001I'd like to call to order the Monday, February 9th, Board of Education business meeting to order at 6:01 p.m. Would everybody please stand for the pledge to the flag of the United States of America and to the stands nation and justice for all. Roll call. Jonathan >> Here we go. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Uh the exits are to your right and to your left and behind us to our right. Uh may I please get a motion to approve the agenda as presented or amended at this meeting? Mike, Patty, any discussion? All in favor? I motion passes 70 subject 3.1 minutes of January 12th, 2026 meeting. May I please get a motion to accept the minutes of the January 12th, 2026 business meeting as presented? Kevin Mike. Any discussion? All in favor? I. Motion passes
002seven to zero. Um statements and presentations uh to the board. I'd like to take a moment of silence and uh just for Kelly Cal, our former trustee and deputy mayor. So, if everybody would please pause for a moment of silence, that would be appreciated. >> Okay, thank you very much. It's a big loss for the the community of Greenwood Lake this past week. Uh I will be handing over to Superintendent Hannah. >> Good evening. Um I wanted to start just by following up. You got you um all asked a question last night. I'm sorry, last month about the dis related to the discipline presentation and you asked um what was the kind of the average number of referrals students got and so I wanted to bring that and I told you I would come back
003to you with that this month so I wanted to bring that back to you. Um so up here Miss Melo Ramos did add a slide that talks about the number of incidents per student and number of students. So we do have one student that has had 12 office referrals. Um but you will see that the great majority 33 students had have had only one office referral this year. So um and then same down here one person has had eight referrals. And so obviously these are students that we're working with that have might have um behavior plans or might have some specialized needs that we're working with them targeting them supporting teachers and supporting students through that. Um but this is the graph of the information that you all wanted to just touch base publicly about
004uh UPK. We do have universal prek that is located at our elementary school. We currently have two classes. There are two classes of 18 students. We do have opened kind of the uh the survey to see who's interested in potentially applying and attending this fall 2026. And we already have 28 students signed up to try and attend. So, uh, we did send postcards out, we sent out flyers, and we've advertised on Facebook, we've put on the website. So, we do have 28. We do expect, uh, that number to go up slightly. The deadline is soon, though, because we will be doing the lottery for the class. Um, also related to UPK, uh, I did send out a letter to our families, but I wanted to update the public and the board as well. We did
005receive a parent concern about our playground, our elementary school being not appropriate for four-year-olds. Because of that complaint, I asked for a health and safety evaluation by professionals at Boseies who came out. A team of three people came out. They measured the height of the equipment, the types of equipment that we had, and they compared it to the rules, and they did find that our playground is specifically designed for ages five and up. From there, we explored multiple options, including the potential of having parents sign a waiver to allow their children. We spoke with both the insurance company and legal counsel um and ultimately decided that that was not a recommended avenue to pursue. So I had to make the difficult decision to close the playground to our universal prek students. Um right now snow
006has prohibited student use of the playground for all students down there anyway. It's been I believe since Christmas break they may have had one or two days to play on the playground but because of the snow buildup um there's no way to clean it off. So, we're having to close the playground to UPK. They do still have the black top uh to play with on every day. We had a playground vendor come in to look at some different areas of our school and to look at potentially adequate adding equipment for a UPK playground. The area we're looking at is in the grassy area in the back of the school. I am waiting on the quote from them. We met with them about a week and a half ago and I should have the quote this
007week. In order to help pay for that, we are looking to use some budgetary funds, but I have also requested assistance from Senator Scoop. As we all know, Senator Scufus is a huge advocate for UPK and uh he has indicated that he would support us to a certain extent uh with money for UPK because we have two classes and are only allocated for one. So, we're already doing above and beyond what is being asked of us. So, I do have a commitment from him for a certain amount and I'm asking for a little bit extra to really pay for the majority of this playground. So, once I get that quote back from the playground vendor, I will then hand that number over to Senator Sugus and see how much of it they can fund. So,
008that that's what I'm hoping for. The timeline for that, we are looking to do this as soon as possible. If it's possible, get it all the state, the playground vendor, the money, the funds, and the submissions to the state and everything by spring break. I'd love to do it over spring break. If not, we will be looking at summer. So, I am going to move this as long as quick as quickly as possible. That is my intention. Um, I have received two parent emails with concerns about this. One just had a couple of questions. I was able to answer her. Uh, the other parent I am meeting with later this week. Are there any questions about the UPK playground or the timeline on that or steps that I've taken? >> Is that rendering the actual
009one? >> This actually is the one that we're thinking of getting. Yes, this one's on sale for about 40% off and so I believe it's because it's a discontinued playground. Um, and I said that's fine by us because it'll still be new to us and if they're looking to get it out of their warehouse, we'll take it. So that might actually help them speed up the process as well. So, we were very excited to find one on sale that really had everything that we wanted to look for. It has climbing things. It has jumping. It has covered areas. It has climbing. Um, all sort all the different zones that you would want a four three and four-year-old to have. >> Thank you. >> Okay. At this time, we have a transportation presentation. uh transportation supervisor
010Ron Mackey is going to speak to us about bus fleet electrification and the state mandate for that as well as just uh addition updated information about stopar cameras. Good evening and thank you for the opportunity to discuss everyone's favorite topic. We're going to talk a little bit tonight about our bus electrification plan. Give an update on the EV mandate. So, as you know, in April of 2022, Governor Hokll enacted the state budget that included a law requiring that no later than July 1st, 2027, every district shall only purchase or lease zero emission buses. And that no later than July 1st, 2035, all district owned buses will be electric and all contractors providing transportation services to a school district will only use electric buses for the contract. So nothing has really changed about this law. We
