001Testing. Testing. Happy birthday. Good evening everyone and welcome to the January 13, 2026 meeting of the Enura Board of Education. We have a tobacco policy in place. There is no smoking within 100 ft of any school building. Please rise for the pledge. Board clerk, will you please call roll? >> Trusty Smith >> here. >> Trusty Jared >> here. >> Trusty Mitchell Morell >> here. >> Trusty Jerome >> here. >> Trusty Goodrich >> here. >> Trusty Kunen >> here. >> Trusty Bishop >> here. Thank you. Thank you. All right, we'll start our meeting off tonight with our uh principal, Bennett principal, Gabriel Bono, welcoming the board. >> Happy New Year, everyone. Hope you had a great holiday. Um, welcome back to Bennett. So, this place is buzzing. Uh, we have so much going on. There's there's
002physicals, there's um assessments for the end of the second quarter. Um there's simulations that we're getting prepared for the New York State test that we have to participate in. Um and we were even selected by um the National Association for Education um what's the P stand for program um and it's NAPE and um our fourth graders are participating in their math test in couple of weeks right 29th 27th 27th and um we've ne I've we've never been selected before so this is for us. Um, what else? Artismbbo wanted me to share with you that our K5 school is launching an exciting crosscurricular project centered on the 2026 Winter Olympics. Each class will represent a country participating in the games. When a represented country earns its first Olympic medal, the third grade students will proudly mark
003it up on the world map displayed in the main hallway. In case you didn't see it, uh the third grade is leading the schoolwide initiative with the goal of celebrating diversity, Olympic athleticism, and global awareness. This also ties in with their curriculum. In addition, our first grade students applied their collage skills to create Olympic athletes for the Olympic Village, which are proudly displayed throughout the hallways and the cafeteria, creating a vi a vibrant and inclusive learning environment for the entire school community. Um, I have one extra uh guest to help me with my welcome today. You'll hear from Miss Kovac and Miss Corso as well, but you're also going to hear from Miss Jolie Morris, who is getting her administrative degree through Mercy and is my administrative intern. So, she's going to share with you
004some of her roles and responsibilities that she's been taking on here under my supervision, unfortunately for her. So, uh, without any further ado, here you go, Julie. >> Thank you. So, my name is Jolie Morris. Um, I teach uh kindergarten special education self-contained in the building in addition to doing my administrative internship. Um, what I'll go over just some of the duties that I've been doing over the last semester. They've been office duties, bus dismissal meetings, shadowing Mr. proono, helping with the building safety plan, research, hiring committees, PTA meetings and events, reviewing documents, and everything else that he has tasked me with. Uh, one of the big jobs that we have been doing is updating the Bennett Elementary School website with the Ulster Bosey's website team. This needed to be updated um because the website
005was outdated and really it was very reminiscent of the years if you would go on it was you know the teacher Google it had the Google sites with COVID information and it was really quite sad uh nobody wants to remember that so that was one of the reasons um Google classroom has replaced Google sites it was outdated news and the staff directory was outdated some of the changes that we've made we updated photos on the homepage monthly we have synced the calendar to the parent square calendar so that the information can be the same and relevant. Um we updated news and announcements. We are also with the news and announcements posting our social media posts from Bennett onto there so that it can have a place in history. We have updated the code of conduct
006and student handbook to represent the current school year which is in student resources. uh we have updated PTA and PBIS information that is under our school. So the PTA information lists the new PTA members of the current year and the PBIS information uh we have uploaded a picture of the new PBIS team that works so hard in the building that's at the bottom. Um we have added our mission and vision statement and district onepage calendar to about us. We have changed classrooms to departments and organized staff in their respective positions. And we have added staff photos to their bios. So if you look at if you just click one of them if they it actually looks like the old glamour shots. We kind of got a really good photographer for this. So it was really
007good work. What we still need to do is finish the departments, including the library, site, and office staff, and continue to update our amazing news. This is where I'm going to tell a little story. Mr. Bono calls me into his office, pulls out this giant tub, kicks it, and says, "This this is our next project." And he opens it up, and it's historical documents. It's yearbooks, photos, information, all the history of Bennett. He says, "I want to add history of Bennett to our website, which we're going to put in about us." So, we have this whole bin of stuff. And I'm like, "Oh, okay. We can handle that." Um, so he says, "But not today." So, I go home and I'm thinking, "Well, what are we going to do? How are we going to do
008this? What's what's the why? This is 65 years of history. What's the why? So, in my thought in my thinking, I'm thinking why is the wh why was the school built? Why was the school named after Reginald Bennett, which was my burning question, which I found out the answer to. Also, why is the history of the school so important? So, our building level team came together to organize these historical documents. We began by sorting everything by decade. But something special happened as people started opening old yearbooks. It was like the past came alive. Staff members found pictures of themselves as students alongside photos of their friends, mentors, parents, and colleagues. We saw retired teachers in their very first years in the classroom. We recognized current co-workers, first as students and later as faculty. We noticed
009generations of families connected to Bennett, siblings, parents, and relatives who all walked the same halls. We traced the leadership of the school through the six principles who have served Bennett over the years. And in those moments, Bennett history became more than dates and documents. It became personal for me. And I didn't go here. So, I'll bring it back to the why. The history of Bennett matters because the foundation of our community. It tells the story of the families who trusted us, the educators who dedicated their careers here, and the relationships that extend beyond our building into the surrounding neighborhoods and local businesses. Bennis Bennett is not just a school. It's a shared legacy and that is going to continue as we go on, changing and evolving. So, we're going to take those decades of historical
010documents and find ones that mean the most and get them up onto the website so the history can remain in the present. Thank you. Hello. So, I am the literacy liaison here at Bennett. My name is Amanda Shefflin Kovac. I know that I feel like I was just here. Um, thinking about it, I looked at my notes from January 2025 to now, and it's really exciting where literacy is headed and how far we've come in just a short period of time. So, how do we celebrate student achievement and align it to the academic goals for 2026 with the Anora Central School District? Um, I want to start by just thinking about walking through our hallways right now when you see the bulletin boards and you see the student writing and the growth that they're showing
011and the ownership. So many places you might see a bulletin board where they're all saying 2026 I hope to have ice cream. Every single writer has a different I I honestly I stop at these bulletin boards and just am in awe of the ownership and and I it's amazing. Um, another thing here we are again we're analyzing second quarter data, but what's really exciting about Bennett is how far our data meetings have evolved and just the way we reflect and the thoughtful collaboration among all of our colleagues. It's such a team approach, but our why is the students. We're always putting them first. and to see how we're giving them the best interventions um the best um achievement too at different levels too like how can we enrich these students looking at the data it's
012amazing so quarter 3 will begin uh Monday January 26th and we're using our data we're meeting on our weekly team meetings to plan for all levels and I have to stop and she's not going to be happy with me but I really want to thank Stephanie Laughen and our professional development that we have here because it's not always in all districts. And what's great is not only are we doing research best practice, but she's um approving so many hours. Our staff, they're signing up for professional development hours to grow their literacy practice. Teachers have that buzz like we want to grow and we're able to. here at the December superintendence conference day reading specialist Christina Countryman and myself we were allowed to present three steps to powerful word study K5 and it has led to
013such a positive like let's continue this growth conversation and how can we improve our phonics instruction with tier one it's contagious so thank you um we continue to work with Christine Holly our advancing literacy staff developer. And now too, we're I'm seeing this more and I I look forward to 2026 and seeing how the math connection and as you hear Liz CDO talk soon, but David Tranter, our content math specialist, led a training on how to dissect our state assessments and it was so wellreceived that our teachers here want to turnkey that now for literacy. That's powerful. So um with with a literacy lens and another quick thing um before we see you probably in March is that we're planning collaborating with the Bennett PTA uh the AIS department special content areas and we're going
014to have a family literacy night our second annual but this year's theme last year we did math this year we're doing a celebration of reading and art so further strengthening that homeschool connection. um and looking forward to that. So, we're super proud of our progress. We remain committed to advancing student achievement and like I said last time, let's soar. Thank you. Good evening. Nice to see everyone. Um so, I have a few math updates um as we approach the middle of the school year. Um so across all grade levels students and teachers are working extremely hard in math. Uh the teachers focus has been on building strong understanding of the curriculum as we have a few new teachers here in the building. Developing math fluency, learning and using multiple problem solving strategies and having their
015students have regular fact practice to build confidence and efficiency in the students skills. Um, and as teachers, we h we have a common shared goal, and that's for all students to be at or above grade level in math by the end of the school year. So, as teachers, we are planning for our math endgame by the end of 2026. Um, where each grade level team has been intentionally planning for their math endgame for the end of the school year. And that's identifying essential skills students need by year's end. uh mapping out instruction to ensure that those skills are solid and lasting and we're making adjustments throughout the school year to support all learners along the way. So I know Amanda touched upon it with David Tranter. Um so I was a part of that class
016that I that he had about the assessments and how we can strengthen our instructional approach. Um so we analyzed last year's math assessment data. We focused on questions from that test where our students scored 40% or below. We matched the specific standards that those questions addressed. We discussed why the questions may have been challenging or misleading for the students. So, we looked at wording. Um, we looked at um specific language that they used that the children might have gotten caught up on. um and we looked at skills that they were looking for. Um and then we took that, we made it into a nice graphic organizer and um we're using that data to improve our instruction and our test prep for this year. So based on this analysis that we did with David um we
017identified common misconceptions and skill gaps. We discussed how these question types can be explicitly taught and practiced. And we made plans to address these areas during instruction and test preparation this year. And this work helps to ensure that our test prep is purposeful, aligned to standards, and it supports deeper mathematical understanding, not just test taking skills. Um, also another thing that just kicked off last week, um, I'm running a building thinking classrooms book club for mathematics. Um, it's a virtual class every month where math teachers have joined me virtually. Um, and we're reading this wonderful book called building thinking classrooms that focuses on 14 great principles of kind of looking at teaching math in a different way. um how we can get students thinking in the classroom. So based on some of the research that
018this author did is that students are only if they have like a 60-minute block of math, they're only doing up to eight up to eight to 10 minutes of thinking throughout that block. So he's kind of come up with 14 ideas of how to extend that time. So we're reading a couple chapters every month then coming together and discussing and David Tranter is also joining us for a couple of those meetings. So that's wonderful to get his point of view. All right. Thank you. You know, um when you sacrifice your personal time and you focus your energies on a goal and you work for improvement, good things happen. And I'm stating the obvious. I just want to share with you that uh last night the music department uh and more importantly our students um put
019on a phenomenal concert. Uh the students sacrifice game time, fun time, and not that playing an instrument or singing songs. It's not fun, but they worked together as a collaborative group and put on a spectacular concert last night. Um John, can we do we have that videoed? We do. It's going to be on YouTube tomorrow. I highly recommend everyone go see that concert. Our third graders, fourth and fifth graders put on just a marvelous performance. Um, we are going to charge a mission this coming spring for our concert because it was just that good. I'm kidding. Um, I just stand here before you just incredibly proud to be the principal of Bennett and uh, I'm so proud of our students, so proud of our teachers. Um, thank you everyone for your support. Do you have
020any questions for me before we go? >> I just had a couple comments. First of all, it's so great that you always bring your team to talk to us because sometimes we're not in we're not meeting the teachers. We're not meeting the administration. And it it really does. It's great to hear what tactically and v your vision in what's happening here in the school. Thank you for updating the website. That's amazing. um because it is depressing to and it makes you feel like people don't care when websites outdated. I absolutely think the history of Bennett is a wonderful idea. I'm a history buff. We have so much to be proud for uh proud of and I do think that as we centralize personally and I've never said this out loud before to a group but
021I I hope that Bennett becomes Antiora Elementary School and that all of the Woodstock Hurley Venicia and Bennett are all listed under that historical sess that section so we all understand our shared heritage together and we can all be on your central school district now together. So, thanks for that great idea that I'll continue to talk about and thank you Mr. Bono for the for the great presentation. >> No, thank you very much. You know, and I'm proud to say that I started the Antior United travel program, you know, and we chose United as our team just because we need to be unified as as one community. Couldn't agree with you more. >> Thank you all so much. And I would like to just drop a big flag here as we shift and teams merge.
