001Welcome to the September 16th, 2025 meeting of the Ontario Board of Education. We'll call the meeting to order now. We have a tobacco policy in place. There is no smoking within 100 ft of any school building. Please rise for the pledge. District clerk, will you please call roll? Trusty Smith >> here. >> Trusty Jared >> here. >> Trusty Jerome >> here. >> Trusty Mitchell Morell. >> Trusty Goodrich >> here. Trustee um sorry >> here. >> Trusty Bishop >> here. >> Thank you. >> All right. On to item uh 2.01. Our welcome from the high school principal. Principal Mr. Lance Settleman. Just waiting for the screen to go on. Okay. Can you hear me? All right. Excellent. Well, welcome High School. Good to be back in session. Um, I thought that tonight since we only we're
002only nine days into uh the instructional calendar. I thought I would just kind of give an overview about how our opening days went and uh talk a little bit about some of the offerings this year at the high school. So, let me start off by telling you that it's it's really was a very positive opening. Uh and it really started with the opening uh superintendent conference days and the professional development. This year we were fortunate to have two days and we really needed those two days and it was really time well spent in addition to all of our staff doing all of the required legal updates and a few presentations. Uh the staff really got the opportunity to work together as departments and work on some things that was really really much needed. So they
003spent a considerable amount of time and I know you got some of this in your board update I believe but they did spend a lot of time doing a data analysis, taking a look at all of the not just the regions and state assessments, but also all the local assessments and really taking a look at the curriculum and seeing you know where we need to make modifications, what we could strengthen, etc. Uh we also worked on some common core syllabi which at open house will all of our teachers will be giving out the syllabus for each course. So there's some common expectations. So our communication and our language is going to be a lot clearer to parents and students. We spent a considerable amount of time talking about the role of assessment, why we're assessing
004students, what the purpose of assessments are, what our intended um results should should look like. We spent uh also a lot of time which also played part of the course syllabi uh talking about academic integrity how we're going to start to explore AI and not to be afraid of AI but to find out how do we use AI appropriately and how do we communicate that with our students and we're going to build upon that throughout the school year and of course we also spoke about and had a good good uh opportunity to exp explor explore a little bit about New York inspires and the portrait of a graduate so that we're you know starting to map the future and see you know what do we have to do for all these other pathways because it's
005coming. Um and finally we really talked a lot about parent communications specifically with how we're going to integrate parent square into our communications and it's an ongoing process and so far it sounds like it's going quite well. Um, in terms of, you know, opening up the school year, you know, the building conditions, obviously there's some ongoing construction. I'm sure everyone just walked walked in through it. Um, overall though, I have to say that, you know, the communication has been really strong with everything that we're doing and how to navigate all of the construction and changes. So students, staff, parents have really done a good job. Everyone has been very cooperative and has been receptive to a lot of the changes. Uh probably most notable is the traffic patterns because without having the east entrance, which
006is the loading dock entrance, uh we kind of had to do all of our student drop offs, pickups, OC's, dismissals, uh over at the west end, which is a tennis court area. And you know, everyone again just so cooperative. I can't say enough how grateful I am for everyone for bearing with us because we we did make some changes on the fly and again no no issues and no no complaints. So I like I like that. Uh you know uh the second day of school our new assistant principal Sarah Turk and I both we met with every single grade level. We did separate grade level assemblies and you know we got to meet the students uh talk a little bit about various topics most notably uh the student and parent handbook. We made sure everyone
007knew where that handbook was, how to access it and offered to give anyone who wanted a hard copy a hard copy would be provided to them through my office. No one took me up on that offer though. But we know that students aren't going to read that that big documents. So we did go through a lot of different points and I believe that was also in a board update. Uh but I just want I did want to mention in public that you know we do talk about you know the the most common areas within the within the handbook. Uh we discuss a lot about you know some of the rules and expectations. We talk a lot about safety. Uh and we and overall we really emphasize maintaining you know all-incclusive environment a safe environment that
008everyone wants to be in there one that's free of harass bullying and harassment and we talk about ways to mitigate that as well. So it was uh it was it was real it was really nice the questions from the students and and the comments were uh were really well received. uh we did spend a little bit time on personal electronic devices and and quite frankly you know the majority of students it really doesn't doesn't impact you know Antior is pretty fortunate because it's really not that new probably the only change from last year to this year is that they really can't carry a phone on their person so it really needs to be in a backpack or in their locker so there weren't really major concerns with the policy. Um, I was asked to provide
009some data. So, we're only nine days into the school year. We've had 10 referrals for students, you know, using personal electronic devices when they shouldn't. Of those 10 referrals, there were two incidents that happened in the cafeteria. Six events happened in the classrooms and two in the gym. those devices that I just reported. Five of those involved a student using a phone inappropriately. There were three incidents in which either an air the earbuds or headphones were utilized. And then there were just two with smartwatches. So again, not really a big deal. We we really don't have any any major concerns and we're not hearing anything from students. uh students know and and have used this and I don't want to say take advantage of it because they haven't but if they they know that if
010they need to use their cell phone for a re for any reason they could come either to the school counseling office they could come to the principal's office and they could they could use their device. So, we're trying to reduce any of the any of that stress. And parents have been communicating through the offices um if they have a message for for a student and that really has not been overwhelming or has not been an issue. I always put on I always say this at the board meetings and that's why I put it on this on the slide. I firmly believe that Antiora we have the absolute best students any district could have. And I'm always so so proud of them. In just nine days of school, u I just continuously am impressed. So I
011I always like to tell you what other people are saying. So Upstate Images, who did all the school photos, in addition to saying how well organized everything was, they just said they absolutely love working with our students. Our students are polite, courteous, welcoming, cooperative. Um, their words, not mine. They wish all the all students they had to work with were like ours. And and that's awesome. I'm going to give you one more quick story. On the second day of school, I was in the cafeteria with Mrs. Turk and I went over to Mrs. Turk and I said, "Look at that table over there. They're they're just one student sitting all by themselves." I said, "I think that's a new student." Having such a small student population, we kind of know who's who's here and who's
012not. I said I said I said, "Sarah, let's um let's just find a a group of kids to invite to to invite them over." So, she's like, "All right. All right. Let's let's try to figure out which group." So we were like, you know, just walking around like eyeballing like what would be a good match. We identified the table, but before we were able to get up to the table, two kids from another table just went up and we watched the exchange like, hey, you know, come join us. Come sit with us. And and that's what I'm talk and that's what I'm talking about. This is why Auntie students are the best. So with that said, let me get into this into the school year and talk about our academic program really quickly. So what
013I did was I gave you what the student enrollment was as of opening day and you can see we have 329 students. It's fairly low number. I also gave you the historical number uh enrollment. So you could see what that looks like over the years and you see how we've gone down a considerable amount of students. Uh I will tell you that today's actual enrollment at the high school is down to 324. So 320 so it went down from 329 opening day to 324 present. You know, the these numbers are very important to us for a lot of different reasons, but really as it relates to how we're scheduling courses, what our course offering is going to be, how we alternate courses, and how we give our students the best opportunity uh to pursue whatever
014career path or path of study that they wish to choose. So, we do look at these numbers carefully and then what we also do is we take a look at what our projected enrollment is going to be. And I apologize, I realized prior to this meeting that I didn't include this next slide. So, this next slide, and I I know it's going to be emailed to you um tomorrow. This just this just shows you what the enrollment is going to look like over the next four or five years. So, it is it is going to average about 3 125 students um in the high school for the next few years. But what I want you to understand is that there's other elements that go into uh putting together the master schedule and creating course offerings.
015And one of those is our students who who are classified with either 504 or IEPs. So, I did include that slide for you for you to look at at your leisure, but you know, our overall we have about 25% of the of our high school population has either an IEP or a 504 plan. And then what I did was I kind of broke it down for you. So, what this does is it makes it very complex and to create schedules that are open to everyone. And what inadvertently happens is we end up because of services that are required or special types of classes that are only offered once in the in the schedule. So there's one section of the class. It kind of makes it difficult. It locks those students into a a certain path
016which might make it challenging for that student to be able to take a course that they've selected. Our school counselors do an awesome job uh trying to make everything fit, but it is becoming more and more challenging. Despite that though, we have one of the most robust schedules that you're going to find in a high school in this area. So when we take a look at our master schedule, in addition to all of the required classes that we offer, we also have 32 elective course offerings, which is awesome. We also have eight collegiate bridge courses through Sunni Olter. And this year we're also offering 13 advanced placement courses. What I'll also tell you about about the schedule is if a student is interested in pursuing something that we're not offering, as long as typically they're
017very upper classman, we are able to offer some independent studies and our faculty is always willing to work with a student if they're if they're interested in pursuing that. Um, and it doesn't have to be it doesn't have to be something that's really really special. We even this year have some students who are going to who are not able to be in an ensemble and we're doing independent studies so that we could find a way to incorporate those students into the ensembles and also boost their numbers in the ensembles as well which which benefits everyone. So we're look we're continuing to look for creative solutions. Also wanted to mention that our students are eligible for over 40 career and tech programs this year. a really nice number. 57 of our 11th and 12th grade students
018uh are go are uh going to Boseis for a career in tech program. I list I listed those programs that our students are currently participating in you to look at. We also have three students who are participating in the new visions program which is a pre-un university program. All three of those students, by the way, are participating in the health occupations program, which is which is just an incredible program that sets students up for success. It's um and of course, we have two stu two 12th graders who are doing an early admissions program through Sunni Olter. So, like I said, tonight I just wanted to only nine days in, so not much to report, but I just wanted to kind of give you a little overview of what the starting out like and what it's
019looking like. Um this Thursday we do have open house at 6 pm. We've sent out several messages to parents about that. I remind everyone that the 23rd school is closed uh for Russashana. 26th is our we're going to have a pep rally for students only, high school students only during 9th period and then um there's some homecoming events that will follow. And then I hope to see everyone on Saturday the 27th at homecoming because homecoming never disappoints. It's a great community event and I hope everyone will be there. So that's my really really quick uh summary. Questions? >> Thank you very much. Any questions? Trusty Goodrich >> was um so I see the decrease in enrollment. Um was the number of uh electives is has that stayed the same pretty much or >> only one
020only one section um has has closed u and that was food sciences. uh we only we only had four students as of September that uh were able to be enrolled in that class. So, we felt that we couldn't run that that class. So, we'll recycle it next year. But other than that, everything's everything's running. Uh just some of the some of the numbers are are somewhat low. It's a class like 10. >> Wow. That's pretty impressive actually. >> Yeah. So, yeah, this is not a question, but just a comment. I was at the leadership conference up in Albany and one of the people that I talked to about absenteeism, they had a great idea. What they do is they actually have a committee and their seniors and they they work with them and the seniors
021help come up with ideas to reduce absenteeism. And I thought I just wanted to pass that on. My question was also regarding the elective course offerings. So there's 31 classes of 31 elective classes this year, >> correct? >> Okay. Um, do you ever like as we watch the the um uh student enrollment decline, do you ever the same way as you map out sort of the the population, do you ever map out like what's most popular, how many sections that would be really interesting information um just to keep it, you know, well-designed and suitable for a small student population. >> Sure. So, we do is we try to capture all of the requests. So even though we know that we're going that there may be some courses we might not be able to run, we'll
022capture those requests so that we could alternate the electives just like we do like with AP. Um because we want students to to have the opportunity to take the c the courses and the electives that are of interest to them. So by doing that we kind of create opportunity and we increase the enrollment even in the more popular courses uh which which you really you really need. It's very very challenging to run a class with you know under 10 students. It's it's not productive for conversation or instruction. >> That's sort of my point is that um you know being able to see what is historically being there's an active interest in is the are is the programming sort of today's pro you know current with with what is happening in our world today you know.