011like to talk about um what we what we've done towards meeting this mandate. We did contract with CPL architect to have a fleet of electrification plan completed and out of 101 districts in the Hudson Valley region. Uh five have completed this step. So our plan was completed in 2024. It was basically an assessment of our current situation and uh they found out that 100% of our existing routes at the time were labeled as feasible for EV buses and they found that the current transportation office and the bus lot were not feasible and they suggested relocating transportation operations and bus storage to a green location. We also noted that electrical upgrades would be needed to both the bridge and to the site on both the utility side and the customer side and that the sewer line
012would need to be um re rerouted relocated. So, with the new bus lot uh looking to be built next to Lakes Drive, uh they um Lakes Road rather approximate cost. Back in 2024, they estimated $2 to $3 million depending on whether we uh elected to have battery electric storage put on site. Uh so that does not include any bus purchases. It uh one of the first things that we need to consider is that it would split operations in the department into two locations. that uh that presents some challenges to us mainly with the buses being located at the DVW location for prevented maintenance repair. Uh we have to have our mechanics driving back and forth to retrieve buses. They have 10 buses a day. Secondly, we have to also consider the aesthetics of the aesthetic
013impact on the middle school campus. >> Obviously, Mr. Mackey and I have discussed this and the facilities committee have discussed this that obviously this plan while we understand it is the kind of the best option that is out there for our district. This is not an ideal plan for us. We we don't like it for for lack of better it's definitely not an ideal plan for a multitude of reasons. Um but this is should we have to do it this is kind of the best option that we have right now. There's just not any other property available in the con the boundaries of Greenwood Lake. So, there is a a waiver for the electric vehicles. School districts may apply for up to two-year extensions to wave these requirements. The extension waivers do not impact the
014statutory deadline for all fleets to be fully converted by July 1st, 2035. folks that believe that this will change in time. We hope so too. Um, school districts are strongly encouraged to continue making positive progress towards fleet transition regardless of whether an extension is needed at any time. Continued effort in sustained progress towards fleet conversion will be necessary to demonstrate a districts uh wish to be granted second. So is not going to just issue waiverss to districts that have not worked. >> We have completed our >> So the waiver c the waiver application includes a number of categories as potential factors for which a waiver might be granted and you can see them listed there. a defeated border proposition. Uh funding denial, uh lead electrification plan that um indicates that routes could not be electrified.
015Uh utility upgrades being required. Um the electric buser equipment supply chain delays, bus go out lease limitations, new bus bars being required, bus contracted limitations for those that use contracted operations, oper operational changes, and some other factors as well. So we believe at this point the best option is to apply for a waiver noting that the most significant factor is utility upgrades on both utility and customer side that will be required. So even so even though the deadline of 2035 is still what it is and we realize that and it has not changed to date. We hope that it's going to change. We've been told that it's likely to change, but it has not definitely has not definitely changed. We still think at this time that applying for the waiver would be the right thing
016to do for us to give us more time to think about what this looks like to see what other districts are doing or if there's any other options for us, etc. Um but again delaying this two years if the 2035 deadline doesn't change we we still have to have all our buses replaced in less time then which is additional funding out now again just to get this property ready would be2 to3 million itself. So that would have to capital project. So we could do that in the next two years and see if it if it goes up and if the capital if the >> that number from 2021 >> correct >> if they vote it down um then we would have another reason to extend apply for another waiver but again the deadline is still
017there as of right now. So we'll see but it is our recommendation at this time to apply for the waiver and to buy us two years. So I would like some guidance from the board on whether or direction should you think we should go. The facilities committee if you wanted to speak first because you guys have really talked about this and gone into depth about this and Mike I know they're talking about this at Oxa a lot. It's a it's a big thing. We had a meeting with a lot of legislators uh last month. Um all local legislators from the assembly and from um there's not a member of the legislator on board this. So they're really trying to push the governor to either lengthen the runway timeline or come up with another solution. Um
018it's just unable to escape. It's just it's a lot of money that I said this is not even buses which themselves cost and you can't get the buses either. Even if we had the money to get the buses, you can't get the buses. They're not available. So, it's a they really need to go to this. So, honestly, um I think it'd be in our best interest to see how >> to see how to see how things play out. said they can't give us the power. >> So, we have it uh in writing in our fleet electrification plan that the grid currently does not meet the needs and it would be a full operating um and that and that was after consultation with Yes. So, do we have a do we have a letter in writing
019from ONR specifically? No, but we have an email that from them saying it's likely that it's not ready. here's where you go to start asking us to get your site ready. And so there there's paperwork that you need to do. But in the fleet electrification plan that CPL did for us, our uh architect and engineer from engineering firm, they did communicate with ONR and have it we have it in writing in our flight in our fleet planification plan report that the grid is not ready. All right. So, we will move forward with applying for the waiver. Um, the original due date was March 1st, but I believe they've now moved that closer to the end of the year. So, we will get that submitted within that within the proper time frame. >> They have not
