight. Um we're really proud of it. Um we have seen a shift in our classification rate over the last few years. Um and our classification rate has gone down. um which indicates really that we're providing um support at the building level through multi-tered systems of support and differentiating uh instruction and kind of closing those gaps for students before they're being referred to cse. Um in addition, our special education staff is and faculty are um amazing and they're closing those gaps for students as well and we're seeing declassification. So that that decrease in

026classification um is it means that we're meeting our our students where they're at and we're kind of we're closing those gaps. So we're really proud of that. Um these are some more successes that we wanted to highlight for the district. you know, we have some multiensory reading support throughout the district that continues to support um our learners with different um with unique learning profiles um as well as we wanted to um highlight the ongoing PD provided by all points um which has been really integral in integrating that differentiated instruction into our classrooms and and we're really seeing um success with that. So we really appreciate it. Um, another thing we really wanted to highlight was our um, Occupational therapy assistant. We really have, um, under the direction of, you know, current leadership, we as a

027district have been at the forefront, um, countywide for providing services for our preschoolers. there. Um, you know, and you'll see on the next slide, there continues to be a need for services for students at the preschool level. Um, and you know, we're really proud of the fact that under this current leadership, we've been able to prioritize the needs of our preschool students and um, our service providers are going out and providing supports and um, our occupational therapy assistant is really filling a need in in OT at the preschool level. Um, so, um, I touched on this briefly before. Some future considerations is that there are a lack of providers countywide. Um, but again, we as a district are kind of at the forefront of providing services for our students at the preschool level. So, we're

028really proud of that. Um, there is a continued discussion around teacher shortage, especially at our out of district placements. um out of district just for clarification is um students placed um out of our district for unique learning needs and unique learning profiles. Um and then with decreased enrollment, we are facing some challenges around filling special classes to an appropriate amount, right? That really suits the needs of students socially and academically. But with that, it provides us a unique opportunity to evolve internally and look at ways we can shape PPS in the future in our district. Um, so, you know, thank you for your continued support with PPS. We truly appreciate it. And, um, if you have any questions. Yes. I'm just curious with preschoolers, are they assessed or the teachers tell you like how do

029you know if they need OT or PT or >> That's a great question. So, um it's it's very similar to the school age process. Um however, at the um preschool level, it's often parent referral or um teacher meeting with parents and then once we get a referral, we complete an evaluation or the county completes an evaluation. Um, I say we because our providers often are able to provide the evaluation um because we contract with the dis with the county. So, we have the availability and opportunity to see our students in the preschool um and do those evaluations. So, we know them better coming into um school age. >> Um I was just curious about the um out of district students. There's nine cases down from whatever it was. And then that's wonderful. I'm just curious

030like how far are they going? Is it like those unique cases? Are they going to neighboring districts? I mean, I was just looking at the and filling vacancies challenge. So, I'm just curious if they're all going to one place or each of those nine people like going to different places. Well, um, all shoes, I'll take this. Um, our out of district students, um, are placed in different places throughout the state and we and even some beyond the state. Um, it really is based on their need. Um, and we take really careful consideration. We visit all out of district placements where we recommend students to attend. Um and it's really based on the students unique learning profile where they either where they get accepted or where they accept um decide to go. But um generally the

031mile how far is the more complex the student profile is, um it's likely they have to go a little bit further from home. Um, most of our students stay within 50 miles of the school boundaries. Thank you so much for all of this. And I'm excited to just ask if you can explain to me a little bit more about how the consultant teacher what that is like um what that looks like in the classroom. >> Yeah, it's a great question. So, consult and teach is um we currently the the program that we currently have is at the middle school. The special education teacher pushes into the um general education classroom and provides the differentiated instruction for those identified students. >> Yeah, I'll expand on that just a little bit. So um consult and teacher model

032came into place a couple of years ago for some particular reasons um when the state comes and does some evaluations for us they might identify an area of need and in that particular area um it required a bit of a shift on is um you know able to provide what we call consultant teacher services but kind of satisfies something for the state but we over service in that respect where it truly is and appears to be a co- teach The true definition of consultant teacher would be that the special education teacher would either consult with the general education teacher or consult with the student. In this case, the teacher is staying in the classroom for the period. >> Any other questions? Um, with our rates of declassification increasing, I know it's really hard to tease

033out, but is there any one or two factors you would point to to say that we feel like this is really working for our students in in achieving that success? you know, MTSS, I don't know, you know, >> um I >> I touched on it a little bit in the presentation, but um what I think it shows is that our differentiated instruction at the building level, meeting kids where they're at through MTSS is really working nicely for us as well as the declassification rates. >> Thanks. >> Thank you. Thank you both so much. Carol, I hope you feel better. All right, on to item 4.02. Our assistant superintendent for business, Monica, will provide a presentation of the 2627 revenue and expenditure budgets. Thank you very much. So, here we are, March 17th. Happy St. Patrick's

034Day, everyone. We um we were lucky enough to have corn beef and cabbage in the office today. It was yummy though I have to say a little salty. So as I brought my big thing of water. So as we um as I kind of mentioned at the board meeting two weeks ago, the tax levy uh calculation tax levy limit calculation has not changed from the initial presentation. This was what was submitted to to the comproller um on the due date of March 1st. So this is where we're looking. uh tax levy limit um 42627 is looking to be 2.48% over the prior year. uh updated projected revenues. Um I was able to eek out a little extra out of miscellaneous. We will be seeing some interest income uh returned to us from Boseies. Um because

035because of the project that we did, they did I should say that we paid for they have been holding our money and the interest that that money earned is coming back to the districts based on um our ARWada. While we don't get a lot, $75,000 is still nothing to to sneeze at. So, we're looking at about a 2.37% increase in our revenues. Um, I think I have well, I can't remember if I have a state a I think I have a state aid. Did I have a state aid? Yes, I do. I couldn't remember if I had a foundation aid slide in there, but I think I do. Um, so our updated projected expenses. Um, so if you remember, we talked a little last uh two weeks ago at the board meeting. So, there were

036some minor changes. Um uh as you can see uh employee benefits the the increase has actually gone down a little if we can say that in a positive uh positive term. Um we were able to uh DHICK was able to use some of its fund balance to not have it as large of an increase as they had originally projected. Originally it was going to be 16%. Now it's uh about 10%. um and a little less actually for retirees because retirees will be are retirees that are Medicare eligible Medicare as their primary. So with DHICK being their secondary, their increase is actually not as high. So um so that was good to see. Um other than that, what we talked about two weeks ago was that additional transfer to capital. So if you look at the

037subtotal in a normal budget year, I would say that that's our budget, the 65,481500. um a little over 1.8 million or about a 2.98% increase. Um, as I mentioned, uh, two weeks ago, our elevator project came in over budget and in conversations with both CPL and schoolhouse and trying to figure out of the three pieces of that of that project, which were the the elevator in the middle school high school, the middle school gym that we had to pull out of the last project because of the concrete that was underneath it that was not se that was unforeseen, and then the hallway that that's uh parallel to 28 that is um starting to deteriorate and there's concern for asbestous. Um we could not pick just one or two to fix. We thought they were all

038equally as important when it came to safety, when it came to ADA, when it came to our students and our staff. So that being said, because we have historically been very lucky as far as our um fund balance and what we've been able to save, um we've been prudent with our expenses. um we do have additional funding that we could use in our reserves that would be added specifically for that project. So as you see our interfer fund transfers is right now 1.16 million that includes the uh the 750,000 that we normally have in transfer to capital plus that money that we transfer to Chrissy for food service in addition to the transfer that we need to do for summer school every year. we would add an additional $1 million to that would be specifically

039for the transfer to capital for that project. And again, it would be a not to exceed amount. Any money we didn't need, we would bring we would put back into our fund balance. So that being said, we the budget that the voters will see is the $66,481,500. >> Monica, can I interrupt you for one second? Trusty Goodrich has a question. >> Sorry, I did not see you there. >> Hi hiding here. Um the employee benefits, uh does that include the retirey benefits? >> It does. Yes. And I actually go into a little detail as to what u what are the budget drivers within those specific um areas. So I'll go through that when when I get to that. Um so as I say the the >> one more quick question. >> Yes. Are you going

040to unpack the wonderful unicorn circumstances that allow us to have that million dollars? And it's coming. >> It's coming. >> Oh, good. >> I got to save something for the highlights. I start with the big stuff and then I, you know, um, so as I said, so we're looking at a budget of 66481500. So what that's what the voters will see. So the voters will see a 4.55% increase. But as I said, that is not um relative to the revenue or the or the tax levy. Tax levy and the revenue stays the same, but the voters vote on an expenditure budget. That's kind of the hard thing that sometimes people have that that's difficult for people to understand. So drivers of your budget increase. So looking at the different areas, I just kind of took

041each area and said like what is really driving that specific area. So for general support, insurance is the big driver for next year. And as I noted, it's not a reflection of our claims. It is truly a reflection of the industry as a whole. Unfortunately, insurance companies have been struggling with disasters. Um, and what is insurance? Everybody pays to help those that have problems but you know in the end everybody pays. So um and then our Bosey's administrative cost has also seen an increase by 6%. Uh operations and maintenance I've mentioned this before uh safety and security has gone up for 20 uh 627 because we added the aeros security the people that are sitting in our lovely new vestibule. Um, and in addition, um, I'm sure it's not a shock to anyone to know

042that our electric costs are going up. Um, we have we have seen a, um, 30% increase and my fear is that that's not the last of it. So, um, unfortunately that Yeah. >> So, on the, um, on the electricity, let's get that one out of the way early. So is are we doing something that's causing more electric usage or is it just just a rate increase? >> Nope. Specifically, it's just our our um our charges. >> Yeah. We don't have any more computers or anything like that. >> Okay. >> No. If anything, we have less because we're not really charging anything in Phoenicia. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> So, >> uh on the Boseies, do we have any control over that? >> On the administrative costs, no. >> Right. So, everybody, all the school districts got

043a 6% increase. No, it so the increase depends on their everyone's arwada. So basically it's the percentage of your students as a whole of all of Bosei students. So if our enrollment goes up, every other schools goes down, then we start picking up a larger percentage. So every year it kind of fluctuates a little. Um the hard part is our fluctuations aren't as large. If you get somebody like a Kingston that fluctuates, if they go down by a lot of students will go up because Kingston will go down and Kingston carries such a larger piece of of the pie for Boseies. So, >> Misslair, >> yes. >> Um, Aratada is the >> I have no idea regional weighted average daily attendance. So it but it that actually functions much like the assessed value of all

044the towns within the district. As one goes up, it carries more of the burden and others come back down. >> But it is also tied to enrollment which is why we generally you know use our enrollment >> and technically we do have the um responsibility of voting on the Bosey's administrative budget every year. >> That is correct. >> So we we don't really get a say in um how they create their administrative budget or what their increases are but every district uh in April does vote on the administrative budget for Boseies. >> Thank you. And so um looking at instruction so um I thought this would be some good information for everyone. Uh so as you noticed in the first slide uh instruction represents 29 million 700,000 of our 2627 budget. Um 22 million of

045that or 75% of salaries. So um again you know if we look at it's a 2.5% increase 728,000 which is actually not bad considering it's such a large salaries is such a large part. uh 3.2 million or 11% is for our out of district special ed placements. Those are um nine students plus Boseies. So that as you can see that's a large piece of our budget as well. Um that's going up by about 13% next year. The non-sary portion of our instruction budget went up by 6.74%. So those are our professional services, those are our supplies, those are our um it um so oh it's also athletics. Um but uh so the reason why this was we were able to keep this to a 2.5% increase is because the salary part of the instruction budget

046increased minimally only by 1.8%. And that is due strictly to the fact that we have retirees that we do not need to replace. So looking at transportation for student contract, that's obviously the biggest one. Oh yes, Caroline, >> just um under instruction. So the the 32 number or 11% of instruction is >> um out of district and you said also our Boseies. Yeah, our Boseies are considered out of district because they're not taught in-house. >> Okay, thank you. >> That's all. >> Just wanted to make sure. >> Yeah. >> Uh transportation, we're looking at about a 3% increase for the first student contract. Our bus costs that is um a little concerning as we are going into requiring to purchase um electric vehicles, even gas powered vehicles are going up by 20%. Um so Mr.