023So um just curious on how that that uh unfolds. >> So you know I would I would say it is because we're constantly changing those electives. Uh we also reach out to student government each year to see you know if they have suggestions and and we've taken a lot of those suggestions. Um I think that last year was a creative right writing for example. Um, but you know, if these courses aren't offered every year, but at least offered every other year, we have a better chance of keeping them running and uh getting students to be able to take those courses. If you go on to the high school's website and you go to the uh school counseling, you could pull the course request sheet. It's on there. And what we've done is we have rather
024than take off the courses that we're not running, we've actually put them in gray so that we know that those are going to be the courses that we're going to offer next year so we don't lose those. So we're trying to trying to track and make sure we don't lose those opportunities for students. >> Okay. I'm just unclear though. Are are there 31 elective courses running this semester or are there some being alternated into >> No, those are what's running. >> Okay, thank you. >> And just uh can you talk about so um in many schools um they restrict how many electives a ninth grader can take and then as you get towards senior year you get more freedom. Can you talk about how Antior regulate like are ninth graders um offered at the opportunity
025to select electives or are they mainly in a core? >> So ninth graders do have the opportunity to take electives. It's a lot tighter for ninth graders because of the required courses that they have to take. Um, typically a student who is, let's say, a music student, that music that that ensemble is going to be their their elective until they fulfill the requirement, the math, English, science, social studies requirements. And, you know, typically it's like a studio studio art elective. So, they're they're usually one maybe two electives at best. It opens up as you as you get into your sophomore and junior year. I just want to thank you because I've been watching board meetings for years before I actually sit at this table and every time you give a presentation as a parent, I'm
026always excited and I feel really grounded and like yes, this is I'm my children are in a good place. the way that you manage to balance out um what you have to offer them and what they want to do. It's you know you can it comes through every time you speak and I just want to thank you for that. >> Thank you. But I'm not coming to a lot more. >> Thank you so much. Really appreciate it. >> Thank you. >> All right. On to item 3.01. our discussion with the town of Shandaken representatives regarding uh Shandaken's request to purchase Phoenicia school building and proposed future use and we're welcoming Elizabeth Nisel and Robert Drake from the Shandaken board. >> Good evening everyone. Uh I am Robert Drake uh deputy supervisor of the town of
027Shadiken as you mentioned here with Elizabeth Nel representing the board of the town of Chanhen. We had our meeting on September 8th and I'm happy to be able to report that at that meeting we unanimously passed a memorializing resolution putting into writing our desire to partner with you with the county with developers as we might identify and with the community to ultimately provide more housing choice throughout Shanden and throughout the district through of course our work with you to hopefully gain access to the Phoenicia school. uh would like to also further impart that we have been uh we are currently within about a two-year process of updating the town's comprehensive plan. So Shandin's comprehensive plan is from 2005, which is when I graduated from high school, and unfortunately has not necessarily been updated since then,
028but we've had the opportunity to do so with a group of consultants who put out a number of surveys, and we've done a number of public meetings, getting as much impact uh input and feedback from the community as possible. And the third most highly rated issue of those surveys has consistently come back as housing choice in all of its various forms. Of course, that means a lot of different things to different people, but it is quite clear that the town of Shandaken uh is interested in housing choice. And of course, that is writ large across the entire region, this school district, the county, the country. And so we are happy to hopefully be able to work with you on a very nice synergy of being able to turn the Phoenicia Elementary School into again greater
029housing choice for the entire district. Um happy to answer any questions as as they may come up, but uh hopefully I can bring forth the board's interest in working with you as closely as possible. just to say that we're really excited um that this is working out like knock on wood like seems like it's working out and then we're really >> very much agreed. Yeah. Yeah. It's a great opportunity for for the town uh and the entire district. >> So, I have no idea what the process is going to be, but I'm just trying to How long do you think this would take for us to turn it over? I mean, I understand we have to put it up for a vote. So, I view that as the easy thing. Uh, when is Shanden ready
030to take control and ownership and be responsible for maintaining? So, we have in partnership with the county uh already put out some somewhat informal inquiries to the development community and we have received a couple of potential developers who have indicated an informal interest. Obviously, that needs to be formalized, but our expectation is that we will be able to solicit development proposals um as soon as we have some reason to believe that this can obviously this happen. So obviously your your referendum is is a critical component to that. But once that is um we'll say you know actively scheduled and there appears to be like you know strong strong consensus that that's likely to be able to move forward then we can work backwards from that timeline to start working with developers. So once there is
031a development proposal development proposals optimally multiple proposals that's obviously going to have to go through a public process as well. So I would expect there to be multiple public hearings in the town of Shandaken and with the community uh to go through those. So my expectation, my hope is that if that referendum were to happen, it would be within say six months or within six months to a year of of that that referendum happening. I mean that's a real fuzzy timeline. Um but um my hope is that we'd be able to move relatively quickly and there are active uh there are developers who are actively interested. >> Thank you. I just want to celebrate the town of Shanden for making, you know, so much effort towards something we desperately need, you know, in all of
032our communities. I hope it's an inspiration to many other towns that shows that like school districts and towns and people can work together to try and help make it possible for families to stay here. It's so moving. It's so amazing. So I just wanted that to and um and I had a question too just because I don't know much about it but what is the process hopefully when you know it's developed and it's housing and it's the town of Shandakens housing just roughly what's the process of how that housing is distributed or given up? So I can only speak to this in sort of a very abstracted way. Obviously the devil is very much in the details and even more so in what a developer is willing to agree to but the expectation and please
033correct me if I go wildly off the rails here is that we would be looking for a developer who would be very much in partnership with the town. Uh so they would uh take ownership of the parcel from the town but under an agreement that would guarantee certain uh things to the town. So very specifically we would be interested in continuing to begin our parades there. We would be interested if a developer is amendable in retaining some amount of that space as potentially a community center, things like that. And so that agreement would specify what the town manages to you have access to. We wouldn't have any, you know, don't want to put this into the universe, but if the developer went really far a field, if they were, you know, they managed the properties
034very poorly, the expectation is that agreement would also hold the other side of things that we would be able to transition ownership to a different entity if this was particularly poorly managed housing. U obviously housing it's a net good and it came out very clearly in our comprehensive plan but it can have negative externalities and so that legal agreement would be the town's mechanism by which to make sure that this remains a net good and doesn't in some way negatively impact the community again very abstracted but that would be our hope >> thank you that totally answered my question and I feel based on the process so far I feel very confident in the town of Shandaken's ability to keep this a net good Cool. >> I just wanted to say thank you um to
035both of you for coming and representing the board and thank you to the board as a whole for being willing to really work through this process because I think this has such potential to be such a positive for our entire school community and it's really important that our entire school community understands it because the entire school community has to support it. So this is not really just a town of Chandaken, but it's an ona central school district >> housing choice across the entire district. >> Absolutely. Thank you so much. >> Yes, my comment piggybacks off that one very much. Um I just want to speak again. I think this is wonderful. I'm s very much in support of it myself. I just wanted to just to speak to the idea that the referendum is going
036to be the easy part. Um because my experience, recent experience tells us that referendums are not necessarily easy. Um and communication as superintendent said is going to be key. Um so it's not just the school community, but it's also the taxpaying community in the other in Olive in Woodstock are going to need um to really hear about the positive impact that this is going to have on Shanden and it's probably going to need people to really speak up. um and which what what sometimes happens is uh there's not a lot of public dialogue until right the last minute and then it's chaos. So I I I I just hope I I implore you um all of us board two um to really um think about an intentional way to communicate why I believe strongly this
037is the absolute best disposition of this property and the best thing for the community of the school district. But there are people in our district, particularly taxpayers, are going to have to have this explained to them slowly and repeatedly. I just wanted to say that >> agree entirely. And the position that I find I this is very much an opinion of sorts, but I believe the comprehensive plan and the dialogue that came out of that doesn't merely empower the town board, but in fact sort of obligates us to import how important housing is. that we are no longer this is not the opinion of five town board members. This is an opinion that was espoused in over 400 comprehensive plan uh responses. A document that we will be looking that will drive land use in
038the town for if history follows the next 20 plus years. And so uh that document is deeply important from a legal standpoint and absolutely empowers and obligates the town board to have exactly the type of conversations. this is more or less the perfect project to those to that dialogue. >> I want to uh add my thank you to both of you for coming and to your whole board for the work that they're doing um in partnership with the county. Um, I'm not sure uh the degree that it's possible for board trustees to partner with the town board when it comes time to making community presentations or, you know, meet and greets, whatever, whatever it takes. But if we are able to partner with you to do that work, I'm in, you know, um, I'm really
039excited about this project. >> Very much appreciate that. Thank you for all the support and we look forward to doing our part. >> Thank you so much for coming. >> Thank you everyone. >> Item 3.02 is school tax property discussion with assistant superintendent for business Monica. Thank you very much presentation. Was I supposed to do something? Amanda said she sent it to you. Sent it to John. [Laughter] It's there somewhere. Um well, let me start off by saying so, um this was a presentation that for those of you who go to our website and and look at where the tax information is, it was done a few years ago when we had a large um change to the Woodstock equalization rate. Ah, look at that. Thank you. Um, that's probably pretty good, right? Um, go
040back to the top. Hold on. There we go. Okay. Uh, so, um, so a lot has happened this year that kind of precipitated needing to update the presentation with, uh, current events. So just kind of to start off as um as we all know um onour is made up of um six different uh towns in two different counties. Um we did uh increase our tax levy by 2%. Um however there were changes in equalization rates that affected the towns in such a way that it um it caused people to it caused some phone calls. So, um, having talked to a few people over the phone, as has Kim Cole, as has Amanda, as has everybody in my office, um, we told them, listen to the presentation and maybe it'll help. So, uh, really the biggest
041issue has to do with the equalization rate. And, um, this is kind of just the definition, which, um, again, I don't need to read it to you. everybody can read. But really what it does is it um it makes it so that if you have multiple towns in one school district that everyone is everyone is taxed at the full market value because if one town doesn't do an assessment another town does do an assessment well where's the equity in that? Um, so what what the office of of real property does, we'll come down and we'll say, okay, for example, olive reassessed their equalization rate is 100%. So a house that's assessed at $350,000, its full market value is $350,000. Uh, Shanda that has not done an assessment since the 70s, a $350,000 h house, full
042market value house is assessed at 46,000. So you can't say, "Oh, they can pay taxes on 46,000 when Olive is paying taxes on 350,000." And the house values are the same. So that's why the equalization rate kind of comes in. So where we are for this for this school year for equalization rates, Hurley that was at 100% last year is down to 91.3 because well, I have my own personal opinions of why Hurley's keeps changing, but that's because I live in Hurley. Um, Marble Towns is at 52. Olive is at 100% as I mentioned. Chandaken is at 14%. Woodstocks went from 46.5 to 47%. Um and then Lexington's at 52.25%. And I'll tell you why Woodstock's um change is um is uh is so important. Um, so in 2024, you can see where our levy
043was 48 million, a little over 48 million, and which towns had the proportion of the levy of that 48 million. And you can see that at at that point last year, Woodstock carried 38% of the levy. Um, and then if you go to the next column for 2025, you can see that Woodstock is carrying 35.2% of the levy. Um, so because that change in equalization rate, everybody in the town of Woodstock, if their assessment did not change from last year to this year, they got a decrease. Let me repeat that. Everybody in the town of Woodstock, if their assessment did not change, saw a decrease in taxes. I actually had to field phone calls from people in Woodstock who didn't believe that their tax bill was correct. So, um, unfortunately, somebody has to pay the
044difference because the increase the the difference between the 49 million and the 48. So, we we said we're going to get 2%. That was about $960,000. But if you look at the difference between the 18 million that Woodstock paid last year and the 17 million that Woodstock paid this year, that means almost $2 million had to go to the other towns because of the change in Woodstock. So, as I mentioned when we did this two years ago, the first column, our taxable assessed value, that's determined by the towns. That's the assessments that they have and that they give. The equalization rate is determined by ORPS. That's when Orps comes in and says, "Nope, too high, too low, just right." You know, kind of like the the three bears. Um, and that would that's what brings
045us to our true value. Then we say, okay, we need to raise 49,399,000 divided by those percentages and that's how much each town levies. So the rate is then taxed to the is put to towards the taxable assessed value. So you aren't taxed on your true value. You're actually taxed on your assessment, but that's why every town has a different tax rate. So you can see Shandaken's tax rate is $51 per thousand of assessments, but that's because they have a $350,000 house. It's only assessed at $46,000. Again, the only number we control is that bottom number. So kind of taking So Victoria's like, "Oh, let's go back four years and let's look at the four years." So in 22, you can see that um hold my glasses on. um that Woodstock carried 36.3% um Hurley
046carried 14.6, Shanden carried 18.3 and then you bump over to 2023 and you can see that is the year that the last time we did this presentation Woodstock bumped up to 39.8% 8% of the levy and um Shandagan went down to 17 and uh let's see and then Olive went from 29.3 to 27 and then you go to 24 and you can see Woodstock went down a little. That's the year that Hurley went up because that they were reassessed at 100%. And then you go to 2025 and you can see where Woodstock's gone down to 35.2 and Olive's gone up to 28.2 and then Hurley's gone from 16.4 4 to 16.75 and Chandacen went from 16 to 18. So again, the tax rate is based on the assessed value, but because of the equalization rate,
047the full market values are the same. So, what I did here was I took a house that had a full these are actual homes, which is why they're not exactly the same because it's very difficult to find a house in each town that's got the exact same full market value. So, they're all between, I think, 321 and 350, something like that. So, for Hurley, for example, um assessed home at assessed at 296 equalization rate, its full market value is 325. You can see it's paying about $2,300 in taxes. Shandaken, it's the same thing. A $330,000 full market home. Even though it's assessed at $46,200, because of that low equalization rate and their high tax rate per thousand dollars of assessment, they are also paying that $2,300. And you can kind of follow it through Olive
048and Woodstock as well. Um, so I did this because I I I had a conversation with a gentleman on the phone who couldn't believe how high his taxes went this year. And they can't really see it too well up there. Hopefully they can see it well at home. Um, who couldn't believe how high his taxes went this year. And I said, "Well, just so that you know, you are actually in in 23 24 and 2425, you paid less than you paid in 22 23." His response was, "No, I didn't. Well, yes, you did. So, what I'm trying to show here is a four-year average because one of the hard parts about ORPs and equalization rates is it shifts every single year. The idea is is that over time you will pay about the same across
049the board. So, every town over time will end up paying about the same. Um I think I wonder if I went gone back maybe fifth year it would be a little closer but you can see so these are the exact same these are homes that are assessed if you look at the one two the fourth column that have a full market value between this year between 321 and 330,000. So you can see in the town of Woodstock over the course of four years because of the equalization rate they've paid over $9,000 in taxes. That home in Hurley's paid almost 8,000 um Shanden 8,900 and then Olive has actually paid the least taxes over the course of four years. They actually they did they saw decrease in 2324 and 24-25. Um whereas Woodstock saw large increases
050in 2324 went down slightly in 2425 because Hurley went up a lot in 2425 and then saw a decrease in 2526. but when you add those four years together still have paid more historically than the other towns. So we'll see what happens next year. So again, a lot of it does have to do with the equalization rates. Um and it's it's not anything that the school can control. Um we do tell taxpayers when they call, check with your town, make sure that you um you've you've you know you've got all of the exemptions that you can get. the senior exemption, the veterans exemptions, um all of that. Uh you can always go to your um grievance day, which is usually in March. Um and then, you know, any questions they have, you know, we we
051do our best to answer. Um, unfortunately, you know, it's really, I mean, as a school, I think we've done very well as far as, you know, holding the line on the tax levy increases, but because our housing market is so volatile, it really is we're at the mercy of the people who move into um our towns and buy our homes. Um, you know, taxes are based on what a home is worth. You know, I can tell you my one of my favorite examples is um Tanglewood Road, a split level ranch. I don't think you could have you could sell those for anything back in the 80s and the early 90s. Nobody wanted a split level. Who wants to walk in a house and go upstairs and down the stairs? You know, $770,000 right on the
052main road. And then I wonder why my taxes went up. But again, we do the best we can. Um, and there's more information here if anybody wants to uh, you know, figure out how property taxes are calculated. Um, but, uh, anybody have any questions? Go for it, Rick. >> So, I know you don't work for Orps, but this is the most fascinating part of it to me. I understand I've been delving into it myself, the equalization, right? I have a very good gris grasp on that. So let Orps obviously does not go around and look at each individual house in town and they say properties in the town of Olive >> are worth this much more than they were last year. They'd base that on recent sales. Is that correct? Correct. Entirely on recent sales.
