September 30th 2025 - Board of Education Meeting

001Good evening everyone and welcome to the September 30th uh board meeting of the onour central school district. Please I'm sorry uh we have a tobacco policy in place. There is no smoking within 100 ft of any school building. Please rise for the pledge of allegiance. Board clerk, will you please take role? Trusty Smith >> here. >> Trusty Jared >> here. >> Trusty Mitchell Moral >> here. >> Trusty Jerome >> here. >> Trusty Goodrich >> here. >> Trusty Kensson >> here. >> Trusty Bishop >> here. >> Thank you. >> Okay, we'll start our meeting with Woodstock principal Scott Richards welcoming the board. Well, that's a first. Thank you. >> Um, so I just want to start off by welcoming you all here tonight. Uh, my welcome will be a little bit shorter as we're about 17

00218 days into the school year. Uh, but I did pick out a few things to just kind of highlight some of the focuses for this year. um some of the things that we're working on just get you up to speed and then hopefully when I come back next time I'll have a little bit more uh information for you. John, you can click for me. That would be great. Thanks. Um so this year we started the school year with uh eight new uh faculty and staff members. Uh we did hire two new fifth grade teachers. We did hire a music teacher. We've also uh brought two teachers in from Bennett who are splitting some time between Woodstock and Bennett. And then we've had a little bit of transfers from different departments into the building this year.

003And it's just it's really nice adding fifth grade this year to have just the additional people, the additional energy, the additional ideas. Um so I just wanted to just take a moment to welcome them and just say it's been a great start with them so far. Uh this year for professional development and focuses for the elementary buildings, we're continuing to look for opportunities to align our professional areas both vertically and horizontally. This again is the first time we've had K5 in this building in a while. So having that opportunity within the building to have conversations about what we need to do to prepare kids for the grades above and also the grades below um gives us a really nice opportunity within the building to have that conversation but also to have the building with the

004Bennett teachers as well. We're also this year taking uh a deeper dive into our data branching minds. I know that you heard a lot about that last year and a lot of your presentations. So just wanted to put it out there again. Last year really was our first year uh of using that platform and having data from the year before and also live data as we were putting it in. Now we have almost two years worth of data plus the data that we're putting in this year. So, we really should be able to get a handle on where everybody's at, uh, who needs which intervention, and also which students are excelling and and thinking about how we can plan for them as well. Uh, we'll also be working on some report card revisions for K

005through three. Um, I've been here 12 years. Uh, we have not touched the report cards in 12 years, and as I'm sure you're all aware, a lot changes in education quickly. um especially when we're talking about curriculum and we're talking about uh where kids are going for the future. So that'll be a project for this year and I'm sure you'll get updates as we do that. Um attendance that's always a focus for us coming out of COVID. Uh we did see some really good improvements last year from students that we focused on um to improve attendance. Uh we're going to have another meeting to kind of compare our data um from the previous two years. Uh we're I believe we're meeting next week uh to get that information going so we can start working on

006getting kids in school. Um professional development. Again, we've only been here for, you know, short period of time, but we've already done quite a bit. And a lot of that's with Miss Laughen's help. Um, we did have some Morningside training already. That was for our new teachers. Um, so she trained the fifth grade teachers, also the Bennett teachers as well. Um, she came in last week and did some demo lessons, which was greatly appreciated for our fifth grade teachers. Um, and she also met with our liaison to kind of plan for the year uh, which topics and uh, which which areas to focus on this year with our teachers. co-teer training that started last year and we kicked off this year by training new teachers. You'll hear a common theme here to get them up

007to speed and also to have us make sure we're all using the same language. Uh and then the coach came in and actually coached some of our more veteran teams on information and um ideas that we worked on last year. Um, she also wrote us a very nice detailed report from the day and the things that she saw, the things that she liked, um, and the things we could do a little better, but everything was really, really positive and there's been some really nice changes in a short period of time. Uh, we also have David Tranter working on illustrative math. Uh, he did some intro sessions, working on some classroom integration, and getting our new teachers up to speed on the platform. peer mediation. Uh this is something that we still have within the Woodstock

008building. Um we're very excited to actually have fifth graders running pure mediation. We did it with third graders. They did a nice job with Miss Blake kind of leading the way. But now that we have the fifth graders, they've been there. They've done it. So they're going to have a whole different perspective when a first grader comes and says, "I'm having a conflict with my friend." they've been there. So, they're going to be able to provide some help. And then what happens is after that peer mediation meeting, there is a follow-up meeting as well to make sure whatever the resolution was was either working or not working. And then we can either change it and then come back again in a few weeks to see how that's working. Uh this year we do have Mr.

009Ryan uh teaching PE in the mornings here. Um it's been nice having him here this year. He works very well with Miss Roth. Uh they've done quite a bit of collaboration this year. We were able to tweak the schedule so that when they have fourth grade or fifth grade classes, both PE teachers have the fifth grade classes. Both PE teachers have the fourth grade or the third grade and the second grade. And they've been collaborating for about a week and a half, taking kids outside together to play soccer, to do drills. So, it's really nice to have the whole grade level together doing um instruction with our PE teachers together. It's it's really it's been nice to see. Quick plug for our PTA, one of the hardest working PTAs I've ever worked with. Um Kitstock

010is starting on October 8th. Uh this year they have a few fundraising goals. It's to uh continue to improve the garden and the greenhouse. Uh we are also working on putting some murals on the outside wall of the cafeteria. Um when you sit in a classroom on that side and you look at this side of the the building, it's not the prettiest thing to look at. So our hope is to do some student created mural murals on the wall and uh have that up hopefully by the end of the year, especially with the fifth graders. Uh we're they're also going to work on continuing to fund the book vending machine which is out in the hallway and supporting the students and staff. Uh my I think this is my last one. Nope, I got two.

011Um is just to give you a quick update on parent square. Um this building was one of those buildings where you had a little bit of this and a little bit of that going on as far as parent communication. Um, we did a a training on the first day of school led by me in this building and um, then I said, "You can leave if you want, but if you want to stick around and let's let's work on this together and really figure it out." Um, the majority of everybody just stayed and we kind of went through the program. It's pretty intuitive. It's not a hard program to learn. U, but I figured I would share just a couple of stats with you. Right now, parents have downloaded the app at a 49% rate. Um,

012which may not seem really high, but that that is actually pretty high. And it's also they still can get the messages even without the app on their phone. So, we're still able to communicate with them through the platform. Uh, there have been 79 posts. Again, this is this was data from 17 days of school. So there's there's quite a bit of posting going on and 679 direct messages. So those are direct messages from teacher to parent or parent to teacher. So that's quite a bit of communication happening within a very short period of time. Um so I thought that was pretty impressive and I'm sure as folks get used to this they'll be uh using it more. And my last slide is a nice picture of Deputy Corey playing quarterback. Um I believe he's here

013tonight in the back. I just wanted to recognize him. It's it's been really nice having him here in the building. Um you know last year I believe he came to us about the midpoint end of last year. So to have him here at the beginning um he's fit right in. I mean, you can see he's he's like one of the kids. Um, and uh, we enjoy having him. Um, other than that, have a good meeting and uh, thank you. [Applause] >> Thank you very much, Principal Richards. On to item 3.01, 01. We have a presentation from Mike Rossi of Weston Company and he'll be presenting our external audit. Okay. Good evening. I'm Michael Rossy from Western Company and it is my job to meet with the audit committee after I finished the audit. The audit

014committee and I met tonight and we went over the draft financial statement you have in front of you in detail. It's the audit committee's job to make a recommendation to the board of education for acceptance of the audit. Each year the audit is due to New York State and the federal government by October the 15th. I believe the audit committee is going to make that recommendation tonight for acceptance. Upon acceptance, we will take this document out of draft and we will send it to the parties that request it. Okay. The audit is in the same format as it has been in the past. And what we do as a profession is we attach opinions to management's financial statements. And our overall opinion is on page one, paragraph two. We say in our opinion, the financial

015statements referred to above present fairly. That is an unmodified opinion. That is the highest opinion we have as a profession. The financial statements also go on to have a management discussion and analysis which is required by the governmental accounting standards board. Prior to about year 2000, there was no MDNA. There were no full acrual statements. After the MDNA, there would be full acrual statements. It does show that we have a deficit net position, but the full acral statements take in all long-term liabilities. New York State does not have us keep our books on a full acrruel basis. They keep it on a modified acrruel. From that standpoint, this school is very well funded. It's in excellent financial shape. After the full acrruel and modified acrruel statements, we then have the notes to the financial statements.

016The notes are an intricral part of any financial statements. They spell out all of the details of what you would find in the numbers. They talk about the reporting entity. They talk about the reserves. And then we go on to supplementary and required supplementary information. In here we have various schedules. You do have a general fund budget to actual schedule. The reason you have that is it's the only legally adopted budget at a school district. So, it's required to be in there. Then, because the district spent about $4 million in federal awards, we had to do what's called a single audit and that's a compliance audit with grants. We worked on the COVID grants to make sure that the grant was allowable for what the grant was and there we had no issues. We have

017an unmodified opinion over grants. Third opinion is an opinion on financial reporting. So as part of our audit, we have to make a determination if management has the ability to produce this document. And we have the ability to audit it without doing the work. And here, yes, we have an unmodified opinion, clean opinion. The staff here is remarkable. I audit a lot of school districts and a lot of Boseies and the staff is phenomenal. Monica and Deb and Kim and all of them provide everything timely. Everything is done well. No material journal entries at all. Lastly, in the financial statements, we have a audit of the extra classroom activity funds that is required by New York State. The board of education has oversight over the clubs and that's why it's asked to be included. And

018here we do have a qualified opinion but the only reason we have a qualified opinion is because at the point of collection we cannot be there to do the audit. So we only audit from when the money is deposited and when the check is written and from there we had no major issues. There is a minor management letter in the back. management is going to write a corrective action plan presented to the board within 90 days of acceptance of this report that will also have to be sent to New York State and that would conclude the audit. So I know I went into great detail with the audit committee and the audit committee asked a lot of questions but is there any questions from a board member or from the audit committee on what the

019process was of the audit or any anything in general? I don't think we have any questions. >> Okay. Well, I really want to thank you for allowing us to be the auditors. This district is a tremendous district and really takes the books and records very serious and it's well done. So, thank you. >> Thank you so much. Be it hereby resolved on recommendation by the superintendent of schools that the board of education of the Antoura Central School District accept the external audit report for the 2024 2025 school year. May I have a first? Trustee Jerome. Second, Trusty Kudson. Any questions or comments? Trusty Smith >> I. >> Trusty Jared >> I. >> Trusty Jerome >> I. >> Trusty Mitchell Morell >> I. >> Trusty Goodrich >> I. >> Trusty Kudson >> I. >> That's unanimous.

020Thank you. Item 3.02 is our claims auditor report. Sierra Smith, our claims auditor, will present the endofear report for 2024 2025. >> Hi everyone, I am Sierra. Um, I assumed the position of claims auditor for the Antiora Central School District in October of 2024. Uh claims from the 2024-25 school year have been reviewed and compiled after working with Janet Diamond who began training me in October 2024 and remained the claims auditor through October. The fiscal year 2020 2024-25 was a year with some staffing changes including myself in which we are all working together on a learning curve. Um, some items that are in need of improvement are as follows. Typically, there's minimal discrepancies to report. Most often, it's a simple case of my extra set of eyes catching a small clerical error with an invoice

021number or a payment amount or a re remit to address that the vendor recently changed or an invoice missing second initials usually initialed by Monica. Somewhat frequently it was found that there were taxes um and or late fees applied to an invoice. Utility companies are the most frequent finding uh for sales tax. They sneak those in and uh they have many allowable fees and taxes that sales tax can be hidden within. Um hotel stays for student athletes, staff and board trainings and other travel also has a high frequency of sales tax. And the tax exemption is not always immediately processed by the hotel and usually requires followup to remind them. When addressed in my audit, these changes, these charges were most often able to be removed immediately and rectified prior to payment or a credit

022was obtained from the vendor. Remittance is generally distributed in a timely manner and that is usually not the reason for late fees. On a few occasions, supporting documentation was not attached to a claim, but this was rectified immediately by staff prior to payment approval. Everyone in the business office works together with the common goal of well doumented, accurate, timely payments. We have a team of individuals who all like to ensure tees are crossed and eyes are dotted. I am confident errors will continue to be minimal and will only further reduce as we roll into through roll into and through the 202526 school year ahead. Um I've given everyone everyone should have a copy of findings and suggestions for solution and the resolutions that have been found. Thank you very much, Sierra. >> Thank you. [Applause]

023>> The board of education hereby accepts the claims auditor end of the year report for 2024 2025. May I have a first? Trusty Goodrich. Second. Trusty Jared. Any questions or comments? >> All right. Trusty Smith. >> I. >> Trusty Jared. I >> trusty Mitchell Morurell. >> Trusty Jerome I >> Trusty Goodrich >> I >> trusty Kenson >> I >> that's unanimous. Thank you. >> Item 3.03 our NAERTA flex tech program presentation. I'm sorry I don't have the names of our presenters, although I know I've met you before and know you. Please introduce yourselves. >> Sure. >> Uh my name is Dave Hart from CPL. I'm a vice president and professional engineer. >> Uh my name is Greg Royer. I'm CPL director of energy solutions. >> Sorry, this is going to be a little small on

024the screen. So I'll try to go over this in some detail but not bore you with too much detail. So uh CPL was engaged by the district to perform a NAERTA flexible technical assistance study. Flex Tech is the program through NAERTA which is a state funded program. NAERTA picks up 50% of the cost of the study. >> Sorry guys, some people over here are having a hard time hearing. Can you raise the mic a little bit or hold it? That'd be great. Thank you. All right. So, the purpose of the study was to look at two things. One was on-site renewables, specifically solar photovoltaic systems as well as HVAC electrification options. Um obviously the purpose of the program on the building utility consumption side is to reduce fossil fuel consumption and geared more towards going

025to electrified systems specifically HVAC systems and then I will try to weave in here how this applies to the current potential capital project as well. Um so the approach um we use energy modeling software to create a building model of your existing building looking at your existing utility spend and what we try to do is get the building model when we do the calculations to match what the actual utility spend is so we have accurate reasonably accurate information moving forward with our whatif scenarios. Um, and for Bennett Elementary in particular, we did look at the additions that are proposed in the capital project to figure out how they would come into play with utility consumption overall. And then we create a baseline air conditioning model. A baseline is the minimum required to provide air. It's

026the minimum efficiency required to provide air conditioning to both Bennett and the middle school high school. And the three HVAC options that we compared that against were variable refrigerant flow heat pumps, rooftop air source heat pumps, and geothermal ground source heat pumps. And again, you're not going to be able to read these, but um these next few side notes in your packet you have for the agenda, but this first system is a rooftop heat pump system. You're probably familiar with rooftop air conditioning units. This is a similar technology. However, the difference between an air conditioning only system and a heat pump is there's a reversing valve that reverses the flow refrigerant and uses the same technology to provide heating and cooling to to a building and it rejects the compressor heat to the outdoors. That's

027why it's called an air source and there's ducted supply and return that goes to the individual classrooms. And then the next system is a VRF variable refrigerant flow. heat pump system. This is a newer, well, I'll say relatively newer technology, particularly in the states. You know, we've been designing these for 10 to 15 years now, but it's similar to a split system, but there's a single larger outdoor condenser unit that's connected to multiple indoor air conditioning units. Um, and then a branch selector box controls the flow refrigerant to the indoor units. It allows heating and cooling to occur simultaneously within the systems. And these can be coupled with a variety of indoor type systems such as unit ventilators and there's a variety of other types of systems. So I know every um geothermal is another

028thing we are looking at currently. Um this uses the earth as a heat source. It either rejects heat to the uh to the earth or it picks up heat from the earth as it pumps the water from the heater rejection from the indoor heat pumps. The wells are typically 4 to 500 ft deep and at 20 ft uh horizontal spacing. And to do this, we really want to we would want to have a test well drilled initially to understand what the thermal conductivity of the soils is because that determines how many wells you need to put in and confirms our sizing uh requirements. This is a site plan. Again, I know you can't see it, but it is in your agenda. Um about possible showing possible geothermal well locations uh for Bennett and for the

029middle school high school. Obviously, the goal would be to put the wells under areas that are already being affected by sight sight disturbance in the capital project. Can all it may or may not work that way. So, but that's obviously ideal um moving forward. Okay, again I'll just have to explain this here. So energy benchmarking um there are standards in terms of energy benchmarking. There's a uh portfolio manager that establishes the criteria for an a median building energy usage in this particular climate and for this particular building type which would be a school. So that average is 73.2 to KBTU per square foot per year. You're your buildings are actually performing above or actually less than the benchmarking which is a good thing. Meaning your buildings are more energy efficient than your standard building that

030it's being compared to in particular. So if 73.2 is the median for the middle school high school it's rated at se 43.5 which is very good and at Bennett it's 54. Sorry, you're really not going to be able to read these, but so anyway, let me just go over the results real quick here. So small I can't read it. All right, so again, these are comparative to the baseline. So when you look at a total utility cost of the baseline and again this is at Bennett including the additions would be an annual utility cost of $194,000. I'm going to round these numbers. Your geothermal heat pump would be at $118,000 which would be considerably less. That would be your most efficient option. And then your heat pump rooftop unit would be at 187,000 and then

031your VRF would be about 175,000. So that just kind of shows you the difference of energy consumption between the various system types. Um and at the middle school high school they rank in um well similar order. Obviously the geothermal would be the le or the most efficient system um with your energy spend down to $210,000 compared to the baseline of 384. And then your rooftop heat pump and your VRF are actually very similar. 341 and 336,000 $100,000 per year. And then the next slide shows kind of an implementation cost. And just to kind of roll this into the capital project, I am trying to be sensitive to what's going on in the capital project planning. I'm using numbers that have already been established by schoolhouse to to review. I'm not kind of just coming up

032with these numbers. But I'm also using some benchmarking metrics that we've had on recent projects in terms of you know what is the bidding climate like right now. So I think these are decent numbers and again for the level of detail that's being provided you know it's it's you know within a budgetary estimated level. So so for a geothermal heat pump system these numbers are going to sound really big but I'll just go through them real quick. Um, if there's no incentive, we're over $15 million for a geothermal system at Bennett Elementary. Now, the investment tax credit is still in play, and Greg's going to talk about that a little bit later after the after the photovalttaic um discussion, but with a 30% um incentive cost, that brings it down to about $10 million, $10,700,000.