020given out ramifications, >> right? all together. There's a lot of >> Yeah, there's a lot of that. They can't stone. >> So that they can't what they can do is withhold state aid. Um and that's something that a that a district would have to decide is it worth losing state aid and and what are you losing state aid on? Is it all state aid that you would lose? Is it just on transportation? You know what? What exact that that's the question is exactly what is the penalty if we don't do it >> and cost some $3 million on >> correct >> and what $10 million >> right I could do an awful lot of instructional things in our building for $3 million >> and included buses >> correct >> how many it's ridiculous how buses
021do we currently have in our fleet? >> We currently have 26 vehicles in the fleet. 18 buses, four Taipei vans and we're looking at like an $18 million. That's a ballpark and it's going to be more than that because time goes on especially buses. I I am much more in favor of an incentive based incentivize districts to move towardation. >> I think that would be a better avenue to go. >> I'm not in charge. >> One more question on that. >> Yes. >> I know we've discussed this in the past, but are there I know you said only five districts out of 101 went through the survey, but are there any districts that have already moved to full electric buses? Yes, there are some. Well, not fully electric, but there are districts in depending that
022do have electric buses. >> Are they six full size six passenger or are they mids? >> I'll say operators as opposed to districts because some of them are private. >> Do you know what districts they are? >> I know that. >> So, Middletown has some. I believe Doian has one. Um, >> some districts already get incentivized, >> but these are districts and companies that have a few. No one has gone fully yet. We're on the road. They have 10 more remotes that we're not. So, >> well, that that's exactly it. the a lot of at the a lot of the presentations they say, "Well, we have this money available and you can apply for this grant. You can apply for this grant." Then when you get to the fine >> fine language of at the
023the small what's the >> the funding opportunities do present more for what's called for district >> when you get to the fine print. We don't qualify. >> We're not as high. >> Okay. So we will we will submit the waiver. Um, stop arm camera initiative is something that went into place for us last May and so I asked Ron to just do a quick update. We have we had an up updates from Orange County on the numbers and we also got a report at the end of December specific to Greenwood Lake with our numbers so far. So I just thought that that might be interesting to you to see what the data is and just a little bit of a review of what the star stop camera initiative is. So Ron >> Yeah. So the
024buses uh are equipped with seven exterior cameras. I like >> gas technology and uh using this uh technology together they're able to uh identify who is passing the buses when this op arm is deployed and the reds are on and based on that information violations are issued by the system and they have been shown to discourage motorists from passing the school bus which could result in a student being injured or killed. This is at no cost to the district. And then we have some information from the countywide data. Uh for Orange County, the program participation, currently 14 out of 18 districts are participating. And for September 24th to August 25th, almost 20,000 tickets were issued. 19,776. Almost 20,000 tickets were issued, averaging 1,648 tickets a month. For the year of September 25 to December 25,
025they're averaging almost 2,000 tickets a month with a projection of 24,000 for the year. Now, just to add to that, our New York association estimated that about 40 to 50,000 passings a year. So, we're looking at 24,000 just here in Orange County. You can see how big a problem this is. uh ticket fines and revenues. So, the first violation for uh one of these uh violations is $250. The second one goes up by 25 to 275 and the third violation goes up to 300. So, this revenue, not all of it goes to the county, the company that put the uh cameras in place and did the installations, bus patrol, they uh they do this at no cost to the district, but they do rec recoup some of their funds. uh uh for the equipment and
026the the herbs that they provide, uh there is money that goes to the county as well. And while no revenue directly goes to the districts, the county has committed to reinvesting a portion of the revenue back to the benefit of school districts. So if you notice in the third uh box, you'll see a couple of the projects that have occurred here, the antenna project and the CRG mapping software. And I will say that County Executive New House has done a wonderful job really supporting the districts, asking us what we need. We have quarterly meetings with the emergency services staff where they ask us what what do we see that we need next? What do we need alignment from in the districts? Because every district has its own financial needs, an amount of money, what programs
027they can afford, etc. So when we look at at security and safety and the county comes to us and says comes to us and says it would be really helpful if everyone did this well the answer is if we all do it individually you're probably not going to get the same thing but if you as a county pay for it then it would be more universal. So that's the idea like the CRG mapping software that we're going to be getting company coming in and doing our security maps the county is using the stop arm camera money to fund that and we will all have the exact same maps. So if there is an emergency at a school district, no matter who responds, all the maps will be laid out the same, the colors will be
028the same, the markings will be the same, anybody can come in, find the exits, they'll be or oriented on the map the same way, etc. Um, which will help with emergency response. So I really appreciate that county executive new house has taken our feedback and is absolutely committed to reinvesting in schools and is constantly asking us, okay, now what next do you need? What next do you need? Okay, so bus patrol is able to provide us with some really helpful statistics. So locally, these are some of our statistics here. You'll see that um the report says that it's from January 1st, 2025 through December 31st, 2025. But it's important to remember that we just went live with this program in May. So these numbers don't represent January to December. They represent May to December. So
029there have been uh 63 approved violations, 36 disapproved of disapproved violations and 99 tickets uh reviewed total through that time period. Uh all of these violations are actually reviewed by county employees and out of the 36 there were 25 where the vehicle was unable to stop in time and 11 noted as improper activation of the stopws on Windmir Avenue on 17A uh Lakes Road in Monroe and this is a map that they provided with So you'll see some bigger circles on here that show where the violations are more frequent and smaller circles where there have been violations but not as frequent. Uh this is consistent with the violation locations that our drivers have reported prior to the stop arm camera being implemented. So you know we're used to in the past before the violations were