047Clinton is analyzing an option of leasing versus buying. And I was originally against it. I've never leased a vehicle, but um you know, it it I can see where it makes sense, especially since we don't know where we're going to be in five years. So, he's still getting me some more information. Um if we do end up doing that, that will obviously bring that budget down. Uh employee benefits to uh to your um think Mr. uh Clark. uh health insurance increased by 11% for active and between four and six for retirees depending on what plan they're on. But the TRS, our teacher retirement system budget, we has actually decreased. So because we have less teachers in tier four, more teachers in tier six, we aren't replacing certain teachers. Our retirement costs are actually not dramatically

048because it's like one, what is it, one point something million. Um, so it's still a lot of money, but it hasn't gone up as dramatically as it has for a lot of other schools. So, we were able to gather some of the savings from the retirement um and put it into the health insurance, and that's why the employee benefit line we were able to keep to a minimum like 3% increase. Uh, community service, just so that you know, that supports our local libraries. The debt service, we have one lease left for uh our bus garage lift. Um at the time our our lift kind of broke and we couldn't fix it anymore. Um there wasn't enough money in the equipment line to purchase one. So uh we cannot transfer into an equipment line. We can

049only transfer out of which is why we try to keep money in equipment in case something breaks. Um that year unfortunately we didn't have it so we leased it. So I think we have a couple years left on the lease. It's not a large dollar amount. I think is what was it 16,000 $18,000 uh and then the interf transfers which I mentioned supports both the food service summer school and of course our transfer to capital. So just really quick the equipment request as I mentioned buildings and grounds is looking for a floor uh refinishing machine a new tractor and a softball soccer scoreboard for the field. Um, athletics is looking for wrestling mats. It was actually in their budget a few years ago. They decided they didn't need it that year and then somehow the

050following year they threw out wrestling mats. I'm not even sure what happened. They are in the budget for next year. So, John is very happy. In addition to a new outdoor throwing platform, which is I'm assuming is shot. I think I should probably know that. Um, and then as I mentioned, transportation is looking at one large bus at 189,000 and a van at 40,000. So that might change as I said if we we can see if this lease thing actually makes sense for the district. So all told about 300 a little over $359,000. Um the transfer to capital, just to kind of summarize where that money is going, um we would have 1.75 million budgeted. The additional million would be funding for that ele we call it the elevator plus project because it originally started

051as just the elevator and then we couldn't do the middle school gym so we threw that in there and we found out the the hallway ceilings was was peeling. We got to put that in there. So it's all of those things that as I mentioned we we consider very important to our to the health and safety of our students and our staff and our community. um the other $750,000 some some things that we have looked around we went through with um with Mr. Edelman and Mr. And um the middle school principal, I cannot pronounce his last name. Uh thank you, Salamini. Um is is looking to refurbish the flooring in the school counseling suite. Right now it's carpeted and as you all know, carpeting can kind of get a little old and then some some

052uh allergy issues. So they have asked to get more like vinyl tile like we have here. Um same thing with the flooring in the learning center. We are looking at the server room. Um, I don't have to explain to Mr. Rhyr that it's um it needs some updates. It's a very hot room because the server takes up a big part of it and it's difficult to have the server and also having our IT staff in there. So, we're we're trying to see what we can do um in the short term um with some of this money and then um where possible with what money we have, we need to seriously look at paving and roof repair. Um, I don't know about you guys, but that pothole right in front of Central gets me every morning

053and I know it's there. So, um, as we look at the budget, so we have revenues of 62 million, expenditures of 65 million. So, you know, everyone says, well, you know, budget has to balance. Where's the balance? So, that's where the fund balance comes in. So, looking at 2627 updated, we have projected revenues of just over 62.5 million dollars. We have projected expenses of just under $65.5 million. So the projected difference for our regular budget is $2.9 million. So that would be our appropriated fund balance that we would take. And don't have a I don't have a little dot on here, do I? I have a little thingy. Is it this? No, that. So I'm trying to show you though I can't. Um so if you look under appropriated fund balance for 2526 adopted see

054where it says the 2.5 million. So for this current year's budget we said okay we we projected revenues of 61. We're projected revenues of expenses of 63. So we we are assuming we need about 2.5 and appropriated. We are not using that 2.5. Our revenues are coming in over budget because interest rates are still high. Of course, when last year when I stood here, we weren't sure that interest rates were going to stay that high. So, I wasn't going to budget for a high interest because heaven forbid it didn't stay high. We would be in a situation where we would need to cut the budget. So, our projected revenues will be higher. We will see some savings and expenditures because we did have a lower special ed um cost because we did have bring some

055students back. Some students left the district that were special ed um in addition to some other things. that those were some big savings. Um, so there is going to be savings in in that as well. So we are not using that 2.5 million. So what we're basically doing is taking that 2.5 and moving it up into that 2.9. So it's the same pot of money. It's the same. It is the same money basically. So and then what we're asking is to use an additional $1 million. So our appropriated fund balance becomes um a little over 3.9. So um try to explain it in layman's terms at the bottom. When we don't expend the money in the budget or we receive more revenue, that money goes into fund balance, um appropriated fund balance is then utilizing

056that prior year's fund balance for the following year's budget. So, and there's a hot link to our fund balance uh reserve plan that the board approves every June. So, this is the one from last June that actually speaks to all of the reserves, what their purposes are, what they've been historically, and um what what we're projecting them to be for the following year. Yes. >> And functioning this way allows you to decrease the burden on the tax levy, right? Am I right? >> Correct. Because if we didn't use the appropriated fund balance, we would need to come up with re revenues of 65 million. We know we're not getting much more state aid. The only other way for us to raise revenue is through taxes. So we would have had to gone to a supermajority.

057So historically looking at what we sorry one more question >> more of a more of a just an elucidation because there there is great confusion in the public about reserves. um the unappropriated um reserve that we have that in terms of how people relate this to their personal household finances that is the closest thing this district has to a rainy day fund. Correct. Right. That's our rainy day. That is our rainy day. >> So if some if some federal program gets cut in the middle of the year and we need to make up the difference. Yes. >> That's where we go. >> Correct. >> Right. Okay. >> Or if we have, you know, um students move in that are high need, a special ed program can cost upwards of $100,000. >> Right. one kid. Um,

058and we've seen that, you know, so that's why >> which contrasts with money say in a capital reserve fund which can only be spent on right building new buildings or capital projects, >> right? >> Thank you. >> So, this is kind of just showing you because I I I don't want this 3 point this 2.9 or 3.9 to kind of scare you. Um we have historically since 2019 three of those years used over $3 million of appropriated fund balance but again we have never used appropriated fund balance. That money has always rolled back into the following years. So it's the same that same 3.265 and 1920 is that 2.5 and 2526 because we have never had to dip into that that fund balance. But to your question, um, Jenny, this is where we stand, where

059we stood as as of June 30th of 2025. So, we had over $24 million in reserves and unappropriated fund balance. Um, the capital reserve, that's what the voters approved for us to use. And then from the unappropriated, five million of that was also what the voters approved to use. Um, in addition, we have an unemployment reserve. We have an employee retirement reserve. we have little left in our repair reserve, our um teacher um retirement reserve and our employee benefit reserve. So just looking at that you can see we we and we have always historically had very healthy reserves. So um again this is why I'm not worried about that um additional million dollars. So the other thing that um I apologize I should have mentioned at the last meeting and it's amazing how quickly the

060time goes um because we are now we have fully funded the last capital reserve and the voters have approved for us to use that capital reserve. It would be a good time for us to set up a new capital reserve. It doesn't it doesn't affect us in that in that it's not it's not a taxable entity. All it is, it's asking the voters if and when we have money left over in our budget, we would like to fund this capital reserve. Um, we would set it up similar to the last one. So, it would be a $10 million reserve over 10 years. So, what that means is you have 10 years to fund it to 10 million and no more. And after that 10 years, you have to either use it or give it back.

061Um, so again, it's it's funded through end ofear budget savings. Um and it's part of the proposition to the voters in May. So proposition one would be the budget. Proposition two would be the capital reserve. And then again establishing the reserve lets us plan capital projects without having to rely on budget. So for example the $ 8.8 million budget uh $ 8.8 $.8 million capital project that we completed this summer that included the security vestibule, that included the uh family and consumer science, the art room, the middle school gym. Um, tell me what I'm missing. Uh, so many things. Um, oh, the generator. Yes. Um, which we used today. Um, much to the chagrin, I think, of some of the students, they probably would have wanted to go home. Um but again did not need

062any borrowing for that. We were able to save money and use that savings to now do the project. And then on top of that we also get building aid on that 8.8 million. So we're getting building aid without spending without paying any debt. So it's actually kind of a a win-win. Um so the one thing that um uh Amanda and I found out unfortunately today or yesterday was um that we are required to put this proposition in the first legal notice which needs to be published by May by April 3rd. So um I didn't feel comfortable bringing you the full proposition since I didn't really mention it earlier. So there's two ways we can do this. we can publish we can publish the um the legal notice with this proposition in there and then if

063for some reason at the next board meeting you guys say n I don't want to do it we just don't publish it again I mean it does you know it's like no harm no foul basically or we can hold a special meeting before April 3rd specifically for that proposition if that would make you feel more comfortable so I leave that up to you yes >> a question that occurred to me if in six years the district has to start buying electric school buses. Could those be paid for out of a capital reserve or is those has that have to be a transportation reserve? >> Usually, it's a bus reserve. If you're buying buses, you have to be pretty specific. But I'm wondering if you could, you know, that's an interesting question because the reserve Well,

064no, because the way the the way the proposition reads, it actually reads as capital work. Basically, they it reads as capital work kind of like based on the building condition survey. I can check with the attorneys if we can throw electric buses in the in the proposition. I I honestly don't know. >> Or maybe if we can't purchase the buses, we don't have the facilities to support those buses. So, if we can't purchase the buses and we end up being required to electrify our fleet, we could maybe use it for the infrastructure. >> Yeah, I'll see I'll work with the attorneys to see if we can kind of tweak that language. Can you make a note so I don't forget? >> Thank you. And sorry, just just to circle back just while we're on the

065topic, the question came up before about leasing or buying a bus. Am I correct that there's a the way the law is written it a law or a mandate from the governor says you cannot purchase a non-electric bus after a certain year, which is soon? >> Well, it it was originally 2027. >> Yeah. >> They have put in a waiver. I believe it's 2030 or 2032. It's it's so they've pushed it out. >> Okay. >> But you have to apply for the wave like I think right now you've got a minimum of I think two years which would be 2029. >> Okay. >> That you need to buy electric buses. >> What I'm thinking of is we we heard anecdotally about neighboring districts who actually own electric buses right now that literally could not run