033And the payback, the simple payback after you were to receive the incentive would be 27 years for a geothermal system. For the rooftop heat pump and the VRS system, they're actually so close in cost to the baseline system that with an incentive, they would actually be cheaper than the baseline system, which you would not receive any incentive for. Um and then the same similar same holds true for the middle school high school actually with the uh incentive 30% um ITC tax credit you would be at a 15-year payback and again the other two options would pay off pretty much immediately um since they are similar in cost. So capital project or remaining project cost because obviously we're looking at these buildings holistically. If we're to add air, I'm sorry. If we're to add air conditioning

034to the entire buildings, what would that look like? Now, I know there's already designated funds or potentially designated funds to the capital project. So, I took the total, subtracted what I feel the AC cost is for each option to come up with what I'm calling the remaining cost, which would be in future capital projects, what work would have to be done. And obviously since the majority of the capital project is going into um buildings and systems at Bennett, the remaining cost is you know obviously substantial but a lot of it is already being covered through the capital project upon successful vote. So geothermal would be about four $5.7 million additional and then the other systems would be in the $2 million range. But because we're not doing all the work at the middle high school

035for the capital project, you're you have a significant price tag of almost $25 million to further implement a geothermal project at the middle school high school. And then, you know, about 156 million for the other two options. And that's the end of my part of the presentation. Greg's going to take over to talk about uh solar PV systems. Okay, for the solar, uh, we looked at both buildings and the idea was to maximize the potential impact, uh, from a design standpoint. So, we looked at the base load that Dave went over earlier in the slides and tried to maximize what portion of that we could capture. So, both these options I'm going to show you cover about 95% of the base load. Um, so for first for Bennett, this is just kind of a layout

036of what a system could look like. Uh, we use a design cool tool called PV cyst. And, uh, that's probably the most accurate design tool for these types of systems. Gives us a really accurate uh, idea of what a system is going to look like before it goes to design. Um, so this just kind of shows you what Bennett looks like. And then on the next slide, what the high school looks like. Uh, one thing I will mention is that depending on what you end up doing in terms of the central cooling system, whether it's rooftops or geothermal or just a, you know, traditional uh central system, this could impact the layout of the the rooftop solar if you were to go forward with it. So, you know, this isn't by any means a final

037design, but this is, you know, a pretty close uh depiction of what it could look like. Okay. So, next slide is uh an estimate of costs right now. So, the the federal ITC or investment tax credit uh has undergone some changes recently. Solar photovalttaic is set to expire at the end of 2027. Um prior to the current administration, it was set to expire in 2032. So what that means is there's a a mad rush for everybody to get these projects going. And what that's done is created a you know a huge demand which is driving cost up. So we took uh a very conservative number uh if this was a project to go forward what you know could we expect in six months the price of panels and inverters and things to look like. So

038it is an inflated estimated cost. Um but realistically we expect that number would be a little bit lower uh than than what we have here. Um but first you've just got your installed cost total. The federal ITC covers 30% of that installed cost which gives you your your net balance. And then for the Bennett system we estimate over 25 years that's going to generate about $725,000 in uh cash flow for the system. And then the high school middle school is about, you know, just shy of 1.5 million. We do also have some O andM maintenance costs included in there as an estimate. Um these, you know, are negotiated contracts, but we wanted to show you something uh you know that, you know, you should expect as part of this this process. Um, so the net

039benefit after 25 years for Bennett is about 210,000 and about 81 uh,000 at the high school middle school, questions. >> Thank you. Um can you talk um these payback periods that you have calculated um we've we're seeing kind of large fluctuations in sort of the energy costs in general >> um that you might be benchmarking against what what are the assumptions underlying assumptions about like when you say a 27-year payback like what what electricity is going to cost in 27 years seems very hard to fathom right now especially with all the sort of AI data centers there's an upgoing everything that's affecting the price of energy right now. >> Yeah. So, there's no way to predict what it's going to be 5 10 15 years down the road. But what we can do is look

040at historical data. Uh NAERTA keeps a rolling 25-year um statistic uh on their website and right now it's it it's gone up since COVID. So, it's at about 3.1% inflation year-over-year. But that number, you know, is going to continue to get skewed as rate tariffs get changed. You know, there's a lot of stuff in the PSC right now regarding electrification, EV charging, things like that. Um, so we've based it based on historical data and what your current baseline looks like, which is the best data that we have at this point. >> Thank you so much. I'm curious if, and I think the answer is probably no, um, this includes any kind of consideration of the electric bus mandate. And maybe if there was one scenario that we wanted to hear more about, maybe if we

041could consider that that might be a reality and something we might want to add as the a load at the central campus site. >> Yeah. So, I should have explained this before I started, but there's a couple ways to to set these systems up. Um, this would be a net metered system. So, attached to each meter, you know, up in it in the high school, uh, is a meter that spins forward and backwards. So, as you're producing electricity, it's sending electrons back to the grid, and then you're getting a credit on your bill, which is where this uh, revenue portion comes from. You can also do a behind the meter where it's injected directly into the building's electrical system, but that requires uh additional upgrades to the um distribution system. Uh which I know we've

042discussed a little bit, you know, the complications in doing that. Um so that adds additional cost and then you lose what's called the veer or value stack rate, which is part of the equation of, you know, getting those credits back. Um, but it could be, you know, it could protect you against future cost increases. So, that could certainly be something that we look at. Um, you know, and then that could, you know, essentially offset charging. I know a couple years ago when we looked at the the EV charging situation at at the high school middle school Bennett campus, it's going to be very difficult to fit any infrastructure on site. Um, we did look at some potential nearby sites to add infrastructure where solar could make sense. The biggest challenge is we're on a very

043tight deadline with those ITC credits. So, it's, you know, I I think we'd have to make a decision very quickly to be able to capture that 30% funding because it's a a big number. So, yes. So the net benefits numbers that you had um we're in central this these buildings here are central Hudson and our rates are a lot higher than the national average. So did you actually look at our bill and use the kilowatt hour prices that we're using? >> Yeah. Yeah. We took uh 24 month average baseline. Yep. So and your rates are pretty high. They're not as high as ConEd and Long Island, but for, you know, New York State in general, they're they're definitely higher. Um, what really makes the numbers not look great is the fact that demand has skyrocketed

044for panels and inverters. There's also a domestic content portion that you have to adhere to. So now that you're, you know, procuring domestically, that inherently is going to have a cost increase, you know, without the demand. So, it just we're in a weird time where everybody's trying to take that free federal money before it's gone. Uh, but it's driving up the cost so much that it's it's not making the numbers look super attractive, I guess. And to add insult to injury, if we go to the next slide, there's also a roof component. So based on the age of your roofs, uh we would highly recommend that you replace those first before adding any solar panels. Because what happens is if you get, let's say, eight years down the road, you start having a lot of

045leaks, roofing infrastructure problems, and you have to remove those panels, you could be paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to have an electrician remove the system and then put it back on once the uh you know, roof replacement job is complete. And then during that construction period, you're losing power generation. So those credits that you're relying on to pay for the system, you're, you know, if it's a nine-month project, you're losing almost a year of of credits. So, it's super important to make sure you align the roof replacement with the solar. Uh, so I did lay out some pricing. Um, we have been in contact with Trimco just to get a gauge on, you know, what is likely feasible. Um, refurbishment is definitely an option. they'd have to come back and do some additional testing

046to make sure that, you know, they could in fact refurbish the existing roof, but that is the cheapest option. So, I've kind of broke broken it down. Um, now these budgets I've gone high on the refurbishment because to get any ITC credit for doing roofs, you have to have a reflective coating. So, you know, typical white roof that you already have on on both buildings and portions. Um, so it's not a ton, but that incremental cost at Bennett gets you about, you know, 16,000 and then just under 100,000 at the high school, middle school, and then I've put in a full replacement breakdown just to kind of show you how that compares. Questions on the roofs? Yeah, just just for the public who might be have a hard time seeing over there, um the deadline

047is um July 1st, 2026 to start construction. >> Uh I mean, if you could build a project um you know, in the 18-month period after that, you're you're safe. >> Okay. >> Now, so the way it's kind of put together is if you start complete at least 5% of a project based on IRS guidelines um before July of 2026, you have a four-year runway to get that project complete. If it starts after July 1st of next year, you have to have it complete by December 31st. >> Okay. >> So, it's >> Yeah, that's not awesome. >> Yeah, they they Yeah. Now, the good news is that geothermal has a much longer sunset period. So, that doesn't expire until the end of 2032. So if geothermal, you know, was something that was of interest, you you

048could still get that 30% credit. The other option, uh, is battery storage systems. I know there's been, you know, this talk about fires and thermal runaway and all that. Uh, most of the systems that are coming out now don't have that issue. It's a different chemistry. Um but what you can do you know if you were to go let's say with a geothermal system uh is integrate that battery storage with the system to provide backup and then when it's not you know in standby it's providing peak shaving so that it's reducing that demand on your bill. So you're still generating savings and you're getting that 30% credit um but you're also getting the benefit of a a backup. So there's there's other things to look at, but this is kind of what we uncovered during

049the study. Um, so I know it's it's a lot to think about with the numbers and timelines and things like that. So, but uh that's I think pretty much it. Um, any questions? >> Caroline has a question. >> Hi, Greg. >> Hi. >> When we spoke this summer, we were all excited, right? Because we were like, "Oh, it could be a wash." But now what you're describing the the demand driving the prices up that's no longer the case which is is really sad because I was really we were so happy about that possibility. >> I guess my question is when you say that there's a you know a deadline for like committing to this >> and you're strongly recommending that we look at our roofs. Would we have to have that teed up? Like we'd

050have to have both teed up. like we'd have to have the roofs done and I'm not understanding for the government if those two can be hitched together or whether it would be like you have to do this and then you can apply for this 30%. >> Yeah, you you could hitch it together as one application uh and do them in parallel. So as they're completing a portion, you know, the solar company's laying out panels and you know getting the infrastructure in place. um probably two months ago when we ran these numbers, the positive cash was almost 800,000 and then just in in a matter of a couple months, it's it's crazy how quickly things are moving and how pricing's become so volatile. Yeah. Thank you. >> Any other questions or comments for Greg or Dave?

051just thank you so much. It's a lot of work and I know we all I mean this is definitely something I want to take home and read again now that you've explained a lot of it um and answered a lot of questions. So, thank you. >> Yeah, absolutely. You're welcome. And uh yeah, if you have questions once you have a chance to digest some of this, definitely feel free to reach out. Love to to follow up with you. You know, one of the purposes of the study is to kind of look at this from a master planning perspective, too, and figure out how we can implement some of these changes into the capital project, but make sure we're thinking not only about this capital project, but upcoming capital projects in the future to make sure

052it's fairly seamless integration as we move forward. And we're your A&E firm, obviously. So, we're we're doing all that work, too. So, it's a good thing. >> Thank you. >> Oh, one more question. Trusty Goodrich. Um, is this um are we going to get any money from Uk 31% for this or not? Or is that just for classes? >> Are you talking about the roofs or are you talking about the if we did you thermal and solar? Um, I guess it would depend on whether or not it's a capital project and how it was done. But if it's like kind of similar to an EPC, um, I guess have to have voter approval. >> Yeah, I'm pretty sure you get your full state aid. >> Yeah, then you would get your full state aid. >>

053As long as we had voter approval, >> right? If you have voter approval, you get your full amount. you don't go out to vote%. >> Was that the full amount on the roof work or the full amount on the whole project? >> Um, so the roofs could be included. Um, the solar the way it would be structured under a PPA wouldn't qualify. Um, but if we were to move it back to uh a behind the meter where we're injecting it directly into the building, then it could qualify. But then the costs go up. So, and the timeline extends just because there's a lot more work with the electrical infrastructure. So, it's it's a balancing act of what financially makes the most sense and really get you the best bang for your buck. >> So, as

054a high school student, I all that just like went right through my brain. So, so, um, in absolute layman's term, layman's terms, does that mean that the high school could get heating and air conditioning? Like, possibly. >> Oh, for sure. >> Oh, yeah. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> Yeah. I mean, there's a cost for everything, right? So, it's just cost sensitive in terms of, you know, the ability to prepare and pass the capital projects. >> Any other questions? I'm sorry. Last one, I promise. Um, does NICERTA help you with this? Right. >> Does. >> Yeah. Or just funded it >> partially. 50% >> partially. Yeah. >> Yeah. And I'm just wondering whether these to me like the the issue is so tied to climate change and what's you know we're when we're looking out a

055quarter century from now, we've already seen you know significant changes in the past decade or so. And I'm wondering whether climate climate modeling, you know, that there's there's the price of air conditioning, but then there's also like what's what's the climate here going to, you know, the climate models have the sort of tropical line moving up our way. It's not here yet, but um that to me should play, you know, play into the decision as well. Um but I don't know, I just I didn't I didn't know whether that was any part of this um or if there's any body that does that kind of modeling. Well, you know, Ashray, American Society of Heating, Refrigeration, Airing, Air Conditioning Engineers, kind of creates all the standards that we design HVAC systems to. They have design day

056temperatures, but we can only go with what we're where we're at now. I mean, they do change those, but not on an annual basis, but maybe on a five or 10 year basis as climate information comes in showing different design temperatures maybe being required. So, >> yeah. And from a For the solar system, if you're offsetting 95% of your load, 95% of what you're using is from renewable energy at that point. So, you are creating a pretty heavy impact on reducing that from the overall grid use. >> Thank you very much for your presentation. It's going to take us some time to absorb it. Appreciate it. >> Good to see you both. >> Thank you. >> All right. On to item 3.04. Our assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction, Stephanie Laughen, will present the 3

057through eight New York State assessment summary. >> Thank you. Good evening, everybody. Um, John, will you um assist as I go through? Okay, great. Um, so before I get into sharing our 338 assessment data, I just want to take a moment to say thank you to our faculty, our staff, our administrators for the incredible job they do with educating our students. I want to thank our students for their perseverance and their dedication to their academics. They work really hard. And also I want to thank our parents and our guardians for supporting their students at home and also making sure students are in school daily so they can grow with their peers. Auntie is a wonderful place to go to school and I'm very uh lucky and it's my pleasure to be a part of it.

058So thank you. So, as we crack into the data, the first uh page is just a breakdown of the participation rates uh for our 3 through8 assessment broken up into math and ELA and also in science. Um, as you can see, our science assessment is only taken in fifth and eighth grade. That's why you can uh you see it um blocked out for the other grades. So um largely we do have a increase in participation rates uh particularly in ELA and um in math it's kind of up and down spiking wise. So it's important I think to start with this so we get a sense of exactly how many of our students are taking the test and somewhat with how what it reflects of our student population. Our next slide really does a good job

059capturing the substantial growth in performance that our students have shown between uh our spring of 2024 and the spring of 25. Um when you take a look at all this data together, it is um really exciting. We've got doubledigit growth in math and ELA for every single grade. and that is incredible. So, I was really really happy to see that and again just so proud of everyone that's been working hard to help make um our educational opportunities here the best they can be. We've worked really hard to overcome some of the gaps that were established during COVID and just systemically overhauled some things and we've really seen a lot of growth and progress. So, it's something to really be excited about. Just a bit more information. Um, if you're looking to learn a little bit

060more about the standards with the ones in math and ELA and information on the design of the assessments, all of these links are hot linked and you can take a look online and and see more about that. Moving to the next slide. When we um get into our breakdown, New York State sets their performance level scores between a one and a four. Um level four, that's the highest level. And students who receive a four, they are exceeding um their grade level in that standard. Level three, they're performing at grade level. Uh level two, they are partially proficient below grade level. And level one, they are well below uh the standard for their grade. And again, um, many of you who are parents, you would have re and your students took the assessments, you would have

061received the parent guardian grade report that went home and went into detail on their individual scores on math, ELA, and those that took science. So, those of you who didn't see those scores come home, um you because you perhaps you are not a parent or your student did not take that assessment, you can see from the hot links exactly what those sample parent guardian reports look like and all that the information that they provide. The next slides are uh breakdowns by grade level. I just want to point out with our performance for third grade, what I've done on these slides is compare um specifically by grade level how many students were performing at each level and compare them to the same group of students and how they performed a year before. As you may know,

062our students do not take the assessments in second grade. So that's why we have um an A there in that column. there's really no data to compare that to for our uh for the third graders. So again, our goal is combining uh the proficiency scores are a combination of level three and level four. Um going through to grade four, you do see that full cohort comparison. Again, we've got um about uh 50% of our students in math performing proficiently, doing really well in ELA as well. And what's important is the movement that you see by grade level. What we're looking to do is have less level ones, less level twos, more threes, and more fours. So, we're really moving in um a really great direction there across the board by grade level. You see the

063same thing as you look at grade five. Again, we're seeing the increase. We want to see our numbers go down, movement from level one to level two, level two to level three. A lot of success there as well as we move into grade six. Grade six. Um, our students, those were our, uh, sixth graders last year. of these students are currently in seventh grade having a lot of uh success at that level as well. And then we see grade seven increase as well in our level threes and our level fours in both math and ELA. And then we see the same for 8th grade with math and ELA. Again, there's so much to be excited about and proud of in those scores. Moving forward to science, we have our uh New York State P12 science

064learning standards. They are relatively new. They were implemented in K8 during the 2324 school year and they're being implemented kind of rolled up yearbyear in the um high school over the next few years. So we do have assessments again in grade five and eight. So the next slide shows us our performance for grade five this spring. Our number of threes and fours are certainly our goal. And then in grade eight on the next slide, threes and fours are our goal. So these are relatively new standards in science and we've been doing a lot of professional learning around the shifts in the standards, the shifts required instructionally in the standards and that's definitely something we'll be continuing as well. Um we haven't uh been had these standards as long as we've had the new ELA and

065math standards. So you can see we definitely have um more work to do in science as in as as we do in all of our all of our categories. So, as far as current and next steps, um, again, I just want to make it clear, as excited as we are about this growth, we have work to do. Um, literacy is a human right, and our goal is for all of our students to be proficient in math and ELA and beyond. So, as as much growth as we've experienced, as pleased as as we are with these scores, um, there's no time to rest. We need to continue to do that work and my goal is to see all of our students in threes and fours. Um so our current and next steps, our administrators and teachers,

066we continue to analyze the data and refine our instructional strategies. Um we continue to strengthen the implementation of our revised literacy and math standards and curricula. We are implementing branching minds more fully and deeply determining which students need our extra academic support in academic intervention services. Our K12 science instruction, we continue to align and revise it to our learning standards. We're increasing our AIS support in sixth through 8th grade in math and ELA. Um our K8 staff, they're deepening their utilization of branching minds. uh the data platform refining our multi-tered system of support process which helps us get better at effectively targeting the needs of all of our students and in addition our MTSS coordinator Low all of our building principles as well all of our administrators continue to lead the work as we refine

067our ability to use data to drive decisions about researchbased instruction and resources to close skill gaps. So, I also have hot link there. A reminder, we've had a couple presentations last year on MTSS and our district MTSS handbook and their hot link there for you to take a look at. Um, any questions? Trusty Mitchell Morell, I'm just curious on your professional opinion like what do you think makes the most difference? um like teaching style or teacher training or I'm just curious what you think like is really pushing this forward or just what you think about what's really doing it. >> I think there's a synergy between multiple things that we have been working on over the past four years. We've adopted new curricula. We've spent tons of time and resources providing professional learning to our

068teachers on how to get better at what we do about using data about the science of reading about closing gaps about math instruction. We adopted a new math curricula which is an inquirybased math program which really engages the students on um how they feel about being mathematicians. Um, we've been doing so much all of our MTSS investment, working on co-eing models, so many things that we've done. It's really just a synergy of all of these systems that we're developing working together and picking up and just accumulating. And again, most importantly, it's the work of our teachers, our TAs, our monitors, our building staff, it's our bus drivers, it's our janitorial staff, it's everybody who touches these buildings to make the environment appropriate and really um ideal as ideal as we can make it for learning.