030only issued when an officer was able to witness it. Uh, so we would make attempts to get the license plate and call the police and by that time the driver was in New Jersey or Monroe and all they could really do if we got someone was, you know, follow up with them and press upon the importance of uh not passing. So, in closing, I'd like to thank you for your time this evening and your support throughout the year. I also just want to take a moment to thank all the folks in my transportation department. And I would be remiss if I didn't take this opportunity to shamelessly plug that we're looking for substitute bus drivers. >> So if you know of anyone that might be interested, send them my way. >> Are there any questions
031at all or anything discussed before? >> Thank you very much. very >> we do have a second presentation this evening. We have our budget presentation number two planning presentation. We have our business official Scott Sullivan. This is his first official board meeting presenting. >> Yes, good evening. >> Uh and we have assistant superintendent Amy Petrazi. And between uh the two of them and myself, we will present the information on budget, tax compliance, enrollment, and staffing. >> Yeah. So, I'm going to start with just going over some projected revenue items for next year. Um the two main areas we're looking at are state aid projections and property taxes. This first slide I have is just a comparative analysis of what we received a few weeks ago. Uh the executive budget for 2627. Uh that's a preliminary
032kind of projection for our aid for next year versus where we ended up last year, our enacted legislative budget at the end of the spring. Uh these numbers show um at general age are project to go up about 2.82%. Uh this is likely to change by the end of the spring though as the legislator comes out typically there's a change between executive and legislative during the spring. Um but over the last five years typically we average around 3% increase for all of these a together. Uh one line item specific at the top universal prek there's a $200,000 that's kind of like a broad projection that the state gave based off of our actual UPK pupils that were served in 425 multiplied by an increase or projected increase. We're going to get $10,000 per pupil up
033from 5,400 the prior year. Um also that is we are it has been noted that we will be receiving state aid for all four year olds we serve in 26 27. So again this is one line item that's typically likely to be a little bit higher than what's shown on this projection. So what that means for us is that right now we we are serving 36 students. We are getting aid on 20 students. So our allocation from the state for the last two years, three years has been 20 students at $5,400. Effective next year it is $10,000 per student and there's no limit. So however many students we serve is how much money we is how much money we will get. So that $200,000 if we have two classes of 18 that would be 36.
034So that would be $360,000 in state aid specific to UPK that we can use to pay for UPK program. So that's really exciting for us for a district like us where we are so committed to prek that we provide transportation, we provide food services availability to them, and we have a whole extra class that we that we use budgetary money for. um that's nearly unheard of in the UPK world for a district that's that committed. And so now we will see some re additional revenue because of that. So we were very excited to hear that news and even double checked Scott double checked with his people at his in in his organizations and I checked with the people in my organizations to make sure that we heard that correctly and indeed we did. So we're
035excited about that. >> I I have a question regarding that those funds. Can that be used for anything for a UPK or is there only programming? Can we use it to pay for the playground? >> Playground. So um >> if depending upon how much >> So it's not c it's not I don't believe it can be turned into capital money can >> for a project for a project. >> So to do a playground that cap has to come out of capital funds >> but you could use that for more staffing. Yeah, it would be I mean salaries, uh purchase services, u materials and supplies, things of that nature. >> Okay. >> But I like the way you're thinking. >> Okay. >> Um Okay. So, that's state aid. Uh the next piece we need to talk
036about is the real property tax levy limit. Um this is something that gets presented every year this time of year or the first summer. Uh just to review what the tax levy limit is. Um the state restricts the amount we can increase poverty taxes by the lower of 2% or the rate of inflation. Um plus a local tax based growth factor. So the 2% and then our tax based growth factor which 2627 is 1.0011. Those two together we can increase the tax levy cap by 2.11%. Um, in addition, there's also potential additions to tax levy cap on top of that uh for prior year carryover and capital exclusions. I'll describe a little bit of that in the next slide. Um, school boards, citizens, and the OSC play important roles. Uh, us as a district, we
037must prepare these calculations and submit to the OSC at the end of this month. And there's also a tax cap compliance form that we need to submit um that that says we plan to stay under the levy limit. If for some reason uh it's determined we need to go over that levy limit, we need 60% voter approval to do so. This is a summary of our property tax levy limit for for 2627. Um the first line it takes the prior year's tax levy adds in an increase due to inflation and the growth factors that's at 2.11% gets you to a tax levy limit prior to exclusions. Then we can add on top of that any available carryover from the prior year. So since we did not levy to the caps the cap last year um
038this amount is the difference between the cap and the actual levy. And then also we can add in a capital tax levy exclusion. Uh this is this is the net amount of local capital expenditures. Think of things like bus purchases or debt payments. Total that up and and offset that number by any state aid or use of reserves that we have and that's the resulting balance right there. You can add that on top and it gets you to your maximum allowable tax levity limit. Uh that's 4.87%. 87% uh for 2627. This is going to be on the this is on the agenda tonight to approve this so I can get this submitted to OSU by the end of the month. >> So just to be very clear for anyone that's um in the audience watching