022There's like trusty Jerome said, there's so much going on here that is so amazing in terms of how we are getting to hear and all the people watching directly from these teacher leaders. And I I just I really hope that we can find a way to keep um what's really great here as we move forward. I I would like to say standardize across because I would I don't think I'm alone when I say that speaking like Trusty Mitchell Morurell was saying about the academic committee like we would love to have more of this I think for across our building. So thank you so much. I firmly believe that best practices will prevail. >> This is a really mundane question, so I'm apologize after these soaring questions. I'm fine. But um when you brought up that
023the you're pulling the calendar onto the website from parent square, is that is that what you said? Yeah. I'm just wondering if um we have a handle on where the parent community is getting their information. Do you track website traffic versus parent site tra parent square traffic? And um and if if people are starting I'm I'm thinking that parent square is so convenient in your hand that that may become the first thing that people go to and have you considered sort of directing people to the website from parent square because sometime I you know it's generational like there the younger people I understand use email very little because they use text a lot um and so like a website versus a a mobile app um we may be missing people. Um, so are you tracking
024that at all? And and uh do you plan further integration between parent square and the website? >> We're going to have to get back to you on that question, that mundane question you just asked. Um, I don't know the answer to that um in terms of the tracking aspects, but um each print. Yes, we are. Yes, we are tracking. All right. All right. I tell you specialist uh Mr. Rhyr, do you what should I say into the microphone? >> Sorry. So, yes, we we have Google Analytics on the the website. So, it's tracking every uh click where it's going, who it's from, and what they're looking at, and how long they're actually physically on the website. And then we're also doing the same thing with Parent Square and all the other social media apps. We
025we run the analytics so that we can actually have a monthly report of where we're where we're looking and how we're doing. >> Great. Yeah. Just you build this beautiful website. I'd love to get the eyeballs there, you know. So I want to thank um what what the previous trustees said. Thank you so much for your presentations. Um your enthusiasm is uh contagious. So it's great. Um how's the flu epidemic affecting Bennett? Is it uh >> we have the flu here? >> Yeah. Is it worse than other years? >> Um, I will share with you that no red flags have been brought to my attention by nurse Janice, but I know it there have been some incidents of people having a flu, but we don't have a epidemic. Gabe, I just want to thank you
026very much. Thank all of you so much for coming and sharing the good news and uh and your goals. It's really inspiring. And Jolie, good luck. I'm so proud of you. Thanks all. All right, we will move on to item 3.01. Uh CJ Goodwin of Schoolhouse Construction will present a capital project timeline. Welcome, CJ. >> Good evening, everybody. Um, I appreciate you guys having me tonight. I think you have received my little packet here. I can see some of you flipping through it. It's also up on the screen for those that I think are at home. I was asked to come tonight just to kind of walk through what the next steps are now that you guys have uh passed the vote in the last few months. Congratulations. uh was a lot of work for
027everybody involved in this room. Um I'm sure that won't go unnoticed as we move through the next chunk of uh tasks as we get to construction. Um but this is uh just a general walkthrough of what you guys can expect and then I'm going to talk through my document here just so that you guys can get an understanding of sort of how we're putting things together. This is not necessarily final. If you guys have questions and things like that, I'm happy to answer them and we can adjusting as needed. Um, you should know that the first thing on the list there is a kickoff. Um, district administration, myself, schoolhouse construction, uh, your architect, CPL, we had a little bit of a meeting a couple of weeks ago, um, which is where I presented this at
028the first iteration. Uh, CPL has been involved in that process as well, so this isn't foreign to them. And, uh, if you guys have questions as I go, please feel free to ask. All right. Uh, the first thing is the piece of this is we decided two phases is what made sense at the moment uh based on the scope that everybody has. I think some of you will remember as I talked through the scope. There's a number of line items that are kind of dependent on other line items. Um so I built a little bit of that knowledge into there. You might see that in some of the parentheses. Uh if you have questions on that just go ahead and let me know. But I'm going to talk about the first page first here. So
029you'll see there's two phases. Uh this is what I work through with CPL in terms of the design schedule, ultimately working up to what is construction and then ultimately what is close out when we're all done at the end. And you'll kind of see that we're over the next three summers. Uh the first piece is starting uh with our January kickoff like I had mentioned. And then the other part I'll add is as designers are going through their process, it happens in steps. Doesn't kind of all happen at once. There's some milestones in between. Uh, historically, they're what we call schematic design, design development, and there's a construction document submission where you would talk to whoever your jurisdiction is. That would be your building permit process. And then there's construction. Um, with the way we've
030worked through pre-eref, we're probably going to do our first submission as design development because we've worked through a lot of those schematic items that you would normally do in a schematic design submission. Um so you see that as that first submission in April. What is going to happen now in the short term is there's a number of meetings that happen between CPL the district and the stakeholders in rooms and things like that where they're going to come they're going to sit down they're going to talk over some plans and say this is the scope that we had conceived of and they're going to start to work their way down in elevation. So when we went through preref we were at you know the 30,000 uh foot height view looking down everything. They're going to start
031working their way down to the nitty-gritty as they go through that process. And that's going to start with a lot of programming meetings is what they're called where they're going to sit down with those stakeholders. They're going to say, "This is what we planned for in these spaces. We planned for renovation of three science classrooms. We envisioned they would look like this. Are there things you need? Are there things you want? Are there things you like? Are there things you don't like?" They're going to go through that process and refine their design through design development. Once they get through that process, they'll submit to us. We will then do an estimate similar to what you guys have seen us present before. It'll be a little more in depth in terms of the um makeup of
032that estimate. Um it'll be a lot more sort of detail in how all those pieces are put together based on their drawings. We'll reconcile that detail assuming we're on budget from the start. Um and then they'll move into what is the next phase which is construction documents ultimately working to the SED submission which you'll see there. That's where we go to our jurisdiction the authority where we get our building permit. We don't do anything with the town itself in terms of a building permit. Town doesn't really have jurisdiction through this process. There are things that they can be part of. Um, a lot of times, um, fire departments, fire marshals, things like that. With rural districts, there's a lot of things like, um, with the code changes, there's some sprinkler requirements and things like that.
033Sometimes you have to get relief in those situations. You need their input for that. Um, and then you can get that because a lot of times rural districts don't have wells that can provide the capacity for a sprinkler system, let's say. you don't have anything like that currently, but that may be something that comes up as we go through that process. Um, so that could just be one of the little hiccups we work through in that. Um, you'll also see in here that we set out an SED review time. It's about the fifth line down. I put that as a two-month process. Historically, that could be a 10-month process. Right now, it's something we track. It's something that SEDD puts on their website. For the last probably nineish months, it's been a two to four
034week process for just the substantial review of the documents. And then there's usually depending on if you have additions or things like that could take a little longer based on that because they have to go through an aid calculation. And then after that you'll see our bid period and things like that. We'll move into construction. That sort of long- winded piece is what you'll expect as they do that design process from today, last week, how whatever day you want to pick the day after the vote until we get to where we submit this for bidding. We will do another estimate when they submit to SED because that's their next big submission at that point. And again, we're going to be looking to stay on track with the budgets that you see here and the phases
035on the cover page. Then we're going to do that same process over again for what we call phase two. And so you'll kind of see in there it's the same sort of breakout. Some of the time frames might adjust depending on how the scope is and things like that. But that's basically the general idea. We're shooting for a couple of things. We want to be as uh far along with the addition so that when we deal with the Woodstock closure and things like that, we've got places for people to go with the addition. So we're shooting for that date. And then the same thing with the December timeline for 2029 to be done so that aid starts to flow and we'll continue to work with Monica and fiscal advisors and things like that. That's the
036design look of this whole thing. Absolutely. Go ahead. So I was a little surprised that um phase one and phase two weren't happening at the same time. I guess I guess I want it all. So can you explain you know the rationale there and and >> I guess you have limitations on what you can do. >> Yep. So um typically with projects over any size you can have phases. It's not a there's not a set dollar amount. There's no SED requirement. It's really a conversation of how long can you go. We usually try to hover around a two summer time period. Once you get out of two summers, it's not that it's harder or more difficult or it gets crazy. It's that contractors, it's hard for them to plan three years ahead and not knowing
037what oil prices will do and things like that. They get really sort of uncomfortable with that whole concept. Um, it's not that it has never been done. I've certainly had projects that go three summers, Clark. It's just we see a lot more escalation in that process. So, we try to limit that piece of it as a safety for sort of everybody, us, you guys, CPL. Um, the other piece is it's a lot of work. Um, and I don't mean work in terms of getting it done. It's a lot of work for people and contractors. And I would love to say that every contractor that's going to come here, this will be their only project, but it probably won't even be their third project depending on their size. So, that's the other piece of it. We're
038going to fight with all the other districts in the area for the same workforce. We're going to try to pull from the same areas. We're going to do our best to pull people out of Kingston and Pikipsy and all those types of things. Um or even down into the Skhairy Valley coming the other way. Um and we try to put projects in the size that that entices as many biders as we can. If we did all of it in one RIP, which we could, you're really talking about the level of contractors that can sustain multiple 40 or 50 million dollar projects. So, you're talking about the larger contractors that are maybe come out of New York City. They may come out of Kingston or Newberg and down from Albany and things like that. And it's
039not that that's a bad thing either. It just still creates that same sort of escalation through the three-year process. So you you could have I guess different contractors for different pieces, right? >> Yes. >> Yeah. So um >> Okay. Uh what about the SEDD submissions? Could the phase two design and SED submissions happen earlier? >> Um potentially. A lot of that is making sure that we have enough time for CPL to do their piece of everything. Um, so I don't want to say yes or no without them having a chance to respond. What I'll say is it's one of those things where >> they could have a hundred years and it may not be as good as it is after 10 months if that makes any sense. You can sort of go as far as
040you can. I've been on that side of the table doing design work and things like that. And I would love to say that the more time you have the better things will be, but it doesn't necessarily work out like that. Um, I'm not concerned at all that they don't have enough time. They had input in this. I think this is a good timeline for them. I just don't know that we want to shorten that if we can avoid it. >> As we all know, SED can be a real bottleneck. >> I think for every district in New York right now, Clark, the fact that they've still kept a two-ishmon process, which is what we're seeing, um, I've never seen that ever in the almost 20 years I've done this. And I've had projects that have
041waited more than 12 months without a doubt. And we've submitted when it was maybe six months and just every couple of weeks you'll watch that ticker sort of keep driving forward and you have no control over it. Um, this will probably be the fastest process if it stays this way that I've seen and again probably the last couple years. Then the other nice piece of this is right now we're not forced to even have a conversation of do we want to have a third party review where you would pay for them to escalate the review. Um which it sounds great sort of in concept. Um and it's something that we've certainly done before as a construction manager where we find is there's a certain amount of time where it doesn't make sense. Um because SED
042is still a bureaucracy. They still have a process and even though you have paid to sort of step outside of that. It still loops back at the end. And that's sort of some of the hiccups they've had. If this was nine months and we were looking at that, I would 100% be up here saying we definitely have to do a third party review even if it saves us two months, you know, depending on when things come out. Any other questions for the design piece? Okay. Do you want me to go line by line through the scope? I will. It hasn't changed from what we voted on. Um, I'm okay with either thing. I just I don't want to drone on and I I'm a little bummed I had to follow the fantasticness that was behind
043me here. So, >> well, this is fantastic, too. Um, I think it would be great for our community members. Yeah. I mean, I think the board is pretty well studied, but you know, I think for others it would be really important. >> All right. So, now the first thing I'm going to say as you look Sorry, I forgot I had a clicker. Got it. Um, as you look at this is you're going to see that there is instantly something that's not in phase one or phase two. Um, just did that to see if anybody would catch it. Honestly, no. Um, one of the first questions we always get after we vote is, okay, when will you when will we see something get done? And December votes are really hard for that. It's not impossible or
044anything like that, but to find something in this particular project that isn't dependent on something else that we could kind of rip out of there is a little bit hard. So what we worked out is that you guys have always been talking about this track. We've been working kind of through that process. I think that's one of those things that I think we can easily suck out and sort of take care of. Um I think the other piece that's a little bit lucky is we've got the elevator project that's bidding now. So you guys are going to see that even though it's not necessarily part of this project. So you're going to see things happening this summer too. So, I'm really kind of grateful for that piece of it, too. Um, everything else outside of
045that is really planned to probably start in summer of 2027. Okay. Go ahead. >> And the middle school gym floor. >> And oh, sorry. And the middle school gym floor. Yep. Sorry. Um, is outside of the project we're bidding now, what you see in phase one is planned to happen starting in the spring summer of 2027. as part of the elevator project. I'll just jump into that so I'm I give you guys some clarity. The elevator refurbishments, the gym floor at the middle school, there's some ceiling work that's getting a little bit of abatement and things like that done. And then there's a mechanical unit that's getting done. It's a duckless split that's getting added for the elevator that's happening this summer as part of that elevator project. Okay. All right. So now that you
046are looking at my document again and everybody at home, you can kind of ignore my left two columns. Those were for me to keep that number track of each number has a thing that I can reference back to when I talk to people. The one on the far left where it says prop and the number sign. That was so that I could keep track of what was prop one versus prop two because financially we have to do that. We have to make sure we don't eclipse either one of those things. So ideally for me, everything in prop one as one project, everything in prop two is another project would have been dead on perfect. But the reality is that's not what you guys need. So when we put this together, I just needed a way