069So, you know, administrators, it's everyone, it's everyone really working together with these revised systems. Trusty Goodrich. >> Thank you. Uh great presentation. Thanks for the information. Uh when does this uh data get uploaded to New York State Ed uh website? Do you know >> the New York State report card runs about a year behind? It takes a while for the data to be uploaded. As you know, when you look on the report card now, we're a year behind with that. So, it takes a while because um it takes a while for the psychrometricians at the state level to go through and scrub all the data and make sure everything's the magic math that goes on at state as I like to say. So, it does um lag behind a bit when it comes to being

070on the state report card. >> Yeah. I just this is a curiosity question, but when you implement a new curriculum, I'm wondering like how vertical it is and you know as kids move up grades are and they move say from fourth to fifth to sixth are they seeing a similar the same kind of changes that they saw in fourth grade that will be familiar to them when they come back in fifth and sixth and does it sort of build that way vertically? >> Yes. Um our current math curricula is K6. Our current ELA curricula is K5. it switches uh ELA switches when they get to the middle school and in for seventh and eighth grade and same thing. So seven right I would say seven through 12 is a little bit more in alignment um

071than we have K6 is really in a in a moment of flux right now depending of course as you know we're newly in the building and some of that targeted vertical alignment is something we're going to work more on continue to work on and then horizontally um we have uh we try to get our Bennett teachers together with our Woodstock teachers as much as we can and provide them with opportunity to vertically talk uh across the buildings but also in grade bands across the building. So within the past two years when we do professional development we uh move teachers from building to building. So one day we might have it at Woodstock, the next day it's at Bennett and we rotate grade levels so that those teachers are learning together and uh having those conversations,

072planning together um in that way. I just think that any company that posted doubledigit improvements, profits, and learning in one year, like there would be a big party. I just want to call that out that I know I'm really proud of this district and seeing those numbers really my jaw really dropped and um so I just want to thank also you and all the administration and educators. That's unbelievable gains. And I have so many questions. This is also part of the reason why I'm really pushing for the academic achievement committee because I think like I have so many questions I want to get into like what affects participation rate and how many of these kids are kids that are in um special education and like I'm just really curious to to kind of dive down

073into the numbers. Um, but I think maybe since we're talking about academic committee tonight, later in the agenda, I'll just like put a pin. >> It might be better to save that for later. Yeah, just because we have a lot going on tonight. So then there's just one thing I want to highlight which is something that principal Richards had said earlier about um using MTSS not only to identify where we could offer supports which is amazing but also to identify where kids are achieving really highly and ask ourselves how we can offer them more. and I just wrote it at the top of my assessment page um just because I want to say that out loud that I keep hearing like that come up again at the board table too. And um I know there's

074some shifting around of like trying to add accelerated classes in the middle school now that sixth grade's there, but also kind of figuring out how to do that. And I think with looking from grade to grade, I see the shifts from grade level to grade level and how many kids are landing in that level four above grade level um container. And I don't know if there's a thought about it or if maybe it's just something to put into minds about how how can we maintain with our smaller school those accelerated classes when we have a grade level that arrives that might be like the current sixth grade which has like two kids in a level four right now as opposed to like the eighth grade which has like 18 kids at a level four right

075now. Just something I noted I want just ask about her. >> Trusty Goodrich. >> So I I think when I first got on the board, you presented uh similar information and u you compared it to uh Precoid and uh obviously we were we were way down um due to due to the whole COVID issue. Uh, do you think we've we're catching up? >> I do. I mean, that's part of the reason is um, you know, how do we know it? It there's a difference between yet what we think, what we feel, what we observe and and these data systems allow us to really numerically take a look at that and it's another way of knowing, right? How do how do you how do we know? It's what we think, it's what we feel, but how

076do we really know? So this is another way of us to really watch that growth by cohort. You know, you speak about our sixth graders. I believe they were in kindergarten uh during um our our COVID year. So the way that um that impacted that grade uh in in subsequent grades around that time, I think you can see it in in the data. So, it's a part of what we use to meet students where they are and encourage them to stretch and grow and get uncomfortable and take risks and all of those things. And that's a complicated um uh recipe. Um again, these Thank you. These are heartening. Um, and just to echo what you said, Trusty Jared, like seeing every level go up, right? Not just the ones and the twos, but the threes

077and the fours. We want that top performing school. Um, the question I had, I think, might relate to Trusty Goodrich's uh question, which is so we can see how we compare to other neighboring districts districts once that New York State report card is available. Okay, that's so we might have to wait a year to see how it we it it panned out in in whatever we are 2425. >> Last year I made this presentation in December, right? >> So I was able to compare us with the state and other schools in Olter. >> Okay. >> So it just depends. Um that timeline is completely driven by state ed when they're really to release that data. But that's something if you want I could certainly share that um as well when >> when it comes. Yeah,

078that would be great. Thank you. >> Any other questions or comments for assistant superintendent laughing? Thank you very much. Item 4.01 is acceptance of minutes. The board of education hereby accepts the minutes of the September 16, 2025 meeting. May I have a first? Trusty Smith. Second, Trusty Jerome. Any questions or comments? All right, we'll vote. Trusty Smith >> I. >> Trusty Jared >> I. >> Trusty Mitchell Morurell >> I. >> Trusty Jerome >> I. >> Trusty Kenudson >> I. >> That's unanimous. Thank you. On to our superintendent district news. >> I'm so sorry. Trusty Godri. I'm sorry. Sorry. That's unanimous. Thank you. >> Good evening. Um, I wanted to make a note we had another successful homecoming celebration this past weekend. I want to recognize the hard work of Leah Smith and Janna O'Donnell in

079addition to all of our buildings and ground staff who work so hard to make sure that all of the fields are ready and all of the tables and booths are up for all of our um clubs. Um, the admin team at the middle high school, the booster club, and all of our clubs and teams. um our kids showed up so incredibly um well there were so many kids there and so many um great sporting events. The events also the day also included a dedication of a bench to Paul Rzinski, a much beloved former member of the faculty and that is now um permanently there um in front of a in front of the stadium field. Um today as September 30th is the last day of the penaltyfree period for paying of school taxes. We have

080been made aware that there have been issues with um the postal system and timely deliveries. But please know that any payments that are received that are postmarked in September will be processed as if they were received by today and will not be um sent back for penalty. Uh as long as they're postmarked in September, we're good. Um our enrollment report for September is in and will be posted soon. We currently have uh in district 107 students. So from the June enrollment report um we're down a little bit. We had 140 at the end of last school year, but we do know that we had a a larger senior class graduate um than we did have an incoming kindergarten. So that was not unexpected. Uh brief update on our current capital projects. Uh the security vestibial

081at the middle high school is still on track. Um and the substantial completion date that we have targeted is October 22nd. So we will all be very happy when that is uh up and running and functional and we can go back to our uh normal way of entering the building. And the middle school gymnasium is also still on track with a targeted substantial completion date of October 15th. So both good news for both projects there. Um and just as uh principal Richards mentioned uh I also receive a weekly summary from the parent square platform and uh I am pleased to share that last week as a district just for the week we had 79 posts and 451 direct messages. So, uh, I'm really appreciative of all of our families who have been engaging and all

082of our, um, faculty and coaches and administrators who have been utilizing this project. So, I think it's only going to get better. >> I'm wondering if you can explain to us what's the difference between a post and a direct message. Do you know? >> Uh, a post is just put out there and posted on the platform. A direct message is actually communication back and forth. >> Great. Thank you. Any questions for the superintendent? >> Yes. >> No, I just wanted to say to the district that we saw we were able to preview the the gym and the middle school gym and the the foyer or the entrance as it's called and that and the parent square and these scores. Um, for me it's so agreeable and heartening to see these phase steps towards these improvements

083in our district. Um, and it really is so exciting and and I can't wait till everybody else can see it. And um, that that these these small incremental changes just mean so much when you walk in the room and to our students. So, yay. >> Great. Thank you for saying that. Anything else for the superintendent? >> Yes. >> Uh, this is just related to what Caroline said that I thought was a positive little thing, which is that the um big gym for the high school is getting a new scoreboard. So, the middle school gym gets the old scoreboard, which I think will be exciting for them. >> That's exciting. Any other questions or comments? All right, we'll move on to board district news. Do any trustees have district news to share? Trusty Mitch Morell. This

084is a small thing. I wasn't sure. I don't think Scott uh Principal Richards mentioned it. Um open house was cancelled due to at Woodstock was canled due to thunderstorms and was rescheduled for next Thursday. >> Thank you. Any other board news? Yes, trusty Jared. >> Yeah, I was at my first homecoming which was a really amazing experience. Um and there just because uh this is something that's popped up in conversation before, but there were some parents there who mentioned to me perhaps maybe instead of us asking other districts whether our athletes could push into their districts, perhaps we could invite some districts such as Roxberry or Margaretville who don't have a lot of teams to come and join our district. And I just heard a couple parents say that because apparently modified football couldn't get

085a team together to have a game. Um, yeah, as as say as a parent of a modified football kid. So anyway, just because I had never heard that before and I didn't want to lose that train, I just thought that was a novel approach. Um, and I just want to mention it. >> Thank you, Trusty Kudson. Just really quickly, I I couldn't go to homecoming because I had to go see my do daughter sing out of town. But I did go to I attended my first full beginning to end um on your football game the week before on uh September the 20th. Uh we won I think 32 to nothing. But really what I want to say, what I really took away from that afternoon is I want to just shout out our students, our

086kids. Um you know, as as we transitioned to being a smaller district. So, we our football the football team was eight eight on eight. A lot of districts in our area uh do that. And um I'm particularly want to just call out um Chase Madison who is a natural linebacker. Uh that's the position he loves, but he's also our quarterback. And if you have if you read the Freeman, the Freeman paid a lot of attention to Mr. Madison the past couple weeks because his statistics were unbelievable. He plays the whole game basically both sides of the ball which I'm tired just thinking about. Um and uh you know as we try to keep our programs vibrant um I just want to shout out the the contribution of the children who are really um dedicated to

087um you know being smaller offers them a a great deal of opportunity but it also just thinking about what they're doing makes me tired. conversations with that. >> I was al also at homecoming and I was really amazed at the number of student athletes that we have. We really field a lot of teams, boys and girls. Um, and I super enjoyed the football game. Um it's it is remarkable that Chase is playing offense and defense and makes it all the way through the game with a lot of success. And uh our team did really well. They won. It was a little bit of a nailbiter, but it was a great game and I encourage everybody to go out there and cheer for them. Um it's a little bit of a quiet crowd and unless something

088exciting is happening and and I happen to be there really get excited but um yeah it it was really great. It was good to see. Anything else? Yes, Jenny. >> I did just want to add that yeah almost every student is an athlete. Like my friends and I aren't athletes. We are the minority. like of almost everybody's just student athlete and the fact that we all still perform the way that we do in classes is crazy. It's like we have something. It's great. Trusty Smith, >> I just wanted to add real quick, I was also at homecoming and uh I had no idea what a fan of football Trusty Bishop is. It really was amazing and uh having or being uh next to her um my ears are still ringing. She is very loud and

089very enthusiastic. So that was uh quite a surprise. >> All right, enough. Okay. Oh, Trusty Goodrich. I wasn't at homecoming, but we did go on a tour of u of Bennett and uh that was really nice. There were a number of us there and uh you raise your hand if you were there. So uh it was it was great to see you go through the the whole Bennett and there was parts about it I haven't been into before. So we got to go through cafeteria line. Never done that before. So that was good. Thank you. Yes, thank for thanks for that reminder. It was really great to see um the building the buildings always look really beautiful this time of year. You know, at the beginning of the school year, everything is painted, freshly painted

090and shiny. The floors are great. Um our custodial staff does a a phenomenal job and um it's really always such a pleasure to get a tour of a building with the with the principal who knows it best. So, it was it was very good. Anything else? All right, on to our student representative of the board, Jenny Albbright, with her report. Well, you guys kind of stole my thunder because I was going to talk about homecoming, which I actually didn't attend homecoming because I was studying for my SAT and stuff like that. But yeah, homecoming was, from what I've heard, extremely um good event. The dance was good. And on the actual games part, art club made about I think $60 face painting for our athletes. French club made what I've heard to what I've heard

091is really good pizza. And um uh seniors for the required volunteer hours got volunteer hours for that and also uh National Honor Society hours. So, it was it was just a very all around good community event. Um, additionally, the pep rally was good. The seniors, I think, won finally. Um, uh, class rank comes out tomorrow, which is exciting for all of the seniors. Um, and the five weeks is on Friday, which is exciting for everyone just to see where the grade progress is. And, um, N National Honor Society is planning a lot of things. We're planning sober. We're meeting tomorrow night. We're planning um so October January just start all of our annual drives and we're very excited to get that all started with Oh, and newspaper is collecting articles on the third. So eventually

092the newspaper, the Talon will be put out. >> Terrific. Thank you. Any questions or comments for Jenny? Jenny, >> I just want to thank Jenny for it is such a pleasure so uh soon to have you sharing so much and participating. I just want to thank you. It's so amazing for us and please like keep it coming. It's really great. Ditto. Thank you, Jenny. So, next on the agenda is a break. Do we want to take a break now? Do we want to How do we feel anybody? Do we want to postpone the break for a while? >> Yeah. >> Okay. All right. So, we will table our break until we need it and please just let us know if you need a break and uh we'll move on to discussion and possible action, our

093continued conversation about our capital project discussion with our design team from CPL and Schoolhouse Construction. Hey, good evening everyone. We're happy to be here. you gonna start? >> Yep. >> Okay, great. Please introduce yourselves and use and hold the mic. I think it's working better that way. >> Sounds good. I'm Chris Leani. I'm one of the architects that works with CPL. >> Stephanie Wizki. I'm an architectural designer with CPL. >> CJ Goodwin, a project manager with Schoolhouse Construction. How do we want to start? >> All right, I I'll start. Um, we have been discussing um possible ways to reduce the overall price tag of our capital project. >> And um we've had a a couple of conversations about it. Uh at our last meeting, we kind of went through all of our um we actually

094went through prioritizing. I think the last time you guys uh were here with us, you gentlemen and ladies, I should say, uh were with us, um we were talking about using sort of a dot system or a sticky note system or something like that. Well, we we kind of went with a modified system, but we did come up with some priorities. I'm I believe that uh those were shared with you. >> Yes. >> Um that's all of it. So, I guess we would just like to have a conversation about, you know, some of those modifications. Um, I know that there has been a conversation this week um or since that meeting about um what would be the impact of moving fifth grade to the middle school in the event that the bond doesn't pass and

095at some later date we we would have to do that. I just want to ask the board not to get into too much detail about that tonight with our design team because they're really not prepared. This is really about the bond that uh that we've been discussing or the bond or potentially bonds that we would put forward again for a vote. >> Great. So, we did get your comments and questions from your previous meeting. Um we did meet a couple of times over the last couple weeks and I believe sorry and I believe in front of you you have the summary of that which is um individually the science rooms at the high school the uh elementary school edition uh entry area the drainage that's associated with that. There's some belowrade sanitary work in the

096building. There is the curtain wall window system and the mechanical equipment associated with that. Then there is the gymnasium and the cafeteria renovations and the space swap uh including the kitchen renovations. And then over for um site work, it is the uh Bennett drop off loop that is associated with that addition, the relocation of the playground to the upper lot at Bennett and sort of that reconfiguration there. And then along with that are the track improvements and the uh electrical work and the fuel island or not fuel island, the fuel oil work associated with creating the gymnasium edition. We have to move where the electrical service is and where the fuel oil is to a different location, which also gives us the opportunities to upgrade the electrical service at that point coming up from the

097main road. The total of all of those pieces are just around $50 million. And what questions can I answer? >> Yes, ma'am. So that total is for everything on this chart. >> Nope. Just for the items I just talked about. >> Yeah. Okay. >> Yes, sir. >> So the first column says original cost. Second column is plus a 30% contingencies and incidentals. >> Yes. >> So is the original cost the same as these were on the May proposition? >> Yes. >> So does that mean that >> Oh, no. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. The cost that you're looking at is original cost was just the construction value. >> Okay. >> So when we build a project for any school client or any project, there's pieces that are construction value and then there are pieces what we call

098soft costs which are all the costs associated with making that project happen. >> That what that is what makes up a portion of that 30%. The other piece of that is contingency, which we use for the things that we don't know that we're going to find yet, so that we have money set aside for issues that may come up. >> Right. And so what I'm wondering is um since we're now in late September, the first time you estimated the stuff was March, April, whatever last year. >> Um has the outlook for post 28 changed um materially? Have those estimates changed or has it been reestimated? >> Everything has changed up and down over the last six months. Some uh months have been better is where things had actually gone down. Some months have been way

099worse where things have gone up. Um this is showing where we are now. Um I don't know what will happen five months from now, but that's where the contingency piece of that comes in. And that's why those numbers are so high at that point because there's two pieces to that. there's dealing with tariffs and dealing with changes of state and all the things that you guys talk about through your board meetings. The other piece of it is in terms of the view of how far we are into the process. CPL has only had a small amount of time to design schematically, not in great detail. We fill in some of those gaps as best we can with our experience combined and conversations of what spaces will look like. And then we use those contingencies to

100fill the rest of that gap as they get into more detail. That way when you get to nine months from now and they've actually detailed everything, we've covered a lot of those things in advance because we have to build the budget for this well in advance of them designing. >> Right. Of course. Thank you. >> I know that um we kind of shared back and forth some of the things that came up at the last meeting. Do you want to sort of work through those questions that came up? Do you want me to provide questions? >> Yeah, I think probably providing questions would be more helpful. >> Sure. So, uh the first one that we had recorded was um whether uh it would make sense to make a smaller um gym cafeteria up in the

101Bennett location. >> Yep. So, I we did with the help of uh CPL. They gave me a little bit of a modified design which was about u 5,000 square feet in total instead of the 8,800 square feet in total. I don't know if you want to talk a little bit about the particulars of that. >> And just to clarify that's just the gymnasium. >> Just the gymnasium. Yes. So the gymnasium as proposed in the past vote was a full high school court size gymnasium with bleachers. So that's about a 50 by 84 foot gym court. We reduced it just to the size of a traditional elementary school court which would be more 42 by 74 and then we omitted the bleachers from it and that's what got us to the lower 5,000 square foot footprint

102that CJ hasn't updated number for on what that would cost. >> So originally we were at about $8.5 million for that addition. We're down to about six million. So um it's almost two million and two and a half million dollars worth of savings. And then for the cafeteria, the footprint obviously wouldn't change because it's going into where the prior gymnasium is, but there may be ways to economize. >> Yeah. So, we've been talking about ways to either find more economical finishes or maybe not do as much all at once, maybe spread it out over a future project or things like that, but just to do what we feel is necessary for to go just from a gym to a cafeteria. So maybe replacing the floor so that doesn't have gym lines on it. It's can

103be a tile floor or that's what's sort of there now. Um maybe just refreshing the space with paint and fresh lights. Um and maybe not going to the level that we would have gone to to make it a fullfledged cafeteria um by maybe today's standard. Um, and then I know you also looked at maybe reducing the number of the science classrooms that would be renovated. >> Yep. So, we looked at doing three science rooms instead of the five. Um, which originally we were about 5.1 million for the five science classrooms. We're able to get down to 3.2 million. And then uh I don't believe that we asked this before, but would the other two then be renovated as just classrooms or just be left? >> I left them as they were. Okay. >> Um I

104assume that maybe at a future time you would I assume want to make them science classrooms still. >> CJ, could you just repeat the the price or the savings whichever? >> So originally the five science classrooms were 5.1 million. With three science classrooms it is 3.2 million. I know you also looked at um maybe being more conservative in the library renovation and the renovation of the art um classroom. >> I didn't provide numbers for that particular piece. Um, I think that's going to be a similar thing to the cafeteria where I think you're really looking at finishes really as opposed to reducing size of space. The other thing with the library is we're really just building around that library. So, that library itself won't change. I believe there's a room associated with that. That again

105would be a finished situation. You're not going to pull a huge amount of money out of going from a ceramic tile floor to a VCT tile floor. Not that you were there at that point, but you're looking at tens of thousands of dollars, not hundreds or half a million or things like that. >> So, the library up there gets pretty hot. Okay. At times, >> so you're not including any AC for >> So, everything that we showed for renovations would include air conditioning. So, if we're renovating a space where we're replacing or dealing with mechanical system, we're replacing to do air conditioning and heat >> and is that um what we heard about earlier tonight, mini split kind of air conditioning or is it >> It depends on the space. >> Okay. So some of

106them, for example, um our concept for classrooms, if we were going to do the fenistration at the elementary school with the windows, those were UNI vents. Those would go back as unit vents, but they would have air conditioning associated with them. >> Okay? >> Which could either be a VRF combination or something separate that maybe has an individual condenser with it. Bigger spaces, gymnasiums, things like that, they have rooftop units. We would replace that with a package rooftop unit that had air conditioning associated with it. That way Kyle doesn't have to deal with multiple systems. I'm not sure if this is a question for you, but maybe it is. I see on the paper something about a prop two. Is that over in the margin? Um, that was just completely in discussions preparing for this

107meeting, different ways that things could be structured, but that is entirely up to the board. Uh, I know there was also a question about whether it would work to um eliminate the new drop off loop. >> Yep. you want to. >> Um, so if you're going to do the addition at Bennett, you essentially are going to have to relocate all your playground structures, which once those get relocated to the upper parking area, then that parking spaces needs to be relocated. Could you omit the drop off lane and just do the parking area? Yes. But then you're going to have to do your drop off within the parking lot. You're going to be blocking spaces. It's not going to be as safe for the students. They're going to have to walk up a little further to

108get to the new main entrance, which would be part of the new addition. So, ideally, it's could you do it? Yes. But it's not the safest solution. And at that point, you're there doing all the other work. So, to put that extra lane in and sidewalk at that point, the cost in relation to everything else going on is minimal as if you were to come back and do it later. Right, CJ? And I think the other thing I would just add to that is I think if that's something you want to look at more, I think it's something you really want to take some time and have them put some concepts together to really understand what you'll be gaining versus losing. And then I then I can provide a really a more accurate representation of

109what the financial situation would be. Uh, I know there was also a question about whether it would um potentially make sense to add the third music room but then hold off on renovating the existing rooms at a later date. >> So, those were estimated separately anyway. So, you I can give you those costs now. Um, but you guys do have those. It'll take me a second to find them. I think the one thing I would just add for that is um you can do anything. I'm a staunch proponent of that. I don't know if that is one that I would say makes a ton of sense. Not because it's a bad idea. I think there's just a little bit of a ripple effect with those existing rooms just in how your building will look because

110your existing shape of those existing rooms are sort of octagon trapezoidal maybe is what we'll call them. Um, and then you're going to put a square shaped building next to it with the understanding that ultimately you want to make the trapezoidal shapes more square. But will that could that happen? I think you know it's just something to consider at that point. In terms of pricing for the music edition uh was at 1.6 million almost 1.7. And then to renovate the two classrooms and to renovate and add to create that square shape was uh 2.8 million. >> Yeah. I just wanted to interject that this uh we asked questions about this on the Bennett tour and part of the issue is that those rooms uh the existing music rooms in Bennett don't have great sound insulation

111between them. Um, so this would, you know, really uh help with that problem and and set us up to have be able to have multiple uh music groups going at once. Uh, and I think one of the last things was there was sort of a an inquiry about is there a subset of items that would make sense to sort of fasttrack and use um the capital reserve funding for um and I think you have some thoughts on those. >> Yeah, I just have to find my list because I can't remember it. I apologize. Um I think the things that I thought in that were there's some drainage over at um Bennett that you guys could I think do separately at that point. Um with site work again you want to make sure you have some

112sort of building element that goes along with it. So you can access the aid for it but it can be something as simple as as long as it's a total of $10,000 you can access the aid for that and financial adviserss can help through that process too and finding what the right things are. Another item I had was just that sanitary line that I believe is in the front hallway of Bennett as well. I think that's a pretty easy standalone thing. I know that's something that's hot on Kyle's list, too, that he's been concerned about. The um windows at Bennett, I think, could be its own piece at that point, too. Depending on how far you want to go, we could separate some of those pieces. I don't know that I would, but it could

113be an option. Uh the next one I had was just replacing the boilers um and upgrading the boilers at the existing Bennett boiler room. That's a pretty easy standalone project. And then um again the fuel island and the electrical service at Bennett. Those could be easy ones that could easily be transferred to capital or however you wanted to fund them. You guys and science classrooms. Yeah. Could obviously be a standalone whether it's five or three. Yes. >> And would uh resurfacing the track fall into that bucket? >> So, I think there was a thought process of that resurfacing itself could be done maybe outside of the capital fund um or outside of a project. Um but it obviously certainly could be one as well. Yeah. >> Um I think I'm This is for you, Trusty.