039or for anyone new to the board. This does not mean that this is what we're going out to the public to vote on. This is not a percent. This is just what we're allowed to limit to and then we work in the next few months to make a decision about what we want to go out to the voters with for the budget in May. So, this just tells us what's the highest we can go to and just use a 50% approval rate. >> That's correct, J. >> Uh, I think that's up for me. I'll pass it off to Amy. She's going to go over the enrollment and staffing update. Thank you. >> Thanks, Scott. >> So, in district enrollment, uh, because we're a KA district, we look at it a few different ways. Uh this
040first slide talks about how our enrollment just pre-K through 8th grade. So what what students do we serve directly within our district? Our current enrollment is 407 students and that is preK through 8th grade. PreK started in 22 23 I'm sorry 23 24. So that's why you see a little bit of a bump there. We added a grade. Um but it has been steadily declining since then. for each grade level. We have students that we serve in district in our classrooms. We have students that are special education that could be out of district in a separate location or may be homebound because of specific medical behavioral um needs that where they cannot be served in district. There are 22 students that serve out of district. We do have families that opt for private school. There
041are 14 of those students. We have 11 total students that are homeschooled. This is that doesn't mean 11 different families. It's just 11 students. So there's a family that has four students that that could just be one family. And then we have a total per grade level. We do have again like I said 36 students in our UPK classroom in our UPK that we're serving this year. Um and so our total number of K8 students that we are responsible for overseeing their education is 452. Also I do want to note that in our K pre pre sorry our prek through 8th grade students 95% choose to enroll in grade school for high school. The enrollment in public high school is 92% of our students. We have 209 students at Warwick. We have 25 students at
042Chester. We have 11 students that are public high school students but that are served out of district at a for special education or homebound instruction. We have four an increase in private school enrollment at the high school level. We have 14 students and then we have seven students that are homeschooled. That is for a total of 266 students at the high school level. I do want to note that for homeschooling students, those students we are responsible for. So if a family chooses to homeschool at the high school level, we monitor their education, not the high schools. So total in district resident students that we are responsible for their education, we have 719. >> Hi, good evening. uh our English language learners. Uh this slide or this graph I've been showing over the past few years
043um represents from the 1920 school year and projecting into the 2627 school year. Uh currently we have nine students in district that uh we are servicing uh based on part 154 regulations of the state that require um English as a second language or ENL services. That does not include students that uh took the NISSL which is the uh endofear assessment to um determine uh what level of proficiency uh a student has. We have five students that currently are at the commanding level, which means they just uh received two years of supplemental um support with one of our ENL teachers, but that nine number is children that still have not met the commanding or have not met that level of um proficiency. in looking at uh previous year's projections and the way we had a spike
044up in 22 23 but we've pretty much been steadily within the 10 98 range. So projecting for next year um around nine students. We won't know for sure until that nice uh assessment at the end of the school year as well as our kindergarten screening. Uh we'll have a better idea of our numbers at that point. Uh so it will not be available uh until after budget season. >> And we do have multiple languages that serve as well. I think a lot of people when they hear ELLL they think they they think Spanish. Um but we have Russian, Chinese, I believe we have Albanians that recently moved in. Yes. So there there is multiple languages spoken here. The slides earlier that I showed you were enrollment for our current school year. One of the things
045that we do at this time every year is we kind of look ahead at what what do we think the numbers are going to look like next year. So on the far left of the screen you'll see the 25 26 enrollment and you'll see the grade level that they're in. And then you'll see that we kind of take those numbers and slide them over and down. Right? So kindergarters become first graders, first graders become second graders, etc. We also use information about birth rate within the v uh the geographical location of the Greenwood Lake School District. The birth rate in 2021 was 51 children. So we expect that potentially there will be 51 kindergarteners next year. Um I will say that I think that this is a bump due to COVID not a bump in
046population. You have to remember that nine months before 2021 was 2020 when we were all home. So that is what I will say about that. Uh in terms of UPK, uh we do have 28 applicants so far. So one of the things we will need to look at and make decisions about is do we want one classroom, do we want two classrooms? Um how do we want to that to roll out? So we will look to see how many applicants we have by the deadline and then make decisions about that. Uh the other thing that we look at so we have total number of students in each grade and that's this column here. And then we do have students that are in special education self-contained classroom. So they're in a separate home room from regular
047education students and are often in those separate classes all day. So when we look at how many students are going to be in a regular education home room classroom, we take the total number enrolled, we subtract the number that are in self-contained or special class. And this is how many students we have to divide amongst the regular education homeworks. Um and then we look at class size. We look at overall student population. We look at student needs of each of the grade levels. And we decide how many homes you will have per grade level. And that's something we've worked on over the course of the spring. Uh this slide represents the current special education population at uh K8 in Greenwood Lake at the high school 9 through 12 in Chester and Warwick. Again, this is
048this current school year. Uh Mrs. Greenberg and the special education team uh teams I should say here in Greenwood Lake, Chester and Warwick are currently in the midst of annual review season. So that's why we don't have current protections right now. Um but K8 we have 34 students that have 504 plans. Those are general education uh accommodation plans for students who have um medical or u mental health diagnosis or challenges that that significantly impact them accessing their educational environment. They do not require specialized uh instruction. So we have 34 students K8 that have a 504 plan. Uh within our district itself we um K through 8 we have 58 students uh that have IEPs. Uh and out of district we have a total of 22 students K8 that attend out of district and the breakdown
