May 6th, 2025 - Board of Education Meeting (Budget Hearing)

001Good evening everyone and welcome to the May 6th board of education meeting in Antiora. We have a tobacco policy in place. There is no smoking within 100 ft of any school building. Please rise for the pledge. Board clerk, will you please take roles? Trusty Kensson here. Trusty Jerome here. Trusty Mitchell Moral. Trusty Goodrich here. Trusty Hemingway Lynch here. Trusty Romano here. Trusty Bishop here. Thank you. Thank you. All right. We have our high school principal, Mr. Lance Edelman, here to welcome the board. Good evening and welcome to Antara High School. Uh before I begin my presentation, I just wanted to acknowledge and thank all of our teachers. This is teacher appreciation week and actually today's the national teacher appreciation day. I'm particularly grateful to my staff, my teachers, and I have to tell you that

002I have perhaps one of the most wonderful, dedicated, caring faculty that's around. I'm very proud of them and all the things that they do. Teaching has become very very very challenging position and I think they really they really do it well. So I I really thank all the teachers especially in my building Um, what I'd like to do at today's board meeting, and I will be as quick as possible. It looks like a lot of slides, but I I promise I'll race through them. I want to first give you guys a little bit of an update on some of some of the initiatives that I did I discussed at the last board meeting. So, I'm going to jump right into it and talk about our initiative with unauthorized electronic devices. Uh, as you know, we're

003a little bit ahead of the game and it's very consistent with, uh, Governor Hokll's, you know, initiative of or that there'll be no cell phones during the instructional day next year starting in September. Um, this this is a chart that just shows where we are at this point of the year. Obviously, when we started in September, it was a big learning curve for a lot of students. So, you know, we started off the year with about, you know, 57 referrals. uh you know students who are using their electronic devices mainly their cell phones um in violation of our our procedures. Uh you could see that you know we we've consistently you know made improvements. We had a little bit of a spike in in March. I think everyone was ready for spring break at that

004time to be honest with you. But um you know we have to be careful with those numbers especially you know in March and April what we noticed within within that data is that there were a lot of repeat offenders. So it's really not representative of the entire student body and their their compliance with with these reg with these regulations. Um so you know we we will be taking a look at it. um my liaison will be taking a look at it to see if we want to adjust how we're addressing it in our progressive discipline chart. Um and again, you know, I I've shared this I have been contacted by several other principles and I've shared I've shared the data and they think the data looks looks amazing. But I do want to point out

005that although this looks like very low numbers, it's still if you add all this up, it's still 171 referrals throughout the school year for students who are unable to get away from their cell phones. So, we're continue we're continuing to work on this and you'll see it's also embedded a little bit into our SEAL lessons that we're doing. So, um again, just want to give you a quick update on that. I also want to give you an update on student attendance. Uh another one of our initiatives that I discussed at last meeting was we're really trying to address chronic absenteeism and also taking a look ways to support our students who are are not coming to school. Uh just looking at our attendance rate and if if you printed it out, I just want you

006to know that uh inside your community, help me community is uh is a new presentation with some corrected data. Like if you're looking at the chart, it says 9124 to 4:30 24. This one says 25. There's a lot of little things that I that I corrected, but anyway, um you know, our goal was really to try to get back to precoid, pre- pandemic, you know, attendance rates. And you could really see by the by the chart that right now, um you know, from September 1st to the end of April, you know, we're at a 91.9 daily attendance rate. Uh which, you know, is is an improvement from years past. you know, we'd still like to get back to our prepandemic rate, which, you know, in 1819 was about 93%. So, we're working towards that goal,

007but I think we're doing a really good job. So, those are really the the only two data points I'm going to talk about tonight. What I really want to do is I want to talk about all the activities that are going on from about spring break time to the end of May. Because we often say that even though the academic calendar is winding down. Things at the high school really wind up and we've got a lot of things going on. So, let me start by saying right right before the week prior to spring break, uh our students who are pursuing the seal of bi literacy uh presented they presented on April 9th. We had 11 students successfully complete uh this endorsement. We had 11 students uh total nine did it in Spanish. were able to

008complete it in French. So, that's that's really nice. As a side note, uh we're also working in that same period with with our 12th graders who are pursuing the seal of civic readiness. We're anticipating 34 students being able to complete the seal. And this is and that's really a high number considering our our graduation class size. It's really just pending one requirement right now. All 34 are on track. It's just a matter now of completing the thesis, which really shouldn't be a problem because we're giving them a lot of support. Okay. So, the following following week after this was spring break, which was April 14th to April 21st. Uh, April 23, we started with uh some big some big field trips. We our photography students uh went to to Wham and Woodstock and also the

009center for photography in Kingston. This was an an amazing experience that that the students had. I gave you some information about the trip on the slide. Uh the following day, uh April 24th, our ninth grade students who are in SEAL groups had the opportunity to present their projects. Uh each group picked a topic they thought would be uh interesting and needed by eth grade students, especially as they transition to ninth grade. And what they did was they put together different games and with themes theme. So, I put the SEAL uh logo and all the stuff on the right hand side, but the things that they really focused on was conflict resolution, handling stress, healthy habits, life skills, manners, positive communication and trust, and teamwork. Um the eighth grade students loved working with the n with

010the ninth graders. Uh it it was the feedback was very positive and it's something we want to continue and build on. The only suggestion was maybe also try to solicit some themes from the eighth graders that they might want have addressed, but it's it's it's still a work in progress and I think it's doing really well. Okay. Also that week, April 25th, our AP government and AP US history students uh went to the New York State Appellet Court. This w this was uh arranged by last year's graduation speaker. He's just so impressed with uh our students and you know how we how we approach civic readiness skills. Um so really the purpose was to attend court proceedings. They were able to meet with judges. They got private tours of the facilities and I think what

011they really like was meeting with the judges. It's it's a really unique experience. Also on April 25th, we sent all of our physics students to Six Flags. Uh, and again, that purpose was to gain experiential knowledge, a physical concept that we'll learn throughout the year, and to enjoy some roller coasters, I'm sure. Uh, the following day, our French club went to New York City. Uh, they went and saw Clay and explored French language and culture. It was very enjoyable for our students. And then finally on April 30th, our tough students went with their mentors to the Bronx Zoo. A lot of the students had had that are participating in the program have actually really never left the area. So this was a really wonderful experience for them and a great way for them to connect

012with their mentors and other and other students. Okay. Law Day was actually May 1st, but on May 2nd, we gave our civics and our AP government students a real unique experience. Uh, in the morning sessions, uh, students who had civics and AP government in the morning were able to see a presentation u, and and had a Q&A session with, uh, our district attorney, Emanuel Ni. Uh, it was really it was really wellreceived. It was so wellreceived that I'm in talks with with Emanuel Magi right now to be our commencement speaker at graduation. So, his his story about how he got to his position and what he stands for in a non-political way uh just really all students really got a lot out of it. It's very inspirational and it was students who said, "This is

013this is someone who we really think should speak at graduation." So, we're in talks. I'll have I'll have more for you, but maybe, you know, this will, you know, put a fire under it. So, also in the in the afternoon for those afternoon classes, we had a presentation uh from attorney Joseph O' Conor. You know, he's very well known in the area. Uh the students could not get enough of him. He re he really focused on the importance of, you know, rights, you know, uh, fair representation. Uh, at the end of the presentations, the students just wouldn't leave. They just wanted to come up and ask more and more and more questions. So, I I think this really it really went well. So, that was May 2nd. Let's start this week. So, this May 5th

014to May 9th. So, we just started our spirit week. So, each each day of the week, each class is asked to dress up based on the different themes that are in front of you. They all earn points and those points all go towards uh the war of the classes. The war of the classes will happen on Thursday. There's all different types of of you know games and events and students will earn points there as well. I've got to thank the booster club and also the athletic council for putting this for putting this together. Uh students are really excited about that. Maybe less exciting though at the same time May 5th through May 21st we have our advanced placement testing going on. This is like something almost every day of the week is is happening here.