066them in the subzero weather we had. And therefore that might argue for if we're up against a a drop dead date to have gas or diesel powered buses that we can use. >> Yeah, >> that might argue for buying it. But I just wanted to bring that up. >> Yeah. Yeah, it is it is definitely um difficult to plan. Um yeah, exactly. So Oh, I did state budget update. So, the one House budgets were released on Tuesday. Uh, both the assembly and the senate are looking to raise foundation aid minimum from a 1% to a 2% which for us is about $75,000. So, it's not a huge dollar amount. Um, but again, any little bit helps. Um, some of the other things are looking at increasing the weight assigned to English language learners for uh

067pupil needs. Um the Senate is looking to increase the limit for capital outlay projects from 100,000 to 250,000. Uh they have been a lot of our organizations have been pushing that for over a decade because there really is nothing you can do for $100,000 anymore. Um unfortunately it's just the Senate so we don't know. Um they also the Senate is asking the governor to um make it clear that we're going to be providing free and appropriate public education to all students with disability until the age of 22 which unfortunately also adds a layer because we only get aided for students to 21. But now we have to spend money on them till they're 22. But we won't get any any aid on that. Um both houses are um looking to expand the farm-to-school reimbursement. So

068that's that's wonderful for Chrissy. And both houses have mentioned supporting reforms to tier six, but they have not include anything specific. Um so we don't know unfortunately any changes to retirement would affect the school districts would would affect that TRS line. So you know that's another thing we just we have to watch out for. So, the budget's obviously due by April 1st. Um, it's not expected to be ready on time because of the um Easter holiday and Passover. It's like literally right that same week. I don't think they're supposed to be back in session until like April 22nd. So, we are expecting a late budget. Um, but then again, we're used to those. So, just kind of looking at what's next on April 7th. Um, uh, Superintendent McLaren and I will come back to you

069with our recommended budget, um, along with the capital reserve resolution unless you want to do it earlier. Uh, April 20th, the board candidate nominating petitions are due. Uh, the 21st will be, uh, the board of ed will adopt the budget. If for some reason the board doesn't feel comfortable adopting the budget on the 21st, you would have until the 26th is the latest date possible for the budget to be adopted. May 5th would be the budget hearing and then May 19th would be the budget vote and I think that's it. Any other questions? >> So we're meeting on the 21st and you're telling us the state legislators don't come back into session until the day after that? >> Yes. >> So are there any other are there any surprises that could be lurking that would

070>> No, not really. Um really the only thing would be possible for additional foundation aid and my recommendation would be that we would just reduce the appropriate fund balance by whatever the increase of foundation aid would be. >> Great. >> Which is basically what we do anyhow. >> Thank you. >> As as um somebody at the rural schools said, it's a very vanilla state budget, but it's also an election year. So, >> I know I know I've heard this before, but just one more time. How do we get to that 2.98% tax levy number? >> 2.48. >> See, that's why I'm asking. All right, that's the total. See? See? Because I want >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> So, I will go over it. So there are so when people say 2% tax levy in that

071you know we have a 2% tax cap what they're saying is and I wish I had a wish I had a little pointer if you look where it says um allowable growth factor CPI that is 2% or CPI whichever is lower. So CPI is actually higher than 2% but our tax levy limit formula only goes to 2%. The issue is that there is a lot of other things that make up the formula. So the taxbased growth factor is a big piece. If your district is growing, then what it's so what it's saying is that these the that is brick and mortar growth. So those are additional taxable entities. So they're saying if you have additional taxable entities, your your um tax levy can be more than 2% because you're spreading it out over more people.

072So you're actually technically only going to be doing about 2% because you've got more people paying into it. Um the other is is the um exemptions. So there are certain things that are exempted from the tax levy um formula and those are our capital exclusions. So it's our buses, it's our capital projects. Um it's so basically it's debt less state aid or building aid. Um and in this case most of it's the Bosey's debt because we don't get any aid on that. Actually I think it's all Bosey's debt. We did have a little bit of carryover from 2526 because if you remember our tax levy limit on 2526 was 3% but we went out with a 2%. So depending on where you know where it falls in that formula sometimes you can capture a little

073bit of what you didn't capture the year before. So that's that $50,000. So then it comes up with this is your maximum allowable tax levy and then you just kind of compare it to the prior year and that's what gets you your 2.48%. Any other questions? Yes. >> So, the 2.4 is that our max? >> that is our max. Okay. >> Yes. Um, and I will say that we have pro from from the school districts that I've spoken to so far, and I think Kingston's the only one I haven't heard back from, we have the lowest tax levy increase. And the issue the reason is believe it or not if you look at our tax base growth factor we have the lowest taxbased growth factor in the county with the exception I think Ellenville might

074be a little lower but we have a because if you look last year it was 1.083 this year it's 1.039 so our growth has starting starting to decrease. Yes, >> just a comment for the public. Um, our assistant uh superintendent, uh, we were very fortunate to have you. I think you're, uh, one of the better ones and, uh, probably in many of the school districts. So, thank you. >> Well, thank you. I appreciate it. >> And, uh, so the next couple years, you're really going to have to work hard because of all the all the capital improvements that are >> I promise. I would like to second that. Um especially being on the board, we look at a lot of districts who are really struggling and that um I feel very uh confident that you're

075taking care of what needs to be taken care of. And of course, we're going to always push you to spend, but it's nice to know that you will always push to save. And that's a great um partnership. So, thank you for your work. >> You're very welcome. Well, I had a good I had a good teacher dynamic duo. Okay. Any other questions about the >> Okay. Can you just review that for us for us? >> So, we just um need to know how the board feels about the proposition for the capital reserve. Um, our choices are because the first legal notice has to go into the paper before our next scheduled meeting, we could include the language for the capital reserve in that legal notice and then consider it at the next meeting. And if

076the board decides they don't want to bring that proposition to the voters, then it just would not be put into the subsequent three legal notices. We would just remove it. or um if you wanted to spend a little more time together on another day, we could schedule a special meeting before the first legal notice. >> No. >> Okay. >> Yeah. Okay. >> We don't need to vote on it. We just need to agree on it. >> That's that's all. >> Is that agreeable to everyone? >> So, it will appear on the next agenda for approval or not? >> Let me just ask one more question. If we create a capital reserve that's uh 10 million over 10 years, that does not require us to put 10 million over 10 years into it. It's weired to

077put anything in. >> But if we had some expenses crop up, we could just say, "Oh, not this year. We, you know, we're not going to fund that this year because we >> So if you have a year where we had a family of six special ed students come in, yeah, not funding it." But if we have a year with six six special ed students move out, oh, look at that money that we saved. Let's put it in the reserve. Okay. It gives the district options and that's really >> and some flexibility because things change year to year. Thank you. >> So just to clarify and reiterate for for everybody listening the we put money in the capital reserve but to spend it we have to still vote on it. >> Correct. >> The public

078public needs to vote on it >> as they did with the 8.8 8 million that um project that we did last year and what they did for the in the December vote where they approved to use the capital reserve to to help with the consolidation project. Yeah, >> thank you very much. >> You are very welcome. >> That is a big job. All right, on to item 5.01. our student representative on the board, Jenny Albbright, will give us her report. >> Hi, I apologize for missing the last board meeting. Um, so the school has been doing very well. Um, specifically with regards to sports, spring sports season has started and the varsity boys basketball team were, um, section 9 champions are doing great this season. It's actually insane. Um, uh, additionally, the newest edition of

079the talent is out. And um last week we had a assembly an assembly through um um this organization um with the DA's offster DA office called um uh >> it's coming to me like ending the cycle >> breaking the cycle. Thank you. And it was about um forgiveness and breaking the cycle of violence. And there was a very impactful speech from um um a mother and father who lost their child to suicide and it was like Everyone in the high school heard it and it was very impactful. I mean people were crying and um parents thought it was impactful. So it's just it was a very important assembly to have and it was generally wellliked and um the faculty got us ice cream afterwards or like the next day because we were just we handled

080it well. Um, that was information from Edeline personally. And um, finally, last note, not that great, but the smell in the school, the sulfur is getting unbearable because it used to just be like once a month, once every other month. It is like every single day now. The 28 hallway, the foreign language hallway, the science hallway, they all smell like sulfur all the time. It is disgusting. And so, I don't know if there's anything that can be done about that, but it's really bad. Well, thank you so much for letting us know. Do we do we know what that's caused by Okay. K. So, um Kyle has been working on this diligently every time there's a smell. Um, originally we thought it was coming from um, Shelley Hamilton's room and Kyle had spent a lot

081of time and money cleaning out the um, what's it called? The trap, the pit, the trap, whatever that is. What we're thinking now is it's actually underneath. It's basically underground. It's where pipes come together from all of the three hallways and then feed out. And without doing a major construction project, there is really little that we can do because it's underground. So, he has been um pouring water down the drain, which they they seem to think helps. And I think they've been doing that over the weekend. Um and actually, I'm I'm you know, we we were told that it had gotten better. So, we hadn't heard like when was the last time we met about that? It was a week ago, maybe. It was like that today though. >> Yeah, today was bad and it

082was also yesterday. >> Okay. Yeah. So, we hadn't heard about yesterday and today. >> Yeah, it's pretty bad. It's getting more frequent actually, >> which is bizarre. I don't know if it's because of maybe the rain, the melting snow. Yeah, it's so bizarre because you can't tie it to like one thing. It's like Well, that's what we thought, too. Yeah. Yeah, we thought so, too. And it's Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's so bizarre. It's definitely one of those things. >> I am so proud of you for bringing that up tonight and you know around all the administrators and everything. You are serving the student population well. Thank you so much. They all appreciate you. I have been accosted. I was going to bring it up tonight as an RFI because I've been accosted in the parking

083lot every time I've been anywhere. Rock Academy like seven kids like Miss Jared, aren't you on the board? My son says, "Do you have executive session tonight?" I said, "Yes." He said, "Can you ask about the poop smell in the hallway?" But it's not funny because I mean, whatever we need to do to try and resolve that, I mean, especially with a construction crew getting ready to come in, but >> I just don't know how we can ask our teachers and students to do that in a hallway where that's happening. None of us would be in our offices or of our jobs if if that was happening. So, thank you. >> So, no, we we we are on it. And Kyle is continues to do everything he can whenever he I'm sure he he knew

084about it because you know his he's usually the first person they call. So but again I'll follow up with him again. >> Thank you. I actually jotted down RFI as well request for information. So if the board wants information about something we request it um of the superintendent at near the end of the meeting and so we'll we'll look into it. Okay. Thanks so much, Jenny. Does anybody have questions for Jenny? All right. Thank you. Oh, so sorry. It's not a question. It's just another compliment. The talon is so phenomenal. Espec Well, you bring it. You go ahead. I'm sorry. I'm so busy throughout the day. I always forget to grab a couple copies. I really I I like I deeply apologize. I really I deeply apologize. Yeah, the town's um third edition came out

085again. I deeply apologize for forgetting to bring copies. >> We actually have um a meeting in central on Friday. So, I'm sure we'll have some I know I know there were some copies uh there earlier this week. So, we'll make sure that there are copies for the board for everybody. >> I took one the last time I was at audit committee or something. I don't know. And I have to say I really struggled to read any news in the world right now. Like I really have to choke it down. And I sat in my living room and read the Talon an article on AI your article on what's real work and what's busy work like the tradife question. And I just was like didn't want to put it down. Um, it gave me so much