047to track that and I don't want to have to turn it on and off. So if you guys have questions on that, by all means, let me know. But you can really ignore those. The important thing is the description of the work, the start and the substantial completion date, and then the budget. So, if you were to look back at the documents I've shared with you over the last year or so, those budgets have changed as we go. Now that we've voted right now, those are our budgets. I'm not saying they won't change. Some may still go up, some may go down. We still may have some tough dis discussions to have as we get through this process depending on the market and all that fun stuff. But right now, those are our budgets. So
048when you look at this, the next piece of that I went through and did is just put some durations for right now what I think the work would be in a perfect world. As we go through this process, you're going to see from me phasing and logistics plans and another schedule and things like that. Some of these timelines may get shorter, may get longer as we go through that. It depends on sort of when we hit them during the construction period. But what you'll start to see also is instead of it saying 3 to four months, it's going to say April 1st to September 27th is when we expect this work will start and stop. The other piece I like to add is substantial completion doesn't mean done. So it's just a little bit of
049an expectation management thing. It's more to say that it's done enough to occupy, but there may be things like punch list or some temporary painting that has to be done or some things that need to be cleaned up until it's considered complete. Okay. All right. Now, the things you actually want to talk about phase one, uh, total is about 27.6 million. Um, and that is a lot of things at Bennett in preparation and including the addition knowing that that's really the important thing right now. So the thing you'll see first there is the grass sports field improvements which is outside soccer field the baseball field there's a little bit of a pathway to the bleachers that we want to put there the parking piece the drop off loop modifications the reconfigure of outdoor play space
050those are two things again are dependent of each other that's modifying the drop off loop so we can actually have a space for the addition next to the building and then taking what is some of that parking relocating it the playground and things like that and putting that on on the hill. The next piece outside of that is there's some drainage work that uh Tim from CPL's group there knows has to happen in that area so that that addition can be done and that work has to happen with our fun stuff down at the bottom which is the boiler and um the electrical work that kind of happens through there. So we're going to replace the boilers as part of this process and there's a little bit of expansion for that. Uh the next item,
051item six, is replacing the or relocating the fuel tank. We're going to still plan to do that work and get that out of the way and over to the front because we're going to do the electrical service as well. And that way we're outside of the back side of that part of the building. And then the next two things is the uh storm water work that happens across Route 28 down at the entrance of Bennett and the exit, I guess I'll say, of the high school bus loop. And then the last thing is the one that everybody really cares about which is the classroom edition. That is what is the totality of what we're calling phase one right now. Yes sir. So for everybody uh out out there listening in. So the the classroom addition
05211 completed classrooms is >> sorry complete number 11 before it's not 11 classrooms. >> Okay. >> Yep. So that is the eight classrooms, the library expansion, the office space, >> and the security vestibule. >> Yep. Correct. >> The art room. Y >> So I left that one out. Okay. Uh is there some way we could put that in the document? >> Oh, sure. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Um I I simplify on this. Yeah. Not necessary for distribution. reference down below is a reference number >> just so everybody it's written down. Uh what's the question mark there? Uh complete before start. The question mark there for a complete before start is my is a question to CPL at the time. Do we have to do the boiler? Do we have to do some of those things
053before we actually start that? And then the second part is knowing when it has to be done by. So at that point in time when I put this together was the idea of when is Woodstock and the move actually happening. >> Yes sir. So, I'm sure Bennett parents are wondering since this plan involves uh moving where their current playground is to a different place and that place becoming part of the drop off loop, right? And and where the new classrooms are going to go. >> Can you talk just to about continuity of play space through the construction process? Like um those are both three to four month things. So, I assume the majority of it would be would it be that that the kids would go home in June and you know they'd be doing
054site work up up where the new playground's going and then that by the time they get back in September would the new playground be up there? >> I'm honestly not sure yet. Okay. And I'm not trying to dodge. Um I want to put sort of it all together as they develop the design because it may not take four months too. So that's the first thing. >> Um the other piece is it's probably it's got to align with a summer too. We may do the relocation piece because it has to happen first so we can do the addition. I don't know when in that process we'll get everything pushed back up there. It may be a case where we have to have a conversation of can we find some other temporary spaces to play um because
055you may not have a playground for two months when school starts or a month when school starts or on the opposite side of the summer when school ends maybe you won't have a playground at that point. I don't know the full answers to those yet. It would obviously be our desire to have as little impact on everybody as we can and we're going to do our best to do that. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Sure. Yes, ma'am. >> This may not be a question. This may be more just something that I feel like I want to put voice to. There are so when the Phoenicia Elementary School closed, the PTA here at Bennett that I was president of and the Phoenicia PTA fundraised and worked really hard to build this beautiful garden >> which is
056out there. And then there's a really really special garden at Woodstock Elementary. Okay. And I just wanted to say in the process of planning and stakeholders, I think it would be really positive if the PTAs from the elementary schools got looped in around if the garden needs to be moved or you know bringing a piece of the Woodstock garden here like we brought what we could from Phoenicia. Just having been sit sat at that table too, I just feel like it would be a really positive because talking about um what's important to our district and our values, obviously we really value kids getting in the dirt and growing vegetables and things. And so I just would love to see since those are the stakeholders that own that portion of our kids experience here. I'd love
057to see them just looped in in the process so that everybody felt good about what was going to happen and didn't feel like they're going to bulldo our beautiful garden we built two years ago kind of thing. Sorry, I just wanted to make a note. Um, honestly, u memorial things is what we would call a lot of those like memorial gardens, memorial trees. I'll double check with CPL. A lot of design firms, that's part of their question process when they go through, especially when you're doing an addition where you could potentially cut trees down and things like that. It's a very common to either relocate or replant a tree in those situations depending on their size. I don't see the garden being anything outside of that either. And then whatever we want to do for
058the Woodstock connection I think is great. Any other questions for phase one? Okay. Phase two, mostly scope at the high school, but a lot of followup for things at the elementary school as well. So, we're looking at the nurses renovation at the high school, the science classrooms at the high school, including the uh corridor as a waste, the sanitary replacement at the front of Bennett Elementary through the front corridor, um the exterior windows, and the MEP work associated with those at Bennett. Go ahead. >> What What's MEP? I'm sorry. >> Mechanical, electrical, plumbing. So, all the mechanical equipment, the electrical associated with it, and if there's drains and things associated with those. Yep. And renovating the music rooms, uh renovating those front hallway toilets, and then replacement of uh ceilings and lights in the front
059hallway as well. So a lot of those uh items 13, 14, 16, and 17 kind of are all intertwined in that front hallway. So a lot of times what may happen is we may do some of it over one summer, continue it to the next summer. At that point, we can have discussions. Do ceilings come out, not go back in, do they come out, go back in, come out again? All of those things are conversations we can have based on the feel inside of each of the buildings. But those are the kinds of things that you'll expect as we kind of walk through that process. The total for phase two is 14,37,625. And I'm sure Monica's checked me several times. Those two numbers do add up to your total referendum amount. I can see her
060smiling, so she didn't say no. Any questions on phase two? Yep. So just looking at the timeline for the science rooms for example, it's five to six months which is obviously that means work during either during the school year or >> you you do a few months of work and then stop and then you have a school year and then you pick it up again. Can you just describe like how that works with instruction science instruction continuing? >> So there's a couple of pieces to that. We could do two rooms, leave a couple because you have five total. Um, it's a conversation with district admin in those particular in that particular building as well. Um, the other piece of that is we could break it up through different pieces. Um, I don't know exactly which
061one we'll do yet. Um, but we will be in a situation there's going to be no avoidance of it. We're going to have to impact school year in terms of being in some rooms. Whether it's one room or two rooms or three rooms, that's the conversation that we have. Ideally, for me, all three, we kind of get it done. We get out of your way. I totally would understand that that would not be realistic for a school district. My hope is it can't be one at a time. Then that becomes sort of its own other sort of challenge. Um, not again, nothing's impossible. It's just your five to six months could really turn into 12 months at that point because it kind of takes you got to kind of do each one as you go
062and then we have to have the plan of how to deal with the acid waste and things like that in the hallways. But we'll look at everything again because we're going to do our best to have the least amount of impact but we are impacting there. There's just not going to be an avoidance of that. >> Did that answer your question? >> Yes. I mean, yeah. >> Or make you at least feel a little more comfortable than >> Yeah. I mean, I I I realize that you you can of course you can focus on room A the first summer and you know, >> things like that. Um, thank you. >> Yeah. >> So, as I'm looking at the list, um, it might be nice for the public to know which rooms are going to get
063air conditioning. Okay. >> So, if we could lift list that in and maybe you want to put the AC in the science classrooms ahead of time. I don't know. Maybe you don't have to wait till 2029. >> Yeah, we would probably plan to do them with the renovations because then we'd probably impact whatever we did. U we typically try to do whatever we're going to do in a room in that room. Um I would love to do all the air conditioning at once because there's a benefit for that, but it's probably not realistic for what we're planning at this point. Um if it AC only project that would be a different thing. Um, and then there's also there's some changes happening with refrigerant types and things like that that we're sort of going to have
064to work through that process up to. >> Thank you. Sorry if I don't add these now. I'm gonna walk through that door and not remember all of them when I hit my truck. Any other questions, please? I'm just really excited about this and I'm listening to Trusty Kudson's question and I'm I'm wondering if there's any way that we can have like create some ownership for the kids and all the buildings around the work and put up some renderings in the hallways so that the kids knew what the work was and could kind of like follow along a little bit to make it exciting because it is exciting, you know. So, if you were like, "Whoa, what's going on in there?" Oh, check out the picture that's hanging outside the classroom and there's a schedule that
065says like, "For the next two months, cool, smart people are rewiring and doing acid lines. Isn't that rad?" Like, I don't know. I just think it could it could make it like every kid feeling like the the buyin that we feel as a board to be able to go home and tell their parents like not like they're banging next door but like whoa there's acid lines they're putting in acid lines >> or what is an acid line as much information as we can share with them I think could change their experience from being like banging ceiling is gone to like new ceilings going up so that be this and that and the other. Just a thought I had. >> Um I think I've said in some of the community forums, kids are the most flexible
066in this process. It's kind of amazing. You would think they would be super irritated by little every little piece of it. They're usually the ones that are like they're just they know what's happening. They move on with their day and they do whatever. Um I'm happy to be part of whatever degree of that we want to do. Um, I think we need a new generation of all types of workers, whether they want to be in the trades or they want to be behind a desk, and I'm happy to help in any part of that. I can. Yeah, >> I wanted to thank CJ for joining us. Uh, I know it's kind of early in the process, but we made a commitment to be really transparent and share everything. Uh, and this is just the first
067step. So, I appreciate your time and your patience and your >> Thank you for having >> graciousness. >> You guys have any other questions and you think of them after I go or you have one? >> Sorry. Sorry to Yeah. Uh, just to build on what Trusty Jared said. Uh, you mentioned the word stakeholders. So, are we going to have any community forums showing upgrades to the more exact rendering or how is that going to work? Uh, I'm sure we're going to have a lot of meetings uh and we'll we'll have renderings and we'll get input, but we're just not quite there yet. But yes, and this is the start and this is the start of our commitment for um having this be a conversation, >> please. >> Are you going to mention anything about
068the scheduling notes? >> I wasn't. Not because I don't want to. Do you just hit the highlights because it's good for parents. There's some good stuff in there. >> So, the scheduling notes that you'll see on the last page, sorry, I keep forgetting I have a monitor over here. >> Um, are things that serve a couple of purposes. I'm going to let you sort of behind the scenes. They're for me to also keep reminders of. There are pieces that we have to sort of figure out as we go or we may have to do with something that is not necessarily normal, which is sort of a loaded word. Um, but the other part of that is just to kind of keep the thought process going for everybody that reads them that like I said, we're
069impacting something somewhere some way we're going to impact. And just seeing some of the sometimes helps that um but I will happily touch on um you'll see number one where it says um work dur completed during the school year to be second shift all breaks holidays. I believe that's in reference to some of the abatement things and things like that. Um, we have no interest in doing abatement while people are in buildings. None. It is legal to do. I'm not going to say it isn't. We have zero interest. It It's so much harder to do. It's not great for anybody in that situation. Unfortunately, what that means is doing them in other random times. Um, and a lot of times we try to take advantage of breaks. The downside of that is you you can't
070do a lot on a week break. And it's not that the long enough, but there's steps for everything and abatement has the most. So, by the time you set up what we call containment to say do this floor, get the floor out, which is probably a couple of days to do, then they have to hand wipe clean the surfaces in this space that haven't been protected. And then they have to take air samples. We have to send those out to be analyzed. If they fail, have to do that whole cleaning process again. send those out to be analyzed. So you kind of see that even if it was a Thursday, we sent out air samples, we'd have to rush them to be answered Thursday in case they failed. So we could rush to clean again
071on Friday and then you're into Saturday again. So we will definitely be doing some of that. It has to be done. Um but it's more of just the preparation of so everybody understands that that's the thought process. Um curtain wall MEP work associated with curtain wall to occur over two summers at the end of June to end of August. Areas to be reoccupied and safe by Labor Day of each year. That's a note for a little bit of everybody. There's more that needs to be added to that. That's sort of the first piece of it, but it was also so that everybody kind of understands. Not going to be able to do all the windows at once. The other thing with windows is they take forever to get. They're sort of like mechanical equipment. Windows
072take sometimes anywhere between 12 to 20 weeks to get once they're approved. And so that's the other piece that people sort of lose track of if you're not familiar with it. It's not we bid, we open up the bids, we see that we like all the pricing, and we hand somebody a contract. There's still probably two months from the day they get that contract to getting a submitt to the designers to approve. So we will rush as many of those things as we can, but sometimes that still means that it may be a three or four month process just to get them on site. So you really work on that timing piece so that you have them when you need them. Or we're going to have to have a conversation of we may have to
