March 18th, 2025 - Board of Education Meeting

001e e e good evening and welcome to the March 18th 2025 meeting of the entour board of Education we have a tobacco policy in place there's no smoking within 100 feet of a school building please rise for the pledge board clerk will you please call roll trusty kinson here trustey Jerome trusty Mitchell Morell here trustee goodr here trusty Hemingway Lynch here trusty Rondo here trusty Bishop here thank you thank you uh we'll start with item 2.01 our Middle School principal Mr James DNA will welcome the board good evening everyone welcome to the middle school high school um beautiful day out there kids are starting to get back outside for recess and for uh Sports and the seventh and eighth grade and as well as the high schools the kids are all out today so it's

002good to see spring is here um so I just had a few things I wanted to focus on tonight um our spring schedule a little bit of discipline and just wanted to show some pictures of our field trip to New York City uh so I get we'll start with the spring schedule we have a packed next three months coming up um and this isn't everything this this is the highlights um you know you know between this and and everything we do on a daily basis but you know you see where're the sixth grade is going on the Albany field trip next week which I will be going on as well looking forward to that one of my favorite days is going on field trips with kids it brings me right back to when I was

003a kid so um looking forward to that uh the School Musical right after that next week uh next weekend Friday Saturday Sunday uh then we jump right into Spirit Week um Spirit Week for the Middle School t uh we typically have done it the week before breaks uh this year will be a color uh theme so every day we'll wear different color we'll have different themes Earth Day we have Cam flage day we have red white and blue uh red white and black day on Friday looking forward the booster clubs coming to um do our ice cream Sundays so everyone's welcome if they like to come scoop ice cream and then we always end with uh some sort of event this year will be uh this week will be another uh volleyball game the kids

004really they asked for it they love seeing the teachers up there playing against the students so uh we're going to end the week with the volleyball uh game on that Friday we'll also recognize all the clubs um Miss Bishop our yearbook adviser will be taking pictures so we get them into the yearbook so we're looking forward to that talking about that today so that's spirit week uh that week is also our accelerated placement tests um this year we will be offering an accelerated math program in seventh grade which is new um so sixth graders um along with a many other data points it's not the only data point but it gets them excited for it it gives us another data point for students to enter the program and let them know where they are um

005and uh you know it's it's it's worked it's worked for the last two years we also do uh those same types of tests for the eighth grade accelerated science and math a shout Point went out to all sixth and seventh grade parents today letting them know letting them know what that entails what what it means um a lot you know the sixth and seventh grade parents are brand new to the middle school so I put out a sh Point hopefully explained everything and then left open for them to contact us with any questions uh we're having ancl game day uh the ninth and 10th grade are going to play games with the eighth grade kind of like a little preview to coming into the high school so um even though they've known each other and

006they were in middle school together just not a couple years ago but we're looking forward to that um see how that goes that's brand new this year then we jump right into State Testing um so we have state Ela testing on April 29th and 30th and then we have a great special surprise we're having a Shakespeare play in the afternoon so something to broaden everyone's Horizons Pericles will be the play this year and we're looking forward to that a nice break after you know the testing so hopefully the kids will enjoy that uh then we jump into May the first week of May is our state math tests following week are the state science test which is only eth grade we've been really busy uh honing our skills in the new Labs that New York

007state has um has made us has uh the students have had to do it's a brand new State uh test labs labs for the kids so it's really our second year but really our first full year where you'll see the kids that have to take those labs in order to take that eighth grade science test Middle School spring concert Middle School Spring Dance is the f is that week as well uh again the booster club as great as they always are coming to support us um they come to the spring concert you'll see them out in the hall like in the winter concert they are helping support the spring dance so that's something new this year Miss Jano is putting that together with the National Junior Honor Society and booster club so we are busy

008uh then we have a couple weeks of NCIS slat testing which is Tes in for our L students every student who's an L student must go through Nic slat testing and that places them in a category uh in nice of slat and hopefully eventually they test out um we'll continue with May uh we have map testing this is another data point that we use for students uh both in math and Ela it allow it shows the growth that our kids have had over the year it is a great test it's a great way to see growth and it really it's it's immediate results it's unlike the State Testing where we really don't get the results until late summer sometimes fall so this is something that really gives the teachers a uh a good grip of

009where the kids are at the end of the year um it also allows us to plan for AIS in the over the next school year as we do scheduling um Mr Edelman and I and Miss Turk are working on scheduling now for September so that's already we've already started that and then May 21st is our eighth grade trip to LS and Statue liberty uh going to be great this year we're looking forward to that something we haven't done I guess in a few years so we will take the bus down to Ells Island we don't go into New York to do that you go to the science or the science island or I'm sorry Liberty Science Island and we leave from there we and we take the boat over to Lis Island and Statue of

010Liberty we have lunch hopefully it'll be a beautiful day may we had to kind of we have you know if there are no more snow days we have to throw in three give back back days there at the end of May um so that's why that last few weeks of May is going to be extremely busy um and then we get into June and again we you know with the extended year which is wonderful uh we're able to do more field trips we're able to do more field trips with all the kids and that's one of the you know we don't have to try to worry about finals so much because we actually have an extra week of learning so one of the great benefit benefits of that we're going to do uh June 2nd

011and thir the sixth and seventh grade we go to frz Valley for moreal work team building games and so forth so they'll go up there for the day uh fourth and fifth that Thursday Friday we move right into music Majors which our music competitions that Mr Boer runs is in charge of so it'll be select students that go to music majors and then on Friday the 6 the e8th grade we'll go to their annual Six Flags um um field trip so that's always a great way to end the year uh we move into finals for non-core classes the next following week so we're now into to finals for art um I would say art but for home careers for brain power boot camp for technology for Spanish and French intro to Spanish and French for

012health class so there'll be a lot of incl class these are typically one period uh tests for students in class class um so again we're also cleaning out lockers we're also collecting uh Chromebooks we're also making sure our rooms are together we're also doing all that kind of stuff um the last day of classes is Friday and again we have juneth in there which kind of throws the schedule off a little bit so we have to make an adjustment so we have finals and then we have the third 19th off then the 20th is the Friday is the last day of full day classes for the Middle School then we move into the next week um and Monday are checkpoint a exams for Spanish and French which all eighth grade take that's part of their

013uh you know that that gives them the credit for the language for High School uh that right after that since we only have the eighth grade here we will practice for our moving up ceremony and our moving up ceremony sorry is this 23d not 23rd is at six o'clock on that Monday it's usually about an hour so the kids are out of here by 7 7:30 uh and then on Tuesday and Wednesday are our core class finals those are about an hour i' say an hour and 15 minutes each and we make sure the kids get lunch before they leave uh that allows us to leave a couple days on Thursday in case anybody misses those exams they can come back and get those exams in in case they're sick and they can't make it

014in um and then on the 25th the fifth grade visit and then the 26th is the last day of classes for teachers or school for teachers work for teachers so it's really it really run once we get once we get through this week it really just moves right along um one thing I wanted to show was discipline uh it's something I'm really proud of that I've been able to to do here in in um antora um if you look at the trend uh you know we had 22 23 I started right the beginning of the year Miss Connors was still here at the beginning of that year um we were doing you know we had a couple smaller classes we had 13 129 events referral events next year it went up a little bit kids

015were adjusting we had a new group of kids we had a bigger grade um and then this year the approach has really started to take hold the approaches uh you can see that the their referrals are way down and that has a lot a lot to do with the social workers that we've brought aboard as Thomas has done a fantastic job as a social worker really helping with restorative practices working with me Miss Shanker working with me on restorative practices we have really taken a proactive approach to discipline this last year it took a couple years to get started but this year you're really starting to see that effect um restorative practices mediation more counseling we have more counselors available for students um a lot more power in involvement me on the phone counselors on