086hope for your generation's ability to like really wrestle with topics in a way that was about just about thinking and I just I hope everybody reads it. Thank you for always being a part of that. Thank you, Jenny. All right, on to item 6.01. Uh may I have a motion to enter into executive session to discuss OA negotiations? Trusty Smith first and Trusty uh I can't remember anybody's names tonight. Trusty Jerome second. Any questions or comments? All in favor? So we should be back within 20 minutes. All right, we are back from executive session. May I have a motion to exit executive session and return to public session? Trusty Smith. Second. Trusty Jerome. Any questions or comments? All in favor? That's unanimous. Did you raise your hand, Trusty Goodrich? Okay. Thank you. Sorry, I missed

087it. You were fast. Okay. Uh to item 7.01, acceptance of minutes. Uh the board of education accepts the minutes from the March 5th, 2026 and the March 10th, 2026 meetings. May I have a first? Trusty Jared. Second. Trusty Smith. Any questions or comments? All in favor? That's unanimous. Thank you. On to item 8.01, our superintendent district news. >> Good evening. Um, so just as an update because uh this came up during one of our meetings earlier this week, I wanted to give a little snapshot of our parent square engagement. Um, so I get a weekly update from the platform, but then I can go uh into the dashboard and look at our use to date. So last week we had 61 posts and 418 direct messages in the platform. Since the inception, uh, which was

088technically this past fall, we have had 1,985 posts and 12,372 direct messages. Um so 92% or uh 1,210 parents have opted to receive um email and 105 or 8% have opted to receive their um communications from parent square through texts. Um 46% of the parents uh of our parents have the app and that is 608 parents and 486 of those are receiving notifications using the app. um 558 parents have interacted with parent square through either comments uh appreciating posts, direct messages or forms or uh permission slip completion. So I think I think we're on a a good um path here with parent square and I think people are really embracing it and I very much appreciate that. Um, as our student board rep noted, we have had some really incredible achievements uh in our winter

089sports season, but um it brought up for us that we did not um spend any time really recognizing our fall sports season uh athletes. So, our interim athletic director will come to the April 7th board meeting, I think, April, no, I'm sorry, the second board meeting in April. um and she will share all of the highlights and recognize our athletes. Um so we have that to look forward to because at our next meeting on April 7th, we will actually have um our music department coming and recognizing all of our student musicians who have participated in all county or gone to the state level. So um we have a couple of meetings where we're going to have some wonderful student centered uh celebration and recognition. um snow days. Everybody is very interested to know. Uh it

090appears that as of right now, fingers crossed, we may have uh escape the clutches of winter with our entire spring break intact. So um we did exceed our snow day calendar a lotment by one day, but that day is the day that the New York State Education Department has already said they will wave um due to the statewide state of emergency. um they said it will not even require the additional application or paperwork that we would normally be required to submit because it was a statewide travel ban. So um whereas if it's a local uh state of emergency, we can go through the process to try and get an exemption, but they're saying that this is going to be very easy and basically all we're going to have to do is check a box when

091we submit our um data at the end of the school year. So, as long as we don't have any additional days in the next week and a half, our entire spring break is um as was laid out in the calendar. Speaking of um on this evening's agenda, we have uh our current school year calendar, which is um set to be modified, and we also have next year's calendar. The modification to our current calendar is in recognition of the fact that we um will be voting to hold our vote in May at the central location, which will then allow our elementary students to remain in school for the full day on the day of the budget vote. So, we're going to amend the calendar to to uh reflect that and then we'll be able to send

092that out to parents so that they can know that they don't need to plan on child care for half day on that day and that their students will stay in school and continue the instructional day. Next year's calendar is also on the agenda this evening. Um after receiving feedback, we did uh split the elementary and secondary parent teacher conferences as we had talked about. We expect that this will allow families with students at both levels to attend both events and not feel rushed or have to choose which to attend. Um, we also have six snow days planned for in the calendar for next year. Um, so I tried to have uh chat GPT tell me that we would have a milder winter next year, but it was not willing to do that. So, I'm just

093going to keep hoping. Um thankfully during uh our last audit committee meeting we were um told that we might want to check in with the town of Olive because they are going to begin work on their sewer project soon. So our transportation director did reach out to the town and found out that work will be starting in April um which will likely impact some of the traffic on Route 28 and some of the side roads. They have not had their kickoff meeting yet. But now that we have been in contact, they are going to extend the invitation to our director of transportation so that he can attend that meeting and then plan to make the necessary adjustments to our bus routes and he will be aware of what to expect in terms of traffic and

094delays and that way we can be on top of it and not be reacting on the day of when our buses are late. Um, just as an update um, for this building, as we all know, very, um, I was going to say sadly, but I'm actually happy for him as well. Principal Bono is retiring at the end of this year. Uh, and so, uh, we are in the process of hiring for the next principal for this building. This is an incredibly important position that we are hiring for. This is the person who is going to lead our central campus elementary school. So um the position position has been posted. We have a number of candidates um and we are beginning the process. So hopefully um in the very near future we will have someone to

095bring to the board um who will be our next principal of this building and then we can talk to uh everyone a little bit more about the process that will be taking place. Um but just for general knowledge our interview process does involve representatives for all of our unions all of our unions uh as well as parent and student. So, uh, we should get a very good, um, it will be a very good process and I'm sure that we will have wonderful input and feedback from those who participate. Um, and for this week's capital project update, uh, we hosted our first user group meeting last week, which included representatives from the general education classrooms at the elementary level, the kindergarten classrooms, and the librarians. Um each of those groups met um separately with the architects

096and designers uh to kind of go over what their needs are for the space so that the designers and the architects can really understand how they utilize their spaces and what is really important to each of those groups so that during the design process they can take all of that into account. Uh we'll have another uh first user group meeting tomorrow. Um and that will be with the principles, the office staff, and the art teachers because we'll be looking at the um entrances to the buildings, the art room and the offices. Then the designers and the architects are going to take that work that information back, work on refining their designs. And then in April, we are coming back with those same groups so that the architects and designers can show um what modifications they've

097made based on the input that they got. And uh just as an FYI, over um next week, later next week, and over spring break, we're going to have some property surveyors on the campus in support of the central project. And also there will be taking some soil samples um in the area where the Bennett edition will be over spring break. So people will see things happening and that is what's happening. >> Any questions for the superintendent? >> Yes. I was wondering if there's any feedback from the teachers about parent square because that's a lot of messages but I'm assume they were getting emails before. Has there been any is it do they any feedback? >> I have not gotten any personal feedback but that's something that I can ask for. Do you get a lot

098of questions or um on uh snow days on Parent Square? Is that a No, >> I actually do not. Um thankfully, I think people do understand usually when we call a snow day. Um, but I'm hoping that teachers um are appreciating and enjoying Parent Square and I hope that um they are no longer communicating with parents on their personal devices because that's just such a liability for them. So this provides a wonderful platform that is really safe and secure and a good way to communicate. So that's my hope. Thank you. All right. On to item 9.01. Uh the board will report district news. Any trustees have any board news to report? Emily, uh we had the talent show at Woodstock on Friday and it's just the sweetest thing ever. The kindergarten and first grade sang

099lean on me and everyone was like crying. It was so cute and you know a lot of like girls doing gymnastics and lip syncing but also boys too. There was singing. It was just a really fun night. And then there was a dance party at the end in the gym in the cafeteria actually. So I think it was a week ago today. Um just a stones throw from where we're sitting up the hill. If you could throw a stone really hard that way, you might hit the Alheld Foundation building which has had for the past I think it's been going for 10 years but they had some they missed a couple of years for COVID but so six out of the last 10 years um Al Held was a a significant local artist and he

100he had a studio a large studio built on an old dairy farm up on the hill here above Boyceville and he um onto our art students um for years now have been going to visit um as as a project visiting his studios um viewing his art in in situ there in his studio and then responding to that art somehow um through their own creations in and it's a the way their teacher explain is a pretty flexible assignment just respond to some aspect of his art and then they come back for a reception and uh get to hang their art in the gallery and uh trustee Bishop and I went um to the um to this opening uh exhibition of all the student art and each of the students um hung their art gallery style and

101then gave a little two-minute spiel about their process um of of going of the process of um encountering Al Helzard and then how it informed their projects and it was really wonderful. There were there were a lot of parents there. Um superintendent was there. Um and uh it was clearly a project that meant a lot to the kids. And I we were just really impressed by um how articulately our our art students spoke about their process and and their art. I don't know if you want to add anything. I would just add that um Miss Hamilton actually noted to us that in all the years that she's done this, she's she has refined the process and the kids are so articulate and are so well prepared in part because of the time that she takes

102and she has not yet had a student who was not comfortable enough to speak, which is really incredible for them to get up in front of everybody and talk about something as personal as this piece of art that they created. >> Yeah, it was really it was a really great experience and um you know it's just really an opportunity to be so proud of our uh our art students and to see them hanging their work. Like we literally got there uh part of the process was watching them hang their work. They had to uh measure they had the Yeah. Uh Mrs. Hamilton had put the hangers on the back of the artwork. So they didn't have to do that part, but they had to measure. She she gave them very specific instructions. It it all

103it looked like a museum uh you know gallery. It was really very very beautiful. And um when you all get your copy of the Talon, the front page uh article is uh is about the Alheld Foundation and the and the gallery and uh and Alexa Hall did a nice job writing that. Um any other district news? Yes. I just wanted to point out that um thank you for describing I wasn't able to go that the that the students were willing to get up and speak and we look here tonight at Jenny speaking her mind. Um I attribute it and we look at the Catskill witch where the the players sat at the stage and very articulate. They were articulate they were comfortable. That's because they trust the space that they're in. I really believe that.

104I really think that Antiora students um and I don't know if it's this way because I'm not in other districts as much, but they exhibit a confidence and a comfort in expressing themselves in front of people. And I think it's also our performance programs. They're used to getting up. I mean, I'll just touch on I did see some amazing performances um in the past month, but but just I wanted to just say that I've seen this over and over again where they feel comfortable to speak up and that's a really I think that's a great thing um that I've noticed in our district. Um so that's really what I want to say. And then also that um a side note that uh my daughter who's in middle school is a buzz at going to see

105The Outsiders this week in New York City. City is so nice they named it twice. She can't wait to get there and see that play. So that's really and that are again another special thing. Um we we we send our students. They don't have to pay for it. Everybody goes. It's really um one advantage to being a smaller district where trust is a part of it. So anyway, so I'm the music department's ride along the last few weeks, but I really I can't you know what the so all county orchestra happened. that I know that we got to hear from President Bishop about all county chorus um and all county band which trustee Jerome was at and each time the organizer gets up to say please email your superintendent and your board of education to

106tell them why music is important and I always feel a little pride sitting there thinking like I don't need to you know it's so marvelous to be a part of a school district that have so many kids from elementary and junior junior and high school. And just seeing them all up there, it's it's such a special opportunity. I know it's a lot of extra work for our music teachers. It is a lot of work between preparing them for the audition and them preparing the music for the performance, but it it really is spectacular. And then I drove to Albany yesterday to see also the children and grandchildren of many of you, but the an amazing mashup of jazz bands happened. Like there was the middle school jazz band, there was a high school jazz band,

107there was like a mishmash of in between of like a mix and then there were like some a couple kids that played some songs and there was crowds of people that were leaving um that I guess had been there for a lobby day of some kind. I just have to say they were hooting and hollering and clapping and they like stopped to watch it was because the kids were so great. Our school got to close out the music in our school's month at the Albany building and the head of NISMA gave Mr. Boyer plaques and it was really beautiful. Um I want to second what car uh trustee Jerome said just saying like it's just so much harder to like hide and fall through the cracks here. I think that's such a benefit of a

108small school, a small pond if you will. And yeah, I just think, you know, of of course it comes with challenges, but it's something I really appreciate. And also, I remembered the fifth grade uh from Woodstock with um the art teacher, Miss Payet, has a show in Woodstock that we talked about a little bit last time, but it's on until the 26th. So, if you're in town, you could pop into it's called the Woodstock School of Art. No, it's called Wham. I can't Woodstock Artistry Museum or something. So, I haven't been, but I'm gonna go. I'll just uh let you all know that I went to on March 7th, I went to the Woodstock Housing Committee meeting. Uh it was on a Saturday and it was a two-hour long meeting. It was really really great.