015Um so we have we have currently 129 students who are who are enrolled in 239 seats or 239 courses. Of those 239 there are 227 exams that are being being taken. I just put this slide in just for information for you to look at later on, but you can see exactly which day uh which test and how many students are taking each test for that total of exams. Uh it it is really remarkable. Uh this the students are doing really well. I just want you to know this is the first administration that's being done predominantly digitally. So there's a lot of things that have to be ironed out uh not from us but from from college board but the students are responding really well to this to this new system. Okay. I wanted to mention

016on May 20th as soon as these AP exams are finished we have been selected by New York State. All schools are usually typically assigned to do some field testing. Purpose of the field testing really is for the to be able to pilot some different questions that may or may not appear on future regions. So, it's very it's a very important part of the testing program and it's something schools cannot refuse or opt out of. So, we do have to uh administer these. Um so, we were selected for global history and geography the enduring issues essay component of it which is about a 75 minute segment. So, we're required to to test 85 of our students. So, we'll do that May 20th from from 8:00 am to 10:00 a.m. There are some accommodations. That's why the

017time is a little off. Um, at this on the same date, we'll also be administering the physics field test. That's only a 40minute field test that occurs in the regularly scheduled physics class. There are no students who are taking both physics and global. So there's no so we're not overburdening any student. The following day is our high school spring concert. We hope to see as many people there as possible. I'm sure it'll be enjoyable. It always is. The following day after the spring concert, we'll finally be able to take a little bit of a breath because we have an extended Memorial Day break thanks to some of the snow giveback days. So, you know, we'll be out from May 22nd to May 27th. That week we return on our 10th graders, which will be on

018the 29th, will have the opportunity to present their projects, their games, their seal fair to the ninth grade group. Um, and this will be a two period ordeal because these games are a lot more involved and I think that I think they're gonna I think the kids are going to absolutely love them. In fact, they've already put out the different stations uh to the ninth grade so that the ninth graders could sign up in advance so that we don't get, you know, bottleneck last year. We got a little a little off because we had too many kids at certain stations. So, we kind of learned from that. But anyway, they're going to be focusing on communication, cooperation, and teamwork. the effects of of being impaired, emotional stress, harassment, teasing and bullying, uh responsible decision making,

019social media addiction, and also electronic devices and screen time. So, really excited about that. Okay. Um this was an interesting initiative. Currently, our 11th graders are are reading are reading a book called The Fisherman that's written by local author John Langan. Um, you know, the story takes place right here in our community. It's a fictionalized account of the effects of the Ashokan Reservoir and its local feeder streams. Uh, the book features many familiar landmarks and captures the essence of the Catsville packaged in a horror tale. Um, we've challenged several faculty members to also join the 11th grade reading the We have a little over 20 faculty and staff who have agreed to read the book alongside our students and we were fortunate enough to have John Langan and you guys approved the ICR for him.

020So we appreciate it. Uh he'll be he'll be here on May 30th during different periods to meet with the students discuss his book discuss sorry students and faculty and staff. He'll be here to discuss his book, take question take questions about the writing process and what inspired him and I think it's just a a lovely way for students to to to understand how you know the creative mind of an author worked and also it'll be very inspirational. So, we're really grateful for uh Mr. Langman for for joining us on that day. Finally, to end the month, if it couldn't end fast enough, we have our senior prom and that will be on May 31st. at the Mountain House Mountain House, I should say. Um, so we're really looking for that. Prom tickets are are selling

021right now and they're doing and they're doing really well. There was another slide that's in the original packet that I took out and that was just a that was kind of like a reminder about some early regions testing, but I think it's just too much to talk about now. So, I'm gonna I'm gonna I omitted that slide. What I did do, however, is on the next two slides, I just gave you just a brief summary of all the events in order of what's going on in the month of May. And I also on that last slide kind of gave you um the June dates also because I think it's important that you come to all of our events. So now you have everything with all the dates that have changed and this is most up

022to date. So I spoke very quickly. I did 25 minutes. Sorry. Um, but any questions, concerns, feedback? Yes. Sorry. And I'm kind of embarrassed that I have to ask you this, but um the AP testing, so that's eligibility to go into high school AP classes. Is that tell me what that I don't know what or it's for college? So that's the that's the culminating exam of any advanced placement course that students have taken through the year. It's just that they their courses in in May, but the course the exams have significance especially when we're looking at colleges depending on which college and it's it's very it's very complicated but in general you know students who are are achieving like a three, four or five those are the three highest scores are typically able to get

023um courses waved in college by showing that they've completed the courses. So that I so it's about It's it's basically a a good thing for college applications and maybe even placing out of some classes. Okay, now I understand. I just didn't know what it was. Yeah. No, it's it is a great opportunity, but I I I feel bad having to say this, but I will. is, you know, the test shouldn't define everything in the course because we do encourage, we have open enrollment and we do encourage students if they're interested in expanding their knowledge in an area, go ahead and take the course, you know. Any other questions? Trusty Kudson, I just wanted to ask about going back to the electronic devices referrals. Um, and you mentioned there's like sort of a smaller group of

024kids who really have a hard time with the policy and I was curious if you had any knowledge of whether when those kids are referred a second or third time. Um, is is their attitude toward the policy that it's just a nonsense policy that they're just getting caught up in and so what if I get caught because I don't believe in this or do they do they really understand the rationale behind it and are they I just wonder if if um communicating better to them what's going on in their brains with having these devices in school. So I I think in the beginning of the year it was more you know I don't agree with this not not going to do it. I think that our student body and I know there were some articles

025published in the school newspaper and students were quoted as as saying you know this was a good thing like we needed this. I do think that there is a real addiction. I you know now we hear things such as you know I was just looking I was just looking at at what time it is. Okay. But you also requested clocks be placed everywhere which we did. We clocks outside for them. We put clock additional clocks in the hallway. Every classroom I think I think that there's still a handful of parents who still text their kids during during the school day. Um you know those students who who have anxiety and really need to use their phones, I think they've done an amazing job. They will ask their teacher to go to guidance. Our school counselors

026will always kids use the phones their phones, you know, in a private area. We're just trying to make it accept, you know, appropriate. So, um, but I I think it's a I think it's a a real a real challenge. It's a real challenge. And I I think that I think we've done a disservice to our children. I said that last time. We're just too reliant on these devices. Thank you. Thanks so much for your presentation. I just want to um I guess show my appreciation for the um innovative way that the uh students are using the SEAL lessons. It's uh really remarkable. Thank you for your support. On to item 3.01. May I have a motion to enter into executive session to consult with legal counsel, discuss discuss matters related to the employment of a

027particular employee and review the confidential staff agreement. Trusty can uh trustee good Jeepers Trustee Goodrich and uh second Trusty Rando so sorry. All in favor we'll be back in about an hour. We are back from executive session. May I have a motion to exit executive session and return to the public session? Trusty Armando. Second, Trusty Jerome. All in favor? That's unanimous. Thank you. We will open the hearing on the budget. Sorry. to put my glasses on. Uh so here we are uh May 6th. Um this is the culmination of the uh budget presentations for the 2526 school year. Uh it has been a pleasure going through this process with all of you and I appreciate all of the time and effort that you've um put into um listening to me asking questions and uh yeah

028here we go. So for 2526 proposed budget um as a note for 2425 currently our budget is 62,325,500. We are looking at a 2526 budget of 63,558660 which is an increase of a little over 1.2 million or 2.03%. In addition, we are looking to use a little over 2.5 million um as appropriated fund balance to help reduce the tax levy and balance the budget. So, as far as our budget highlights, we are continuing all of the great work that um All of our administrators and our our faculty and staff have done with replacement of technology, active learning spaces, homework help, extracurricular, our multi-tered system of support, uh reading and math training for staff, professional learning and math literacy and science. Um, of special note is we're happy that we're able to um have our summer

029skills academy again this summer and we are continuing funding um the mental health support for our students. The levy currently is 48,434,118. We are proposing a 2% increase for 2526 for a total of 49,42,800 which is below the allowable tax levy limit that uh we calculated using the formula that are required to use when calculating it. Um, as another side note, um, we are also proud of the fact that given that CPI, the consumer price index has been higher than normal these last few years that we were still able to keep our tax levy to a 2% increase. The budget components that we're we are required to show our um our taxpayers uh consists again a majority of of instruction and benefits. That is pretty typical of every school district. And then we also have

030uh general support at a little over 3.7% operations and maintenance 5 and a half and then transportation just under 10 with the uh remaining sh just shy of 2% uh being attributed to the debt service, the community service which is our public libraries and the inner fund transfers that go to our different funds. Just breaking out the um benefits for active employees and retirees. You can see that retirees uh make up 10% of um our entire budget. The three-part budget uh we presented this the last time too just shows that majority of the monies that are spent to the district are spent for programs. they are spent directly for the students um for their instruction for their success moving forward with um just shy of a little over 9.9% for capital and then 10.22% for

031administrative. So what happens if the budget fails on May 20th? So if the budget fails then uh the district has an option. It would be up to the board of ed whether they would resubmit the same budget, uh, submit a different budget or go to a contingency budget. If they decided to to, um, submit the same or a different budget, it would go to the voters on June 17th. That is the date that any school district who has to do a second vote would be voting. If we do go to a second vote and it's defeated the second time, the district would be required to go to contingency. And the contingency rules basically say that you cannot raise your taxes in 2526 any more than you had in 2425. So, as I said, our 2425