073circle back to put windows in and take them out as we go, which again would be another second shift thing or a um holiday breaks, things like that. Um if we were just pulling a window out, putting a window in, probably could do all the windows at once over a summer, that wouldn't be such a big deal. But we've got the mechanical systems, we're adding air conditioning in those rooms, things like that. Number three, abatement in these spaces is to occur during summer 27. Areas to be turned back over to the owner with temporary lighting, sealed concrete floors, no ceilings. Uh that's the nurses suite. And oh, I lost it. and uh the music rooms. That's again a thought process of if we can get abatement out of the way in one summer when we're
074ready to do work, we can do the work. We don't have to wait for abatement at that point. The downside of that is as you read this is what does it mean to not have a ceiling, you know, and so there are rooms probably in this building that don't have ceilings. It's not going to be the same as that. It's going to be very sort of um rudimentary, maybe institutional where you're going to have sort of industrial looking things. You're just going to see the bottom of the deck, some temporary lights. Um I've done it in several schools. It's received 50/50 each way. You know what I mean? Again, kids honestly, they ignore it. I've probably walked into several classrooms or down hallways and it sounds like a school all the same. um it mostly
075really affects adults and things like that. Um the only other thing I'll add is kids like to jump up and touch things and so it's keeping everything higher than kids will jump up and touch. All right. Uh sorry. Um associated activities being performed during the designated school break periods if any will require weekend work. That's just a coverage for contractors to understand that breaks mean the whole break. So, we don't like to get into arguments of, well, I assumed we were just going to work Monday through Friday and we need every available day when we do those kinds of things. Uh, item five, depending on start time and when completion is needed by along the with below grade utility and drainage, the utility portions of this work and the time needed to move and replace
076the playground will dictate the duration of work. So a little bit of what trusty can was asking in number six. Does this work have to be complete before the addition is complete or can these the items happen as part of the sequence of the work? The boiler edition I think does but the boiler addition is independent of the drainage work. So again some of these are notes for me just working through that process or notes for CPL so that as they're designing they can sort of understand where I'm picturing the work moving as we go. Okay. Anything else? So, thank you for having me, guys. Again, if I walk out that door and you have 20 more questions, send them over to Victoria or Monica and they'll send them to me and I'll happily come
077back or I'll answer them by email or whatever's easiest. >> Thank you for having me. >> Thank you so much for coming, CJ. >> Absolutely. All right, our next item is 4.01. Our student representative on the board, Jenny Albbright, will give us her report. Hello and happy new year. So, um, a lot has gone on in the school since, well, last year, but to throw it back a little bit, um, the student government for the high school got a Christmas tree in the main hallway that students decorated ornaments for. They also had a very, very bright manora, like blindingly bright. It was awesome. And um, Quanza decorations. So, that was a big project for the um, student government in December. And then this month we have had community week which was um for certain amount
078of nights it was a little bit interrupted by weather and like not being able to have after school activities but um sports games would go on the whole community would show up. It was like food would be served. It was a lot of the booster club and then of course sports teams. It was really great event definitely like showed the community. Um at on Saturday there was a track meet at the armory which was very important and a lot of people threw and ran really well. A lot of state qualifiers and then also on Saturday at the Mount Academy there was the science Olympiad event which was really good. Um on tour I got 12th place out of 30 or a lot of schools. They did pretty good and I got like two medals. not
079to brag. Um, and finally, midterms are well underway um, at the school. This week is electives, English and social studies, and next week is more of like the more STEM based classes. And while they are a bit of pressure, it's definitely it's manageable. So, yeah, that's it. >> Jenny, I just wanted to compliment you on your opinion piece in the Talon. I read it. I thought it was very relevant and inspiring. Um I really enjoy reading the talent. Keep those coming uh you know to the board. I think everybody really enjoys those. >> Oh yeah, of course. I write for like at least one piece every edition and we're currently working on the next one. Like all the articles have been submitted. We're just formatting and we're going to send it off to our printing.
080So yeah. >> Great. Thank you. It it really resonated for me because we just finished this great book study of oh my gosh why can't I think of it the anxious generation uh yeah by Jonathan Hay and it was really uh in alignment with that. Thanks. Anybody else? All right. Great. We'll move on. Um um may I have a motion to enter into executive session to discuss the OA negotiations and to consult with our legal counsel? Trusty Jared first. Trusty Jerome second. All in favor? All right. So we will be back in about 60 minutes. All right, we are back. Uh, may I have a motion to exit executive session? Trusty Jerome second. Trusty Smith. Any questions or comments? All in favor? That's unanimous. Thank you. Our next uh item is 6.01. Our presentation on
081the budget development by assistant superintendent for business Monica. No, I'm fine. Good evening. So, we are here for our budget kickoff for 2627. Uh this is where I generally kind of just go over how we develop our annual school budget. So it really is a year- round process. It's even though this is the first time I'm presenting to you, I have long since figured out um all the salaries that we have contracts for. I have started looking at um contractual costs and things like that and been bugging the principles. So just kind of um an overview in September. we kind of look, you know, because obviously when you guys approve the budget in March, we don't know what September is going to look like. So, we're kind of hopeful. So, in September, we say, "Okay,
082what did we get right? What did we get wrong?" Uh, then we, you know, look at look at our actual estimated to actuals and then we start reviewing current programs. October, I begin working on a rollover budget. Uh, November, which like I said, we kind of look at the history, the expenditure, trends, mandates. Um, and then in December, we review enrollment. I generally also do an enrollment update, but we haven't gotten the enrollment report yet. I'm hoping maybe by the next board meeting I will have that for you. Um, kind of looking at current year budgets, um, assessing some of the non-instructional needs, and then, like I said, initial discussions with the administrators. So, now that we're in January, all of the building and department budgets are due. I've gotten most of them. Um, we
083start looking at staffing as we have retirees. Who do we need to replace? Who can we maybe not replace? Can we consolidate in some areas? Um, we assess needs, look at new new and um maybe some new programming, have a conversation with Stephanie, something maybe that she's looking at. Um, and kind of get the first draft of the budget. Uh, the governor's budget is expected to be released on the 20th. Um, so we will have news there. Um, we then review the Bosey's budget with staff and then as we move into the the rest of the months, we finalize Boseies, our revenue budgets. So the tax cap calculation is due March 1st. Um we then continue with the presentations to the board in February. March we get our final health insurance rates. We look at
084our fund balance. Um present the final draft to you guys in March. Um and then look at any resolutions that we might want to do for capital project. While I'm not considering a resolution for a capital project per se, I would I am looking to recommend doing another capital reserve now that our cap current capital reserve is fully funded. Um this way it allows us to have um hopefully some additional funding. So as we get into the 28 and 29 school year, if we find out, oh, prices have gone up or maybe there's something else we want to do, we can kind of tack it on to the projects that we're already doing. Um we have our annual IEP reviews. Those are always fun. Um, added district transportation. Those are due by April 1st for
085any parent whose student whose child goes to a private placement. Um, again, fine-tuning budgets and then looking for the board to adopt the budget April 21st and then the property tax report card the same night. And that's your budget. Um, as far as the process itself, obviously we we look review the current budget. We're looking at class sizes. We're looking at the high need students as I mentioned the private transportation requests and then the repairs and the maintenance. I mean we're still maintaining um Phoenicia. We're hopefully not going to have to maintain West Hurley much longer. Um as I mentioned the staffing needs discussion is always huge um and any impact on programmatic changes and then looking at the facility needs for the transfer to capital as well. Uh and then reviewing long range initiatives,
086any technology, textbooks, equipment and maintenance. Um salaries are by building supplies and contractual by buildings. And then you know again all these things that we kind of talked about the retirement costs TRS ERS and then all the different insuranceances, health insurance being the largest portion as we cover both our active employees and our retirees. Yeah, of course. >> So, right now, this is when you're reviewing the current budget and you're looking at these different items and sort of assessing >> um >> how things might change in correct the coming school year. Okay. Thank >> you, salaries for instance, I mean like the OTAA contract, we have an OTAA contract going through 2028. So it's just a matter of you know putting in we have a module within our um financial software that allows us to
087budget. So it's actually very nice program. >> Yeah. I was just curious about like the impact of instructional instructional program changes and long range initiatives. So is that something I know what they are but is that something that we know about here? So, those are things that Stephanie kind of does with um when she does uh the professional development plans, when we look at conference days, when we look at bringing in um you're going to have to remind me all the different vendors that we pay. Uh morning, not morning side anymore. Uh drawing a blank. um content specialist support that we want from Boseies. Just areas of program that we might need to uh reup our contracts with the vendors we already have or consider switching something, adding it in addition, you know, maybe some
088new reading program or a new math program, things like that. >> Uh so as far as the goals when I look at doing a budget development, you know, obviously the number one goal is we want to make sure we continue to have the highest quality teaching. That's always been number one goal for us. Um, but in addition to that, we want to try to contain and continue to maintain fiscal stability. Um, refine budgets. It's it's it's difficult. It's difficult to refine a budget in January, February for something that's not going to happen until September into the following June. Um, but we try. Uh, allocating funds obviously to reflect the board and the district goals and vision, maximizing efficiencies, minimizing the tax levy increase and then maintaining reserve funds at appropriate levels while continuing the long-term
089planning. Uh so this is kind of where we what we know currently that's going to be affecting the 26 27 budget. So as we mentioned the Antia uh contract has expired expired in June 30th of 25. The OA contract expires June 30th of 26. So we're still working diligently on those. We still are looking at inflation though it is starting to stable. Um we have relatively stable rates coming up for um our retirement costs ERS and TRS. Those rates are out. Well TRS is out. Don't know if ERS is out. Um we do still have an issue with teacher shortages. Um we do not have many teachers retiring this year. So in some situations that's a good thing because now we don't have to worry about trying to replace so many of them. Um but
090uh that is still an issue statewide. Uh and I know the governor has some plans to address that. She mentioned it in her her uh state of the state today. We are anticipating a 16% increase in health insurance. That is really going to be the highlight. But I'm just the teacher shortage piece. How does that impact our budget? If teachers retire and we have new teachers, they're at a lower Well, >> I just Yeah. >> Unfortunately, they used to be. >> Um, what we've found is because it's it's it's economic supply and demand. If there is a low supply and a high demand, it drives up the cost. So, teachers are finding themselves being able to ask for more. Um, in addition, tier six because it doesn't have the same benefits that tier 4 had.
091People like, well, if I'm not going to have the same benefit in retirement, I'd like to have a little more money. So, it's it does have I mean, it could potentially. We've we've always been relatively lucky. We have a good contract. We don't generally have issues with hiring and and retention, but, you know, you've always got to kind of keep that on the the top of your brain. Um, but as I mentioned, insurance is really going to be the um the big the big ticket item for this coming year. Um, there is still a little uncertainty for state aid, though it seems that the the chatter I've heard. Um, foundation aid will remain as it is. So fingers crossed. Um, but we are still seeing a reduction in our federal grant allocation every year. And
092that really has to do with our fact that we are we have declining enrollment and we are considered wealthy. So we are losing not a lot but every year we get less and less allocation which eats into you know what's we cover for instruction curriculum then we have to cover it in the general fund. So that affects the budget as well. Uh just an quick overview of where we are in fund balance. Um I know people when we were doing the whole um capital project vote people like don't you know you're going to use up all of your savings for this project. Well, as you can see, we have healthy reserves. Um and um I do not believe we will have an issue with um running out of money. And that's it for the first
093goound. Yes. >> I talked fast. I'm sorry. >> That's okay. I just wanted to mention one thing that um you had shared in a discussion earlier today when explaining um as Trusty Jerome was saying, you know, if a a senior employee retires, you hire somebody at a lower salary, but people are living so long, which is wonderful, that you could actually hire someone for a position and still be funding health insurance and retirement for two retirees >> in the same position >> in from that same position because you may have someone who retired at 55 and you may have somebody who retired 30 years earlier who's now 85 but still healthy and functioning which is wonderful but we may be covering both of those retirees for that one position that we just hired for >>
094and the new employee >> is that like a national issue like does everyone have that problem or >> um New York State um I don't know how I I mean I know how a few states do it. Many states don't have the same type of insurance that New York State has or their same type of retirement. New York's very lucky or I should say New York State employees are very lucky. New York State not lucky. They have to pay. >> Any other questions for assistant superintendent? >> Yes. Can I'm just Can you remind us where we are in our transportation contract? >> It's a multi-year. >> Yeah, it's five years. I think this is year think this is year two. So, next year's year three. >> And is that stable throughout the five years or
095cost of living? >> It has built-in I think it was built in 3%. >> Okay. >> Um yeah, >> at least we can know it's going to be 3%. >> Exactly. That's what's nice about doing a five-year contract. >> Great. Thank you. Okay, be back next time. Yes, with more. >> All right, on on to item 7.01, acceptance of minutes. The board of education hereby accepts the minutes of the December 16, 2025 meeting. May I have a first? Trusty Jared. Second. Trusty Jerome. Any questions or comments? All right. All in favor? That's unanimous. Thank you. And on to 8.01. Superintendent News. Folk, good evening. Um, as Principal Bono shared, the Bennett winter concert was last night. It was a really wonderful performance. It was amazing to see the growth in our young musicians from the
096third grade performers to the fourth and fifth grade performers. just those groups the growth is amazing. The concert last night incorporated collaboration between um those who were singing and those who were playing in the orchestra. Uh there was a song where there was uh chorus members and some band members playing. There was an incorporation of sign language at one point. It was an incredible show. Um, so I wanted to thank our wonderful music family and the our faculty and our families who support uh these wonderful musicians at home. The Woodstock concert is Thursday evening. I'm sure it will also be uh a wonderful event. So anyone who is able, please, please come and attend. And it will be in the middle high school auditorium, which is a great venue for our young musicians. Um, as
097our student board rep said, we had our community week, which used to be a community night. Uh, it was interrupted by one weather issue, but um, I want to thank our athletic department, our coaches, the booster club, our athletes, and our community for coming out and supporting the athletes. Um, there were a lot of really fun events. One that we found particularly enjoyable to watch was they had relay races where the students um had to dribble a basketball across gym and back with a balloon between their knees. So, it was really fun watching them try and figure it out. There was one group that immediately figured out the strategy, which would be to put the balloon between your knees and hop. So yeah, the kids had a great time. So that was wonderful to see.