053>> Correct. So just thinking about that hypothetically, let's say I live in a town with a thousand houses and everybody's really happy living in this town of a thousand houses and only three houses turn over in that year, but one is sells to some hot shot record producer who falls in love with building his studio on this street and overpays. Does does that is that is that going to affect how Orps looks at the entire town for the next year? >> I can't answer that. >> You can't answer that. I can't answer that. I really don't know. >> So, yeah, >> I will I will tell you that um uh in the past towns have um fought ORPs and I know Olive, for example, has gone to ORPS and fought an equalization rate. So, I
054do know towns can do that. Um I don't know on what basis, but I do know that that towns can do that. >> But again, that's a role for the town board, >> correct? >> Not the school board or the district. Thank you, [Music] >> Jenny. >> And this is sort of also, if I'm correct, tied to our foundation aid issue. >> Yes. That, you know, folks might feel like I've been in this same house for all this time and but the state sees this. the state sees the huge increase in all the property value over the last five years even though somebody's personal experience in their home or their community might not have changed. >> And so this is us seeing you know the state leapfrogging how how much our property is worth right
055because it bases our wealth it's it's a 5050 split between income wealth and property wealth. Our income wealth is a little above average, but our property wealth, if you can see where it says true valuation, our property wealth in this district is $6.8 billion, second in the county only to Kingston. And Kingston has a lot more kids than we do. So that's why we're considered so wealthy. >> Trusty Gooditch. Huh? >> You didn't think I was going to talk. So, I've been here a couple years and I just want to thank you for uh explaining doing such a great job explaining all this. It's a complicated uh issue. I like the four-year average. I think that's a great way of presenting it. Um when I was at the leadership uh conference up in Albany, I
056mean, there's a lot of schools all over New York State. They kept patting themselves on the back about the 2% the 2% the 2% limit. So I finally got the microphone and I explained to them what our problem and it and you're right it goes up it can go up a lot then it can go down like Woodstocks and it'd be nice if we could kind of smooth that curve out kind of do a moving average but I I guess we can't. I mean, maybe we can get put pressure on the uh the people that assess all the towns and maybe they could work in unison and I don't know if that would help, but uh but it does go up, it does go down and hopefully it'll it'll average out. >> That's that is
057that's the idea. But, you know, when you live in an area that we live in that is has a lot of second homeowners is is very culturally I mean, this is a beautiful area. people want to live here and you will get people that will pay anything to live here. Um, you know, I think it's again I think what happened with Woodstock is I think a lot of, you know, prices went up so high so fast that people got priced out of Woodstock. Even wealthy people from New York City couldn't afford Woodstock anymore. So then they kind of spread out. They spread out to Shanden. They spread out to West Hurley. Um, and um, so you know, and I think I don't know maybe we'll get to a we'll get to a place where there's
058no place else for them to go and they'll have to they'll be a Margaretville. I don't know. But um you know until that time we we just every year we do this and every year I'll stand up here and I'll try to explain to the taxpayers and you listen I talk to the taxpayers and they are lovely. They they they understand once they once they can actually talk to a person they do understand. Um it's just hard because you know we get people I mean I grew up here you know I grew up in Woodstock. I couldn't I can't afford to live in Woodstock. I can barely afford to live in West Hurley these days but um you know it's it's it is it's it's sad. So hopefully when we get you know it's supply
059and demand. Hopefully when we can get some more housing like we can get in Shanden it'll you know it'll help bring some of those higher ends down because now we got people who can afford to buy the kind of lower end pieces. So time will tell. So I just want to remind everybody if we had one town for the whole school district their taxes would go up equal to whatever our taxable correct >> the 2% tax lev >> that's what I always say if all things are e equal 2%. Things are never equal. Just to add to that, Clark, there is also I think sometimes people forget, especially in a town like Olive that just did a full reassessment this year, the town assessor is looking at your house compared to your neighbors and the
060next street over. And there's many factors go into how houses are valued against each other. So you you may find that your house suddenly is more valuable for mysterious reasons than it used to be more so than other sections of town. I mean it's there there really are multiple variables that can affect any individual's bill. >> Correct. And could you just um give a a little definition of the grievance day in terms of is is it something like what um Trusty Kudson was just talking about in terms of like the way that your house is assessed by the assessor? >> Yes. So, so, um, if you get a letter from, uh, the town saying that your assessment's changed. So, when Hurley did it two years ago when they went to 100% and then all of
061this year, you're sent a letter saying this, your assessment has been changed to this, they tell you this is approximately what's going to happen to your taxes, but they never seem to get that right. But then they say you have an opportunity to come in and actually grieve your taxes. Um, I think sometimes what they don't, well, first of all, you can you can go to small claims court and you can grieve your assessment at any time. you don't have to wait for grievance day. Um you can even call your assessor and say, "Hey, can we talk?" And sometimes they will do it that way. Um the the really sticking point is is that it's timesensitive because it has to be done. I believe it's March, April, because then all the work goes into putting
062together the assessment roles to get it to us so that we can do our work. So um I think we usually put something out in the spring telling people about it. Well, when we do the exemptions, it kind of falls around the same time as the exemptions. So, kind of a March, April time frame. But if there's a full assessment, they will have an actual grievance day and they will let everybody know by by letter when it is you. Any other questions? Trusty Jerome, >> just a comment that I I've sat through this presentation. I think this is my third one maybe, and my have X's for eyes usually, but this was a good one. And thank you, Rick. And thank you everybody for chiming in. And like I think it I don't know whether
063it was good or I just finally got it, but anyway, thank you. >> Well, my husband's been listening to me talk about this for about 20 years. And I think this is the first year that he finally got it. I think it also helps that you have the, you know, like you broke it down in the uh by the the house, a house in the four different towns and uh you know, like you're you're trying to like bring it bring it down to our level. We're not mathematicians and we really appreciate it. >> I was just going to say I also have been following along for years and when I sat in my living room and I read through this presentation, I was like to my husband, Pat, look, come here. like it it really
064for me also not math person this this format was brilliant. I really understand it. Thank you for all the time you put in. >> That means a lot. >> I also just want to repeat something I said to one of our taxpayers in the spring which I believe you'll back me up on this Monica. If you take uh this hypothetical house, let's say it's worth $350,000, and you go to that homeowner and you say, "I I will offer you the opportunity to trade your tax bill with someone with a $350,000 house in any other school district in Olter County. Watch how quickly and gratefully they accept your offer because Antiora has correct me the lowest overall t overall taxes of any school district in Olter County. >> Yes, we have the lowest tax rate in
065the county and we're very lucky because we have the reservoir that I always like to jokingly say they give us lots of money and no kids. >> All right. Thank you so much. >> Thank you. Okay. On to um item 4.01 discussion and discussion and possible action. Um the board of education will approve a one of our trustees to be the board of education liaison for the New York State School Boards Association. And what that means is that um I think you all realize that we get um fairly frequently we get emails from uh the New York State School Board Association, NISSBA. And um sometimes there are advocacy issues that needed are need to be addressed or or any number of things that need our attention. And we we usually appoint one trustee to kind
066of be on top of all that and communicate to the rest of us just to make sure you know give us a heads up. Um for the past few years it has been uh Trusty Lynch who is no longer on the board. Um and uh Trusty Kusen did say that he would be happy to take the responsibility but I just want to offer it up if anybody else would like it. I would also like to offer it up, but I am quite willing to do it. >> Go ahead, Trusty. >> I'm happy to offer. I know that um you and um Trusty Bishop do have a lot that you're already handling. So if it feels better for you, Trusty Kudson, although I would look forward to hearing your take on all the advocacy issues, I'm
067happy to take a little weight off for you. So >> I may take you up on that. Thank you. I mean, I I'm happy to be the designate and then I'll check in with you every once in a while. Did I miss anything, trustee? >> Yes, I can be the >> All right. So, thank you very much for the generous offer. a partnership maybe is in store. Um so we do do we vote on this? Okay. So um the board of education hereby approves trustee Rick Kudson to be uh the board of education liaison for NISBA. May I have a first? Trusty Jared. Second. Trusty Jerome. Any questions or comments? All in favor? That's unanimous. All right. Uh item 4.02 is the NISBA voting delegate. So again, the board of education will approve a trustee
068to be the board of education voting delegate for the NISBA annual business meeting which will be held on October 14, 2025. That's quite a responsibility. It is a long meeting. I cannot remember when it starts. Does it start in the morning? >> I believe last year it started at something like three or four in the afternoon. Yeah. And it wrapped up about 10 or 11 p.m. 10 p.m. It was like a good six hours. >> Right. And so what will happen is the uh every uh one of the resolutions that are being proposed for 2025 will be that there's a short business meeting first and then after that there are basically a reading of the 20some resolutions that are being proposed this year that uh that NISBA will support. Um, gratefully two of those resolutions
069that will be voted on are ours and we're proud of that. Um, is anyone interested in being the um the voting member, the voting delegate for Antiora? I have a question about that day because when I checked the day on my agenda, I know we have the middle school high school board tour that morning and we've also got a board meeting that night at 6. So, I just wondered how any of us were going to do that where we could I could have a like at the US Open I could have a thing in my ear be voting during the board meeting. So that is one of our special meetings that we um scheduled at I I think at our last meeting. So we may need to change that meeting date because the NISSBA resolution
070um u voting is not going to change for sure. So can we work on changing that the meeting on the 14th to another date? Um, I think you will be able to if if you were interested in in doing it um in being the delegate. Uh, the board uh the board tours at the middle school high school will be in the morning. Yeah. Much earlier in the day. >> I'm happy to do it. I just was worried about I just wanted to raise the conflict of the board meeting. That's all. >> Thank you very much for Yes. for bringing that to our attention. Is there anybody else interested in being the voting delegate? >> Trusty can leave you. >> Yeah, I just I I you know I actually encourage you trusty Jared as a new
071trustee to do it because it really is interesting. It was interesting for I did it last year as a new trustee and um you know the your your voting instructions are clear from the board going in. There's no on the-fly real decision-m to make, I don't think. Sometimes there's a last minute amendment, but um uh but you really do get a sense of all the other districts in the state and because you hear from many of them, it's all on Zoom, but um it does give you a broader picture of what's going on in the state in other districts. >> All right. So, the board of education hereby approves CH trustee Jenny Jared to be the board of education voting delegate for the NISBA annual business meeting held on October 14th, 2025. May I have
072a first? Trusty Kudson. Second, Trustee Jerome. Any questions or comments? All in favor? Great. Thank you so much, Jenny. really appreciate it. All right. Item 4.03. We are approving our student representative of the board of education. Uh Jenny Albbright as our student representative uh for the 2526 school year. May I have a first? Trusty Jerome second. Trusty Jared. Any questions or comments? So, first thank you and uh and you've already spoken up and that's great. That's what we need. Um during the leadership thing in Albany, I was surprised that the other school districts or some of them actually have multiple student reps. So, I just wanted to point that out. So, u you know, they they actually kind of some of them work as a team. So, um there's there was about an hour discussion
073about the student reps, >> right? Because uh this year there was a um policy. We board uh boards of education had to have a policy to include a student rep. However, in Antiora, we've been including a student rep for as long as I've been affiliated with the district and probably much longer than that. Um so, we're really proud of that and we've always enjoyed our student rep. uh participation very much. Any other questions or comments? Trusty Jerome, then Trusty Kudson. >> Yes. Just to say like even tonight to hear you speak, you know, we just don't have your point of view and so yes, it's very appreciated. I think it adds so much to the discussion. So, um yes, just inviting you again. >> Thank you. I appreciate the warm welcome and actually I was
074planning on saying more earlier but I didn't know if I was allowed to or not. So, you know, definitely going to hear a lot of you. >> Just wanted to also add my welcome and um maybe at some point you want to discuss we have a very loaded schedule of meetings this fall because of circumstances. We added a lot of extra meetings and I know you're still trying still trying to go to school. So, um maybe uh President Bishop, we could meet with Jenny and just discuss what a what a good reasonable expectation is in terms of you know the our packed meeting schedule for October in particular. Um just for example tonight we have a very very busy agenda and um so I I went over and spoke to Jenny for a minute and
075just said I don't expect you to stay uh through this entire meeting. In fact, um when after Jenny gets sworn in and we take care of just one or two other part uh pieces of business, we're going to move her um her participation part of the meeting in front of our executive session so she doesn't have to stick around. She has a lot of homework to do. Mr. Edelman made sure I understood how many pages to be precise. about 32 pages of AP biology reading, a college essay, second draft, and um a bunch of flashcards, and that's after doing homework on the weekends and an SAT. All right, we believe you and we're proud of you. Um any other questions or comments? All right, so we shall vote. All in favor? That is unanimous. Thank
076you. and the district clerk the oath of office. Please raise your right hand. Do you solemnly swear that you will support the Constitution of the United States of America and the Constitution of the State of New York and that you'll faithfully discharge the duties of student representative to the best of your abilities? >> I do. >> Thank you very much. Congratulations. All right, one more item of business and then we'll um we'll hear from Jenny. Um item 4.05 is the Ster County Regionalization uh report. Um did everybody get a chance to review it? Okay. So, I'm just going to read the resolution and then we we can uh have a discussion. Be it resolved that the board of education of the Antiora Central School District acknowledges receipt of the Olter County Regionalization Final Report 2025
077and affirms its commitment to continued collaboration with Ulster Boseies and neighboring districts to pursue regional initiatives in alternative education, special education, workforce readiness, and professional development. May I have a first? Trusty Jared. Second, Trusty Jerome. Any questions or comments? Trusty Jared, I feel so grateful that we're in a district where we're able to have this kind of resource collaboration. Reading through the proposal, just for all the community members who are listening, I mean, it's just it's a beautiful wealth of resources for so many kids. And I applaud our administration for being willing because obviously a lot of meetings and work and effort go into trying to figure out how all the districts can work together and create something that's worthy of all the work that goes into it. I only hope that it's uh an
078inspiration for to be expanded to uh other programming in the future outside of like you know these are important niche programs. But I think that as all of our enrollment, you know, declines and hopefully stables steadies out eventually, it would be so great if this were perhaps a model for how school districts could work together to address what Principal Edelman was speaking about challenges and curriculum and teachers taking on students one-on-one for them to do, you know, studies they want. So, I'm just putting that out into the universe. I think that would be a wonderful next thing someday. Any other comments, questions? Trusty Jerome, then Trusty Kudson. >> Yeah, I just wanted to comment that when I'm not beaming with Antoar Pride, I'm beaming with Olter pride because we are so incredible and um the
079the local government, Boseies, the the schools, like it just is such an incredible county. So, I just wanted to say that >> um I just wanted to loop in here a bit of a report and I may be jumping the gun here a little bit, but as trustees we sometimes go to conferences um to learn about what's going on in the state and education and three of us went to the rural schools conference in July and um and it was quite informative but regionalization was one of the um topics that they covered in some some depth. and I took notes and so I just thought it might be a good time now to share my notes because we're talking about regionalization. Um, just for any public that's watching, it's a five-step planning process. There's a
08010-year cycle. The implementation of it will start in 2627. 97% of rural schools are participating in regionalization in New York State. Um so rural schools in particular um are using are hoping to use regionalization to deal with staff shortages, keeping advanced academics going in situations of um enrollment decline. And um they also brought up that um regionalization u regional initiatives in rural districts have helped uh improve intend attendance through creating hands-on learning um uh experiences in school. Uh and that that has been a successful way to uh to deal with uh chronic absenteeism. And also they said that the final reports uh on regionalization are due in October. So, I guess I guess there's still more information to come out about regionalization that everybody can uh keep an eye out for and Jenny and I
081will report to if NSBA sends us anything on it. >> Any other comments um or questions about the county regionalization final report 2025? All right, me uh did I already ask for a first and second? Yes, I did because we just had questions and comments. All right. Um, so we shall vote. All in favor? All right, that's unanimous. Great. Thank you. So, before we begin our continued continued uh capital project discussion, I would like to make a motion that we move item 8.01, our student rep report uh to I'm sorry. Oh, I'm sorry. 9.01 01 to uh to replace oh to go in front of um 4 point. So would it become 4.06 and then everything gets shifted down or would it become 4.05b or something like that? So we're it it will become 4.05.
082Okay. May I have a second? I made the the motion. All right, Trusty Jerome, any questions or comments? All in favor? All right. Nope. You can just sit sit there and use your microphone. And now Jenny will give her first student rep. Again, thank you all so much for the opportunity to have this position. It means a lot to have student opinion be so highly valued by the school board so far because like Mr. Edelman said, we're only nine days into school. There's not that much to report, but academics are going well. Athletics are beaming. I mean, the announcements are like 15 minutes long just because of all the academic or sorry, all the athletic achievements. Um, and yeah, it's been a very successful first nine days. Thank you very much. Any questions for Jenny?