032tax levy was a little over 48 million. We're proposing 2526 at a little over 49. So, our contingency would bring it back down to that 48. So, we would still need to find $968,000 in reductions to the budget in order to meet the requirements of contingency. Other rules that reply that apply in contingency is that we would not be able to um purchase any equipment. There is approximately $225,000 in the budget for equipment. There is also an administrative component cap. So the percentage of that budget, that pie chart that I showed you, cannot be larger as a percentage of the budget as it was in the previous year. And then fees would also be charged to um to to organizations that would use our facilities. So, ballot proposition one uh 2526 budget. Be it resolved

033that the Entoura Central School District Board of Ed be and hereby authorized to expend the sums set forth under the various headings which are voted upon in gross and not in detail in the total amount of 63,588,660 which includes 20,000 to support public library for the year commencing July 1, 2025 and ending June 30th, 2026. and that the board is authorized to levy and collect the necessary tax thereof on the taxable property of the district. So that is how it will read um when you go to vote. And um I will not read ballot proposition number two. I think we've gone over this enough. If anybody needs more details on this, please let me know. But ballot uh proposition two is the proposition for the bond for capital improvements. It would um it would allow

034a $7.5 million capital project of which $15 million would be cash reserves and cash and allow the district to borrow an amount not to exceed 55,500,000. In addition, there are two board seats that are um up with terms from July 1 to June 30th. Three candidates will appear on the ballot in this order. Um there will be a get to know the candidates night uh here in the middle school high school auditorium May 15th at 6 pm and this event will be moderated by the League of Women Voters. So next May 20th so voting will take place from 2 to 9:00 p.m. at the Bennett and Woodstock schools for those of you who um are not aware that the elementary school will be dismissing at 1:00 those days. Um, registered voters can vote at either

035location or by early mail mail voting. Um, and so you can go to our website to find the instructions for ear early mail early mail voting. Uh, and also absentee voting. And as I said, um, if for some reason we need a revote, that would occur on June 17th. So, we just ask that all of you that can go out and vote. Any questions? Do we open questions to the audience as well? Yes, we do. Yes. Does anybody have any questions? Board trustees or anyone in the audience? Yes, Mr. Wolf. Sure. Okay. So when we say that the bond is going to be tax neutral, what we are saying is is that the debt payment kind of similar to your mortgage will be an annual payment of roughly 3.9 million. Excuse me if my numbers

036aren't exact. I don't have it in front of me. Um and that will be an annual payment that will come out of the budget. However, because we would be consolidating, we would be saving over $3 million a year. So those are $3 million that are not going to be in the budget. In addition to that, we will be receiving revenue of approximately $1.3 million a year based on that project. So it's a net of basically it's it's going to be less than zero. But so we're that's why we say tax neutral just on the bond piece. Correct. That is just on the bond piece. That's Yes. Can I just ask the the 1.3 million where is that coming from? So that is building aid that comes from the state and it's expensed driven aid. So

037it's it's aid that we receive because we are spending money on a capital project. So we are actually getting the aid on the whole $70 million even though we're only bonding 50 million. Any other questions? Trusty Goodrich. So, I I see we have some seniors here and uh if any of them are 18, can they vote? They can. And what kind of what do they need to be able to vote? I will let the district clerk answer that one. What seniors that are 18 need to do to vote? That was your question, Clark. Sorry, I couldn't hear you. So for the seniors that are here that are 18 years old, uh what do they they may not be on the voter roles. What would they need to prove they're 18 so they can vote? So

038for anyone who is not a registered voter, uh you can register to vote through board of elections at Olter County. If you do not do that before the election and you still wish to vote, you can fill out something called an affidavit ballot at the voting location and I will confirm that you are an eligible voter the following day and we'll count your vote at the next board meeting um when we certify all of the votes. All you seniors get that? If not, reach out to Amanda tomorrow. Any other questions or comments? Trusty Kenudson, this is also just a question for the students. Um, can you So, some I realize some of our students may not know when you say a capital project, what the word because the word capital has many different meanings. Um,

039in this definition, am I correct that a capital project is money that is used to build facilities actually build construct? Correct. It's construction reconstruction. Yes. What it is, you're right, it's a school term. It's interesting when you when you've done this for as many decades as I have, it kind of becomes second nature. So, the capital project would be work that work that's a large dollar amount. Basically, that's to fix, renovate, improve um facilities. So, um, for those of you that have not had a chance to look at what some of the designs look like, if you go to the Entou website and you look at the optimizing Entoura page, there are some beautiful, uh, renderings of what the potential work could look like. And, and, um, I have to say our architects did a

040very nice job when they created those renderings. Any other questions or comments? Okay, if there are no other questions or comments, we will close the public hearing on the budget. Thank you. Thank you. Our next presentation is with Julianne Ross Kleinman from Olster Boseies and she'll present the AI assessment tool and pilot opportunity. Good evening everyone. Thank you so much for having us back. Yes, I'm Julianne Ross Kimman. I am the supervisor of instructional services at about February we were here presenting discussing the importance of policies in place for the use of AI and at that time I'm sure we discussed or shared a disclaimer saying that because AI initiatives are moving so quickly whatever we share today might change tomorrow and that actually did happen earlier this year the consortium for school networking Kosen

041um and the Association of Educational Services Agencies AESA put out a call for AI lead trainers. This is all part of a national initiative to build capacity in K through2 schools for the thoughtful and strategic implementation of generative artificial intelligence or Gen AI. I'm excited to share that I was selected as one of the lead trainers for this important program. As part of the program, I'll be trained and I've actually started my training already to support school districts in using the AI maturity readiness assessment tool. This is designed by Kosen which helps assess readiness and guide planning for responsible AI integration. This initiative is part of the building capacity for generative AI in K through2 education project which is led by Kosen AESA and it's in collaboration with the state educational technology directors association and

042the school superintendent association and is generously funded by the Bill Gates Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. So if you look at the screen, you'll see that the key grant objectives are educating educators, providing comprehensive training to teachers on the capabilities and the limitations of generative AI, including how to integrate them into existing curriculum and differentiate instruction for diverse learners. The grant objective is also to assess readiness in districts, helping schools evaluate their current technological infrastructure and identify areas where improvements are needed to successfully adopt generative AI tools. The grant and objectives also include developing implementation plans, guiding schools, and creating strategic plans for integrating generative AI, considering factors like pedagogical goals, student needs, and potential challenges, promoting ethical use, addressing concerns related to data privacy, potential biases in AI algorithms, and ensuring responsible use of

043generative AI tools in the classroom. And finally, building capacity for ongoing learning. This is a marathon, not a sprint. Fostering a culture of continuous professional learning, enabling educators to stay updated on the emerging advancements in generative AI and best practices for its application in education. Kosen and AESA AI lead trainer program is designed to build capacity for integrating generative AI as I said before in K through2 education through a structured train the trainer model. Initially 12 lead trainers were selected. I am one of two in New York state. More trainers more um sorry regional trainers are being selected. They're looking for approximately 40 regional trainers. They recently found and selected, I believe, 20. And there will be ongoing train the trainer programs where lead trainers will then be responsible for conducting four regional trainer sessions

044during which they will train approximately a total of 40 regional trainers and about 10 trainers per session. The regional trainers and then the lead trainers can Now, after receiving all the training, um we'll we'll be able to deliver training to local school districts focusing on um specifically underserved populations and rural areas. So, why are we doing this? Um first, I want to share that the slides were shared with us when we when we were receiving our training. So you're going to see some really interesting uh pictures and things that kind of related to cartoons as the way in which we were trained. But why are we doing this? The idea was that we are navigating a new frontier. And if you look at the picture, you see that AI is not really perfect yet. We're

045also looking at the fact that, and I looked this up because I was curious, 2016 is when the World Economic Forum decided that we are in the fourth industrial revolution and that Claus put out the book in regards to the fourth uh industrial revolution that we are now really integrating and working with technology, the physical parts and also the machine learning. We also look at this because we go through a cycle of learning that Gardner says is the hype cycle. It's to help people understand what is real and what is just hype. Gardner says that there are five stages to this cycle. It's like a road mapap that shows how new technologies like AI tools move from those exciting buzz terms to real classroom value. The five stages are the innovation trigger where people start

046to feel like, wow, this is new. This is really exciting. But then you hit that peak of inflated expectations where people are starting to say this is amazing. But then you start to go down into the trough of disillusionment where people start to say wait this isn't as easy or as perfect as we thought. We then move into the slope of enlightenment where we're starting to see the actual value of AI and how it works and what actually does work well. And right now they're saying that we are in the plateau of productivity. This is now useful and wild widely adopted in K2. This helps educators figure out which AI tools are worth trying versus which ones need more time to mature. Some AI tools are already making a real impact in classrooms. According to