049of that is 19 of them uh attend those schools. two are actually homeschooled and we are required by New York State to provide uh students that are homeschooled with special education um services depending on what they are and we also have one homebound student that receives their services at home. Um in relation to that number, Mrs. Greenberg has gone to all of our out of district placements to observe students um in that those environments and is um determining again through um her observation and through the evaluations of the schools and the paperwork and so forth whether or not we can bring some of our students back into district. We do that every year. Uh Chester has uh four students 9 through 12 with 504 plans. They have 11 students within their district uh that have
050IEPs and five students uh that are out of district. And Warwick has 15 students with 504 plans, 42 students with IEPs, and five students that are out of district. So after we look at students and enrollment in special education and enrollment in English language learners and enrollment in regular education, one of the things we look ahead to is staffing for the following school year. When we consider staffing, we think about students, we think about needs, we uh look at how many teachers we need, what programs we want to have, um and we make decisions from year to year. As of right now, uh what you will see for 2526 and 2627 is that we do not have any expected changes in assignment of staff in terms of adding staff or removing staff. So, uh we
051have 25 and a half elementary teachers. Those might be in the classroom. They might be response to intervention teachers. We have K6 Spanish. We have K5 Project Lead the Way added. We have LEAP which is our uh gifted and talented for advanced students. So keeping that number the same specials you'll see the same number allocated 78 grades you see the same number allocated the number of teaching assistants the number of resistance. Additionally with special education teachers, nurses, ELLL teachers and administrators you will see an exact number from one to the next. We do not expect to have to add any staff nor do we expect to cut any staff. That said, if someone does leave the district or for one reason or another, we do take that opportunity to make sure we look at and
052make decisions about what is the next right best move for the district. So that might mean eliminating position, it might mean changing to a different title, um, etc. So just one example of that looking forward is with Amy assistant superintendent Amy Petrazy's retirement coming this spring. Uh we have advertised for that position. We will be doing interviews for that but we will take that as an opportunity to look at who we're interviewing. Is there a candidate that can fill Amy's shoes? I know that that's not possible but that you know that we think can do the job. Or do we need to look back at going back to director positions? And that's something that again will happen over the course of the spring. There is nothing set in stone right now. We did advertise for
053her position, but we are continuing to explore all options. We do the same thing when we have a teacher retire. Uh last year we had a teacher leave and they taught Spanish and an elementary certified teacher, they taught Spanish. We didn't have everyone anyone else in that position. So we hired another elementary teacher that spoke Spanish to fill that position. when we had seventh and eighth grade teachers leave, we looked at that position, we looked at the staffing, we decided we could fill that with the staffing we currently have. So, we eliminated those positions. So, every in a small district like ours, every position requires a discussion when it comes up. Um, and that is what we have always done and that is what we will continue to do and that's how we do business.
054Um, so at this time, are there any questions on tax cap compliance, enrollment, current enrollment projections or staffing or anything like that? Questions for Scott or Amy or myself? the English language learners. We have a little bit non language like how that >> lots of patients and care Amy our teachers themselves don't need to speak any of those languages. So it's just through the content that they're teaching them with vocabulary cards ped very basic. Let's say they don't speak any English and Albanian for example. They start off with the very basics with just vocabulary and cards of pictures and they graduate. So um you one and a half teachers uh one speaks fluent Spanish, the other one speaks some Spanish, neither speak Chinese, neither speak Russian, but yet our kids are thriving. So it's really
055you're teaching them how to speak English, not teaching them. They also have Rosetta Stone that we've purchased for them so to help them with translation services. Um, and their Chromebooks and computer technology allows for certain translation. And um I have to say we are doing quite well with our kids reaching their uh proficiency in language to have five students over and four over the last school year meeting the commanding um component through the state. So to answer your question, they don't have to speak the language. It's just more giving them the the foundation of just as we would teach our own children that don't understand verbal language in the beginning. >> If you think about what you teach a a baby, right, when they're first learning their mom and dad. So here you would learn
056teacher, you're going to learn bathroom, you're going to learn hungry or hurt, right? You need to go to the nurse. So you start with very basic words. use a lot of home stand from there. >> Absolutely. >> And eighth graders tend to pick it up >> faster. Um but yes, >> I know when I taught fifth grade, I did I had um the the picture cards and the index cards all over my room. We start we did like five words a week and we just added and there were cards all over all over my room. questions. >> Thank you very much. >> Oh, principal reports. >> We have principal reports tonight. So, we have Miss Ring from the elementary school to report on happenings. What is the Haps at the elementary school? Good evening, Board
057of Education members, staff, and community. I'm pleased to share the highlights from the last month at Brewer Lake Elementary School, a month filled with learning, school spirit, and joyful community events. At the end of January, we administered the CBT computer-based tests. These assessments went off without a hitch, and I'm incredibly grateful to everyone involved. A heartfelt thankful A heartfelt thank you to Miss Melo Ramos, Miss Accord, Miss Vancur, and our third grade teachers and proctors for their careful planning, flexibility, and support. Because of all their efforts, our students are more prepared, comfortable, and confident as they experience the testing process in a calm and supportive environment. students are ready and they um have everything they need, gain familiarity with the process and are ready for the state test later this year. Also, in late January,