016the phone being proactive being out you know being able to be readily available when they need to talk to us um positive referrals uh although you don't see all of them here they are coming in Fast and Furious right now at the end of the year and it's really a preventative approach it's it's a philosophy that I fully support and that I believe in um I really believe that me being out in the hallway making more relationships with kids having close relationships with the students as well as our incredible counseling department and getting the right people on board is just been transformative really transformative if you walk down the Halls you'll see it's much calmer even with another group of kids in here it's calmer it's quiet kids are in class on time um you

017know we're still there are still areas that we need to improve on but it is getting to where um we need it to be so it's just something that I thought thought I would share tonight it's something that I've been very proud of um you know and it's really all behind the scenes it's not things that you're going to see on a daily basis it's not things you're going to see in the newspaper the Talon or anything or on Facebook but it's something that we really work hard on behind the scenes and that something that um very proud of that we've been able to accomplish sure just wondering how like bullying features into discipline and like if you get a complaint from a parent or something just how that addressed I know middle school can

018be like a hot yeah and and a lot again we have been able to approach that with a preventative measures you know when we start to see things you know the counselors are really on top of it the guy the school counselors the the the psychologist social workers have really been able to be preventative with that the kids feel comfortable coming to us coming to see us in the office and when that happens we're able to cut off that bulling we're able to use mediation because 90% of the time it's just a misunderstanding it really is these kids are so nice they care for one another they've known each other for a long time and a lot of the times um and we've been able to prevent that just through a lot of Hands-On getting

019to know the kids those personal relationships um we've had zero dases this year zero bullying incidents that have risen to that level this year uh that's incredible that really is a shout out to our our staff to everybody that works hard to do that um so I hope that answered your question um and then just a couple pictures uh you know we had a beautiful day in New York City it was supposed to rain it didn't rain kids loved it we went shopping we you know went in and out of the uh you know the the tourist trap shops and they love going in there and looking around we were able to take some pictures lunch at um Forest Gump's place there uh the bubble gump was just a great great experience um you know

020again one of my favorite things to do is go on field trips with the kids it really you get to know them better you know and I always get the group that you know need a little more guidance and we have a great time and we laugh and we go to the Eminem store and you know we go everywhere around there and then you know the play was just perfect Miss Madison just did a fantastic job organizing this um it ran as smoothly as you could possibly say we were in and out of the city city um just as it started raining we were getting on the buses uh and we were back here in record time and all the kids ate and had a great time and we had food for them on the

021way home thanks to uh to the cafeteria and Chrissy down so appreciate all that work and everyone got picked up on time which is another amazing thing but you can see inside the theater the kids and the kids were mesmerized they were well behaved they were mesmerized they loved it and it was a great play a great time by all so um we've had a we've had a really good year overall you know there's always bumps in the road things always come up but overall I think we're accomplishing you know everything that I put out to accomplish this year which was to uh lower referrals be more restorative be more proactive in our approaches with children and you know there will always be things that come up there will always be problems that we have

022to solve but you know overall our our rigor has increased in the classrooms our teachers are working together even more than they ever have it's great having the sixth grade up here they're able to work with the seventh and eighth grade teams um we're as we move in using mtss you see the teams working together the AIS teams working together um it's really been really a great year and I hope to be able to build on that next year and um that's uh that's my Spiel so great thank you so much questions trusty kutson apologies for the basic question but could you explain more Philly what going back to the discipline presentation what a positive referral is and how what it looks like a positive referral is just a piece of paper that a teachers

023fill out when a student does something nice positive helps somebody in the hallway extra polite um you know goes out of their way to do a nice deed uh improves in a in a class improves with their homework uh uh completion anything that we can do to celebrate Student Success and I get up there once a month we collect them for the month I get up there once a month with the whole crowd in the cafeteria and I call out their names and they come up and everybody claps and and it's just a wonderful thing that we do every month so every first of every month we generally do positive referrals thank you you're welcome any other questions trusty Lynch I just want to say thank you for um your presentation and also how wonderful

024these field trips are um I just I know last year I think it was Washington DC and this year looks like an incredible um opportunity too for these kids so I really appreciate that and I love that um the school invests in that kind of activity because I think it's it's just so important especially for you know those kids who don't get out of this area as often so it's wonderful that you do that I'm sure it's a lot of extra work it's well worth it um and I appreciate it well worth it well worth it to see the smiles on their face you know to see them bonding to you know I get to hang out with them in a not in a suit in a regular look like a regular person um you

025know and it was too bad we couldn't go to DC it just became so cost prohibitive it was just incredible it almost it almost I would say more than doubled the price for the from last year year we looked into it last June and tried to see if we could swing it but it would have it would have been cost prohibitive for a lot of families and and I felt that it would be better to have these singular experiences that everybody could be part of than try to force that trip in and and only maybe a couple dozen one bus load go so you know we've been able to a lot of things you know the eighth grade was able to do Frost Valley in the fall you know they got out there and they

026did Frost Valley so you didn't see them in the spring but they did it in the fall they're going to Ellis Island they're doing you know we're making sure everybody can go on the um Six Flags trip you know and it and it's really important that everybody feels inclusive you don't want people to feel like they can't go for whatever reason that may be so I thought it was very important we're going to build on that um the New York City trip I can't tell you how wonderful it was and it's such a great resource for us it's so close I mean people travel from thousands and thousands of miles away to go to New York City and we're really close we're really close so um you know it was it's something that I truly

027believe in those shared experiences for the kids thank you so much oh you're welcome have a good evening thank you may have a motion to enter into executive session to discuss the antia negotiations first truste Goodrich second trusty Mitchell moral all in favor okay that's unanimous we will return in approximately 30 minutes e e e may I have a motion to exit executive session and return to public session session trusty kutson first trusty Rondo second all in favor that's unanimous thank you on to our presentations um item 4.01 our assistant superintendent for business mon lir will present the 2025 2026 revenue and expenditure budget thank you very much so we will start with the uh 2526 projected revenues there we go uh so these are the numbers that we had presented last time showing a

0282% increase in the tax levy I did split Out Foundation aid from other AIDS I just kind of wanted to show you the foundation Aid we are getting that um kind of due Minimus increase of 2% you will see that other AIDS has gone up slightly larger and those are mostly expense driven AIDS so what you need to understand is that we had to spend the money in 2425 in order to get the aid in 2526 a lot of that is our high cost Aid our Bose's Aid and our transportation Aid um miscellaneous went up a little bit um we decided to put a little more revenue on the interest side having um gone to um some uh banking uh kind of uh committee meetings we've been told that the days of 0% interest are

029basically over um we have historically not budgeted a lot for interest because interest rates had been zero for so long so we now feel comfortable increasing that budget a little bit so next for projected expenditures um so we are looking at a 2526 budget that's a little over 2% higher than 2425 you can see where the changes are there just as a side note the debt service is not is not um debt per se it's really the lease that we have currently for the fitness room equipment so now kind of going line by line so we get a little more detail of what's in each of those lines so General support is where we hold all of our administrative salaries business and central office expenses legal bosies insurance and any sort of real property tax

030refunds uh with respect to insurance and any reduction for Phoenicia is not included in this because we haven't gotten those numbers yet so we expect that actually to be lower as an expense but um wanted to keep it in as a budget just you know for for for a little safety measure uh and the capital expenditure was a little higher as I explained because of the Bose's I park so for operations and maintenance uh we're looking at a slight decrease what's in here would be your facility salaries uh school resource officer contract so remember for next year we actually budgeted for two sro's so while you see the operation maintenance budget went down slightly it would have actually gone down a lot more had we not needed to budget for two SRO um it does

031hold all of our Safety and Security funding our utilities ground maintenance building repairs as also our districtwide supply so we have a uh storage Warehouse or whatever Central Central Storage Central store room GE called the Ray Zone in case anybody is is curious about that um where we hold many many thousands of dollars worth of pens and pencils and paper and things so that the teachers just go to him and don't have to kind of buy that on a on a daily or regular basis it also includes uh $70,000 in equipment that we had uh mentioned earlier the tractor the scissor lift and uh a utility terrain vehicle on the instruction side uh the regular education um is looking at an increase of about 259,000 so that makes up over 50% of the instructional budget