047the latest hype cycle, tools like generative AI, Chat GBT, and AI augmented learning are moving closer to the productivity phase. And that means that teachers are using them to personalize learning, like helping students get individualized writing feedback. But schools are also starting to use AI tutors or practice apps to support students outside classroom hours. Educators don't need to wait for the perfect. Some of these tools are already classroom ready, but educators need to be cautious and at the same time curious. Not every AI tool is ready for prime time. For example, there is emotional AI technology that guesses how students feel. I don't know how I feel about that. That is still in the early stages. And it sounds cool to some people, but it is not reliable. Some tools might raise concerns about bias,

048privacy, or accuracy. As an educator, it's okay to be cautious. Ask questions like, "Who built this? What data does it collect? And how will it help students?" Just a few more wise. Why are we looking at this? In January 2025, a research report almost stated that almost all companies invest in AI, but just 1% believe that they are at the maturity level of using AI. Research finds that the biggest barrier to scaling is not employees who are ready, but leaders who are not steering fast enough. If you take a look at the pictures, you can see that 3% mo three times more employees are using generative AI for a third or more of their work, more than their leaders imagine. If you take a look at the next picture, it shows you that 92% of

049companies plan to invest in AI between now and the next three years, but 1% again still believe that they have reached that maturity level. So the question is, is the district ready? Do you currently understand and evaluate the potential of generative AI in enhancing both instructional and operational aspects? Is there a district-wide plan to implement generative AI? And how are you managing vendor relationships, both current and future, that use AI in their products? So through my training, I learned about the AI toolkit. Oops. Let's go back. Washington DC in 2024 April, Cosen announced the launch of the K through2 generative AI maturity tool, a comprehensive resource developed in collaboration with a council of great city schools supported by Amazon Web Services and endorsed by supporting partners including, as I said before, school superintendent, the National

050Association of Secondary School Principles, the National School Boards Assoc. association, the national school public school relations and so on, the state education technology directors association. The tool aims to revolutionize how school districts across the nation approach the adoption or adoption sorry of artificial intelligence technologies. It's broken into seven domains and within the domains there are subdomains always suggested to start with the executive leadership domain. You can work these domains at different times and you can work them simultaneously but it is always suggested to start at the executive leadership domain because that's where you're talking about the strategy your policy who is part of the um stakeholders group. So this is where you start and like I said this executive leadership domain is broken down even more from the subdomain to the looking at the alignment

051with educational objectives, monitoring performance matrix and financial considerations. So when I was saying before about what level is something at when you're looking at the AI general maturity uh toolkit, the levels start with unknown. So what happens is we would sit down together and have conversation and we would go through the rubric together and see where you feel you fit in the different domains. Are you at the emerging level, the developing stage or are you at the mature level? When you're at the developing stage or the mature level, that is when you're showing evidence. And evidence could be policies that you have in place already. Evidence could be the tools that you're already using. But to be in the developing or the mature stage or level, that is when you're showing evidence. This is just

052a quick slide of what um the breakdown looks like for uh strategy specific and the different levels. Along with that, it has recommendations, but the recommendations actually come from a road map that we put together together. You start at your current state with the plan of moving to what you want. as your future state. There is gap analysis and together we build a road map to decide how to do that. This is a quick picture of what the self assessment survey looks like. You would identify in each domain in each element where you are and then you would prioritize what you want to do first to move towards your future state. There's always a problem statement. It helps to find it helps to make sure that everyone is on the same page that everybody understands

053the needs to be solved, the consequences for their organization if they're not addressed and how to communicate the path moving forward to everyone in the agency. The idea is that this is not one person that this is a group of stakeholders. So facilitating a group to develop and agree upon the shared problem statement will help generate what you see forward specifically that road map towards the next level. And then finally an AI maturity improvement road mapap is a structured strategic plan. So I don't really want to that I'm here to help guide you with a policy. I'm not. I'm really here to see where you are right now and to help move you to your future state by gathering artifacts and evidence and then coming together with a plan. See what work is working well

054and see what we need to do to move forward. The strategic plan outlines the milestones, the initiatives, and the key actions necessary to achieve a district's maturity goals over a defined period of time. It aligns all adoptions with educational and operational priorities, ensuring responsible, effective, and equitable equitable implementation. So, we are hoping that you be interested in piloting this program with me. All lead ADI trainers have the opportunity to pilot with a district for free. This is actually a paid service. We would go into a contract for free. And again, like I said, this is a marathon, not a sprint. So, it is considered that this is something that would be ongoing. I would continue to receive training and work with other lead AI trainers, regional trainers, and we would continue to refine and we

055would continue to work with you. So that's the proposal. Thank you. Does anyone have a question? Questions for Julian? Trusty Lynch, thank you very much. Um, just curious about the timeline. I recognize as you just said it's a marathon. Uh but curious what the pilot timeline looks like. Whatever we decide it could be. So if we said we wanted to maybe get started in September, we can start work now. We could start work over the summer. Um but what we would do first is I sit with the group and I walk you through the rubric and we're gathering information within there along with your parameters of what you would like to do first and what you feel is a reasonable time frame. So, do you mean what might be in a reasonable time frame for

056all of that or specific pieces? Both actually, but I I I should have been more specific. My I'm looking back at the strategy page and in your presentation and just the idea of having sort of robust infrastructure I think is key. So recognizing um the pilot itself would be something that you would obviously generously offering for free, but at the same time I'm just thinking about the resources involved in terms of the timeline who would need to be around the table and our administrators and what the best timeline is for their involvement that kind of thing. It is definitely suggested that it is a stakeholder group of administrators and that's why that it's suggested that we start with executive leadership that we have that conversation um and then technology should be at the table. I

057think the way the table is here as students should be at the table um teachers different levels should be at the table but it's up to I'm here to help guide you and give you suggestions. and I can show you some models of what other districts are doing um around the nation and how they're organizing and structuring it. But it's all individualized. And so the time would be my time coming here to work with the stakeholders group depending on how we structured it and outlined it. But that's part of my learning and growth um and commitment that has made for me to take on this role um for the nation. So I continue to go out and receive training and train others and moving forward then we would be doing this and offering this to

058other districts. But we all felt it was important as this is new. So all of the lead trainers said we want to have a school where we can pilot this so we can come back and refine so we can come back and have discussions. So the time frame is really what you consider the time frame is. Sure. Trusty Jerome. I appreciate the very um balanced and linear presentation that you gave. Although I would say that this AI situation is like happening all at once everywhere. It's I look at those buckets and I think h we'll start with number one that's really not accurate. However, I do think that there's an argument for having somebody since it is so complex and it is blossoming whether on an operational administrative level or in our classrooms ourselves. Like

059that's one distinction I'm sure that you're those are two different places where a district is going to play and to have to be sort of held accountable um with a program like this to keep having the conversation to keep exploring these things um and help sort through the the mess and the potential that is AI could be help could be helpfuls also share that at Olsterose we have an AI circle that is starting in October and running through through the year. So I could even see if there was a cohort and we're asking for a cohort of four um people administrators and teachers as well for the AI circle that is also free for our component districts. I see that falling in the academic AI um literacy readiness where teachers are working with us at

060OC's uh asynchronously we are coming into the district to work in classrooms and then going through that projectbased learning celebration of learning towards the end of the year. Um, so I could see if I were here specifically helping with the maturity rubric, but I could also see at the same time and hope to see at the same time educators working with Educator Edge and Olivosis through our AI circle where it's more handson lesson plans, lesson planning, um, you know, in the classroom modeling. So those things could most definitely happen simultaneously to help people navigate AI. Trusty Goodrich. So we were at a rural schools association meeting up at Lake Plon. We saw a presentation on AI. Um I'll be frank, it scared me and I've been working in computers for 45 years. It literally scared

061me. Okay. They showed two foils, two slides with a list of jobs that it will significantly impact. Yes. Um parallegals, you know, they have an 8020 rule. So a parallegal can come in, ask AI to do a a legal brief and it will write it and 80% of it is good enough and they have to rewrite the other 20%. So, it's going to impact a lot of jobs. So, for the seniors here, you have to know which jobs it's going to impact more than others. Choose your career. And you could probably ask AI which one it's going to impact more than others. All right? It will tell you. So, it's it's kind of a scary situation. But on the other hand, you know, I've seen a demo where it worked real time interactively with a

062student to solve an algebra problem. Very interesting. I mean, it was good. It was really good. Probably better than a teacher could do, right? And so I like to see real live examples when we because it it really drives it home when we do a high level presentation like this. I walk away with, you know, what is it all about? But when I see real life examples, it it helps. Thank you. You're welcome. And so part of me wants to like write rip this apart and just like jump on the internet and do an example real quick. Um, and then the other part of me says, so two years ago, if someone said that I would be standing up here having a conversation with dry mouth about AI, I would say no because I was

063also afraid of it. I was the last of my friends who was really touching it. But because it is kind of frightening is even more reason why we need to make sure that our students understand how to use it safely appropriately. We as adults need to know how to share it and use it safely and appropriately. We don't want to leave our students behind behind because you're absolutely right. That's the jobs now. That's the jobs in the future. But we need to make sure that we're safeguarding them just like we did with the internet or anything else that comes. It's another tool. But this tool is so different. It is it is touching our cars, right? Driverless cars. It is touching algorithms and just about everything from Netflix to just about anything you can imagine.