058we celebrated the students creativity and inquiry through the steam fair. Students proudly showcased their thinking, you can see some pictures up there, problem solving and artistic talents. And it was a wonderful night to see families engaged and excited about student learning. Events like this truly highlight the innovative spirit of our school and the strong partnership between home and school. A special thank you to Mr. Sheckchman and Miss Emwsworth for encouraging the great work from our elementary participants. School spirit was on full display during our spirit week even though we had a snow day on Monday. So I do have to make up pajama day because that is the best day. Um, we've had smiles, excitement, and a strong sense of unity through the building. From themed dress up days to shared laughter in the hallways,
059these moments play an incredibly important role in our building to build school positive school culture and strengthen conditions connections among school students and staff. Then we wrapped up the month with an energetic and memorable pep rally right here at the middle school, which was a huge success. The excitement, the music, collective pride were felt by all and it was wonderful opportunity for the students to come together and celebrate being a part of the Greenwood Lake school community. Thank you Mike for hosting us and although our preschool students stayed at our school, they had a special opportunity to become scientists for the day learning all about their senses with mad science. So it was a wonderful day for all students rolling right into February. very quickly. Just last Friday night was our sweetheart night. It was
060truly a highlight of the month thus far. Students enjoyed um a magical evening making bracelets, creating monster cards, and love notes, getting their faces painted, sporting fun um fun tattoos, and dancing the night away. Their smiles, laughter, and pure joy in the room made it unforgettable experience for all that attended. A heartfelt thank you to all the volunteers, including the NJHS, who generously gave their time and energy to help make this special night possible. We're approaching our mid- winter break. I don't know how that happened so quickly, but here it is. This will provide a welcomed opportunity for students and staff to recharge and warm up a little bit before um some several several exciting events coming up which also includes the 100th day of school as long as we have no more snow days
061will be on February 23rd where students will dress up as a 100year-old or wear a hundred things on their clothing. It's always a very fun day. We're happy to say that we're participating in the read for the New York Boulders Reading Challenge again this year. That challenge also begins on February 23rd and will conclude on March 15th. Thank you to Miss Harfield for researching and organizing the event. We then have parent teacher conferences on February 24th with a 12:30 dismissal at the elementary school. Um, going into March, we will have the second annual Greenwood Lake Elementary School great readaloud where students will visit their last year's teacher to hear a read aloud. And I thank you for your continued support as we continue to celebrate our students success and look forward to the events coming
062ahead. >> Thank you. All right, let's have another pepper. I'm just kidding. Um, our big events in in uh January are what's exactly what's listed on the slide, but I know Miss Ring talked about some of them already, but the steam fair and the pep rally, those are two great uh community events that encompass all of our students. So, again, the steam fair uh this year we had increased participation. It was great. We actually opened the wall this year and extended into the gymnasium because we had uh that increase in participants. And I'd like to congratulate all of our students again that participated uh for both their um hard work and uh creativity when building their projects, but also their presentation skills in explaining them as we all several of us had the opportunity to
063go around and and uh have them explain to us why they chose to uh move forward with that project, what they enjoyed about and then also explain the uh the various uh scientific methods uh behind each of them. So again, uh, congratulations to all of those students and and I'd like to extend a big thank you to Mrs. Reid who is our steam fair coordinator for all of her work in create in coordinating another uh, great steam fair this year. And thanks also goes out to our staff member staff members that supported the event at both schools and served as part of the planning committee with Mrs. Reed. So, uh, I know we tried to get as many photos up on that slide. It's kind of hard to read, but the the bottom three in
064the middle are photos from the steam fair. Uh all the other uh photos are from districtwide uh pep rally, which uh as Miss Ray said was another great day for all of our students to show off their Laker pride. And as you can see by looking at the photos, that's exactly what they did. Um, we I think the pictures really show what a great time was had by our students, those that both participated and those that just cheered on their classmates throughout the event. Um, my voice has somewhat recovered from it and uh I I love doing it every year and and I think our kids really enjoy participating. I would I would like to also thank some key staff members that assisted with making that a great event. Thank you to all of our
065fizzed teachers um who help identify student participants and some of our planning. So again uh Mrs. Ravski, Mr. Kron, Mr. Phosphate, and also um Mr. Ferry and Mr. Vanelli who are also a part of that process. So I thank everybody for their help. Uh as Miss Ring said, we uh we kind of coordinated through spirit week together which culminates with the pep rally. So, we did lose um the first day, but uh we did get through the rest of the week culminating with our Laker Pride, our green and white and Laker apparel at the end of the year or the end of the week rather. And then uh student government did want to have an additional day put in. So last Friday we um had a spirit day where each grade level was designated one
066color to wear that represented the colors of the Olympic rings uh as a way to recognize the start of the winter Olympics. Upcoming events, we do have a lot going on in February and some that will go into March prior to our next board meetings. I'll quickly go through those. Uh tomorrow is our eighth grade cap and gown pictures which will be taken during eighth grade lunch and recess period. This has been on the announcements for for weeks. So uh students are aware of this. Uh the information has been shared with families. Uh this is a one-time event and there are no retakes uh for this but that will be taking place again tomorrow during lunch and recess. Uh the second quarter it will be uh well actually it ended last Friday and report cards