032it includes our Bose CTE and it also includes Summer School uh the PPS budget saw a slight increase of 12,000 that makes up about 35% of our instructional budget technology is seeing a slight increase and Athletics is actually seeing a slight decrease um we did do some uh we were able to do some adjustments to stiens because understanding last year's budget was done before the OTA contract had been finalized so last or I'm sorry so this year's budget was a little high because we didn't know at budget time what the actual expenses were going to be so now we can adjust it based on the actual contract and just as an FYI we do offer 15 different sports across three different seasons for Transportation uh we have salaries that is a little lower because we

033have fewer District employed drivers we do more contracted now uh we do have repair and maintenance in that uh in that category for upkeep of our um current vehicles uh long as well as expenses related to our service agreements we have first student those are the costs that are associated with our outside Transportation outsourced Transportation my apologies uh fuel um equipment they're looking to acquire one small bus and just as a side note when I talked about Transportation Aid and how we're getting a little bit more on expense driven Aid um an receives the lowest amount of Transportation Aid that a district can get at 6.5% for every um dollar we spend we get six and a half cents so again when I talk about on your being a wealthy District a lot of these

034AIDS are based on District wealth so because we're wealthy we so I say that only because as you hear the governor talk about electric buses and you know we're going to you know you're going to get more Aid well we don't get that much Aid to begin with so getting getting that is not really going to do much for us unfortunately um for employee benefits so we did get our final health insurance rates they are going up by 7.52 for non-medicare um PE non-medicare contracts and 1.5 on average for our Medicare contracts so we're looking um at about 14,500 for all of the health insurance for active and retirees um our active employees cover about 260 Rose to 8 million and our retirees which are about 319 uh increased to six almost 6 and A5

035million also in this line is workers comp uh the union welfare benefits that help that covers our dental and vision coverage and also some retirement costs so we allocate funds for the incentives and accumulate sick leave payouts when they uh when staff retire based on their um different bargaining agreements the last three areas community service that is the money that we send to our local libraries that is staying the same The Debt Service for the fitness room equipment lease again that's um staying the same and then the in fund transfers uh we're going to look to transfer 750 to Capital 325 to school lunge and then the 880,000 that goes to the federal is to cover special education summer school so special education summer school 80% of the costs is covered by uh Federal grant

036by New York state so what we do is we we take we account for all of it in federal and then once we figure out what our 20% is we move it from the general to the federal fund that's why it's a transfer to Federal so looking at uh where we are we have a projected Revenue budget of 61 million projected expenditure budget at a little over 63 and a half million with a projected difference of just over 2.5 million as you can see that is um less than what we had appropriated in the 2425 school year um so it would be my recommendation that we use the 2.5 as our appropriate fund balance for the 25 26 school year so one of the things that we're required to show is what are the different

037budget components as a percentage of the budget so as you can see as we should see instruction makes up the majority of it however employee benefits is fast approaching um but I think I say this a lot when I say that salary and benefits accounts for almost 80% of our budget you can see the others transportation is 9 and a half operation maintenance 5 a half General support 3.7 and those last three less than 2% the other thing that we are required to do by law is to divide the budget into three components the administrative component the capital component and the program component and compare them from year to year so as you can see the capital and administrative are going up slightly um program is going down slightly what I will tell you is

038um it's not just the expenses themselves that are in these so any retiree health insurance if it was a custodial workers's retirement Insurance that's paid in the capital if it's an administrative retire administrator's retired administrator's health insurance it shows up in the administrative budget so that's why it's it's it's not exactly you're not going to go okay well no this was what administrative but that's more than or less than that so um but again we are still um a majority of our our funds do go to program which is always good to see so um again just kind of looking what makes up each of those three-part budgets administrative obviously has administrative salary benefits that's where the insurance the legal fees the Bose's admin so that's looking to go up about 206,000 capital is our

039school bus purchase our debt service facilities cost utilities maintenance uh custodial salaries and benefits that's looking to go up about 560,000 with program being our teachers our Tas our PA professionals Athletics um those are looking to increase at 495 over this year so we're looking at a total increase from 2425 to 2526 of 1.26 3160 million so if this all looks good to you proposition one will be to approve a 63 million so proposition two so um I know you all have it in your um packets as well um Amanda Gates has worked very closely with Bond Council to make sure that everything is exactly the way it should be um and really I know that there had been discussion and and a request to maybe put something in there that talks about uh savings

040that could that would offset the uh the bond payment unfortunately the com troller kind of the com troller says you can't do that and if you think about it it makes sense this is truly worst case scenario and that's what we have to let the taxpayers know as a worst case scenario now we know we're going to have savings but as a worst case scenario the taxpayer has to understand that if they vote for this they are voting to take on the risk of paying this paying this Bond because again we're going to borrow the money we have to pay it back and the taxpayers are the ones that would be paying us to pay it back was that I don't think that was it was it we lost her oh he's testing me um

041so I know we kind of went over contingency budget a little last time but just kind of as a um as an overview again uh if the budget fails we can either submit the same budget a different budget or go straight to a contingency budget budget a second budget vote would be held on June 17th every school district that does a second budget vote that's when it's held um if it does get defeated a second time then we would require to go directly to contingency so what a contingency budget means is that your 2526 tax levy has to be remain the same as your 2425 tax levy so if you look at the um column on the right our 2425 tax levy 48 million 4341 18 we're proposing a 2526 of 49,4 to800 so if

042we were in contingency we could only collect that 48434 so we would have to find another $968,000 in equipment would come off the top there is an administrative cap component so if you go back to that um Pi pie chart that showed Administration went from 10 something to 10 point something we could only say use that same percentage as last year so that's we would have to cut something from the administrative budget to match the same percentage that we had in this year and then we would have to charge fees uh for use of our facilities in addition to the vote the our budget vote there's also two board trustee seats that have terms starting on July 1 they are both for three-year terms through June 30th of 2028 and anyone interested petitions are do

043Monday April 21st by 5:00 pm to Miss Amanda Gates and it will require 29 District resident signatures in order to be valid so the next steps are for the superintendent's recommended budget to be presented on April 1st um and then the board adoption of the budget April 22nd I will say there is not going to be any changes um so if there's consensus from the board we could actually move the adoption of the budget to April 1st um all the rest of the dates would remain the same we would still have the public hearing on the six it would give us more time to present the budget present the capital uh project to the community at various forums um and then obviously the budget vote would be on the on the 20th with with a

044revote on the 17th if necessary any questions trusty Goodrich then trusty kudon if we could go back to employee benefits slide number eight I knew you'd like that slide so a lot of people always ask you know why is our U cost per student high so if you look at this chart uh we have 260 active employees that get health insurance benefits and we have retirees so I just wanted to point that out but here's my main question um have we done any future Actuarial analysis to determine the future risks for the number of retirees health insurance costs going up uh yes we have it's actually required every municipality every school district is required to have an actuary figure out what their OPB liability is it's their other post employment benefit liability if you remember

045um back and I can show you where it is in the financial statements it's that huge negative 20 I don't even know how big it is it's huge uh number that shows up in our financial statements and that is an Actuarial determination of what our district costs for for post employ for retire health insurance so do we do we see the number of retired employ employees covered by health insurance going up significantly in the next 10 years or yes yeah yes everybody does I mean all schools all municipalities because benefits is really more the benefits that we offer is something that almost all school districts and municipalities offer it's one of the I don't know guiding principles perhaps of um you know working in government so my next comment is on proposition two I don't

046know if you saw my email that I sent out so I was wondering uh if we could make a change to that uh can we do that under RFI or under a new business or can we talk about it now I don't believe there are any changes allowed to the language on proposition 2 so it's uh we can't change it at this point in time it was uh created by Bond Council and we have to follow the language that they created okay thank you hi thanks I just wanted to um ask about the interfund transfer part and the federal section that cu I know that there's um at a couple of our recent meetings there's been a lot of anxiety in the community about what's going on with the Department of Education and we had