114Good Richard. these. See, I'm going back to that visioning on Tiara and I'm remembering it was so clear back then before we had these there was what's being done table stakes like what needs to get done, what's on the facilities list and what's existed there and then the future. And so my frustration is instead of like getting more clarity on that, we've we've devolved into this sort of meer to me. um are the things that you mentioned the things that are on the facilities list. I know replacing the windows was I know that replacing some of the infrastructure was I know that the science classrooms were like I'd really like to understand what that is because for me I think that a phased approach where we build trust and show like we've shown with the

115high school gym and we've shown with the um the new entry and we've shown with the new blacktop at up there on central campus. It does so much to build rather than I'm still very unclear whether we're doing all of this or some of this. Is it $50,000 $50 million or so? Super. So, so I'm sorry I I'm frustrated, but would that be >> I think what he just said was included everything as far as the building condition survey. Is that what you're asking? So he had everything but the field drainage. >> Is that right? Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Yes. While I got the microphone just >> Well, can you just clarify, Clark? What's the difference between the drainage and the field drainage? >> Uh there's drainage that's outside over by Bennett that's in a

116totally separate location. And then I think what you're talking about is if you bear with me a second, >> the soccer field, right? >> Yeah. >> Toward the bottom. >> I have a different sheet. Sorry. >> Sorry. But thank you for trying. Um, >> while he's looking, I'll just explain to everybody who's here. Uh, where the soccer field is up above Bennett near the high school. When it rains, that water just comes straight down the hill. And below down below is like baseball field. >> Yeah, >> baseball and field hockey get up turned into uh flood zones or mud pits uh because we do because we just don't have the culvert can't handle a very strong rain. So that's that's that's what that when we say soccer field drainage and that if that has been

117an issue to you, that's what we're talking about. And that was a oneish million dollar item. Yeah. >> One thing I thought a lot of us were in agreement on was to upgrade the uh nurs's office nur the nurses suite. >> I don't believe that that got uh the votes when when the board created their priority list. >> So everything is this is a discussion. everything is up for consideration. You know, however the board wants to prioritize. That was the path that was chosen. So that was how we >> I think a number of few of us that Emily, trustee, we took the tour when we looked at the nurses suite. We go, whoa, this is like a mass unit from the 1940s. So, >> and I think uh assistant superintendentlair was also contemplating whether

118that could be handled outside of the project um through our annual transfer to capital. >> Yeah, just looking at the dollar amount that is less than what we normally have in our budget as transfer to capital. So, as we look at next year's budget, that might be something that we look to include into that. >> But just a quick question. So, but if we take something out of a capital project and do it that way, does that affect building aid? >> No, because it would still be a capital project. >> Okay. So, as long as it's building something capital wise, it still gets aided. Thank you. >> But to be a capital project, it would have to be voted on and approved. >> So, because it's part of the budget, the voters vote on the

119budget. So, they're automatically approving that transfer to capital for those purposes. just because there are so many community members here tonight which is so lovely. Um I just wanted to walk back and just maybe take five seconds to explain like what we're talking about. Um we were you know it was a a thought that we had about how we could start to try and find out what was essential out of what the scope of the last bond was. So a thought that we all came to that would be worth trying is to try and just come up with if we had to pick six and only six, what would we pick? So this is only that. It's no there's no agreement. There really hasn't been any discussion since we just all kind of said here's

120my six. Trusty Mitchell Morel wasn't there that night. Um, and just because the nurse's office didn't get votes in that what's your top six clerk, I would agree that I think like when we're hearing about what needs to be done now versus what doesn't need to be done now and what could be covered in the budget, I just don't want I know because it's a lot. I just don't want anybody to feel that we're like, "Okay, here comes our X amount bond and here's what is in it and here's what's not in it." That's not what's happening right now. We're having an initial conversation with CPL following our best go at trying to understand what everybody's priorities are. >> Trusty Mitch Morel. >> And I guess related to that, I and maybe others are wondering

121what are we doing next? like I just it feels like a little stuck. I'm like now what's happening like what is our next step? >> So I think our next step is to continue the discussion. Um we have added um additional meetings. So we have meetings in October on the 7th, the 14th and the 21st. the 7th and the 14th are discussion meetings where we would just be discussing like the capital project and that process uh so that we can become more clear ourselves because there's so much to think about and I think you know I want to thank our uh partners here for spending time with us and revising these numbers and kind of looking at the board priorities and and if we have specific specific um requests of them if we can um

122make sure that we get those to them because we're really meeting next week and then the week before. So, or the week after, I'm sorry. So, you know, I really value their their time and their efforts and um and all that they've done for us. >> So, want to thank uh you folks. Thank you uh for what you do. I know uh I know especially the architects here, you guys have a lot of fun with this stuff from talking to you. So uh I think you're like little kids in a playground here, but you guys are having a lot of fun with this design. I want to thank the uh Superintendent McLaren, the uh and the administrators and the principles that have all um participated in this and all the uh people that took uh

123part in the community forums that helped design this. Uh so everybody deserves a lot of credit, a lot of hard work into this and continues. >> Thank you. Thank you all. I just I just want to ask a clarifying question. Trusty Jerome, do you want to just um explain you just mentioned the process that you thought we were doing and then the process that we actually did. Could you just clarify uh for us what you know what that was? So, I don't know if there's a direct correlation, but I'm just I was hearkening back to that time where it was so clear that we had priorities and I feel like those priorities for have gotten lost and I'm I'm just confused. So, I'm looking, you know, I think I mentioned in totally due respect to

124all of you. Um, you know, I think that we have a lot to work out as a board before we drag you in here on yet another Tuesday evening. So to that's where the frustration is. I'm seeing more instead of like usually in the facilitation process, you you're kind of letting stuff go and you're getting to a more solid plan. I think I mentioned before um I don't think there's been enough discussion around the table yet. I know we have some more meetings planned, but you know, and I there'll be an opportunity tonight for me to talk about how I think a phased approach is the most sensible way to have our community members vote for something that would pass that would imps that we're seeing in our district that we've all talked about tonight.

125Um, I don't know if I can ask you any really good specific questions that I already don't know the answer to. So in any case, it was me being frustrated, but like I'm I'm so craving for things to sort of get simpler instead of, you know, long long lists with dollar amounts attached to them, which are irrelevant because they'll have to be requ. So >> Trusty Kenson and then Trusty Mitchell Morell. >> Yeah. So, I I think what we're running in there's sort of a two-step process which is um we as a board need to figure out what our you know what we're trying to do. That's discussion between us, but it that those decisions have to be based on information that these folks can give us, right? So, I think we've gotten some information

126tonight which is great. Um, I think maybe the way to think about this possibly structuring this is next week we can really just concentrate on board conversation uh uh and really try to hash through what the board wants to do and that will probably generate another set of questions for these folks and then they could come back on the 14th and then hopefully you know as each time we'll have fewer questions and we we round toward an officer. U but it is tough. It is tough when we have to do all these meetings in public, right? And uh which I'm not complaining about, but um we can only have them so often and we need to get information back and forth. So um I do agree that the next step is is board work. Um

127and then coming to these folks with some really clear asks. >> Trusty Mitchell Morurell, then back to Trusty Jared. and you guys will be at the next meeting or no that's not my question but I just they'll be at the next meeting or we don't know yet. Okay. I guess what I gathered from Trusty Jerome's initial comment not to put words in your mouth was like let's say there's why aren't we doing whatever is most urgent first. Like that would be I just don't totally understand that. Like if something's physically like disintegrating and there's six things that are going to last two or three more years, like why not make that a proposition? It's sort of like a a subjective way to do it where it's like these things are literally rotting. Let's do these

128things first. Like there are more straightforwards than forward way to do this. It feels like than us be like, well, I kind of think this is, you know, it's just like I don't know how far that's getting us. And it's maybe like physical conditions or something we can argue about less. >> Trusty Jerome and then I'd like to make a comment. >> Um I don't have any problem having many conversations about this. I actually feel rushed if if I can say like I feel very rushed and I feel like the the tenor of the board has changed since I've since I've been here in a very positive way and I don't want to feel rushed anymore. I want to have the com we we put up a $7 million bond or not a bond however

129it shook out with our deduction of our um capital account. But 3 months ago, you know, like we we we've got to I think we have to figure it out. I would like to see some things prioritize those things that are really falling apart. Prioritize so that we can get again phased approach, building trust, showing people like we're showing people right now. Um and building on those wins. I I'll just say that again. I just want to be clear that um this the this form that we have in front of us does show that we these items are prioritized and they're prioritized on the far right column by the trustees who voted for those items to be their top six. Um and while trustee Mitchell Morell wasn't here, she did vote. She did send us

130her her priority items. Trusty Jerome. >> Okay. I just want to make sure that this was a sketch and not a vote because I would like to like erase my name from that priority list because I'm still figuring it out. So, I just want to make sure that this is a sketch. >> It was a sketch, not a vote. I shouldn't have used the word vote. Trusty Jared, then Trusty Kudson. Okay, thank you. Um I it's very interesting to try and have a transparent honest conversation with like so many people here. It's wonderful, but I'm just going to try and like keep my focus. Um I it's just it's it feels very very I'm just trying to stay calm, you know? It's hard to keep my thoughts straight. Um and I want to be clear.

131Um, I have I do have a concern that lines up with trustee Mitchell Morell and trustee Jerome, which I think I expressed at the last meeting, but I just want to say it again in terms of the priority list, which is that um separating out conversations around configuration and just talking about the number um that the bond ends up being. for me I think is a really important big deal about this and I'm receiving so much outreach from community members about um just really not being comfortable with a a big bond. So, I just wanted to say like in terms of getting back into the conversation around this and the priority list, bless you. I think it's important that we stay open-minded about how to accomplish the things that have to be done like the

132track that has to be resurfaced and the science rooms that, you know, some of which are in really bad shape for example. and the part of the project that is is big and when we put all of those things together every time I see it I just my gut is like this number is too big I don't think our community can stomach it so for me in terms of our next discussion and when I saw like a possible prop two I s saw things about like popping out different items that were easy to do you know for me that's a part of the discussion I would I would love to revisit because I fear that uh a common ground among people that did not like the last bond, not the only reason, but a common

133ground was the sheer number that it was. >> Trusty Mitchell Morell, so is what you're kind of suggesting starting with a number and then working back from there. >> It's a good it's a good idea. I hadn't thought about that specifically, but maybe maybe that is a good idea, you know, to just start to think about what we have in cash, what we have saved, um, and what, you know, what is essential on top of that and start to see where it starts tipping over to the amount that feels like the community said like that's too much, you know? I just want to I I want to pause the conversation for a moment just because I don't want to keep our design >> Oh, you're fine. >> team here. >> I won't speak for you

134guys, but Sorry. Go ahead. >> Did you want to say something? >> I was just going to For whatever it's worth, I'm sure you guys would agree. I go to these meetings all the time. You guys are not the only board to struggle with what's important and it takes time and you have to go through that process and you have to do what you feel is right for the people in this room and for the kids in this district. If at any point in time we have made you feel like you should go faster. We don't want that. We want we're here as your allies. We want to make sure that you guys are comfortable with what you're seeing and what we're moving forward with because that's what's important. If it takes a certain amount

135of time, I think that's what it takes. I just caution everybody to know that there are timelines for things. And I'm not saying that to rush anybody, but there's just steps you have to hit if you want to vote on certain days. Whatever that day is, it's totally fine with me. uh just to keep that in mind and that may adjust some of your decisions at that point for your specific couple of comments. People build projects every way you can think of. Some schools are more comfortable. They know a number they want to do. They pick the 10 things that are important to them that fit in that number and then they move forward. Some schools do what we've done here. They go with the things that they feel like they're going to need in

136the future so that they're future proofing. There's any number of ways to do that and I think you guys just have to sort of find out what your path is for that. So, >> I just want to say that I I uh I really appreciate all the time and effort that you've put in. You've been working on this, you know, proposed project for months. Um I have not felt rushed by you at all. Um, I just really appreciate your support and your willingness to come, you know, and be with us in these meetings as we kind of, you know, just really figure it out. We're we're really just trying to figure it all out >> and it's a process and you have to go through it, >> right? Trusty Goodrich >> before you leave. >>

137Yeah. Um, so it was good to hear because I think we've gone back and forth whether we want to include the uh Bennett windows and the facade. >> Okay. >> As included in with the Bennett work or it can be excluded. Uh, so I think it was good to hear. So I think it can be excluded is what I heard. >> And so if we want to build that separate we can. uh does but does that affect the uh state aid in any way shape or form if >> I mean I'm sure sorry go ahead you know if it's included with a bigger project or it's a separate proposition >> I think fiscal should chime in at some point for that I think what I would say is this every decision affects aid in some

138way shape or form depending on what it is I think if you're going to go down that rabbit hole it's going to get worse before it gets better because you're going to constantly be wondering if you left a dollar on the table, per se. I think the thing you want to do is you want to trust fiscal adviserss are very good at what they do. Um, and give them what your list is that's important and let them confirm that this is what the aid is. They're going to do what they can to maximize your aid in that process, you know, and so I think the way you really want to look at it is am I getting the maximum amount of aid for the things I'm doing? Not am I getting the maximum amount of

139aid for everything? Does that make sense? Okay. Do you want to add anything? Okay. >> Yeah. I mean, the reason I asked the question is we when we had the tour, we heard that, you know, if if you're sitting next to those windows in the front, it's it's a little on the cold side, >> right? So, you know, so that kind of makes it a you know, a higher priority item. You know, maybe if we can get that done earlier. So, that's why I that question, you know, then we got the, you know, the priority thing. We got the fuel tank thing. I mean, the last thing you want is that fuel leaking out in the ground. That's going to the DEC is going to be here. It's going to cost a lot of money.

140So, yeah. So, we have priorities that I think are really important and I think we can identify those. >> Any other comments or questions? >> Thank you so much. Thank you. >> All right. Thank you. Have a great night. >> You too. Item 9.02 is dis discussion of the resolution to establish a K12 central campus by 2028. Do you want us to read it aloud? >> Okay. So, Trusty Kudson and I will alternate paragraphs. I'll start. Whereas the board of education of the Antiora Central School District board or district has been engaged in long-term planning regarding a transition to a central campus as part of its effort to address ongoing challenges including declining enrollment, the declining pool of instructional and non-instructional applicants, aging aging facilities, and the budget. And >> whereas on May 2nd, 2023,

141in light of the above challenges, the board voted to reconfigure the elementary school buildings and grade levels for the start of the 2024 2025 school year by one, closing Phoenicia Elementary School at the conclusion of the 2023 2024 school year. Two, ref reconfiguring Woodstock Elementary School and Bennett Elementary School to each encompass grades K through five. and three committing to working toward a unified central campus by 2028. And >> whereas the aforementioned decision decisions were made after significant study deliberation and community input which included obtaining a consultant to conduct a thorough school building utilization and grade configuration study. Discuss at several discussion at several board of education meetings. holding three World Cafe events to engage in conversation with the community on long-term planning, issuing a community survey, and holding a community forum and presentations at

142several board meetings and posting links on the district's website to long-term planning information. And >> whereas the district and the board have taken additional steps to further study, deliberate, and engage with the community regard regarding the transition to a central campus, including in March of 2024, retaining the services of facilitator Sharon Leovski to arrange community discussions related to the central campus, sharing sessions held on May 13, 2024, May 14th, 2024, and community visioning sessions held on June 11th, 2024, and June 13, 2024 to discuss wishes and worries about the move to a central campus and to imagine what the campus could look like. Visioning sessions with key stakeholders, specifically faculty and staff and middle school and high school students held throughout November and December of 2024. Reviewing the building condition survey and space utilization analysis

143of existing buildings. reviewing early drafts of new designs being created by the district's design team of architects and engineers based on visioning, space utilization assessment and building conditions survey. The review of conceptual designs by principles, central administrators, architects, construction manners, and a community guide. Holding three community forum sessions on December 3rd, 2024, first draft preview and prioritization exercise. January 15, 2025, second draft review and committee discussion. and February 25th, 2025, proposed campus design and community Q&A presentations by district administrators to the board regarding a central campus and related costs and capital improvements delivered on February 18th, 2025, March 4th, 2025, and March 18th, 2025. providing detailed information on the district's web page regarding the proposed transition to a central campus, including answers to frequently asked questions, FAQs, slideshow presentations, and summaries from visioning sessions and

144community forums. And >> whereas the New York State governor and legislature have expressed an intent to revise the foundation aid formula, a position subsequently endorsed by a year-long study of foundation aid by the Rockefeller Institute. And the state calculates that the district is currently overfunded by $7.3 million per perom. An amount that if lost would force the district to take drastic and reactionary steps to address the funding shortfall without the benefit of strategic and thoughtful long-term planning. And >> whereas with the best interest of district students as its paramount concern, the board believes that closing Woodstock Elementary School and creating a K12 campus in Boyceville would provide opportunities to improve educational programming, instructional experiences, and educa educational outcomes for students, have fewer transitions between school buildings, maximize staff efficiency and effectiveness, and allow greater alignment

145of resources and practices. Minimize the length of bus rides for the majority of students as well as the number of bus routes for the district, promote equity of services, and enhance student safety as well as access to afterchool programming and enriched vocal and instrumental experiences. And whereas the board has reviewed and considered the information presented by district administrators, the district's architects and engineers, and the community regarding grade reconfiguration and the transition to a central campus. Now therefore, be it resolved that in order to address the challenges and opportunities before the district, and to continue moving toward the ultimate goal of locating all grade levels in buildings located on one central campus by the start of the 2028 2029 school year, the board of education of the Antiora Central School District hereby determines that Woodstock Elementary

146School will close at the conclusion of the 2027 2028 school year. And >> be it further resolved that the superintendent of schools is directed to take such steps and make such filings with the New York State Education Department as are necessary to effectuate the purposes of this resolution. May I have a first? We have a discussion after we we have a first, a second, and then we will have a lengthy discussion. I'm sorry. We're in an elementary school. Would you please put your hands down? Thank you. >> We're in an elementary school. >> May I have a first? >> Trusty Smith. May I have a second? Trusty Jared, any questions or comments, >> Trusty Goodrich. All right. Um, so bear with me everybody here. So, I just want to back up a little bit from

147a personal perspective in case people don't understand where I'm coming from. >> Okay. Is that better? >> All right. I'll talk really loud here. So, um, in June of 2023, when I was first elected, I came out in support of the uh, resolution that ended up closing Phoenicia and u, we're now progressing to build a central campus. And I still support that. I'm all in on it. We did uh community forums. We worked with the architects. And uh what I really like about this resolution that drives the point home is the board believes that closing Woodstock Elementary and creating a K through2 campus in Boyceville would provide opportunities to improve educational programming, instructional experience, and educational outcomes for the students. So, what we're doing is all about the students. So, I want to be really