098Um, our high school has been recognized as a gold member of the uh, AP honor role. AP being those AP courses that are available. Schools can earn the honor role recognition annually based on criteria that include providing opportunities for students to earn college credit and um, provide college readiness. The AP school honor role offers four levels of distinction. Bronze, silver, gold, and platinum. So, we were recognized as gold. As part of that, it recognized that 65% of our seniors have taken at least one AP exam during high school. 52% of our seniors have scored a three or higher on at least one AP exam. And 18% of our seniors have taken five or more AP exams. These classes are and the associated exams are rigorous and require diligence and study skills and it's really impressive
099that our students um sign up and and follow that course of study. Um, DECA, which stands for Distributive Education Clubs of America, is an international nonprofit student organization um preparing high school and college students for careers in marketing, finance, hospitality, and management through competitive events, classroom integration, business connections, and leadership development. Our Antioradea students had a wonderful performance at the regional competition on Friday, January 9th. They were wellprepared. They exemplified professionalism and dedication. They competed against schools from across the region by completing a rigorous 100 question exam and then presenting solutions to challenging business scenarios before judges in the area of business administration, marketing, finance, and hospitality. Special congratulations to 11th grader Anthony Christophora who placed third in the business finance event. and also seniors Gemma Holstein and Alex Young who placed in the top
100six overall teams in business law and ethics and who will advance to the state competition in March. Um we had our quarterly meeting uh today that is our intergovernmental meeting. We were able to host the new Woodstock Town Supervisor and the Olive Town supervisor. Our other supervisors were not able to attend this meeting, but I also want to extend congratulations and welcome to the new town of Shandin supervisor Barbara Mansfield. I look forward to continuing to work with our supervisors collegially and to ensuring that we all continue to remain in communication. I really enjoy these meetings because they allow us to share news from the district with our town leaders and vice versa. We enjoy the discussions that happen, but the supervisors also have time to have conversation that they often don't have. So, it
101it works really well. It's a wonderful um sort of organic discussion that we are able to have and it's sort of a safe place. Uh, as we all saw, tonight was the first public discussion of our planning process moving forward with the capital project that was approved by the community in December. We committed to keeping the community informed through this process and this was our first step. So although we are at the beginning and there's not a lot to share yet, um, we want to ensure that that we develop a consistent pattern of reporting out and keeping everyone informed and engaged. Um, just as a minor update, we've used two snow days. They were both in December, which is really rare for us. Right now, it appears the immediate forecast seems clear, but we have
102four snow days remaining. I just wanted to remind everyone that if necessary, although we have a total of six snow days in the calendar, if we need additional weather days, we will absolutely use them. And we will reduce our spring break in order to make them up. So, please do not make travel plans over spring break yet. Um, and if you want to know in what order they will be made up, it is uh it is detailed on our calendar. And one last reminder, mark your calendars. Meet, eat, and greet. Even though I want to say meet, greet, and eat. Meet, eat, and greet is April 20th. So mark your calendars. It will be another wonderful event. Thank you. Any questions for the superintendent? All right. Thank you very much. >> Sorry, I sound like
103Kermit the Frog. >> Poor thing. Um, on to board district news. 9 01. Does anyone have any news to report? Emily, >> just give a little Woodstock update. As you mentioned, the concert is Thursday. We're very excited. And just like second semester, I love the events at Woodstock. There's a bingo night next week, which is my favorite. And talent shows coming up. And then they do a really special thing for Valentine's Day that they're doing differently because we have so many grades this year. And super fun time. I attended along with Trusty Goodrich the um internet safety presentation at the middle school um which gave so much food for thought. It really got me I want to thank um Dr. Solomini for arranging it and the district for supporting it. And it really got me
104thinking about our AI goal and this idea of um channeling from our educators and administrators who really like have such a different perspective on what kind of information the kids can benefit from and then sharing it with the kids and then offering it to the guardians and parents so that we could have discussions at home from the same touch point. I I just thought it was a really great model uh for going forward. Um and I'm grateful that it happened. I said one other thing which was I also want to thank Dr. Salamini for the excellent communication around the middle school schedule, the midterm schedule, receiving updates, a full schedule of all the days of every midterm each week. It really is um ex putting into action what is said about middle school which is
105that like this is the space in between where we start to hand responsibility to the kids but we're this he's really I really feel he's doing a wonderful job of creating a safety net of letting parents know so that it's not like a cliff of now it's all on you kids. it. I've really I think it's just a beautiful balance and I just want to call that out. >> So, I just want to add to the uh internet safety presentation which was uh unbelievable. It really was. Uh I went there as a board member but also as a grandparent and uh I learned an incredible amount. So, just so the public knows, um, your sixth, seventh, and eighth grader saw a different presentation than the one we saw. The one we saw was for adults.
106The one that they saw was, uh, for for students. And, uh, if you haven't talked to your child and they've gone to this, you know, you have a sixth, seventh, and eighth grader, ask them about it. uh and um you know try to I I understand there was a lot of interaction with the students uh during the the presentation. So uh the presenter was amazed uh about the Anoris um students how how engaged they were in this presentation is more so than than other schools. So, uh yeah, please talk to your uh to your student. But and I want to thank uh the school for providing that information. I think that's that was a great program. I just wanted to support that. I did not go I but I really love this we're getting into
107this type of programming. We've talked about maybe, you know, continuing continuing it into some sort of programming series. Um, but it's it's just so much for this moment that we're in. >> I'll just add that I attended the middle school and high school winter concerts and I believe it was, wasn't it? I think it was I think it I think it was like the Yeah, the meeting was the 16th. I feel like it was right after. Um, but they were both amazing concerts, very very very talented students and uh and faculty that are guiding them and teaching them. Um, the only other thing that I want to add is that I was u fortunate to be invited to attend the swearing in of our new Woodstock uh supervisor and um board trustees and town judge.
108And it was just a really lovely very very positive um time and it it was really inspiring. So I was really happy to be there. I think that's all for me. Okay, we shall move on. Um, we don't have any uh public beheard speakers to acknowledge from our last meeting. There were no speakers. Are there any speakers this evening? All right. I think that's a no. >> Yes. So, I don't have to do a lengthy read aloud. All right. Um, the next uh item on our agenda is a break. Would we like to take a short break? Okay, we're going to keep going. We're going to go. All right. Um, so item 13.01 is discussion and possible action. And this is a continued discussion of our uh district goals. So, we do have uh just
109so the public knows, we have been working uh in a Google doc um kind of fine-tuning some of the goals that we discussed at the December 16th meeting and um you know, we can we'll take a look at those goals tonight. uh we can discuss any questions or concerns or additions or uh you know any any edits and continue uh moving forward. I really think it's coming together. I really I really think it's good. I didn't really I was you know me with my pen. I was like it's pretty good. So I I'm anxious to hear what other people think. I did have just one structural thought that came out of our when I rewatched our discussion from the last meeting and we had talked about whether you know since we're getting to these in
110January they should go all the way through um uh June of 27. But it occurred to me that um just thinking of the rhythm of the school board, the way it works is we are typically onboarding new trustees. the board changes a bit tech typically yeartoear and the beginning of the board season is um taken up with um reorganization and the beginning of the school year. So, I just wondered if it might make sense, and I don't know how well this I would ask our administrators to comment on this, but whether it makes sense for the board to convene in July, let the school year get going, and have the goals run calendar year so that if you adopt um a goal in January, it goes from January to the following December, which gives the
111new board in the fall time to sort you know, not only um discuss what they want to do, but also see what's going on in the district for a couple of months before they develop new goals which would then uh you know run from January to December. Does that make sense? >> This December, >> what I'm saying is the goals if we adopted goals tonight, they would run through December of this year, a full year, and then new goals would the next year's goals would go from January to December of the following year. And that way you can develop goals based on um sort of more experientially about what's going on in the district. And there's not that be you know beginning of the year uh we have to figure out what we want to
112do this year right away or we're late because that typically if if if you have a season that starts in September, you're always going to be late with your goals. But if you're trying to get them approved by December, you're still starting when? I mean, October, >> January. But but it doesn't just go the rest of the school year. It goes all the way through the end of the year. >> But then the new ones you would have to be starting when? >> The following January. Every January. >> And then approve them because you you start them. But I I do like the idea of them lasting more than a year because they tend to take about three months. So, it's like >> I'm fine with that timeline. It's just like I think you still
113would have to start them close to September >> unless you're finishing the previous year's goals from in the fall. Do you know what I mean? Like, so that's that's why I'm asking the administrators whether there's too much turnover in personnel or whether that makes sense to you. Um, uh, the idea is if you're going to work on a specific goal for a year, does it have to be September to June or could it be January to December? I would say that I think it would depend on the goal and whether you're looking for academic progress or data because of course all of our data is collated by school year. I think to Trusty Mitchell Morell's point, if I'm understanding what you were saying, if we were going to have these goals run from January to
114December, then in order to have new goals to replace them, we would have to start looking at them in September in order to have them be ready for adoption by January, >> right? >> So, it's not really changing so much. And I think it was a really good idea to have them last more than like not start talking about them eight or nine months later. Like it's just like this takes us so long. We want it to last a while because although of course I think it's worthwhile, it's much more of an abstract thing rather than a concrete thing which also a lot of our attention needs to go to. >> I think there's some really good stuff here. And I think one thing that we learned in on this board is that making space
115to have really good discussions really like not just kind of like rubber stamping but really like having discussion and being really thoughtful results in some very special stuff. And so I love the idea of taking the the foot off the accelerator and maybe by just making the goals last longer, we get that foot off the accelerator. And I agree, like I think it's still fun to start thinking about the goals and giving time to discuss, but then not feeling that like we gotta get this done makes sense because we're asking every single person in this district to try and fulfill these goals. And so they should be thoughtful and nuanced and make sense and not feel like we had to pick some stuff quickly. And the other thing I just want to name is that
116this board had a very heavy lift in terms of what we were doing in these meetings. And I do think that these goals this year were delayed and and that was essential. But I I think that it's going to I'm getting the sense already that we're going to return to a cadence that will be a a little create a little more space meeting to meeting. I'd love to suggest again perhaps adding discussion meetings could be a great way to kind of build out this goal setting at whatever timeline we decided so that maybe when it's goal setting time we have a discussion meeting in between. So, like we have a business meeting, two weeks later, a discussion meeting around goals. A business meeting, a discussion meeting around goals, and I think we'd be done if
117we did an hour and a half discussion meeting on goals. You know, that could affect the cadence. >> Yeah, I think that could work. And and perhaps um hard as it is to do, at least make an initial stab at at least param early parameters earlier even in July or August, which we kind of didn't do this year, I think. Right. Yeah. So, it's it's really moving the goals just the goals calendar to the point where we can get them in place where they the this staff and administration can do something with them, you know, for the majority of the year. So, I was uh absent the last uh meeting, but I I watched it a couple times and I thought the board did a great job. So, I want to appreciate that. Uh I
118just want to so syncing up the time frame. Uh do we want to sync it up with the superintendent's evaluation somehow? So what is your evaluation dates? Is it how we do the super eval? I I can't remember what what is it January to December? Is it J what is it? >> It's the end of the school year. >> So So it's the end of the school year. So, so it's June to June >> more. It's more like May. >> May. >> Yeah. I feel like the the evaluation tool itself gets populated in May and then in June there needs to be feedback. >> So, so we we set our goals and that affects you know your evaluation but also you your administrators it affects them as well, right? and their evaluation, right? And they're
119they get evaluated in in May also. >> Oh, by the end of June, the administration >> by the end of June. So, we want to sync up we we need to sync up our goals with, you know, you and and your administration staff. >> I just want to ask a clarifying question. Um, when you said that they would be a calendar year, you you mean one calendar year. >> Yeah. But but but I understand for these other reasons that it probably doesn't make sense to do that that way. So, I think what we're talking about now is having setting some goals now that are going to last through June of 207 and then perhaps starting the goal process for fall for fall of 28 um a little earlier in the in the board calendar. >>
120Yeah, I agree. Yeah, I think and I think that um the discussion meeting process for for the goal discussion is a really good idea and um you know and that might end up adding one or two um additional meetings uh the summer of 27, you know, to have those conversations because I think that is a really great process. So informal and just really ability to have a deeper conversation. So is like we don't have to be mar like we can this is new having them over in June 27 right in June in general. So we can see how that goes and talk about that and our discussion. >> Yes, that sounds good. So uh for so for the first point is everyone okay with whenever we do uh approve our goals possibly tonight um that