047talked about the district possibly you know if special ed funding goes away from the Department of Ed um is is that um contingency accounted for in what we're planning to transfer into the federal section or so the when it says transfer a federal fund Federal fund is what New York State calls it it's the F fund it's the federal fund it's not necessarily Federal money it's just the name of the fund like we have the capital fund the school lunch fund and we have the federal fund it's where our grant money goes but not all of our grant money is federally funded so like upk is State money but it's in the F code it's in the federal fund so and the same thing with um with uh special at Summer School New York State

048reimburses us for special ated summer school it's just paid out of the federal fund it's just it's not federal money does that make sense yes so if the district were confronted with that situation and had to make up that would come out of the come out of the general anything we have to make up would come out of the general fund yeah great thank you can I add to that we also have absolutely we also have our 4% unappropriated fund balance and the definition of that is is to be used for unanticipated expenses so if we need to we can utilize some of that money as well tresy Lynch yeah thanks as always for your presentation um just actually right along that point um superintendent I was just curious in your planning um if there

049is uh any contingencies built in to this to these figures so I I'll start by saying I know I've already asked about the fact like every department head and building administrator you've said has received all of their requests we've been able to fulfill 100% of their requests but I'm anticipating like in any budget right that there might be new things that pop up big or small and I'm just curious if contingencies are built in or if we're dependent on that fund so we don't specifically um budget for for that but you know superintendent McLaren and I we we are very similar in how we budget and we budget very conservatively so that being said as the school year progresses you know unanticipated funds may become available in certain areas for example um we're looking to

050um you know replace some retirees so we budget their salary we budget them for a family health insurance plan now they may come in they may be 23 and they take an individual plan or even better they're married their spouse has great health insurance and they take the buyout so that's a savings um by the same token special education's an area that is very fluid um some years we have been able to um save money there because students have moved out other years we you know it cost us more because families move in so we budget conservatively you know I I I want to budget to make sure that we can at the very least give give the best educational experience to every student and then if there is something left over great let's see

051what else are we talking about so spring Springtime is usually when we say okay you know we found we we didn't spend this money that we were we thought we were going to spend another example would be overtime if we remember the one year we used no snow days we had no snow whatsoever all that overtime we didn't spend so every year is a little different um so really we kind of look Every Spring if funds are available we may look to allocate them we might also say okay well we budgeted to this next year but we had these extra funds this year so let's do it this year and now we have that extra money next year um but again as as superintendent McLaren says that you know if needed we do have those

052uh that unappropriate fund balance that could be used to M to meet any unanticipated ordinary expenditures help yeah very much so thank you um and then my other question was just on the details of operations and maintenance um on Slide Five does does this include phenicia savings I know it didn't General support but it does yeah okay okay so if it hadn't been if it hadn't been for the Venicia savings with the extra SRO it would have been a lot higher I see okay and then my I guess last actually I have two more questions so I'll yield if there's somebody else who has a question I just wanted to ask the superintendent if she wanted to say I I saw you with a mic in your hand for a few minutes I just wanted

053to kind of reiterate uh Miss Clair's talk about contingency and in in some line items we do have specific contingency like our special ed placements because in the past few years we have had a few we have had residential placements and those are really um costly and so we don't want to have something like that come up but we don't we don't over um anticipate that but we we are very conservative why don't we go with trustee Mitchell Morel and then trusty Lynch and then back to trusty goodr um so I know we can't change the wording on number two can I'm just like concerned that people might not understand that like this is sort of like the most basic thing proposition one which we do annually right like it's like what we need to

054run a school so I just like hope that's clear I don't know is anyone else worried about that or could you repeat yourself I'm sorry right I guess we're just wondering if this is the final language for proposition one can we still mess with that one that's not the final language for proposition one that's just the dollar amount and that's something we would work [Music] on no it's it's well the the we don't work on the budget we would we're going to we're we wording for proposition one I mean proposition for proposition one is the is the school literally anual budget I mean there's some legal e that goes in there but it's literally just you approve this and you something about accept tax I mean I guess I'm just wondering do we have to

055have people vote on them at the same time like it just feels like we're almost it's like asking more than it looks like we're asking well proposition one is what we do every year it's it's our anual budget but does everyone yeah I think everyone does and then and then proposition two I think because of the way proposition two is worded it is very um it's very much broken down into like the many many parts that are covered um in in that price tag so similar to last year we had or maybe it was two years ago now we had the proposition to that was to do the construction the middle school high school for the security vestibule at an amount not to exceed 8.8 million so that was Proposition to two proposition one was

056the budget proposition two was the security vestibule and and uh and all of that is that clear okay okay you know and and we do also do we do a budget newsletter that goes to everyone you know and all of this so I think it is something that people who have historically voted they know what they're voting on it's it's the same format every year trusty kutson did you have a clarifying statement yeah I just wanted to say that you know it's part of our job description as as trustees is to get out into the community and and explain this to people so um it's not like we're powerless um to to to educate the community on what's what and this is and I just want to point out that this is an unusual Year

057and that the a bond issue hasn't happened in this District in a generation or two right a two generations of school students so I think that puts a little extra onus on us as trustees to really get out there and sort of explain this to people yes thank you and we are and we are and we will uh trusty Lynch did you have another question okay you um I just want to say I agree with what you're saying and I think the difference is is that we've got the formal language for proposition 2 we just don't have it for proposition one so seeing it written like this is a bit alarming for me too to be honest with you I think what we wanted to say is right that the proposition one will have broader

058language that explains that this is the annual budget and maybe the district clerk has something to say I can send it um to all of you just what was from last year because the wording is going to stay the same we're just changing the budget amount that's great yeah that would be great thank you and and that would be obviously what you would vote on right at the next board meeting you're vote so tonight you tonight you're voting on proposition two which is why that language is so specific you're not voting on proposition one well originally we said April 21st now we're saying okay you could do it April 1 so then you would have that formal language on April 1 when you're voting on it that's so I guess I should have made that

059more clear I apologize no that's okay that's okay um thank you I just um had two more questions on the details um on Transportation on um seven slide seven um within the first student contract that's fixed it's a five-year contract correct we're we're aware of that but I am um want to come back to this question about EV buses um I know that we put out our own plan um or we've you know we've we've developed a we we took the survey and have developed a plan and we know that um you know there's an outstanding number of issues that we'd have to consider in order to transition to EV buses but at at what point do we think that we're going to be prepared to at least try using an EV bus or well

060I think at this point superintendent McLaren and I kind of agreed that we were waiting until the budget passed because there is discussions in both the Senate and the house um about changing that language so I don't want to spend an inordinate amount of time or money um until I know what that is um so so we're waiting for the um the April vote which is when the legis New York State legis state budget yeah we'll take the budget forward yes okay thank you hopefully um exactly and then uh my last question was about libraries on um slide nine as you know just even today there was another executive order around defunding libraries at the federal level I'm just curious um and I know we had a question from our own one of our public

061libraries um the olive Library about our budget for the community service line um and and the local library funds um why is that the same this year what kind of calculation goes into that $220,000 so that was voted on that was voted on way back when um by the voters that they approve that 20,000 in order to change that it has to go back to the voters again so I had a conversation and they did not want to put another proposition on our ballot to increase what they received so because they I believe are some of them are on the town budget some of them have their own budget um and so I think just because of the varying funding sources that they already had they did not want to put any additional propositions on

062our budget but they would have to come to us kind of similarly to like we were saying with the town the town would have had to have come to us with something by today in order for us to for the district to approve a proposition that would then go on the ballot so the libraries would work the same way okay so we are not legally uh we we can't change this until that process goes through correct thank you so much I appreciate that Tracy Goodrich so back to the employee benefit slide again P I was going to bring this up so the retired employees 319 um employees are retired getting health insurance benefits of 6,453 184 so that's like 10% of our budget correct close somewhere around there yeah and um I think I I