067being finalized this week. They will be mailed out and available on uh e school parent portal by the end of the day on Friday before we head into that uh that short uh February break. This Thursday, our eighth graders who are attending Warwick Valley High School next year will take a trip over to Warwick approximately 9:15 in the morning for an elective fair. This gives students the opportunity to see what electives will be offered to them next year and the fair should last about 30 minutes and then we'll have students back in time for lunch. So that's for the student side of um uh planning for Warwick next year. Uh on Tuesday the 24th um oh excuse me on Wednesday the 25th at 7 p.m. that will be our incoming freshman information night uh for
068parents. So parents, uh, I've sent letters home to the families already letting them know, but this is an opportunity for parents to gain information on topics such as the transition to high school, graduation requirements, and the course selection process. And again, students are welcome to attend with their parents on the evening of the 25th if they would like to do so. Um, on the 24th, we will have our parent teacher conferences. I believe Miss Ring uh also mentioned that middle school will dismiss at 11:30 and conf conferences will take place from noon to 3 that day. That's afternoon only. Uh also we are participating in the Boulders Read for the Boulders contest. Again, we had great success with it and again thank you to Miss Orfeld for her coordination. Spring sports will be starting. We're
069wrapping up the winter season. Spring sports registration uh will begin when we get back on February 19th and students will need to get all their required paperwork into the nurse um in order to try out by March 16th. And then on Friday the 27th, we will have our second quarter celebration for all of our students that make high honor roll, honor roll, or perfect attendance during the second quarter. And then lastly, since our next board meeting is on March 16th, there's a couple big events that'll be taking place before that. So, I just want to mention uh some of those events, including the GOTA for 8th grade basketball game, which will be Thursday, March 5th, and also our spring musical production of Susical Jr. will take place on Friday, March 13th at 700 p.m. and
070then again with another showing on Saturday, March 14th at 10:30 a.m. And again, we're looking forward to another great show from our drama students. And that is it for the middle school. >> Thank you. >> All right. Thank you very much. >> Moving right along. >> Uh Mike, you touched on uh anything else? There was that I had very much information. We had a colonel a retired colonel from the Orange County American Legion and he just all the different events that they offer volunteers. Um, so you know, Ian Chester, >> not too much. Um, just a few things that high school stuff like all county jazz fest coming up um 27th 28th. Um just like everywhere varsity sports adult and then the extreme news. >> Thank you Patty Warwick. >> Um we have a few
071dates. Um all report cards were posted to the portal for a second mark period on February 4th. So if you have not yet seen your child's report card, um definitely check out the portal for that. Um there will be winter recess um at War High School February 16th to February 20th which is coming up. On February 24th, there is a driver's awareness form at 6 p.m. It's very important for any student who is trying to get their um driving permit um to be able to park in the parking lot at the high school. So that's on February 24th and students must attend. Um February 25th, incoming 9th grade parent night at 7:00 p.m. forward and um that's brave wall dance which is coming out on February 27th at 6 a.m. Also, if you're a dance,
072that's fine. Um, if your child is um wishing to try out first sport, make sure everything's updated um all the school information, everything's updated. Um the correct portal and look out for the date the dates for child collect start date for that. That's all. >> Okay. Thank you. uh budget committee which Scott just presented so I think we're all set. That was discussed uh at the last budget meeting. Um facilities, we're approving some uh change orders on tonight's agenda for the capital project. So hopefully that'll eventually be closed out soon. And then policy committee. I know there's a couple policies on here tonight, right? Okay. Uh, anything regarding the PTSA? Does anybody have any updates? I don't see anybody here today. No. Okay. Bill Lake and Bill is still our our policies board members. Thank
073you. Uh, subject 5.1 privilege of the floor. Okay, skip that one tonight. Perfect. Uh, subject 6.1. May I please get a motion to wave the second reading and adopt at first reading the revision to policy number 6150 as presented? Dave, Mike, any discussion? All in favor? I. Motion passes 7 to zero. Subject 7.1. May I please get a motion to approve the financial reports for January 2026 as presented at this meeting? Kevin, Mike, any discussion? All in favor? I. Motion passes seven to zero. Subject 7.2. May I please get a motion to authorize the transfer of funds as presented? Mike Patty. Any discussion? All in favor? I. Motion passes seven to zero. Subject 7.3. May I please get a motion to approve submission of real property tax cap compliance form as presented? Aaron Mike. Any
074discussion? All in favor? I. Motion passes 7 to zero. Subject 7.4. May I please get a motion to approve change orders for the districtwide capital projects number 001-027 and 002-016 as presented. Mike Kevin, any discussion? No. All in favor? I. Motion passes 70 to zero. You almost had me there. You're going to have a question for us. Uh subject 7.5. May I please get a motion to designate the signature of Anthony Fez, district treasurer, as authorized signature on all district checks effective February 1st, 2026 for the 2025, 2026 school year. Mike Kevin, any discussion? All in favor? I. Motion passes 7 to zero. Subject 8.1. May I please get a motion to amend the long-term leave replacement of Michael Lumis as presented? Mike Patty. Any discussion? All in favor? I. Motion passes seven to zero.
075Subject 9.1. May I please get a motion to accept the CPSC CSSE recommendations as presented at this meeting? Kevin, Mike, any discussion? All in favor? >> I. Motion passes seven to zero. Subject 10.1. May I please get a motion to adjourn to executive session uh to discuss the medical, financial, credit or employment history of a particular person or corporation or matters leading to the appointment employment promotion to motion discipline suspension dismissal or removal of any particular person or corporation? Patty Dave, any discussion? All in favor? I. Motion passes 7 to zero. We will not be returning to public session after executive session. Uh the next board of education business meeting will be take place on Monday, March 16th at 6 p.m. in the middle school cafeteria. Please get a motion to adjourn. Patty, Ian, any
076discussion? All in favor? I. The motion passes 70 to zero. Meeting ended at 7:09. Thank you. Enjoy your evening everybody.