064And so we really have to make sure that we're sharing that and sharing that safely and so that everyone knows how to use it and use it safely. I don't think we want to ignore it. And yeah, we should be a little afraid of it. Even more reason to make sure that we're educating on it. So I agree with you because it was something I didn't want to touch a few years ago. I can't believe I'm standing here now. Trusty Kudson. Yeah. Um I think I said this to you last time you were here too, but the the one that I I see on this slide that I'm really uh concerned about is 7.3, which is ethical AI use um and policy. And um just because I'm old older than all you youngsters in the

065audience, so I've been around since the dawn of the internet age. And the pattern has been that I've observed, we've we've been in this era of just rapid technological advancement for, you know, a couple decades now. And we actually went at the at the NISSBA conference in New York, uh, they had also a presentation on on AI. And that speaker said that I thought this was a bit of a gaudy claim, but he said he thought that there would be as much technological innovation in the next 10 years as there has been in the previous hundred. Now the previous hundred had a lot of technical um innovation and so what the pattern has been is that the technology is developing so fast that it outpaces the legal and ethical frameworks that we can build to

066you know if the government wants to pass laws for right regulation they're 10 years behind by the time the law is written the technology has completely changed right yes but what we have in in our district is young people who are trying to figure out how to be ethical human beings and we're putting this this incredibly powerful tool is available to them. So I'm wondering like in terms of the training you've had much of it is ethics because to me that's sort of the piece that we need to get to our students right away. I think one of the reasons I was chosen is because I was the district data coordinator and the data privacy officer So when we're talking about safeguarding ethics at law 2D and I've been trained a lot um from through

067our Rick um through um multiple let's see I've had training through MIT I've had some training through Harvard I've had some training through um Kosen before Isty um international societ technology and education. I was doing the AI and GM program about five six years ago uh when people we weren't really maybe even longer when people really weren't looking at that. So that has always been a concern of mine. Um, and I think like I said, maybe that's one of the reasons I was chosen because I do bring that up to the forefront and I think it's important as you said when we're put So, yes, we keep going in this these patterns in education and the here are the Chromebooks, here are the smartboards, here are the this, we got to go, we got it's

068really fast, we got to move it, we got to do it. Um, this is here not just in our schools, it's in our world. Even more reason why we want to have that media literacy approach. We did oh and my uh dissertation is on the computer science standards and digital literacy standards. So within that is the ethics of that as well. Um so making sure even through dissertation all the things that you have to do to go through IRB and all the information about safeguarding. So, this is something that has been in um I've been working on for multiple years and will continue to do because you're right, we could put something on paper right now and it can change tomorrow. So, it's not just really putting it on paper. It's having those conversations regularly.

069Um those milestones, those touch points, those benchmarks because you can't just put something down on paper and never look at it again because things are going to change. But at the same time, we have to put something down because everyone has to have the same vocabulary and the same language and we have to decide what that is because we have to share it. And then if we have to share it again, that's okay. But we have to start somewhere to do that. Trusty Roando, this dry mouth is not going to get any any better, but I'll keep answering. I'm going to say it super quick. You summarized it. you summarized it when you said um it's about being cautious but curious. So that sum summizes it very well and I just want to thank you.

070We're very I'm very grateful on our behalf that you're choosing us to be your pilot school. So thank you so much. Thank you. Yes. And Julian, I just have a question for you because the last time you were here. Um, we were sort of trying to mull over how do we even accept or uh present a uh an AI policy and I think you said that you would with with working with you, we would have your support in developing a policy. Um, and I'm really looking forward to that and um, just also very grateful that you're involving our district in this great work. I think the work that you're already doing, the questions that you're already asking says this is the place to be. I'm honored that you invited me here again uh, or Olivose

071here again to have this conversation with you. There's so much I could share, so much we could talk about. I understand it's a board meeting and so to to have brevity. Um, but the next steps where I think we're really going to see things moving is our conversations sitting collectively at the table. But that's the point. It has to be collectively at the table. I'm your guest. I'm your guide. This is your school. This is your district. How does this work for you, not anybody else? How does it work for you? And how do we go at your pace? So the next thing would be Yep. letting me know if this is something that you would be interested in doing and then we would start to put the pieces together. So thank you. Thanks again.

072But just to say that this I always like to talk about our um values and our mission here and we are um we do have students and we're a student body that can sit with each other and discuss at a table. That's the real in life piece that we pride ourselves on and we are also not afraid of the future. We are not stuck in the past. So, this lines very clearly with our stated goals and I always like to remind ourselves and other people that that's what this district is standing for right now. Thank you. All right, moving on. I just wanted to um check in with the board. Um we have a lot to discuss tonight and in uh because of that I think there maybe um one particular item that we will

073all want to do a roll call vote on but for the other items that are more uh you know our regular business I'm going to just uh ask all in favor any opposed okay all right great thank you so uh the next item on the agenda is acceptance of the minutes. Uh, the board of education hereby accepts the minutes of the April 22nd, 2025 and the April 28th, 2025 meetings. May I have a first? Trusty Armando. Second, Trusty Jerome. Any questions or comments? All in favor? Any opposed? That's unanimous. Uh, we have our superintendent district news. Good evening. Uh I wanted to begin by acknowledging that it is teacher and nurse appreciation week. So I want to express my gratitude to our entire on teachers association which encompasses our nurses as well. This group of

074dedicated individuals are in large part what makes this district special. They support our students academically and physically but in reality in so many additional ways. Having a positive experience in school is what creates a spark of inspiration in our students. Finding a way to help a student learn, which may be different from each of their classmates, sets the stage for that student to become a lifelong learner and to believe that they can achieve the life they want. This allows our students to dream and then realize their dreams. So, thank you to each and everyone of our teachers and nurses. And also last week was principal appreciation day. So uh we appreciated them last week but just a note they are also highly appreciated. Um on the agenda tonight we added a couple of Boseies field

075trips. We were notified today that we have students attending two overnight Boseies field trips. We had not received the information in time to have the trips um appear on the agenda as it was printed on Friday but we are adding them so that our uh insurance coverage extend to our students while they're away and we wish them great success on those trips. I want to thank the many community members who attended our community meeting in uh this building two weeks ago and the community meeting that we held at Woodstock Elementary last week. Special thanks to the Woodstock PTA for providing the child care for the meeting at Woodstock, which undoubtedly allowed more parents to attend than would otherwise have been able to. And also for uh the volunteering to run around with the microphone so

076that all of the speakers could be heard. Thank you also to the facilitator Cassidy Nello who helped to guide us through the evening. I really appreciate everyone who has joined us to hear about the proposed project and to ask questions and gather information so that um we can have a district of informed voters coming up. Um and we have additional meetings. Last night actually we attended the Shandagen Town Board meeting um and we have um coming up meetings with the Whit Wittenberg Sportsman Club, the Olive Senior Group. Uh and then we will also be at the Olive Hurley and Woodstock town board meetings. Um and as Misslair mentioned in the budget presentation, meet the candidates night will be May 15th at 6 PM. That will be here in the auditorium and that is um well

077moderated by the we League of Women Voters and we appreciate that because it really allows our community to get to know the candidates. Um uh in communications, our budget newsletter is um going to be mailed out I believe at the end of this week and there will be a special capital project insert. So that has a lot of information that um goes to every district resident. Our communications team is also working on editing a video that will be shared with our community and doing continued social media posts. Uh I just want to reinforce we're hoping that all of our residents vote on May 20th or by early mail ballot. Um we are also um going to be we are working with our principles to find space in each of the buildings and we're going to

078as a central administration team spend the day being available for faculty and staff to come and discuss the budget and the propositions. So on May 12th we are looking to be in the elementary buildings. We're going to um divide and conquer and then on May 19th we will be here in the middle high school. So the OTAA leadership has graciously offered to also gather any questions from members who may be unable to um stop by and see us on those days and then they will share those questions with us so that we can provide any additional information that they need. Um as a note, I'm sure many of you have noticed that our middle school principal, Mr. Donna, will be leaving on at the end of May. His resignation is on our agenda this evening.