063asked about this before if you could put that on the pie chart well the pie chart that pie chart is um the required New York State pie chart I could do a second pie chart if you'd like okay yeah I don't know if you you if you could do active employees and also retired employees as a percentage deler for that just to okay to show because I got a feeling you know that's a lot higher than than most schools well again it's dependent on the contracts that an employee retires under and when you think about a a you know a faculty member who maybe works you know starts at 25 works until 55 lives until 85 you're now paying three Health insurances for one position any other questions or go ahead I just wanted to

064mention that um point that you're making trusty Goodrich that might be a good question um to ask the auditor when he comes in in September because we do include the long-term liability for employee benefits in our financial statements and our auditor audits many other school districts and so my perception is that we would be similarly um situated to other districts but that would be someone who actually has a View to a number of other districts and could answer that from a really experienced place any other questions go ahead sorry one really quick one the small bus that we're purchasing that's a diesel bus yes okay and oh actually I'm sorry I think it's gas gas okay thank you I I just want to make a statement that um and I think about this many many

065times when we're when we've had these presentations and trusty Rondo and I actually experienced these presentations um sort of oneon-one uh when we're doing agenda setting and we actually go through every slide um we offer suggestions sometimes we're like word smithing and and everything so we've we've already gone through the question and answer phase it's not that we don't have any questions we have tons of questions but we've already asked them and we really appreciate all of your questions because it just makes it even more clear so we appreciate that thank you so much for the presentation again thank you okay yes um on to item 5.01 acceptance of minutes the Board of Education hereby accepts the minutes of the March 4th 2025 meeting May I have a first trusty randoo second trusty canuteson any

066questions or comments trusty canson I trusty Mitchell morale hi trusty goodr I trusty Lynch hi trust amondo I that's unanimous thank you on to our superintendent uh District news all right well um we are still holding four unused snow days uh barring any unforeseen natural emergencies this means that spring break will be extended to include Monday April 21st and also that Memorial Day Weekend uh will extend from Thursday May 22nd through Tuesday May 27th I was honest very concerned when we used our first snow day in November and then had a second one prior to winter break historically you could almost always count on having one snow day before winter break but to have two uh made me very nervous but Mother Nature is full of surprises so um I believe that we will probably

067be bringing um a discussion item to the board at the next meeting about the use of our uh unused snow days for 12 month staff but for 10-mth staff as long as we don't have any other emergencies those will be added to our uh school breaks um our school calendar for next year is on the agenda for approval we reviewed it at the March 4th meeting and the scheduling of superintendent conference day in November was raised as a concern but I did want to publicly clarify that the evening parent teacher conferences are actually the day prior to election day so we should not have an issue this coming school year um with people um feeling as if we had scheduled them and it was keeping them from um voting so staff members and fam should

068all be able to participate in the election process on Election Day if they so choose um an update on our Phoenicia campus the town of shanden had requested that the district um sell the Phoenicia campus to the town for a dollar the district had supported this request um to accomplish that the district voters would need to approve the sale on the ballot the board would have needed to approve adding this item to the ballot um in May at tonight's board meeting but uh the town did not really have enough time to fully investigate this option and the restrictions that accompany this type of sale so if the town were to acquire the campus for less than market value there would be restrictions on its use and the town would not be able to lease space

069in the building to for four profit entities moving forward that would limit their ability to raise uh annual revenues to support the maintenance and upkeep of the campus so they have since reached out to um the district to inquire as to whether the town might be able to lease the building we have provided them with um information related to the lease agreement that was in place between the rondout school district and the town of Rosendale for their consideration that lease was a seven-year lease um uh but just as a note you we can legally lease the campus for up to 10 years without voter approval so that is another option that they may have uh our own Olivia McHugh is representing antora at a leadership conference this year the New York State Public High School

070Athletic Association leadership conference this is the first year um known to any of us that antora will be sending a student representative to this conference the event is for current um 10th and 11th graders and will help students sharpen their leadership skills and more positively influence their teams athletic department schools and communities um students were required to apply in order to attend and we are very proud that our student applied and was selected so congratulations um in terms of communications for our proposed C cap project we did meet with Holly Brooker this week and we reviewed all of the strategies that she typically utilizes to promote capital projects um we've already done some of the initial steps uh by creating a presentation that we can use when we're meeting with community and school groups um

071we are going to meet with her again in a few days she just got back from two weeks of jury duty so she had a lot of catching up to do um but as a jump start uh M Clair and I are creating a video review of the presentation that we can um put on the website and we also discussed um sending a postcard mailer to all of our residents and including a QR code with a link to the video presentation um so that's one of our um one of our strategies that we're jumping on right now we did a test run today but had a blooper in the middle so we're going to do it again tomorrow um I will share uh our more in-depth plan uh as we roll it out we were

072fortunate enough to be invited to present at the Phoenicia Library last week and we had a couple of our board trustees with us which was wonderful um it was a lovely group and we received a lot of really thoughtful questions and had really positive conversation and we will be meeting with the Woodstock seniors tomorrow we have also requested space at the Olive Free Library clothing swap yard sale harp popup project on May 3rd um and we are also requesting time on our PTA meeting agend agendas uh also we had received feedback from the community regarding the sound quality that people viewing from home um have shared with us and so uh our director of technology is addressing it and working to purchase a new board sound system so that our viewers can have a clearer

073um view of our our meetings so I actually thank the uh viewers at home who have shared that with us because now we can address it and last but not least the Woodstock talent show is this Friday please attend if you can to see our very talented Woodstock students I have heard that they have a lot of student participants in the talent show uh it's on the calendar from 5: to 8 so that will be a lot of presentations any questions for the superintendent trusty goodr just want to say I think the the YouTube video of the presentation is a great idea okay so we are moving on to item 7.01 uh the board will report District news and I'd just like to start off um with a with a brief statement um I'd like

074to thank all the trustees on our school board for having the insight and the courage uh after carefully considering the facts to vote for a single Bond proposition to create a modernized and sustainable central campus for our students staff and Community uh this is a conversation that's been ongoing for probably about 20 years and has caused deep divisions between trustees School boards and communities over time and I am very proud to be a trustee on this board and sincerely respect and value each of you it's important to acknowledge all of the community members who have reached uh out to us both for and against the single Bond proposition and a central campus we appreciate your input at the podium and Via letters and email we understand the emotional impact of closing a school the board

075and administration stood with the Phoenicia students staff and community and we will do the same with the Woodstock School Community I want to thank our superintendent and assistant superintendents for taking the time and care to develop clear concise presentations over the last year for partner partnering with the amazing Sharon lovsky who co-developed and facilitated our community visioning sessions and for Honor ing the vision of our Greater Community in the design and development of our Capital project plan thus far between now and the May 20th budget vote and and bond vote and and board of edu Board of Education elections the administration and school board will partner to meet with community members in small or large groups to raise greater awareness of our planning process and fully inform them of the board vote of the bond

076voting and repayment process we encourage Community groups who would like to meet with us to reach out our contact information is on the antora board of ed website soaring to new heights optimizing ontora is the title of our central campus restructuring website the website contains a tremendous amount of historical and current information including all of our reports and all of these presentations that have happened over really the past year that title has never been just a tag phrase for me I remain extremely optimistic about anora's future as a school district and I thank all of you so much any other Board District news trusty Rondo mine's not that exciting compared to that but um last Thursday night superintendent McLaren and trusty Goodrich and myself attended the ster County Schoolboard association meeting in new pulz and

077we had a couple presentations one was an update by Dr Shanker about I park we learned that the original plan where the backside of the building was going to be renovated and they'd have to create a new bus and drop off Lane is not happening they're actually going to move it upstairs and they're gaining 20,000 square feet at no additional charge by doing that and it also makes it so they can use that if you're familiar with it with the space where the Clack Tower is there is a semicircle drop off so they'll be utilizing that uh for students as the primary and staff as the primary in and out which is great so he was very optimistic about that and everything seems to be running on schedule which is great we had presentation from