121they will run through uh June of 2027. Would it be possible to just consider that perhaps in July or August the board might not change a goal but maybe edit slightly for the following year if in discussion with administration there was a particular point within a goal that felt like you know what this wasn't really clear or this wasn't really actionable can we just refine a bullet point or something but not to create a whole new goal on top of what we have. Not to change the goal in its essence, but maybe like a tweaking just because we've never done that before. It might feel good for new trustees if there were any. Just a thought. I think that um you know, one thing about the district goals is that I I I feel and
122I'm I'm not sure if I'm misinterpreting things that like so many um plans and decisions that we make as a board, these are not necessarily written in stone. And you know, we could determine, I mean, like we could determine halfway through a school year, we've achieved this goal, we don't need it anymore. Yeah, like that kind of thing. So goals can be um amended you know during the year. So you know I I personally think that we should um you know make it a practice to review the goals more frequently yeah in a meeting. >> So shall we read through them? I mean do we want to Yes. I would love to suggest that perhaps we read through them starting with our evergreen goals. The goals that we're going to live in perpetuity at the
123top of the page going to say we could someone could read through them and then we can feel free to stop and say wait let's go over that one part kind of format. >> Okay. Um, Clark. >> So, so we got these printed out. I don't know which ones are the forever green. >> I'm I'm I'm confused. So, because I wasn't here last week, so the three we talked about, um, actually one of them is does not have a header. So, uh, I think culture and climate we said was an evergreen. And the one right below that that starts with the phrase in and increasingly is an attendance goal, but it's not labeled as attendance, but I think that's not it's a separate thing. Yeah. And that's also an evergreen. And then the third one
124was fiscal responsibility, I think. And communication. Yes. Right. These are things that are always more like core values and that we're always striving for but we the board wants you know the board wants the district always to be working towards but um >> so so which ones are not forever green >> right now health and safety and academic I think >> yep >> so everything else is forever okay >> I mean that's it's up for discussion but that's that was an initial discussion. >> And does anyone have an a suggestion for a title for the um in in an increasingly online and isolated society goal like in-person learning maybe? >> Oh my god. >> Okay. >> I love it. is okay. Okay, I'll volunteer to read culture and climate as our first evergreen goal. The
125board is committed to creating and nurturing an environment in which every student is supported, engaged, and progressing on their indivi on their individual path. The board will prioritize whole student well-being by supporting programs that meet our students where they are and offer them the academic, extracurricular, and life skill building opportunities that will put them in the best position to succeed and become lifelong learners. The board will additionally support the administration's efforts to foster a culturally responsive sustaining education framework which is a centerpiece of New York State's transition to the portrait of a graduate blueprint for student uh for future graduates. Does anyone have any uh edits to uh recommend or any revisions? Clerk So this is my suggestion. Uh let let me just say you know let let me know how you feel about it.
126So the um I was going to say to add u a definition of portrait of a graduate in parenthesis and and list all the stuff that New York State lists for portrait of >> we could link it hyperlink >> could link it. >> Would that work for you? I was going to suggest the same thing. >> So it' be the hyperlink for the circle. >> Yes. >> That's awesome. Great idea. Emily, can you do that right now? >> Okay. I mean, not right this second, but while we're chatting. >> Awesome. >> All right. in-person learning in an increasingly online and isolated society, being present for educational instruction. I feel like this is a um runon I can already see. Including arriving on time at the start of each school day. Okay, hold on. This is
127way too long. Can we say uh can I correct as I go? Um >> I mean they're often long. It doesn't have to be totally grammatically correct. I guess >> arriving to Stephanie laughing if she would like to make a suggest of each school day and having daily inter daily humanto human interaction and play is crucial not only to fostering a productive exciting vibrant and equitable learning environment but to the mental health, social skills and academic development of our students. Regular attendance so that our students can be present for themselves and each other is a core value of our district. The board will support the administration's ongoing efforts to reduce absenteeism and increase in-person engagement for our students. I think the so is weird. Regular attendance. So, I don't know. I just feel like that
128should be a different word. >> I have a little suggestion for the syntax there. Yeah. Uh which was just to flip the order of the sentence. So we could say regular attendance is a core value of our district and then so that our students or you know which results in our students being present for themselves and each other that could solve that something like that. Yeah, regular attendance is a core value of our district. And then we need a bridge word that then goes back to the first part of the sentence so that our students can be present for themselves and each other. Same sentence, just switch the order. So we just need >> Did you say like which allows our students to be >> love that? Wow. Oh, cool. I'll read what I have.
129I'm I'm not sure that I captured it. Regular attendance is the is a core value of our district which allows our students to be Now I'm lost. Oh, present for themselves and each other. >> Uh what about just the runon is bothering me. I have a suggestion about how to do that. >> Period after play and then write this is >> I would say after crucial >> and then and then say it not only fosters um but supports the mental health >> you know something like that >> being present for educational instruction including arriving on time at the end of each at the start of each school day. I mean is do we feel do our administrators feel that that uh tardiness is enough of an issue in our district that that's a very important
130yes okay um and I think we could make humanto human just human having daily human interaction >> right um and play is crucial is crucial period it it not only fosters a productive exciting environmental learning but supports the mental health social skills and academic Yeah. So that just make it two sentences instead of one. >> Did you get that, Emily? >> I think I did. Yeah. >> Okay. Okay. Good. Great. So if you if you read some of my stuff below when we first started this a while ago, I was thinking about measurable goals. So this is one area where we could do something a little measurable like uh attendance and graduation rates are as good or better than the previous year. If that's something that you're interested in changing that to? >> I would
131I would encourage attendance to be improving every year. I think graduation rates are difficult because if we go from a class with 80 or 90 students to a class with 68, one student not graduating is going to shift that percentage dramatically. and it it becomes not a not a fair comparison. >> Here's where I'm going with this. So, with everything that's going on at the federal level, I I'm very concerned that with the affordability issue and more importantly with the loss of health care, we have supposedly 12 million people in America that's going to lose or I guess five million now it's the last number that are going to lose health care and that is going to affect families in a negative way and we have to be on the lookout for students that's um
132whose grades have gone down or their attendance has has gone down and I think we we need to really be diligent on that given January 1st right now loss of healthare. I'm very concerned with that that issue and I don't know if we need to write something into the goals based on that or or where we want to go with that but that's one of my concerns. I could be all wrong here. I I hope I am. Yeah. On that score. I just was going to suggest one inserting two words which is probably something the board should do. Instead of the board will support the administration's ongoing efforts. The board will support and monitor and in give us a a responsibility to keep tabs on what's going on, but um you know uh as far
133as setting specific numerical goals, I don't know if that's a good idea. I totally hear what you're saying and I think it's a really important role for the board to be thinking about all the kids and I just keep thinking about MTSS and that presentation and I just feel really good that that's really in place in the district because it seems to me like it's always scanning for that and I know that um in the last meeting we added into the academic goal continuing to support the academic goal is also academic a and attendance and we have that bullet point in there about continuing to support the imple implementation of the MTSS. So hopefully that would I mean I defer to you but hopefully that would do what uh Trustee Goodrich is is hoping for.
134I think it would and I and I and I think we've already seen the result, you know, uh the initial results of the success of our MTSS program, you know, with um increased attendance, increased um achievement uh on the uh New York State 38 assessments. So, you know, I I think we're well on our way with a process to oversee that progress. Anything else, Clark? >> I I think that sounds good. I mean, I don't really have the numbers, but I'm guessing we're talking about out of 70 students in each class grade level. We're probably talking about six students that may be affected by this. I'm guessing, you know, maybe it's, you know, so those six we need to be laser focused on, you know, whatever we need to do, you know, can't lose them.
135And I would say that um we're really really fortunate in this district to have um a a higher number of the support staff that can really you know watch out for those students. We have you know a a really great number of social workers, school psychologists, um you know guidance or you know school counselors at the uh at the high school middle school high school level. So we really have a lot of people who are in contact with kids and watching watching for those kind of issues. All right. Who would like to read the next evergreen goal? Um I'll just say that uh fiscal planning and oversight and communication. I don't know that we changed those except maybe to shift some dates. But do we have a reader, a volunteer? Jenny, >> I wonder with
136this fiscal planning and oversight goal, how making it evergreen if we might change that first sentence to the board will support the creation of an annual budget because then we don't have to the board will support the creation of an annual budget that prioritizes student needs and a long-term fiscal plan that prioritizes the continued financial health and sustainability of the district. Somebody gets to do a thesaurus and replace one of those prioritizes or two prioritizes. The board will continue to advance the next steps in the process. It has already begun. Ah, okay. Interesting. Wonder if we want this here. >> I think we could strike in the process. It has already begun entirely. Just the next steps of in the next steps in or of creating >> the next steps in the creation >> in
137the creation of a yeah >> in the creation. The board will continue to advance the next steps in the creation of a unified K to2 central campus that is strategically planned, future focused, financially and environmentally sustainable and an optimal learning environment for all the students in our district. The board will strive on an ongoing basis to provide clear, understandable information to the public on the educational and financial reasoning behind the K to2 long-term plan. Do we need to do that since we've made the plan? So, I would recommend striking that sentence starting with the board will strive through K to2 long-term plan. >> I I would suggest just putting a period after public Because we we do we did that tonight. We we need we're going to need to update the >> ah >> yeah
138agree. >> The board will strive on an ongoing basis to provide clear understandable information to the public. >> Period. The administration will make the long-term plan available to the public and provide progress updates as they become available. Any further um suggestions for edits on the fiscal planning and oversight goal? >> Did you get those changes, Emily? >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> It was just one change. >> Okay. Right. >> Was it? >> No, there were two. >> No, we're missing one. >> We got the first sentence. >> Victoria's got it. >> Oh, good. Okay. >> Yes. Thank you. Would anyone like to read the communication goal, which is our fourth evergreen goal? Um, communication. The board recognizes the paramount importance of engaging and communicating clearly with our community partners. To that end, we will continue
139to partner with our Boseies consultant and district administration to implement improvements in our communications strategies. The board and administration will communicate its priorities, report its progress on initiatives, and address community concerns in detail through presentations at our public board meetings, monthly board briefs, and quarterly district newsletters. Any suggestions for edits? Do we want to mention that it's a committee or we're just saying the board in general? I guess is fine. >> Well, I think it is a committee, but you know, we we always rely on the board to uh edit, revise, make suggestions, and approve. The only thing I see missing there is that we do inerson events. We do um uh we do social media. I wonder If we're talking about that, I wonder if it should be included. Um would we um maybe
140at the end of the last sentence say as well as or >> so adding and public events to the And would we add digital campaigns or something like that? Because we do what? No. >> Okay. Two spec. Okay. Okay. So, Ellenville had uh in the words to build respectful collaborative relationships with the community. So, this kind of goes along with what um our superintendent does with the town supervisors. Do we want to say anything about that as a board goal is communicating with the the community? Maybe that phrase could replace the word engaging. You know, the board recognizes the paramount importance of developing respectful relationships and communicating clearly with our community partners. Sorry. The board recognizes the paramount importance of and instead of engaging developing respectful what what was Ellenville's I mean, I also think
141that's going to be especially important with like Woodstock and so I do think it's good to include something like that >> relationships with our community partners. And really the whole next section is about communicating clearly. So maybe we don't even need it there. You know what I mean? It's repetitive. Any other suggestions for for communication? All right. Shall we go back to health and safety use of artificial intelligence and technology? Okay. Health and safety use of artificial intelligence and technology. As the administration continues its work with Boseies in a pilot program to develop sound and thoughtful policies on the safe and effective use of artificial intelligence in the district, the board will seek to increase engagement and knowledge in the parent and guardian community on the issues surrounding AI and tech through outreach programs. The
142district should move toward a clear, easy to understand set of district-wide expectations regarding the safe and ethical use of AI at home. I'm really glad that we had the internet safety uh presentation before we got here to this final goal because I have had some conversations and it got me to thinking about maybe adding a little sentence to this and it kind of ties in with the title that it's given which is use of artificial intelligence and technology. Y um something that is coming up and it came up at the um internet safety committee, but also some folks asked me within the last couple weeks, hey did anything come of the reading of the anxious generation like did the board like do anything and I was like no. Um and then at the internet um
143safety meeting, you know, there was some interesting thoughts about and actually Trusty Mitchell Morurell had sent me an article recently about like is it a great thing that our kids are on uh laptops all day long like what we were talking with Trustee Jerome about how interesting it is when teachers are giving options to do a physical project or a drawing. I was wondering if maybe we wanted to add a sentence that said something like um the last sentence as it is the district should move toward a clear easy to understand set of district-wide expectations regarding the safe and ethical use of AI at home and explore best practices around use of tech in and outside the classroom as a way of maybe asking ourselves as we move towards portrait of a graduate and we're