083>> Do you have one athletic highlight that you would want to throw out to us that you can think of? >> I can't think of any right now. Sorry, but I'm I'm If I remember correctly, the girls tennis team won a match last night. >> Okay, cool. Thank you. >> There were seniors last year who upon graduating had different ideas about um students response to the phone and personal electronic device policies. And not to put you on the spot, but I'm just wondering in general, would you say that um high school students are kind of adapting to not having their phones with them? Do you perceive it still kind of a struggle? Do you you know, what's your temperature on that in terms of us supporting that this year? In general, it hasn't been that
084bad. Actually, in fact, among my friends and I, we've been saying, "This is nice." Like, we're not on our phones together. Like, the only thing that we miss is listening to music during like study halls or being able to be like, "Hey, where are you texting someone?" Oh, I'm in XYZ's room right now, you know, like certain little bits of communication. But overall, I don't I personally I haven't perceived it to have been that much of an issue. Even though at the end of the day, you know, once the bell rings, we do all, you know, grab our phones out of our bags and our lockers, but that's more of like a nature of habit, but I would say mostly from personal opinion. So far, it hasn't been that big of an issue. Thank you
085very much. Um, I don't know if there were I'm sorry, were there any other questions or comments? Okay, Jenny, I just wanted you to know that we um are we're here to help you if you have any questions. if you have um you know any confusion about any of our process or anything like that. Um maybe after um the next meeting you can let us know if if it would be helpful to you for us to kind of um give you a heads up on some of the agenda items that you may be interested in I don't know doing a little research on or like um you know being able to chime in on so that you're not taken by surprise if you're too busy to you know to really go over the agenda. I
086know you you have a very busy schedule. So, um you know, be in touch with us. Let us know what you need. Even if it's just at the next board meeting before we get started, we can have a chat. So, we're informal and we're really happy to have you. >> Thank you. When is the next board meeting? >> September 30th. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Yeah. You're welcome. Okay. And and by the way, we do not expect you to stay for the whole meeting ever. So you you know once you've given your report, you feel free to leave whenever you're ready. Okay, great. Thank you. Oh yeah, and the next meeting uh on the 30th is in Woodstock. Okay, great. Okay, good night. Good luck with your homework. Okay, so the next item on our
087agenda is um 4.06. 06 the continued capital project discussion. Um, last time we met, we had a pretty good conversation about uh we asked a lot of questions and we kind of landed on the idea of coming tonight with our top six items uh that we were hoping to be included on the next uh bond or the next proposition for a for a bond vote. So, I open it up for conversation. Um, you know, it's it's I think it's very important for us as a board to try to uh come to a consensus and determine what we're looking for um as a group uh moving forward. So that when when we invite our architects and our um construction manager to come the next time the next time we decide to have them um you know
088we are really um able to ask them more targeted questions and really starting to kind of fine-tune what we're looking for so that they can help us get there. I just wanted to note that Trusty Mitchell Morurell is not here, but she shared her six things with us. Um, so her six things were the auditorium, the gymnasium, the outdoor play space and parking, artificial turf, track upgrade, and field lights. Auditorium, gymnasium, outdoor play space and parking, artificial turf, track upgrade and field lights. Trusty Goodrich So before we talk about the priorities, I I had a few questions if that's okay. So um I because I missed the last board meeting. Um, I don't know if this changed, but I thought we asked the architects about the replace windows and exterior wall for Bennett, and they
089said that was standalone, but I saw it was listed as priority priority two, indicating it wasn't standalone. So, what's >> Yeah, I know. So I think the the thought process there is it can be standalone but it makes more sense to be packaged as part of a project that includes all of those items that are listed as number two just for efficiencies and um bidding and just packaging a project. Thank you. Uh so I had a few questions here more. Um, so Bennett has two line items for uh the music rooms. They had a renovate music room or rooms and add a music room. Now this is both for Bennett. Could you clarify how many music rooms do we need at Bennett? >> Sure. So currently there are two music rooms and the theory was
090that we would have three so that um band, orchestra and chorus could all have their own space and potentially be rehearsing at the same time or in session at the same time since there are three different groupings. >> Okay. So they would renovate two and add one additional ramp. >> Correct. >> Thank you. um on the turf field. Um I guess uh the artificial turf uh what sports would be played uh on that field and uh would we need a soccer field? Would the soccer play on the uh the same field as the football field? Um, so the sports that could play on turf, depending on scheduling, would be varsity and JV boys and girls soccer, varsity football, varsity and JV field hockey. At the middle school level, it could be modified boys and girls
091soccer, modified a football, and modified field hockey. Um, in the spring it could be used for varsity JV and modified baseball and softball practices. Um, but the existing soccer field would likely still be needed because you can't actually have all of the sports practice on the same field at the same time. >> Okay. So, the the drainage for the soccer field is still important. So, >> I believe it is because it also leads down the hill to the other fields. >> Good point. Thank you. Um, so with the field lights, uh, if we added the field lights, so how would that change the scheduling? Would will we see a lot more late night games or >> it would just allow for more flexibility in the scheduling of games in in terms of timing, but there's
092a caveat with that because the competing school has to be willing to play at that time, too. So, it would allow for more flexibility, but we can't just assume that all of our games would be at night under the lights because the other teams have a long way to go. But it would provide more flexibility. >> So, um I know you know the professional football teams and whatever they they have different shoes for turf and uh than they do for grass. What do our I know our students play on different fields. Do they do they usually have different shoes? And uh I guess they provide their own shoes. Our athletic director indicated to me today that our athletes generally wear one pair of cleats regardless of turf or grass. I think the local schools, the
093turf fields that we have um allow for that. It's just you can't have a cleat that has an an extra large extra long length to it. Um but she seemed to believe that it could be consistent. So, do most of the uh schools that we play against, do they have uh turf field? >> Um, again, uh I touched base with our athletic director and she seemed to think about half to. It's not most, it's sort of split because we do play a lot of smaller schools as well as other schools our size. So, some have switched to turf and some have not yet. So I just want to add um this is not kind of like a oneandone thing. Uh you know as we do our prioritization here um you know we if we decide
094uh that we want to delay something till a later point. I think that doesn't mean it's never going to get done. So I just want to point that out. um you know, if we decide we want to reduce the amount of work and uh for the propositions that are coming up in December and to try to minimize it to try to get something passed. Um so we should think about that as well. >> Thank you. >> Other trustees have questions, comments? Trustee Jared. Thank you. And Trusty Goodrich, I will piggy back off of you because in pouring over this list again and again, I just want to take a step back and reflect that this is an enormous amount of work in so many different compartments. Um, just researching, you know, Turfield. I mean, I've
095spent like four days rabbit holeing on turf field and injuries on turf and surfaces of turf and resurfacing turf. And um you know, I reflected this morning that I I do think this is because we have not really done meaningful work in 20 years of a bond size, you know, and now it really feels like it has snowballed. But I really feel strongly that we have to acknowledge that many or most taxpayers in families in our district are are really feeling extremely tight and I might even say uncomfortablely tight in this area right now. And so I mean it makes me it won't make me sad because I agree with Trusty Goodrich that I think the approach that I sort of came around to is to ask ourselves what needs to be done timesensitively first.
096And there are some things like the track, you know, and there's a way that we could do it. I see a new quote that would be extremely economical. And um and then I think, you know, I would really love for us to revisit a conversation about our vision, you know, our values, our strategic plan, you know, because I think anytime we all agree, I know that anytime we're spending taxpayer money, um it's really important that we have thought it forward decades because it's some of this work is really big, you you know, um, and so I I think that I suggest we try our hardest to keep this next bond very uh, digestible economically for everybody and to, you know, build a strategic plan together that would stage out the other things that meet our
097values but that, you know, aren't timesensitive in the way that some of these things really are. I can share mine if that would be helpful since I'm holding the microphone or I would if somebody else though has some like bigger idea thing they wanted to share I would love to hear it before I shared my list. Not a big idea, but just the same that as you said to like think about what our vision is, to think about the fact that um we're going to probably chunk this out. Um and uh yeah, I'm very curious. I wasn't at the last meeting, so I'm letting other people sort of take the lead. I've I've changed my mind a lot of times. One thing I will comment on um Trusty Moral Mitchell Moral's is that it's they
098were all for the students like immediate impact for the students and I really love that idea that because you can to take such pride in in these um in new facilities um and upgrades. Even the work that was done on the parking lot this summer, you know, you drive in and you're like, "Oh, this this looks this looks great. This looks beautiful. I can be proud of this. It's not torn up. It's paved. It's It's really makes such um a big difference for people visiting and for who cares about them, for the students and the parents who go here. So, um Okay, I'll let you go first though. All right. So this is not in order of my preference um because I I really tried to think about it in order of what I saw
099when I did like take another walkthrough with Mr. Hargress which was really helpful. Um so first our track we have to address it because it does take time my understanding once we decide we want to do it then we have to bond it out. We have to ask the public how what monies are we going to use, get approval, go through SED, bid it out. And my understanding is that, you know, if we wait on that, that we might not have a track that's usable and then we're, you know, a year maybe behind fixing it and then our team doesn't have a track to play on. And to me, that's, you know, that's a number one. Um, I have talked to a lot of of parents and I have to I haven't spoken to one
100parent that is neutral on the turf field. I haven't spoken to one parent that's happy about the turf field. I get a lot of unsuress, negativity, concern um around the turf field. And I as a parent, I would share that concern. I understand the concern. And my other concern just in my research with the turf field is um is that it does have to be resurfaced. you know, it has a lifespan, so it doesn't need to be completely dug up, but I mean, the whole top of it has to be redone. They say like eight years, 10 years. So, I think it's something to factor in considering that I love our athletics department, but we are struggling to make teams. We are small and getting smaller. And I think for me at this moment in
101time, I think resurfacing the track uh for that very reasonable estimate and then perhaps and this Turfield to me was an example of something that I feel like this is a this bowl of stew has so much in it that how how could we ever really dig in? I would love to be in the situation, this board, that we got to talk about turf and track and our athletics and spend the meeting time hearing from our athletics directors and hearing from student athletes and digging in. I just feel like this is it's so massive because of how much has piled up that um I just don't think we've had that opportunity. And so I feel like that is a situation where I would love to buy a couple years time. Um so track is my
102first one. Um the science rooms I walked through. There are three of them. I'm if you ask anybody that knows me, I am a very good budgeter. I love to I'm really not loose with the with with money at all. And I think the two science rooms that had the plumbing tables, they they have holes, it's doesn't look functional anymore. It look really that I would put right up there. They've been on the the building condition list for a while. The earth science room I think is I would leave it. Um it's not being used for plumbing. It looks like a classroom. It looks just fine to me. We're looking for ways to carve out, you know, I understand it would create more flexibility to be able to use any of the rooms for physics,
103but I think chemistry, but I think we're at the point where we have to ask ourselves like, is that worth 1 x to taxpayers in order to do that? And I think in this day, in this climate, it's not. So, I would choose for my second option two out of the three science rooms. Um, and then, you know, when I think about long-term my long-term vision for this district, um, and a strategic plan, I especially when it became clear to me that if we brought all the children together, elementary children together at Bennett, that we could provide afterchool enrichment with district busing. That is huge. As ever since I joined the PTA, I have every PTA meeting heard parents say, "How can I work a job? I have to leave at 2:30. Our child care
104options are so limited here." And the majority of our district square milewise does not live in proximity to afterchool enrichment opportunities. And nor do 47% of them land in an economic bucket that their families can afford those things. So for me as a parent, I every day now that I know that we could be doing that, that we're not doing that, it actually hurts my heart because I feel like I know we all know that our parents and grandparents and teachers that the time to make that impact is in elementary school. That's the time that kids, you know, could be spending that time not on a screen, but with playmates in, you know, art, you know, doing art or music or on the playground or maybe we could have homework help or reading help. I'm
105obviously, as you can see, I've been thinking a lot about this and I feel incredibly passionately that like morally I can't justify I can't justify not not doing that um for our kids. So, for that reason, um, my next choice is the 10 classrooms. Um, you know, if it's a if it's a large cost savings, then I think that the library expansion and the renovation of the art space are things that I would sadly set aside possibly, but maybe they're not huge ticket items. They're in that big bucket. So, that bucket, my understanding is, includes everything that's got a two that doesn't say standalone next to it. So all the not fun stuff as trusty Mitch Morell said um like the drop off loop, the drainage, the slab, the fuel tank, the new boiler, all
106of that number twoess that is very important to me. Um and I think in order to make this doable for our community, um I think we need a bigger gym, but I think we could go for the smaller bigger gym. I think we need a bigger cafeteria, but we could go for the smaller, bigger cafeteria. Um, and the Bennett windows absolutely have to happen. That's on the building condition survey. Um, and I kind of like did a rough uh super rough price out of that because that number is really important to me, you know, because if that number was really big, then I think that that is informative. And you know, I did some like Jenny math where I was like, well, it's only two science classrooms, so please don't hold me to this. But
107I tried to estimate it costing more. You know, I took out less for the half gym and the half cafeteria. But it landed at around 34,900,000, which million saved. I mean, to me, like everything that we're talking about, you know, and that now we're talking maybe about like a $15 million bond, you know, to me that felt like a place I was willing to say, here's a start that I'm comfortable with. So, there it is. >> Thank you very much, Trusty Jerome. >> Wait, so I'm a little confused. Were we supposed to pick six? Okay. But was that more than six? >> Well, we can't not. So, the thing is >> I'm just trying to not because I'm trying to pick I know it was just convoluted. Let me just read them one just I'll
108just read them straight. Okay. Resurface the track two science rooms the 10 classroom which we call priority two >> which is everything in the column. Like if you look at this paper though this one I found better. So down on the right side, like you can't do that and not do drainage, fuel tank, all of that stuff that's got a two that doesn't say standalone. So that's a one item. Um, priority two, one item. Smaller gym, that's a standalone. The gym is a standalone. The be trusty Jerome I think you should use your microphone because I'm sure what you have to say is very >> why I wonder why the fuel tank relocation new electrical service relocation new boiler why why weren't those included with the elementary work if they are attached to the elementary