079He has accepted a position with another school district. So, we thank him for all of his work in our middle school and wish him much success in his next uh role. Our plan for the short term is that Miss Fow will work with Mr. Donna through the remainder of his time with us and then she will assume the role of principal of the middle school through the end of June. We did meet with the middle school faculty last week to share this plan and we will be sending out a parent and guardian letter tomorrow so thatone everyone is aware of the situation and who they can contact. And last but not least, um we will be adding an item onto our agenda this evening that is an agreement um with the purchase of purchaser of

080our West Hurley property. And this agreement is a commitment that will bring the sale of the property to closure within the next 120 days. Any trustes have questions for the superintendent? Trusty Lynch, could could I just ask you to reiterate, first of all, thank you for making yourself available pretty much every single day in the month of May to help educate all of us um in our community about this vote. You mentioned um two new dates, I think, uh for the teachers, staff, and was it students as well or just teachers and staff? So, we're going to be available for the teachers and staff on May 12th and May 19th and we have worked with um I've had conversations with our high school principal and the video that we are creating um that isformational that

081is going to be shared with the public will also be shared with our students during one of their classes during the day. Thank you. Thanks for clarifying. Thanks again for making that happen. Any other questions? All right. Uh, do any trustees have dis uh board district news to report? Trusty Lynch, thank you. Yes. I I just um picking up on on um these community meetings, I just uh wanted to really thank the community as well as the administration and the board members who participated in so many conversations. I just think it's so important right now that we have the opportunity to connect as a community because as we all know the last few years have um been you know both highs and lows in terms of some of the division that we've felt around the

082community and I can for myself as an elementary parent that um you know this is the the community that's being impacted the most is these the elementary school kids from K through six really and um I really want to uh acknowledge uh how hard it is to be coming into a community or coming into a school district with such optimism and excitement and be faced with a global pandemic, right? to be faced with um school closures, to be faced with so much change, and uh I really just want to acknowledge um how hard that has been for all of us. And I really can't um thank the teachers enough. I think you've held steady through so much change. And I am so grateful for so many of you um for both personally, but also just

083for our district because A lot of the change and implementation has been put on your shoulders and I think we are all indebted to your professionalism and your ability to carry the load. Whether that literally means carry boxes uh as we moved um and integrated our Phoenicia school into Bennett or whether that means just carrying that um that uh emotional load for your own professional lives, the changes in the community that you have with your colleagues uh and the children in your classrooms. So I just want to I want really want to thank you for all of that. I also just want to make sure um that in reaction to what I heard, I went to a couple different community meetings, but I I heard still a lot of questions um and my intention was

084to be there to listen, which is um um obviously important as we think about the decisions that we're making here, but um it's also really important that there is um a an understanding that this is a quite a unique administration that they are literally willing to take your calls by the ones. If you have a specific conversation that you'd like to have about your bus route, you can do that. Like tomorrow morning, you could call the superintendent or anybody on on this dis but or just, you know, the director of transportation, whatever it is that you're concerned about. This is an important time to have those questions answered because there's a ton of information and again a ton of change. And I would a lot of worry or fear or concern. And I think it's

085really important that you take the opportunity to get your own specific questions answered. Um I had um the as you all know uh unfortunate well not fortunate it was a huge responsibility um to be asked to to make a vote on the May resolution in 2023. And at that time you may recall if you paying attention that um I had asked the president of the board at that time to consider splitting the vote because there was no question that a central campus was already made it was made very clear by the ad hoc committee and others that this was the right thing to do. The question for me in that moment was about the implementation of it. We had at that point you remember no budget planning. We hadn't had the opportunity to do the

086visioning as a community yet. We had no implementation plan for imple for integrating Phoenicia into Bennett at that time. I had asked if we could split that that resolution to have a clear clear vote on the central campus and then another on the other components of it. Um and it that didn't that that didn't fly at the time fine but I therefore had to vote no even though I said publicly that a central campus makes sense. Here we are two years later. We have had the benefit of budget planning. We have the benefit of visioning exercises with tons of community input and we have an implementation plan and we've seen what works and what doesn't because we've had the benefit of integrating Phoenicia into Bennett and those kids are doing well. So I I just

087want to make it very clear that um the resolution in and of itself says that voter authorization to fund such a project is what is required. That project is the centralization. It's the capital project as as um Misslair just explained that is the buildings. The capital project is the buildings that we're talking about in the Boyceville campus. That's what we're voting on. You can make your own decision whether you want to vote on that capital project, but that is what is being required. And in my work, we talk about this often. Clear is kind. Be kind to each other and explain what this vote is about. There are a thousand kids in this district depending on it. Do your research, ask your questions, and please take advantage of all of the time that these all

088of us are putting into this and some of you here in the audience as well at all of these forums. Educate yourselves, educate your parents, educate your friends. There's a lot at stake here for the future of the community. And I really do think um that our our our uh elementary parents deserve patience and deserve the opportunity to have all of their questions answered because we can actually have really innovative conversations with them at the table in the future. Right? There was a question that came up the other night where a parent said, "I don't want my kid on a bus for 51 51 minutes. Can I do something about that?" Immediately super uh assistant superintendent said, "Yes, call me. We can do something about that. We might even add a bus route if it

089doesn't make sense. We are willing to adjust and change. Nothing is baked. Have the conversation. Ask the question. You deserve that time and that space. This is a hard and in a really important time in our lives to create the kind of community we want to have. So, thank you. Thank you, Sarah. Any other board district news? I'd like to share some information with the community. Um, I've noticed that uh recently there has been some concern from some of our um community members about the lack of an economic impact study as part of the 2023 board of education uh and administration's due diligence around the development of the resolution to move to a central campus by September 2028. Based on those concerns uh raised on social media and also at our community forums, I reached

090out uh for the advice of our attorneys or I'm sorry, our legal council. I asked if we should have done an impact study or if we still need to covering all legal bases and continuing to do our due diligence. Um, I can't share the actual email with you because I would be breaching attorney client privilege, but I can share with you um my understanding of of their response. My understanding is that school districts are not required to conduct economic impact studies on surrounding businesses prior to the closing of a school building. and school districts also can't expend funds in the pime in the for in the primary benefit if the pime sorry if the primary benefit is for private parties. So an economic impact study that measures impacts on private businesses would likely not be

091a proper expenditure of district funds. And there's another issue that I I just wanted to also share some information about. Uh so this in this came has come up on also on social media and it came up as a direct question in our um our forum last week at Woodstock and um the person asked uh is the potential for a newly elected board of education to overturn a current resolution and the superintendent McLaren briefly addressed the question when it was asked and stated that the commissioner uh commissioner of education in the state of New York may not allow that to happen. So, Superintendent McLaren asked uh that very question of our attorneys in February of 2023. And again, I'm not sharing the actual email, but I'm going to paraphrase paraphrase my understanding. My understanding is

092that a new board may reverse prior board's decisions, but only if the new board has a rational basis for that decision. which usually means the new board has to conduct its own thorough investigation into data, deliberate over that data, and then develop a reasonable basis for the change. It is also my understanding that the commissioner has reversed a new board's decision when that board came in and immediately reversed a prior board without having conducted any research or deliberation to support the change. So I just wanted to uh share that information and clarify those two very important uh issues that have been raised and you know they are they are uh legal issues to uh reach out to our council and and because the superintendent had already reached out on that on the one issue and

093they were questions that were asked directly of us I thought it was important to respond. Any other board or district news? Now we'll hear from our student representative. Good evening. Hi everyone. Students have begun AP exams this week. As you all know, um exams will continue for the following weeks and will conclude on May 16th. There will be some late testing occurring the week of May 19th. This week is war of the classes. Students will be dressing up this week to gain points for their class. Monday was country verse country club. Today was idol day. Wednesday is hero verse villain. Thursday is school class colors. And Friday is business on top party on bottom. Four of the classes competition will be after school Thursday. A big thank you to athletic council and the booster club

094for their support and organization for this week's f festivities. In addition to all of these events, this week is New York State Public High School Athletic Association Mental Health Awareness Week. Student Today, students in the National Honor Society and Student Government uh partnered to put kind messages on all high school student lockers. And that's all. Thank you. Thank you, Olivia. I knew you were gonna clap. Good job. All right, moving on to item 10.01. The board will acknowledge public beheard comments from our last board meeting and we uh thank Christina Davis for her comments. Public and students uh public and students may comment on any agenda or non-aggenda item. The board appreciates hearing from the public, including students, on any agenda or non-aggenda item. Please understand that by our adopted parliamentary procedure. The board can't

095engage in discussion or answer questions during public be heard. Please know that we hear you and we take all your comments into consideration. The board does reserve the right to correct any inaccuracies or misinformation during public be heard. Please limit your comments to three minutes. Be civil and do this and do not name any particular individuals or promote any commercial ventures or products. People wishing to express individual student or p personnel concerns can bring them to the superintendent's attention in private. And tonight we have Jenny Jared signed up to speak. Happy Tuesday everyone. My name is Jenny Jared and I'm the mother of FA at Bennett and Dylan in the middle school who both love learning in our wonderful district. I've been a PTA parent at Woodstock Elementary, the president of the Bennett PTA and