148clear. I really like that. Okay. Now, I This is great until we get to the last two paragraphs. So, I'm not sure why we're having this resolution. I don't know what the value is. I said that in the last board meeting and I still don't know what it's trying to accomplish. Um, so I'm going to do a couple scenarios. One scenario is let's say we don't finish the construction on time. Let's say it's approved and we're working along and construction doesn't complete on time. This thing says we've got to move. We're going to close Westerly Elementary School, but we may not have a place for those kids to go. What are we going to do? That's a question for the superintendent. What are we going to do there? >> I think we would certainly know

149well ahead of time if we were on schedule or not and if we needed to adjust the schedule, then we would. >> So again, I don't understand why we have this resolution. We're setting a date that's like a long ways in the future. And normally, I would think this res this is some this is a resolution we need. we're going to need. Anyway, the questioning I'm having is what is the timing of it? Why do we need it now? We could do it later, right? When we're closer to the end date and we know that, all right, yeah, we're we're actually going to have a place for the kids to move into. The other scenario is the bond is not approved. we can't do the new classrooms at Bennett and we decide to go with

150an alternate plan which we haven't discussed yet. We have no idea what we're going to do in that situation. You know, we probably have things that we we think we might do but we haven't had that open discussion here, right? So, what do we do in that alternate plan? I mean, it's possible. It's possible we may say, "Geez, we don't have any construction constraints. We could we could move people into Woodstock in 2026, but we're setting a date here for 2028, 2029 when it'll be closed. I I don't think we need this resolution at this point in time. Uh it doesn't make any sense. I don't think it has any value." And so my third thing is, okay, so we passed the resolution and what happens if the building aren't completed yet. You're going to

151based on this, you're going to submit a a paper to New York State Ed that says, "Hey, we're closing in 2028." And so now couple years later, we we don't have a place for the kids to move into because the building's not built yet, right? What are we going to do? Called New York State Ed and said, "Oh, we were just kidding. Okay, we need to change the date." So again, what's what's this resolution for? What are we trying to accomplish here, >> Chissy? Thank you. We'd like to continue the meeting, please. [Applause] Just to clarify, we would submit with state ed the spring before the closure, not right now. >> We have an an opportunity for the public to be heard um after we're finished with this discussion. We don't we do not >>

152we This is an elementary school. >> It is an elementary school, but we do not we do not speak back and forth like this in our board meetings. >> Uh, okay. Um, can I make a motion, President Bishop, that we table any board vote on this resolution until after public be heard? >> Yes. [Applause] Damage is done. Damage is done. >> May I have a second? Trusty Jared, we will vote. Trusty Smith. >> I >> Trusty Jared. >> We're voting on postponing voting until after public be heard. We're voting on waiting to make any decisions until after public be heard. I know, >> but since we're in discussion, there's no complication there, right? >> There's no complication. This is a new res. This is a new >> uh motion, >> but wouldn't it also be

153possible we don't end up voting on it at all? >> It's possible, but let's just make one motion at a time. So, um Trusty Jared >> I, >> Trusty Mitchell Morell, >> I. Trusty Jerome >> I. >> Trusty Goodrich >> I. >> Trusty Kitson >> I That's unanimous. >> Now we may may we continue our Okay. So we're not discussing this anymore even. >> No discuss. >> Okay. I Yeah. I'd like to continue the the our discussion. What we've agreed on is that we are not voting on the resolution until after public be heard. But our part of the conversation will continue until public be heard. Trusty Mitchell Morell. Um, uh, so I I understood when we were talking about the improvements and the central campus that that did imply the eventual closure of Woodstock.

154Um, I just think we have to do it right and properly. And, you know, white knuckling our desire to close Woodstock over all other factors, um, is just it's just not the way to do it. And it makes it unnecessarily contentious. Um, it also pits our community against each other at a time like when nationally that's happening so much that it would be so helpful to have more of a sense of peace in our communities right now. Um, I feel >> um I feel terrible that we're doing this so I just want to say sorry to everyone. But I mean, I think ultimately I think we understood as a board what we're working towards, but I think things need to be done in a proper way and we can't just force this down people's throats

155at this moment. It's kind of gross and inappropriate. And I also feel like I had no idea this was coming and I think other board members felt really blindsided and there was some back channeling going on and that also kind of is upsetting. So, this whole thing kind of is not for me and I'll definitely be voting no and or maybe we could table it for when we as Clark suggested get closer to the goal of having room for these kids. Trusty Jared All right. There's a lot of interesting echoes here for me because in 2023, I was sitting out there with a lot of you actually. Um, really upset about the resolution. Um, so it's really interesting to be sitting here. Um, I changed as Clark did. I think it would be helpful for

156me to just share because not every trustee maybe knows my background with this, but um I was not in favor of centralizing at all. I was president of the Bennett PTA and I organized a lot of parents to come to the board meetings and and uh voice my opposition. And now it's 2025 and I'm sitting here um really passionately positive about the possibility for our elementary kids of bringing them together into one place. If so for me and what I would just offer to everybody here tonight is I didn't prepare any remarks because I am here to listen to the other trustees and I am here to listen to all of you. I'm trying as one of seven individuals to find my way through a very difficult situation that has many layers and levels to

157it. As far as this, I agree with all of the opportunities that are listed. Um, most of which we've had a chance to unpack. The only one I put stars around was um that I did go back and review the bus length of time on bus that um Nikki Summers sent us. And um ironically, it's my kids who have the longest bus ride in the district, which I didn't know, but it's us. Um and with the current uh campus, I just I think it's this is something that we've all talked about as something that's very important. in here. So, I just wanted to share they did a lot of work on this. Um, and currently there's I think five or six kids that have a ride between 40 to 43 minutes. That's the longest time

158on bus. And with the central campus, I think one or two children are added and one or two minutes is added. So, we're looking at longest time on bus about 45 minutes. I'm pulling this from memory. and those kids are over on my road and we don't live in Woodstock. That's just for just for what's in this resolution. So, what I think is great about this resolution is it's brought us to where we are now, which is not where we were in 2023 and it's not where we were in 2011, it's where we are today. And I think it's created a really good opportunity for us to discuss some things as Trusty Goodrich said that we we haven't really gotten into as a as a board and I know all of you and you care

159all of you a lot for our kids and I know that that is what I am trying to remind myself is first and foremost and I know you're all doing that too. So for me, what's missing in context is the common ground that I'm hearing is like there are folks that want to wait and that opens a possibility that the elementary children come to a central campus without an expanded elementary school. And there are folks in our community that don't want to spend a lot of money to expand the elementary school. And that looks like the possibility that the kids come to the central campus without an expanded elementary school. And this resolution invites that second path, which is, you know, my understanding from our tour at Bennett, the fifth grade moving to the middle

160school. And I think, you know, sunlight is a great antidote. And I think that it would be great if we could talk here from our administration and our educators if that is a scenario that would be positive for our kids because it's on the table anyway if we risk losing funding before this is built. Like that is on the table. We've been talking about it and hearing about it. We just haven't heard about it specifically and discussed it. And that would be super important for me to understand. Um, and to be able to say that a central campus is what's best for our kids with or without an expanded elementary school. That's the question this poses to me and that's the conversation that I think would be great to have. >> Trusty Goodrich. So, just

161to build on what Trusty Jared said. Um, so we've had uh Superintendent McLaren talk off and on about, you know, the foundation aid and we may have to put fifth grade into the middle school. So, that's been said a few times, but we as a board have never really discussed that. We have never there in January of Yeah, January 2023, uh there was a 15page presentation by uh the administration on closing, I'm sorry, moving sixth grade to Phoenicia. That was a great presentation, by the way. And uh there was the details, pros and cons. >> Sorry, Trusty G. Do you mean sixth grade to the middle school? Yeah, fifth grade to >> sixth grade to the middle school. >> Sixth Sixth grade to the middle school. >> Just to clarify, thank you. >> Yeah, I'm

162sorry. Sixth grade to middle school. Thank you. So, a great presentation. There was a detailed timeline. Uh, you know, you had a discussion and you approved it and we need that discussion here in an open forum. We need to have that feedback from the administrators on the the pros and cons of moving fifth grade into the middle school because right now Bennett will only handle K through four. So, if we can't build out Bennett, we need to figure out where are the kids going to go. I mean, it's kind of like um you sign a lease that you're going to have to move out in January and you got no place to to move your family. So, I I think we need those discussions before we go forward. Um and I think this resolution is

163incomplete unless we do that. You know, I mean, we send this thing up to, you know, what what does it mean? New York State Ed's going to look at this and say, "Well, you have no idea where those kids are going to go. How can I approve your your plan of closing Woodstock if you don't have a plan on where the kids are going to go?" So, you know, we we we've got the court the cart before the horse here. And I and I'm if if any of the trustees are are thinking about voting for this thing, I'd like to listen to what you have to say here because I I don't get it. I don't understand why we have this resolution at this time. If if in fact the um we you know we

164get funding for the the additional classrooms and we do the buildout then yeah we're going to need this resolution at some time in the future maybe around 207 but we don't need this thing now. This isn't going to prove anything one way or the other. And what are we going to do if we if we don't like the uh the plan? Maybe the plan for uh moving the fifth grade into middle school is a really ugly plan. You know, we haven't looked at it. We don't know yet. And I don't want to have to approve that plan without looking at it. There's no way I want to approve a plan unless I see what we're doing. So, if that's what you guys are asking us to do, because I did not approve doing this resolution

165to begin with, and I don't think we even had a vote on it. Um, I don't remember having a vote u to write this resolution. Maybe we did. I just don't remember seeing it. So, thank you. >> We didn't have a vote on that on whether or not we were going to write a resolution. We would have a vote on whether or not we're going to adopt the resolution. We don't have to have a vote to present a resolution. >> I just want to reiterate, I'm all for the central campus. I just oppose to the last two paragraphs in this resolution. So, uh I just let's back up a little bit and talk about just uh procedurally how we got here because questions have been raised and I just want to address them about back

166channeling or things like that. Um so the 2023 resolution um I joined the board in um July of 2024 at which time the 2023 le resolution was already in place and if you all probably are familiar with that it outlined a process for last year of the visioning sessions everything that happened last year everything we just read in this um resolution that has been done according to prior policy of the board It's when you join a school board, you the best practice and what you are bound to do is to uphold the the pro policies of previous boards unless there's a very good reason not to. But um so we did that and the thing about the way that that resolution was written is it kind of put the board in in the back seat

167of that process. it really fronted the administration and the community. And in August, at the August meeting, I said publicly that I thought that um I know that education law says that decisions like this, which are very hard, very emotional, very difficult, are the responsibility, the sole responsibility of the school board. They are not a public referendum issue. Um and there's a reason for that. Um making a decision like this is a burden and the burden properly falls on us up here at the table. It does not fall on you sitting out there to decide about you know these questions. Um when you join a school board I'm just going to digress a little bit here. It's very humbling to join a school board. I know I know I'm sorry it's a long night but

168these are important things to discuss. officer. Um, it's humbling how much we have to learn. We have to be conversant in law, finance, curriculum, union contracts. I mean, go down the list. It is a a a an incredible portfolio that we all put a lot of time into learning about. And that's why the way school boards are set up, it falls to us to make these very complex, very difficult decisions. And I think what has happened in this situation is that there is an impression in the community that the configuration issue and putting our district on a sort of firm fiscal footing and giving our kids the best we can give them educationally is something that you all have to figure out. Um, and so the way this developed, Trusty Mitch Morell, is I I

169spoke about this at length. I think you were at the August meeting. I spoke about this at length and I said, "We have to figure out a way to fulfill our responsibilities because it is our responsibility. If we shy away from making these hard decisions, we're sherking our job. We're not doing our job." Um and uh after that meeting, Trusty Smith said, you know, that he appreciated what I said and uh for him. So, but the thing is once we finish a meeting in August, we have to have our next meeting in public, right? So, we don't talk about it until the next time we're together. And uh I believe uh Trusty Smith um um took what I said and um came to the conclusion that he his version of leadership was to propose this

170resolution. Um that happened at the next meeting in public uh on in September. So and then we have to ask when we when that was proposed in September, we have to go to the you know we can't discuss it because we don't have anything in front of us. So, we have to ask for something that could be brought here tonight for us to discuss. So, that's what we're doing. Okay. Um, so from a process standpoint, it's very difficult for us to move forward um between, you know, we don't move forward between meetings. We're we're having discussions in front of you at every meeting because that's the law. Okay. Thank you. I know this is super emotional. I know this is super emotional. What? Um, so folks, we're figuring this out in front of you because

171that's what the law tells us we have to do. Okay? And it's awkward. We're working on it right now. Okay? Um, so I want to say that I I I just tabled the vote. We just tabled the vote. >> Please, please maintain your respect. Please. >> We're having this is how we work. We have a have a have to have a conversation. So, let me give you a practical tip, folks. Let me give you a practical tip. Okay. Okay. Okay. So, I view this resolution as a way to move the district forward because it makes clear that um what has been um the public has largely been convinced is a res is a referendum issue is not a referendum issue. And you can boo that, but it is actually true and it's actually the law.

172Okay. So, I'm going to stop there, but um the the Yes, you do. Yes, >> Jesse Jared. I would just like to address you all to say that when it is public, be heard, we are not going to interrupt you. We're not we're not going to hold up signs and we're not going to yell at you because that would be that would not create the kind of community relationship that would help us through this. So from my heart, I'm just asking if you can find it within yourself to extend the same human courtesy to somebody that you might not agree with because none of us can really claim that we're right. I'm not here claiming that I'm right and you're wrong. We're just trying to talk it out and I am ready to listen to

173you. So I'm just You didn't set this up to be discussion. >> Oh no, it's a discussion and possible action. That's what I came in here with the understanding being. And my experience is so far our board has been answering the the call of the moment which is immediately making it clear that there was no plan for us to vote before public be heard. And we're not planning to do that. We have >> we are >> we excuse me. There is a portion of every board meeting that we call public be heard. That's the time for public comment. When we're finished with this discussion, >> I'm not setting a timer. Would any other trustees care to speak? Just >> I'd like to hear from the public. >> That okay. Is that that what you want,

174folks? >> I thank you. Um, so we will move forward. We will come back to this discussion. I'd like to acknowledge uh before we move on to public be heard, I'd like to acknowledge Stephanie Bryant who did speak at our last board meeting under public be heard. Public and students may comment on any agenda or non-aggenda item. The board appreciates hearing from the public, including students on any agenda or non- I'm sorry. Yeah, on any agenda or non-aggenda item. Please understand that by our adopted parliament parliamentary procedure, the board can't engage in discussion or answer questions during public be heard. Please know that we hear you and we take all your comments into consideration. The board does reserve the right to correct any inaccuracies or misinformation during public bee heard. Please limit your comments to

175three minutes. be civil and do not name any particular individuals or promote any commercial ventures or products. People wishing to express individual student or personnel concerns can bring them to the superintendent's attention in private. We do set a timer. We will hold to the timer. The mic will be shut off at at the three minute mark. Just quick comment, if you if your remarks go over the three minutes, you are welcome to submit the rest of them in writing to the to the uh board after the meeting. >> Uh the first person on the list is Tom. I'm sorry I can't read your last name. Tom, whoever signed up first. >> A n o n o n or n o r. Tom. All right, we'll come back to Tom. Uh Kathy McNamera. Fedra Daggerman. This

176is scary enough and this is like terrifying, but we're we're good. Thank you all for sitting here for this. I I don't think I could do it. Um I'll keep it brief. Uh the administration and board know this, but I want to make clear, especially to the newer participants here, that there are many of us in the community, including Woodstock residents, many of you know my husband and his family, who support the central campus, who believe that it isn't right to keep spreading our limited resources over to schools when centralizing allows us to equitably provide stronger support services, more robust programming, and greater opportunities to all our children. A few of us shared narratives leading up to the May vote at ocsd centralcampus.substack.com. I'm saving your time listening. They're all still up if anyone would

177like to read more about these reasons. I'm grateful to all of you on this board truly. Um for keeping so many considerations, perspectives, and concerns in mind, and for being willing to grapple with such a difficult decision. I see how hard all of you have worked over years to involve the community. Please keep us moving forward. Thank you. Thank you. Adam Snyder. >> Hello. Um I'm Adam Snyder. I'm a parent Woodstock resident and I'm a parent a Woodstock resident and educator. Um, I really want to zero in on what Carolyn Jerome said and you said a phased approach where we build trust. That really resonated with me and I think that's very sensible. Um, because having this vote tonight is not that. Um, I've heard the word unity a lot over the last couple of

178years and it's a nice word. Um, this resolution will not create unity. It's very clear that this resolution would create more divisiveness. And you know that. You absolutely know that. If you vote tonight to close Woodstock Elementary, this community will be divided like never before. And that's going to be on you guys. So, I'm asking you, um, I happen to be in favor of keeping the school open. But I'm open to hearing this process. I really am. Um, let's see where it goes. Let's work together as a community. Um, but don't do this kind of like chess move here. to try to divide our community because you know that's what's going to happen. It's not going to bring us together. Don't do it. [Applause] Thank you, Rebecca Termo. Um, >> I probably don't even need

179the mic because I'm louder than probably anybody in this room. >> But you need to use it just so that the folks that are listening on YouTube can hear it. >> Okay. Pretty sure everybody can usually hear me. This vote is putting the cart before the horse. Um, when I first found out that you were having the vote, it was after you'd had the meeting where you discussed the resolution. It wasn't specifically put in in the meeting minutes so that people didn't know to attend to listen to you have discussion about having this possible resolution. People people just want honesty and transparency when it comes to this process. I listened tonight. I heard well maybe we should add this size gym or maybe a 5,000 square foot gym. We don't really know and we can

180save this amount of money. It sounded almost I'm not being mean, but like a fire sail because, you know, you didn't get the original money in the original vote. And we're not prepared to to make a resolution to send paperwork to the state to close this school until you have a better understanding of what you're going to do. The idea of putting fifth graders in the junior high school, I my kids went to that school. I went to that school. You don't want fifth graders in the same building with seniors. You just don't. It's a mistake. Kids need a chance to be able to be kids. The reason I raised my kids in this community and I stayed here is because they were going to a smaller school and it was an easier time for

181us as single parents like myself to be able to interact with the community and have the community interact with our school. When you take the children and you start busing them all the way out to Anor, it changes a lot of the dynamics. you lose things you might not have even thought about like Girl Scouts because now a parent who's a single parent has got to now drive all the way back out to Anor because you're not going to have a place to have Girl Scouts or brownies here. We are losing so much community everywhere. I I listen I think that you should have kept two schools open one here in probably Phoenicia split the district in half. I'm willing to listen to your other things, but this new bigger idea of a bigger super

182school when we have a perfectly acceptable building here, that account amount of money, it's not I don't think it's really necessary to do that this vote at this time. Put together a plan that you can show to us that we can feel comfortable about. The last meeting I went to before the last vote, I sat here for three, two and a half, three hours and then finally I raised my hand because they were saying, "Oh, I'm sorry. Well, we're not taking any more questions." I didn't even have a chance to question. You act like we've had so many chances and we actually haven't since 2023. It wasn't all that many meetings. It's a farther drive for older people if they to go up to the other school. We have we're a district of 350 square

183miles and it's rural and it's really hard for people to get from one area. Thank you, Miss Termo. Thank you. [Applause] Michael Platsky probably can. Oh, okay. Thank you, Arana Kenlin. My name is Jerena Kinlin and I used to stand right there where you are. Um, and I did I sang in a choir in a chorus and did recitals here. Those curtains look very different. I also was on the uneven bars right over here. And Mr. Hererski, Vic Vickiy's father over there, was one of the best principles I ever had. I went to Antiora. I lived nationally, internationally. I took long bus rides from Glenford over the scariest mountain in the middle of winter. I've done My favorite look was looking at uh Cooper's Lake, Little Peekaboo on 212. I know all about that. I

184have two degrees. I teach and had taught for over 20 years nationally, internationally, English to speakers of other languages. I'm going to use the international term. My issue with you is that you have one agenda. It's a linear thinking and you're imposing it upon this district, this school. And I remember and I worked in these schools. I worked in these buildings as well as went to these buildings. You have not taken in consideration every state and administration and in your letters in the newsletter and the BOE before and we did a survey before 2020 that you are supposed to listen to family and community engagement. That is a rubric for all administrators and teachers to follow and I have the paperwork for that as well. But the biggest thing is is that you're not taking