109work >> the whole top section it says the total is 38 million >> oh I beg your pardon >> so that's I know I I was also it took me a second to kind of >> Okay, I got it. Yeah, thank you. >> Um so then number four was a gym at Bennett but the half size. Number five was a larger cafeteria kitchen but the half size and number six were the bit the windows and the the wall at Bennett because that if that was my house I know I'd be paying a lot more in heat and I would be really eager to fix that. So, and that's important. >> Do you want to go? So I also uh I will confess I cheated a little bit in terms of like I did not pick
110six individual line items but I saw the ones that are connected as connected. But I also just want to take a step back and um just again give context for any community members that might be watching. Um, you know, uh, I also think for me I put as number one the Bennett edition, the 10 classrooms and the infrastructure work that goes along with that. And I have maybe slightly different set of pullouts. I think things that we we think we can pull out. But um, I do think um, you know, things have been changing rapidly externally. I think sometimes in our district we have a very in innerlooking insular almost sometimes an insular perspective on where we are in relation to what's going on in the broader world and I know I keep bringing this
111up but I just think it has to be in the back of our mind. Um, we referred to it um at the last meeting, but I don't think we quoted it, Trusty Jared. So, I brought a copy of the advocacy update from the Association of School Business Officials of New York. And I just wanted to read the paragraph just to so um everybody understands sort of what's going on in the country. So recently the division of budget released the first quarter financial plan update which was followed by the state controllers analysis of the state's finances and the do report. In both reports they point to the overall downward trend in projected state revenues. This downward trend is largely attributed to the negative impacts on the state budget due to the enactment of the recent budget
112reconciliation act which you also may know as the OBBB the one big bill. um at the federal level that is anticipated to reduce the amount of overall federal funding. While the majority of these reductions are concentrated in non-education programs, particularly Medicaid and SNAP, the projected impact is large enough that there could be broader budget implications and downstream effects on school aid and other school-f funded programs. And if you look at the actual numbers we're talking about, they are large. starting in about a year and a half maybe 101 13 billion dollars a year out of the New York state budget is as the estimate that I have read. Um, and you may have also, if you're following that these federal funding, um, you know, controversies, you may see, oh, well, they took away X billion
113dollars from Harvard and then a district judge gave it back and it seems to be like, what's going to stick? But I do want to point out that the difference is the OBBB was passed by Congress and signed by the president which means no judge is going to be able to restore that funding that is gone from that. It is law. Um and so for that, you know, leaving aside all we've discussed endlessly the educational benefits of a central campus after school, everything we've talked about. For me, I think at this point it would be irresponsible for us as a board not to have a campus that we are ready to bring our children together in two years because I believe we are going to have to. And I think that is our job as
114or I view my job as a trustee is to make these tough calls. And so I don't think I this has to be my first priority is to make that campus ready for all of our kids. So that means the 10 classrooms and that means all the the unexciting things like fuel tank relocation and electricity and boiler. Now in terms of when I looked at it there are a few things I would like to explore. So I feel like just so everybody understands um or I just want to express my understanding of this discussion that this is an initial salvo. This is we are not putting together a proposition tonight. Right. So and we have several meetings to to to refine and and move this forward. So, um, this is not a concrete proposal, but
115I'm just giving you my impressions of these various things. So, yes, I think so. I wonder I wonder about the new gymnasium because it's just such a big number. Um, but I I I would like to hear more from superintendent about um because I do think if we do have one elementary school, we are in a cold climate and a and the other thing about a gymnasium is that it's it's a multi-function space, right? So, it's a very important space in an elementary school. Um, so I just uh I like Trusty Jared, I would want to understand um what Bennett would look like if we didn't build that at all, if we built it halfway, if we build it full way. Um, but we that could be a later discussion. Um, I think if I
116want if I want this uh proposition to pass, I would look at taking out the renovation of the existing music rooms, but still add the third music room because I I think um having the three spaces is more valuable than having the two that we have, which look old but are functional, um there. In other words, having the space there is more important than having them all be beautiful. Um the cafeteria is a tough one for me. Um I believe that if we do bring our children together, our elementary school children together, it's really important and this connects to the book that we're going to be discussing, the Jonathan Height book, right? He's talking about um we need to get our kids out playing together um interacting in person off technology. It's important that everybody
117understands that the reason, and I believe I'm correct about this, part of the reasoning of enlarging that cafeteria is you can get an entire grade through the line in time for them all to have access to their entire grade or maybe even two grades at they they they have access to more kids to play with because they can all go out to recess at the same time because there are two lines for them to get through lunch. And I don't I think that should not be underestimated the value of that. And there's also eat more kids can eat together in the cafeteria. It fosters face-to-face interaction which is very important to me. The drop off loop is expensive. Um I think it's great. I think it it was it was a community input. Um I
118love it. But uh I wonder my qu my only question about that is is I'm ready to lose it if we can do it safely. I want I want that would be a question for me for the architects of what is the impact of safety on losing the loop. So outside of all those things um the only thing I have left room for on my list is the science classrooms. Um which I do think because they're on the um you know they've been on the survey for so long and they do need to be fixed. I'm willing to discuss whether it's two or three and then the track upgrade. I also agree that um of the campus and site work really um of the secondary work, the only one that I think is is no
119is um you know should be priority is the science rooms and the only thing on the campus site work that really is has to be done is resurfacing the track at the lower space at the lower price and the rest of it I would all love to have but it seems like it's all stuff that we could wait Trusty Jerome. >> So, you know, the the social and financial arguments for the elementary work are undeniable, but I am loathed to see the secondary work and campus site work. When we I look at the um money amounts assigned to both of those and I think about the fact that our taxes aren't going down, they're going up. And even if we chunk it out, is anybody gonna want to get excited about doing another bond for
120a nurses suite? Probably not, you know. So, I definitely, you know, as I say, you know, I look at the auditorium to and I look at the science classrooms and I look at the um track upgrade and the drainage to the soccer fields and the upgrade to the east end parking school, a middle school, high school parking lot, and I'm not feeling very good about letting those go. So, if that means like figuring out where to trim um on the elementary work, um I guess that's sort of where my head's at right now for sort of future discussions. >> Oh, sure. I said um so I said track upgrade field drainage because I've heard that that affects maybe perhaps this the fields that we're playing on the upgrade to the east end parking school park
121parking at middle school high school the auditori this is that was all campus site work oh demolition bus garage you know like that's another one that I have question marks around um oh but now I'm about go over six. So you maybe forget that one, but go to the secondary work where we look at the high school science classrooms and the auditorium. And then some of these ones that you know I'm looking at like nurses suite, you know, I'm looking at the money's attached and I'm like, well, all three of those add up to like only $2 million. And as I say, I whereas I think somebody might in the future say, you know what, I want to give some money to renovate those music classrooms because that's what we do and we do it
122well. and they could get excited about that. I don't think you're going to do that for the the other some of the other more um you know not so sexy items. So I I guess I'm just throwing that into the conversation. You had said track, field drainage, east end parking, auditorium, high school science, classrooms, and auditorium. One, two, three, four, five, six. I did. Uh, I did. You're right. So, nurses suite >> or music room? >> If I had to choose, I'd probably say the counseling suite because that's where our students spend the most time. >> Trusty Goodrich. So, it was great listening to everybody's uh priorities. I really appreciate that. Um I uh I agree with um Trusty Kudson on a lot of uh issues and uh I understand uh trustee uh Jared's concern
123about u you know the importance maybe we can cut some corners. Um I agree that uh that gymnasium up at Bennett is is important. Okay. and the cafeteria, the social interaction uh away from, you know, is is is huge. And uh I can't say enough about that. But as far as my priorities go, uh the uh building condition survey items, they're all number one. They should have been done, some of these should have been done 20 years ago, like the science classrooms. We've got uh we'll have $15 million in capital reserve uh science classrooms. That's $4 million. They should have done that 20 years ago. I'm serious. It's just so that that to me, you know, some of those things that we've haven't done anything. The building condition survey was uh the recent one was
1242021 and uh you know we have things like the fuel tank relocation. I mean if that thing leaks it's going to cost a lot of money. So that those all those building condition survey items are are priority one for me. Um, so and that includes the the, you know, I've talked probably numerous times about the science classrooms. Uh, I don't think we should cut corners on the science classrooms. Uh, if anything, I would throw another two million at it. You know, that's my take. Uh um things that I would eliminate and not there's the main office renovation counseling suite definitely uh push the demolition bus garage to a later date the upgrade east parking middle school high school and and I'd like to have the student commons but you know I think we can maybe
125do that at a later time. So, um so my priority here is is uh the building condition survey items and um >> Trusty Gri, excuse me, could you just read them out so that we know exactly what your priorities are? >> Sure. So, I'll start from the top here on the small list. So, we have the um the first one would be you replace the windows exterior wall of Bennett because that's going to save a lot of money and heat. Our CPL architects have mentioned that. Um the next one down is the fuel tank renovation at Bennett. The new electric service and relocation at Bennett. um probably going to need a new boiler even though that's not part of the condition survey. Uh the high at the secondary work we have the high school science
126classrooms and then we have the uh the field drainage in the soccer field which was on the condition survey report. So, in addition to that, I'd like to do the priority two items at the Bennett Elementary, which includes the new gymnasium and cafeteria, of course, but we can talk about maybe, you know, eliminating some of the work like the drop off loop. And um so I'm I'm up for, you know, taking some of those items out and maybe uh renovating the music room. Maybe we could uh maybe we don't need to do that. Thank you. >> Can I just clarify um Trusty Goodrich, were you um advocating as your priorities to do the Bennett addition for the classrooms? And the reason that I asked that question is I believe the new boiler was put in
127there to support the extra classrooms. >> Yeah. So I Yes. So at the end I and the uh I support the 10 new classrooms with the new boiler. Um I'll I'll go next. I agree with um a lot of what Trusty Kudson said and I think it's really really important for us as a district to realize that our enrollment continues to decrease. As Trusty Jared said, we are struggling to field um athletic teams at this time. Um, as much as I would love to do, you know, a turf field, if it were something that was needed and wanted by our athletes, I would I would really be very interested in that. But I don't think it is. And I think that the our priorities right now have to be what are the most important um
128use of our funds and our taxpayers funds and our taxpayers trust in us to make the right decisions. The hard decisions that we have to make at this time when the future financially is so uncertain. Um, I'll I'll just read my list. I kind of numbered them all over the place. And I did some math, too. Um, and you know, and and I I didn't really necessarily pick apart certain parts like um, you know, not upgrading the music rooms, but adding the other one or or um, a smaller cafeteria or a smaller gymnasium. But I looked at the uh the Bennett project as a whole because everything on uh on the first like page and a half um of the sticky notes that um Amanda made for us are really um priority one or priority
129two in terms of the Bennett renovation. except for the music classrooms. So, I kind of included those in my number one priority is all the work to upgrade Bennett to prepare it for uh being a beautiful school for all of our elementary students. Um, and that includes, you know, the Let me flip back just so that everyone's clear. um the 10 classrooms, the replacement windows and exterior wall, uh the new gymnasium, uh the cafeteria and kitchen renovations. Um, I'm throwing in the music classrooms, uh, the outdoor play space and parking, drainage remediation, the fuel tank relocation, the drop off loop, the sanitary line replacement, and the electric service relocation, and the new boiler because I feel like I can't, with the exception of the music classrooms, which were standalone, um, I can't imagine Imagine how
130we could do um the renovation without including all of those. And I understand that we can pair some of that back. I I understand that we don't have to have a a high schoolsiz gymnasium. We don't. Um, but I'd like to be convinced by um my colleagues on the board and also by our architects and our engineers and and our um construction managers to help us help inform us when we are starting to think about those pieces that we might be able to save on. Um, my second uh priority is the science classrooms and I went with the whole shebang there too. I didn't I didn't pair it back. Um, and I do recall uh when we spoke with our architects fairly recently that they said that we can still do we can we can
131do a fantastic job on the science classrooms maybe without um like all the bells and whistles that we don't have to use the best um you know aesthetic design or whatever. like we, you know, we can we're going to talk about that with them when we when we have a better idea of what it is that we're looking for. I think the uh where is my number three? My number three, um, interestingly enough, is the second is the uh secondary nurses suite. And the reason why that is really important to me is because I have spent a lot of time in the nurs's offices at the secondary level because I supervised the nurses when I was those nurs's office. I think somebody recently um um you know said that it was like a a mash
132unit or uh what how what did you say? >> It's like stepping back into the Korean War. like it's the the the ta the the beds that the that are in there. They look like they've been there since the they probably have been there since the Eisenhower administration. Maybe they haven't, but they certainly look the part. >> Well, the building was built in 1953. So, yeah. Um so, that I think is really a big deal because I feel like one of those two rooms has a sink. There's a there's room in one of them for a little refrigerator. And you know, a lot of the medications have to be refrigerated. They're really, really antiquated and it's not that big a price tag. Um, it's actually $594,350. My fourth priority is resurfacing the track. And I
133think that the the price that we got today for actually resurfacing it, which will last five years, is an amazing price of $176,833. Um, and I have a toss up on my fifth priority because I was confused about um I know that we don't have to um we don't have to demolish the bus garage at this time anymore because technically we will have enough parking and we can leave the bus garage as it is for now. But are we Um, are we hoping to be able to upgrade the east parking lot as to kind of go and go along with this new um, security vestibule? Are we hoping to be able to bring the kids in to the security vestibule, drop them off and then exit the building? You know, like is this whole traffic
134pattern going to be changed? >> The buses would not come around the east end. We were hoping to improve the traffic pattern because we do have um a significant number of student drop offs. So, it would improve the traffic pattern and the safety for those things for staff and for student um just basic traffic on that side, but it wouldn't change the there's no way we could manage the buses on that end. So I'm thinking that so so my sixth priority is one of two things. A facelift of the east parking lot so that it is not potholey and you know confusing and unsafe or and I know this is going to be maybe not so popular but my other option for number six is the student commons because I love that idea so much.