109Um they talked about uh narrowing their search for uh a site for site or sites for affordable uh like workforce and senior housing in the town somewhere in the town of Woodstock and you know the town owns certain properties that they are considering developing. Um so they presented people on that committee presented uh for the first hour and then the second hour was uh table talks and so whoever was sitting at your table we uh we had a really great debates and conversations. Um um you know the potential of developing um Woodstock Elementary School at some point into housing was brought up at at our table. I didn't bring it up, somebody else did. Um, and I I did have a a chat for a minute with uh supervisor uh Cortis at the end and

110she said Woodstock Elementary ca came up at my table and I said yeah mine too. So you know uh it's it's there's a little buzz there. That's kind of why I went. I just wanted to hear you know what the conversation was about and then I got invited to come back to other meetings. They were like please tell us you're going to be, you know, be coming to the meetings and so I will. Uh it was definitely a val valuable use of my time. So that's my report and yes, thank you all. Anybody else? Okay. Um on to public be heard. Uh the first uh 10.01 the uh the board would like to acknowledge the public be heard comments from our last meeting. Uh Amy Suo spoke and we do have a speaker tonight. So

111I'm just going to read our statement. Uh public and student comment public and student make p the public and students may comment on any agenda or non-aggenda item. The board appreciates hearing from the public including students on any agenda or non-aggenda item. Please understand that by our adopted parliamentary parliamentary procedure, the board can't engage in discussion or answer questions during public be heard. Please know that we hear you and take all your comments into consideration. The board does reserve the right to correct any inaccuracies or misinformation during public be heard. Please limit your comments to three minutes. Be civil. Do not name any particular individuals or promote any commercial ventures or products. People wishing to express individual student or personnel concerns can bring them to the superintendent's attention in private. Further, all individuals at board

112meetings are expected to abide by the rules of public comment on school property as set forth in the district's code of conduct. At board meetings, speakers and observers may not engage in in behavior or uh that disrupts the meeting such as shouting, interrupting others, blocking the free movement of others, or obstructing the view of others. In the event of such disruption, the board president will remind those in attendance of the rules under this policy. Any board member may request a brief recess for of the meeting, which would serve as a cooling down period. The board president may order the removal of those who are uh a threat to the safety of others or who disrupt the orderly conduct of the meeting. We understand community members are passionate about certain issues. We all want our schoolboard

113meetings to serve as an example to our students that members of our school board and members of our committee can deal with controversial issues in a civil manner and show mutual respect for one another. In that spirit, we ask that all speakers and members of the audience maintain civility and respect for the differing views of others. That said, we welcome Steve Suo. Can you hear me? No. Okay. Um, I see that Amy is already on the agenda and that was really kind of my goal here tonight is to try and I'm sorry. Okay. Uh, my goal here tonight was to try and convince you and sympathize with with Amy on on her desire to get pre and post pick up and delivery of the kids from Woodtock West area. So, um, I won't go into

114that because it sounds like or it appears that there is an agenda item for her on there. So, what I can do is kind of update you on where we are, what Amy and I have found out. Maybe it's helpful to you and maybe give us ideas about what to do as time goes on. So, we can kind of get this as an agenda item and see it each and every two, three, four weeks or something like that. That would be helpful. We know from last week that the Woodstock principal is uh doing the shortterm type of work so that the kids can get going in the fall and what I'm looking at Amy's looking at is the long distance shot at this. So what we've done is we've looked at a couple of things

115one who can do it and the other that's critical is the space. Space is probably the most critical piece of this The two people who are actually available for this are the Y people. We know that they'll be able to do this. We know that the people over in the United Methodist Church will also be willing to excuse me do this. They just they both need the space. So looking at space, uh we took a look at some of the churches in the area. We know that the United Methodist has just run out of room, so they can't do it. They need the space. Uh the u the Episcopal Church on 212, they're kind of small. Uh they would be willing, but it has to be just a small amount of kids. Uh there's the

116St. St. John's Church over in West Hurley. Uh they too are a bit u constrained by space and also have a lot of other things going on. However, what we did trip over that was uh beneficial to us is the Dutch They're willing to do it. The problem with them is that if it's too small, if we only have like two or three kids, that's not going to work for them. If it's more than 30, it's not going to work. So, we have to find out how many kids are going to be part of this deal. I made contact with the Woodstock school and what I got back today and it's just kind of superficial. It's really not all that helpful, I don't think. Uh, what they told me was that it would be 15.

117So, I asked them, I said, "How many kids are in the school?" And they said that there's about 250. Uh so, you know, 15 at least from my point of view seems kind of light. Uh the first step school over on 212, they have about 30 or 35 kids already. So, they're going to be going on to school once they pass that on. So, we have to kind of figure out how many kids are going to be here. There's also another another facility that I'm looking at and I haven't gotten back. from this would be the uh the playhouse. That one I think would be pretty good. >> Mr. Swozo, I'm sorry, but your time is up. >> Um I just wanted to clarify something. Um I I mentioned Amy Amy's name and that was

118as a as a thank you to her for speaking to us at the last board meeting. She's not on the on our agenda as an agenda item tonight. I just wanted to clarify. Please add this to your agenda so that we can focus on it and I think it would be helpful for all of us, you know, to kind of focus on this issue as we go forward, not just Woodstock or West. Thank you. >> Thank you so much. Would anyone else like to speak? All right. Item 12.01 for discussion and possible action. Um this is to approve the polling location and voting hours for district votes. Whereas the board of education has the authority to designate polling locations and establish voting hours for district votes. And whereas the board finds it appropriate to consolidate

119and update the polling location and hours for all future district votes. Now therefore be it resolved that the polling location for all future district votes shall be the middle school high school replacing the prior locations at Bennett Elementary School and Woodstock Elementary School. And be it further resolved that for all future district votes and the polls shall be open at the middle school high school from 7 a.m. until 900 p.m. May I have a first? Trusty Jared second. Trusty Smith. Any questions or comments? I just want to say I think this is wonderful and I think it's really going to streamline everybody's ability to vote and reduce any confusion as the district kind of reconfigured a couple times over like a few years here and a few years there so that everybody can really just

120know where they're supposed to be and when they can be there. Um yeah, just to say that um talking with Tristy Kitson, you know, this is a transitional period, but the longer hours and the um options to vote before the date have changed so much in recent years. That's in combination with the fact that we really are thinking, acting, making decisions based on the fact that we are one campus now. Um, I agree this is this is the right action to take. Um, and it'll take a second for people to get used to, but it really will save um, and it just makes sense for our broad our broader vision, our our long-term vision of how this district functions. Yeah, as I said in the previous uh board meeting, um I think the mail in

121the being able to vote by mail is makes is a game changer and I encourage everybody to uh give it a try. You know, I I I did it personally in December and it was so easy and uh we're not the only school district to go this route. U as I mentioned, so uh is very similar to us. They're down to one voting location and uh seems like u it's going to be good good way to go. And just to reiterate also from the last meeting and it's also Newtonson Highland I believe. Yeah, near us uh same way. And I just want to thank District Clerk Gates who is giving up a good chunk of her Saturday, May 16th, to do voter outreach both in Phoenicia at the western end of the district and at

122the Woodstock Library. Um she'll be there different hours uh on that day to help people who would prefer to um go to a a vote by mail um option. um uh she'll be there to help you uh learn how to do that and uh I really appreciate her doing that. >> I really do have to second that. You've done such a tremendous job. The last vote was handled so beautifully. I was talking to the olster like I don't know the official head of elections or something and she's like, "Oh, Amanda, you know, she's great. She's doing such a great job." I was like, "Yeah, I know." So anyways, yes, thank you. >> All right, that's great. Any other questions or comments before we vote? All in favor? That's unanimous. Thank you. Item 12.02, 02 uh

123approve updated 2025 2026 school year uh school calendar. Uh the Entouro Board of Education hereby approves the updated 2025 2026 school calendar as attached. May I have a first? Trusty Jerome second. Trusty Kudson. Any questions or comments? All in favor? That's unanimous. Thank you. Item 12.03, approve updated Wait. Yeah. Okay. Oh, right. Approve updated board meet uh 2526 board of education uh meeting schedule. The Entur Board of Education hereby approves the updated 2025 2026 uh board of education calendar as attached. may have a first. Trusty Goodrich second, Trustee Mitchell Morell. Any questions or comments? All in favor? It's unanimous. Thank you. Item 12.04, approve the 2026 2027 school calendar. The board of education hereby approves the school calendar for the 2026 2027 school year as attached. May I have a first? Trusty Mitchell Morell. Second,

124Trusty Jared. Any questions or comments? All in favor? That's unanimous. Thank you. Do we need a break? We good? Okay. On to the consent agenda. Item 14.01. The board hereby approves items 14.02 through 14.10. May I have a first? Trusty Jerome second. Trusty Jared. Any questions or comments? I would just like to take a moment to recognize the fact that our um director of technology um who has been with us for I will just say well over a decade um and we all like to um call the quiet hero um because things work because he runs around like a complete maniac and tries to have everything work for everyone. Um, civil service is often not functional and so he has been in his position successfully and we have been really grateful to have him in

125this position but he has not been able to achieve permanent status just because of the way the system works. Um, and so there is a new program and it allows for people in this type of a position to be granted permanent status and he deserved it many years ago. We were unable to grant it to him and I just want to take a moment to celebrate that for him because we are so grateful for everything that he does. And um, I just wanted to take a moment to note that Any other questions or comments? I do I do I always give everybody else an opportunity. Usually what I want to say has been said by the time I have my own opportunity, but that's okay. Um yes, I reviewed the schedule u uh this time

126and everything was in order. All right, so we shall vote. All in favor? That's unanimous. Thank you. Uh item 15.01. Um the board hereby approves items number 15.02 through 15.08 which are our contracts and independent contract retainers. May I have a first? Trusty Jared. Second. Trusty Jerome. Any questions or comments? All right. All in favor? It's unanimous. Thank you. All right. On to committee reports. Any board trustees have committee reports? The health and wellness committee has met several times, very, very busy getting ready for the meet, greet, and eat on April 20th. And it just keeps shaping up to be a it's going to be a really special night. And little nods are going out in um like local press situations, which I think should even bring like a wider net of people in. and

127there's gonna be kids playing music. But I just want to keep reminding everybody because every time I go to one of these meetings, I'm always like, I can't wait. It's going to be so good. So, definitely be there. And I'll let uh a different trustee talk about the audit committee. I'm trying to remember what we talked about in audit. So audit has a rhythm to it. There are there are very eventful meetings and then there's kind of middle meetings. And this is this is a middle meeting where we got some we got some progress updates on some of the stuff we talked about tonight. The gym >> I showed you some of my favorite spreadsheets. >> Oh yes, that's right. That's right. >> We asked good questions. Um but it's not I'm not I'm not