185in consideration that the town of Woodstock has spent since I've been on the housing committee and I was on the housing committee for five years working on and had been warning and had a discussion with you in a small group about the problem that you guys knew about for years and were not doing anything. You think in one closed box. There's a context here. Shandacen is going through their comprehensive plan. There's which you have to do before you can go to zoning and changing the laws for short-term rentals. The BOE does not need to do what McLaren and her team wants you to do. You don't have to jump just because she says go ahead and jump. You can make your own decision. And what's happening is is the communities that are low roll income

186or having low uh numbers for students because nobody can live here because it's too expensive and it's not no affordable housing. We're also having that problem with emergency services. But the communities are working their asses off trying excuse me trying to get more communities to come here and to keep the engagement. That doesn't happen overnight. you need to give us time to do it. And when you're rushing through in this linear idea of closing down the schools, which in that original survey before 2020 said that >> Thank you, Miss Kendlin. >> Thank you, Miss Kenlin. >> Thank you. Vicky Hab Haberski. Vicki, >> thank you. Thanks for having me. So, my dad um was the principal of this school. Um I hung out here a lot as a child as well. I was not able

187to go here um because he was a principal. But what um he passed away. If he was here today, he would have been fighting um to keep the school open. I know that. And I know that he would have at least looked at every possible way solution to keep the school open. And what I'd like to do is just read a letter my on as my sister wrote this letter on behalf before of our family um when we were voting for the proposition when our father Mr. Hererski accepted the position as principal of Woodstock Elementary School in 1979. It it was a pivotal moment in his life for it provided him with a pathway by which he could help create positive and meaningful change alongside the larger community. It wasn't the administrative aspects of the

188position that ignited our father's passion and communitydriven focus. Instead, the thousands of small moments engaging with the community impacted him the most. The smiles on his students faces as he said good morning to them at school. the outpouring of support the school received while fundraising to build wonderworks. The excitement he saw as he walked the Woodstock Memorial Day parade alongside his students and staff full of pride and gratification to be part of such a bant vibrant community. Public schools, elementary especially elementary schools are the heart of a community. It is where parents connect at drop off and pickup. Local local events are hosted like the Woodstock Allstars. Generations of families share a common experience and their younger students form their first social bonds with their local neighborhood. It is the heartbeat of the community providing

189a shared purpose and physical space for connection. How do you replicate the sense of place in a centralized school model? The instances, sorry, I just lost my place, just shared are what developed our father into the community engaged person he became, and they would not have been as impactful if he had worked 30 or more minutes from the community in which he lived. The real value lies in keeping Woodstock Elementary School open so that many more lives can be positively impacted, allowing students, families, and school employees to live, work, and spend time within all the community they call in within the community they call home. Thank you, Mattlair. Hi, I'm Mattlair and that is my wife there in case anybody wants to know. I am pro consolidation. Um, this board has done a terrific job

190and I appreciate every one of you. I know this isn't just a twohour 4h hour meeting you're at. You're hearing it all the time and I think you've been very considerate and very good to this crowd tonight. I want to thank you for all your efforts. I want to thank you for putting our kids first. And I think that's what you're doing. Being at homecoming and seeing all the kids together, seeing in the one area, we had grammar school kids, we had seniors, we had everybody together. It was a great community day and it felt really nice. I want to thank Superintendent McLaren for all the work she's done. There's no agenda here. New York State is losing population. We just can't keep these schools open. There's no kids anymore for them in my neighborhood

191in West Hurley. There's none over there. So, I would just like to say thank you to everybody for coming out, being passionate, but also be respectful. These people do a lot of hard work. Thank you. >> Thank you, Matt. Francis Kenudson. Um so the job of the school board we understand is to provide the best education possible for the children within the budgets that the community can support. On the one hand a natural instinct is to say I will spare no expense for the benefit of our community's children. I am willing to pay more taxes to enable my local school to stay where it is. But not everyone can afford to pay more taxes and school tax increases have to be spread proportionally across the whole district. Within our community, we have families who are

192struggling to put food on the table. I work with the community foundations of the Hudson Valley and uh uh we recently published a report called Voices of the Hudson Valley uh that came out of a series of community conversations and it identified the top needs as rising housing costs, limited access to child care and mental health services and ongoing food insecurity. Food insecurity is real and our local food banks have more demand and less government support than ever before. So, we have to balance the need for educational funding with what our neighbors can afford to pay in taxes to make sure we're only paying for what is really important. So, what is most important? Teachers, support for special needs, funding for the arts, sports, extracurriculars, a path for advanced learners, and learners that need extra

193help, the health and safety of all the people in our schools. How can the community protect funding for these priorities? Antiora faces the loss of more than 7 million each year in foundation aid in the future. Antiora is currently receiving more state aid than experts hired by the state have said is its fair share. The main question is how quickly the reductions will be phased in. So when the district has to cut costs, what can be cut? The district can't cut contractual benefits for retired teachers. Since Antior used to have more teachers to support larger school-aged populations, there are a lot of retirement expenses that are not going down soon. As the number of students gets smaller, the cost per student goes up just because of paying for the same retirement benefits. I don't want

194to see reduced numbers of teachers or support staff for students. I want to see Antiora retain the good teacherto student ratio that we have. So where does that leave the district? What could the district cut without hurting children's educations? With two elementary schools, there are fixed costs that come with the buildings. These buildings are 70 years old. The maintenance costs alone are significant and rising. With two elementary schools, you can't reduce the costs of transportation. If the district doesn't reduce these fixed expenses, reductions will have to come from things that more directly affect the children. Thank you. >> Thank you, Francis Ph. Heyman. Good evening. Um, I heard that you were blindsided. A couple of months ago, there was a vote. Everyone here, most of the people here voted to keep the school open. That

195was public. Why are you blindsided when uh on community uh websites it lists tonight as the meeting to discuss the closing uh of Woodstock Elementary School. Then I get to hear about the gym, um, mini splits, um, the quarterback for Antiora, and we are here to discuss the closing of Witstock Elementary. And you're surprised that we start speaking about this at 8:34. At 6 o'clock, I came with my fellow firefighters. I did not want to put my gear on, which they asked me to, because I didn't want my opinion to reflect everybody else's in the department. Company one, which is Woodstock Proper, we have seven responders. One of them is only a driver, that's six responders. That's all. If someone is out of town, that's five responders. And then I look back, they left and

196I see that there's not one person that's under 40 on our fire on our fire team. Not one. One right now is in training. So why is that? Because the population is getting older. Why is that? Because it's getting less interesting to be in Woodstock. There was a vote about limiting outdoor music to three hours uh a night for three nights a week. So those people are not interested. I have a 37year-old daughter. She would love to move to Woodstock, but I have to tell her, "No, my granddaughter does not have an elementary school, the same one you played at the playground. That's going to be closing." So, we're you're you're educators and I'm sure you're wonderful at that, but you're not taking I think community and the need to make this community attractive to

197younger uh to to to a to a younger population. Otherwise, it just keeps on getting older and we keep on cutting things out and then all we do is get older and older and this town becomes any ordinary town. So, Teachers should just concentrate on their students in class, but I think you have a bigger responsibility and it's not just what's best in the classroom. And we have nice nice slides that show that if they go to Antiara, there'll be a 2% increase in their math skills or whatever, but we have to think about the future population of >> Thank you. [Applause] Jess Wisneski. Hi, Jess Wisneski. Element, Woodstock Elementary, class of 92. Both my boys uh took the big yellow bus from Olive Bridge to come to Woodstock not so many years ago and

198loved it. I am one of the 1,164 voters who voted yes for the bond. Um there's lots of us out there might not totally be represented in this room tonight but indeed they're there many over the last decade really two decades have been in many community discussions many factf finding missions in the past two years I've really joined on that and really just want to shout out and appreciate the indepth process that you all and this district have had on these tough questions with a lot of room in these buildings to sit in community together with facts and think about school configuration um and envision a central campus that we all you know dreamt would be a wonderful place for our kids to be uh that was tax neutral unfortunately it didn't pass and I

199think part of the reason is that there was a large-scale campaign in this town that led everyone to believe that if they voted no on the bond this elementary school would stay open forever. But that wasn't actually true. And it was said in the newspaper and it said by the administration and it was said by board members that that's unlikely because what we know, what our facts told us, what our community sessions told us is a central campus is going to do the job you know you need to do, which is going to give a more equitable education and a better education to the kids in all six towns. all six towns that make up the Entoura school system and that it's more financially and environmentally sustainable for the next generation of students and families

200who live here. And I want the families who live here to be able to keep living here, right? There's too many people who can't pay the high taxes, who can't pay the rents, and are moving out. It's part of the It's part of the problem, right? And so I just I wanna I want to say thank you for keeping the course. I feel like this resolution would just clarify what we have tried to clarify over and over and over again is the future of this building as a school at least. Right. I really hope the people of Woodstock come and create a beautiful next life for this building and this community and for what this community needs. What our kids need is the best possible education and we know a central campus will do that.

201I encourage you as you think about the bond, the next bond, to keep it small. Times have shifted. The way voters are feeling has shifted. Do what you need to do to make Bennett secure for all the kids. Let's get them all together and start that good next education process. And I'm really glad to hear that the health offices and the high school could be added in without the bond because it's very >> Thank you. Ed McGiddy. Hi, good evening. I have some prepared remarks. Excuse me. Okay. So, if I didn't have two children at Woodstock and only read the information that the district has provided, I believe this was an empty shell of a building. That's the picture that's painted when you zoom out and only show district-wide enrollment trends over the past two

202decades. But when you zoom in, when you look at what's actually happening in these classrooms today, the picture is different. My oldest child's class has 20 students. The other section of the same grade also has about 20 students. The New York State Maximum. Every classroom is full. Every space is used. Woodstock Elementary is not a ghost building. It's a thriving, vibrant school. It's ranked number one public elementary school in our region by niche.com, a platform with 60 million users. That's the reality. And yet, instead of acknowledging this, the board continues to present only the macrolevel enrollment charts, ignoring that two schools have already been closed, ignoring the simple and obvious solution. Woodstock K through5, Bennett K through 5. It's right in front of us, but it's not being acknowledged in any serious way. Meanwhile, taxpayers

203of Woodstock pay 40% of the district taxes. Add West Hurley and it's 55%. The eastern part of the district, Woodstock and surrounding is a population center for the 300 mile square 300 square mile district. And yet the plan to close a school where most families live closest to while asking us to shoulder 70 million or whatever the new number is for construction. So I ask you, who does this really benefit? Is it best for our youngest learners? Is it best for our taxpayers? Or is it about construction companies, companies, contractors, and real estate developers? I don't represent them. I represent my children. I represent the children of the community, the ones without a voice tonight. There are many young people. There are many people claiming this land already. Some perhaps for worthy causes. But the

204fact is this land has belonged to the children of this community for over 50 years. And while they don't have a voice here, they are important members of this community. And we will advocate for them. I urge every voter, vote no again for the next bond and fund instruction, not construction. Thank you. [Applause] Tanzy Misho. Hello. This resolution to close Woodstock Elementary feels rushed and incredibly difficult to accept as a parent in this community. Closing this thriving community school is not the right solution for the challenges this district is facing, especially not without a full strategic plan, without any impact studies, and without clear projections of what this closure would do to future enrollment. Please consider the long-term ripple effect of this decision. What kind of district do we want our children to grow up

205in? How will this impact our district's ability to attract new young families? Parents want their kids to go to school in towns where they live and feel connected with their community. It's also disheartening to see the board respond to past enrollment decline without creativity or vision that honors this community's wishes in any way. If enrollment is truly in an endless decline, then how can the district justify building 10 new classrooms, an expansion that alone would cost $15 million, and add long-term debt? You want to send us into unnecessary debt while at the same time warning us of a potential seven $7 million a year cut to our district's foundation aid. But the closure of Woodstock isn't going to solve that problem. You've already told us that $1.8 million of cost savings from closing this school

206is already earmarked to offset the bond debt to make it tax neutral. Please stop using these things as reasons to close this school because the numbers aren't making sense. If this resolution passes tonight, yes, you may move one step closer to centralization, but you'll also be pushing this community further away and deepening the divide you've already sewn. We've told you again and again that we want to keep our school, and we won't be silent. We will stay engaged, organized, ready to vote again and again until you present a better path forward. Thank you. [Applause] Jenna Scorp Scorpa. Jenna. Hi. Good evening everybody. Um, first off, I do want to say thank you to all of you board members. I know you are volunteering your time. Um, and I truly do better. I'll hold it. Um,

207I know you all are working really hard and I do believe you all have the best intentions um, for our community and so I just want to level set there and say I do appreciate all the thought and the time and the stress and the, you know, continuous efforts that you're putting in here. Um, I am a parent of two Woodstock Elementary kids, kindergarten and first grade, and we absolutely love this school. Um, I have spoken in front of this board a number of times going back to 2023 before you voted to close the village schools and talked then about how important I feel for our youngest kids that being in a close tight-knit community, you know, a warm close community close to home to me felt like the most important thing. Now, I've been

208trying to engage in the community forums. I saw the plan that was put together and it's beautiful for the central campus. I really loved so much of the vision and what you were trying to do and I'm really for making those improvements across the the campus, but I just continued to ask like please don't push through the closure of Woodstock Elementary. We don't need to expand Bennett at this time. Let's focus on those beautiful improvements that were in the plan that would make such a beautiful high school experience for our kids and provide new classrooms, new science rooms, technology that is really important at those higher levels of learning. I think for our youngest kids, you know, it's it's not that important to be in in nice new classrooms with technology. It's really important to

209be in our community. And what I know of currently, the school is a thriving, thriving school with such a beautiful community. The teachers love it. The kids love it. And you've admitted how emotional this is. It is really sad to to just think it's going to close like that when it is hard to maintain these community ties in in times like this. And I really urge everyone to please reconsider who's on the consolidation side. Woodstock parents were not trying to to we're not trying to prioritize our kids at the expense of the other kids. That's just not what this is. Um and so and and tonight, please don't vote for this. This feels like such a, you know, a slap in the face to the voters who have shown up multiple times now to make

210our voices heard. um put a bond put a bond out that that like you're saying this phased approach like put a bond out for all the improvements minus the expansion and hold off on closing the elementary school. Let's see how the numbers play out in time. Let's see if we do lose funding. You know, this is all based on projection like for the community goodwill and the unity. >> Thank you, Jenna. [Applause] Simon Hal Hallum Simon. >> Good evening. Um, my name is Simon Hall. I'm here tonight as a resident, uh, as a father of a daughter who's thriving at Woodstock Elementary and as a volunteer firefighter who sworn an oath to protect this community. I'm speaking tonight only for myself and my family as a private citizen. The voters spoke decisively in May when

211they rejected the $70 million consolidation plan. This resolution tonight feels like an attempt to invalidate that vote. The board's primary justification for the closure is a declining enrollment based on a study from 2019, but that's a pre- pandemic assumption, not a current fact. Your own most recent enrollment study from January of this year projects that K through five enrollment is not declining is projected to stabilize and increase. And your own district website says that there are 189 students at Woodstock Elementary right now. A school yourselves have called incredibly thriving. Now I hear the claim that the visioning sessions for a new campus were our opportunity for input. That's disingenuous. Those meetings were about how to design a new campus, not if we should close a beloved school to do it. This community was never given

212a proper forum to debate the decision itself. New York Educational Law Section 402-A exists for the exact reason. It recommends a transparent six-month process with a community advisory committee and a formal educational impact statement. That is the state's recommended best practice to ensure a decision is legally defensible and not arbitrary. By ignoring this established procedure, using outdated data, and misre misrepresenting your public process, you are creating a flawed record. So, I ask for the public record on on what grounds will this board defend its decision when it's challenged before the state commissioner of education as being arbitrary and contrary to sound educational policy. A decision made this hastily on this on these grounds can be challenged and overturned. I urge you to vote no on this resolution, table this vote, and commit to the transparent,

213legally recommended process that a decision of this magnitude deserves. Thank you. >> Thank you. Would anyone else like to speak? Please state your name. Lori Osmond. Um, I would also like to thank those trustees that have the integrity tonight to question the process, the um the white knuckling, the rushing and and also to express the things that they don't understand that they would like to understand better before forcing something like this through. Since 2023, this process has not been transparent and community trust has been eroded and it's going to continue to be eroded. I was first elected to the Antiora School Board in 2008. The current superintendent was in the administration then and has been championing, actually has been hellbent on closing community schools since then. We do not have a superintendent who lives in

214the district. We have a superintendent who sent their child to a private elementary school and has a financial >> I'm sorry I want to interrupt, Lori. None of that is true. >> has a financial background and not a >> I just want to be clear. >> I I you our superintendent does not live in the school district. We also I' I'd like I also have to point out that our board president used to directly report to the superintendent as a district employee and I really encourage the board trustees to think of the superintendent as their employee and not their supervisor. I understand that the believe me I understand the pressures involved but I think you must listen to your community. The trustees were rec sorry were elected to represent constituents. Proposition two was resoundingly defeated

215not just because of the dollar amount but because we knew that it disingenuously intended to close Woodstock Elementary. Woodstock is twothirds of the district population and I think that trustees need to remember that when they vote. I also think there are other problems that have been happening. I think I believe that the staff has been misled to think that consolidation is the only possible option. Other options have not been explored fully. Parents are being intimidated into thinking that services may be withheld or classrooms packed or fifth graders put into the middle school, which would run counter to New York State as their curriculum for middle school is 6 through eight. The public has been gaslighted by online trolls claiming that they do not support children. On top of that, we are looking at very, very

216uncertain financial times. The district is in in danger of losing seven7 million dollars and borrowing tens of millions of dollars now without a clear understanding of what it's for and without a measured Thank you, Lori. Would anyone else like to speak? I'd just like to clarify um I do not live in the district. I am not the first superintendent for whom that was not a stipulation in their contract. And my child has and continues to attend public school and has never set foot in a private school. >> And uh Woodstock. So my understanding is that the Antar district is about 15,000 people and uh so Woodstock is not a major even a majority of the of the just just factually I just you know we say in public be heard we need >> please do

217not interrupt the trustee that's speaking >> okay I am not being rude I am tr look I facts matter matter here, folks. Facts matter here, folks. And so, I'm just trying to guess I I think we can only get back to civility if we can agree get to an agreed factual basis. I hope we can start there. >> Yes, please introduce yourself. >> Hi, my name is Luba Resnikova. When I moved here more than a decade ago, I came to start a family and to find a place to call home. Woodstock Elementary was a big draw as it was and it continues to be for many families. This community and myself, we have all attempted to remain a part of this process since the board's first public inception of this vision. Um, but the board

218seems to be only interested in the how without ever giving the community a meaningful choice as to whether to go along with the centralized school vision in the first place. This past May's vote overwhelmingly demonstrated Woodstock's community desire to keep this school open. yet you refuse to present this community with any options that include this school staying open and operational. The external audit was presented to the board just tonight. Stephanie Laughen, in fact, said tonight of Mike Rossy's external audit report that it would take time for her and the board to digest that report. Then how come the possibility of the school staying open continues to be an impossibility to this board? this board's representation to this community that this that our voices and our input about the elementary school's closure is important to its

219decision-making process is just demonstrating to be disingenuous and a lie. I personally feel betrayed by each and every one of you that is attempting to knuckle their way into closing the school without considering any meaningful choice and how we can keep it open. Thank you. [Applause] Hey everybody. Uh my name is Dan Albertie. I'm here as a a parent. I have uh I went to this school K through six and I watched that painting get made during u an assembly. It was awesome. the uh Harris Goldberg got an artist come in and he listened to a Beatles song and by the time the song was done, he was done painting that with his hands. It's been on the wall ever since. Very cool stuff. Since coming here, I had a prepared thing to say, but

220I heard a lot and I heard a lot from the experts that were here today and it kind of confused me. I don't feel the same resolve with this speech. I I feel more resolved because I'm confused by what was presented. You brought up a lot of good points about Clark about uh do we need this now? Costs have gone up since the last time we've all talked about this. That's a big problem. If we want to talk about another bond, which uh might be an idea, but it doesn't seem likely at this moment in time. But if we want to talk about a smaller bond, we have to understand that the whole point that was shocked to us for the closure of Woodstock Elementary was to pay for a $50.5 million bond. We would