135Um, so I'll just jump to my math. And so all of those things that I uh mentioned came to a total of and and this is leaving out the athletic field, the you know the the big turf field upgrade and some of the other uh interior items that were here in the middle school, high school, like the the counseling suite, the main office, things like that. Um and it leaves out the auditorium upgrade and I and I feel like the auditorium is It's very nice. Uh the upgrade for over a million dollars, as I understand it, is to remove all the seats, repaint the floor that's painted, rem return the seats, and possibly um upgrade these acoustic um the design, the acoustic design on the walls. That's about it. Yeah. I mean, it's not include
136it does not include any new sound system or anything like that. It really is um just an aesthetic upgrade. I would like to hold off on the auditorium upgrade and put it in our long-term plan as something that we're going to take a look at in five years or along with the um turf field. and some of the other items that are not really necessary at this moment to make our students um um experience here better like a lot of this is either student experience or student safety. Those are my two goals. So, what I looked at was all the all the things that I just said came to a total of I'm gonna I'm gonna jack it up a little bit because it feels a little low to me now of um 46,669,000 blah
137blah blah. So, let's even say 50 million. I know that we have $15 million in reserves. We will have probably more than that by the time we get to pay starting to pay for this project. um that will bring our our bond the amount that we would be borrowing down closer to like 35 million. That is half of what we asked for before. Oh, no, no, no, it's not because I forgot about the 15 that was added in. So, it's it's at least 20 million less than what we what we were asking for before, but I think it's more than that. I I think it's like 25 million less. So, those are my priorities. I know I said a lot. I talked a lot and I think that once we have our priorities um but
138once we've we've spoken about our priorities I think we have to talk also about how can we move all of this forward and get a bond passed and to make sure that the entire community understands that this is our responsibility as a school board. This is our role as a school board so that there is no confusion in our district moving forward. We have to move to a central campus. It's my opinion. Trusty Goodrich. >> I liked everything you said, Trusty Bishop. And um I forgot about the nurses suite, but yeah, that that's important. We got a look at that last week and uh I was like, "Wow, that's but so thank you, >> Trusty Smith." >> All right. Thank you. Um this has been one of the hardest things I think I've ever had
139to do or be a part of. There's so much so many good things that we get from this. And I keep thinking that we're not taking a campus that has been upkept to its potential over the years. Some of this stuff has fallen by the wayside. So, we're kind of bringing the campus where it should be already if we had done it correctly over the years. Um, that being said, I'm trying to think of the uh the the future of the um of the campus. Um, so just to get into my my six, I think the Bennett edition is essential um for the forward thinking of of uh the district. uh you get so much from that and I think it really enhances the elementary experience or would enhance the elementary experience uh for the
140kids and it's a great um addition to where they're going to start their um school career. Um with that I would say the um adding a music room much like uh trustee Kudson said I think having the two rooms already but adding another one gives so much uh more and then maybe in the future we can renovate those those uh two rooms that we have already. Um, with the Bennett edition, I also added the uh reconfigure and renovate the kitchen and cafeteria. As we're going to grow our space, I think we need to be able to um have that grow as well with, you know, maybe more students and and stuff passing through. Um, next I went with the drop off loop. I thought was a uh very important thing just because it really involves
141safety. Um as we reconfigure things and we're kind of redoing the the campus. I think that's really an important thing with that. I would say we would also need to reconfigure the outdoor play space. I kind of thought those maybe went together. So um uh next was the uh high school science classrooms. Um, I've only heard until tonight a lot of people have shared that, you know, like uh Trusty Jared saying that one maybe wasn't so bad and the other two were worse off. I wasn't aware of that. All I've ever heard is that they are uh in very much need of of an update badly. So, >> well, don't only take my word for it because Trusty Goodrich definitely disagrees with me. So, >> no, but it's it's it's all food for thought as
142you know as as we're doing this. But that was high on my list was the the classrooms for sure. Um, and then last but not least, I had the uh the track upgrade um or resurfacing and and stuff. I just think it's such an such an important part of the um the campus um that you know it would be foolish not to to uh make that a priority. With all that being said too, I think uh like Trusty Goodrit said, there's certain things that have to get done. Um you know, the uh the boiler, the electric service, um you know, things like that are musthaves. Like it's you know, we have to definitely get that uh that stuff done as well. So, but you have my top six that Yeah. So that was >> Thank
143you. >> Anybody have any uh shuffling of priorities? Okay, Caroline, >> I mean I'm still being informed as I say I missed the last meeting. So um but this is great. I would say that Trusty Goodrich I have to that we could just simplify my inputs and say that I could reflect mostly um Trusty Goodriches. It's interesting because the auditorium as you described it, Trusty Bishop. Yeah. That doesn't I mean that's a it's so important to me. Again, some of these items I feel like in the future we could raise funds for or we could gain excitement about um you know getting something more than that. Um anyways, I think Amanda, if you update to reflect you know what's been on that existing list, I agree with you as well. I'm right that that um
144you know these sort of um infrastructure things you know I'm on that's that's I I would definitely support that. Um and then I'll continue to evolve and think more closely after the discussion tonight. Everybody's had really great things to say. So thanks >> Trusty Goodrich. So, one of the So, this is a question for Trusty Bishop. Uh, so you wanted the new gymnasium, correct? >> Okay. So, your only issue was the auditorium at the uh middle school high school. Yeah. >> Yeah. I I want the new gymnasium at Bennett because I feel like, you know, um at our last I believe it was at our last meeting and it may have it may have not have been it might have been two meetings ago when the architects and the uh were they here at the
145last meeting? No, I don't think so. It was in August. And that at that meeting, we really kind of went out a little bit past even the scope of what we've got in front of us and talked about um air conditioning and cooling and why that was important. And knowing that there's really no way that we can air condition like any entire building that we that we have responsibility for. Um I understand that the gymnasium um addition at Bennett would be airond conditioned and so that would be a space where in the event that there is a day when the temperature raise I forget exactly what the temperatures are at this moment but when we reach that high temperature um you know per the governor's u mandate that we could move all the kids or
146many of the kids into an air conditioned space and then you know there are lots of classrooms that are air conditioned because of IEPs or 504 plans things like that but we would have a large enough space um you know like this this room is aironditioned here in the middle school high school so there is a place for kids in this building um but in the elementary schools it's sort of hit and miss there are there are classrooms smattered around that have air conditioning but there's no larger space So, I mean, I I like it for that and I also like it for um athletes being able to train there after 3:30, you know, at the end of the day or uh you know, on on Saturdays and for community members to use too, you
147know, to add to our I don't know, our adults that are playing basketball or whatever they're doing at night in our in our gymnasiums. >> So, yeah, I I agree with you wholeheartedly on that. I think that new gymnasium at up at Bennett would be worth it. I'm also in favor of the cafeteria. Um, and again, it's it's socialization and it's extremely important. Um, yeah, there there's certain things that I don't want to skimp on and u yeah, that's that's all important. you have a mic in your hand. Yeah. So, uh, I've just been thinking. So, this the the approach we've taken I' I've realized as we're talking to this doesn't fully make sense in terms of just coming up with six because there are such a, you know, we've got a $6 million um,
148gymnasium and a $600,000 nurses suite, right? So I wonder, so I think this leads us sort of into our next topic, which is we should talk about how we're going to get this done, right? Um what's because um we have we have to package this in a way that the voters will support, right? Um, so one idea that, um, I've been kicking around is I wonder if there is a list here, if there's a sublist within here, of things that we could put that are faster track. Let's call it that. things that we could do more quickly like pos like resurface like things that would not be controversial at stateed science classrooms resurfacing the track I you know maybe the nurse's office if that's in there something things like that that we could put a
149proposition in December to fund those things with our capital reserve um which would not involve borrowing at all and um the I So part of the part of what we have to I think we have to acknowledge is that there was a lot of miscommunication sometimes intentional miscommunication confusion in the community around the last proposition and even in the media which is supposed to the media. So last time we had a $75.5 million project. We had a $55 million bond to the end and even after the vote both I think the the overlook I won't name them but the the major um both of the publications that people go to around here got it wrong repeatedly referred to in headlines our $7.5 million bond. We did not put up a $70.5 million bond. It was
150a $7.5 million project which would have gotten us more aid because of the price. It's all, you know, it's all very complicated. But I think possibly severing putting up a bond that matches the project that it goes with. In other words, saying we're putting up a say a $35 million bond for a $35 million new project and treat the other. So like right now, this past summer, we did a bunch of classrooms. We did a security vestibule. That was just part of the normal proposition process on the ballot saying, "We have this in capital reserve. Here's what we want to spend it on. We've already saved it. You've already paid it. We're not asking anything new of you." Right? So I wonder if we eliminated the possibility of that confusion and said, you know, the
151bonded project is X and that matches, you know, the project um um that would happen say in 2728 and if we could find things that we could fasttrack if we approved them in December and maybe I'm being super ambitious in my thinking here and maybe the admin administration comment on this? If we could find things that we think would get quickly approved in December, could we is there any world in which we could do that some of that work next summer? >> I think the work that could be done next summer could possibly be the track resurfacing. I don't think we have enough time to get any actual design work designed, approved, and bid out because it would have to be bid out. I see. >> Very early in the spring. >> So the science
152room, there's been no design work on the science room. No. Here to four. >> The actual design work will happen after the projects are >> okay. So that Okay, >> Trusty Jerome, >> I'm going to have to step out for a couple minutes, but I I just wanted to say that um that I love the way that you're thinking also. Um, I was thinking like, uh, really long list, like what about eliminate like are there things that we can all agree on that that we could eliminate from the list? You know, I'm not hearing a lot of support. Um, unfortunately, uh, the artificial turf field, I always remember our last student representative who was such an advocate. But in any case, you know, I agree that that's something that could be struck, but maybe we
153could all weigh on in and see if there's any um overlap there. I'm going to have I'll be right back. I >> I mean, I think there are things that we can eliminate. Um I I I don't know how everybody feels about the um the turf field. I know that was one of Trusty Mitchell Morurell's you know that was that was her second or third priority. Um but um you know in terms of the uh high school main office upgrade the the guidance suite I know that um Trustee Jerome said that that was one of her priorities. It's not modern. It's not fancy, but it it works. It does work. Um I hope the school counselors forgive me for saying that, but um you know, it's it's a it's quite a price tag, you know,
154for for an aesthetic upgrade in in my opinion. So, I mean, I think those kind of things we can, you know, we can easily enough um mark off the list. Um, Trusty Jared, then Trusty Goodrich. >> I'm so glad that you brought that up. Um, Trusty Kudson, because I it was an initial thought that I had during the the last proposition, you know, um, experience, how unfortunate that is that if we're using cash savings that we had to add it on to the cost of the bond. And I know that the thinking is around economy of scale and I appreciate that, but I wonder if like if the optics are not gonna get us to a yes, then maybe that savings is savings that we have to let go. I'm reminded that now um you
155can take out like a 72month car loan, you know, like that you couldn't do that when I was in college, but like we would just people right now are obviously more comfortable seeing 72 months and they know they're going to end up paying more interest than they would if it was a shorter time frame, but they're okay with that. They want the number to be smaller and they want it to be spread out. And I think like that's where people are at right now. So, I think that if chunking it up, you know, allows us to communicate in a better way, in a way people are more comfortable, um, that it it's probably worth whatever efficiencies we lose in savings. >> Yeah. So, the the ones that I I' I'd put on the uh the
156list that we wouldn't do again is the main office renovation the counseling suite. Uh, and again, I can be people can change my mind here. The demolition bus garage, the upgrade of the east end parking uh, for the middle school, high school, and the student commons. I'm I'm not saying we're not going to ever do these things, especially student commons, but it wouldn't be u in this round. It' be, you know, at a later time. I think it's important to remember and and maybe some of you weren't here when I said this, but and at rural schools, I did go to um a workshop that was about getting a referendum passed. How to get a referendum passed. And um you know I was really proud that every single thing that they mentioned that we should
157do we did we did um we did a lot even though they said you have to do this at least once or at least twice and we had done it like some things like eight or 10 times you know but you know it didn't pass and um and you know like trusty Kudson said there was a lot of misinformation and disinformation and it was a battle it was a struggle Um, where was I going with that? Um, oh my god, I totally lost my train of thought because I had to editorialize. I'll take Go ahead. >> It'll come back to me. >> Yeah. So on this topic, you know, I think I I at in the August meeting, you know, I sort of talked about how we we as a board be both because uh
158of the sort of shortened time schedule on we want, you know, we really need to move forward in time, we need to get this proposition on the ballot by December, which means we need to really figure out what it is in the next month or less, right? And um uh and part of that I think is just offering clarity to to the community. And so um Trusty Mr. Morell at the last meeting brought up she thinks that um the 10 so a bunch of us have identified the 10 classrooms as sort of our number one priority here and and what Trusty Mitchell Morurell has said was that certain voting blocks in our district view voting against those 10 classrooms as a way of guaranteeing that the Woodstock Elementary School will stay open in perpetuity and
159she believes they will always view it that way. So that to me is is the big challenge for us because um we need to offer clarity on that point and you know there's things we can do to offer clarity to the community on that point. >> Trusty Jerome then trusty Smith. >> I was just going to say that I do think that people can change their views. I mean, I think that there's it's our job to keep on explaining that the financial reality is there and that in fact it will be a benefit to get this a larger cohort of students as our student population declines. Um, but I I I do think that we can reach pe I mean we if we're clear with our message and you know people are intelligent and they
160can understand the reality of what's going on. Or at least that's my opinion. >> Trusty Smith. >> Um I have something I just want to add off of uh a few things that were said as far as uh clarity is a big one. Misinformation. Um, I think in order to help the bond, um, and make sure it's clear to to the public, um, I think we should actually have a resolution to close the Woodstock Elementary School. Um, I believe that would provide the clarity that the community needs and will help us all to move forward um together to to get to the the end game finally. >> I I agree. I mean I I think that um one issue that the community was very confused about I mean there there was definitely a group who
161would have done anything to keep who will do anything to keep Woodstock open. um and who, you know, I fought a very very bold and powerful battle, you know, to to do that and and it worked. Uh well, it it worked to get the bond voted down, but um we the the folks who were on the board in May of 23, actually I I will say I I won't say we I'll say I misinterpreted the language of our uh resolution. because our resolution said something like we will the Phoenicia Elementary School will close on June 30th, 2024. Um the board of education and the administration will work toward closing Woodstock like Yeah. So then there was all the all the language around a central campus that that you know there was a long-term plan for
162moving to a central campus which which would include a bond vote and that we would work toward closing Woodstock Elementary by 2028. It should have said or we should have said that Woodstock Elementary School would close by 2028. that not that we would work toward it. And and if that had been the language, we would already be working on plans. We would all already be working on design. And I have to agree. I think it's important for us to have a resolution to close Woodstock so that we can get beyond this debate about whether it's closing or not and really move in the direction of a central campus and and get going on it. I don't know. Trusty Goodrich then trustee Jared. So, I I don't know what that resolution would have would accomplish. Um,
163we I I personally, my personal opinion is I I don't want to move fifth grade into the middle school, high school. All right? And and I gotta believe most of us here don't want to do that, right? And I don't want to u well In order for us to close Woodstock and move them into the K through five dependent, we need more classrooms. And in order to get more classrooms, we need to do capital improvements. And in order to do capital improvements, we need voter approval. And if they continue to vote that down, then we can't close Woodstock. It's it's just the way it is. And that's by law. And I think I got that correct. All right. They by law they everybody has in order for us to do capital improvement we need voter
164approval and if the voters don't approve it then we can't build the 10 classrooms at Bennett right so we're going to catch 22 there >> I think where the confusion is there is that we can't build the 10 classrooms without voter approval. But we can close Woodstock. and if we lose foundation aid and if we lose federal funding uh and if if the state continues to lose federal funding in other areas. I I just attended a meeting last week with um it was supposed to be with Josh Riley but it was with Josh Riley's representative and it was arranged by NISBA and there were five or six board presidents um there who you know whose districts are in the Josh um district and every one of us whether um Antar was not the smallest, Roxberry