144assessing in lots of different ways like maybe like what what is the best practice for learning this at this age? Is it typing on a Chromebook or is it drawing a picture? Is it going outside? Just so that we don't let Chromebooks kind of like devour all the learning without like there being, you know, thought. Maybe we think about it and the answer is yeah, it's all got to be on the Chromebook. or maybe we think about it, we're like actually best practices at this age handwriting this helps them remember it. I just thought maybe we could put a bumper in there because I'm thinking it's coming up a lot. I'm hearing it a lot from parents and if we were at least to explore it then there would be ground there for like here's
145why here's why this is happening on the Chromebook. Yeah, I think there is definitely like a backlash for edtech right now that we should just be aware of. And like I also think in the name of recruitment like private schools definitely are like we don't like do screens or whatever. And I definitely heard people be like well they use screens in kindergarten which they use like 30 minutes a week and it's not a huge deal but I think for some people that's just like turn off deal breaker. So we just we need to be aware and it's also like the research on it is like different than it was like even a couple years ago. So, >> I don't mean to derail, but can we go back to that last sentence and ethical use of
146AI? Could we just put a period there? Because the safe and ethical use of AI at home is really >> it's not really what I think the board intends because the way it reads it makes it to me if I'm a parent reading that I'm thinking >> wait you you want to tell me how the district >> not not the parent but well it's tricky because um you know I I don't you know this this may be completely overstepping, but this is what we were talking about at the last meeting is is um and I think Trusty Jared brought this up a little bit is that there's some confusion between kids about there are different expectations teacher to teacher. Um and uh uh that's fine and that you know but uh in other words the
147issue the techn the use of that technology is very um has guard rails around it on their on their Chromebooks, right? But it's it's outside. It's it's it's what you bring back to school that you know it's like um uh when my kids were in school, you know, every paper it was a different time. It was a time when people were sort of going on Google to find a paper that somebody else wrote, you know, that kind of thing. Um, and so at their school they had to sign a little honor code on, you know, every written assignment they turned in, they said, "I wrote this myself," you know, or something like that. Um, but it's the the problem is that that that the it's it is outside of school where the risks are greatest,
148I think. Um and um that could still left be left to teacher by teacher but um um I think there is some confusion in our student body about you know >> I don't disagree with what you're saying but this does not capture to my reading it what you're saying is a safe and ethical use of AI on school work. >> Yeah that's what it says at home. Okay, I see what you mean. >> That was the only >> Uhhuh. >> Yeah. So, you could you could you could strike at home, but just as long as there was clear >> and add school work or just strike at home at on school. >> I think adding it is a good idea >> on school work. >> Just to state the obvious, this paragraph is all about
149health and safety for AI. It doesn't really explore the internet or other safe things here at school. So just that's all we're talking about is health and safety for AI. Correct. >> Yeah. But we're not really extending it to internet. I don't think as we >> so I'm just thinking about my own kids and I'm thinking about like the container of school and what is within the container of school and I think AI outside of the school building is the thing that the board it makes sense for the board to address as a goal because it feeds directly back into school because of Google Classroom. So my son can complete all his homework on his PC in his bedroom which doesn't have John Rhymer monitoring it. So, example A would be in a communication to
150parents, the communication is have your children complete their work on their Chromebook because they don't have access to any of the stuff that we're worried about because John Rymer has it locked down. So, like that that to me is something that makes sense for us to have a board goal about. It doesn't, you know, it doesn't make sense though to maybe have a board goal about the internet because they don't have access to the internet during the school day. They're always trying, but John Rhyr is always a step ahead of them. But at home, that's a parent choice, you know, and it doesn't feed back into school the way that doing classwork on a non-school device can feed back into their grades in school. Um, so I'm not sure, you know, later in new business
151I was going to ask about like the whole book club thing and, you know, how we could maybe standardize it. That could be a space where we could address things like technology. Yeah. I mean, I think the reason I wanted to focus this goal at AI is because I just do feel like it's a it's a freight train barreling at us and it's going to be way different a year from now and then way different again two years from now and unless we start trying to wrap our arms around some expectations for our students that uh we'll be playing catchup forever. Yeah. >> So, question for our superintendent. Usually I like to if I ask a question like this I like to let you know ahead of time I'm gonna ask it. So I apologize.
152Um so where's what is the school policy kind of do they really want all school work being done on the Chrome and not on the students private PC? I mean what's I mean there is a big difference with with AI if they have access to chat GPT on their private you know their their PC they have at home um that's a whole new ball game you know as well as social media so do we want to try to re you know keep the school goals restricted to our Chromebook that we give them which is locked I we don't have a districtwide like policy on that. I just want to walk it back a little bit to the first sentence which is kind of where why we landed on this goal was that you know Steph
153um Superintendent Laughen is like in the middle with administrators and teachers on like doing really good training and development around this. And so we didn't want to jump out in front of that work because it's deep and nuanced. And we were just trying to figure out what could the board do to support the students and the families while that work unfolded. And the thing that we landed on was we can communicate with parents and guardians so that they understand what we're even talking about and they have knowledge around it so they can support their child in actually learning and they can be aware because there are parents in this district and guardians who don't know what chat GPT is who have no idea that their kid is going onto the home computer and typing into
154a thing, write me a paper at a fifth grade level on Peter Rabbit, copy, paste, submit. They don't know that. And that is something that we are not interrupting the process of the district. We're just helping try to like connect with the people that are safeguarding the learning outside of the school building when it might not be on the computer. I really like the way that this goal is written. Um, we're also trying not to infringe on people's rights. So, I just want to make that clear, too. Um, I think that this I mean to me all of these are evergreen and they all are open to expansion and exploration. So, I don't know if I'm into this evergreen thing, but um but uh I do really like that piece of if this is about
155our um investigation um uh into the use of art and and around health and safety and learning really if we add that extra piece of like exploring best standards. I love that piece um you know of exploring best standards um of teaching in this radically digital age that we live in. Then I think it says it and and we can't we don't tell people what to do at home. Um yeah, but I like it. I thought it it reached almost everything. I'd love it if we could weave in that little piece, too. But yeah, and this is an evergreen goal as well because it's like but it's like AI can't be evergreen. like we're definitely going to have to change this next time, >> but it's definitely a big topic for the next year and
156a half for sure. >> I think that this goal will change. This one is not an evergreen because this goal is an example of a goal that by next, you know, by the time this expires in 2027, there will have been so much happen at the district level that this goal will look completely different. And I don't know what that will even look like, but yeah, I think this would be one that wouldn't be evergreen in the way it's written now. >> I'm just saying that all of these are open to um transformation and like I guess what made my ears prick is when it was like academics not evergreen. Wait, what? You know, like they're all I don't know if evergreen is a great term. I just think that these are our goals. Um
157this will evolve. I think we've worked hard not to make them super tactical, but rather make them visionary. So, and and of course it will change, but um I don't want anybody to think that something's set in, you know, something's valued over the other or whatnot. I will just say that we can say that a few of these are evergreen and a few of them are not, but you know, in a few years, the board is going to look really different than it does right now. and that board will make other decisions. >> I was just going to say maybe a better terminology is prior year continuing goals and this year's new goals. You know, continuing versus new. >> I'm just going back to why we why we came up with this idea. And I
158think it also returns to what we were saying about how accelerated the timeline has felt about getting the goals done that it did feel a little bit like I don't want to use the term waste of time but like to rewrite an attendance goal to rewrite a fiscal sponsorship goal fiscal accountability goal every year feels like in such a limited amount of time a bit of so maybe it's not that they're evergreen but maybe it's just that our board can be the first board to set standard of just readopting, read and read, but it doesn't have to be from scratch every new board like now we have to write this board's financial accountability goal. Maybe it's just like a process thing that we can, you know, put in place. >> I just have a question
159about the end of that goal. So, do we want to add then and explore best practices of teaching in the digital age? I feel like maybe that's contained in the first sentence. >> Okay. >> Isn't that what you're doing at Boseies? Sort of. >> Yeah. >> Jenny, >> the other thought I had as we were talking is that maybe that idea if we wanted to could plug into the academic goal and it could be about, you know what I mean? Maybe it doesn't belong here, but maybe it actually belongs as a bullet point in the academic goal. So that goal ends with um and ethical use of AI on schoolwork period. >> Not yet. Right. Right now it still says AI at home. So do we do we >> we edited it. It's uh ethical
160use of AI. Oh, Emily didn't do it yet. Oh, you did. Uh ethical use of AI on schoolwork. >> All right. I just looked on on the screen. I saw all your other changes, Emily, but the the at home is still there. Somebody Yes, somebody's in. Do we want to move on to academic? Miss Jared, would you like to read that one? Great title. Academic. Need a new title. The board commits to monitoring and improving student success and attendance by ensuring shifts in curriculum, course offerings, instruction, and professional development needed to align with portrait of a graduate by fall 2027. The board supports providing robust professional development opportunities to equip employees to enhance student academic performance. The board continues to support the implementation of MTSS. The board supports identifying opportunities for enhanced academic pathways that
161support students who thrive with greater rigor. >> What about after academic performance adding like and new teaching methods or modern researched teaching methods? I don't I just don't want to put all the emphasis on performance but also on like trying different ways of teaching to different kind of kids. I thought about that, but the only then it makes it seem like it's only for those who I was think who want academic rigor. Maybe I was thinking the board supports exploring as another bullet point um uh evolving educational standards and press best practices in a rapidly evolving digital world or something like thing like at the bottom. I could add that. I just was thinking in terms of professional development like teachers are learning different and new methods that are like just coming out, right? That's
162kind of what it is. >> I'm not crazy about equip employees like to talk about our teachers as employees is feels a little >> educators. Yeah. Um, but it's, you know, it's like it's it's not just giving them equipment like we saw tonight. Those those teachers are are excited to come in and teach. And it's it's a contagious excitement in our district. You know what I mean? It's it's more than equipment. It's it's um in inspiration, you know what I mean? >> And it's more than performance. It is it's like um you know it's there's a lot of like >> our teachers there's a lot it's multi-layered. >> Yeah. to inspire de professional development opportunities to inspire our teachers and um raise our or um >> our teachers and our students to inspire our teachers
163and our students. >> To inspire educators and >> and then take out the advanced part Yeah. >> Yes. Take that out. >> So, okay. To inspire our educators and students or um to inspire our educators and student academic performance because that sentence currently ends with academic performance. >> No. Yeah. Right. So just inspire period, you know, like the inspiring part and get rid of the academic performance. >> Right. So I have um the board supports providing robust professional development opportunities to inspire our educators and students. >> Perfect. the last uh sentence of that goal. Um is that intended to dovetail with the portrait of a graduate? So the the last sentence, the board supports identify uh wait >> yes that one. >> Yeah. The board supports identifying opportunities for enhanced academic pathways that support students
164who thrive with greater rigor. >> Like kind of like the top students or the students who do best. I'm not sure. >> The students who get a hundred on every test, we have to question whether they're really geniuses or whether they need more challenging programming. That's how I would state it. between us. >> I think for me this is just about our DEI goal and equity and just making sure that every portion of our student community is just being provided with what we said we were going to provide them with in that first goal, which is just like a learning appropriate to where they're at. And I'm super grateful for like all the supports that our district offers, but I I do think that there is a potential especially with centralization to to see the
165space for creativity and I think it's already happening um in the middle school which is really exciting and I think that we can change um the wording around it to something that reflects more like offering learning opportunities for you know for every >> meet every learner where they are on every level or something >> which we have I mean that's like our culture and climate like the very first goal says that says that to me this is just uh like an a more of an action the academic goal I really saw as like an actual goal, you know, like where where could we refocus now that we're not focused on how what schools should be open or closed. And I think that there's room to ask ourselves as a district what we can provide to
166kids who who are rigorous learners because they are in our district. they are an important part of the district and I think that there's opportunities to provide possibly um more appropriate learning specified to them as well. Um I yeah I don't understand if it's shocking or something. Okay. All right. Great. Just clarity. Okay. Good. That's the clarity. I think that you probably put it most well that it's like an equitable like making sure that wherever you are that you're having that you're challenged and that we are a small district where we have small cohorts and we can have smoke small cohorts um at any level, right? and then we're supporting them at any level. >> My question was around the phrase enhanced academic pathways. So when you look at New York inspires, New York State