221like to see the real savings reported to us on the closure of Phoenicia. I want to know how much we're actually saving. Could that in essence by itself pay for a smaller bond to make real improvements that we can all agree on? I think that that's a solid path forward that would require a little bit more communication, a little more transparency. And I think that tableabling this vote for now is a solid, reasonable idea. A lot of people are here with emotion because this does seem like unccoring a bottle. Uncorking a bottle because not everybody's really had a chance to sit here and talk like this. Um the idea of putting fifth graders in with middle school though, I don't think that's putting kids first. 10 and 11 year olds in with teenagers is it's

222just baffling to me. Um the financial audit said we're well funded. I don't think that we should really be too scared about losing too much funding, especially when we're not really sure that we are losing funding. The bottom line is is that we had an election on May 20th and it was pursuant to the 2023 referendum. Very clearly, it's implied it was a bond vote, but it's implied the only necessity to the bond is for a capital project requiring the closure of Woodstock Elementary. If that's been done and tabled for now, this resolution holds no teeth and no water. by threatening to close Woodstock Elementary School. Now, we can only assume that this is a strong armed tactic in order to force future bonds down our throats, creating desperate parents who will vote for anything

223because we don't want our fifth graders in with teenagers. And we don't want to pack our kids like sardines at Bennett, which that >> Thank you, Daniel Suzanne Parker. I don't have very much to say at this point. I think it's all been said, but I sat there and I listened to a pres presentation by your design team and the conclusion I drew was that you don't know what it you don't know what you want and you don't know what it's going to cost. The next thing is a resolution about closing Woodstock. So, you're sure you want to close Woodstock, but you don't know what you want and you don't know what it costs. To me as a Woodstocker that's insulting and I think that's how a lot of Woodstockers feel and as long as

224you take that attitude then Woodstock is going to vote down any bond that includes an expansion of Bannibas [Applause] and Lindsey Shams. >> I'm just here for moral support. >> I don't like to stand up alone. Okay. Hi everybody. Thank you all for being here and your time. I just want to preface it by saying my statement is not uh about centralized campus resistance or anything like that. Just have questions. Um so first is my concern. I've been present for a lot of the community forums and whatnot, but about the thorough the lack of thorough planning for the K5 space. How could it realistically be done well in two years? Um what happens if your next proposition doesn't pass? Um, will there be impact on staff loss? Will there be instead of four grades or

225four classrooms per grade, will it be reduced to three, thus staff shortages, thus larger classrooms? Um, also questioning about the fifth grader, that kind of idea of moving fifth graders up. I already heard someone else mention that would affect curriculum. Um, and also that would be potentially nine-year-olds in middle school, high school. So that just seems a little um very surprised that that was put out as a possibility. Um so again, two years from now, could it actually be possible? Right now, my son is taking PE at the middle school in a wrestling room and the loading dock has to be paused repairs during the day because of noise. So these are all factors that come with construction and plans that as we all know when we do plans things get delayed. Um, also when

226you guys are talking about what priority do you want, have anyone asked the staff, has anyone asked the K5 staff, what do you need to teach our kids? How do you want to implement the curriculum? What environment do you want it to be? I'm sure you have in your own ways. I mean, Miss Laughen, you're phenomenal with how you engage, but I just want to make sure that's part of it. It's not You guys have an incredible job, but other people need their voices heard because they're the ones who do the job here or wherever it will be. Also, I wanted to mention the board briefs were sent out on the 26th at 10 a.m. Thank you for sending those out. I love them and I read them. There was no mention of item 9.02.

227Yet, the agenda came out at 151 that PM and it was on it. Most people do not read through the agenda. In my mind, that wasn't transparent. And I know you guys are working towards transparency. That wasn't that wasn't cool. Um, last thing, middle school communication is phenomenal, but I was told that middle school students were not allowed to stay after school for homecoming. They were not allowed to be part of tailgate unless they had a ride. Really think that's a huge issue. Kids who don't have transportation, they're missing out. And then kids who stayed after for sports or activities were bust home. They couldn't even take part in the tailgate. So while it was a great weekend, that was not so great for sixth, seventh, and eighth graders. So just for the future. Thank

228you. Have a good night. Thank you. Anybody else? Oh, I'm sorry. I Somebody raised their hand. >> Oh, sorry. >> Yeah, you're next. You Oh, okay. All right. Go ahead. No, first you and then you. >> Hi, my name is Patrick Richardson. Uh, I'm a Woodstock resident. I'm a son of a Woodstock Elementary School fourth grader and I'm son of a two-year-old who I hope one day will be a Woodstock Elementary student. Um, I just want to say, you know, I have a kid. He wants what he wants when he wants it. Sometimes one of the things that we work on is you can't force someone else to do what you want, no matter how much you want it. That is the that's what we call bullying. And and I want to express to you

229the reason I'm up here barking is because this feels like this community's been bullied. Like I know you much respect to all of you. Like I could not do what you do. I respect the time that you put in and I respect that you're looking out for our kids. But it's already been said why this doesn't feel good. It's already been said why by two members of your group have said that it doesn't sound like you got a good backup plan and that this is being shoved down the community's throat. And that's that's why this doesn't feel that's why everyone's here. That's why people are barking. Um, thank you. >> Thank you. [Applause] >> Hello. My name is Kimber Truit and I'm here with my husband Sam who um is that there somewhere? Yeah. So,

230we raised a couple girls in this district. My youngest um went to school here and she graduated two years ago from Monteora. She did very well there. Um, my other one did not. And I bring this up because anecdotally, I'm a product of a very large centralized school district, one large, very large high school. And there are problems when schools get that big in terms of education. Kids become numbers. Um, becomes more about discipline, less about community. It's very easy to get overlooked. Classrooms are very large, very distracting. Um, I'm generally, for this reason, not a fan of large high schools. I know it's great for sports and this makes people very excited, but I heard a lot about numbers today and less about, you know, what Woodstock parents are interested in, which is community.

231And um I didn't bring data today because I didn't plan to speak, but I believe I've seen over the years that the data supports smaller classrooms, smaller um uh yeah, student teacher. Thank you, Urina. Student teacher ratios. And um so when I hear you guys talking about numbers and just number crunching, that's very disturbing for me. I'd like you to rethink that approach. You're hearing a lot of really intelligent comments from people around the room. I know you guys have a job to do. This isn't any kind of criticism of what you're doing or trying to do. I don't know any of you personally. I don't know what your thinking is. But from someone who went through a school district like that, very large, where you're invisible, it's not good for everybody. It's not fun.

232Yeah, you can get into sports and have a good time of it, but um the community aspect is not really there like it is in a school like this that I've experienced raising the kids here. This is a great community and we want to keep it strong. So, um I defer to everybody's really great comments today, but thank you for your time. >> Kimber, was her name? >> Kimber. Kimber before you go just I just wanted to assure you our high school has 324 kids in it right now. There is no world in which any on your kid is going to a giant impersonal high school. That's why our quarterback is playing linebacker. We have 324 kids in our high school. It used to hold I don't know 1,600. Yeah. So we're there is no

233possibility where your kids going to go to a big school. Just wanted to reassure you. Thank you. >> Hi, my name is Jax Denise and my family went has been here since 1969 in Woodstock. Both grandparents built houses here in the area and my parents went to Antiora and I'm also a graduate of Antiora and I um my grandmother was a nurse at Antiora, Virginia Denise and my aunt was also a teacher at Woodstock and West Hurley. Um, and I plan on staying here and raising my children here. Uh, in 2023, the board decided to close the Phoenicia school. No one was there to publicly oppose it. So, they tried to tell people and it was too late. They closed it. The town then suffered. No one plays on the playgrounds and the shops or

234experiences the theater and local festivals or walking up and down the street together is very empty. I fear the closure of Woodstock School would disrupt the economy and the community as a network and as a whole. The sweetness that having a centrallylo school in Woodstock as an elementary school separate from a high school so children can have their innocence. It connects the adults of that area too. If a closure leads to reduced tax revenue or changes in the state funding or education, it could potentially impact impact the financial stability of the state's overall teacher pension and fund in the future. So that is our retired teachers suffering basically that have taught the kids that have been here for a while. So there's many couples that moved here during COVID to find peace and had their

235first child and if you close the school, where are they going to send their kids now that they all moved here? Uh I know they'd rather have their children separate from the high school as well. Uh I'm feeling deja vu as I was uh filming you all about the transparency that was being spoken about because this was not on the agenda or the packet that I received today. Was it? And I it was and where is that? I don't know. Can someone point that out to me later after my time? That would be awesome because I did not see that actually on the agenda because that's why I left. And so I came back because I saw everybody's cars here and they were still here. It's 9:40 at night and this is at the end

236of the evening. I told people to come to this. I'm in awe in what I experienced in the creative love that is in this building and in this town. I wonder why they would love to shut it down and uh redirect the funds into tearing down history and the little small diversity that we have. I don't know whose pocket that's going into, but hearing about the firing of the lovely Jim teacher, you know, that was very depressing. I don't know. Apparently, she sued the school because she was fired. >> This is not a place to discuss any personel matter. >> This is here. Apparently, I was told about this. So, this is the legacy of Woodstock. I just feel like there's some destruction that's happening. The legacy of Woodstock children extends into business and friendships

237carrying the message of peace. Our creative spirit has stopped wars. Thank you, Jax. >> Sure. >> Hi, we're here. Sorry, that was a little while. >> Calm down. >> I'm ready. >> Okay. In an effort to bring community together, >> I think we should take a deep breath. On Saturday, the Booster Club and Bennett PTA are hosting a yard sale. It's a community event. Please come. Please support the Booster Club. Please support Bennett Elementary. And then on November 8th, what are you hosting? I'm sorry. They're having a yard sale. And then on November 8th, here at Woodstock, we're having our awesome craft fair, which is another community event. Please come out. Please support our schools. Thank you. >> Hi. Sorry that was loud. So, first of all, I really think this whole room should take

238a deep breath. Do we want to do it together? I think we should. Three, two, one. Okay, this is emotional. It sucks. There's no other way to put it. I grew up here. I grew up five minutes from here. I find com comfort in driving into town and seeing this here. seeing it filled with cars, filled with kids. It's all like magical. It just is. It's magical. It's magical here. I am on the PTA. I'm the co-president. Not afraid to say it. I think what people here in this group and the community need to realize that this issue has caused attention in this building that is unbearable at times. It just is. It's unbearable. But the reason why it has become unbearable is because this kind of stuff happens when we don't have a plan

239in front of us first and then you decide to do a vote. This is why people are not only confused but angry and why the divide is so bad. It is the worst I've ever seen it. I'll be really honest with you. I ran for school board. I would never do it again because I was threatened, harassed. It is beyond my comprehension. And listen, like I hate to toot my own horn, but I'm pretty smart and I'm a parent of two small kids. Nobody gave me a chance because I wouldn't pick a side. That is what's wrong and what we need to work towards ending. Thank you. We could take one final speaker if anyone's okay. Right here. [Music] Okay. Thank you. Hi, good evening. Thank you um everybody for sticking around tonight. Thank you

240for all of the community members who came out tonight to support this. This is really really important for all of us. Um and it predates a lot of us who live here now and those of us um let me read her. I'm going to read her I'll totally go off the rails. My name's Megan. I've been up here before. Um I'm a resident of Woodstock, town of Hurley. I've been a taxpayer for nearly a decade and full-time resident for five of those. When we bought here in 2016, I dreamt of my children going to this, my future children at the time, going to this charming, intimate school. And now I have three children, two of twins, turning three this weekend, which is wild because I first started coming to these meetings when they were six

241months old, um, in their little car seat carriers. I remember the first board of education meeting I went to was at Phoenicia um, rest in peace. and my eldest, who's an excited kindergartener at this beautiful school. Um, none of them were actually born in this district. Um, which many of the children who live here now and who are incoming um, weren't born in this district. Um, and I bring that up for a reason. I come from a data background and so I've always I always come back to the data because the proof is in the pudding. Um, and I feel like a broken record at this point coming back to the call to action of the board of education to take a look at refreshing the data and misinforming these plans, but I know that

242this again predates us long before those of us who moved here, some of us in the last year, five years, decade. Um, there are many new residents and many returning local natives as well. Um, which is just testament to how wonderful this area is and the district and the schools and the community. But I have to ask where is the data that's informing a plan that will forever impact and fracture a community and not just a community but a district. Where are the impact studies needed before a capital urban development transformation of this size? A schoolhouse construction of this caliber needs data to inform it. That's environmental data. That's socioeconomic data. That's psychological data. For starters, we haven't seen any of this. A few of the board members tonight talked about how 2025 is not

243like 2023 100%. So then let's inform plans to reconfigure this district again our district school our district school district footprint that will forever restructure the um let's let's use current data to inform these plans. Let's use today's data not yesterday's data not five years ago data not 10 years ago data. the past data that is being used is stale, incomplete, and misrepresentative. We urge you to do your due diligence, not just lip service, with another uh visioning exercise. Instead, invest that budget in a refresh Bachmann report. And didn't he say that he'd come back in, but I believe the board of education or superintendent chose not to refresh his report's findings. Lastly, elementary. >> Thank you, Megan. [Applause] So, folks, I wholly agree we need a deep breath. Um, I had some prepared remarks. I

244threw them out the window given how tonight went, but I think I want to maybe go back to some of them. Um, because I'm really worried. I don't I don't want to rehash all the reasons that we came to this resolution tonight. I really want to talk about how we go forward together, which is something many of you have discussed tonight. How do we go forward as a community? Um because our community's health depends so much more on our ability to talk civily to each other and to reach agreement on a common understanding of the facts than it ever will on whatever building in grade configuration of Antiora's elementary and middle schools turns out to be. I'm sad at the prospect of closing this school. I'm even sadder at the way the very fabric of

245our communities has been visibly fraying or even tearing around this issue. a phenomenon I think is inseparable from the changes our country's gone through. And I we live in a very cynical age. And some of the things that have been said tonight um really concern me because cynicism is assuming that someone who disagrees with you does so because they have the worst possible motives, hidden agendas, or worse. Um friends, I say to you in this room, there are no bad people. There's no nefarious intent. There's just a set of constitu constituencies that agree on wanting the best for all the kids. But we do have big differences in this district. We have differences about our understanding of the facts and how to interpret them. We have differences in what we think the number one priority

246for this district should be. and and most importantly in what the material outcome should be at the end of this process and that last difference it has to be acknowledged is probably irreconcilable. However this goes, however this goes, a significant number of people will be very unhappy. A certain group is in this room tonight, but there's a lot of people in this district who don't live around here who aren't in this room tonight. And we as trustees, we have an ethical obligation to represent all the children, all the taxpayers, all the communities in this large district. And there's a converse to that. So if we're ethically bound to res to represent everybody and that and we are um you know uh school board is not like Congress. It's not like there's a trustee from Olive

247and a trustee who represents Woodstock. When we sit down in these chairs, we promise to represent the entire district. And what the the converse of that is we are ethically ethically prohibited from elevating the parochial interests of one town over the whole district. We can't do it. So I I just want to address some of I think what is the most corrosive um aspect of this which is people leveling accusations that this board has acted in some way undemocratically or is ignoring the input of the community. I'm a real believer in democracy. It's not quite dead yet, but it's definitely ailing in our country. And I take these accusations really seriously. There's no more anger producing situation than feeling passionately on a particular issue, feeling you're in the majority and that your majority's voice is

248being trampled on by a minority with undue power or influence. And and in the history of this situation, you know, people talk about a linear agenda. Reality has been very linear in this district. Reality has been linear since 1999. We've been our enrollment has been coming down every single year since 1999 at Yeah. So what what I'm saying is every part of our community has felt trampled on at some point between 2012 and now. And tonight it's this community who feels that you're being trampled on. And I friends, neighbors, fellow Woodstockers, I'm here to say that by any fair reckoning, that is decidedly and demonstrabably not the situation here. And I know when I just said that, you probably got angry inside some of you. So, let me just try to persuade you with a

249little bit of a reasoned argument. So, there were two contentious ballot questions in May's school elections, the capital project and the trustee election. There were many reasons one could voter against Prop 2, the $55 million bond. Many in this town and in this room, I believe, absolutely voted down Prop 2 as a proxy referendum on the future of Wedstock Elementary. But um we also know a significant numbers of across the Ontario community voted no on two because they thought the scope was too ambitious. That came up tonight in here too. the price was too high. But by contrast, there were no money issues at play to money the question of voter intent in the trustee election. Just a crystal clear choice between differing views on a central campus. the candidate who's here tonight who spoke,

250Dan Alabbertie, if you look at the meet the candidates v uh video unambiguously, clearly, articulately said he was running to join this board to overturn the 2023 resolution and stop the central campus process. Um the two candidates who won said that they were committed to continuing the central campus process. They were elected. Um and also the prior year, President Bishop and I were equally clear that we favored a central campus and we were also elected by a majority in the Antiora community which includes as others have said many towns 15,000 people. I want to clarify. I'm sorry I'm skipping around because I really want to let you go home. Um I want to clarify that what I said before in education law this is our responsibility to take on this burden. And the reason I

251brought up the trustee election is this. Even if one did believe that public opinion should rule the day um in this in this situation, Antiora's majority public opinion as expressed democratically at the ballot box aligns with finishing the central campus um process. I think it's essential democracy hygiene to be able to say the voters chose otherwise rather than I'm being cheated. I'm sorry. That is that is how I feel. Acceptance of election results will go a long way to taking down the temperature in our community and not incidentally upholding democratic norms. As trustees, we have multiple ethical duties. We always need to practice fiscal responsibility for the taxpayers. And first and foremost, our prime directive, if you're a Star Trek fan, is to adopt policies we believe will maximize the educational outcomes of all the

252students in our entire district. So, while I completely understand and acknowledge that this may be a terribly sad day for the town in which I reside, I'm expl I am explaining my thinking. We have not voted on it, guys. Guys, >> please listen. Please listen. >> This is exactly what I'm talking about. This is exactly what I'm talking about. We need to We need to learn to talk to each other and civily and respectfully. I I'm I'm sorry. You can rebut at the next meeting where we have a public be heard, but public be heard is over. >> Okay. I look Dan. Dan, I admire the way you answered that question with no weasel words. No, you didn't avoid the question. You spoke articulately. I I am I I am saying all I am saying

253is you were clear. You were you presented yourself as a clear choice. That's all I was saying. >> The >> Daniel please public be heard is over. >> Thank you. So, I'm just explaining to you where my thinking is coming from and my thinking and my process is focused on the students and and the future of this district. Um, I'm not this I'm not voting, but I'm just explaining to you that we need to work on understanding the totality of the situation factually and reaching a common basis where we can move forward together. >> Why tonight at Woodstock? To give you the to give everybody here a chance to speak. Trusty Mentor Morell. >> I just procedurally I'm wondering if it's possible to make a motion to table the resolution or if if that's an

254option. >> So there's a motion on the floor to table the resolution. May I have a second? Trusty Goodrich. Any questions or comments? Go ahead, clerk. We haven't got a clue how we're going to do this. We were silent while you spoke. Please let us run our meeting. Trusty Jared, then Trusty Kudson. Sorry, I lost my train of thought. One second. Um, so, uh, do we did we have a second on the motion to table? Oh, yes. The only question I I wanted to ask is, so we're tableabling it until the the next full meeting on October 21st. No, >> I just think until we have a better plan, I'm not exactly sure when that is. >> We have three October meetings, uh, the 7th, the 14th, and the 21st. >> Okay. I got it

255back. >> Trustee Trustee Jared, then Trustee Goodrich. >> I got it back. Thank you. Um, so I heard a lot of agreement in the room tonight between conversation of the trustees and listening to everybody out here. And I think that it's pretty clear to me what the spots are that we need to get into discussion around. Um, and I think that is a positive thing. Um, I'm just one person. We're each just one person up here. Um, and it's a lot to process. You know, the resolution is a lot to process and what it means is a lot to process. And what everybody here shared, which I listen to deeply, is a lot to process. So, I think that we should try and come up with a an agenda for how we unpack some of

256the unknown things that have come up and discuss them together as a group and move at a pace that feels like we're always keeping all of the kids and all all of the community members at the center of what we're trying to support. >> Trusty Goodrich. >> Yeah. I just want to say, you know, we this this whole thing has literally polarized everybody, including this board. And what I'm really sad about is this polarization is filtering down to the students. This was not a good idea. [Applause] >> Cindy, can I say something related to what Clark just said? I don't know. >> Can I just say something related to what Clark just said? Are you >> I'm so sorry. I was distracted. Please go ahead. >> Um, >> wait. What did you >> um >>