165was there, but um but Ithaca was there and Middletown was there. They're very large districts. Every one of us talked about uh how devastating it was going to be when foundation aid is pulled and every one of us talked about and and the and the representative from Josh Riley's office was very well-versed as was the uh NISBA representative who arranged the meeting and um you know especially for districts like ours where we are so property rich yet we have 47% of our students living in poverty. uh you know, we can't afford to wait for the bottom to drop out because if we wait for the bottom to drop out, we will have fifth grade in the middle school and all of our K4 or five or our K4 students will go to Bennett with I'm
166I'm sure by then we'll have new windows and you know um retaining walls and things like that, but we won't have the additional classrooms. So, you know, it's going to be tight. I think that our community with our guidance, our community can understand what's right and what what our kids need, what we want for our students and what we want for our taxpayers. You know, I I believe that if we pair down the total cost of the bond and we make it clear that Woodstock is closing, and that's not even a financial piece. That is just a a clarity, not, you know, clarity and understanding what direction this board is going in for our students and for our taxpayers. I believe that whatever bond we come up with, it'll still be tax neutral. And I
167know that people didn't believe that that the bond was going to be tax neutral. It will be tax neutral. It will it will potentially be a tax savings. That doesn't mean that people's taxes aren't going to go up in the years to come, but they will not go up because of the bond. They will not go up because of the project. And I just I I do feel that we have to be super clear about our responsibility moving forward and that and that's why I I believe that trustee Smith's recommendation is the right one. It it may not be the popular one, but for this board, we have to take responsibility. We, you know, we we just we tried everything to get that bond passed. We went everywhere and spoke. We spoke to anyone who
168would have us. Um, you know, we had all of those visioning sessions and and to be true, the visioning sessions were where we came up with things like a student commons and a giant new gymnasium and, you know, and and all these beautiful upgrades. And then, you know, we we got a reality check and not just because the bond failed, but because we we had an exit poll and we we read the results of the folks that filled out the exit poll. A lot of people said it's too much, you know, like this is too just too much. So, you know, we have to we have to hear that and we have to be responsible fiscal managers and make sure that our kids have a good school to go to in the event that we
169lose a tremendous amount of funding. and and I hate to wait until that happens and then, you know, have to just shutter Woodstock and move kids to the Boyville campus without real preparation. No, trusty Jared. My first thought is I feel like I'm confused because I feel like a res the resolution in 2023 like Trusty Lynch wherever you are Trusty Lynch said at her last meeting like the the impression that I had was that it was pretty clear that the that resolution was moving us towards a central campus and closed Phoenicia by a certain date and and Woodstock, not on a date because the work hadn't been done to discover how long it was going to take or what was going to be entailed. So like I my first response is just I'm pretty sure
170in my board training I learned that we're supposed to carry forward the decisions that have been made as long as nothing has changed abruptly, which nothing has. Um because otherwise like with new trustees coming on every year it would just be chaos and nothing would happen. So I mean my first response is sort of like I'm yes but it feels a little bit like yeah I mean are we were literally talking about changing a word probably to clarify what I feel like I've thought was true since 2023. So that's first. So I mean unless and I mean we can discuss this and maybe somebody um knows but I I mean I can't I don't know when that decision would have suddenly not been the decision because nothing's happened to change that. So I guess the
171question really is are we as a board you know choosing to affirm what we know is true? We know it's true. I mean, you know, and I was in the open crowd and you, too, and we were yelling. We were yelling. So, I'm just just to say, you know, um, so it feels disingenuous to me to not acknowledge that that was a decision made by a board two years ago. Um, and I think we all know that, you know, and I think semantics is unhelpful in this situation. So, I'm in favor of clarifying what is obviously already and you know I didn't agree with everything but um it's hard it was hard to do personally for those trustees and so I would feel um you know I could sit here for three years and just
172keep talking about great things and we could keep putting it up and I could keep talking you know like I could do that and it would probably make my life a lot easier but I knew do, you know, that's why like very few people want to run for Ontario schoolboard right now because we know that we're what we're agreeing to do and what we're agreeing to do is not what's best for Jenny Jared's social life in town, you know, because this this wouldn't be it. But um but I do think it would be in the end because I do hold a lot of hope in my heart that this central campus is so beneficial and so wonderful. So I guess that my first thing is I think this we're just talking about legal lease. I
173have my dad's a lawyer and I understand that like there's a word that wasn't you know um and my other my you know my other thought is uh to speaking to you know your also very astute observation trustee Goodrich which is that um another thing that happened that year was that the board voted to move the sixth grade to the middle school and also I was yelling I'm very very very afraid and upset and um and you know um we you know we as parents were told like this is this is going to happen you know and we said okay well could it not happen five months from now because our kids are halfway through fifth grade and they don't know that they're not going to do sixth grade at Bennett and that's could be
174like they just came back from the pandemic could we agree that maybe giving a grade of this age a whole year's lead time is reasonable. And the board did agree that it was reasonable. And um I love having sixth grade in the middle school. I was wrong. 100% wrong. Also another parent of middle school going raise the roof. I love it. I'm actually sorry Dylan didn't get to be a sixth grader in the middle school and I'm thrilled that Fay is here now. And I think that um I love being wrong. You know, that's been one of the greatest lessons this board has taught me. Um but also I'm elected an elected democratically elected representative and I've also learned that that comes with a lot of responsibility because nothing could ever happen in a town
175or in a country where we had to wait for everybody to agree. Um, you know, people don't agree, but still we elect people and we trust them to learn everything they can and understand everything they can and make the best decision for all of the constituents. And I've been thinking a lot about what Trusty Kudson said in the last meeting about um our moral imperative and the responsibility of leadership. And the truth is that is very hard in this situation. But when I reached down into myself, there is I have once Trusty Goodrich's busr run data came back that showed. We didn't even get to talk about it because like we're talking about all the things in this. There's like old business and new business that's all happening here. But I looked at it and
176the bus runs are shorter. They're shorter. The longest bus run with the central campus is shorter than the longest bus run now. And for me that was it. That was I didn't want kindergarteners on a bus for an hour either, you know. And when I saw that, I really was like, now it's it's just fear. Now it's just fear holding holding this back. Because in my heart, I know this is best in all directions. So, I know that was a little rambling because it's, you know, it's a big thing. But anyway, that's where I am right now in this second in time. >> Yeah, I just want thank you for all that. Um, I appreciate that. And um just to your point of I agree that um uh you know the previous resolution seemed clear
177in terms of if we're going to be in a central campus well that means one elementary school in Boyceville because that's where the central campus is. But I just wanted to speak to why I think the word changing that word or changing the language slightly to be absolutely crystal clear is important. And I think what we have to remember, we're here at this meeting with these dedicated folks who really follow the school board and we follow everything that goes on in the school board. In our district, there are what 15,000 some 13,000 15,000 residents, maybe a couple thousand of them vote. And what I discovered, I, you know, I went out into the field a little bit. Um, and I think it was a former trustee who said that people tend to completely tune out
178the school board until the moment that it serves their interest to pay attention. But what I unders what I came to discover is that most people are paying very little attention to us. And that therefore when it comes time except for when it comes time for a vote or a campaign and then it's a free-for-all because you know uh traditional channels of communication the media have broken down and who buys the biggest billboard or puts out the most road signs tends to to win. And so um I just think it's not changing anything. I agree with you. It's really not changing any of the attention the intention of the previous resolution but it is changing the possibil it is reducing the chance for the intentions of this board to be miscommunicated by other people and
179unfortunately that's the reality we live in and um so I and I feel like this is a as as you said lead leadership means is making the hard call and the way school districts are set up to be governed, it is the school board who to whom it falls to make the hard call. Um, and this is a hard call, but I think we have to make it. That's my opinion. So, when I ran for office, uh, I did not want to close Woodstock. So, um, uh, I I wanted to keep it open. Okay. And let's, but I definitely changed my mind. I think I'm here for the students. I'm here for the students. I'm here for the students. And, uh, that's the most important thing. and uh the the students we we've heard from
180superintendent assistant superintendent uh laughing uh the advantages of education there's a lot of advantages but not just that it's it's also you know the infrastructure how do we maintain Woodstock if we're eventually going to close it right uh if we build Bennett we're going to have brand new classrooms I think for K through two or maybe K through three is going to have air conditioning. You know, those little ones have a hard time controlling their body temperature at that age and they they need AC, you know, during the the shoulder parts of the uh schedule here. So, you know, um I I I really think this school district needs a centralized campus. Um, I I don't know if if we passed a resolution that says we're going to close Woodstock if that's going to really
181help. I I personally don't think it's going to help. I'm not ready to shoehorn the Woodstock kids into Bennett without capital improvement. So, and that's, you know, it's where the rubber meets the road there. I mean, you passing a resolution says, "Well, we're going to we're going to close Woodstock." But how, you know, you got to say, "All right, how are you going to do that if we don't have capital improvement?" And if we don't have capital improvement, I'm I'm not ready to do that. Personally, to do capital improvement, we need voter approval. And you're right, we do need better communication. You know, uh this is a good thing for the students to do this. Anybody else any comments, questions? I'm sort I have to chew on this. Um, so I won't say much, only
182just I'm sort of thinking of it in the the debate for, you know, again, I've learned so much and the realities have changed since I first came on the board, but when you make that list of pros and cons, it's really hard not to be supportive of a central campus. Um, you know, we talk about pipeline, we talk about an incredibly thriving school in Woodstock. I mean, it's just overflowing, literally, as I drive down. So, I think about that and then I think about imminent loss of funding, how great a school we could build um for everybody and um having a larger cohort, um not having to pay for facilities and extended staffing. And I mean that's just those are kind of common sense things no matter how much my heart can't believe that this
183would have to be a choice right because and this is no disrespect to I mean of course these are my ne everybody's my neighbor in this district now because I'm on this freaking school board. So so it's not that but it's just like it's just I'm having a harder and harder time reconciling the lists on both sides of the issue. Um, so but that said, if you were to put a resolution in front of me tonight, I couldn't I couldn't I'd abstain because it's I need to be prepared for that. I need to think about that. Um, and it's um and that's it. >> Thank you, Trusty Jerome. I'm just I had just had a clarifying question um because I haven't been at Woodstock for my daughter's been not there for a few years but
184are there under 200 kids or is there what is it says is I just I want to make sure I don't misunderstand the enrollment because if we're overflowing where are we overflowing? >> I didn't mean that. I mean that I couldn't I couldn't move down 375 yet the other day because there was like a mile of cars not in the driveway up and down the road. The the I've never I mean it was like Woodstock 2025. There were that many people on the lawn. It's really hard. It's really hard psychologically to look at that and to think that's a place that we have to close. That's the problem. That's the problem. And it's only because I'm neck deep. It's not because other people can't understand. It's because I'm neck deep and I go to world
185conferences and I'm here and I see the district from a bird's eye view. So, I know, but I completely understand how it doesn't make sense to somebody who's living, you know, a eighth of a mile away and who's going to a packed playground and school every day. It just I see how it can't make sense. And yet, so that's that's what I meant by overgrit. Yeah, I think I think that so many good points have been made tonight honestly and this has been an amazing conversation. Um I think that if we keep in mind how um at a central campus we would be able to have afterchool enrichment for all of our elementary students with district transportation. On a central campus, we would be able to have full day co-eing and special education services in
186one building where students would not have to be moved from one building to another to get the services that they require midyear because their program changes. um we would have the right size faculty and staff and not staffing two buildings. Um you know where some teachers have very very tiny case loads just by the nature of the program that they're running. Um it's it's not economical. It's not it's not fiscally responsible. we would be saving seven bus runs which probably results in over a million dollars a year. I don't even know how like the transportation costs are astronomical. There are just so many reasons why it makes sense. One thing I never hear on that list which I think angers me is that I never hear there will be increased academic performance for those high
187performers. It really bothers me and so I want to make sure that that's also on the list along with the shorter bus runs along with the fac extra programs for IEP. So I want to know that the the academics in Antiora will improve if we make this sacrifice. So this just calls to mind one specific example that's happening now and I've mentioned this before but you know um music has been traditionally strong at Antiora. Theater has been sort of a weak sister or or has not gotten as much love let's say in Antiora or you know or student interest for whatever reason. And so we have a theater teacher who um got a grant uh to work to devise this is a wonderful thing. He's going to work with eighth graders to devise an original
188theatrical piece based on a Catskill folktale about a Catskill witch. It's going to be performed on Halloween, I believe. Um and um but but the reason he got the grant and the reason this program exists is because he's going to specifically have them perform for the fifth graders because the thing is an interest in theater starts not you know if we if we have separated elementary kids we can't really develop a theater program until they get together in sixth grade but then it's maybe a little late right so all these academic interests whatever these are elementary school kids develop or extracurricular interests like theater. With our small cohort, they can find the other kids who share those um interests and you know, music teachers are trying to put together ensembles, uh theater teachers trying to
189cast a play, that can reach younger and younger and it can just develop um a stronger throughine because that's how education works, right? It's not you don't get everything in one year. You start an interest and you develop it year after year after year. So that's just one example. I think it would definitely have um I mean and you know everything uh Superintendent Laughen talked about last year about other academic benefits, but really just having access to the full cohort that we have here from elementary age I do think will um improve our academics. Trusty Jared. And then I think we really have to wrap up this conversation. >> We do. You know, I just it was just like an action item that I had a suggestion for, which I thought might feel good at
190the end of this conversation because I agree with Trustee Jerome. I'm sitting over here and I'm thinking like, okay, what are my non-negotiables that I want to hear the board is committed to in order to make a decision like this? And for me, um, you know, I I I I think that could be an interesting thing for us to all come come together on, you know what I mean? Like what are the what is the juice that makes this worth the squeeze? You know, for me it's clearly free afterchool programming for elementary kids. I think that's ginormous. I agree with Trusty Jerome that we talk a lot about um if we bring them all together, why can't we inquire about having, you know, enrichment program during the school day, whatever that is for any of
191us that, you know, we know that this is not not a lovely thing to do. So, if there's something about this central campus that feels like but but this, you know what I mean? Maybe we can all reflect on what that maybe, not that we need to make another priority list, but maybe we can make another priority list and build it into our district goals so that we take this idea directly into action, you know, and start to, you know, feel that like if we do find as a board that there are like the juice is worth the squeeze, then we know as a board where the other standard around supporting the things that we feel h really we really want to see happen and if they don't happen it's just it it feels like
192we went halfway and it was it worth it kind of thing. So, what I'd like to do is reach out to the attorneys in the morning and ask them to draft a brief resolution that clarifies the language that was not clear and that they later deemed as aspirational. um to make it clear to the community that our intention is to close Woodstock. Now, I'm not saying by 2028. I'm saying we need to take a look at that. But to be clear that Woodstock will close and we will move to a central campus by whenever by X date. And I'm hoping that we could take a vote on that resolution at our next meeting on September 30th. So, we will have time to we'll all have time to review the draft and to weigh in on
193the draft and then we'll weigh in again in public and vote on it on the 30th. Trusty Jerome. So would there be with that a promise of some of these things we've been talking about tonight? Like I don't know whether it can be written into the resolution, but that would help me. >> I'm not sure if we can write that into a resolution. I don't know if it can be written into the resolution, but like if there's something that goes with that, like I I need I need to be pushed over the edge, right? And I need to hear these concerns of mine be addressed. So, I don't know whether it's that meeting or the one after that, but like to come together as a board and say like, you know, whether it, you know,
194we're committed to shorter bus runs, um, better staffing, higher academic, whatever those things are that we've been talking about tonight. Um, that would help might help. >> Yeah. Yeah. I think I think that's a great idea. I think that we are already moving in that direction. We have the academic I can't remember the the title of it, the academic excellence um yeah academic achievement um board committee that we've just we haven't really talked about the charge of that yet. I think that's an opportunity. We have to work on our goals for this uh school year. That's another opportunity. Um, and I think that, you know, that that's a place for us to start and we can obviously work with our administrative team and, um, you know, uh, Stephanie Laughen isn't here tonight, but she will