167is going to give us and encourage districts to develop graduation pathways. So that phrase academic pathways, you're you're it it calls something that's going to be further developed from state ed intentionally. Do you know what I mean? It's like using a phrase that means something else in addition to its just kind of generic use. So that is really what I was um unclear about. And then um thrive with greater rigor just looking for some clarification. But I think you know what what was rigorous to one student is not rigorous to another. And when it comes to you know all learners being clear about the all learners part meaning all learners needs to their growth to grow all learners that you know because really it's about growth it's about growing all students and I think maybe
168if we can think about growth as to a set point of rigor that might you know growth for all perhaps you might consider some language around that if that's what you're talking about. I just wasn't clear really what that sentence meant and the particularly the enhanced academic pathways language because that means something else when it comes to New York inspires or I should say something very specific. >> Just a quick edit suggestion you could move the word opportunities over where pathways is. The board supports identifying enhanced academic opportunities that support you understand you strike the word for move the word opportunities where pathways is and really instead of that support just for there as well. The board supports identifying enhanced academic opportunities for students who thrive with thrive with greater rigor or Yeah. who uh
169yeah >> so allow students to grow. >> I don't want to lose the part of it's the spectrum of students, right? I think that we do an excellent job as a district. um with with students who need support and and it is rigorous for them at one level but not at all levels. So, I just want to make sure that we're identifying that um that those as I think you said once and I've never forgot it, people who are hitting their head on the top of what we have to offer that we identify that it's the spectrum of I don't know what the proper term would be. Stephanie, maybe you could help me with that because it it's a little awkward, right? Um to talk about the fact that we're talking about um different types
170of students and different types of learners, right? Um, how do we say that in appropriate terms? >> I think just to color this in a little, I think maybe Caroline's concern is like a top learner could fall through the cracks because no one's paying attention. If you're struggling a lot, that calls attention to you. If you're doing extremely well, maybe you're bored and it's too easy for you, but no one's going to notice because you're doing great. Okay, I'm just going to take one more shot at it. The board supports identifying enhanced academic growth opportunities for all students. And thank you for the candid conversation and and and like because it's as I say it's not it was well put Rick. Thank you. >> Thank you all. So good. Do we need to add anything
171else or change anything else in that goal? physically on the document the AI part is like in another part is anyone else seeing this so like should I move that somewhere or it's just it's just its own category of health and safe use of >> artificial and should have it at the bottom does it matter >> um are you looking at the uh >> I think I just don't see for some reason maybe >> what I'm looking at uh it is the first goal health and safety >> oh okay okay maybe you're right I'm gonna have my computer's frozen so >> oh Okay, >> I did have one small edit to suggest. I I I think we might be able to strike and attendance from the first sentence because we have a completely distinct attendance
172goal. >> Improving student success by ensuring shifts. Yeah, I think the attendance part is redundant. And are we trying to approve this tonight or >> I think we can improve it tonight and then we can all take a look at it and just make sure that it reflects what we think we we spoke about. Yeah. Like because I know there's a lot of editing going on. Um, and but I do think if if we're all good with it tonight, we can approve it and uh then we can I don't know, we can present it at our next meeting as approved if if we all approve. >> I'm not attached to the um best practices of learning with that great sentence that Caroline had structure. I'm not attached to adding it. I do feel like it's
173a conversation that's starting to really come up and happen. So, if these goals are going to be around till 2027, I feel like it's going to come up. So, I don't know if there's a harm in call calling it and just bringing it, you know, to our attention. But, if everybody feels like it's a lot, I'm I won't cry. I promise. >> Personally, I think it's a really good statement. But I've added it to two goals now and crossed it out. So somebody else has to >> so this would be within academic um with an academic goal. The last bullet point or one of the bullet points would be >> the board supports exploring um evolving educational standards and best practices in a rapidly evolving digital world or landscape or something like that. Is that
174that's the one? >> Yeah, I think I I don't know if we feel like we need to specify in in the use of tech or anything like that just to make it clear that we're we're aware that we're just paying attention to how much tech in the classroom and if it is the always you know the best mode of learning that particular thing at that particular age. Um yeah. Uh so let's take out the word digital and try to like work in technology like um standards and best practice is um I'm just going to jump in real quick. I I think we have to be careful that we are not um you know stepping uh outside our own the board's purview because we're not able to dictate what happens in the classroom. Um so whatever
175we say should be um neutral enough that it doesn't come across as us you know trying to monitor or impose you know how how teaching is happening in the classroom. >> My initial instinct was that keeping a breast of bre best practices is really what uh PD is about. Right. So you might just want to attach it to the end of the PD sentence. Providing robust prof professional development opportunities. What's the current status of that sentence? To to inspire our educators and students and to make sure our teaching is following best practices or you know and to to keep them educated on developments and best practices because that that's that's really >> Yeah. Sorry. It really like covers us too. So it's like if something completely changes and they're like laptops are terrible for everyone,
176we're keeping informed and can make changes. >> It does. Okay. So the new sentences, the board supports providing robust professional development opportunities to inspire educators and students and to make sure our teaching teaching is following best practices or best current practices researched like should I add not just best it's sort of like topical. It's a very it could just be best practices in a rapidly evolving world or something like as general as that. But that sort of says that it's like stuff is changing in the dayto day. So best practices in a changing world rapidly evolving. So it's supposed to Okay. Are we there? Are we there yet? Yeah. Okay. So, we can if we can agree on the goals as drafted um we'll fine-tune them in the dock like maybe make a separate doc
177so that it's not confusing at all and then uh we can add them to the next agenda. They don't write. Yeah. It's a consensus. So, do we want to add just add them to the next agenda so that community members can read them if they'd like and we don't even have to discuss them? You know, we can just or we can we'll decide. Let's see what happens. Okay. All right. Good work, everyone. Okay. Consent agenda. The board hereby approves items number 14.02 through 14.13. I have a first trusty major. Second, trusty Jerome. Any questions or comments? >> I have reviewed the uh schedule U and everything seems to be in order. >> Perfect. Thank you, Trusty Smith. Trusty Jared, >> congratulations to our model UN and DECA students. So proud of them for going to
178Boston and going to competitions are real leaders. Hooray. >> Any other comments? All right. All in favor? That's unanimous. Thank you. Item 15.01, approve all contracts and independent contract retainers. The board hereby approves items number Oh, just item number 15.02. May I have a first? Trusty Jared. Second. Trusty Jerome. Any questions or comments? All in favor? That's unanimous. Thank you. On to committee reports. >> Any updates from committees? >> Facilities is meeting Thursday. any other committees policy met yesterday. We worked on a lot of transportation policies. I'm sure they'll be coming up on our next board agenda. Um, so we all got an email about this this afternoon, but today was the Governor Hokll's um, state of the state address, and uh, so the public might be interested in what she said. Um, I watched
179part of it. Um, uh, the the big headline is that she's going to propose a three-year phase in of truly universal prek, whatever that means. Um, but an expansion of prek access in the state. Um uh I'm not sure whether it's four year olds. I know Mayor Mom Donnie in the city is going beyond that and she is supporting him in that. But um as far as statewide um again this is a proposal it has to go has to be you know taken up by the legislature. But a few of the other headlines, um, uh, she also proposed statewide supports to provide instructional best practices in math, targeted support for current classroom teachers and science-based reading instruction. She wants to address teacher shortages. Um, this isn't so much for us, but clean green program to
180support infrastructure and nature-based solutions to compat combat extreme heat in schoolyards, which is probably mainly a problem in asphalt schoolyards, which we don't have as many of youth mental health initiatives and also developing New York's own set of immunization standards given what's going on with HHS. Um but uh and so the governor's uh will as as uh assistant superintendentlair said, she'll come out with her executive budget in a few weeks and we'll have to monitor that carefully and there may be opportunities for um uh you know uh lobbying advocacy um which I'll try to keep you a breast of. The communications committee met yesterday. We had a very productive meeting. Um we were able to speak um a bit with our um consultant Renee I forget her last name uh who works closely with Holly
181and uh through Boseies. Renee >> Jorski um and and we had an opportunity to just kind of debrief a little bit about the process, the difference in the process from uh the May bond votes, you know, to the uh the December bond vote and just our our successes and things like that as in terms of a communications committee and and the entire board. So that was great. Caroline, >> I just would add that we yeah, we debriefed on like the whole our communications with the community and um one point that I just wanted to share with the board is that we talked about how the authenticity within our board um you know filled up all of our communications. So I I thought that's just something that we should remember. Um uh that was a really
182powerful experience and and I think that um our work together helped them be as successful and they did a great job. Yeah. I Yeah. Just to be um a little bit more detailed about that piece of the conversation, she had listed a number of things that she thought uh may be our number one reason for getting the bond passed this time. and we all said the work of the board. It was like unanimous. It was just I mean not not the work of the board like you know yes we were out in the community. We were you know whatever we were attending everything we could but it was our work at the table that made the change and then the community got behind us. um really the the month of October, four meetings, you know,
183it was like that's what we said. I I really believe that so >> there's gonna be a documentary called like one long October. >> Oh my gosh. Amazing. >> I'm gonna put my foot in my mouth here. So, um at the Rural Rural Schools Association you know, they they do a lot of presentations and, you know, maybe somebody wants to do a presentation on why we we were successful and h how that happened. >> Well, I'm just going to say this out loud. I did say to Superintendent McLaren >> that if the bond passes, we have to do a presentation. So, we'll see. As long as it's we definitely >> we could all help to create it if you guys are going to present it. I actually don't think it would be that hard. Awesome.
184>> Sounds great. >> Teamwork. >> So you might want to include Boseies. >> Yes, we may want to include Boseies. >> Actually, they would love that. >> I know. >> Yeah, that's good advertising. >> Yeah. Big time. All right. Any other committee reports? Any unfinished business? Okay, I'm gonna just bring up the anxious generation and the idea of the book club and I would love maybe it could be an agenda item coming up um for discussion around takeaways of the board reading the governance code together because a lot of you participated in that and some of you may or may not decide to stay. So it' be really cool to just unpack like book club with the board trustees with discussion what is the purpose of that like how could that you know be recommended
185or become a thing book club with a community with parents what's the takeaway and what what would be the why did we learn if we did another one um you know how could we live into these goals you know tag tag it along to some of these goals because I think it's super cool. You know, this idea that the board is learning together because if we are always learning, that's when we're really doing like very important creative work. You know, we're like our wheels are turning. So, I just think it would be a great thing to spend a little time on on an agenda that isn't as heavy, you know, maybe >> good idea. and assistant superintendent laughing had prepared some excellent you know um questions sort of um thought prompts and things like that.
186Maybe you could bring those with you to the next board meeting if we put it on the agenda at the next board meeting just to kind of jog our memory and bring us back to where we were. >> Yeah, I was just going to say that One really I thought really great thing about it um it wasn't intended that way. It was really intended to be a more of a um parent community outreach but I think the number of teachers and administrators who came um on their own time um outnumbered the parents by a little bit. I think it was about equal and um and there was a really great just sampling of the wholeor community there. It was it wasn't that big. I think it was maybe 20 25 people, but you know um
187raising it was really just you know it's I'm a child of the 70s. I just saw a great play in in New York called Liberation which is about consciousness raising and that it's really that book is about consciousness raising. It just makes you aware. It just makes you see things that are right in front of all of us but we don't necessarily think about them coherently. um as a as a as a identified thing. Um and just to see get the perspectives of teachers, administrators, parents, board members, uh it was it was really great. And you know, um I think the the way that that can function in our district, it's like it's like throwing a stone in a pond. like you know you create you now there's a group of 25 people who've read
188this book and thought are thinking about these issues a little differently or whatever and then they need to go and talk to people and you know it needs to um and and so if we do more outreach around AI or tech whatever in the spring you know hopefully those people will come back because it's very tied into the kind of things we were talking about there and and it it takes a while to build because it it was a commitment. It was three nights and it turned out to be there were people a fair number of people who signed up and just didn't end up making it because of life or whatever. But uh um I think it was a great start. We also talked about at that communication meeting I think as I say
189expanding sort of this programming around um social media use of technology AI etc etc and different ways we could engage with our community of stakeholders whether that's um our educators or parents or students. But then didn't we float the idea maybe of like having an event just an idea of course at the end where there you'd have students who would be on a panel and sharing their perspectives. So I thought that was so great to think about different when people teachers get up or educators get up and speak to us about their work or we hear from students we talk a lot. It just it it it's a it's a more vibrant uh conversation. Yes. Any other unfinished business? Any new business? Any requests for information? All right. Our next meeting is February 10th, 2026
190and it is at the middle school high school. May I have a motion to adjourn? Trusty Jared second. Trustee Goodrich. All in favor? Okay. Thank you.