257processing? >> Oh, >> I I said the whole we polarized. >> Oh, yeah. I was just hoping for a little while. I felt like we were actually in a good rhythm before this and I would love to like kind of push this aside and go back to what we were doing before where I did feel like we were working together and making progress. Thank you for those comments. Um, so do we want to specify a date? Well, let's >> so >> we can always table it indefinitely and then if somebody wants to uh make a motion to u what is it un untable it I forgot the exact words that can be done at a later time so we can just table it indefinitely into >> I think we'll know when it's time >> okay

258>> we'll sense. >> So, we've we're consulting our Robert's rules here. Okay. So, um I'll make the motion. Um I move to lay the motion on the T. Uh >> we have to change I'm sorry. We we have to change the motion because because to make a motion to uh move an item to an unspecified time, um we have to move to lay this motion on the table. Those are the words. >> Yes. I was just doing it. Yeah. Sorry. I just Let me explain. So that what what this does is lay the motion on the table until an unspecified time in the future. I move to lay the motion on the table. >> May I have a second? Trusty Jerome. Any questions or comments? We'll vote. Trusty Smith. >> I. >> Trusty Jared. >>

259I. >> Trusty Mitchell Morurell. >> Hi. Trustee Jerome >> I. >> Trusty Goodrich >> I. >> Trusty Kenson >> I. That's unanimous. Thank you. Uh, we need a I'd like to make a motion that we re uh instate our break and that we take a 10-minute break as quickly as possible to finish this meeting. Yeah. Fast 10-minute break. All right, we are back from our break and we are moving on to item 12.01, our consent agenda. The board hereby approves items number 12.02 through 12.0 07. May I have a first? Trusty Jerome. Second, Trusty Goodrich. Any questions or comments? >> Um I do have a a comment that um again I have uh reviewed the schedule U and um everything looks fantastic. Everything looks in order. Sorry. >> Great. Thank you. Excellent. Trusty Jared. A

260very brief question. Who in our district is receiving virtual instruction? >> If someone is uh out long term on homebound medical, there's a variety of reasons um that that could be the case. >> Thank you. We will vote on the consent agenda. Uh, Trusty Smith, >> I. >> Trusty Jared, >> I. >> Trusty Mitchell Morell, >> I. >> Trusty Goodrich, >> I. >> Trusty Jerome, >> I. >> Trusty Kson, >> hi. >> Great. That's unanimous. Thank you. >> Item 13.01, uh, all contract, uh, contracts and independent contract retainers will be approved, um, including items number 13.02 and 13.0 3. May I have a first? Trusty Jared. Second. Trusty Smith. Any questions and comments? All right, we'll vote. Trusty Smith, >> I. >> Trusty Jared, >> I. >> Trusty Mitchell Morurell. >> I. Trusty Jerome. >>

261I. >> Trusty Goodrich. >> Hi. >> Trusty Kenson. >> Hi. >> All right. On to committee discussions. Um, I'm not sure if any committees have met since the last board meeting. >> Audit today. >> I mean, Right. Right. Well, >> audit met today, but you basically heard about our meeting from the auditor. So, that we don't have much to add. It was a good it he he's very entertaining and he he explained it. He's very good at translating the audit into um understandable language for if you're not an an auditor or accountant yourself. Thank you. Um but we do have um a discussion item on our uh under a committee discussion which is to discuss the ad hoc academic committee. >> Trusty Jared, would you like to take the lead with that discussion? >> I

262would love that. Trusty Bishop. Um so what feels like a million years ago, but really wasn't that long ago. Um, I circulated a little document just to sort of get us thinking and spoke to the other two trustees who are on the academic achievement committee, Trusty Mitchell Morurell and Trusty Goodrich. And we had a really good conversation about some jumping off points about what the purpose or scope of the committee would be. And um something that really resonated with me was something that trustee Mitchell Morurell suggested which I sort of had in my mind too, but she really the way she said it sort of pinned it for me, which is perhaps we could begin with the portrait of a graduate and what the measurements that are coming from the portrait of a graduate are.

263How are we evaluating kids in portrait of a graduate? um and what are the skills that that is calling upon us to focus on and I think that could be a really great way to start the conversation of the committee and structuring what is the scope and what is the purpose maybe it could help steer us in that direction um and then the other thing was that I did notice that last year's board had a great I should have started here Um, last year's board had already a great goal already approved up on the website. I just copied it and pasted it here with pretty much I think like one small change. Um, would you like me to read it? It's very short. Okay. The board will partner with the superintendent to deepen its understanding

264of the district's performance metrics with an eye towards developing better systems for board data monitoring across grade levels and subject areas. The board will seek to identify and enact policies to advance student achievement consistent with federal and state guidelines which would fall in line with the idea of honing in on portrait of a graduate. Um, and I think it's an amazing goal from last year and I just think it's a lot to try and accomplish one or two big goals as a whole board. So, it made me think perhaps this could be a great place that the ad hoc academic committee could kind of like chew on it separately and then bring it to the board so the board as a whole could like move that goal forward but doesn't have to do all the

265lifting every meeting um as a a board goal. And then the last thing I'll just add is that um you know I do think that measuring the way um superintendent laughing you know the way you offer it to us is great but I also would love to like fill that out a little more because I feel like when we have opt out numbers that are uneven across grade levels or we don't um necessarily aren't looking as a board at like what an opt out rate is and which kids those are. Maybe it's it's maybe our picture is even better than the one that we see or maybe it's not. But I think that what portrait of a graduate is pointing us towards is a holistic a more holistic view. And I think that integrating classroom

266work like final exams or um projects from the classroom into the picture of the the grade level's achievement could be really interesting for us to look at together. That would be like an a suggestion I would have of some new data that we could add in. How does the grade level look on the New York State test where so many kids opted in or out? How does the grade level look to their classroom teachers on their math exams? And I also know that a lot of the building principles keep some pretty amazing data just to keep our school kind of moving and our kids moving in the direction they could be. And I just would be curious if some of that might already have some of that like fleshed out more than just the New

267York State assessment numbers that we could like add into the conversation to really feel like we're seeing the whole picture. >> I love all those ideas. I think it's also an opportunity um to I know that within certain members of the board or the administration you know all the opportunities available certainly the counselors know all the academic opportunities available whether those are in training or whether those are in language or whatever pursuit and I think that the AC the uh academic committee can start to talk about those opportunities more like what are what are clubs that you could be associated with. What are I know that I'm just trying to think of portrait of graduate. I just remember like you can get a seal of biiteracy or a what was the other one that they

268are giving out now? It was like a civic readiness, right? Like it would be nice to understand those a little bit more. maybe understand if there's other opportunities that are starting to come around, other like um facets of that portrait. So that um not only are we challenging ourselves internally um with opportunities, we're also educating our community about what opportunities there are. Sometimes I feel like they could just it would be nice to understand them in a in a in a better way. Yeah. Any other discussion about the ad hoc academic achievement committee? Sorry, this is just a very practical board question. My head was a little scattered earlier. Um, so are you talking about that last year's academic board goal adopting that as the goal for the committee? >> I am. >> Okay. So

269then we would we would remove it to that committee and and so that wouldn't be one of our main board goals or would it be both? Could be either. >> I was kind of thinking we would keep it as a board goal because we didn't get to it didn't get kind of touched last year because there's were some really hefty really great goals and that we could let the academic committee kind of do a lot of leg work so that we could help it be moved forward by the board as a goal this year. Great. Thank you. >> I I like the idea of keeping it as a board goal and you know and which kind of justifies having the committee uh you know to uh the ad hoc committee to report back to the

270full board. Just another thing we talked about I don't know if this would be possible but almost like at open house how you hear about your own kids curriculum for the year. um like I mean this would be purely on a volunteer basis but if a teacher let's say eighth grade math or sixth grade English or whatever they once in a while present at the board meeting just so we have some idea of like these kind of individual curriculums what they're learning on a day-to-day basis and you know just like a 10-minute presentation from teachers let's say four times a year like nothing crazy hopefully or maybe they would want to share it um but sort of like an open openhouse format but for not our own kids. So, are we talking about the the

271Google doc that had the board district goals or so? It sounds like we're talking about something else. >> Yeah. No, we're we're we're talking about the I guess kind of fine-tuning the >> the role or the scope or the goal of the new ad hoc um academic achievement committee and um Trusty Jared was just discussing really adopting that academic goal from last year or as the committee scope and we were talking about keeping that on as one of our, you know 25 26 goals but I'm I don't really want to get into a goals discussion tonight like a you know further goals discussion I know we still have to have that discussion um but maybe not tonight. Okay, go ahead. Do we need to decide now the cadence of how this committee meets or can

272that be something >> I'm going to make a suggestion that um you plan a first meeting and maybe um invite assistant superintendent laughing to join you because um I think she's going to be an integral part in that conversation and then at that time you can decide if that I mean if that ad hoc committee is just a board committee or you know a board with administration committee or what it's going to look like and maybe decide on how often or how many times a year you want to meet. Um yeah, I think there's going to there has to be a conversation about what it's going to look like and I think that has to really be among the people who are on that committee. >> That sounds like a great plan. I look forward

273to doing that. Right. Great. Thank you. Um any old business? Any new business? A new business RFI. Um it's definitely biased to my kindergartenner, but I had actually heard this from many parents. Um, and I know at Meyer, I think it is the Kingston, they have two recesses in kindergarten. And I I know that's maybe too much to ask, but if there's any way to do any more outside time. I know a lot of the kids, I think coming from preschools where they're outside a lot more, have struggled with being in the classroom and only having 30 minutes a day outside from like 8, you know, it's like my daughter's gone 8:15 to 4:15 and she's outside for 30 minutes. So, I mean, I'm just wondering if there's any way that could even be a

274conversation of more outside time for kindergarten first. >> What is the the school day? Is it 8:15 to 4:15? >> Just when she gets on the bus and gets off the bus. I'm just saying it's a long time. So, you know, and I know they do it at a public school in Kingston. So, I do think it's like within reason. So, you're you're requesting um more clarification on how much time students can receive for recess, >> if there's any way they can receive more. Really, I think 30 is probably I think there's a minimum of maybe 25 minutes. That's like legal or something maybe. I don't know. But more general information about recess, what's required, what isn't required, and what maybe is possible. I'm pretty sure we have a board policy on recess, but we

275can, you know, we'll um um any other requests for information or old business All right. May I have a motion to adjourn? Oh, I'm so sorry. I said new business. Yeah. >> No. Okay. Go ahead. Go ahead with your new business. >> This is quick. Um, so when I was at the leadership uh conference in Albany, there was this I think I sent uh you the PowerPoint presentation of a school from Long Island and you know his school district was really a mess and uh on social media was really bad and basically figured out a way to uh meet with the local newspapers like Newsweek newspaper on Long Island and he engaged them and he got to do I think opeds on the front page on the newspaper often like repeatedly right to get the

276messaging out. So I think you know if we want to pass the uh consolidation capital improvements we just need to be really really persistent in communicating uh in multiple ways on why we're doing this because you still hear on social media I don't even know why they're doing this right and and I know we've said it multiple times and we're uh frustrated because we've said it so many times. times, but I guess it just needs to be repeated, you know, maybe different words. Maybe different words will get through, but they people don't really understand and I didn't understand. I mean, I I wanted to I didn't want to close Woodstock, right? And I think there's a few people that didn't want to close Woodstock and they've come around and realized that that's the thing to

277do. So, I I think we need to try to figure out a way to engage the public uh somehow. >> Thank you, Trusty Jerome. >> Um I didn't say much tonight, but I I do question the path forward that I I question whether it's the right path. I do think that people can understand um and make changes. I, as I said tonight multiple times, I really believe in a phased approach. I feel like every time I go into a space that's been redone it or look at improved grades, I think yeah, this is on's time and I don't know if we have really talked about that yet. Um, and uh, you know, I don't think I have to say it. I've said it in other meetings, but I'll say it again. I think that centralization

278is where we'll end up. I think it's a great solution, but I think right now this path it's too divisive. It's not the right answer to me because it's too divisive and I know that you and I feel very differently about that. Um, so you don't I I know your position. My position is different. Um, and so along with messaging, I would also like us to talk about exploring other things in earnest and keep making improvements to our district which are trans tangible and right there for our kids and immediately appreciated by the the community around us. Um, that would be something to consider too. So, You want you want that noted under new business? >> I'm sorry >> it's late. >> I'm sorry, Cindy. I was just responding to Trustee Goodrich's recommendation about refreshing

279our messaging. And I don't think our offer is there yet. And without a good offer, I wonder what kind of messaging we can come up with because the messaging that we've been doing isn't hitting. I don't think our offer is hitting. So I'm saying we have our audience and we have our offer and to have a good solution like I would just like to look what that looks like and I'm not proposing anything about what that what it is just that we should tease it out. So I agree I I I agree about communication. I think we need to just talk through this more more and more to to see who's listening. Um, but I do have to say after what happened here tonight, I do have concerns of sort of ratifying the behavior that

280I saw in the room tonight. Um, you know, there's a concept called the heckler's veto, right? that if you scream at people, if you um if you shout them down, uh you'll ultimately care of the day. And I I I meant what I said about civility. I want us to get back to civility. Tonight was anything but civil. And I feel like we were civil up here. Um, and I I do not feel I feel like we would let down a big constituency in this district if we allowed what happened here tonight to um knock us off uh to to affect our path to to to um to change what we're to change what what we're doing. >> I just have to respond to that though. It's like I just it's this condescending piece that

281I hear too. What happened here tonight? There was a lot that I agreed with. Much that was said about our board and our administration that I did not. But to think that they would knock me off my path. That's that's no maybe and maybe we do need to adjust our path not because they heckled us but because we're looking for a better solution. And I so you don't have to respond to that, but I'm just saying that like that's the part that I'm like I heard everybody, but I'm strong enough in my own conviction and I'm strong enough in my faith and the board and the people that I see working in our district. Like I I know we're great. You know, I just want to not have our community cleaved in half. Can we

282get to where to the centralization? How do we get there? you know, um, and keep moving quickly, keep having these things that we're doing where people are like, "Yes, yes, yes." Like, keep that momentum because when that momentum shifts and I'm afraid I would say that I think there was momentum shift, you know, when they watch the game and it's like the vibe shift happened. This was this resolution was a bit of a momentum shift for me and I don't want to see it stop what we had kind of moving forward. So that's something I didn't say tonight. >> Yeah. I mean I you know there with social media you can always focus on the really bad comments that are heckling as you say and there was heckling here but you know what there were

283some really good presentations you know and you can't disqualify those good presentations because there was a few hecklers You know, we we need to focus on the good in people. We need to be kind to each other. We need Megan on the board to remind us. So, yeah, I just want to clarify when I say path, I mean the path of sitting at this table and working out the next steps together. Um, I do not mean a a specified outcome. Okay? I just mean we need to be able to do our work and and move forward because I do think we need to move this district forward in one direction or another that we are under a time pressure here. I feel >> and I'm just going to add that I thought we were on

284a path. I I clearly thought that we were on a clear path and now I feel like like there's confusion about the path and so that will be I think uh a place where we start our conversation in one week. Um, and I I and I want to just say that I I also believe that while while you you feel that the resol bringing up the resolution kind of threw us backwards or offkilter, I do understand why Trusty Smith made the motion for that resolution. And tonight was an example of I think why he made that suggestion because the community feels very very strongly that they voted to keep Woodstock open. They were not voting on a proposition or a bond. They were voting to keep Woodstock open. And and that's why they're so passionate.

285That's why they were so riled up tonight because they feel like we're pushing back on that they have spoken. I think the resolution further confused it. Honestly, I almost feel like now they think it's not going to like I don't know. I don't think it helped. Uh, Trusty Bishop, thank you for saying that and that is spot on. When I had said about the resolution, it was not to make it more confusing or to blindside anybody or to be malicious. I thought that it would help clarify and help move us along because I felt there was a lot of confusion and uh misinformation for the the last bond vote. Um to me it just seemed like they were voting to keep the school open and that was not the case. So that confusion not confusion

286I thought would kind of disappear if we were very clear on this is you know what not to say like this is what it's going to be but hey guys just so going forward for this next bond vote you know this has to happen to move forward and go. So that was all it came from and all it stemmed from. It was not to, you know, blow up into a, you know, what it what it has become. Thanks, >> Trusty Jerome and then Trusty Kudson. >> Um, Rory, I'm glad you brought it up. It's not that I have a problem with discussing it. It's that it came up. I for one was surprised and then it wasn't even in the board briefs because I didn't have any it just went from from from a suggestion

287on the floor from um a new trustee to the lawyer to the legal team to our table to make a very important decision not 10 days later. So that was a that was that was friction for me. That was and it wasn't because of you to be clear. That was friction to me on the part of the my fellow board members who I admire very much and I've worked very well with. But when it showed up on here and I was like what and especially after I had said during that meeting like maybe there could be some other things that could make me feel comfortable with this. I am pro- centralization. I do want to see that ultimately happen. I don't know how we get there. And then and then here it is. So So

288I just want to be clear to you, Trustee Smith, that that I'm I'm cool with bringing up ideas around the board table. Um it was the the speed. And that's when I said tonight, I feel I know that we have to keep moving in a timely manner. We we want to build on our wins. I feel that very strongly, right? We've had a lot of great wins um for our district lately. But at the same time, I don't know if he panicked um and especially about something that I'm surprised by. That's gonna that's what I mean when it sort of sets me back. >> I just want to um caution us that we're now we're having a conversation about the resolution and I'm Yeah, I may have started it myself and I just realized that

289um we should hold off on this conversation until the next meeting if that's okay with everyone, >> the the 21st, right? for the resolution. >> I don't know. I >> I'm not sure. I mean, like I think that I I feel that the resolution >> we add to the agenda on the 7th of >> Well, we could add it to the agenda, >> but I think I feel like maybe it it should stay on as a discussion >> discussion. Yeah. >> So, discussion, but no possible action. >> Yeah. >> Sure. Yeah. I didn't know when to bring this up. I just want to apologize for Well, I'm upset the way our superintendent Claren was attacked tonight. Uh that was totally uncalled for. Um you are our employee and u you're not ramming this thing through.

290It's our responsibility. You have not said, "Hey, we've got to do this." You've been pretty quiet and we we initiate everything and uh and you did not deserve the negative comments tonight. I have the utmost respect for you and the administrators and the principles. We have a great school. >> Thank you so much, Trustee Goodrich. But I did go over to that former board president just to clarify and she knows that my child has never attended a private school. Not that there's anything wrong with it. Never has he set foot in a private school. And I am not the first superintendent who is not has not been required to live in the district by contract. She was on the board who hired the superintendent before me who was not required to stay in the district

291to live in the district and she hired me and did not include that in my contract. It just was not a condition of employment in my contract. I don't know why that is my fault. Just just to clarify, nobody here has a conflict of interest that I am aware of. Not even remote. None. >> We're here late, right? Okay. >> First, Jenny, then you, Rick. >> I literally raised my hand to say, Clark, thank you for bringing that up. Um, after watching board meetings for many, many years and myself being like, what's going on up there? You know, I think tonight was a really great example of a a very functional board that talked and listened not only to each other but to um the community that had very different things to say. Um that

292stayed calm and respectful. uh and that is ending this meeting sort of like checking in and ready to move forward. I think that gives me enormous hope. Um and I am extremely grateful to have the partnership of our amazing administrative team. I can absolutely say after being on this board, I agree with you, Clark, they are more quiet than we would like them to be. to be completely honest, I feel like I have to be like, "But tell me, what do you want?" And they really don't want to do that. So, it really isn't true. And I'm really glad that you you brought that up. Thank you. >> Really quickly, any of you that are watching still on YouTube or tomorrow, I just want to introduce you to my fellow trustees. We have a retired

293software engineer from IBM. We have a parent of two kids in the district. We have a retired teacher and administrator. I am a retired musician. Caroline is a parent of a child in the district. Rory raised two kids in this district who are recent graduates of the district. And Emily is a parent in the district. That's who we are. And both of them have their own businesses. Caroline and Emily both have their own businesses. But there is no conflict of interest. There is no conflict of interest. We are We are here to serve the community. Thank you YouTube people. See what happens when it's almost 11 o'clock. We get loopy and we get loopy. Okay. Motion to adjurnn. Caroline. Second. Rory. All in favor. See you next week.