195be at the next meeting for sure. And just to come back to the first part of our discussion, I'll keep this really brief, I'm sorry, but um I'm wondering in terms of our timeline, which is short, to actually get a proposition um how we want to advance the CPL involvement um process in this because I do think I think out of tonight it's possible that we could now go to CPL with some very specific questions. Um, but I don't know we're going to develop them tonight or it could be a very light night if we try to do that, but or um can is is it permissible for us to sort of collate some many of the concerns that were brought up in our discussion tonight into have somebody boil that down into a document
196that we could send over to them as an RFI. Would that work procedurally? I'm just trying I want to move the process forward so that we don't you know that we we can have a really a fully investigate everything we talked about for the first hour you know that we were or hour and a half. I don't know it's been a long time. >> I mean I think I I took notes. I I watched superintendent take notes. I know Amanda was taking notes and Monica. I I I think that we can pair down this you know this list now. um and start to have them take a look at it. Um I don't know if we want to have them come to the September 30th meeting or MIA, but definitely the October 7th meeting so
197that you know because we want we we want to have their time, you know, be well spent with us too. We don't want to sort of sit trying to come up with questions. We want to have our questions prepared, >> right? But we also don't want to get lost in a oh we need more information and then us getting that information back lapses another week you know so I I do think we need to get questions before them as soon as we can. >> Yeah I totally agree. I agree. >> Yes. I'm sure that uh district clerk Gates could compile the list of priorities everybody has. We can share it with them if you if you want. they're they're happy and willing to come at the next meeting. Um I I say that they didn't
198confirm that, but you know, they they really want to help us through this process. So, if you think it would be valuable, I can reach out and just see if even one or two could come. Um I don't want to delay like you, Trusty Kudson, was just referring to because then we end up that much further behind and they might have good input. And I just want to say whether we pass a resolution to close Woodstock or not, you know, because we will vote on it. We still need to move forward with this project and decide how the bonds are going to be written and all of that. We have a lot of work to do between now and is it October 15th? No. Um October 30th. Keep forgetting that timeline. So the Olster County
199Board of Elections needs to know by October 15th if we're holding a special vote. The latest that we can put out the legal notice is October 24th. It has to be published in the paper. So we have a so I know that we might be moving our October 14th meeting, but um we should figure out an answer by then. >> Okay. All right. So, we have some calendaring to do for sure. All right. I want to ask the audience members if any of you are here to speak in public be heard tonight. Okay. Um, so I would like to make a motion that we move public be heard up to the next make it the next agenda item so that um and then we'll move into executive session. May I have a second? Trusty Jerome,
200any questions or comments? All in favor? All right, that's unanimous. So, we are moving public be heard. The board appreciates hearing from the public, including students, on any agenda or non-aggenda iteing item. Please understand that by our adopted parliamentary procedure, the board can't engage in discussion or answer questions during public be heard. Please know that we hear you and take all your comments into consideration. The board does reserve the right to correct any inaccuracies or misinformation during public be heard. Please limit your comments to three minutes. Be civil and do not name any particular individuals or promote any commercial ventures or products. People wishing to express individual students or personnel concerns can bring them to the superintendent's attention in private. Stephanie Bryant. Here we go. >> Okay. Hi everyone. Hi. So, yeah, thank you for
201resetting the timer. Stephanie Bryant, Woodstock, New York. Thank you. I have a lot of anger and I have a lot of gratitude. And I'll start with the gratitude. Um, thank you for putting together an incredible vision of a central campus that if it had been passed, we would not be here tonight. And I just say that as someone who fought hard uh for the opposition and who understands that there are legal people in the opposition that are scrutinizing every single word of that referendum that was passed on May 23rd looking for an opportunity to shut down anything that will close down Woodstock Elementary. I know you know this. I'm saying this for all of my neighbors and all of the business community with their billboards that drive me baddy crazy. So now we knew that
202I'm getting I'm dragging Woodstock again. I also want to thank you superintendent for making a taxfree neutral bond. I I think you got to just keep hitting that home because again the misinformation is huge. Now I'm going to talk about my gratitude. I'm very grateful that you are all here doing this sausage making. I hate that you have to do this. You're being forced to do this. No student musician should be forced to exist in that Bennett classroom as is. It's very hot in there. Um, but I will tell you that as my children, as you know, are very successful in NISMA, won every award, gold with distinction, tripled gold, somersault plus, and that is because they came together at fourth grade. Had they come together sooner, those opportunities would be even triple. So, I'm
203just saying it for the music. It's not just Harvey Boyer. is not just Kate McKenna, although they are phenomenal educators in their field. You put the kids together, they will do more music. Please close Woodstock Elementary. Please be leaders in the best way that you can. I you can still come to my house. I I you can come over for coffee. There's other Woodstockers who support a central campus. They're not loud like me because they're scared they're not going to be invited to the cookout. So, please continue your uh brilliant campaign, these hard decisions. I feel you. Trusty Jerome as my neighbor, not seeing that school filled with kids. Heartbreaking. You know what I would love? I would love Shandacen. Thank you, Shandin. Uh, town supervisor uh Canudis, if you're if you're not Canudis. What
204is her name? Can No, it's Ellie. But >> Nisel, sorry, Ellie, please invite me over to your house for coffee. You have a beautiful house and I and and I love your family. Anyway, um you have a a progressive town in Woodstock that could do affordable housing. We could have affordable housing in Woodstock if we close Woodstock Elementary. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. >> Thank you to Stephanie. Would anyone else like to speak? All right. Thank you. So, um, we are going to be moving into executive session with a motion. May I have a first? Trusty Smith. Second, Trusty Jerome. Any questions or comments? All right. All in favor? We should be back in 30 minutes. All right, we are back from executive session. May I have a motion to exit executive
205session and return to public session? Trusty Jerome second. Trusty Kudson. Any questions or comments? All in favor? That's unanimous. Item 6.01 is acceptance of minutes. Um, the board of ed will accept the minutes of the August 19th. No, wait a minute. Where are we? of Hang on. Yes. of the August 19th minute August 8th minute minutes. Excuse me. The board of education hereby accepts the minutes of the August 8th, 2025 and the August 16th, 2025 meetings. >> I do too. >> Okay. Oh, all right. That's okay. So, we're accepting the minutes of the August 19th meeting and the September 8th meeting. All right. Okay. May I have a first? Jesse Kenudson. Second. Trusty Goodrich. Any questions or comments? All in favor? Great. Thank you. That's unanimous. Okay. On to item 7.01, Superintendent District News. >>
206Good. Late evening, the year has begun and we are in full swing. It's great to see all of our students on campus at the secondary. As principal Edelman said, sports and clubs are going and everyone is busy. We are anxiously awaiting the completion of our security vestibule and the middle school gymnasium so that we can return to a more normal structure to the day. We anticipate at this time that the vestibule will be completed by October 22nd. The middle school gymnasium schedule is still progressing well and on track for um September 22nd will be flooring repairs and finish and then the equipment installation will begin on October 6th and they will need six to seven uh days to complete that. So by the end of October we should be up and running with all areas
207occupied and in use. This week there will be an open house at Bennett on Wednesday and at the middle high school on Thursday. Friday will be the welcome back picnic at Bennett. The Woodstock PTA picnic um was last Friday and the Woodstock openhouse will be on Thursday of next week on the 25th. Please remember that we will be closed on Tuesday the 23rd in observance of Rashashana. Um we are working through the transition um and building up our utilization of parent square. Last week uh we had 80 posts and 427 direct messages. So, I think that's great progress. We do have to keep in mind this is a replacement for platforms such as the Remind app and uh direct texting that may have happened in the past and personal cell phones between staff and parents,
208but that we will still utilize email for things that are confidential as that has the tools to keep personal information secure. Our director of technology has been working diligently to get the calendar function to work properly as that was a big issue. Um I anticipate that this roll out will be more robust as we progress through the year. I do appreciate all the staff who've started to utilize this new communication tool and the families who have signed up to participate. Um I had some information about the middle school play, but um Trusty Kenson actually shared that earlier. And I also wanted to note that although uh today our student uh exeicio student board member was in attendance. I was also informed this afternoon that the Olster Boseis board has chosen an antour student to serve
209on the Olster Boseis board as the exhibition. They have two uh student reps serving. One of them is Arnaldo Omana and he will be representing um his Boseies programs on the Boseis boards. So, I'm very excited and I'm sure both of our students will do a fantastic job in their role. That's great news. Um, any questions for the superintendent? All right, so we will move on to board district news. Do any board trustees have news to report? Trusty Jerome, I love Parent Square and people who don't have Parent Square should put it on their phone. And I'm directing this message to my husband right now because I am done having to be the one to transmit details about what's going on in this district. So, forgive me, Mike. Okay, that's what I wanted to say.
210Just a reminder that um our book discussion of the anxious generation is going to be happening within a matter of weeks. As soon as uh assistant superintendent laughing gets back from her trip, the we'll be figuring out the uh precise details, but I just want to draw everybody's attention to I believe in the most recent newsletter that went out to the entire community, there's a sign up QR code. There's there's a little blurb about it and I believe it has a sign up either email or QR code to get involved. And I just I I've been talking about this book for a long time, but it really has informed a lot of my thinking in terms of um the particular difficulties that um these our younger generation now faces um against these behemoth tech companies.
211And it's really worth reading and worth discussing. And so, um, if you're the type who likes to read and discuss books, I really encourage you to get involved. >> Thank you. Briefly, yes, Trustee Jerome, I love Parent Square. Don't snooze on it. Definitely download it. I just want to take a very brief moment to thank the sixth grade teachers for the sixth grade orientation, which is so phenomenal. They come in to do this out of just what amazing teachers they are. And the sixth graders get to walk through their schedule and go into all their classrooms. And the teachers are standing there so lovely for hours talking to every little kid and their mom and dad. And just to see what that creates, the teachers being willing to do that. The excitement of starting this
212new school, seeing all your friends. I really think that event like starts off the sixth grade in the middle school on the right foot. It's just everything. So, thank you to all those teachers. And then thank you all to the teachers who set up your classrooms so fast because they were just finished painting them like 10 seconds before school started. And there were so many teachers that did double time to get their classrooms looking beautiful like no big deal first day of school. And um so I just wanted to to say that Anybody else? All right. I just want to say that as soon as I uh turned to Trusty Kudson to speak earlier, I remembered what I'd forgotten, the minute he started speaking, I was like, "Uh, there it is." Um, and the one
213thing that I wanted to say and it it was tied to a uh a workshop that I went to at the rural schools conference about how to get a resolution passed and and something that Trustee Goodrich said kind of, you know, triggered that memory for me. And it's about the one of the best ways to get resolutions passed or get bond votes passed or referendums is to have a bond vote about every five years. you know, like don't don't necessarily save up all these millions of dollars in reserves for the project, but to get people kind of used to um uh having a bond vote. And so it's it I think that it's it's just a something that we should keep in the back of our mind and it's definitely a strategy for us to
214to think about when we're really thinking about a long-term plan. So get what we can get done now and then do more in five years and then 10 years and so on. Thank you for allowing me to put that back together again. Okay. Um do we need a break? Just saying. Okay. Okay. All right. Uh item 1301 is uh the board of education hereby approves the updated uh cell phone assignments as below. And we have a whole list of names that appear on the agenda. May I have a first? Trusty Jerome second. Trusty Jared. Any questions or comments? All in favor? That's unanimous. Thank you. Item 14.01 is approving the consent agenda. The board of education hereby approves items number 14.02 through 14.08. May I have a first? Trusty Goodrich. Second. Trusty Smith. Any questions
215or comments? Trusty Smith, any questions or comments? I uh thank you for that. I was before the meeting I was telling myself don't forget don't forget. Um but uh this month I've reviewed the schedule U uh report and everything looks to be in order. >> Great. Thank you for that. Any other questions or comments about the consent agenda? All right. All in favor? That's unanimous. Thank you. Uh, item 14.02 is the personnel agenda. The board of education hereby approves the Oh, I'm sorry. So sorry. So sorry. 15. Thank you. Item 15.01 is approving contracts and independent contract retainers. The board hereby approves items number 15.02 through 15.09. May I have a first? Trusty Jerome second. Trusty Smith. Any questions or comments? All right, we'll vote. All in favor? That's unanimous. Thank you. Item 16.01 01
216is uh committee reports and we have all of our committees listed. Um some of them have never met yet because we haven't actually um decided on our charge. Um have any committees met? Obviously. So I know communications has met. Would would uh >> would you like to trust Jerome? >> Sure. And you can chime in Rick. Um, we talked a lot about Parents Square and um, just integrating the calendar some getting that on the play. Um, and uh, we worked on our um, board briefs and uh, that was sort of the gist of it. As I recall, >> there are lots of detail was within the board briefs, but um all in the name of keeping them brief. I remember that was a was a challenge. Okay. We briefly reviewed um with our Boseies consultants
217um the fast facts uh document that's being put together. Um, honestly at this moment I can't remember exactly what's on it, but a lot of factual information about the district that has a lot of um, you know, hot links that can get us right to the information that we're looking for. Um, I don't know if you have more information. >> Uh, I think it's going to be set up as a page on our website and just be a really good landing page to give a a really good view of what our district is all about. So, I know we had talked uh Trusty Mitch Morell had spoken before about wanting to have a place that we direct prospective families and that that seems like um having the word prospective families on the on the heading
218of or on the link of that page might be a good because that's they're the ones who really want the fast facts. >> Yeah, good point. I might even suggest new families for just quick thinking of what search terms might be, >> right? The difference between those two being is a new family cannote someone a family that's already enrolled and is planning to come in kindergarten. But then then there's also families out there who are deciding between public school, private school, home school. >> I'm just looking at it from a search term. Like if I were somebody if I were out there, I'd be like new families, you know, maybe I don't know or perspective. do them both. >> Yeah. >> Or or maybe just like just move to the district, >> you know, something
219like that. Yeah. So, we'll we'll have to look into that. Uh any other committees have any any other committees met recently? Trusty Smith. >> Uh the facilities committee met not recently. It was uh August 14th. I spoke about it briefly. I think the the last meeting and we just tooured the school and saw a lot of the construction going on over the summer which was absolutely amazing. Um the scope of the work that these guys do and try to coordinate and the communication and um it was fantastic. So uh I guess everything got done and everything's good to go because here we are. But it was uh it was pretty good. Um and I think we have another meeting coming up this week. I think on Friday. So Thursday. Thank you. Y >> one thing
220that we discussed I feel I think feel like we discussed it maybe in agenda setting was that we would like to be able to start mentioning when the next meeting is uh in the event that any community members are interested in joining us or anything like that. So we'll you know we'll get on that uh for the next meeting. Okay that's all the committee meetings so far. Okay, great. Old business. Is there any old business to discuss, Jesse Jared? >> Thank you. Um, I did bring it up a little bit in our previous discussion, but since uh, Trusty Goodrich and then I at the last meeting were inquiring about the bus information, um, I just wondered if we would want to briefly just get on the same page about that. Um, it looked to me
221like the bus, the longest time on bus now was 30 to 40 minutes and the longest time on bus projected for the central campus was 20 to 30 minutes. Um, am I reading that correctly? Did anybody else was that your takeaway? Okay. I well I know it was a very indepth amazing document that is very detailed. So I mean I I just think maybe at a future meeting if anybody was interested in digging into that just because I'm not the best data cruncher in the whole world. Um but from what I could see with the handwritten estimates on the top it did appear to me that there was no bus run anticipated longer than 30 minutes. So, we should take a look and just make sure circle back at the next meeting under old business.
222And I I just want to say that we really really appreciate Nicole Summer and all the work that she put into this and um her her team. And I just want to say that um I believe on the con on the uh personnel agenda that we just approved um was uh our notification of Nicole Summer's resignation for retirement and we wish her all the best and we are very very sad to see her retire but we're we're happy for her. Yes. Um any other old business? Any new business to discuss? >> Trusty Goodrich. >> So, we created a um a Google doc for the goal. So, are we gonna >> I am asking that we put it off till the next meeting just because it's so late. Um I don't know how everybody feels about
223that. Okay. Okay. Okay. So, um maybe um on the next meeting agenda we can actually have um a you know discussion topic about the goals and not hold off till the end. I think that was the plan. >> It was the plan >> to to discuss them on the 30th. Yeah. >> Okay. Okay. Good. Thank you. Thanks for reminding me. >> Any other So, any requests for information? All right. Our next meeting is September 30th at Woodstock Elementary School. May I and May I have a motion to adjurnn? Trusty Jerome second. Trusty Jared. All in favor? We'll see you on September 30th.