128able to describe but anyway basically Monica presents she's she and is getting ready for the audit which happens in June and over the summer and then it gets the final the results of the audit get presented back to us in September. And so um we're we're lucky we live in a district where um our our administrative staff is very good at getting all the ducks in a row. the ducks are mostly in a row and they have to there are occasionally a a duck that wanders off. Um but it's really compared to many other districts. It's it's a very tight ship and um and so uh we'll have a if you're interested if you're a community member these the audit committee is an open meeting for the public and uh if you're interested the June

129meeting is it June May uh it's it's in the district calendar. Um that would be a one where you where the actual auditors will be there and you can ask them questions and uh it's very informative but um it's always very reassuring to me um in terms of what I hear about how our finances are looked after. uh policy committee met yesterday morning and we reviewed as as usual we reviewed lots of policies but the superintendent did not want to overwhelm us so I think there were only like five or so um and uh yeah just and so you know coming to a board meeting near you will be lots of policies for a first reading in two weeks >> just to say on that in that committee which I'm is sort of new to

130me but there is a lot of like removing redundancies making sure that's basically the point of it making sure that um things are understandable um most of the four of the five it was just like yep those are great changes and then there was one that we want to spend a little bit more time with just because it's something that we feel is really going to be um community facing and parent facing We want to make sure that it's really in accessible language, understandable language. Um, but that's a lot of the work just making sure everything is uh current and there's a lot of work there, I guess. Yeah. >> Who wants to speak about communications? Uh, I think the main thing I would say to know about communications is we're starting to get the

131budget newsletter. U, we made a first pass at at what what we want how we want the budget newsletter to look like. Um, and um, we uh, Trusty Goodrich um, sent along a um, a table that used um, the past couple years to present their budget. Um, they they break they were breaking out their budget in a more detailed way line by line for the public. and uh a bunch several trustees thought that would be an interesting um direction for us to go. So we we talk to our Boseis consultants and they're going to they're going to look at the so version and and um try to craft something for us that is in a similar vein and I think um we were thinking of it as you know for the sort of the detail

132people um uh in the back um it probably the front of it will look much as has looked before but that this will be really and it really just shows you you know where everything goes because it's the the the overall number is of course a very big number um and but it but it all goes to important places. So and and that breakdown really kind of um explains it. >> Were there any other committee meetings? >> Go ahead. I just wanted to add that, you know, I love an infographic and that's kind of what the Socrates does is it chunks it out so that I can like visually and cognitively like digest that super huge number. I can kind of break it apart in my brain and be like, okay, so this is what's

133going to sports and this is what's going to music. So, um, yeah, hopefully it'll be a good format. I just wanted to say that we have a facilities meeting coming up on Thursday the 19th in two days at the middle school high school. So nothing to report but we will by next meeting. So thanks. >> Thank you all. All right. On to unfinished business. The board will discuss unfinished business. Uh before we get into uh discussing an article that we read, um is there any other unfinished business? All right, Trusty Kusson, do you want to set the stage? >> Sure. So, um, in our board goal setting earlier in the year, um, a topic that is in the culture, you know, is sort of, um, it's one of these, uh, I heard it described as

134sort of similar to weather or climate change. like AI is something that is just touching all areas of our lives right now. And so um the board has undertaken has charged the the district with trying to come up with a a clearer AI policy on uh for use of AI on schoolwork for our students and families to understand. But also we and the board um undertook thought that our best role here in the interim um was to sort of um provide information to the public to parents to people who are confronting um AI sort of in the wild um because it's things are moving very fast and so um we we said let's look at maybe some articles or some because it's it's so new that's really isn't time for books to be out about

135this. You know, it takes it takes years to write a book and then things change really quickly. So, I found this study that the Brookings Institution did where they they basically studied the issue of student based it down to really student experience of AI in educational setting in 50 countries around the world. They studied it for a year and they put out this report that they describe as a premortem and uh and I I never heard that term before, but if you think about it, a post a post-mortem is what you do when there's been a failure and you say, "Okay, what went wrong?" Right? What like how what where do we go wrong? How did that thing go badly? And as they explain it, a premortem is where you sort of say, "Okay, here's

136this thing that has a lot of risk to it. what are some of the potential failures here and can we get ahead of them? Because um uh the ri as they lay it out and I think I agree with their sort of analysis of what the stakes are um is that the um the upsides for our students. There are definite upsides for our students, our teachers. AI is going to transform a lot of the way a lot of things are done in a lot of areas in life and there's definite upsides but the downsides with students are particularly problematic because they go to sort of the process of developing cognit cognitive facility and critical thinking which is something that that's what they're here for right and so um what the board read this week um

137it's about 50 page 160 page study is the the main document, but there's a sort of eight-page uh executive summary which the board agreed to read for tonight's meeting and it just sort of lays out the the um the proposition of the study and um and what I thought we could do is just sort of discuss the executive summary and see if we want to go on in future meetings to tackle pieces of the actual main document. Um, and I actually went ahead and read a fair chunk of the main document myself, so I could talk about that later. But I'm first just curious to hear what other people's reactions to the executive summary were. So I underlined one of the sections here, goals of our report. I'll just read it here. It's a couple

138sentences. Ultimately, ultimately the the trajectory of the AI will be determined by not by fatalism or passive acceptance, but by deliberate choices and sustained efforts of all of us working together to blend the arc of AI implementation towards educational experiences that help all children flourish academically, socially, and civically. So, I I thought that was an important section. Uh AI scares me. Um and I'm not the only one. I just heard a United States uh senator say maybe we ought to pause this for six months until we figure out what we're doing here. Um just to envision something. Envision Manhattan, the island of Manhattan. Let's just say just envision it for a minute and just say it's totally destroyed and replaced by a data center that's AI. Now you say, "Oh, that would never happen." Well,

139right now they're planning on building something that big, as big as Manhattan in the state of Louisiana. And we're talking about 10 trillion dollars. It's going to consume five gigawatts of power. So, I don't know where this thing's going, but it does scare me, right? Um, many years ago, about two decades ago, I saw a YouTube video from a Google performance person who laid out all she had no idea what how much detail she was had in her YouTube video, but it it talked about all the performance of all the Google servers in state of Washington. And I went through it like five times when I was writing all these notes down because basically back then the uh the servers they were using were very basic stuff but she was utilizing them in such an

140efficient way to do Google Google searches and it's all about the power they do in the state of Washington because state of Washington has cheap hydro power. So again I don't I don't know where this is going but that's the big picture. And what we're doing here is trying to figure out how it applies to u education at a much lower level. So I want to have you know try to avoid the fatalism which is hard for me but uh we do have to think of it at a lower level. >> I really loved reading this so much. Thank you so much for finding it and circulating it to us. Um, and I would love to hear about the larger piece, but I even just this summary I thought did a great job of giving

141points for reflection and discussion, but as well I really loved the sort of threepart action items. I circled four, five of them that I thought just seemed like they really spoke directly to our AI goal and I was like, "Oh, look, that's how we could do it. It's right there." Um, so if that's any indication, you know, I think this would be a great thing to work off. The the one thing that I did notice that I thought would is interesting is there is a kind of like a there is a sort of tandem topic in here which is just tech educational technology in general that I underlined a couple times. I I just can't I I'm sure anybody with a news subscription or social media feed is seeing you know the number of articles

142and topics questioning you know the the same topic that's questioned here. So I guess the only thing it raised for me was to just make sure that we are stay specific but also I want to acknowledge that like I think that's a part it's also a part of a larger AI the summary the larger sort of interesting moment in education which is the question of like is all technology make everything better and you know so I just wanted to name that too I think that's also an important topic and it's in here so I think we have to figure out where we wanted to interface with each of them and how. >> Um, thank you so much and I am so glad that as a board we are like getting in like to the dirt

143and and because it's true this is not something that we can hold back and it's happening now. Um, I think that we looked at how the adoption and the acceptance of social media wrought a lot of havoc in um our culture um for our children and grown-ups alike. Uh, and I am hopeful that we can try to be more um aware of the power of this technology and how we're wrapping it in. Now, as I read through it, you know, I keep on thinking in my head, but this is great because Antiora is a human first district. That is our thing, right? and how to how to um and we we that that shows up in the way that we have a small student body and we're doing sports and we're doing music and we

144encourage people to be in school together and sit together and we see these tight cohorts of children who, you know, being at the graduation ceremony and having every child like cheer for the other child who's walking up the the aisle, you know. um we are human first. So now how do we um how do we integrate the technology or the AI while still making sure that we um preserve these um critical thinking, hands-on learning, which you know again whether it's people retaining more from um reading a book or writing by hand, you know, like there's all these different things that are really coming to the four about how um hands-on learning, experiential learning, these days that we have where people, you know, have workshops at school and people are like, "Oh, that's just a fun

145day, but it's not just a fun day. That is a learning day where you get to be a part of team." And I just I really look forward to that on really owning that and then figuring out how to fold in the technology. Please this the the um description here of this math gathon thing you know that seemed like if that's motivating people it sounded like cribage to me but like see if that's motivating people that's I think a great use of that technology. Um, and again, you're right. It kind of veers both places. Whereas, you know, maybe if children are dancing, you could just play the music rather than showing them YouTube people dancing. You know, I mean, there's different ways to think about it, but just really being cognizant and aware of how

146we're where it's showing up. um how it shows up and really pushing, encouraging, heralding, um supporting, paying for experiences where it is making stuff with your hands, performing in front of people, talking down with sitting with team members, working as a group, like like let's just like double down on that stuff because we know that works, right? And that's what's going to be lacking probably in a digital future. I enjoyed the article as well. Um I thought it was you know because I too am scared of AI and everything in the future. I um was like it was nice to see the positive sides of how it could like help teachers and stuff and it seems like a big part of that would be professional development and AI which I don't know if it already

147part of the superintendent conference or something but that just like stuck out to me um the one prepare teachers to teach with and through AI because you know yeah I mean it's like so it's new on so many levels but of course if we use it as a positive tool it will filter down and Just I was wondering I mean I guess it's also a question that are they already being taught to use it in teaching or is that not happened yet? So I think uh assistant superintendent laughing can probably express it better but we are making um inroads um but not forcing yet. So this pilot that we have with school AI is is really kind of opening that up for teachers. Um, but it's kind of slow going. So, I just wanted to

148respond to what Trusty Jerome was saying and and when I have read further into this, I mean, it really I I thought this really does is a good fit for our district as you said because um what they really say is that the sacred the sacred place in education is when children and teachers and material interact, Right. And the machine can augment at that, but the machine can't replace that. Um, and um, and so I feel like the values of this study are very much very close to things that I said, did they talk to you before they they you know um, you know, said that this is what our we're doing. Um but um it's also um they talk about school they also talk about how school is a is a is a such

149a vital institution in society and it does fulfill so many roles and um you know the thing about um we we have AI in school potentially but then the other the other piece of this is that uh you know I just previewing a little bit like I learned I'm 60 years old so I am not completely in touch with um current you know social media apps and I I discovered through reading this that that Snapchat added an AI chatbot to its basic functionality like a year and a half ago something like that a year ago and many students will go into Snapchat and then they're using Snapchat to do their math math homework um on Snapchat and that's and there are 150 million 13 through 17 year olds worldwide that use Snapchat. So the thing