078New York State Ed by uh David Frank who's the chief of staff for the commissioner of Ed and Dr Laura glass who's the chief of staff in the Office of Education policy they let us know that they're update they're still moving forward with the graduation measures and the portrait of a graduate and trying to consolidate everything to one diploma option um and they'll be sunsetting assessment requirements and let's see they're going to be doing it in a phase in approach and they're going to be focusing on shareholder feedback um they're also contemp are working on creating a major life events expect uh exemption for Regents it's the language isn't clear yet but it's for situations where we may have a student that is going through something that is difficult for them and it is very

079hard for them to actually take that test at that time so that guidance will also come down from them soon uh they're creating committees for climate education and financial literacy so building curriculum for us to be implementing in the school in effect for the 26 27 school year they are creating a graduate measures communication Network so again for feedback they spoke about regionalization which is ongoing and ster county is a fully is fully participating in that which is wonderful um about 83% of the district Statewide uh agreed to participate not so much on Long Island was what we were told um Dei they spoke a little bit about that and they said every voice in New York state should have a voice at the table meaning small districts large districts including the big five and

080including small districts Like Us in Washington DC um they believe that educational discussions are best left to localities and that they wanted to really reinforce with us which made me feel a sense of release that they are une equiv unequivocably committed in New York state to ensuring the rights and protections of students in New York will not be will not be Abridged by sound bites coming from Washington uh they are saying they will not cut federal funds they may move to block grants which may not serve all students with needs so that's a con something that they're taking into consideration and watching and we may be hearing executive orders coming from the federal government but to remember to not be um held in place by fear of those things and that they may not have

081the full force of the law behind what's being said at the federal level and that's that thank you and you reminded me that you and I appreciate that uh you and uh superintendent uh McLaren went to the eler School Board Association meeting and many of the rest of us I don't know who else was there trusty Goodrich because many of us were here at the music in the schools event and I just want to uh say that the accompany the accompanist who uh played piano for all of the musical groups uh was our own trustee Rick canson and he did a fantastic job and I I will say I just have to say that my granddaughter was super excited to perform and she said you know the most exciting thing about this is who's accompanying

082us was like really like so you were sort of like a rock star yeah I just wanted to say it was so inspiring to see I don't think the district has done this before an event that went fifth grade middle school high school I think it was eight or nine different performing ensembles um and also all the visual art that was in the cafeteria was also just really stunning and um you know I had the best seat in the house right there on the floor and uh I just want to say that I went home that night feeling much better about the world than I have in a long time it was really lifegiving and I'm not exaggerating and so I just want to you know sound a note of appreciation to all the the

083art music and art teachers in this District who really their dedication to the kids really shown through that night who else has bored news we set okay great thanks everybody on to uh Olivia McHugh who will give our student representative report good evening it has been a very busy time for antura in athletics spring Sports have begun just this past Monday and athletes of the month have been announced and posted outside the athletic office in the past week or so the sophomores traveled to the city visit the Anne Frank Exhibit and next week AP Government politics and US History classes will be traveling to Albany to visit the New York state court of appeals other events include the very successful trivia night uh where students and teachers were tested on their knowledge of places within

084the school district Marvel characters and more the Middle School hosted a very exciting 3v3 basketball tournament and on tours music department organized a wonderful Pops concert and art show for the Community member community members and students to enjoy lastly um you may have seen that I have brought the newest edition of the town with me this Edition includes the very first profile of the girls bars wrestling team and that is all thank you thank you Olivia and thanks for bringing us those copies of the Talon that's always great to have all right um on to acknowledging public beheard comments from our last meeting we acknowledge the comments from fedra dager manin yeah uh tany mad um Stephanie Bryant uh Sierra Smith and Pam Parker we have one person signed up for tonight and I'm going

085to just read our uh statement the board appreciates hearing from the public including students on any agenda or non-agenda item please understand that by our adopted parliamentary procedure we uh the board cannot engage in discussion or answer questions during public be heard please know that we hear you and we take all of your comments into consideration the board does reserve the right to correct any in in inaccuracies or misinformation during public be heard please limit your comments to three minutes be civil and do not name any particular individuals or promote any commercial Ventures or products people wishing to express individual student or Personnel concerns may bring them to the superintendent attention in in private fedra good okay it's dagger manin like dagger man and a bottle of Jin if you want to pronounce it it's

086easier to pronounce than it seems but fadra is fine um I actually tonight wanted to thank the trustees for the way you handled the vote in the last meeting about structuring the propositions um I I acknowledged that the single proposition was the outcome that I wanted but that really wasn't what made the discussion matter to me um it was that as I listened to each of you share I realized how many assumptions I'd been making about what you would each say and how much I expected a sort of like Partyline situation and what happened was so much more collaborative and professional than that um and I actually found it really moving and it was a needed reminder for me um to resist the urge to reduce people to my side and the other side agree

087disagree just all of that binary um and it actually made me feel really hopeful I think that we're entering a very distinct next phase of getting a lot of information into the community so that people can make informed voting decisions and there's a lot of information now some of it quite new and many people will need to be caught up from 2012 from two years ago from weeks ago and and many from scratch um I think it's a really big moment for the district and I think it's really important that we all so you trustees you as administrators and those of us in the community um hold ourselves accountable and give this the energy that it deserves more than anything we have to make sure that people are getting accurate information and we know a

088lot of this is going to play out on social media it already is I know people are working on that but it's it's really scary um what can happen there um and accurate information is just so key um but I also think we should really be patient and empathic when emotions run High manage our own feelings stay respectful and remember that we really are one Community thank you thank you fedra any would anybody else like to speak okay great thank you we'll move on item 11.01 um the Board of Education hereby approves the school calendar for the uh 2025 2026 school year as attached may I have a first trusty Mitchell Morell second trusty Rondo any questions or comments all right we'll vote trusty kutson hi trusty Mitchell moral hi trusty Goodrich hi trusty Lynch

089hi trusty Rondo hi all right that's unanimous thank you uh item excuse me item 11.02 be a resolved that the Board of Education of the antora Central School District hereby approves the nomination of Allison Dodd as an atlarge seat on the ster on ster County Bose's board of education for a three-year term beginning July 1 2025 through and including June 30th 20 28 May I have a first trusty Arondo second trusty Goodrich any questions or comments trusty kutson I trusty Mitchell Morell I trusty Goodrich I trusty Lynch I trusty randoo I that's unanimous thank you item 11.03 is ongoing discussion uh regarding the board email responses to uh Court respondents from the public I'll just start off by saying that um trusty Rondo has offered us a draft of a a potential process and I

090know that um uh some you I don't know if you want to address it or if you if you we can we can just you know we've we've read it um and that I know some other trustees had some thoughts about um about it and I'll open the floor to comments trusty Rondo I just want to give the public an outline of what I sent today so we're just trying to decide how we as a board are going to respond when the public emails us so I what I did is I created three lanes that I could recall um one would be if it's a question that the superintendent is more uh it's more appropriate that she answers or if it's a question that's um information that we can provide like a link to a

091policy or presentation and then the third is when it's a email that contains a comment and an opinion so I just drafted some real basic language that we're going to word Smith um and then also giving the parameters of who who is responsible for drafting it in the first place so and now we can go from there TR mro moral I emailed this already to the board but I was thinking U I think it's sort of unclear that when you send or I don't know if it is unclear but someone did ask me about this so maybe it is and that when you send it to the antor board it goes individually to each of us and we all see it and we all read it even if maybe we don't directly respond when we're

092responding through Cindy um or not at all um that we I just wanted was was thinking we could even put that in the email like every single person on the board reads every single email um it goes to our individual inboxes even though it's sort of a because most emails you wouldn't send to one email address and go to seven people it's sort of a special thing so we maybe should mention that yeah that's a great idea I like that and trusty Goodrich so I loved uh trusty Rondo's uh you know s you know suggestion for for what how we do this and again you know just remind everybody so so when the board replies it's it it goes from our board president so um the only issue I had is the 48 hour period