096booster club leadership at the middle high school. I know you. I know your kids. I know their teachers and I love you all. I had the good fortune of being a parent at Bennett for the three years as a combined four to six school and it was amazing. The energy of the kids in the hallway in the morning, all so different but young enough not to let that get in the way of their friendships. The music programs filled to the brim felt so rewarding to them. And the enormous band, orchestra, and chorus you see in the middle school is a result of having enough kids to make a thriving elementary program. We had the afterchool classes were all talking about needing with jazz band, art clubs, and robotics. And we had the magic of us,

097our district being all together. My daughter remains at Bennett this year, the last combined grade left over from the previous configuration. And I'll that it's just not the same. Her orchestra is tiny and the halls are quiet and I really miss what we had. And I also dream about what we could have with all the kids together again. pooling our brilliant teachers to lift up the education we offer. Our special education children receiving the full programming they deserve. Our music and art programs flourishing and opportunities for mentoring and community building between our littles and our big ones in the middle high school. And with all the challenges facing our district and all the uncertainties in our world, we have the chance to make a purposeful decision about our future. We saved. We've dreamed and the

098choice is in each of our hands. The most important thing is that every person vote everyone. I know this is hard and it's messy and unknowns are scary, but the one thing I know in my heart is nothing to fear is the chance that we could all be together again. Thank you, Jenny. Would anybody else like to speak? Mr. Smith. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Rory Smith and I'm running for a seat on the board of education. I want to thank the other candidates for stepping up to serve, especially Jenny Jared. She is amazing, kind, and compassionate, and we are lucky to have her running. I want to show my support for the board of education and the administration for working hard to help move our district forward. My wife and I have

099raised two incredible kids that have both attended onto our K through 12. Our son is 18 and is graduating in June. And our daughter is 21 and graduated in 2022. Things are much different now than when we excuse me than when we grew up. And we need to work together to give our kids the best chance to succeed. The educational landscape is changing and we we must be prepared to change with it. If we are not willing to move forward, we will be left behind as other districts capitalize on being proactive. I believe a new modern centralized campus will help with improving so many other issues our district and children face such as mental health, morale, inclusion, special education, uh declining enrollment, lower taxes, and attracting new families throughout the entire district. My family is

100at the end of our school journey. And having lived the great experiences with my kids in Aunta, I can see a way to make it even better for the future generations. That way is with voting yes to Prop 2 and updating the central campus. Prop 2 is on the ballot on May 20th. Voting for Prop 2 will give our school district needed improvements and upgrades that have been ignored for too long. All district kids, kindergarten through 12th grade, will benefit from these improvements. Thank you. Thank you, Rory. Fedra. Hi, I'm Fedra Deman. Just something really quick. Um, Christina Davis at Woodland also did free child care for the event that was here and I just wanted to make sure that got mentioned because it was very generous of her. Thank you. Thank you. Would anybody

101else like to speak? All right. Thank you all so much. Uh do we need a break? Yeah. How about a quick five minute break? Okay. And how do we want to how do we want to um help our All right, we are back from our break. On to item number 13.01. Uh, the board will the board of education hereby approves the 2025 2026 board of education meeting schedule. Um, may I have a first? Trusty Kudson second. Trusty Romano. Any questions or comments? Superintendent McLaren McLaren. I just wanted to comment. Um, you will notice in your printout were on uh diligent community that we included the uh 2025 Olter County legislative session schedule. Um, and we do have some conflicts because they meet on Tuesdays and we meet on Tuesdays. Um, and I have contacted by

102a member of the community who likes to attend the Olster County legislative meetings but also wants us to make our meetings so that they don't conflict but that would require us to literally change our meeting date. So, I wanted to bring that up because I promised this community member that I would note it for consideration, but I think it's it would it would literally require us changing the day of the week that we meet. Trusty Lynch, thank you for offering that. I was just curious, is there a reason why we do it Tuesdays? Because town boards also meet Tuesdays. The county legislature meets Tuesdays, school boards meet Tuesdays. I'm just wondering why that is. Is there a reason? Is it just coincidence? Historically, it has it's just been the the practice of the school board

103has always determined to meet on Tuesdays. Uh I don't know that I don't know that there was a lot of consideration given to when other governmental boards are meeting. Um some districts have meetings on Wednesdays. I mean, I think um you know, if we wanted to consider changing that for next year that uh you know, we we could consider it, but for this year, we're kind of locked in for sure. So, any other questions or comments about the board of education calendar? All in favor? That's unanimous. Thank you. All right. May I have a motion to add uh an agenda item? Trusty Armando first, Trusty Lynch second. I'd like to add an agenda item uh called West Hurley closing agreement. And if everyone's in favor, we will vote on that now. Trusty Kudson. I trusty

104Jerome I trusty Goodrich I trusty Lynch I trusty Roando I All right that's unanimous and then I will read the resolution and we'll vote again clerk are we doing this right I just want to make sure so we're reading it first then we're asking for a first and a second in voting thank you Okay. Whereas in February 20 uh 2017, the board of education of the Antiora Central School District entered into a contract of sale for the sale of the former West Hurley Elementary School property to Cedar Development East LLC. And whereas the district and the purchaser wish to terminate all existing litigation between them and to complete the closing. Now therefore be it resolved that the board of education of the Antiora Central School District approves the agreement in substantially the form annexed hereto

105as exhibit A to terminate all existing litigation between the district and Cedar Development East LLC and to complete the closing and and conveyance of the former West Hurley Elementary School property to Cedar Development East LLC upon upon such terms and conditions as set forth in the agreement. And be it further resolved that the board president is authorized to execute the agreement, a fully executed copy of which shall be placed on file with the district clerk and any other documents necessary to effectuate the purposes of this resolution. and the superintendent, her design, andor the district's p purchasing agent are authorized to issue such payments and related documentation as are set forth in the agreement. May I have a first? Trusty Roando second. Trusty Kudson. Any questions or comments? We will vote. Trusty Kudson I. Trusty Jerome

106I. Trusty Goodrich. Hi, Trusty Lynch. Hi, Trusty Roando. Hi. That's unanimous. On to our consent agenda. The board hereby approves items number 14.02 through point uh 14 uh.08. 8. May I have a first? Trusty Goodrich. Second. Trusty Romano. Any questions or comments? I reviewed the schedule U this time and everything appears to be in order. Oh, Trusty Lynch, I just want to acknowledge um the great work of Amanda Allison. I'm really indebted to you for building such a strong culture at this school and with all the teachers that worked alongside you. You've only advanced and enhanced our our school, our reputation uh and for providing the professional development that the teachers need, but also providing the leadership um for in uh in terms of the curriculum expansion that you brought to all of our students.

107So, thank you very much for all that you do. And I also just want to thank and acknowledge Sharon Mcernney. Miss Mack um has been an institution and um she has touched so many lives and my daughter in particular had her and she changed her life. So thank you for all the work that you do, Miss Mac. Thank you, Sarah. And yes, Amanda Allison, you will be sorely missed. It's a it's a terrible loss for us, but a huge and gain for Red Hook. We also have um uh yes, we have a number of donations and we'd like to thank our our community for the very generous donations that we received from them. All right, we'll do we will not do a a roll call vote on this on the uh consent agenda tonight. Um

108all in favor All right, that's unanimous. On to uh item 15.01, second reading uh and adoption of policy 3430, school safety and and educational climate reporting. Any uh Oh, may I have a first? Trusty Romano. Second. Trusty Goodrich. Any questions or comments about that policy? All in favor? Oh, sorry, Trusty Lynch. Okay. All in favor? That's unanimous. The board hereby adopts policy 3430 as written. Oh, wait. I'm sorry. Did I not did not turn the page? Okay. Moving on. 15.02. Second reading of an adoption of policy 6161 expense reimbursement. May I have a first? Trusty Romano. Second. Trusty Kenudson. Any questions or comments? All right. All in favor? It's unanimous. Thank you. 15.03. Second reading and adoption of policy 7350 corporal punishment. May I have a first? Trusty Goodrich. Second. Trusty Roando. Any questions? All

109in favor? Great. Thank you. Second, I'm sorry. 15.04, second reading and adoption of policy 8460, field trips and excursions. May I have a first? Trusty Roando. Second. Trusty Kenudson. Any questions or comments? All in favor? That's unanimous. Thank you. On to committee reports. Trusty Lynch, would you like to talk about communications? Sure. Thank you. Um we did meet um as a communications committee and talked about the upcoming the past and upcoming uh opportunities to connect with the community about the vote that's coming up on May 20th at Bennett and Woodstock. Um the um uh latter part of the meeting was really just focused on topics that we would want to include in the May board briefs as well. So, we just floated a few different ideas and things that were coming up. Um, so of