150is it's it's it's hard to avoid this technology. And so that's what I'm hoping as a board that we can take our parent community beyond being scared and empower them by letting them know and what's going on. Um because in order to get our arms around this, I think it does have to be a school. It has to be a total partnership of the community, not just the teachers, not just the administrators, not even the kids, but the parents really have to be clued into what's going on because um there are just such significant downside risks here. Um I will say that um as we if we go into the main report there's sort of unfortunately for us the sort of the the section if you break it down I think the section of these

151are the great things that it that it can do. It can save teachers a lot of time and let them redirect their energies to you know on administrative tasks and get them back to working with kids things like that. That's about 17 pages. And then there's about 40 or 50 pages of the downside risks. Um, and the the thing is that I I think the positive I I I would encourage you all to read the positive section because it's it'll it'll make it'll keep you from despairing. But it the things they talk about in there are really like educator administrator issues in terms they're not really things that the board would be directly involved in or that that parents would be even directly like you know they talk about how AIs can be good tutors

152if they're designed the if they're designed to be you know like a a sparring partner and not a servant is the phrase they use you know things like that but that's not something that um I feel like the immediate need for for the for the parent community is to understand um the risk side of it. Um, so my recommendation would be that the for the board that we could read the you can read the um the upside section on your own, but that if we're going to discuss, I think maybe we should go straight to the um getting our arms around risks for the for the uh for parents and just talk about um you know uh because it really is important and and and you know many people may not know where this stuff

153is popping up because it's po it It's popping up in toys. It's po, you know, it's it's just everywhere. So, um I don't know. Uh I think we could break it down. We could not do the whole section, you know, we could say over three two or three meetings in this in this particular this unfinished business slot. We could cover they're bulleted, you know, we could say we could do one through five or something like that. um and just talk about um you know trying to get just get our heads around what what the what the issues are. Um and and the other interesting part of the main study is so the the main study the way it was conducted it's a lot of focus groups and interviews and there's a lot of quotes from

154actual kids teachers from around the world and you'll just hear them talking about their experiences and it's to me it makes it feel very immediate and real and and I you know we're we're in a different kind of place here but you know in the internet world we're all in the same place, you know. >> So, I like what Trusty Kson just said instead of focus on the risk part. Um, little bit of a twist though. I I think the teachers need to know the risk first and then once then once we get them up to speed then we can go to the to the parents. Um I give an basic example. Uh we used to have a before the real internet we had Prodigy and u some of the kids here in Hollywood school

155district had access to it some didn't and Prodigy had an encyclopedia and it was very useful for those kids that had it and um they could plagiarize very good and my daughter got caught plagiarizing and she didn't think she did but you know she did great and uh because she really did think she rewrote it, but one of the teachers here at Donnie were quarter at it and that's good. You know, that that's a good thing. So, we need the teachers to be able to be aware of where students are taking advantage of it and we're we really want them to do the the work on on their own and it's part of the risk. That's just one example. So the um sentence that I pulled out, Trusty Kitson, was the exact one that you

156pulled out, and I think it really bears repeating. AI enriches learning when it expands and deepens the capabilities of and interactions between students, teachers, and content, which are at the heart of education. AI tools explicitly designed to support the learning of children and youth, including experiences bounded by accurate content and safety guard rails, can foster enriched learning experiences. So, I just thought it was interesting we pulled the same one. Um, you know, we do have our AI circle which we're working through this year and we've asked for some space to really examine this. I shared this um these this article the executive summary and the article with the AI circle um group today. So it was great to be able to share that with them where our next meeting is at Olster Bosey's next week

157where we work countywide with other districts. And one thing I think um it's important to think about is uh I I realize that that AI is it's it's an it's an incredibly powerful tool, but it is a tool And um educational technology is a tool and any technology for the sake of technology is is not a good thing. Teachers as part of our work, educators have to reflect on the intentionality of their usage like you would use any other tool and think about time and why. So, one thing that that educators at Antiora are grappling with right now is really that intersectionality of AI, technology, project-based learning. New York inspires the need for community and social emotional learning growth and the intersectionality is present in all of these. It is very complex. It is complicated.

158It is not an easy answer. So people are grappling at different levels with this really complex task and it's important work. It's exciting work. It's intimidating work for some and everybody's um threshold is is at a different place especially as things are expanding so quickly and we're learning things about the tools we have as a district. uh the access that student has as a district, the access that students have at home, which we have absolutely very minimum control over other than possible just conversations with with parents and adults. Um I just wanted to address the the PD. We've we've been talking about AI uh with at superintendent's conference days I don't know probably for the past three years even though at the beginning it would start of hey there's this thing and it's coming and

159everyone sits there with their mouth open like wow mostly to now where um people more commonly use it and they have a much better understanding of what it is and we have brought the opportunity for school AI to be used professional development around that. Um so we sponsor a tremendous amount of professional development through olsterosis but also outside providers. I have been pretty much saying yes to every single thing that has crossed my desk because I need our teachers to be thinking about what this means and what this opportunity means so that we can all grapple with this together and have different experiences and different points of view. our instructional technology specialist Wes Trebel who I believe has presented here with Julie you know he comes in two days a week and works it's not

160just with uh with AI but he works in our schools with things like we video um at the Woodstock board meeting when we had um uh the presentation on we're going to get it soon on the um Woodstock TV and the fifth graders all the work doing that that is technology and educ education. That's instructional technology. It seems kind of almost old-fashioned and quaint to us now to use something like Wei video, but that is instructional technology being used in a really intentional way to help students communicate and develop skills. So, I just kind of wanted to bring it to the sense of what we define as instructional technology, it will always be changing. And this one is, wow, it's it's a big one. It's a big one. But I just wanted you to be

161aware of and and realize um that teachers are thinking about this. People are working on it. They're they're I know to use that word grapple, but it's a really good one with this because all of the things that are kind of happening and coming at us at one time as educators that I mentioned, uh none of them are um uh going away in their sense of immediiacy or importance. So I want you to know that people are on it. We're on it. We're working through it. And um you know, I'm really again, I'm really happy to share this article and continue that conversation. I hope that's helpful. >> Thank you so much. That's very helpful. Really? Yes, it is. And I just I think that as all of this is swirling around, I just really

162want us to stay grounded in what we do. like as so many questions are coming in and so many um places where it's like it can do the you know just it being omnipresent but we can stay grounded in what we do and what we know we do well which is humanto human learning experience um critical thinking which is really making something when you're tasked with making something AI can't do that AI can't sing a song with like if we were all to jump into happy birthday right now. Yeah, I can't do that. So, I just that's my hope for the district is that we can stay grounded, experiment, you know, obviously allow flexibility for learning and um um and ultimately I would love to see you know is it possible I mean that's a

163big question. Is it possible to put sort of guard rails around how it's used in schools? So that if a teacher starts using AI or gives a kid an assignment with AI that we're not like but wait a minute you know like is that is that you know is that good is that bad you know what does that mean like um I think the thing that is really to be grappled with is like how do we try to understand its function in an educational setting right but but as I say just as like a thing in addition to the grounded work that we always do and we always deliver. Yeah, I think that um like Stephanie said that AI has been it's been around for a while and um I'm just thinking back to a

164couple of conferences that I went to last year and um and I think they were highlighting Khan Academy, you know, which is uh you know, as it it's tutoring, online tutoring. uh students can learn how to do math or whatever they need help with and it's it's something that's been really valuable to kids especially uh you know I mean if if if my grandchild was asking me for help with her math homework or something I would be turning you know pretty quickly to Khan Academy because I wouldn't be able to help her but um you know we h we have to know that what we are using and what our students students are uh able to access especially in our schools is safe and and you know the right the right uh stuff. Right. Right.

165Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Um I really like the idea of more deeply studying, you know, like the negatives or whatever. I like I want to be I want to be forewarned the risk areas. I do want to be forewarned. >> Yeah. Yeah, I just wanted I just wanted to I think um Trusty Goodrich pulled out that quote about intentionality, right? We we don't want this to be something that just happens to us and then you know we want we want intentionality and and I have utter faith in the the academic administration and the administrators that there is int and the faculty that there's going to be intentionality there. The thing about intentionality is you have to have the knowledge. you have to sort of educate yourself on what the issues are first so you can

166be intentional about how you want to um address them and that's what that that's where the community education I feel like that that's what that's a good role for us. So um and the other piece I just want to mention because it's also a very kind of scary piece of this but it's you know we talk about social emotional learning a lot and and and these these folks very highly value the nexus of social emotional development and cognitive development and there is a social emotional element to this that is out there um that you know um especially with these chat bots that can seem like humans Um and and I think Common Sense Media did a study, did a survey, 70% of all teenagers they um they think have used a a chatbot for companionship

167or friendship. You know, a an AI chatbot is very sickopantic. Uh wants to keep you talking to it, will never challenge you on that. you know, some kids are finding them easier to talk to than their parents or their friends. Um, and so there's also that's that's that's not the tool aspect of it. That's just sort of what it becomes. Um, so um there's just a lot to know and I just want to make sure that our community knows all the relevant things they need to know and I'm not trying to tell you have to parent your kid this way. It's just like here's here are the dimensions of how this is insinuating itself into all these areas already has and um you know just uh here are the here are some tools if you

168want to think about how you want to approach it in your in your home and with your kids. >> Seems like everybody's on board and I was having some ideas about structure like how to approach this and I know we received an email from a community member you know with a perspective about how great the smaller book club was. I had made a suggestion that or we had it had come to the maybe the idea of having a board and community discussion and then I think the concern was that the board meeting experience can be intimidating but I guess my question is is it possible let's say we had like a series of discussion meetings that this was the topic let's just say um is it possible in a board meeting to have an informal

169discussion kind of moment or when there's seven of us together that then we can't discuss with the public. That's my first question. Like if there were 15 people here, could we all before we're sworn, you know, before we say the pledge of allegiance, could we all discuss something and then we say the pledge of allegiance and then we have a discussion meeting? And if we can't do that, then my other suggestion would be to merge the governance core process where the board read a certain amount um and then discussed it at discussion meetings with the smaller book club where the appropriate allowable number of trustees interfaced with the community in that way. So that what was happening in that wonderful experience that happened with anxious generation was mirrored on the boards because something that I

170loved in here was it said it's got to be teachers and families and lawmakers and boards of administration. And so I just was like already thinking about like legislate legislative committee you know this year and like okay well we could come at this from a lot of different angles. So, I think it's powerful if the paper if we just make the most out of it and try and grapple with it in as many different ways as we can. So I was just thinking about how to implement trustee's suggestion about educating parents and I was thinking well we could do it at a school level but maybe we can ask Boseis to have a short YouTube video short maybe 30 minutes on what you need to know on the risk of AI and what parents need

171to know just to keep things safe. I guess I some I think of this idea of educating somebody on the risks of AI. I mean, how is that? It's hard to educate who's an expert, right? who's who's really equipped to to tell you what's right or what's wrong. I think this idea of having a forum where you're involving teachers, administrators, um parents, students, like let's just talk about it. This is this is nice because this this is a wonderful thing that gives a little structure to it. If we took five bullet points and we talked or one page and we talked about it, but I think that that's to me um a a better more um forum approach is maybe a better approach um and making sure that it's all stakeholders not just us at