093for the board to review the reply and um I don't know if we need to clarify this so my issue I guess the worst case example is uh let's say I get an email on Friday at 3:30 or 4 4 pm but I already reviewed all my emails for the board at 3:30 and I don't plan on looking at my emails until Monday morning at the earliest right so if if the email goes out for review on 4 and it's 48 Hours of review time I guess if there's four uh four approvals uh the board president could send out the reply so I was wonder if we could change the wording to say uh 48 hour period not including weekends and national holidays that was my suggestion another way to say sorry another way to

094say that would be like two to four business days so I couldn't hear two business days instead of so to I didn't hear what you said um I was thinking another way to say that would be two business days or two to three business days just to give us some flexibility is everybody okay with that two to three business days all right I mean the I I think that in a situation that feels more emergent than that maybe uh you know we would um just going to say that in the past when we've received an email that felt like it needed to be responded to immediately um I have texted all of you and said please check your email you know and and in a case like that would it would would that be okay

095for me to expect that yeah you know if the main email is mostly to point a link to some other document as already on the onor website I yeah I mean that's going to get approved anyway right because all that information is already available but if you have a long email um with new information uh then I think it needs to go through a more rigorous process of approval okay trusty Lynch thank you and thanks again to trusty Rondo for drafting this um protocol I just I just think in today's um Community uh forums so to speak or on social media things are quite quick and the lack of a response or a vacuum of information creates unnecessary uh misinformation sometimes and so I think about that a lot and I also think about perception

096um to your point um um trusty Mitchell Morel that um I've often been and um you know people have come up to me and just said like to your point like do you even read this or is anybody going to respond I mean we've all been writing to you no one's responding that kind of a thing and I just think this uh board has come so far in um bringing more communication to the you know to to issue of transparency has been something we've talked about for many years um there was one time that um that uh an email actually came to me personally and I responded and copied the board saying please use this chain of command and there was a huge response from the board at that time saying that that was not

097okay so I think we need to just remember those moments because obviously it's not going to always be these same seven people sitting here and while I highly appreciate what you're saying trusty good rich I think we need to create protocols that endure um and so I'd like to reconsider and ask that we do respond with in a timely manner I don't I do think things happen over the weekends that we need to respond to and so whatever that means to you trusty Bishop I I'm happy with the you know broad speaking two two to three business days but I do think there's got to be a caveat that we need to respond in a timely manner when it when it deserves to be responded to I I feel strongly about that too um you

098know I I just want to say that uh over the course of the last four weeks or so three or four weeks um we have received a tremendous number uh for us we have received a tremendous number of emails from the community and we did not respond uh appropriately we I think we were a little um surprised by by that Outreach and didn't quite know how to respond uh to individual emails and um superintendent McLaren did uh respond to the emails that were asking questions and and she had and she you know had some very good conversations with people via email uh responding back and forth to to their questions um we did not respond um in in a timely manner and we still have not responded to the emails that were just um really

099speaking to us about opinions so um I personally want to apologize for that and and honestly that's why we're having this conversation right now because we we just didn't really know how to proceed with those responses in in an appropriate way and I think we have a you know a a good path forward here um I would say oh actually I'll pause because I see a hand up over here oh no no go ahead you go I was just going to say I just changed the wording to it um for each lane of response is this should be done I mean I did say this should be done as promptly as possible ideally within two to three business days or less so I think that covers what we're trying to do but it also holds

100us to a standard if it is a long weekend or something like that where we're not feeling this overwhelm our guilt um if we can't get to it right away but we always try to and and just to be clear um I I mean I can maybe think of a handful of times when I have reached out to all of you by text and said you know please check your email um I do the same thing with the superintendent out or and if I if I don't catch it first she does the same thing to me so um you know we are we do I mean I feel like I probably check too much and uh I'm sure she does too but you know we do we do check often uh several times a day

101usually um so trusty Mitchell morel so the protocol would say if you were on vacation which you're allowed to do um Meg would then do the send the kind of form email to us the vice president so if you were on vacation would I send an a a a text to you is that what you mean when when I'm on vacation would would Megan or the vice president take over that sure yeah yeah we could absolutely do that that's a great idea I'll put it in the language now right now yes thanks for that thank you trusty canson yeah I'm wondering if it might in terms of just um informing the public about what they can expect in in in terms of a response if it would be possible to generate an autor response that

102said you know um thank you for emailing us we're going to going to try to get back to you within two business days and include uh truste Mr morel's language about so you know it when you know it goes to every trustee it is read and you know and we could even if we wanted to make it lengthy we could say here's what to expect if if it's the if if you ask something of the of the superintendent you you know if you ask if it's a request for information we'll try to give you the information and if it's if you shared your opinion thank you for your opinion you know good idea I like that what else what are we forgetting trusty goodr yeah I I also want to apologize because I'm probably one

103of the ones that didn't always check my email like I turn around and go geez it's been three days since I checked my email so so I'm at fault with that um I think um I'd like to I I don't want to make make a final decision on the on the what on the the process tonight even though I mean this isn't something we have to vote on it's more or less something that we will will agree on but um I want to wait for uh trusty Jerome who always has really great ideas in terms of um communication and correspondence so I'd like her to be able to weigh in on this too so maybe we'll bring um a draft an updated draft back to the next meeting and and have an another quick conversation

104about it and maybe we can move forward with the plan okay great thanks everybody we have a break built in do we need a break okay power through all right okay so um the board hereby approves items number 13.02 through 13 um 11 May I have a first trusty Rondo second trusty Mitchell Morell any questions or comments trusty Rondo I have reviewed schedule you and everything appears to be in order great thank you so much we shall vote trusty kutson I trusty Mitchell Morell I trusty Goodrich hi trusty Lynch hi trusty Rondo hi that's unanimous thank you item 14.01 um is approval of contracts and independent contract retainers the Board of Education hereby approves items number 14.02 through 14 18.03 may I have a first trusty goodr second trusty kutson any questions or comments trusty

105kutson I trusty MIT Morel I trusty Goodrich hi trusty Lynch hi trusty Rondo I that's unanimous thank you item 15.01 is a first reading of policy 3435 culture climate and belonging we don't need to vote uh we'll vote at the next meeting on that and on to wow we're moving fast now uh on to our committee reports audit committee Communications committee facilities committee uh legislative action committee and policy committee any reports trusty Lynch yep the communications committee did meet briefly just to review uh uh items for the the newsletter the monthly newsletter so as soon as we have a draft we will send that to you um but um beyond that as superintendent said um our communications director was and jury duty so we are eager to connect again and create a robust opportunity to

106communicate these massive um decisions that need to be taken by each voter in May great thank you yes it's an exciting time trusty Goodrich so uh this is my first uh District safety uh team meeting that we had on uh May 11th here so the agenda talked about we they introduced the new SRO for Woodstock Elementary whose name I did not write down Corey hock okay and uh so he got up and introduced himself um so our other uh agenda items we um we talked about parent re reunification so if there is a an event at the school they call it you know reunification of the uh students with the parent so we talked a little bit about that but the other more interesting thing I think for everybody here is uh we talked about

107the possibility of next year having um not just staff ID badges but also student ID badges and uh so that's I guess that would be something we'll have to talk about in the future we talked about you know the pros and cons of that and U the enforcement I guess of of that is one of the biggest issues on how do we encourage the students to carry the ID badges uh we talked about car parking passes and you know locked doors and uh you know the increased supervision of the students and uh more more staff awareness of who is in the building so obviously the ID badges is a big part of that um talked a little bit about the vestibule uh Monica talked about the capital work being done for the U middle school

108high school vestle and uh if anybody doesn't know what the blue lights are cuz I didn't know what they were so if there is a a lockdown there's blue lights that go off on the outside of the buildings and uh that's pretty much it so thank you great thanks thank you for that report oh yes trusty Rondo health and wellness met today to go over meet greet and eat information so it's still on schedule for April 7th in the high school cafeteria 5:30 to 7:30 we have 11 restaurants participating including some of our students from bosis awesome there's Joey go Joey um we have raised $4,750 to date from our sponsors which is amazing we have wonderful silent auction items and we really hope that you will join us for the event yes it was