110course you'll have a chance as a board to review that content when it's ready. Um, trying to think, we did, um, also see a timeline for different, um, pieces of collateral, communications collateral that were coming out. There is a video that's being developed. Um, and, uh, there's also, um, uh, board, what do you call them? signs, yard signs that explain when the vote is happening and what time. So, um, if there's anything that anybody needs from the board communications committee, please let us know. We can help you get it. Thank you. Any other committee reports? Trusty Lynch, I just had a question for the policy committee. Um, I'm wondering if you were able to review to the procedure that currently um has come to our attention around the bus transportation and bus passes for extracurricular

111activities or music lessons etc. We reviewed all of the uh there are many uh policies around transportation we reviewed all of them uh Monday yeah yesterday it's all blurring together and um uh I believe they will will be on the next board agenda. I think uh Trusty Lynch is talking about the uh state ed regulations that we reviewed as well. And um after reading them uh more thoroughly, we concluded as a committee concluded that the um practice that we had previously of dropping students to nondist extracurricular activities actually is against the regulations. So we can provide that information to the board. Any other committee reports? All right. Any old business? We have our book study, the governor governance core 2.0. And the assignment for this meeting was to read chapter seven on governance infrastructure. Any

112insights folks? I loved Oh, go ahead. I I really loved their uh the discussion of governance norms and let me see procedures and I think I I like the book so much because I feel like we're really accomplishing a lot of what what I'm reading in the book. Um and Oh, you too. And um so I I I blocked a kind of paragraph. I don't know if I'll read it, but um maybe Trusty Roando wants to like just Okay, sure. Split it. I'll go first. It's difficult to tease out the factors that make one group of people an an effective team uh or and another equally talented group of people a dysfunctional one. Well functioning successful teams usually have chemistry and uh that can't be quant uh quantified. They seem to get into a virt

113virtuous cycle in which one good quality builds on another. Team members develop mutual respect because they respect one another. Uh develop trust because they trust one another. and they share difficult information because they all have the same uh reasonable uh reasonably complete information. They can challenge one another's conclusions co coherently because a spirited give and take becomes the norm and they learn to adjust their own interpretations in response to intelligent questions. Did I finish it? Oh, sorry. Okay. It was run on sentence. It was like one whole sentence. I didn't know where to stop. Okay. Um Trusty Kudson. Yeah. Um I just wanted to call attention. What I really liked as it got toward the end of the chapter, the section on protocols, I thought was really interesting and and the way the authors describe

114protocols is as sort of this scaffolding that makes the operation of a board run smoothly because every everybody knows what to expect, right? And um and so I actually wanted to maybe task us to uh for I I know in the next meeting is the election, right? there's typically a fair amount of downtime while you're sitting around waiting for the votes to come in, right? So, I thought it might be interesting to work on a new trustee on boarding protocol um at during that time when we are not otherwise occupied um and because I think um you know as the the one person who came in as a new trustee this year, it was fine. It was good and people said, you know, if you have any questions, um, feel free to ask. But I

115think the I think the board could be a little more proactive. Like, for example, early on in my board experience, I was asked which committees I wanted to be on without really knowing what the committees do. Um, and so I would like to see um when new tr because we are going to have two new new trustees next year that there be some sort of um you know plan where they could maybe you know that that we say if you're a new trustee you're going to have you're going to sit down for a phone call or you're going to with uh someone from each of the committees who is going to describe to you what that committee does before you have to express a preference. Um, and I just think, um, that's just an example

116of something that was a little bit ad hoc for me that could be improved with a with a sort of onboarding protocol. It doesn't have to be 10 pages, but, you know, just just some very basic um steps that we would want to see a new a new trustee go through. Great suggestion. Word clerk, will you make a note of that for us? You got it. Good. Thank you. Anything else from that chapter? All right, we have two more chapters to go. Um, I did look ahead. They're pretty short. Chapter eight is a little bit longer, but chapter nine is really short. Do you want to combine them and finish this up by the next meeting? Okay, good. Great. Perfect. All right. Any other old business? Any new business? Trusty Kudson. So, circling back to

117the very beginning of this meeting that I think began a week ago. Um uh we were talking about um you know, cell phone um interventions and uh that they had ticked up in March and um that it is a thorny um problem. And if if you've been following the meetings all year, you know that early in the year I was recommending a book to the community called The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Height. and the um so the administration has uh agreed graciously to set up a book discussion of that book for our community because I think it's a very important um book for parents uh who um may not be aware or haven't really thought completely through the implications of uh having pocket social media for young particularly young teenagers and teenagers. Uh in the

118book, uh Professor Height identifies the ages of 10 to 16 as the uh most vulnerable age to mental health problems um arising from um social media and uh smartphones, things like that. And so the district I'm I don't want I believe the district has purchased 50 copies of the book. And the way uh the plan is to on June 9th if you're interested in this topic there will be a handout of we will publicize this is the first publicizing of this book discussion which is going to happen in the fall but we want the parents to have the book over the summer for summer reading. So uh there will be some outreach to parents through some form that I will leave to others who know how to do that better than I do. Um, and

119if people sign up and they want a free copy of the book, they will be able to get it in the library in this building on June 9th. And then we'll have a little maybe a little meet and greet with the people who are participating. It'll be just sort of like book club really just open discussion is the plan. Maybe guided by some um uh faculty members possibly. We're putting that the administration is working on that. But if you're interested in the topic of teen mental health, social media, technology, the intersection, the issues, put June 9th in your calendar and you can come get a free book and read it over the summer and then we can talk about it. We'll probably have a couple of sessions in the fall. Excellent. Thank you very much.

120Can uh trustees also join the uh book club? Absolutely. good community and and you know grandparents you know anybody who cares about this issue because I think you know it's one of the I I keep saying I don't want to spoil the book but um this is an issue that really is best confronted with collective action because um if it's very hard to deal with individually because of you know kids don't want to be the one kid who's, you know, not allowed to have something or has to, you know, that that's why I think the the policy that the high school is is adopting of phones away from bell to bell just removes that, you know, it's a collective action, yes, but it really just um takes the issue off the table for the portion

121of the day where the students are really supposed to be focused on school. So, um so yeah, it's all hands on deck. So, anybody who's interested Terrific. Any other new business? Any requests for information? Oh, yes. Yes. Sorry. Under new business for tonight. I just wanted to uh discuss the um NISPA resolution process and I' I'd like to start that conversation like at the next board meeting so that we're not scrambling on on July 1 to write resolutions during the in the middle of a board meeting. Um so everybody that's sitting at this table right now knows the process. Um we have the resolution toolkit that explains the process. Um we have uh access to uh the current uh resolutions and it's always helpful to review. Um and so we'll I think we'll put some

122time on the agenda um at the at the June 20th May 20 May 20th meeting and uh and start the conversation there and then we'll move forward from there any requests for information Lynch. Yes, thank you. Um I've from the communications committee we and and then then at the board table we've talked a bit about um a new potential uh implementation tool for our parent engagement policy. Second guessing that's what it's called but we have a policy on community engagement I think um and it's the use of um an app called parentswear. I'm hoping that the um administration could just give us an an update, an ongoing update as to how that's um going. I I really appreciate the work that the director of technology, John, and um superintendent have both led. Um but I

123recognize that it's going to require a lot of input. So, I just wanted to ask that the board be kept updated on that process. Anything else? Any other requests for information? Kudson. Yes. So, um this is a request that came out of the the meeting at Woodstock School on on the 1. Um it's been raised obviously a lot that um there are parents in Woodstock of very young children who are concerned about uh if we move to a central campus what the implications are for young very young children on the bus. And so this is really this is an idea that I have that I don't know is po if it's possible. So my RFI much much as with the afterchool busing question is whether there are state regulations that would prohibit this. But here

124is the idea um that um would it be possible in 2028 to create an opt out system for parents of young children in that in that densely populated area of the district to opt out of their regular bus pickup in front of their house and create a bus that would start at the Woodstock School and go straight from the Woodstock School to Bennett. in a in a straight line that would shorten that ride for those young children. Now, what I think we would have to do is is is see if you would get enough parents who would agree to drive their children to deliver their children to Woodstock to catch to Woodstock to catch that bus. And you could do the same thing in Phoenicia, by the way. I should say that too because we

125have we have a school there, too. Um, but I just wonder if that might be a an innovation that could solve that particular anxiety and maybe also save the districts, you know, uh, some some transportation funds. Um, again, uh, there may be legal complications. So, uh, and it wouldn't be for a while that it would could even possibly happen. But, um, I'm just wondering if we can, you know, find out, you know, because obviously if if the state says you can't do that, then it's not, you know, we're not going anywhere. But, um, just wanted to make the initial inquiries there. Thank you. Great idea. Any other requests for information? All right. Uh, our next meeting is May 20th, which is also our budget vote, our bond vote, and our board of ed elections. Please

126do not forget to vote. May I have a motion to adjourn? Trusty Goodrich. Second, Trusty Raando. All in favor? Thanks, everyone.