172the board disc who cares you know like let's all talk about it because it's all it's showing up everywhere to your point >> um I was thinking about um like the world cafe format or um or something. Yeah. table table meetings um you know just like we've done with our community um forums when we were discussing you know the the propositions um you know uh we can have questions to consider um maybe have some somebody who's most knowledgeable um possibly uh sure I mean I think I think I think that would be the most valuable way to do it. You know, to hear from like, you know, we could all be there sitting at separate tables like we were for, you know, all the the forums that we've had and uh it wouldn't be a

173board meeting. We would just be one board member at a table with a number of our community partners. So, I think that might be a way to go. Um maybe we can uh I don't know maybe the Boseis is the person who's running the circles or something like that who knows more about AI than any of us um or you know or some other person maybe that we could suggest or find who could facilitate it. Yeah, maybe >> I think that just somebody who can facil facilitate interaction and engagement and communication and conversation, you know, you don't have to be, as I say, necessarily an expert unless you want to learn to to apply it in some way. But that's we're just if we're just using this, you know, who would be a good moderator

174or facilitator? So I think I'd like to suggest sort of a hybrid between the two of what we're talking about which is I do think us in a leader in our leadership role kind of owe it to the community to develop our own thinking a little bit before we just say you take the lead community. Um so what what if we did this? What if Allah governance core over the next couple of meetings in new business we took us a manageable sized chunk of the main report and chewed over the issues in there and then I think we could do that in two maybe three meetings probably two and then we could once we're done with that we could try to formulate some sort of community AI discussion group cafe whatever event but I I

175do think it would that kind kind of event would flow better if there were more people who had taken that first step of because I just do think this report is a good organizational tool to organize a conversation. >> How does everybody feel about that? We keep studying. Go ahead. >> I think that's a great idea. And I just I also just wanted to ask really because I think It's ob, you know, obviously why we're doing it is because it's a huge topic and it's one of our goals. Um, but I just think it would be interesting also maybe to add into our discussion as as our role as a board where where are we also like my understanding is everything goes is into policy in the end. And it makes me think about the

176cell phones and it makes me think about how great it would have been if there had been a no cell phone policy as when the first kid walked in the building with a cell phone in their hand, you know. Um, and I know that there's a lot of important work being done. I'm not saying I want to see a policy tomorrow or anything, but I'm just want to say out loud like is that eventually, you know, the direction that the board eventually is going to make an AI policy, you know, when, you know, so I think just being really clear about the why and where the conversation is heading so that we spend our time looking at it in a way that's through that lens when we're in the board discussion because like I'm also

177a parent and you know like it could go a lot of cases. >> Trusty Kudson, will you um divvy up the reading assignment for us? >> Absolutely. >> Okay, good. >> Uh how many So, is everybody comfortable with like 25ish pages? That's enough. That's You can cover that by the next meeting. Okay, great. >> Any other comments? >> Thank you very much. really appreciate it. Uh, any other unfinished business? Any new business? Yes, trusty Mitchell Morell. This is kind of a new business RFI combo package. Um, and I mean it is related to AI but I almost see this as a se separate issue which is like well it's like people used to always come up to me about centralization of course Woodstock and community schools and now everyone the new thing is screens in

178the classroom uh edtech you know there's just been so many articles that have come out about it lately that aren't really positive. Like I just think it it's like we're getting the the news back now and it's not like the best news about like if it's so beneficial to learning and I think especially in the early grades. Um I know when I started a kindergarten I mean my daughter started a kindergarten in September I was told 30 minutes a week and I'm wondering is that still true? It doesn't it feels like more just from what she's telling me. Um, and then I know a lot of other parents say it feels like starting to feel like a lot um, in kindergarten for a second. That's sort of where my focus is just because that's where

179one of my kids is. I don't and I understand of course sometimes it's like necessary and great especially in like testing and stuff like that, but I just think like it's not I think Jenny said something similar. It's just like not one of those things where it's just like let's keep forging ahead. More is better. like I think we have to kind of pause with all this research coming out about how it's not as beneficial to learning as we had thought. um and you know kind of look into it not just in early grades although I will also say I think that's a not a lot of the reason people will send their kids to private school because they know there's no screens and um but also just like the people of basketball games which

180are more middle school students are saying to me that their kids will work on the Chromebook and then like they'll see they're playing games that they wouldn't even let them normally play you know like that they would never allow but they're doing almost through school. Um, you know, because I'm sure it's impossible to block every possible game on the internet, which I totally understand. Um, but I don't know. I just think like this is kind of like the next I understand AI is a thing, next thing, but it's also like less screens, less AI, so it's related, but it's also kind a little bit separate to me also. Um, was there anything else I wanted to add? Yeah, I guess the RFI would be maybe just to start with how many minutes a week kindergarten,

181first grade, and second grade are using screens. And I told um Caroline this ant anecdotal story that in one classroom someone told me they do brain breaks and they watch a YouTube video and dance. And the mom was like, why can't they just listen to music? And I was like, that's a really good question. Like, you know, in in situations where it's clearly not necessary, especially with younger kids, like can we get rid of it? Like, or can we talk about getting rid of it? And so I just kind of want to start that conversation and yeah, I think that's it. I just I just have a question I guess based off of what Trustee Mitchell Morurell was saying which is is there currently a policy around the use of internet and devices in school

182like what they are meant to be used for and what they're not meant to be used for. Is that something that would be policy? How would that would that be something that would be at a policy level like at onora you know devices and the internet are utilized for engage engaging content between students and teachers and are not used you know as space fillers or you know reward you know with games or I don't know I don't even know because I'm so new. I don't even know if that's the appropriate, but it just made me wonder about that. I'm not familiar with that as a policy. I think we'd have to be very careful about inserting policy directly into the classroom, but So we can consider it. >> I mean there must be something like

183otherwise you could just show your kids like movies and YouTube all day, you know? I mean there has to be some rule or it's just sort of unspoken. >> I don't think any teacher would >> No, me either. But I just think there I mean there probably is even an unwritten rule like I don't know. I I can't imagine there's nothing like or I guess there is. I mean, teachers follow their curriculum and they have so much that they need to cover during the course of the year that >> Yeah. And I actually wanted to add that like if there's something that makes something so much easier for teachers, even if it involves a screen, I'm like still all for it. Um, but yeah, I don't know. It just feels like it could be maybe

184going off the rails a little bit in some way that maybe we're not realizing um just because of like things I'm hearing in all different directions from all grades. I think it's something that's definitely worth looking into if if we're hearing I mean I'm not hearing this but I'm I'm hearing it from my fellow trustees and so um I think that you know people are concerned so we should take a look at that. It seems to be pretty tangential to the AI conversation and it seems like being on the policy committee and knowing how many policies we have. I don't know what it is yet. I don't know what the AI policy is yet, but it makes sense that we wouldn't have one. It's a pretty new This is This is a This is not

185the same as it was precoid. like we're talking like five years, you know, where we've seen this kind of change. So without saying it's going to be this and we know that we have to be very careful about how we frame policy but it does seem like there would being on the policy committee that there would be some sort of guidance for community members to look to for teachers to be able to reference to know like this is how we use technology in in schools. like we have a cell phone, you know, like we it seems like we could start really thinking about this and whether that's same or different, you know, that's this is what we're exploring now. But I think they're related, right? Um and um we should make I think as a

186district what I'm hearing and I think as a district it's a big challenge. We can't make it can't make it too narrow but to make it understood what our values are. Does this match our you know vision for our future as a school district like let's think of something that works with that that we can really like love like embrace and and everybody gets and are like okay that works for me that gives me flexibility. I see how it keeps me in line with what we're trying to do with Antara. And you know, we just this is a great challenge. A great challenge. I just want to encourage anyone who might be listening or sees this at any point if you have any concerns, any questions at all about how time is being used during

187the day with your student in any class. Please speak directly to their teacher. They want to have these conversations with you. And if for whatever reason you aren't comfortable speaking directly to the teacher, please speak with the building principal. Those are the best ways to have specific conversations. They are the people that know all the details to the answer. There's certainly work and conversations we can do at at the at the board level, even at the district administration level, but that's a 60,000 30,000 10,000 foot view. the conversations with these educators that are with our children day in and day out for hours a day that have these intentional uses for how they spend their day that are understand the curriculum the best. Please have conversations with those educators because that is the best way

188that you can understand what's happening with your child and why during the day. >> Thank you. I think that was really powerful. >> I will definitely refer these people who talked to me to their teachers. That's a very good reminder. >> I also just want to completely cosign what you just said. And at the same time, I also want to acknowledge that what trustee Mitchell Morurell said, which is that um we are in a period of declining enrollment. We do want more students to want to come to Antior, right? So that um for the the board that's why you know for the board to state have to to have good outward statements to the community of what the values of this district are that's going to attract people right that that that's an important consideration

189as to where you're going to send your kid to school right and if and then that's why I think both the macro and the micro are are important and but for your kid the micro they like Go to your kids teacher. Absolutely. Any other new business? Any requests for information? The poop smell in the hallway. What can we do for these poor kids? I would just I would be interested to know if um if there's like been any air quality testing done. We actually did have air quality testing a couple of years ago because um because of smell that Shelley Hamilton was saying and she thought it was mold or I don't know she whatever it was we had pesh we had needm risk management and we had boseies they found nothing so unfortunately smells

190are smells it doesn't necessarily mean they're dangerous smells um but again I emailed Kyle I know he's on top of it. I know he's got a lot going on. Believe me, if there's anything we can do, we will do it. The problem is, I don't think there is anything we can do right now because I think Kyle's tried everything. But we'll keep digging. We'll see. We'll bring the architects back and see what they can find, the engineers. But he has done a lot a lot of work. I I know. I believe that. I just if it's as bad as Jenny said. >> So, we do know that Shelley Hamilton's room seems to be kind of the epicenter and we have offered to move her. Um, I don't know where that is. That's obviously a Lance

191and Shelly interaction, but we have offered to move the classroom. Yeah. Kind of at the corner where the tennis court >> near the doors. Yep. >> Yeah. Mr. Edman has offered um twice that I'm aware of to just to entirely move her classroom and she has not yet taken up on it because it's a it it is a massive undertaking to move everything out of the art room. We just feel like as we're working through it, if we can't make it um if we can't resolve it in the short term, we wanted to offer, we'll do what it takes to move her, you know. >> And then there are some week there are some times there's weeks there's no smell. I mean, there really is there. It's like it's so bizarre. There's no rhyme or

192reason to it. Well, technically, we're not allowed to use stuff like that. Yeah. because of people may have allergic reactions to that. So, >> is it I'm just curious. Is it is it mostly like just in that general area or is it wafting like through the whole building? >> Our understanding it was mostly in that general area. Tonight's the first time I'm hearing that it's wafting down the hallways. I have heard that in the past couple of weeks, but you know that there was the idea that there is that um pit in the back closet of that room and there are lines that come down from upstairs and then go down beyond. And so they thought they've cleaned out that pit I think twice now. Uh about a month ago, I think they sealed the

193lid to it to try and keep that down. For a little while they thought leaving one of the taps dripping to just kind of keep it flowing through would work and that did work for a little while but then that doesn't seem to be working anymore. It It's It's a little distressing. >> Yeah. >> All right. Well, thank you for looking into it for us. Yeah. And for our students and our teachers. Um any other requests for information? All right. May I have a motion to adjourn everybody? All the trustees. Trusty Kudson. Second. Trusty Smith. Uh, any questions or comments? All in favor? Thank you all so much. We'll see you back here or not here at the middle school high school on April 7th.