109a fabulous event last year this year it's going to be even better so please come out join us anything else any other committee information all right on to Old business um under old business we'll do a a brief uh review of our chapter three in the governance core 2.0 chapter three was the governance mindset in action I will confess that I read this about huh three weeks or maybe three or four weeks ago and I uh was not at home today I was on Babys suiting babysitting Duty and I forgot to take the book with me to review it so um not the most diligent student in the bunch uh trusty Mitchell Morell um okay I mean I'll just talk about a few things I highlighted I love reading um first of all I thought

110it was interesting how postco really social emotional learning became more of a high highlight for schools and there was this thing that says kindness came out so strong now it's one of our core values we wouldn't have seen that in 2019 so just how it really changed the culture of the the country basically um I also loved this quote about democracy that I can now read aloud governance is about democracy democracy is under threat in this country I think the Schoolboard structure within the system called democracy is more vital than ever I think it's really important that superintendent and board meetings care about the role of schools as an institution holding up democracy it is really an important context and there was one more thing I really liked I'm not sure but maybe I'll come

111back to me if people want to say stuff oh yes I remember uh we had talked about this before um beginning our board meetings with our like um mission statement was it they talked about that in this chapter I don't remember where we landed on that but I love that they brought that up it just says uh we begin every board meeting with our vision and core values I think we discussed it when we were discussing you know another chapter in the book and um and we said we should do that and I think we really should do that I'm wondering if our board clerk could make a note that um that we could actually add our mission and vision statement um like just to the top of the the agenda and so it becomes

112a part of you know every meeting yeah great who else has a comment about chapter three TR trusty canson yeah I liked how it um emphasize deep learning as an important role for trustees that we we should always be learning about the things that we're um making policy about and the other thing that I thought was interesting um an apparent contradiction to me the first time I read it but the the chapter talks about joint mindset between superintendent and board and um I just want to talk about that a little bit because I think that could be misinterpreted I think as you know everybody has to think the same way about everything and I don't think that's what it means um you know I think the best collaborations that I've had in my life are

113when there's a sort of level of respect and communication where you can ask tough questions of each other and um it doesn't mean that everybody has to conform to you know this uh group think um and so um and I think we're doing well in that regard on this board that we have a lot of respect and we are asking questions of each other but um I don't know I just found that found that when I the first time I read that phrase it it I said well joint mindset does that mean you know we all have one big brain and we we obviously don't and we and and if we're engaging in deep learning then we all are doing that in different areas and at different paces and we can all bring different things

114to the discussions and we should thank you thank you trist Rondo so I appreciated that they highlighted two different school districts as as uh templates and guide guiding lights for um this disc discussion and at the Vista Unified they spoke to a 20th century approach to teaching and what I really appreciated in the statement here was that 21st century is not high stakes tests it's about how we Inspire kids to want to be drivers of their own education and that's a pretty big mindset shift and I really believe it and you you see us push up against it less and less as we are evolving as human beings and as collaborative um staff and students and school board and and um administrators so I'm I'm just excited for the future I think it's really bright

115even when it doesn't always feel that way um I also highlighted that section with the quote about democracy it was the only thing I highlighted in that chapter um and I I really resonated with me as well um I think also um there were a couple of key points throughout the chapter um building and maintaining trust trust between board members the superintendent and the community being essential transparency communication and mutual respect being key elements in fostering trust and I think this board has done so much work to build that trust with the community um and I really really appreciate it and as uh our one public beard speaker said the discussions that um have been happening at the board table are just really they are transparent and it is based in trust and respect which

116I think is just really incredible and creat such a wonderful Dynamic working team and I'm just so impressed thank you trusty Mitchell Morell literally the biggest book club person um so oh yeah I just also love thinking uh they this sentence if we want trustees to be evidence-based decision makers then the superintendence has to provide evidence I Love Thinking of You Victoria as an Evidence provider it kind of makes you sound a little more like a detective than usual and it's just a fun way to think about your job and helpful to us as well I uh I also really liked the uh the the way that they highlight highed they Ed two school districts as examples and um one thing that I underlined uh that I really loved was the in the Anaheim Union

117High uh High School District uh they talked about how um they've really deliberately went beyond the silo of standardized tests and uh their and their focus on the five C's which was collaboration creativity critical thinking communication and and compassion and that you know they're really really focusing on the the the depth of those Pursuits and I think that is uh really remarkable and I think that's growing really thoughtful uh good future citizens you know future adults and I'm very hopeful about that too anything else on our chapter three so oh trust next week are we reading four and five or just four I heard a rumor that we were going to read chapters four and five for the next meeting just because chapter four is really short trusty kudon do you want to expand on

118that no I was afraid that we were doing four tonight because it's about onboarding new trustees and I'm the new trustee and I hadn't read it so but then I looked at it I thought oh I could read this really quickly because it's only about six or seven pages so I think we could cover more than six or seven pages in one meeting so so yeah I would I would like to cover both is everybody okay with that okay great super any other old business any new business any requests for information oh trusty Lynch I just I I just want to raise maybe for the comment about that that's already been alluded to several times about our responsibility to communicate um before the vote and I just wanted to um request um both of the

119communications Committee of which I sit but also from the superintendent that um you know that we have a coordinated effort um around that and um and that we uh make it really clear I think you know the communications committee has already and all of us have fed into the District Clerk's calendar for example of upcoming events the communications committee shared that with the communications director obviously as we said she's already putting a lot of great ideas to paper that have been um utilized in other districts facing a similar Capital project so all of that will be I know it's the intention is there I guess my request is that we just have a really coordinated effort whatever that looks like whatever feasible um including students including staff uh I think they may be actually our

120best ambassadors um and uh and that we all think then about how we can contribute in our role as board members excellent suggestions trusty canson I wanted to request that um I I know you're doing um Woodstock seniors tomorrow right um could you share with the board when you schedule those things the because we yeah we didn't like where and when like I found out about the Phoenicia thing through other means and I was happy to come but uh it would be great if the all you know because trustees would like to come to these things if we're available yeah I I think it would be great if um each time uh like a potential event comes up um if you maybe if the board clerk sends that uh information to the entire board and

121we can sort of sign on uh sort of like we do with uler Schoolboard Association or other other meetings that we attend just so that we all know even you know who's who's going to be showing up trusty Rondo um in response to truste Lynch I want you to know I did speak to our board uh student rep Olivia to see this evening before the meeting started just to see when we might perhaps be able to speak at get a student government meeting with and I was trying to figure out when they have their combined with the middle school and the high school so we could kind of do two birds with one stone and if not we'll go to separate um so she's going to try to do a little bit of a a

122a dive there to figure out when we could come and present um you know our presentation that we're giving to everyone else so I'll keep you posted or she will I'm wondering uh I was thinking about this on the way here tonight um the the presentation that we used or that you you actually you and Monica used and uh truste Canon and I mostly listened uh with the audience um if uh if that's going to be posted I it may already be up on the website I don't know but if if we could add that to the website and also give a print copy to each trustee and and email it to each trustee so that we can share it at will you know with uh with our friends and our community members uh our

123director of technology did post it and then we were making changes today so I don't know if he's gotten the actual final final copy to post but uh the presentation that we did um last week uh was posted and he very kindly shifted the order on the website so the community presentation is here and then our presentations were in reversed chronological order now instead of having people having to scroll down to see the most recent so now the most recent things are at the top um and then we were going to we will record our um voiceover of that presentation again and we'll post that on the website as well and then I was going to include that in a smore um email to all of our faculty and staff so that they could have

124that um and hear the instead of just sending them the presentation they could hear our um words over it excellent great idea Jesse goodr Yeah I would suggest uh holding off on the presentation until you also have the the video you know trying to do it at the same time any other topics to discuss did I already ask for request for information okay thought I did all right uh may I have a motion to adjourn trusty Lynch second trustee uh goodr all in favor unanimous we will see you at the April 1st meeting at the Woodstock Elementary School e